Bad Apples

Here's a posting seen on Facebook that illustrates how bad priests and seminarians drive good men away from the priesthood. The author is Ron Belgau:

When I was discerning whether or not I should apply to seminary (2000-2002), a ministry that I was involved in forced me to work with a priest who was clearly gay and almost certainly sexually active: he talked about socializing with other priests at The Cuff, which describes itself as “Seattle's premiere leather & fetish bar and nightclub.”

I went to one of the most orthodox priests I knew in the diocese. This was a guy who had a reputation for preaching the truth without compromise: I had heard him give a very good homily explaining the Church's teaching on contraception and a pair of homilies explaining the Church's teaching on marriage and why homosexuality was not compatible with Church teaching. However, when I went to him about this priest, he said vacuous things about how he heard that he did good ministry, and recommended that I pray for his vocation. But it was very clear that he didn't think I should try to make formal complaints about this priest.

This interaction was one of the pivotal experiences for me in my vocational discernment: if Catholic priests--even apparently very orthodox priests who were happy to preach Catholic teaching without reservation or apology to the laity--were that impotent when it came to policing their own, then it would endanger both my faith and my integrity to join their club.

...The priest I complained about was ordained by a notoriously liberal bishop. The younger priest whose advice I sought was--and still is--widely seen as one of the good John Paul II priests in that diocese. I would bet that he will be made a bishop in the next decade or so. Given the alternatives, he's probably one of the better choices we have available.

I decided not to even apply to the priesthood. Another friend, who had been discerning around the same time in the same diocese, did apply and was accepted. He studied in seminary for a couple of years, then went to work in a parish for a pastoral year. The priest he was assigned to work with had a copy of The Joy of Gay Sex in his bedroom, and had a group of his priest friends come over every Friday night; my friend was banished from the rectory during those parties. When he spoke to the vocations director about it, it was made clear that he needed to learn to work with whoever he was assigned to work with, and not create problems. If he complained about this, he would be kicked out. After a few months of this treatment, he decided to leave. He's now married and worships with his wife and kids at an Eastern Orthodox parish. I don't blame him.

The priest I complained about? He was removed from ministry after 2002, because he had molested a bunch of middle school boys in the 70s; the diocese had known since the 80s.

The priest with The Joy of Gay Sex my friend was told to put up with? He was dismissed from ministry several years later as the result of a civil lawsuit over sexual harassment of an adult male.

Thank God that those two priests are gone. But humanly speaking, the civil courts and the Boston Globe had a lot more to do with their removal than the Archbishop or their fellow priests.

My friend and I looked into that dysfunction and walked away.

The next generation of bishops, however, will be selected from those who were willing to stay, and who advised us not to make waves.

Bombshell

Apostolic  Nuncio Vigano on the job.

The Catholic clerical abuse scandal just got worse.

Archbishop Carlo Vigano, former Papal Nuncio to the US, has publicly called for Pope Francis to resign, saying he knew about the allegations against Cardinal McCarrick, and actually lifted sanctions against him imposed by Benedict XVI. Worse, Francis then used McCarrick to advise him on making appointments in the US church.

Vatican Insider further reports that there are no plans at the Vatican to take further action regarding the scandals in the US. This is significant, because at the level of bishop, nobody in the US has the authority to do anything. Sanctioning or removing a bishop requires action from the Vatican. If this is true, nothing is going to be done.

To be fair to Pope Francis, what he reportedly knew about McCarrick did not involve accusations of child abuse, only of homosexual relations and of not acting decisively on abuse by others. Again to be fair, at its worst, child sexual abuse by Catholic clergy was no worse than among the general population. And again to be fair, all accounts are that the problem has already been drastically reduced by measures now in place. At what point does this become a witch hunt?

There are two separate issues here: child sex abuse, and sexually active clergy. I think in the end they are linked, so that you cannot effectively address the one without also addressing the other. Pope Francis might believe otherwise. Francis may see no great issue with clergy being sexually active, and hence also with being sexually active homosexuals.

I have outlined why I think it is an important issue. Once people start becoming priests not out of religious interests, but for the gay culture and the hookup opportunites, it corrupts the seminaries and forces a culture of deceit that will drive out all good applicants. The people may still have the sacraments, but they have lost all moral guidance from the clergy. And where do the good men, who are genuinely called to the priesthood, go?

For the past few generations, as the West has been falling apart culturally and morally, Catholics have at least been able to rely on the Vatican to speak with moral authority: on John Paul II, on Benedict XVI, and, if with less force, on Paul VI. Now the modern moral anbiguity seems to have penetrated even the Vatican.

Bishop Morlino Offers Clarity

Bishop Morlino

Bishop Robert Morlino of Madison Wisconsin has released a pastoral letter which gets it right regarding the scandal of sexual predation within the Church. At a time when ordinary Catholics no longer know whom to trust, here, it seems, is one clear voice making the paths straight.

