John Jay Report — A Question
I feel a little silly asking this, because it is so obvious that I’m sure it’s already been addressed (either in the John Jay report itself or elsewhere). But, based on the news accounts, the report seems to make a great deal of the spike in reported abuse after the 1960s, using it to attribute the sexual abuse problem — at least in part — to cultural shifts occurring in the broader society. But isn’t it possible that those cultural shifts — which, besides introducing more permissive attitudes towards sex, encouraged greater questioning of authority — led more people to report instances of clerical abuse rather than to an increase in the abuse itself? I’m not even sure how to disentangle the two at such a great temporal distance. In any event, I’m looking forward to reading the report later today. I hope it will answer my question.
So, after years of citing the previous John Jay Report to claim that the sexual abuse scandal, although the victims were overwhelmingly boys, has nothing to do with homosexuality…now the same institution updates to a much more detailed, more fully researched report. And because some if its findings fail to completely align with progressive preconceptions, all of a sudden this report has all sorts of questionable findings. And conspiracy theories regarding its funding source, even.
Kudos to David Gibson for defending the conclusions of the report from spurious rejection.
Eduardo –
You make an very good point. Many people of my generation (I’m 80) were brought up to not-talk-about-sexual-matters. Some parents didn’t even talk to their children about it. I dare say many didn’t even have the vocabulary to do so, especially about perversions.
Eduardo – a couple of suggestions:
- the pre-Vatican II clerical environment was very hierarchical; larger houses with multiple clerics; fairly rigid structures and oversight…….post VII much of this structure changed but not always in a positive direction. Oversight was lost; there were not always good alternatives to the previous hierarchical structures, etc.
- link JJ Study conclusion at this time with the 1970 study by Kennedy et alii about the psychological maturity of clergy – 20% were mal-adjusted; 60% were undeveloped; only 20% were considered psychological mature. Couple that with changes in both society and the church in terms of authority, structures, demands, etc. and it makes sense
Have not had a chance to study the document yet but, like you, have a few questions:
- it remarks often about the decrease from late 1980′s on….yet, see no corresponding explanation that we also see a decrease in active numbers of priests; we know that abuse begain to become more high profile in the media, various chanceries, etc.; and it seems to dismiss the fact that the 6-8% abuser pattern needs to be compared to the % pattern given a reduced, total number of priests (rather than just comparing total numbers of abusers)? It also seems to give little weight to the fact that abuse is often not reported until a victim is in their late ’30′s or 40′s. We may not know the actual numbers for 2000 forward for years.
“see no corresponding explanation that we also see a decrease in active numbers of priests”
And, to ask a question for which I really cannot predict the answer, what happened to the median or average age of priests during these time frames. And how does this kind of abuse correlate with the age of the abuser?
Probably better to wait for the report, which will be released in about three hours. But, Eduardo, this report–along with the previous one–makes clear that the reporting of abuse occurred much later then the incidents of abuse. This is one of the reasons sexual-abuse advocates want to extend the statutes of limitation (and I agree that many states ought to extend the statutes–just not indefinitely, or even as a part of so-called window legislation).
P. Flanagan: You don’t know when to quit. The researchers have been clear on this: homosexuality is not a predictor of abuse. That is not to say that homosexuality had nothing to do with the scandal. But why don’t you do your homework before returning to dotCommonweal to opine on this issue?
Eduardo, the 60s did lead to greater social and recognition of children (and women) and their rights and sufferings. And it started to lead to the beginning of laws on abuse. So there began to be avenues for the few who could pierce the veil of social shame.
But law enforcement was not consistent, and after the McMartin day care disaster there was a real pulling back from prosecutions, and the problem of finding law enforcement personnel who knew how to interview kids and make cases.
But the chief engine for prompting reporting was media coverage. That more than anything made victims realize they weren’t alone, and as more came forward that encoruaged others. The waves of reports are directly correspond to the waves of coverage.
Grant Gallicho, I am not sure you are interpreting John Jay correctly. It is plausible to say that homosexuality is not an indicator for pedophilia as he defines it — attraction to under 10s. At least it is often said that pedophiles are not drawn to children by their gender but by their child status. A novel by Paul Morand, Hecate, which is also a film, might be seen as bearing this out. But P Flanagan is talking about sex with older adolescents, and here the situation is rather different.
