In retirement Pope Benedict has written an article for a Bavarian journal for priests on the causes of the sexual abuse crisis. I largely agree, and the article is not an exhaustive catalogue, but there are still some serious omissions.
The causes that Benedict identifies are
- A loss of a lively as opposed to an abstract belief in God.
- The denial of the teaching authority of the Church in matters of morality
- The sexual revolution in the 1960s
- The sole focus on protecting rights of accused priests.
It should be noted that Benedict uses the term pedophilia. This is inaccurate, but is a widespread shorthand for the abuse of young people and I think it is clear that this is what Benedict means. True pedophilia, sexual activity with pre-pubertal children, is rare and in fact declined among Catholic priest in the United States over the past two generations.
To begin with the last cause.
Benedict writes that the Congregation for the Clergy was almost exclusively focused on protecting rights of accused priests to the point that it was almost impossible to get a conviction and a removal from the priesthood.
This is correct and is a result of the clericalism that enabled the coverup. The laity in the church were seen as existing for the sake of priests. The priest’s administration of the sacraments was seen, implicitly or explicitly, as the most important activity that pleased God. If a corrupt priest destroyed the faith of the laity, the priest was still pleasing God by offering the eucharist. I am not sure how explicitly this was articulated, but this attitude encouraged the Congregation for the Clergy to do everything possible to keep priests active in the priesthood. Bishops got the message, and rarely fought the Congregation. Cardinal Wright, despite his checkered career, was one of the few who fought the Congregation to remove an abusive priest.
Benedict says this problem was why sexual abuse cases were removed from the Congregation for the Clergy, where they logically belong, to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Abusers were destroying faith of their victims. Benedict cites a peculiarly horrible example. One abuser before he would abuse a girl, said: “This is my body given for you.”
Clericalism definite enabled and encouraged the cover-up of abuse. Benedict does not say that it also enables the abuse by placing priests above criticism in the eyes of the laity, but I think he would probably agree to that.
Benedict also identifies as a cause the lack of a lively faith in God. God had become an abstraction in theological system and clerics lacked what John Henry Newman called a realization of faith: they did not feel that the realities of faith were in fact true, and that God was a transcendent yet present and almost unendurable reality.
The widespread questioning of moral teachings by Catholic theologians also contributed to undermining the authority of the Church’s teaching on sexual morality. I think this is true. Whatever the intentions of the theologians, what many people heard was that all absolutes were gone and that they should engage in their own sexual projects, as their consciences, which they interpreted as their feelings, led them.
As a consequence, many people in the church surrendered to the sexual revolution; nothing was absolutely forbidden, including adult-child sex. The radicals of the 1960s in Germany and elsewhere propagandized for and practiced adult-child sex. Homosexual clubs formed in seminaries. A bishop when he was a seminary rector showed seminarians pornographic films. The first seminary visitation was a farce. All of this is true, and fueled sexual abuse.
But there are two omissions in Benedict’s catalog, one he will never address and one he may or may not have considered, because it concerns a deeper problem.
First: Pope John Paul II refused to deal with sexual abuse beyond a few anodyne remarks. John Paul protected abusers like Maciel and refused to listen to pleas, including from Cardinal Schoenborn, to act. Why?
Second: Sexual abuse did not begin in the sixties. The Holy Office had extensive files from the Counter-Reformation on solicitation in the confessional. St. John Calasanctius founded the Piarists and covered up a bad case of abuse in one of his schools to avoid alienating the Cherubini family which was influential at the Vatican. When the Jesuit archives were uncovered after the French revolution there were many cases of abuse in them.
In many cultures, pederasty is a widespread and accepted practice. By pederasty I mean a sexual liaison between an older man and an adolescent or young man, the type of liaisons that Cardinal McCarrick engaged in. The classical world was full of such relationships. American soldiers who have served in the Middle East have been horrified and disgusted by the practice of man-boy relationships among Muslims, who condemn homosexuality, but do not consider themselves homosexuals when they engage in sex with boys.
