Reflections on the current clerical sex scandals [IV]
“When one of you has a grievance against a brother, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints? …. To have lawsuits at all with one another is defeat for you” [1 Cor 6:1,7].[2]
Statue of St. Peter in front of St. Peter’s Basilica.
The third intra-church issue relates to litigation arising from clerical sex scandals and the colossal sums of money some American dioceses have had to pay so far.
The questions often put to us are: Is it right for victims of these clerical sex abuses to take their cases to court – to sue the priests and bishops? Is it right to cause the Church to suffer a bad name in public? Is it right to get monetary compensation from the Church? Why don’t the victims just make some sacrifices, carry their crosses and walk away, and let these scandals disappear over time? Why can’t they just forgive?
We assume that people who raise questions such as these are neither the victims nor their families. Yet, the problem is not that simple, for St Paul is problematic!
[1] Where St Paul is problematic
In the First Letter to the Corinthians, Paul said three things which are as useful as they are problematic.
First, Paul drew clear boundaries separating those in the Church and those in the world. Their lack of faith rendered outsiders “unrighteous”, compared to believers whom he called “saints”. Paul was vehement about what it meant to be a Christian community – one that manifested a deep concern for Christian values, maintained the standards that all believers willingly honoured, and set boundaries beyond which members would not cross.
Second, he imposed a caveat against taking internal matters of the faith community to external tribunals, it being most unseemly for Christians to bring their disputes before the “unrighteous” in secular courts. Believers must resolve their disputes internally, with fellow Christians acting as binding arbitrators. Grievances should be settled “in the family”. Paul the serious Christian compelled the Corinthian believers to face up to the full implications of their Christian faith in all their actions. If they wanted to call themselves Christians, they had better behave like people who belonged to a faith community and settle their disputes by their own people.
Third, that having been said, however, Paul would prefer to promote the right Christian spirit of meekness and charity rather than litigious Christians. After all that was said and done, Paul returned to a singularly essential principle. It was already a defeat, he said, to have lawsuits among brothers and sisters in faith anyway. True Christian actions were those inspired by the spirit of love, not the desire for recompense and crude justice.
And yet, we have no hesitation in saying that the victims of clerical sex abuse were entitled to take their cases to court. Why?
[2] Judge according to compliance with Christ’s ways
James Martin, SJ, said beneath all the shock and anger, the searing question for Catholics is: How could it happen?
The Murphy Commission Report, for example, has severely criticised the Irish bishops for dealing “particularly badly with complaints”. It stresses that a failure by the bishop to conduct proper investigation is inexcusable.
Sr Joan Chittister sums it up well:
- “After stories of the first few high-profile cases of serial rapes and molestations and their unheard of numbers died down, the focus shifted away from individual clerical rapists to the unmasking of what was now obviously a systemic problem. This prevailing practice of episcopal cover-ups, of moving offenders from one parish to another rather than expose them either to legal accountability or to moral censure in the public arena, occupied the spotlight. It was a practice that saved the reputation of the church at the expense of children. It traded innocence for image.”
What caused the victims to sue the Church?
The answers to that question are personal, social and ecclesiological.
At the personal and social levels, victims finally experienced a need to heal themselves by reclaiming a sense of control over their lives through voluntary exposures. They had reached a point where they wanted to stop living in the shadow of victimhood and powerlessness. They had struggled for truth and justice, for healing and peace. But, before anything else, truth – the whole truth is the key. Sex abuse is extremely traumatic. When the victims did finally came into the open to speak up, we get to learn that not only had their bodies been violated, their voices had been taken away as well. They either did not know how to speak because they were young and embarrassed, or they were not believed when they did speak up [“How dare you say such evil things about a priest?”], or, worst of all, they were threatened and muffled when they did try to speak up. Silence, isolation, shame, and traumatic pain became part of their cross. To find the courage to speak out about the unspeakable ghost is liberating. Furthermore, consciously or unconsciously, survivors are drawing our attention to the ongoing evil of cover-up and concealment.
At the ecclesiological level, for too long has there been these “disordered relationships” between the bishops and the clergy on the one hand and the laity on the other hand. The spate of litigation has revealed that the all-male power structure vested in a small minority employed the worst tactics of its secular counterparts: Silencing victims, treating them and their families like dirt when they referred the matters to the Church authorities, covering up crimes, shifting bad priests around much like company managers did in covering up bad debts and presenting them as serviceable, profit-making accounts. In his pastoral letter to Ireland in March this year, Pope Benedict XVI said many things, one of which is that he acknowledged the toxic role of clericalism as a cause of scandal.