Sexual permissiveness peaked in the 1960s and 1970s but reporting sexual molestation of children, especially in accusations of clergy, was not a major phenomenon until the later 1980s. The decline in incidents since then is because perpetrators have become far more aware of the law and far more worried about it than they were in the heyday of sexual liberation. (Remember how Michel Tournier, Tony Duvert, Michel Foucault, NAMBLA used to write back then; they’s probably be jailed now!)
Of course it is a truism that homosexual orientation is not an indicator of abuse, since homosexuals are no more incapable than heterosexuals of refraining from bad behavior. But P Flanagan’s point is that in the actual chronicle of clerical abuse, a huge percentage of the abuse of older adolescents was simply homosexual activity (which would not even be a crime in countries like Spain). Is that because heterosexual priests were better behaved than homosexual ones? Possibly — the gay movement of the 1960s and 1970s had a cult of youth. Or is it that statistically the clergy, since the huge exodus of those seeking to marry, has become predominantly homosexual?
“I agree that many states ought to extend the statutes”
Same here.
Fr. O’Leary, I am not sure you have read me correctly. I wrote, “The researchers have been clear on this: homosexuality is not a predictor of abuse. That is not to say that homosexuality had nothing to do with the scandal.”
Let’s try to refrain from lazy terminology like “a huge percentage.” I don’t think you know what kind of activity it was. Given that it was reported as abuse, I seriously doubt most of it was “simply homosexual activity.” And we are not hosting another conversation about how delightful it was for these young people to have sex with adults.
OK, Grant Gallicho, I agree that probably most of the sexual activity between priests and older adolescents must have been abusive (in particular if it occurred in a pastoral relationship) in a stronger sense than my phrase “simple homosexual activity” suggested. But this raises the probability that there was much more homosexual activity that was not reported. My point is simply that such activity, independent of its degree of abusiveness, is really better located in the realm of homosexuality than of pedophilia. Many gay men in a youth-adoring gay culture did not draw a strict line between sex with adults and sex with minors.
I do not thnk my carefully chosen word “huge percentage” was lazy terminology. I am aware that the percentage in question is contested, but even the lowest estimates put it at 50 %, which a little reflection will show you to be a huge percentage, especially if compared with percentages in the wider population. The sarcastic tone of so many of your postings, I am afraid, is more calculated to generate heat than light.
I am skeptical of the notion of a “huge spike in abuse cases in the 1960s and 1970s” unless the explanations also account at least partially for differences and similarities between countries.
Can we understand the culture in the pre-60′s US by thinking of some other country where the cultural shift/sexual revolution did not happen until much later, a country that would until more recently have had an attitude towards religion and towards sexuality similar to the pre-60′s US? Maybe a country that exported many of its priests towards the US, such as Ireland??
Yesterday, the New York Times featured an article about the championship boxer, Sugar Ray Leonard, who came up in the sport through the Olympics program. He has just published his memoir about his career and he tells of sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of an Olympics coach.
The problem is everywhere that children may be available to predators, from within the family, to schools, to organizations, to church activities.
The sad part about this abuse within our Church (disclosure: I am a lifelong Catholic) is that it has become systemic.
This report is not supported by all the articles I have read regarding this terrible scandal.
Read Jason Berry’s book “Lead Us Not Into Temptation”.
In his book, he reports that child abuse was taught in the Louisiana diocesan seminary in Moral Theology classes to be allowable and not a violation of the vow of celibacy, although relations with adult women was a violation of the vow.
It’s a corruption of the study of moral theology, in the extreme, in my opinion.
When this manufactured “excuse” is imbedded in common training, that makes the practice systemic and not recent, but decades upon decades old.
The Church has a long way to go to root out this terrible curse and I pray for victory over this malignant situation.
So many good religious men and women have suffered and been smeared with the brush of this scandal.
Judith Allen, I just cannot believe that Louisiana seminary story; it is surely not typical. But it is true that some priests used to say that celibacy just means not being married, so it posits no obstacle to a gay lifestyle. That could easily spill over into molesting minors, at a time when gay culture was very youth-adoring. This is all bad, but not as monstrous or pathological as the picture of heterosexual priests preying on boys just to show sadistic power, etc. It is very difficult to sift out the various kinds of behavior that compose the overwhelming phenomenon of the abuse scandal. But I do not see why people are so loath to admit that a considerable segment of it is just irresponsible homosexual activity — enhanced by foolishness and immaturity induced by seminary formation. John Jay actually says that the proportion of gays in the priesthood increased after 1980 while the incidence of abuse decreased — but it is very misleading to suggest that these two statistics are causally connected. More likely, IMHO, is that gay men just realized that sex with minors was not on — that it was suicidal — and that priests who might have been tempted to misbehave with minors in earlier decades shared in this same general realization.
