Reflections on the current clerical sex scandals [I]
“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor” [Exodus 20:16; Deuteronomy 5:20].
Fr Adriano Pelosin, PIME missionary, with street children of Thailand
Sexual abuse is a heinous crime present throughout society. It is a terrible disservice to the victims when we forget or ignore that, and let other sectarian interests become our prior concern. Across many parts of the western world, priest sexual abuse cases haunt Catholic parishes.
A few years before his passing in 1998, Fr. Bernard Haring, the renowned and venerable moral theologian, suggested to Pope John Paul II to invite Amnesty International to come into the Catholic Church to clean up the mess of abuses. His reason was as frank and insightful as it was stunning in simplicity. “Because,” he said, “the Church is unable to correct itself.”
We would like to think that the reason Fr. Haring was not “excommunicated” for making such a seemingly “outrageous” claim was a combination of his stature and old age, and the Pope’s magnanimity!
Yet the truth, we all know from life, is usually very simple. And this simple truth courageously spoken by a great son of the Church to its supreme leader of the time is worthy of serious meditation by all who love the Church.
To be sure, Fr. Haring’s practical suggestion is not without Scriptural precedence. In Scriptural accounts, God often used even pagan nations to bring judgment and correction upon His people when they strayed from their calling as God’s chosen people and holy nation — when they engaged in cult idolatry, arrogance and every manner of sexual perversion, and mistreating the most vulnerable, widows, orphans, strangers and the least in society.
“The Church is unable to correct itself.” Structures are too entrenched and for too long. Reform is long overdue. Too much is at stake; there is simply too much of the vested interests to protect. But did Jesus emerge from his cleansing experience in the wilderness – a necessary exercise to take by all who wish to minister in His name – to steadfastly live and preach God’s kingdom all the way to Calvary, or did he try to uphold sectarian human interests regardless?
“The Church is unable to correct itself.” So we can feel a sense of gratitude to the journalists. For thanks to them, they have challenged a stubborn world of church-politics and were instrumental in pushing it towards justice. And thanks to them, the Spirit has been aided precisely in their relentless work to uncover and expose the evils of sex scandals in the Roman Catholic Church as well as elsewhere. That dimension of the media’s contribution towards truth and justice in society cannot be gainsaid, but ought to be duly credited.
That said, the current spate of the news media’s target-specific and relentless attacks on the Catholic Church alone has in turn brought discredit to the media, or at least some sectors of the media bent on such an exclusive slant. Whether intentional or otherwise, an exclusive slant tends to distort the over all picture. Even more, as some publications went overboard in this regard, they have unwittingly persuaded many in society, Catholics and non-Catholics alike, to conclude that they are excessive, vindictive, anything but fair, and even malicious in intent. When a news report lacks objectivity, it places its trustworthiness in serious jeopardy, its contribution to society in doubt, and society as a whole pays for its false witness.
To be sure, there is no question that the Church must face directly any instance of the heinous crime of sexual abuse of minors perpetrated by a member of the clergy or other church personnel or volunteer. It is strategically wrong, in our view, to shun any light directed upon the Church, however much we may be tempted to do so. For by now, nobody can possibly argue against the need to reach out to the victims and learn from any past mistakes, instead of focusing exclusively on protecting the alleged “good name” of the perpetrators and of “the church” (we will also need to seriously think what “the church” means in a future post) as was done before. We are only talking about practical needs; true repentance, though, is something else, and is a very complicated thing..
What is often missing from recent news media reports is a proper perspective. Can we Catholics learn something – some broader issues – in this media onslaught, before we move on to deal with some major intra-Church issues which we, as a faith community, seriously need to do, for our own see-judge-act?
For a start, the following five guidelines appear to us to be some objective principles, amongst others, useful to keep in mind when we read any media reports or commentaries from any source:
[1] Know where the author is coming from…
In recent months, news reports and media comments on clerical sex scandals have been raining down on us like a plague in Egypt of Moses’ time. For ourselves, to maintain a measure of objectivity when we read the myriad reports and reactions, it is helpful to keep in the forefront of our consciousness where the authors are coming from and where they are going. Every piece of writing, from a theological reflection to a political speech, from a news report to a historical analysis, embodies a position and an attitude. To be clear about their starting points goes a long way towards comprehending their end points – where they intend to take us to – and thereby be better able to objectively assess their positive and negative slants.
[2] Exclusive focus on one group is unjust reporting
For the light cast by the media to truly be of benefit to victims, to their families and to society as a whole, we must insist upon media-objectivity. We need to discount their objectivity when authors repeatedly focus attention upon a single group, as some patently do on the Roman Catholic Church, without balancing their reporting through directing equal attention on all organizations in the society that deal with children or vulnerable populations. This is “unjust reporting” because it very unjustly makes the Roman Catholic Church out to be the singularly “evil religious institution”, “not a force for good in society” and so on. As the Chinese would put it: “Don’t catch a crook by bamboo-whacking the entire boat!”
[3] Failure to give the larger picture exaggerates what is reported
Pedophilia is not a Catholic problem; it is a problem across the whole spectrum of society. It is a scourge in society and, precisely because of its infliction in the Catholic Church, exposes it as an institution which is all too human, like everyone else. Still, we in the Church must acknowledge that to their credit, those predators in secular organizations did not pretend to be doing God’s work!