So let us be clear about a few things.
First, by now, it is clear beyond any shadow of doubt that it is the poor handling of reports of paedophilia by bishops that has precipitated the current crisis for the Catholic Church. Fear of exposure made them abandon reason and abdicated responsibility. They covered up for the offenders and neglected the victims, adopting a strategy of flat denials where necessary, and blocking all public investigations where possible. The bishops cannot possibly bring out St Paul’s injunction against taking brothers to court in the hope of stopping the victims of sexual abuse in the hands of priests and religious from initiating court actions, when it was the priests and the bishops themselves who were the victimizers in the first place, and who habitually put the interests of the priests ahead of the interests of the young innocent victims whom they were supposed to protect. A prompt-memory of Paul’s injunction against law suits is matched only by an early-amnesia of his excommunication decree! The private interests of the ordained have for too long been confused with – and passed off as – the common good of the Church, the people of God.
Second, the victims had nowhere to go but to turn to the secular courts for redress, for at least there, they could have “their day in court” and be properly heard.
Third, St Paul’s clear division of the “righteous” from the “unrighteous” does not apply today where both the judiciary as well as the legal profession are now made up of people of different faiths, including Christians. Nor does St Paul’s injunction against Christians washing dirty linen in public apply in our present context. Fr. Fortunato Di Noto, the president of Meter Association, which fights pederasty on the Internet, recently told ZENIT that “Benedict XVI and the Catholic hierarchy have assumed, without feigning or hypocrisy, a hard task, because the Church can never abandon, the need to cleanse the filth that stains and burdens Peter’s boat.” Precisely on this point, he cited the statements of Bishop Crociata and Cardinal Bagnasco of the Italian Bishops’ Conference and said these must “serve as a warning above all to certain somewhat retrograde Catholic clerics who still dare to say that ‘dirty rags are washed in the family,’ and that facts of this kind shouldn’t be divulged so as not to create alarmism and mistrust in the faithful.”
Fourth, we must not confuse accountability with forgiveness. Forgiveness does not excuse justice and responsibility. An appeal for forgiveness may be a cover to evade accountability. Catholic moral theology has always made it clear that accountability and forgiveness are not two alternatives but are two complementary aspects of a larger process. This teaching demands that there be an unequivocal apology for moral guilt (not to be tainted by mere excuses), a forthright request for forgiveness for an inexcusable act, and a clear acceptance of responsibility in the form of personal accountability for serious moral wrongdoing.
Fifth, this is the twenty-first century. People are educated. Educated people know that what is done by a legitimate civil authority is not necessarily the law; rather, what is done by a legitimate civil authority must be done in accordance with the law, else the people can take the authority to face the law! Even more so, what is done by a legitimate authority in the Church is not necessarily the wish of Christ; rather, what is done by a legitimate authority in the Church must be done in accordance with the wishes of Christ.
Sixth, we must not preach one thing in one place and act in a contrary manner in another place. The Lord Jesus said in no uncertain terms: “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung round his neck and he were thrown into the sea” (Mark 9:42; Matt 18:6; Luke 17:1-2). In many western countries there is a common piece of legislation that insists on the ‘Child Paramountcy Principle’ which requires that the best interests of the child must be regarded as the paramount consideration when making decisions on the child’s welfare. We therefore cannot insist on anything less than this: what is good for the children is good and what is bad for the children is ungodly. To say and act otherwise is not acting in persona Christi; it is acting against Christ.
Seventh, the Church is full of official social teaching, but if the hierarchy does not practise social justice, then the laity must remind them to match words with actions. While the hierarchy labours over “saving the ministry of the priest”, the laity is obliged to demand of the hierarchy not to expose innocent souls to further harm.
Then, we cannot ignore the silent power of deterrence which comes with prison terms, punitive fines and perhaps worst of all, infamous publicity. A recent comment by a Methodist Pastor hits home the message:
- “I am United Methodist clergy, and I can guarantee you that our denomination has a history of the same type of cover up, shuffle the problem around with no advance warning, etc. I do not know of an Annual Conference (think diocese) which hasn’t paid out big bucks for abuse cases. The one big difference is that once burned, Methodists got proactive and set up policies and procedures to handle problems and better screen out potential problems. Did it work, no there are still pastors going to jail for current offenses. The problem can be reduced but never eliminated, and legal judgments are sadly the most likely the best motivator to be aggressive in screening and dealing with the perpetrators.”