@ Judith Allen:
It is the “conspiracy of silence” that has tainted “so many good religious men and women.”
Let’s remember, most of the child rapes and sodomy by priests took place on church property. When you consider the thousands of attacks on children over decades: HOW COULD MOST, NEARLY ALL, OF THESE ATTACKS HAVE GONE UN-NOTICED? UNREPORTED? When there were so many eyes and hears available to observe these crimes?
Not just good “religious men and women” have had lost opportunities to intervene. Parish secretaries, church volunteers, teachers, housekeepers, police, schools – the list goes on and on.
I’d give most parents of survivors the benefit of the doubt because most of these priest perpetrators cultivated, then duped, the families from which they drew their victims, rendering them defenseless to this kind of sexual pillaging.
It is because we Catholics DIDN’T WANT to see what was plainly before our eyes. It’s called willful blindness to the truth and cognitive dissonance.
The horrific sexual attacks on innocent children just didn’t fit into the psychological and emotional constructs and mythologies that Catholics have traditionally attributed to their “good” priests and bishops.
This is the “Bells of St. Mary’s” dream of life.
Most priest perpetrators that I investigated believed that they lived within a cultural bubble that insulated them from accountability, gave them permission to satiate their sexual proclivities with impunity, cultivated a culture that celebrated the clerics’ rabid narcissism, and provided them a constant supply of fresh victims.
Catholics have to take responsibility that we allowed the clerical culture based on silence and secrecy to flourish to the point where our children became easy sacrifices on the hierarchs’ altars to power.
Catholics didn’t see it because we weren’t looking for it – it didn’t fit into our perceptions, our world view. Perception is itself a psychological event, not a factual recording of events.
Every Catholic has supported and financially underwritten every rape and sodomy on every child by a priest, every payment of hush money to silence survivors, every legal bill to the phalanx of lawyers the hierarchs need to defend themselves and their power in a court of law, all of it supported by the offertory donations of Catholics over decades.
Catholics never asked questions: PRAY, PAY AND OBEY! How’s that work out for us?
Conservative estimates put the price tag at well over $2 billion, and growing. The abuse scandal could not have happened unless Catholics readily embraced their roles as the “lay” monkeys who saw no evil, heard no evil, nor spoke no evil.
Let’s not let ourselves off the hook any more than we should let the hierarchs blame the tidal wave of sexual abuse on the “60′s.”
How dishonest is that? I can just imagine what my sainted sixth-grade teacher, Sister Mary Adelaide, would have said about that reenactment of the Genesis drama where Adam blames Eve.
Does this mean that if we Catholics can blame all this priestly rape and sodomy of children on the 60′s we wont have to listen to any more lectures about the “moral relativism of Western societies” from our Panzer Pope?
Catholics don’t need any John Jay report to know that for the first time since the early centuries of Christianity we need to re-think the way we do priesthood; we need to reform and renew the priesthood from parish to pope.
That is a big job. It will take years, decades, most likely a century. Catholics had better get started before there aren’t any of us left.
Here is an interesting passage from the report: “Priests who identified themselves at the time of treatment as gay/homosexual, bisexual, or confused, were more likely to have post-ordination sexual behavior than those who considered themselves to be heterosexual, though the nonheterosexual priests were more likely to participate in sexual behavior with adults than with minors.”
However: “If sexual identity and abuse of a minor by gender were linked, then an increase in homosexual men in the priesthood would have led to an increase in the abuse of male victims compared to female victims… If it was the case that there were more homosexual men in the seminaries in the 1980s, this increase does not correspond to an increase in the number of boys who were abused. Therefore, the evidence does not support the hypothesis that an increase in homosexual men in the priesthood will lead to an increase in the abuse of boys.”
And on the same positive side of the balance: “The clinical data do not support the hypothesis that priests with a homosexual identity or those who committed same-sex sexual behavior with adults are significantly more likely to sexually abuse children than those with a heterosexual orientation or behavior.”
The reported incidents of abuse follow a bell curve, peaking in the 1970s.