The Jews condemned same-sex relationships, and one of the main Jewish objections to Hellenizing was based on the practice of youths exercising in the nude in the gymnasia. The LORD was beyond sex; He had no consort but created by His word. But human procreation participated in the divine creativity and human beings were created in the image of God. Procreation therefore was under a special divine government, and crimes against procreation, such as the sterility of Sodom, were punished by fire. Those who looked back at Sodom were turned into sterile pillar of salt, and those who had been contaminated by it, like Lot, fell into incest.
The abiding male tendency to pederasty is perhaps based upon a narcissism which sees in the young male lost vigor and wishes to identify with it. It is certainly a widespread tendency that crops up in the Church (and elsewhere) – Peter Damian wrote an extensive denunciation of such sins. Societies must cultivate a strong taboo, as strong as the incest taboo, to make this practice almost nonexistent, and clearly the Church has failed to do this. The abuse will continue, and the corruption will encourage silence about true pedophilia (the abuse of pre-pubertal children) and abuse of women and girls. Pope Francis denounces the abuse of children, but he considers sex between adults (and the age of consent has been sometimes very, very young, as low as 7) as a minor peccadillo, so I do not expect any significant reforms during his pontificate.
You are spot on, as usual.
Your historical perspective is so important here, Lee–we can’t blame a crisis on simply a non-human thing called “The Sixties” for the The Sixties is really just a label for the myriad human responses of leaders and laity to a rising sea of temptations that have been with man from the Fall. The temptations come and go and take different forms, while human beings are often responsible for the multiplication of “stumbling blocks” that Our Lord said would face us. Wolves are always around, which is why shepherds were appointed. Lots of bleeding sheep hurt by lupine shepherds! The Lord sees. Kyrie eleison!
Ratzinger on the sex abuse scandal | Truth and Tolerance
[…] UPDATE: Leon Podles, an expert on the American sex abuse scandals, wrote a better review than I did.… […]
The failure to punish abusive priests may have less to do with clericalism than the Church’s approach to the punishment of crime in general. The problem of pedastry is a problem of human nature and will be one that will be with us in the future, the issue at stake here is how to deal with it when the problem arises.
Theological trends, particularly in the 20th C, have emphaised the “Merciful” aspect of Christ at the expense of his Justice. Benedict now recognises that canon law reflects this and sees it as a fault.
You have to understand that if the Church was running a school manned by celibate male teachers, its response to sexual abuse within its ranks would have been exactly the same. It would have given the “sinners” multiple times to repent while paying little to no heed to the justice owed to the victims. It’s a feature of Catholic theology, not a fault. The clericalism aspect of this whole saga is just a circumstantial thing, not an essential feature of its pathology.
The Church, quite simply, is unable to punish because of its theology. The latest revision to the death penalty is a case in point. All concern about the sinners redemption, no concern about the justice owed to the victim. It’s the story of the sexual abuse crisis.
Lee, this is a comment I put up at Rod Dreher’s blog …
***
‘One bishop, who had previously been seminary rector, had arranged for the seminarians to be shown pornographic films, allegedly with the intention of thus making them resistant to behavior contrary to the faith.’
Let that sink in.
Seminarians were shown porn and prohibited from reading Ratzinger. They hid orthodox theology and read it on the sly as if it were porn and consumed porn in class as if it were orthodox theology.
This is nothing short of a demonic inversion.
And the rector who showed these young men sex films was made a bishop.
***
You confirm that Benedict’s report of this is true.
Do we know who this man is? Is he still a reigning bishop?
Thank you for your, perspective on Pope Benedict’s letter about the crisis in the Church. The historical background was very informative and helps me understand as a lay person what the “heck” is going on here. It has helped me to understand the complex reason WHY the Church has not been more formidable towards the abusive priest. I just finished a study on Revelations and it struck me that John speaks of cowards before murderers or fornicators etc as being left outside the walls. Cowards are those of us who do not speak out or do not want to “rock the boat”. I couldn’t help but think of the many clergy who will be left outside the gates calling for the Lord to be let in and being told by God “I do not know you.”
Thanks for this!!!
