The Crisis in Paraguay

A friend of mine is an American diplomat stationed in Paraguay. He reports on the recent scandal there: the President, a former Catholic bishop, has been accused by three women of fathering their children. He has admitted to fathering at least one of the children.

A BBC story adds that one of the women claims the affair began when she was only 16, under the legal age of consent, making it a crime. It also accuses Lugo of “breaking his vows.” The Washington Post avers that “in this heavily Roman Catholic country, the revelations about a man who had sworn chastity vows as a priest has stirred deeper concerns.”

My friend goes even further, taking the opportunity to do, as he puts it, “a little well-deserved Catholic-bashing.” He accuses the pope and the Paraguyan bishops of hypocrisy for not having excommunicated Lugo, the president in question, long ago, for not removing him as a bishop nad as a priest, and for keeping silent on the matter when he was running for president.
These accusations are based on a misunderstanding of Catholic morality. I'd say they're based on a misunderstanding of morality itself, but let's not even assume that. Since the charge is hypocrisy, it is sufficient to show that the Church and the Pope are following it, whether one agrees with it or not.

I post my response here, because I find that too often deep-seated prejudices are based on pure ignorance of a given religion. And we are, these days, remarkably ignorant of religions, including, often, our own.

There is no way Benedict or the Church could excommunicate Fernando Lugo merely for sinning. In the Catholic understanding, we are all sinners. If this were the rule, the Catholic church would necessarily have no members. Believing this, it would be the height of hypocrisy to excommunicate Lugo. One is excommunicated for rejecting Church teaching.

Nor would it be proper to remove Lugo as a priest or bishop because of his personal morality: one's personal morality is irrelevant to the conduct of this office. This logically follows, in part, from the Catholic understanding that we are all sinners: the church makes no claim, and has never made any claim, that priests are morally superior to the average layman. They are sinners like the rest of us, but they hold a specific sacramental function. I gather Protestants have a different concept of what their ministry involves, and so they are almost always confused on this point.

It is true that a breach of priestly discipline, i.e., violating one's vows, would be cause for dismissal. However, Lugo does not seem to have done this. Another common Protestant misconception is that the vow of celibacy is a vow to have no sex. That would be a vow of chastity; priests do not take such a vow. The vow of celibacy is a vow not to marry. Lugo has apparently kept this vow. There are no grounds to dismiss him there.

His personal morality, of course, does not look that good. But it is not the business of the church, or of any of us as Christians, to cast judgement on particular cases. To sin requires the motive to sin, and we can never be sure whether it was present in any given case. We can also never be sure that Lugo has not repented and been forgiven in Confession. Such matters are always between the individual and God. "Judge not, lest ye be judged.”

And consider Lugo's specific failing: having sex out of wedlock. Not to commit adultery is one of the ten commandments. It is binding on priests exactly as much, neither more not less, as on laymen. Now, how many of those accusing Lugo now have never had sex out of wedlock? How many of the readers of the Washington Post? How many listeners to the BBC? Doesn't the current culture, in Britain and in America, positively promote it?

Who here, indeed, is guilty of hypocrisy?

Neither is Lugo's personal morality obviously relevant to the performance of his duties as President. The issue of lying is of concern, if he has in the past publicly denied the matter; the most the Washington Post actually claims is that “during the campaign, he did not admit to having children.” Not even a sin; all of us have the right to remains silent. But the matter of fathering children out of wedlock doesn't even register.

It is therefore certainly not the job of the church or of his fellow bishops to have made their own knowledge or suspicions about him public. Unless there is a clear danger to someone else which could thereby be averted, speaking ill of another, even if one's words are truthful, is the sin of calumny. There was no such clear danger here, apparently.

So it would in fact have been a sin on the part of the Church or the bishops to have done so. Lugo's personal matters are between himself, the women and children concerned, and God.

My friend goes on to slam Paraguay itself for not being more scandalized about this. “In a developed country, this news would probably bring down the president and devastate the church. But this is Paraguay."

I don't think being underdeveloped has much to do with it. I think it has a lot more to do with Paraguay being a Catholic country. I cannot see such revelations bringing down a govenment in France or Canada, either. When former PM Trudeau had a child out of wedlock, and everyone knew about it, the common reaction seemed to be "Good for him." French President Mitterand's mistress was a well-known fact in France; nobody cared. Not the public's business. Former Philippine president Estrada boasted openly of having extramarital affairs. The Church did not like it, but it apparently did no harm to his popularity.

Part of the misunderstanding here is that Protestants are a lot more concerned about sex than are Catholics. Too often, when Protestants hear the word "sin," they think "sex," and vice versa. This connection is not there for Catholics. As sins go, adultery is fairly minor. Abortion would be vastly worse—and, to his credit, Lugo obviously did not opt for it.

Now go, Catholic-bashers. Go and sin no more.