The Pope had a lot to say about sexual abuse when he was in America recently. It’s now being reported that there’s “pressure” on him to repeat his apology to victims specifically in the Australian context, when he’s out here for World Youth Day. I have no doubt Benedict will, and I suspect the pressure in this instance isn’t needed. While an apology promotes healing for individuals directly damaged by clerical sexual abuse, it doesn’t address the broader problem, and nor do the protocols the church now has in place for dealing with complaints and reparations, welcome as they are. What should be quite familiar to Benedict is the concept of “structural sin” – something originating in liberation theology which he in his incarnation as Cardinal Ratzinger acknowledged as a valid manifestation of human evil and wickedness, even as he disagreed with the political and some of the theological overtones of liberation theology as theorised and practiced in Latin America (and in – significantly – Germany).
The Pope would also know very well that in Catholic sacramental and moral theology, an act of contrition and indeed an act of reparation are worthless without an awareness of the fault that led to a sin, and a genuine intention to “go and sin no more”, as Someone or other put it rather pithily. All this raises the question of whether the conditions of possibility of sexual abuse are genuinely being addressed.
Sexual and other forms of clergy abuse are not particular to the Catholic Church, and nor are abusive behaviours unknown to most organisations which have very rigid power differentials. However, the particular manifestation of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church is what it is because priests are on one hand seen as sacred persons – indelibly and sacramentally marked as such – and on the other hand as unworthy servants who are as prone to falling as any of us. This often results in a dynamic where confronting abuse leads to a stigmatisation of the victim as having tempted the holy priest into sin, and, well, you know the rest. In the case of clergy abuse of young and adult women – which is common enough but lacks the publicity accorded to child sexual abuse and doesn’t generate support structures with the same strength – inevitably a Madonna/whore typology is set into motion. Often, a lot of priests, even the best intentioned and all too human but non-abusive ones, lack not just a level of emotional maturity and development one would expect but also basic life skills, because they are part of a total institution which does everything for them.
There’s also a particular form of casuistry that comes into play. Secular (or diocesan) priests – that is to say, priests who aren’t monks or members of a religious order such as the Jesuits or priests living under a rule such as Canons Regular – do not make vows. And not to God. Rather, they make promises at the time of ordination to their Bishop – including a promise of celibacy. Celibacy is not chastity – which monks vow – but rather the state of being unmarried. Of course in traditional Catholic teaching, being unmarried by definition means abstaining from sex. But a promise is not a vow, and the Bishop is not God, and unfortunately many priests are all too familiar with these fine casuistical distinctions which they then turn into rationalisations, and seeking forgiveness, displace responsibility onto their willing or unwilling partner – who becomes an “occasion of sin”. The ultimate objectification.
Most clerical training is no longer characterised by a pseudo-monastic separateness and practices such as “custody of the eyes” are a thing of the past – except insofar as Cardinal Pell has his way. But it’s fair to say that the sociology of the priesthood is such that they have great difficulty in forming horizontal relationships with anyone other than fellow clergy. Celibacy isn’t the only problem, although it’s a big problem when the choice for celibacy masks underlying developmental immaturity or isn’t freely chosen. An all male priesthood isn’t the only problem, although it’s a big problem when women are not regarded as fully equal spiritually and therefore in their personhood. It’s too easy to say “give us a married priesthood” or “ordain women as priests” (though I fully endorse both), if there’s an underlying theology of the body and a sociology of set-apartedness which empowers and enables and empowers unequal relationships and thus facilitates abusive relationships in all too many instances. What the Pope needs to reflect on is the meaning of the phrase “a thirst for justice” and a properly Catholic understanding of justice which redeems the suffering of the past by acting on the future. In the present.
Cross-posted at PollieGraph.
Seen this?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/apr/24/children.childprotection
“Pope Benedict XVI faced claims last night he had ‘obstructed justice’ after it emerged he issued an order ensuring the church’s investigations into child sex abuse claims be carried out in secret.
