Pope Francis has generally been viewed as a sympathetic
figure by US commentators. He has been
described as relatively liberal Catholic leader who is attempting to relax some
of the Church’s traditional views and make life a bit easier for its
members. But recently, his liberal
standing has been threatened by a claim by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò
that he participated in the coverup of instances of sexual abuse. Viganò went so far as to call for Francis to
retire. This has followed additional
releases of data describing decades of sexual abuse by Catholic clerics that
was well-known within the Church hierarchy but not publicly admitted. The question of Pope Francis’s guilt or
innocence in these matters is crucial to his future credibility as Church leader. Alexander Stille provided an assessment of
the Pope’s options in moving forward. It
appeared in the New York Review of Books
under the title The Sins of Celibacy. He makes clear the dire consequences of many
decades of continuing the requirement of priestly celibacy while at the same
time sheltering the Church from the harm from sexual abuse by its priests. It seems the Pope’s options moving forward
are more complicated than one might expect, and the need to take some form of
action is becoming more urgent.
Stille provides this background on the issues
facing Pope Francis.
“On August 25 Archbishop Carlo
Maria Viganò published an eleven-page letter in which he accused Pope Francis
of ignoring and covering up evidence of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church and
called for his resignation. It was a declaration of civil war by the church’s
conservative wing.”
“As a result of Viganò’s latest
accusations and the release eleven days earlier of a Pennsylvania grand jury
report that outlines in excruciating detail decades of sexual abuse of children
by priests, as well as further revelations of sexual misconduct by Cardinal
Theodore McCarrick, the former archbishop of Washington, D.C., Francis’s papacy
is now in a deep, possibly fatal crisis.”
An existential crisis for the leader of the Catholic
Church? How could this have come to
pass?
It seems that early decisions by the first Christians
with regard to sexuality were not, and, eventually, could not be corrected as
times changed. Initially, there were
many views as to what constituted Christianity.
Many sought a more personal interaction between a believer and his
God. Often such attitudes were more
consistent with equality before God for both men and women. These beliefs were opposed by those who
believed that Christ’s apostles, all men, formed a hierarchy of authority that
would be passed down to their successors.
As in almost all human organizations leaders were identified and the
remainder became followers. What emerged
was a military-like organization with specialized uniforms and levels of
command. And the commanders were all
male. Women became second-class members,
if not a sub species, and men defined their roles as they wished. What emerged is a very restrictive view of
women’s reproductive rights: they have none. This and the restriction of the
priesthood to men has generated long simmering issues with women.
Church leaders also developed some strict sexuality
standards for men as well. It was wished
that priests be viewed as exceptional men, above the lower desires that beset
other humans. Eventually, this developed
into a requirement that all priests would vow to forego any sexual
activity. This code was always difficult
to follow and for centuries sexual relations were ongoing but tolerated within
the priesthood.
“The modern church has boxed
itself into a terrible predicament. Until about half a century ago, it was able
to maintain an attitude of wise hypocrisy, accepting that priests were often
sexually active but pretending that they weren’t. The randy priests and monks
(and nuns) in Chaucer and Boccaccio were not simply literary tropes; they
reflected a simple reality: priests often found it impossible to live the
celibate life. Many priests had a female ‘housekeeper’ who relieved their
loneliness and doubled as life companions. Priests frequently had affairs with
their female parishioners and fathered illegitimate children. The power and
prestige of the church helped to keep this sort of thing a matter of local
gossip rather than international scandal.”
The term celibacy can be interpreted as merely remaining
unmarried. Chastity is more specific
when it comes to sexual activity: it is only allowed between married individuals
(a man and a woman according to the Church).
Pope John Paul II made the policy crystal clear when he stated those who would become priests must be
“blessed” with the gift of “celibate chastity.”
That means young men who enter the priesthood are expected to forego all
sexual activity forevermore.
Celibate chastity is clearly an unnatural state for a
human male and is certainly going to lead to behaviors that will be problematic
for the Church. The long history of
heterosexual excursions by priests indicates that the system did not and could
not work. And given the environment in
which priests and prospective priests lived, homosexual activities were
inevitable.
Consider this perspective from and article written in
2004 by Michael J. McManus: Only Half of Catholic Priests are Celibate.
"’Obligatory celibacy and
the church's official teaching on human sexuality are at the root of the worst
crisis the Catholic Church has faced since the time of the Reformation,’ writes
Father Richard McBrien, professor of theology at Notre Dame in the Foreword of
a new landmark book "Celibacy in Crisis," by A.W. Richard Sipe.”
“In an interview, Father McBrien
explained, ‘The Eastern Orthodox do not have celibate clergy, and they have no
sexual abuse crisis. When you require celibacy as a life-long commitment from
any control group, you are inevitably, automatically and infallibly limiting
your pool of potential recruits to one of the thinnest slices of the
population.”
"’There are some healthy
people who practice celibacy. But that requirement of the priesthood will
attract a disproportionately high percentage of men who are sexually
dysfunctional, sexually immature, or whose orientation will raise the question
- are they attracted to the priesthood because of the ministry, or because it
is a profession that forbids one to be married’?"
