In various ways,
people are in denial of what it will take to finally solve the sex abuse crisis.
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| The Vatican Summit on Sex Abuse |
Everyone
wants to end the Catholic Church’s sex abuse crisis once and for all. We want abusers found and punished, we want
officials who cover up held accountable, and we want concrete actions to
prevent future of abuse.
But
reactions to the recent Vatican summit have shown that many people are still in
denial of the true nature, scope, complexity, and depth of the problem. These denials take several forms, but they
all have one thing in common: they erect barriers to action, and impede the end
of the crisis.
So
it becomes important to name and denounce each of these denials, for until they
end the crisis will persist.
Denial #1: “We don’t have
this problem.” From the start, the main focus of the Vatican summit was announced to
be, not problem solving, but education.
Why? Because many bishops remain
in denial that there is a problem at all.
Especially in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, bishops have typically
thought of—and dismissed-- sex abuse as “an American problem” or “a Western
problem.” The summit aimed to correct this by informing the bishops of the cases
emerging in their own regions and by the testimony of victims.
We
can only hope that bishops went home persuaded that they can no longer avoid
addressing the problem in their own dioceses.
Denial #2. This is no time
for Education, only Action. The second denial comes from
those who saw the summit wasting time and not proposing concrete
solutions. It’s easy to understand their
disappointment, especially among the victims, who understand the problem best
because they experienced it first-hand.
But they may overlook the global nature of the institution that must
address this problem.
Clergy
abuse has occurred on five continents and in many forms: child abuse, abuse of
seminarians, abuse of young adults, abuse of women, and (especially in Africa) abuse
of women religious. Abuse will not end
with one simple plan--both the problem and the church are too complex for
that. It does not help to persist in
denying that many of those Bishops are themselves
in denial and must first of all be persuaded to pay attention. Getting the
world’s bishops on board is a real action, a first step.
Denial #3: The Gays are to
blame. A
third, related denial involves denying the need for multiple solutions. Since abuse takes different forms in
different locations, “one size fits all” will not work. Seeking one quick fix can actually hinder
real solutions—and lead to false fixes that leave real problems untouched.
For
example, when an observer like George Weigel claims that “In the so called developed world, the plague seem to have largely
involve the sexual abuse or exploitation of young men,” he is not just
wrong: he also displays a denial of the real facts. In the US crisis, the main
body of victims has, in fact, been minors-- children!- -who are most vulnerable
to priestly abuse of power. Denying this
reality focuses our attention on secondary issues that will lead us to false
fixes.
Specifically,
Weigel and those who think like him want to pin the crisis on gay priests, and
argue that the simple solution is better screening and more strictly practiced
celibacy. They portray the crisis as an ethical breach by gay men wrongly
admitted to the priesthood.
But
this denies two central facts. First, pedophiles
are generally disordered individuals attracted to children, not homosexuals
attracted other man. These are mostly two
different populations. I know many good celibate priests who are gay, and scapegoating
or stigmatizing them will solve nothing.
Second,
gay priests who fail to maintain a celibate life break a church rule, just like
heterosexual priests who have secret mistresses. Officials who prey on students
or subordinates also commit an ethical breach by abusing their authority. But pedophiles
who prey on minors of either sex commit a crime. Thus, while in other locations clergy sex
abuse may be about violating church rules and moral teachings, in the U.S. has
it has been especially about violating the law.
And
bishops who enabled this may also have violated the law (just this week, French
Cardinal Philippe Barbarin was given a six-month suspended prison sentence for not
going to authorities about the alleged abuse of minors by a priest).
Denying
that the Church in the US and elsewhere has a problem with criminals in the
clergy will only block real solutions.
Denial #4: This is mainly a problem of sexual immorality. The horrible
history of bishops recycling abusers to new parishes – and thus enabling them
to rape more kids– was caused precisely by bishops thinking this was about sin –
a moral problem that confession, repentance, and penance would solve. But no, that never worked, because the real
problem was (1) an abuse of power by (2) pathologically disordered people. The only solution was to strip such men of
their priestly power, and (if and when treatment failed) isolate them from
potential victims.
To deny this, and
talk as if the abusers’ evil was about sexual immorality, prevents us from
tackling the twin dangers of pathology and power. This is not primarily about sinners who must
repent; it is about criminals who must be stopped.
Denial #5: The Pope can fix this
right now. The failure to discipline
bishops who cover up abuse or simply mismanaged controlling the abusers has of
course worsened the scandal. And in some
ways a cover-up is worse than the original abuses. But both canon law and church structure give bishops
a high degree of autonomy, even in relationship to the pope. Many decry the slow speed of action from the
top, and Pope Francis has probably deserved some criticism for being too slow
to believe and to act on allegations against bishops.
But Andrew J.
Bacevich offers another angle. Bacevich is Professor Emeritus of International
Relations and History at the Boston
University Frederick S. Pardee School of Global
Studies,
and a retired US Army Colonel.
He is also a life-long Catholic, and he recently observed that a realistic view
of church structures suggests that its pace, while not up to many expectations,
is nonetheless reasonable:
Not without cause,
critics have lambasted the Catholic Church (to which I belong) for being slow
to address the epidemic of clergy sex abuse. Yet when it comes to acknowledging
institutional failure and initiating remedial action, Rome moves with
gazelle-like swiftness in comparison with the Pentagon. Pope Francis knows that
he has a serious problem on his hands. In Washington, the defense secretary and
the Joint Chiefs of Staff either haven’t noticed or don’t care that the
military…has achieved a less than stellar record.
Thinking Francis can
end the crisis by papal fiat only obscures the need for a systematic reform of
procedures and policies that can be led by Francis but must be supported by the
world’s bishops-- procedures and policies that will probably vary by region
depending on the shape of abuse there and local legal systems.
Denial #6: Band-aids will do. Thinking such reforms will prevent future
trouble is yet another barrier to enabling ending the crisis, because it denies
the underlying causes. Dealing with
those requires solid answers to two questions: (1) how did this horror happen
in the first place? And (2) why did it continue
on unreported and unsolved for so long?
Francis himself has suggested the answer to
number (2) by saying that there will be no solution to this crisis as long as
clericalism exists: “To say "no" to
abuse is to say an emphatic "no" to all forms of clericalism.” (see CrossCurrents #471 “Ending Clericalism, Our ‘Original Sin’”).
And I have argued
that answering number (1) requires us to examine an entire range of
dysfunctions within the Church: our attitudes toward sexuality in general, our
treatment of people who violate sexual rules, our pressures on people who do
not fit the norms, our seminary cultures, our demand that all priests must be
celibate, our myth about the asexual “purity” of ordained men, our acceptance
of the clericalism, our moralization of all things sexual and our blindness
about pathological
disorders (see CrossCurrents #472 “How Could This Horror Happen?”).
Failure to
acknowledge these two underlying issues and failure to address them will leave
our Church vulnerable to future abuses of pathology and power. This crisis is
not something that simply emerged in the last generation or two; the potential
for this crisis has been baked into church structures for a century or more. Unless we get to the bottom of that, we will
not be finally clear of the crisis.
It is all too easy
to fall into denying just how complex and profound this crisis is. But we must fight against all such denials,
for each denial blocks our path to get the Church right again.
© Bernard F. Swain PhD 201