I wish we could count on Pope Francis to issue something similar to this. But I fear he is part of the problem. He is always wanting to fudge the moral issue, make the lines less clear, overlook sin. And he seems always to be playing to popular opinion.

Everyone should read the whole thing. But if you only read one passage, read this one:

“If you’ll permit me, what the Church needs now is more hatred! As I have said previously, St. Thomas Aquinas said that hatred of wickedness actually belongs to the virtue of charity. As the Book of Proverbs says “My mouth shall meditate truth, and my lips shall hate wickedness (Prov. 8:7).” It is an act of love to hate sin and to call others to turn away from sin.” 

At the most fundamental level, the problem here is a modern tendency to mistake overlooking or denying sin with forgiveness. The two are opposites. If you do not hate the sin, you hate the sinner.

“For too long we have diminished the reality of sin — we have refused to call a sin a sin — and we have excused sin in the name of a mistaken notion of mercy. In our efforts to be open to the world we have become all too willing to abandon the Way, the Truth, and the Life. In order to avoid causing offense we offer to ourselves and to others niceties and human consolation.”

And he is prepared to name the sin.

“To be clear, in the specific situations at hand, we are talking about deviant sexual — almost exclusively homosexual — acts by clerics. We’re also talking about homosexual propositions and abuses against seminarians and young priests by powerful priests, bishops, and cardinals.

… There has been a great deal of effort to keep separate acts which fall under the category of now-culturally-acceptable acts of homosexuality from the publically-deplorable acts of pedophilia. That is to say, until recently the problems of the Church have been painted purely as problems of pedophilia — this despite clear evidence to the contrary.”

“It is time to admit that there is a homosexual subculture within the hierarchy of the Catholic Church that is wreaking great devastation in the vineyard of the Lord. The Church’s teaching is clear that the homosexual inclination is not in itself sinful, but it is intrinsically disordered in a way that renders any man stably afflicted by it unfit to be a priest.”

And so, one vital step to restore the Church is to ban homosexuals from the priesthood. And this he calls for, speaking of psychological tests. Not everyone is called to be a priest, after all; woman cannot be priests either.

Moreover, those found guilty must be punished—not quietly abetted and sent on retreats. The former is an act of mercy: the latter is malicious.

“A just punishment is an important work of love and mercy, because, while it serves primarily as retribution for the offense committed, it also offers the guilty party an opportunity to make expiation for his sin in this life (if he willingly accepts his punishment), thus sparing him worse punishment in the life to come. Motivated, therefore, by love and concern for souls, I stand with those calling for justice to be done upon the guilty.”

Bishop Morlino concludes:

“More than anything else, we as a Church must cease our acceptance of sin and evil. We must cast out sin from our own lives and run toward holiness. We must refuse to be silent in the face of sin and evil in our families and communities.”

On this premise, he is right to call for prayer and general expressions of remorse from all Catholics. It is a systemic problem in modern life, perhaps our biggest problem: confronted with sin and evil, we now generally turn our heads and pretend not to see. 

Conspiracy of Denial

Edward Mechemann, over at the NY Archdiocese web page, makes the same point as I have here about the impossibility of forgiveness without repentance. He quotes this passage from a bishop's letter:

“This is a very difficult time in your life, and I realize how upset you are. I too share your grief.” 

Problem: the letter was to a priest who had raped a girl, then procured an abortion once she became pregnant. 

No hint here of moral responsibility. 

In general, of the official corresponsence in the Pennsylvania report, Mechemann says, 'Terms such as “inappropriate sexual relationship”, “boundary issues”, “this difficult time”, and priests being “reassigned” or “out on sick leave” were used to conceal the true nature of what was happening.'
'All the priests were treated as if they had an illness to be treated quietly, not as if they had committed grievous sins for which they needed to repent and do reparation.' 

This may be the whole story. We have lost our sense of sin.

To begin with, it is human nature to want to deny the existence of evil. The moment we admit that good and evil are a thing, if we are ourselves conscious of doing anything wrong, it feels like an accusation.

It is more comfortable for most of us to just deny that there is any evil, and accept that everyone—certainly all present company—is a decent guy. If there is evil, it is safest to see it only somewhere else, among very different people, or in the less than recent past. The Catholic clergy serve as a useful scapegoat in this regard—they are a distinct and recognizable “other” to most of us, like the Jews. They are not likely to be present company; if they are, they are likely to be noticed, so the subject can be changed. The bottom line here, that everyone ignores: child sex abuse is no more common among the Catholic clergy than the general population.

This does not work for bishops, however; for they are themselves Catholic clergy. For them, too, evil must be elsewhere, outside the circle they see every day. For the rest of us, similarly, to see evil in a typical middle-class family living next door is a great threat toour own conscience, and to social harmony generally.