The order was made in a confidential letter, obtained by The Observer, which was sent to every Catholic bishop in May 2001.
It asserted the church’s right to hold its inquiries behind closed doors and keep the evidence confidential for up to 10 years after the victims reached adulthood. The letter was signed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who was elected as John Paul II’s successor last week.”
Comment?
Three quick ones:
(1) Vaticanologists will tell you that it’s never clear who wrote these sort of directives from who signed them. However in this case, because of the importance of this issue, it’s likely Ratzinger was personally involved. But there’s a view abroad that JP2 was behind this line.
(2) Soon after he became Pope, Ratzinger made a point of personally approving disciplinary sanctions against a senior priest against whom allegations had been proved but who had always been protected by JP2.
(3) It’s typical of their thinking. One hopes that Benedict really has had a change of heart.
Mark, possibly the issue was much bigger in the US than here? I was struck by the blanket press coverage of Cardinals and Bishops accused of cover-ups etc, in Boson and New York back in early 2002. Front page news. It made the Hollingworth imbroglio look puny.
“Go and sin no more” is terrific. Pithy, powerful and true.
Why so shy at naming the speaker ["Someone"]?
Bless you.
I wouldn’t dream of intruding upon a voluntary organisation to tell it how it should order its affairs within the framework of the rule of law. For example, it’s none of my business what colour woggles boy scouts wear. In the same way, if Catholic clergy wish to deny themselves sex and/or open commitment to sexual partnerships, then it is their business.
Thus, Catholic clergy claim for themselves and themselves alone a privileged relationship with their deity. For they alone, it is claimed have the power to perform actual transformative acts, such as changing bread and wine into actual flesh and blood, and actually removing the stain of sin from souls, and actually sanctifying sexual partnerships between men and women qualified for marriage.
It would seem to me that the assertion of such powers is a very powerful assertion indeed. Could the mystique of priesthood survive long if the person claiming to possess that mystique is simply a family person seen to be living a mundane life with spouse, offspring, dogs, lawnmower, etc?
My problems with priests arise when they start trying to tell me how to live my life and when they start insisting that their funny little rules represent Right.
“My problems with priests arise when they start trying to tell me how to live my life and when they start insisting that their funny little rules represent Right.”
Which is of course the whole point of religion.
Amen to that last sentence Katz.
But I think you’ll find most priests have a lawnmower, or a parishioner who comes over regularly to keep the lawns looking trim & tidy.
Heh!
Capital letter might be a clue. Who said snappy soundbites were a recent invention?
ummmmm did he come from Nazareth or thereabouts?
judging by the kerfuffle down at the temple with turfing out the money-changers ‘n all, He might have taken a fairly dim view of kiddy-fiddler priests, I ’spose. just a wild guess.
Actually Jesus’ anger at the money changers had to do with Mark’s reference to structural sin. The merchants were selling sacrifical animals and exchanging at exhorbitant prices, were exploiting the Jews who would go in and try and do their stuff with God – sacrificing animals. Thus the money exchange and animal selling going on at the temple had become a profit making exercise institutionalised by the priests. Jesus’s response highlights the strucutral sin of Israel. It’s recounting in Matthew should be read in conjuction with the following narrative of the withered fig tree – a narrative about a tree which appears to be fruitful but is not – which stands for Israel and its leaders, who look to be doing the right thing but are fruitless. They are ripping off their people in the very act of worship at the symbolic heart of Jewish identity – the Temple. An apt refererence to this post I would suggest.
Katz said: “I wouldn’t dream of intruding upon a voluntary organisation to tell it how it should order its affairs within the framework of the rule of law.”
am i right that the churches had to get an exemption from the anti-discrimination act to allow them to keep women out of the ordained ministries?
also, it’s been said a squillion times, but anglican priests do seem to do quite a good job at being priests even though they often come with “spouse, offspring, dogs, lawnmower, etc” (and in the anglo-catholic tradition, they even manage to hold on to a lot of mystique – which may or may not be a good thing – after all they never had a vatican II…)
(test)
S-O-S. Longish post in spaminator limbo.