In her April 8 issue of Newsweek, Pat Wingert states that the scourge of sexual abuse of children “includes priests and ministers and rabbis, of course, but also family members, friends, neighbours, teachers, coaches, scout leaders, youth-group volunteers, and doctors. According to federal studies, three-quarters of abuse occurs at the hands of family members or others in the victim’s ‘circle of trust.’”
Even more telling, she cites sources and data to show the kind of false witness in media reports. She writes:
- “The Catholic sex-abuse stories emerging every day suggest that Catholics have a much bigger problem with child molestation than other denominations and the general population. Many point to peculiarities of the Catholic Church (its celibacy rules for priests, its insular hierarchy, its exclusion of women) to infer that there’s something particularly pernicious about Catholic clerics that predisposes them to these horrific acts. It’s no wonder that, back in 2002—when the last Catholic sex-abuse scandal was making headlines – a Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll found that 64 percent of those queried thought Catholic priests “frequently” abused children. Yet experts say there’s simply no data to support the claim at all.”
Wingert cites one expert after another saying, “We don’t see vast difference in the incidence rate between one denomination and another”; “It’s pretty even across the denominations”; “It’s been that way for decades”.
But why does one get the impression that abuse cases are exceptionally prevalent in the Catholic Church as an institution or Catholic priests as a group of professionals? First, there is the sheer size of the Church. Second, the exclusive media focus on the Catholic Church has produced an exaggerated impression. Third, Catholic priests may also appear more likely to molest children because cases of abuse come to light in huge waves. Victims of sex abuse often take a long time to step forward, mostly when they are in their thirties or forties, after therapy has eased their suffering from depression and shattered relationships. Then, allegations made and reported by the media encouraged other victims to step forward, and they snowballed. This is what happened in the US, the UK and in Ireland, and has begun to happen in central Europe. Fourth, the Catholic Church “has historically been bad at punishing (or preventing) molesters, so that many cases might come to light when just one priest is finally exposed. A single predator priest with ongoing access to children might be responsible for an immense raft of abuse cases.”
[4] Vindictive, scurrilous and biased campaign is not fair reporting
Sam Miller is a prominent Jewish businessman from Cleveland, USA, who spoke out in defence of the Catholic Church. Having had “disgustingly enough” of what he describes as “a concentrated effort by the media to denigrate the Catholic Church” in America, he is “fighting mad about it.
“During my entire life I’ve never seen a greater vindictive, more scurrilous, biased campaign against the Catholic Church as I have seen in the last 18 months, and the strangest thing is that it is in a country like the United States where there is supposed to be mutual respect and freedom for all religions.”
[5] Magnifying the negatives without stressing the positives is bearing false witness
The failure to give due credit for the beautiful, noble, and benign in the Catholic Church is pervasive. When the media relentlessly reports nothing but the ugly and the malicious about the Catholic Church, making it out to be an evil institution, its witness is clearly both false and unjust.
In the field of educating the young, for example, Miller asks: “Do you know, the Catholic Church educates 2.6 million students everyday at the cost to that Church of 10 billion dollars, and a savings on the other hand to the American taxpayer of 18 billion dollars. The graduates go on to graduate studies at the rate of 92%.” He points out that the Church runs 230 colleges and universities in the U.S. with an enrollment of 700,000 students.
In the field of medical care, citing another example, he points out that the “Catholic Church has a non-profit hospital system of 637 hospitals, which account for hospital treatment of 1 out of every 5 people — not just Catholics — in the United States today.”
Yet, “the press is vindictive and trying to totally denigrate in every way the Catholic Church in this country. They have blamed the disease of pedophilia on the Catholic Church, which is as irresponsible as blaming adultery on the institution of marriage.”
Point taken. And Miller has not even begun to talk about the literally countless hospices, old folks’ homes, social welfare services and so on and so forth which are undertaken by Catholics throughout the globe, on voluntary basis. Don’t we all know that in many parts of the world, when situations get really tough and when real, sacrificial, and high-risk social work needs to be done, the people and even the civil authorities know that the only volunteer social workers they can still count on are Roman Catholics?
In stark contrast to all these unjust reporting, therefore, Miller, speaking from a different religious tradition, says to every Catholic in America: “Be proud that you’re a Catholic.”
Now to choose but one example from across the other side of the globe in Bangkok, Fr Adriano Pelosin, a PIME missionary in Thailand, believes that reporting the crime is not enough. He speaks from pastoral experience in caring for street children saved from the grips of prostitution and slavery. In his view, abuse must be reported but compassion is also needed for the abusers and their victims. He rightly sees this as a time of purification for the Church and an examination of conscience for the world. There are “so many abuses before which the rich world seems completely indifferent: abortion, poverty, infant mortality due to lack of care”.
His pastoral insight is useful for ongoing reflection:
- “I live in the midst of so many cases of victims of paedophilia, not by priests but by members of the family circle of the victims: fathers who abuse their children, older siblings who abuse younger siblings, uncles and relatives who abuse grandchildren… It is something that deeply affects children. Yet I’d rather not talk about it publicly, not make them the subject of conversation. First, because otherwise I risk pushing the victims to despair; secondly because focusing exclusively on the negative leads nowhere. It is much better to be discreet and help the perpetrators and victims. Only in this way can something positive come out of these bitter experiences.”
Copyright © Dr. Jeffrey & Angie Goh, May 2010. All rights reserved.
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