What is not clear if this curve represents the actual incidents of abuse or only the reported incidents of abuse.
The lack of reports from earlier decades may be the result of the death of victims and the purging of files; or there may have been less abuse.
The lack of reports from more recent decades may be the result of a lag in victims reporting or, more probably, a clergy that is declining in numbers, aging, and more aware of the possibility of exposure and prosecution.
Sexual abuse of female penitents has been a chronic problem in the Church (see Haliczer’s Sexuality in the Confessional) and a source of bitter male anticlericalism. When secret records have come to light (as for example after the dissolution of religious orders), they contain numerous reports of sexual abuse of males.
Adult homosexuality was certainly not a factor in molestation of small children; but it seems to be disingenuous to say it had nothing to do with clerical sexual activity with older teenage boys.
“And, to ask a question for which I really cannot predict the answer, what happened to the median or average age of priests during these time frames. And how does this kind of abuse correlate with the age of the abuser?”
Mark –
If I read the charts rightly, the age of first abuse by a priest has gone down over time. Sorry, can’t remember which chart that was or its page.
The report seems to put great store in the fact that the sexual abuse has gone up in tandem with rates of divorce, premarital sex, drug use and violence. In other words, the report seems to assign some common sociological causal factor as a cause of all these changes. But those things (divorce, drugs,etc.) have *not* gone down in frequency to the same extent that sexual abuse in the Church has. (Or have they??) In other words, if there was simply one causal factor (or set of factors?) that also caused those other results, we should also expect the other results to vary with the sexual abuse. But those other things have not waned with the waning of the abuse.
I wonder what that purported common causal factor was exactly. Talking about strong social changes doesn’t cut it for me — that’s too generallized. I also wonder, given the number of variables in all this, how any definite causes can ever be safely assigned. But statisticians can do amazing things these days, I ll grant you.
Jim JEnkins –
One of my gay friends was originally a grammar school teacher. He told me that an old nun he taught with did observe some bad behavior and reported it to the pastor. The pastor was very upset with her for reporting it and took no action. My friend was so disgusted with the pastor he quit teaching and went into the the antique business.
I too cannot believe the report of a moral theology teacher who claimed that homosexual behavior was not a violation of celibacy, unless it was some prig of a logic-chopper who lived by technicalities. There are such creatures. I knew one of the moral theologians at the seminary very, very well, and I can’t imagine his tolerating such a colleague, though perhaps this purported teaching happened after the priest I knew well left. That seminary just wasn’t given to super-liberal faculty.
Ann, the story is not about a claim that homosexual behavior was not a violation of celibacy, but about a claim that “child abuse” was not such a violation.
In any case, you are probably correct that if there is any factual basis to it it must have been “some prig of a logic-chopper who lived by technicalities”. He might have said something like: ‘guys, get your technical terms clear: masturbation, homosexual behavior, incest, bestiality, child abuse, are not “violations of celibacy” since “celibacy” refers to being unmarried; so find the correct moral categories for referring to those other issues. ‘If that is what he said, he might actually have been striking a blow at the clericalist mentality that bundled all of those things under the heading of “impurity” (like the teachers in the Ryan report who would class boys’ masturbation and their being abused under this rubric) or “violations of the sixth commandment” (Vatican-speak) or violations of celibacy. We all know how easily things get misreported.
Fr. O’Leary –
You’re right. As reported here, the blogger said that the “abuse of children” was said to be consistent with a vow of celibacy, and, yes, that would have lumped all sorts of forbidden behavior together. However, to say only that does not imply moral approval of any of those behavior. Logically it goes only so far as to say that the behaviors don’t constitute violations of a celibacy vow. (Legalism at its worst.)
I want to share a quote from a Catholic site: NSAC (National Survivor Advocates Coalition). While commenters on this blog argue about a document and the interpretation of statistics the NSAC Chair, Kristine Ward, expresses concern for victims. Thank you Kristine.
“Our first concern today as we alert our readers to the release of the John Jay Report is for the survivors and their families and for the families of those who committed suicide as it will be a day with increased news coverage about sexual abuse which brings with it the searing tearing at scars, the churning of memories, the trauma of flashback, and quite simply, pain. We renew our commitment to walk with you.”
