More Evil in the Catholic Church

The recent news about evil within the Catholic Church is something I need to speak out about.

First, many say how can one remain a Catholic in light of such evil by priests and the failure of the hierarchy to address these evil acts.  To that I say that many don’t understand what faith and “being part of the Church means.”  Faith does not come from the institutional church or the hierarchy. Faith is a free gift from G-d.  The true meaning of “the Church” is the assembly of the believers, NOT the hierarchy institutional church.  The purpose of pastors, bishops and others in formal roles in the intuitional church is to be faithful servants.  Their authority only exists to the extent they remain faithful servants.  When they fail, they are not the true Church.  But the faithful believers remain the true Church even when the hierarchy fails.

In this regard, these evil acts and failures to act do not shake my faith or beliefs.  I see clearly that evil represents grievous offences before G-d.  And the Church is my Church and NOT that of the hierarchy and priests that failed their duties to G-d and the people of the Church.

Second, the acts of sexual abuse are mortal sins, grievous offences against G-d and G-d’s people.  Only once have I heard a priest or other official of the Church use the term “sin,“ which is accurate, not some lesser term like “failing’ or “lax” or some other term that diminishes the seriousness of the sin.  Once discovered, it was the duty of the hierarchy to realize the sins, and the life-long devastation it has caused to G-d’s little ones. 

The hierarchy then failed to take proper action.  The Act of Contrition speaks of “avoiding the near occasion of sin.”  The hierarchy needed to realize that the only way to keep pedophile priests away “the near occasion of sin” was to remove them from ministry and from any contact with minors. And that their priests need to turn themselves over to civil authorities to faces the due punishment for the civil crimes they committed. This is the correct action that anyone familiar with the old Baltimore Catechism would have realized.

At this point, if the institutional church can’t regulate itself, there needs to be at least an oversite board that investigates and takes proper actions:

1. All pedophile priests and others who committed sexual abuse must be immediately removed from ministry and “de-frocked”.
2. They must turn themselves over to civil authorities and be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
3. Ditto for all in authority who failed to act or covered it up or took improper actions (e.g., moving around priests to other parishes)
4. The investigations and prosecutions must extend up the chain to the Vatican if that’s where the trail leads.
5. States should revise laws to extend the Statute of Limitations to ensure prosecution of offenders

Reform

1. The Institutional Church must determine the root causes.  Is the vow of chastity unsustainable?  Frankly, testosterone is a power drug, and can drive a boy or man to think of and perhaps act on desires that should be curbed.  Having lived with both testosterone and estrogen flowing through me, I especially can testify to the power of the male hormone.  I have come to believe that most men should have the opportunity to express their sexual desires in a loving consensual relationship.  To be a faithful servant and a man, frankly one should not be fighting the unnatural battle that can accompany chastity.  Change needs to be considered.
   
2. There remains a need for oversight and transparency.  We don’t need to know all the minor sins of those in ministry.  But where there is serious sin – such as abuse – it must be called out, put in the spotlight of truth, and appropriate actions taken as I described above.  If we can’t trust the institutional church and hierarchy to perform this role, perhaps a lay oversight role needs to be created.

Summary

• The acts of abuse are mortal sins and serious crimes and full prosecution and removal from ministry is necessary.
• The hierarchy that failed also needs to be removed from positions of authority and prosecuted where there is a basis for that.
• The failure to take appropriate actions undermines the moral authority of the institutional church. 
• The believers have a faith that comes from G-d and not the intuitional church or hierarchy that have failed to protect the vulnerable, G-d’s little ones.  

Scandal in the Catholic Church Heats Up

A month ago, I blogged about the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church. At the time, I thought it was a story was passing from popular conscience. But then it got "legs" big time. More allegations in more places and cases where it seems the Vatican took no or little action.

In the wake of the media activity, the Vatican took the stories as "attacks" instead of efforts to learn the truth. To many of us who are Catholics, it seemed that the Vatican was missing the simple point of the matter: protect children and remove the pedophiles.

All in all, it seems that the Church is missing the clarity it seems to have for issues like abortion. So let me state it clearly: sexual abuse of children is a mortal sin, a grieveous offence against God. That's how I interpret the Catholic education I had as a child.

I, and many, are at a loss to understand why the Church seemed to downplay these offences, using words like "failings" instead of "mortal sin" or "serious sin." How could they not get these 4 aspects of abuse:

• Violation of a priest's celibacy
• Violation of the Church's teaching that sexual relations should be limited to married couples
• Violation of the trust that the laity place in the priesthood
• Violation of the bodies of innocent children. The Church often refers to the body as the temple of the Holy Spirit. This abuse violated that temple and therefore offended God. And the victims have been seriously scarred for life

The formulation for the Sacrament of Penance would also tell any Catholic how the Church should have proceeded in the knowledge of such serious sins committed by its priests:

1. Confess the sin; acknowledge the truth. Jesus said "I came into the world to testify to the truth." (John 18:37) So, let the Church testify to the truth: priests committed mortal sins in the abuse of children.
   
2. Where serious sin was also a crime (e.g., robbery, murder, etc.), I learned that the sinner should also surrender to civil authorities and accept their civil sentence as part of the penance for their sin. So, clearly, the Church should have encouraged the offenders to turn themselves into the police.
   
3. The Act of Contrition includes the words "avoid the near occasion of sin." For pedophiles, this is unsupervised access to children. Thus, it is so hard to hear how offenders were transferred by Church officials to new assignments and still had access to children.
   