Your point being, ex Chappie?
well, i guess i think it’s reasonable for you/society at large to tell the catholic church how to “order its affairs” in the same way that we tell business how to order its affairs. as you say, within the rule of law. part of the problem is this exemption (that i’m told they have) allowing them not to have women’s ordination – why should they be exempt? other voluntary organisations aren’t.
i don’t know for sure if they have this exemption or if there’s some other way they get around anti-discrimination stuff.
i think my point is, that it is reasonable to criticise the church if it seems to be discriminatory or unjust etc, and not just when it starts telling you what to do, for the sake of justice, truth, beauty, etc
I’m happy to criticise any Church or any other voluntary organisation that pursues indefensible objectives and/or uses unattractive methods.
I just don’t want to intrude.
My hope is that their objectives and their methods will cause them to lose adherents and to dwindle away.
This approach appears to be working beautifully. So I’d suggest that anything that looks like providing martyrs for such voluntary organisations would be counter-productive.
EC, sorry, I can’t find a comment from you in the Spamniator. It must have been cleared without being noticed. Care to repost?
Thanks for checking, Mark, here goes again.
————————————————–
Mark, Joseph Ratzingers’s failure to go to Boston and personally say “sorry, guys” was a major omission and suggests a disingenuousness, indeed a “doublethink” that many, including me, view as hypocritical on Papa’s part. Boston isn’t exactly half a world away from Washington, where El Papa met with Bush 43 recently.
Symbolism is quite a big deal in Roman Catholicism. Ratzinger’s acceptance and continuance of JP2’s appointment of Cardinal Law to a host of influential senior positions in The Vatican also suggests a level of hypocrisy in Holy Mother Church’s senior spiritual executive with regard to the thousands of serial sexual felonies that were by perpetrated upon minors by American cardinals, archbishops, monseigneurs, priests and so on down the ranks, when Cardinal Law was Vatican point-man in the USA.
“Cardinal Law’s reign as Archbishop of Boston began in popularity but quickly declined into turbulence towards the end of his term. Allegations and reports of sexual misconduct by priests of the Archdiocese of Boston became widespread causing Roman Catholics in other dioceses of the United States to investigate similar situations there. ….The events in the Archdiocese of Boston exploded into a national Roman Catholic Church sex abuse scandal.
As a result of the unlawful sex(ual abuses), the Archdiocese of Boston lost millions of dollars in fines and settlements.
The archdiocese slipped into large financial deficits. The Archdiocese was forced to close sixty-five parishes before Cardinal Law stepped down from service. Law’s name has become synonymous with the nationwide Church scandal.
After his resignation, John Paul appointed Law to several authoritative positions in Rome and the Vatican.[2]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Francis_Law
Whatever Joseph Ratzinger says when he comes to Oz regarding clerical sexual abuse of innocents and minors, it will lack credibility when viewed alongside Cardinal Law’s Vatican promotion.
Unless maybe The Pontiff decrees that any member of his organization that has anything to do with children in Australia must be in possession of a valid “blue card” like all other adults in whose trust children are placed. No exceptions, regular updates, zero tolerance.
Such an initiative would reek of credibility and send a clear message to clergy to keep their hands where they belong.
Mark, you say: “But it’s fair to say that the sociology of the priesthood is such that they have great difficulty in forming horizontal relationships with anyone other than fellow clergy.”
And they sin when they do so according to current book of rules. Forced to wage war against their own human nature, riddled with fear, guilt and shame, these poor bastards are expected to behave normally when around children. Married clergy would be an enlightened step in the right direction, but Holy Mother Church is one Boys Club that prefers things as they are, or change would have been implemented by those who possessed ultimate power over how their lives were to be lived, long ago.