— Kristine Ward, NSAC Chair
Judith Allen, you say, “In his book, he [Jason Berry] reports that child abuse was taught in the Louisiana diocesan seminary in Moral Theology classes to be allowable and not a violation of the vow of celibacy, although relations with adult women was a violation of the vow.”
The time frame to which Berry is referring here is not clear to me. The implication is that this trend in moral theology peaked in the seminary in question in the 1960s.
I took classes at this seminary in the first half of the 1970s, as a lay theology student. Here’s my take on what went on in the moral theology classes I took in that period in the 1970s.
First, every course I took presupposed a backdrop of clericialism–heavy clericalism. Pompous, pseudo-intellectual clericalism. Lay students were few and far between, and were barely tolerated in the seminary’s classes. We were there solely because Vatican II had opened some (grudging) doors for us to study theology at the graduate level, and the seminary had made that possible (grudgingly).
I remember precious few discussions of any sexual issues at all in the moral theology classes I took at this seminary. When those issues did arise, they were discussed as if they were solely the concern of celibate priests whose primary challenge was to preserve their celibacy. I remember, for instance, the professor of moral theology (a priest) saying that a certain kind of woman was drawn to a clerical collar as a fly to honey, and that one could hang a clerical collar on a line and these flies would flit to it.
I remember thinking that this idea was absurd, self-serving, and that discussions of this ilk did little to prepare priests to deal with the many complex pastoral situations they would surely encounter in the realm of human sexuality when ordained and placed in parish life. I remember finding the clericalist presuppositions of the entire moral theology course insufferable.
I certainly don’t recall the issue of child abuse ever coming up. The few discussions that I do recall of any sexual topics presupposed a heterosexual worldview, and presupposed that the whole world and all the priests in training in the seminary were heterosexual, and that they’d be solely preoccupied with those women who would surely flit to them like flies to honey, once they donned a clerical collar.
I do remember one incendiary question in class about some sexual issue–it was the first time I had ever heard the phrases “nookie” and “afternoon delight,” I believe–asked by a particularly outspoken seminarian. The discussion was, as best I recall, how priests ought to deal with their personal guilt when they failed to be celibate. The discussion presupposed that the source of temptation would, of course, be an adult woman.
I learned, some years down the road, that the seminarian who asked this question happened to be gay, left the seminary, and died of AIDS. But, though as a person becoming aware of his own gay identity in those years, I was somewhat aware that some of the seminarians with whom I was taking these classes might be gay, I don’t recall questions about homosexuality, or pedophilia, being discussed in those classes. Ever. Heterosexuality was presupposed as the sole and normative worldview, and as everyone’s sexual orientation, and questions that probed beyond the boundaries of those presuppositions were simply not thinkable.
In my view, if the moral theology classes I took at the seminary in question were in any way typical of moral theology classes at seminaries in general in the 1960s and shortly thereafter, the major hurdle that needs to be addressed if we want to understand the roots of the abuse crisis is clericalism. And the deadly silence in clerical formation, re: issues of human sexuality. The deadly silence, and lack of accurate information that helped foster a culture of evasion and game-playing, in which some of the ordained managed to view many of the non-ordained as less human or less privileged than themselves.
And the game-playing was premised on a pretend-heterosexual worldview that did not even apply to the real-life experience of many of those playing the game. Though one would never have known this, given the mandatory silence, and the punishments dealt out by the seminary rector and diocesan officials if the code of silence was broken.
P.S. I certainly don’t intend to question Jason Berry’s work or conclusions, with the testimony I offer here. I have long admired Berry, and think anyone who cares about the future of the Catholic church in the U.S. is very much his debt.
I’m simply offering my own perspective as one little student who happened to take moral theology classes at the school in question, shortly after the 1960s–though I was a lay student and found I had the charism of invisibility when I took those classes as a lay student amidst priests-in-training.
But invisibility does sometimes afford one perspective . . . .
Mr. Lindsey – are you assuming that this seminary is Notre Dame in NO; why could it not have been across the lake – Benedictine or in Baton Rouge or even Bay St. Louis (minor seminaries)?
1970′s – homosexuality was known and recognized in the seminary but not in an open or talked about way; and definitely, not a subject that was discussed in formal classes. Almost all moral theology discussions used the heterosexual framework as the only “natural law” foundation.