4. Finally, the sinner must resolve to reform his life. Any non-repentant offender should have been stripped of ministerial duties immediately. Even repentant offenders had so violated the trust of their ministerial office that they should have been banned from active ministry.

Finally, it also seems that many Church officials wanted to keep these mortal sins quiet, as publicity might damage the reputation of the Church. But, we all know that strategy backfired. If the Church had acknowledged the sins from the start, it could have used this as a "teaching moment." Even priests can commit serious sins, but as part of the Penance process, abusers of children must be removed from ministry and face the civil charges associated with their crimes.

If the Church "testified to the truth" as Jesus spoke, there might still be a scandal, but people would acknowledge that the Church acted properly in handling the scandal.

And why should the Church and groups like the Catholic League be so defensive? Being a Christian sometimes means being misunderstood and getting bad press. Believers should be glad the days of feeding Christians to the lions is long gone! In comparison, a little heat in the press should seem like nothing.

Sex Scandals Continue in the Catholic Church

This week in the news was the discovery of yet more cases of pedophilia perpetrated by Catholic priests, in both Ireland and Germany. This follows years of discovery of similar crimes committed in the United States (many in the Boston area where I live) and elsewhere.

While the media is focused on the new evidence, particularly about a case of a pedophile priest reassigned in a diocese overseen by the current pope, I have some comments and perspectives on this issues that I don't see in the media.

So, first, I must say that I was brought up by my Irish Catholic mother, so I’m quite familiar with this church. I remain a Christian in faith (as I can separate the teachings of Jesus from these grievous sinners), remain a “cultural Catholic,” but have a tenuous relationship with the Catholic Church (for obvious reasons).

Here in the US, we've been through the devastating news of how such trusted men could use their position of unquestioned authority to take advantage of the most vulnerable. We've been angry with the cover-ups, the reassignment of abusers, the failure of church officials really to "get it" that these are serious sins and serious crimes!

Yet, years later I still have my unanswered questions, which deal with some truths that the institution known as the Catholic Church seems unable to say. And a disturbing suspicion about what is fundamentally at the root of this widespread abuse.

1. I have yet to hear church officials name these crimes as “mortal sins” or grievous offences against God, which is the definition of moral sin that I learned as a child. A mortal sin also requires the full knowledge of the sinner and the deliberate consent of the sinner. Well, I think an ordained priest learned all about sin in the seminary, so they can't hide behind a claim of not knowing or not consenting. But instead of saying "mortal sin," I’ve heard these crimes called things like a “falling” or maybe a “problem.” But why did no one speak truth and call these the “mortal sins” they clearly are!
   
2. I don’t know how church officials missed one of the fundamentals of forgiveness: avoiding the “near occasion of sin.” This is right out of the Act of Contrition! We learned that forgiveness is possible for even the most heinous of sins. But, and this is crucial, one must avoid the “near occasion of sin.” For a pedophile, that means no work with children!
   
3. If church officials could see “mortal sins” when presented to them, they would have proscribed the path to forgiveness for the offenders: a) confess their sins; b) turn themselves into the police and serve their sentence under civil law; and c) be forever banned from ministry and particularly work with children.
   
4. Finally, the sociological issue: In any organization, there can be a few “bad apples.” Thus, if pedophilia was confined to a few priests in a few locations, the “bad apple” analogy might apply. But it isn't; it's happening in some many places by enough priests that I believe it is clearly a subculture.
   
   While many priests were faithful to their vow of celibacy, those in this subculture seemed to integrate this dark side of pedophilia with their otherwise public face of piousness.
   
   But how did this subculture develop? The offending priests were in many countries, they were geographically distant so that they likely never met each other, and many of the offences happened in a pre-internet age where there was not the ease of communication among members of a small sub-culture that exists today. How does a subculture sprout in so many places at the same time period (1960s through 1990s)?
   
   This is what I find most disturbing. If it occurred around the world, wouldn’t officials – bishops, cardinals, even the pope – know or suspect something?
   
   The questions that follow could shake the foundation of the institutional Catholic Church:
   
   a) How long did this subculture exist? Is it a dark, unspoken “tradition” that goes back centuries? Or is it just isolated individuals?
   
   b) How do abusive priests come to turn to pedophilia? Did each one come up with the idea himself? Or did they find out about this from others? From some undisclosed network? Some priests who can't live up to celibacy may have relations with a woman or a gay man. By why children? Is it that they are more easily intimidated?
   
   c) It’s easy to think that officials – bishops, cardinals, popes – knew about it and ignored it (or just swept it under the rug) because they were in denial. Maybe they doubted the few brave enough to report what happened. May the truly believed priests could never do this. Or maybe they truly believed it was just a "few bad apples," because so few spoke out. Or, could it be they were only told a "whitewashed" story that didn't describe the incidents as sexual abuse? A heavy dose of denial, cover-up, and whitewashing could explain the reaction of officials (i.e., reassigning priests to a new parish).
   
   d) But if it had been so wide-spread geographically, did they ignore it because it was just a “thing” that some priest did, tantamount to other habits like smoking or drinking?
   
   e) Or worse, did officials ignore or deny it because it was commonplace and even some of their ranks also participated?

I shutter to answer these questions, but I just can't convince myself that this is just a "few bad apples" here and there and, well, everywhere.