Some forty years ago I had a number of friends who were seminarians studying for the priesthood. More than one of them commented to me about the level of sexual dysregulation among their colleagues. Under the circumstances and, particularly, in our hypersexualized society we shouldn’t be surprised if there is sexual abuse among priests at the level of the society at large is not more so. Some of my friends left the seminary over the issue.
Additionally, I think there are far too many clergymen who have failed in their responsibility to children entrusted to their care as well as to their responsibility not to cause scandal for the Church.
That having been said it continues to gripe me when anybody refers to “the Church” when they really mean the church hierarchy. The church hierarchy is not the Church. Members of the church hierarchy are at most members of the church and sometimes I wonder about that.
The laity is largely without guilt in these sexual scandals that far too many clergymen have been a party to, been complicit in, turned a blind eye to, and tried to shove under the carpet. Stop blaming the Church when we should be blaming priests.
I think this is an extremely rare example of a wrongheaded post on this site.
We refer to the GOP or the Democratic Party, we don’t say “the hierarchy” of same.
The Roman Catholic church is more hierarchical than most, possessing as it does a distinct officer class, so to speak, and at the top of that leadership an actual infallible heavenly spokesman. Not to mention it’s own nation state.
And I’m sorry to say it but I don’t think we can grant blanket absolution to church members as opposed to the priests. Congregations could have screamed a hell of a lot louder than they did, they could have taken far more action. Their willingness to obey rather than question, submit rather than push contributed to the ability of the priests, bishops, cardinals and pope to perpetrate this series of hideous crimes and utterly contemptible cover-ups.
People get the leaders they deserve, to some extent at least, and followers are never wholly blameless for what the hierarchy over them does. And surely not wholly blameless when they are members on a completely voluntary basis and remain so even after the abuses are plainly revealed.
The Roman Catholic hierarchy is utterly and completely undemocratic. The laity has no say whatever in who their priests or bishops are. Their priests and bishops have labored energetically to prevent these scandals from coming to light and, until fairly recently, were quite successful.
How were the laity responsible? We didn’t know and there was nothing we could have done had we known. That was totally in the hands of the church hierarchy.
I believe that those responsible both for the acts and for the cover-ups should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law and that the policy of the church hierarchy should be to report suspicions of child abuse, sexual or otherwise, to the civil authorities.
But I can’t make that policy or even influence it.
If you continued to tithe — to economically support the institution — then obviously you bear some responsibility. The institution may be undemocratic, but a church member’s association and contributions are entirely voluntary.
Obviously we all support prosecutions. But this goes far beyond the actions of individual priests. The Catholic church has as a matter of policy and regular and consistent practice, covered up for the rape of children. It has knowingly empowered rapists to strike again and again by concealing crimes, by intimidating witnesses, by transferring priests to new target-rich environments, by deploying legal and moral resources to protect itself at the expense of raped and sodomized children.
All of those actions by the church hierarchy require resources — resources provided by the laity.
These are actions we’ve known about for many years now. I don’t think one can sustain the argument that financial support for this institution is morally neutral. Can one contribute to Hezbollah and bear no moral weight for their actions?
Had the laity risen up in fury at the first of these revelations and demanded that the hierarchy reveal everything — and backed those demands up with a cut-off of funds — the hierarchy would not still today be in the business of denying and concealing heinous crimes. Benedict would not be able to still hold his position and deny his guilt if the laity took this a seriously as it deserves to be taken.
I think you’re overestimating the influence that actions by people in the Chicago archdiocese (or elsewhere) can influence the church hierarchy in Los Angeles or Boston, let alone Ireland, Germany, or Rome.
I live in the Chicago archdiocese. Bernardin adopted a policy for dealing with sexual abuse allegations back in the 1970’s that’s a model for other dioceses.