Formation faculty were just beginning to discuss studies and policies around admitting homosexual candidates and approving them for ordination. There was an early study at the Detroit major seminaries that looked at the ability of homosexual candidates to maintain celibacy, chastity, and a committed lifestyle. But, would suggest that most seminaries still were not discussing these formation issues – wouldn’t happen until the late 1980′s. In fact, even as late as 1990 you still had significant and large major seminaries that were not even using psychological testing as part of their admisstion and ongoing formation process.
Think about what happened with Kennedy’s 1970-71 Psychological Studies – the bishops buried them and they were rarely, if ever, used in seminaries.
Mr. DeHaas, thank you for your reply. Yes, I did assume that the term “diocesan seminary” referred to Notre Dame. Minor seminaries wouldn’t leap to mind for me first and foremost, when I heard the term “diocesan seminary.”
And, of course, you’re right: homosexuality was hardly talked about at all in moral theology classes in almost all Catholic seminaries into the 1970s, as far as I’m aware. And that’s part of my point: first, how does a seminary adequately prepare candidates for pastoral ministry, while ignoring a significant area of human sexuality, which also happens to occupy increasingly cultural attention? And second, how does the pretend assumption that all candidates for the priesthood are heterosexual help to develop a culture of honesty, transparency, and accountability in clerical life?
For those trying to blame the 1960s or 1970s for the crisis through which we’re now going, as a result of what we have learned about clerical abuse of minors, the real history of what was really going on in seminaries in those periods proves a serious stumbling block, I would argue. If what I observed in the classes I took is any indicator, the culture of the seminary was anything but free-wheeling.
It was heavily clerical. There were, to my knowledge, no female students at all in the seminary in those years. Moral theology classes could discuss highly selected issues of human sexuality (and these only tangentially and sporadically) as if the entire world were male, heterosexual, and clerical.
In my view, the roots of the crisis lie there, not in the culture of the sixties/seventies. There, and in the repressive, authoritarian attitude of church officials that thwarted any open discussion of these issues, including in seminaries, and which handed out heavy punishments to those calling for open discussion–and for acknowledgment of the fatuity of the pretend-heterosexual worldview presupposed in these moral theology classes.
I was in a diocesan minor seminary between 1953 and 1955. A good number of us were from farming communities and probably knew more about sex from watching farm animals beign bred than did our teachers of the “city boys” who were there. However, we were all cautioned about “particular friendships” without any explanation of what that really meant, and were not allowed to have a non-roommate in the room unless the door was wide open. Again, not explanation as to why.
Sexual immaturity was endemic in and encouraged by the clerical seminary environment long before the 1960s and 1970s.
Luckily the sem decided that I needed “more time in the world” and I was released to a life of reality again.
s/b teachers OR the “city boys”.
Mr. Lindsey – NO archdiocese and its seminary were very conservative in the 1970′s….would suggest that the NO formation staff were basically diocesan priests who may have done well academically and thus were assigned to the seminary but had no expertise, much less training in formation, human development, etc. Notre Dame followed the 1950′s model that the seminary structure, routinue, etc. would mold and form proper priests. It was within walking distance of good classes at either Loyola or Tulane and could have taken advantage of wonderful educational partnerships, etc. Instead, it lived in its own clerical world and prided itself on that.
JJ Study – a start but serious deficiencies. Clerical abuse has now been making news in Canada, US, Europe, Australia for years – did the 1960′s/70′s phenomenon impact those other countries? What about clericalism; they mention seminary training or lack of but place too much weight on the cultural/society context. They did a poor job of developing their own definition of pedophilia and age groups – they should have focused on criminal behavior, period. They seem to have missed the point that more than 70% of the victims were male – they offer some lame excuses in an attempt to absolve homosexuality. Their statement that the peak was hit in the 1970′s is irresponsible – any expert in abuse knows that this is using actual, reported data – but it may be years before we know actual events that have yet to be reported because of the nature of sexual abuse. (this is an egregious error by folks who should have had psychological experts provide input and review).
We have two sexual abuse issues – those who committed the abuse; and those who covered it up. Will we have a 3rd JJ Study that looks at the second issue – did the 60′s/70′s cause episcopal failures, cover-ups, mental reservations?