This is why we use such polite euphemisms as “inappropriate,” “negative,” or “misunderstanding.” We are dodging disturbing terms like “wrong,” “bad,” “immoral,” or “selfish,” stripping out any hint of morals.

An example is the common insistence that Hitler was “insane.” After all, no sane man would have done those things. Right?

The idea is absurd on its face. Nobody at the time believed Hitler was mad, or no one would have obeyed his orders. At the time, instead, everyone insisted on seeing him as perfectly reasonable, and a man you could do business with. Declaring him “mad” is a desperate fallback position. Both seek to avoid the simple reality: not mad, but bad.

We see the same with the standard response to mass killers: that they must be mad. In reality, to be so genuinely mad that they did not understand the moral implications of what they were doing would also, more or less automatically, render them incapable of the advance planning needed to commit a mass shooting.

This tendency to avoid moral issues is aided and abetted by psychiatry, which seems increasingly to medicalize moral issues. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, for example, the “Bible” of North American psychiatrists, lists arson as “pathological fire-setting,” and theft as “pathological stealing.” Then there is the generic “Conduct Disorder.”

The spontaneous social consensus, therefore, tends to be that there is no evil anywhere near us, nor among us, wherever we are, and whoever we are. Even if we are at some conference in Munich. Somewhere, theoretically, there may be dragons, but only in places we do not go, on the unvisited edges of our maps. This keeps everyone feeling safe and secure—from being called to account.

How to End Clerical Sexual Abuse

Ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick.

A lot of Catholics are shaken by the recent revelations about Washington Cardinal McCarrick's resignation amidst allegations of sexual misconduct. This was someone exceptionally high-ranking and widely respected. The scandals and allegations just seem to go on and on. Can anyone be trusted? Will it ever end?

Aside from the appalling damage done to the victims of such abuse, physically, emotionally and spiritually, it is worth considering that financial settlements from such abuse risk bankrupting many dioceses. This is utterly unjust: money donated to the faithful for religious, charitable, and devotional purposes is instead being siphoned off to private pockets to pay for these misdeeds by those put in stewardship over the funds.

Every time a new scandal breaks, everyone editorializes that “we must no longer tolerate this. We must do something about it.” As if we had not seen this before, and said this before. Talk is cheap. But still the scandals go on and on.

To be clear, the incidence of sexual predation and abuse among Catholic clergy actually does not seem to be worse than that among other clergy of other denominations, or teachers, or the general public. But that is little consolation, if the scandals are destroying the faith of many and bankrupting the church. Can something be done?

Something can. Something rather simple.

The independent John Jay report in 2004 found that 81% of victims of abuse by Catholic clergy were male.

Consider that number. This necessarily means that the perpetrators were homosexual.

It is anyone's guess what proportion of Catholic clergy are gay, but nobody has suggested the figure is as high as 81%.

It seems likely that most of the problem could be eliminated at once by barring homosexuals from the priesthood.

This might seem unjust to gay men who want to be priests and are perfectly innocent of any misconduct. But nobody is entitled to be a priest; it is a calling. Accordingly, if it is for the good of the church and the flock, such a measure is justified.

And it would be possible to do. Psychological tests have been developed for the court system, to determine homosexual orientation.

Sadly, one can also see why, despite all protestations to the contrary, it must be difficult for homosexuals to avoid preying on the young.

Consider their situation. If 3% of the population has homosexual tendencies, the figure often cited, that automatically means, if you are homosexual, 97% of people to whom you are sexually attracted are repelled by the very idea of having sex with you. This is on top of the inevitable romantic rejections all the rest of us feel, trying to find a match among the other 97%. Enough of us often experience extreme sexual frustration and feelings of rejection. Just imagine what it is like for homosexuals; 97% of the time they can expect some expression of disgust, and quite likely to lose all contact with the object of their infatuation. The other three percent of the time, maybe a one in ten or one in twenty chance like the rest of us. And they have little way of knowing in advance who is who—unless, perhaps, by the coded message of a clerical collar.

What are you going to do? The temptation must be overwhelming to try to interest some young boy, someone too young yet to fully grasp what it is all about, and groom him to the practice.

It is just not credible to insist this cannot be going on. It must be.

This also suggests that, for the most part, homosexuality may well be a learned behaviour. Homosexuals probably often seduce others into homosexuality.

Why would it not be so? Aren't the rest of us deeply influenced by our first loves, and by our first sexual experiences?

Once a certain proportion of the clergy is gay, and sexually active, it will also naturally tend to poison the well. Other clergy who are not gay, in particular young men entering the seminary or starting out as altar boys, are going to be sexually accosted, and discriminated against if they do not play along. The more so if they go all moral and religious, and so seem likely to object to the conduct in others, or even be likely to report it.

And so, with due respect to all the decent people who are homosexual, it is time to ban homosexuals from the Catholic clergy. There are other career paths they can pursue.