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(This article originally appeared in The Wanderer and is reprinted with permission. To subscribe call 651-224-5733.)
This is a sad state of affairs, one I never thought I would live to witness. If the hierarchy and members of the clergy do not like hearing these things, that is the price that must be paid for letting these scandalous activities go on.
I don’t want to go overboard in my criticism. I believe the number of pedophile priests to be very small. I attended Catholic schools from first grade through graduate school, and I never — not once — came across even credible rumors about the priests and brothers who were my teachers. One of my former colleagues at a public school where I taught was an ex-priest who left the priesthood and married without going through any of the procedures required by the Church. He didn’t care in the least what the Church said about his decision, or anything else, for that matter.
This man harbored an undisguised contempt for the institutional Church. He would not hesitate for a second to use any information he possessed about pedophile priests to bash the hierarchy. But, in the many years I knew him, he never did, insisting that in all his time as a seminarian and priest in the Archdiocese of New York, he never encountered homosexual behavior. And, I repeat, this man would tell tales if he had any to tell. He never hesitated to criticize priests and bishops for what he perceived to be other vices: excessive drinking, mean-spiritedness, anti-intellectualism, shallowness, and hypocrisy, for example.
Let us also state the obvious. There are those who are using these stories about pedophile priests to defame the Church, including people and groups that have spent the last twenty-five years defending the homosexual revolution. But even a broken clock is right twice a day. It is hard to defend Boston’s Cardinal Law, regardless of the sleazy nature of some of his accusers. It is now clear that he transferred priests accused of abusing children from parish to parish, rather than report their criminal behavior to the proper authorities. Protecting the Church’s reputation is important, but not that important.
If any good can come out of these sad days for the Church, it may be that those in authority in the Church will become more vigilant in their duties from now on. But even if that happens, the damage has been done. And I do not mean just the increased sexual suspicion that the ordinary Catholic will feel from now on about their priests and members of religious orders. The very authority of the Church has been struck a blow. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to spot the double standard.
People will take note of how Church authorities covered up for pedophile priests, while at the same time denying annulments to devout practicing Catholics and refusing the sacraments to divorced Catholics and those who have had abortions. One wonders how engaged couples will accept being scolded for “living in sin,” considering what they have seen in these sex scandals. The folks in the pews will see that the rules are not always the rules.
This time we are not talking about Church authorities changing the rules about eating meat on Friday and the Latin Mass. We are talking about exceptions to the rules for priests who sexually abused young boys, who committed a crime. You can be sure that Catholics will remember, the next time they are told it is their obligation to accept the hard teachings of the Church governing their personal behavior. Why accept the Church’s teachings on abortion, extra-marital sex and birth control, when the clerics who demand obedience in these matters become trimmers when they or their friends behave immorally?
Please do not misread me. I am not saying that these cover-ups for pedophile priests somehow invalidate the Church’s teachings. That would be silly. Thinking Catholics know that. But not every Catholic takes the time to ponder the difference between the teachings of the Church and those in authority who propound them, between the message and the messenger. The issue at hand is perception, and perception is reality. The perception among a good number of ordinary Catholics will be that, while priests and bishops talk tough about our obligations to accept the teachings of the Church, they do not live up to them in their own lives. That will make a difference.
We were once told “once a priest, always a priest,” but discovered that this is not quite the case, that a priest can be laicized. We were told that “a marriage is forever,” and then read in our newspapers of wealthy Catholic politicians and entertainers being given annulments on highly questionable grounds. And now, even though the Bible tells us that “whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fasted round his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea” — that there are exceptions to be made for members of the clergy. Their punishment is being assigned to a new parish.
Obviously, not all of the hierarchy were as negligent in this matter as those in Massachusetts. But all of the hierarchy — and the good and faithful clergy in general — now have the responsibility of undoing this damage. They have no choice. It may very well be the work of their lifetimes.