Jimmy Mac’s comments are germane to a question that I continue to ask (have not red the JJ Report yet but surely will, soon): The majority of abuse cases that have come to light over the past decade have roots in the 60′s-70′s, but what about before that? Though we cannot know and will never be able to know, I do assume that abuse of minors and vulnerable people by priests predates the “permissive” era of the 60′s and 70′s. It appears that the JJ Report is nuanced and well-researched; however, I fear that limiting the discussion to the cultural trends of a particular generation will do more to fuel the deniers and the nay-sayers who continue to displace the blame for this from the centuries-old clericalism that remains quite entrenched in today’s institutional church. What I have found most distressing is the idea among younger priests of my acquaintance is the idea that the new guys will “restore” the priesthood to a place of “honor” and show the Church/world what a “real priest” is like. One of them actually preached—at another guy’s first Mass, in the presence of bishops and other priests, none of whom corrected him or protested—that ordination is a form of “transubstantiation.” (!!!) The issue of clericalism hardly enters the conversation. It is my firm belief that the real issue here is clericalism, clericalism and more clericalism, of which the sex abuse scandal is a mere symptom (though I do not mean by “mere” to minimize the specific horror of clergy sexual abuse). If it were not this, it would be something else. This is why, no matter how many guidelines and mandates and specific apologies are offered, the institutional church continues to overshadow the other aspects of the church and cause it to feel like a place of exile for many Catholics. I do not believe that true change is coming anytime soon, even if the clergy and bishops will eventually (maybe??) achieve a pristine record regarding this one issue. I stay in the Church with a lot of sadness and exhaustion from the effort it takes to keep my focus off what the ersatz “shepherds” are saying/doing. Not a great way to live but for now it’s the best I can do. I don’t know if I will be able to stay…
One more thing: Please see, if you can, the Frontline episode called “The Silence.” It is estimated that 80-85% of a single generation of Catholic boys AND girls were abused by a priest and a layman (who apparently paraded as a priest or was “looked up to” as a priest, who was later whisked away by the church to God knows where after being “caught in the act”; the priest stayed there “in good standing” until he died) in a very remote part of Alaska. Same old story: bishop denies, bishop gets enlightened, bishop shows up to apologize (but not before December 2010!!). But what was new for me was the wrenching sadness and simplicity and starkness of this presentation. I have never seen anything like it. Don’t miss it…
Bill deHaas, thanks for your reply. I concur in your assessment of the culture and academic quality of ND Seminary in the period in question. I continue to be puzzled, however, by those who seem to think that the culture of any seminaries in post-sixties era was free-wheeling or liberal. Seminaries are, as their name suggests, seedbeds–enclosed little hothouses in which precious plants are cultivated, away from the hurly-burly of mainstream culture.
And one of the by-products of the enclosed hothouse environment is, in my view, the absurd presupposition of many of the precious, carefully cultivated plants that their ontological status has somehow shifted–for the better–as a result of seminary life and ordination. I can well believe Janet’s observation about a recent ordinand preaching that those who are ordained have been transubstantiated. This mentality is fostered by the seminary system itself, with its set-apart, cut-off, privileged nature, and with the lack of really solid academic training in most seminaries.
It baffles me that the JJ study seems oblivious to all of this, and to the culture of clerical power and privilege that is at the heart of the abuse crisis–far and away more than anything happening in the culture at large.
Unfortunately for my aching heart, I happen to have the “priests are transubstantiated” homily in writing; this guy sent it to me hoping I would be impressed. Instead I was horrified; and I am not exaggerating when I say that this encounter—starting with reading the homily and followed by several futile attempts to get this miserably arrogant little man to see the error of his ways by asking a few simple questions about baptism but receiving no substantial reply–shattered my comfortability with the institutional church and forced me to think HARD about what is going on. Experiences are not transferable, and many who tried to help me through this difficult time either laughed or shrugged off the silly posturing of this guy and encouraged me to just forget it. Not possible, especially since I am convinced that this is, indeed, what the institutional church belives and teaches these men, though usually couching it in less starkly reprehensible language. The negative implications of such an idolatrous self-concept are huge. If you want to see the true root of the bishop-clergy abuse scandal, forget looking at a particular cultural context or societal trend. Look instead at the inner workings and ethos of the clerical apparatus to find the answer. Until we let THIS abomination—celricalism and its myriad manifestations—into the light, we will not have the reform so desperately needed. s
Janet –
Nothing surprises me much any more about the RCC. But this talk by the pseudo-traditionalists of the “transubstantialion” of priests by ordination shocks me. This is not a simply matter of immature clerics with exalted notions of their own function. What it is is idolatry, and to defend it is heresy. When they start talking like that I’m tempted to write a letter to Rome, as the pseudo-trads themselves are so very inclined to do when they find what they consider heresy,
Another example of this inflation of the concept of priesthood is implicit in this statement of Bishop Finn in the NCR 5-12-06 article about his remake of his diocese. He says, “Our goal is to get ourselves to heaven and take as many people with us as we can.”