Sipe was an ex-priest who left the Church, married, and
made a career out of providing psychological counseling for sexually troubled
priests as well as sexual partners of priests.
“The issue goes far beyond the
sexual molestation of minors. Sipe writes in his new book, ‘I estimate that at
any one time 50 percent of priests are practicing celibacy’. He makes these
shocking estimates: ‘Thirty percent of priests are involved in heterosexual
relationships, associations, experimentation or patterns of behavior. Fifteen
percent of priests are involved with homosexual relationships...Six percent of
priests involve themselves with minors’."
This indicates that about 50% of priests have a sexual
relationship with another individual. So
much for celibacy. Chastity is in even
greater trouble. Stille references a
study that indicates that 95% of priests engage in masturbation.
The Church is aware of these issues. Stille provides these comments.
“When Pope John XXIII convened
the Second Vatican Council in 1962, bishops from many parts of the world hoped
that the church would finally change its doctrine and allow priests to marry.
But John XXIII died before the council finished its work, which was then
overseen by his successor, Paul VI (one of the popes most strongly rumored to
have been gay). Paul apparently felt that the sweeping reforms of Vatican II
risked going too far, so he rejected the pleas for priestly marriage and issued
his famous encyclical Humanae Vitae,
which banned contraception, overriding a commission he had convened that
concluded that family planning and contraception were not inconsistent with
Catholic doctrine.”
The result of a path to priestly marriage being cut off
led to many heterosexual priests leaving their calling and fewer heterosexuals
entering the priesthood. But the
attraction of the priesthood to those with homosexual leanings was
undiminished.
Stille gains additional perspective from a Father Thomas
Doyle, “a canon lawyer who was tasked by the papal nuncio to the US with
investigating abuse by priests while working at the Vatican embassy in
Washington in the mid-1980s, when the first lawsuits began to be filed.”
“Conversely, the proportion of
gay priests increased, since it was far easier to hide one’s sex life in an
all-male community with a strong culture of secrecy and aversion to scandal.
Many devout young Catholic men also entered the priesthood in order to try to
escape their unconfessable urges, hoping that a vow of celibacy would help them
suppress their homosexual leanings. But they often found themselves in
seminaries full of sexual activity. Father Doyle estimates that approximately
10 percent of Catholic seminarians were abused (that is, drawn into
nonconsensual sexual relationships) by priests, administrators, or other
seminarians.”
The increase in homosexually oriented priests does not
seem to be associated with an increase in people who might prey on children,
but it does lead to increasing dysfunction within the priestly ranks.
“Sipe, during his decades of
work treating priests as a psychotherapist, also concluded that the lack of
education about sexuality and the nature of celibate life tended to make
priests immature, often more comfortable around teenagers than around other
adults. All this, along with a homosocial environment and the church’s culture
of secrecy, has made seminaries a breeding ground for sexual abuse.”
The Church has an ungodly mess to deal with in terms of
sexuality. How is Pope Francis doing? One of his more curious moves was to jointly
declare that Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II were saints. John XXIII has an unblemished reputation and might
have had the courage to deal with the Church’s problems, but John Paul II is
responsible for the policy of protecting the Church’s reputation by trying to
deny there was a problem with sexual abuse.
“The greatest responsibility for
the problem of sexual abuse in the church clearly lies with Pope John Paul II,
who turned a blind eye to it for more than twenty years. From the mid-1980s to
2004, the church spent $2.6 billion settling lawsuits in the US, mostly paying
victims to remain silent. Cases in Ireland, Australia, England, Canada, and
Mexico followed the same depressing pattern: victims were ignored or bullied,
even as offending priests were quietly transferred to new parishes, where they
often abused again. ‘John Paul knew the score: he protected the guilty priests
and he protected the bishops who covered for them, he protected the institution
from scandal,’ I was told in a telephone interview by Father Thomas Doyle…”
John Paul also eliminated any path to equality for women.
“John Paul II did his best to
tie the hands of his successors by declaring the prohibition of female priests
to be an ‘infallible’ papal doctrine, and Francis has acknowledged that debate
on the issue was ‘closed’.”
John Paul’s legacy is a large number of high-ranking
priests who are guilty of participating in his policy toward sexual
abusers. Any attempt to punish all the
guilty would lead to the removal of much of the Church hierarchy. It would require a momentous decision on the
part of Francis to pursue such an outcome.
Conservatives are already trying to run him out of office, so there is
no hope of relaxing views on celibacy, homosexuality, and female roles. This leaves Stille with a rather pessimistic
view of the future of both Pope Francis and the Catholic Church.
“Both radical change and the
failure to change are fraught with danger, making Francis’s path an almost
impossible one. He is under great pressure from victims who are demanding that
the church conduct an exhaustive investigation into the responsibility of
monsignors, bishops, and cardinals who knew of abusing priests but did
nothing—something he is likely to resist. Such an accounting might force many
of the church’s leaders into retirement and paralyze it for years to come—but
his failure to act could paralyze it as well. As for the larger challenges
facing the church, Francis’s best option might be to make changes within the
narrow limits constraining him, such as expanding the participation of the
laity in church deliberations and allowing women to become deacons. But that
may be too little, too late.”
The interested reader might find the following article
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