[3] Where St Paul can again be useful
It has been a colossal case of abuse of power which needed an external agent to bring about the overdue attention the matter deserves. The Church has had to pay a very high price to get out of her own moral slumber. But if the lessons are learned, and if there is genuine repentance and conversion beyond the mere utterances of “mea culpa”, beginning with the episcopate and the clergy, the Church will emerge purified, stronger and holier. Concretely, there is much to be done. The “official” Church must show sincerity and demonstrate that it would no longer be derelict of its office. This must be backed up by a truly impartial body set up to handle complaints of sex abuse by the clergy. To have any credibility, this body must comprise a full representation by the laity, and must zealously uphold the twin principles of transparency and accountability. When this is done, we will then say that St Paul’s injunction should once again be followed even by the victims and their families.
So far, the mistakes made by leaders in the Church are not confined simply to misunderstandings on Christian reconciliation, but they come more from a lack of real love and compassion for those who are victimized and suffering or from a lack of appreciation of what is really happening in serious conflicts. If we are to have a future in reconciliation, peace and forgiveness, then that has got to be based on what God wants – which is truth, justice and love. This we learn from Jesus who makes no attempt to compromise with the authorities for the sake of a false peace of reconciliation or unity. Instead, He forgives those considered “sinners” in the eyes of religious authorities and blesses the poor, but condemns the attitude and behaviour of the Pharisees and the rich in no uncertain terms.
[4] What are the bishops saying now?
In his pastoral letter for Pentecost 2010 on Sexual Abuse of the Young in the Catholic Church, entitled “Seeing the Faces, Hearing the Voices,” Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Canberra and Goulburn in Australia said the Church has been “slow and clumsy, even at times culpable”, in shaping our answer to such questions as crime and punishment. “True, sin must be forgiven, but so too must crime be punished. Both mercy and justice must run their course, and do so in a way that converges.”
Victims of clerical sex abuse were so badly hurt and violated, that they are entitled to see that justice is done. In this regard, Bishop Giuseppe Versaldi of Alessandria, Italy, on March 16, 2010 defended Pope Benedict’s “rigour” in the effort to stop these abuses in the Church. He said: “The Church does not intend to tolerate any uncertainty about the condemnation of the crime or about the removal from the ministry of one who stains himself with such infamy, together with just reparation to the victims.” And on the Italian Bishops’ Conference’s decision to state publicly the number of open prosecutions against priests for sexual abuses, this has been hailed as a “courageous and transparent” decision.
Pope Benedict, again, has highlighted the “profound need to accept purification”. The Pontiff told journalists on the flight from Rome to Portugal on May 11: “We see in a really terrifying way today greatest persecution of the Church does not come from enemies outside the Church, it is born of the sin of the Church. The church thus has a deep need to re-learn penance, to accept purification, to learn on one hand forgiveness but also the necessity of justice. Forgiveness does not exclude justice. We have to re-learn the essentials: conversion, prayer, penance, and the theological virtues.”
These are encouraging words, of which many are increasingly heard of late. They offer fresh hopes that church leaders are now prepared to do the right things in the right way.
On June 25, the Vatican expressed “intense shock” over a series of raids carried out by the Belgian judicial authorities on Church offices in Belgium, which included drilling holes in the graves of two former cardinals looking for secret documents regarding child sexual abuse. The bishops of Belgium who were at their monthly meeting were detained for nine hours as the police searched the offices and the Cathedral of Mechelen. It is surprising, to say the least, to read the bishops’ press release which states in part: “It was not an agreeable experience, but everything was carried out correctly. The bishops have always said that they have confidence in justice and in their work. The present search is accepted with the same confidence and because of this, for the moment, they abstain from making further comments.” When Catholics around the world were naturally appalled and incensed by these seemingly rude and crude raids, all the more can we see the extent to which the Belgian bishops are willing to go to collaborate with the civil authorities in the matter of clerical sex abuse as a positive step towards accountability and transparency.
Footnotes:
[1] Fr. James E. Connell, a Canon Lawyer, has on June 17 written an “Open Letter to All Catholics” detailing his concern over one American diocese (illegitimately) raising the standard of proof before referring a case against an alleged priest-paedophile to the civil authorities. His letter is available on the net.
[2] Parts of this post are taken and revised from our book, Living the Gospel: St Paul’s Call to Match Words with Actions in First Corinthians, pp.81-104.
Copyright © Dr. Jeffrey & Angie Goh, July 2010. All rights reserved.
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