Bishops do not “get themselves” or anybody else into Heaven. That is not only offensive, it is sacreligious. Only the Lord gets us into Heaven. Only the Lord is our Savior. Painting himself as Savior would have gotten Bishop Finn burned at the stake in the middle ages, which makes the use of that venerable scholastic term “transubstantiation” by the pseudo-trads even more ironic.
And these are the “theologians” who claim to carry on the real tradition of the Church? What hubris. The scary thing is that Bishop Finn remains in good standing with Rome while the Australian bishop is removed from office.
Odd that you’re criticizing him here and defending him in the other thread.
Change your mind?
@Ann and Janet, re the “transubstantiated” ordinands thing: I was in an odd post-non-Rapture mood and so ventured to ask a young priest this morning if he had ever heard about this (he’s an Ave Maria grad and seems trad-y to my uninformed perceptions). There wasn’t time to explore his answer and I have no idea if he’s typical of the group ya’ll’re talking about, but he said ordination effects an ontological alteration of the substance of a man’s soul, an indelible change/mark of its character, such that the use of the term “transubstantiation” is appropriate. Then he walked off to vest for Mass. Mercy!
“Odd that you’re criticizing him here and defending him in the other thread.
Change your mind?”
Gerelyn –
Not odd at all. I rarely if ever see a given human being as all good or all bad. So there are usually some things to complain about and others to compliment. And there’s lots about most of us that is neutral.
Mary –
Your young priest needs some remedial education in the traditional use of the medieval terminology and its philosophical background (i.e., Aristotle). From what you say, the young man’s philosophical training so far has been appalling.
AS I see the recent history of the training of Catholic seminarians, the Church went from old-fashioned manual Thomism (which was essentially second-hand scholarship based on commenters of St. Thomas), to a Thomism based on reading the texts of Thomas himself.. With Vatican Ii there was a reaction against the first kind of “Thomism”, the kind that most of the bishops had been taught, that is, the old manual Thomism. Later the pseudo-trads decided that they wanted to go back to pre-Vat II intellectual tradition, but unfortunately, their “Thomism” is that of the manual Thomists, not the newer ones who actually knew Thomas’ works. So they use the terminology of Thomas, but don’t always use Thomas’ own meanings.
(I know something about this because I had some manual Thomism courses at a Catholic college in the 40s, then in the 50s (before Vat II) I got an M,A, at Catholic U. which was heavy in the more recent “neo-Thomism” based on the scholarship of the scholars who actually read Thomas himself. The two kinds of “Thomism” seem like apples and oranges to me. They have something in common (terminology, at least) but are also very, very different.
I don’t consider myself a Thomist, but I feel impelled to talk back to “scholars” like your young friend who know less of that great philosopher-theologian than I do,
Oh, yikes, not my young priest or a friend. He’s assigned to my old parish and is a major reason why I began attending another one. Today I was dropping off a donation for their parish yard sale and just happened to catch him before the poor guy could head in the other direction when he saw me coming:) Today’s “conversation” only confirmed what I’ve long thought about his theological training.
Janet, you say, “. . . I am convinced that this is, indeed, what the institutional church belives and teaches these men, though usually couching it in less starkly reprehensible language.”
I agree. And it’s fascinating that Mary’s probe of what another ill-educated priest thinks about these matters confirms your conclusion here.
I see a straight line between that fatuous assumption of the priest teaching moral theology in the seminary courses I describe above–the assumption that a clerical collar is an irresistible aphrodisiac to some women–and the transubstantiated-soul thesis.
These are the kinds of things some sorts of men keep telling themselves, particularly in elite, enclosed, cosseted cultures. The kinds of self-serving things some sorts of men keep telling themselves. The kinds of self-serving things untested by any reality broader than that of their club.
And I think the roots of the abuse crisis run right back to those self-serving assumptions of a cosseted elite–which is fighting tooth and nail, in the church’s current controlling sector, to preserve the clerical club and all that goes with it, no matter what the cost to the church as a whole.