And in 2008, the power possessed by man whose ring the faithful and influence peddlers alike line up to kiss.
Mark, thanks for chechking. Tried once again in vain to repost. It’s 5 paras. Nothing abusive or outrageous. Am able to post on other threads without hiccoughs. This is a serious topic, would it be worth trying to post one para at a time?
Mark must have gone for a walk, EC. I’ve just released it. Lord knows what the spaminator was thinking!
Thanks, Brian, it’s almost as if that spaminator has a mind of it’s own:)
The spaminator was once an altar boy in a small parish near Harvard University, and got the trembles when you brought up that history, EC.
The Pope’s way of dealing with the abuse victims was to invite some of them to “…a secret prayer meeting..”.
Surely that’s where the trouble started…?
Katz #5,
I don’t have a problem with this, Katz. I only have a problem when those with coercive powers try to force their ideas of Right on me.
“Forced to wage war against their own human nature, riddled with fear, guilt and shame, these poor bastards are expected to behave normally when around children.”
And because they dont get sex they turn into child molesters? I dont believe that paedophilia emerges when a priest who has promised celibacy is denied sex and marriage. Its a pathology which emerges generally in early teenage years, and countless studies show abusers have been abused themselves and so there is a long history associated with the development of an abnormal sexual interest in children. Accordingly its prevalence in the catholic priesthood has nothing to do with a sudden forced celibacy and chastity upon entry into the priesthood. Rather its the other way round. Pedophiles would be attracted to positions where they have access to children. There are lots of married pedophiles and they are found in like positions where kids are – teaching, scouts, anglican church, sporting clubs, you name it. Its not a valid argument to suggest that one molests children because they have to be celibate as part of their role as priest and this drives the ‘poor bastards’ to it. by the way that use of the term ‘poor bastards’ is a worrying one. There’s nothing to pity about pedophiles, whether they are priests or anything else.
This is when my problems are confirmed, AR.
However, my problems arise at an earlier time, as indicated in my earlier comment.
The confirmation never comes out aof a clear blue sky. There is almost always the early warning of an intention to prohibit.
Casey with respect paedophilia and the sexual abuse of children under the age of consent can sometimes be differentiated, as can the factors associated with and the origin of the offending.
Pity may not be the right word, but it is certainly sad when anyone is unable to integrate or regulate aspects of their psyche to the point that it it becomes detrimental to themselves and others around them.
Im sorry Sublime Cowgirl are you suggesting that a vow of chastity and/or celibacy may be enough to bring about the abuse of children in and of itself? I suspect you might be telling me I dont know enough about the development of the psychopathology of the child sexual abuser or that there is no known profile or cluster of characteristics or commonality of history to make up the category known as “the paedophile”. If thats the case, dont please. I know more than most people will ever or should ever have to know about pedophiles, how they operate, their differentiations and the factors that can cause it to emerge. Sometimes, I mean. You know? Is that better?
And, with respect to you Sumblime Cowgirl, (and I mean that), “unable to integrate” and “regulate aspects” and “detrimental to themselves” will mean very little to victims of sexual abuse and pedophilia to whom, from me, all the sadness, pity, empathy and compassion in the world goes to and whose lives have been fragmented beyond belief by these individuals whose psychopathology is a sadness to you.
And that is all I will say on this matter because I am not about to engage in whether or not people who rape and molest children are deserving of understanding in a kind of removed psychological analysis and some kind of distant clinical sadness which you seem to be advocating.
The relevant question is “did they know what they were doing?” – the answer is, unless the individual was in a psychotic state or clinically and legally insane, yes. Yes everytime.
Casey, was not my intention to minimise or condone abuse. Its undeniably reprehensible Apologies if that seemed the case.
I was hoping to convey that offending is multi-dimensional and complex; you are right that there certainly there are strong clusters of factors, both causal and correlated.
Happy to leave it there