James Likoudis: Rev. Kenneth Untener (now Bishop) (died 2004) who, while Rector of St. John’s Seminary, Plymouth, MI, had seminarians view pornographic films which were part of the Sexual Attitude Restructuring Program (SAR);
Also see my new post on Seminary Education
The Church, quite simply, is unable to punish because of its theology. The latest revision to the death penalty is a case in point. All concern about the sinners redemption, no concern about the justice owed to the victim. It’s the story of the sexual abuse crisis.
Indeed, and Benedict was responsible for reinforcing that emphasis when, as head of CDF he conspired (note well that word) with JPII to put confusion into the CCC concerning capital punishment:
https://remnantnewspaper.com/web/index.php/articles/item/3460-killing-capital-punishment-how-pope-john-paul-set-precedent-for-pope-francis
I will go so far as to say that the emphasis on sacramental absolution for sin encourages recidivism and discourages true repentance. In a church in which so much depends on sacramental graces dispensed by priests, once a priest dispenses sacramental forgiveness through confession, the penitent thinks he’s off the hook — especially after performing robotic penances that do nothing to address the problem or its root.
I enjoyed this, and I am enjoying your book Sacrilege. There are, however, some typos in the article that I wish would be fixed. And I thought you would have said more. But the thought that occurred to me re: his letter was has to do with Pope Benedict’s lack of appreciation for the logic of the scientific method. The seminaries simply don’t cover this logic (modal, inductive, statistics, etc.), but the classical logic of Aristotle–which is fine, but very incomplete. From a scientific standpoint, it would be extremely difficult to locate the cause of the sexual abuse scandals–there are a host of conditions that together account for the crisis, and figuring out what those conditions are with any reasonable certitude is very difficult, if not impossible. To point to the sexual revolution is far too simple. Continue your great work.
You raise an important point. Forgiveness is a very difficult concept. If we, in true repentance, see the evil we have done as God sees it and acknowledge out responsibility and ask for forgiveness, God has promised to forgive us. This is an infinite blessing. But the evil we have done remains. How should the forgiven person regard it? He sees the reality of the evil he has done, and it is still there in the past,often poisoning the present and future. The raped child has had his life ruined and his faith destroyed. Does even the true repentance of the abusive priest change that?
@ Joseph D’Hippolito
Indeed, and Benedict was responsible for reinforcing that emphasis when, as head of CDF he conspired (note well that word) with JPII to put confusion into the CCC concerning capital punishment:
I wouldn’t see this as a “conspiratorial” type of thing rather more a consequence of theological developments in the 20th C which have led to this position. It’s not so much a question of religious “laxity” as much as it is of the individualisation/feminisation of religion. Benedict, I feel, has not fully grasped the nature of the problem but is beginning to do so when he talks about the Faith being a “legal good” which needs to be taken into account when it comes to the treatment of offending priests. i.e. It’s not just about the priests’ relationship with God, it’s taking into account the flow on effects of the sin and the wider dimensions of it. As Benedict rightly discerns most of the clergy can’t even fathom this concept.
This is why this is a problem that transcends both “liberal” and “conservative” factions of the Church: both have drunk the same Kool-Aid. It’s also why it’s not primarily a “sexual issue” at all. Homosexuality in the ranks may influence the type of sins/crimes committed but it is no way related to the way the Church deals with these matters. Look at the way the Church deals with financial crimes, it’s just as pathetic.
I will go so far as to say that the emphasis on sacramental absolution for sin encourages recidivism and discourages true repentance.
This may be so but in the modern context sacramental absolution is solely focused on the status of the personal relationship between God and the sinner and does not take into account externalities which may be affected by the sin. i.e victims don’t matter.
“Old Skool” theologians where far more conscious of this and recognised the importance of contrition and restorative justice as pre-conditions of absolution. They had a better sense of the wider implications of sin and were therefore “harder”. The “Gospel of Life” crowd are just as guilty as the liberals for this mess, being so focused one thing to the exclusion of others, so it’s no surprise the JPII and Benedict were just as useless in dealing with this disaster.
I’m really trying to be measured in my response here, but I think the Church is veering very close to heresy and both liberal and conservative factions are participating in it.
I don’t think it is a question of heresy so much as the failure, as you mention, to consider the wider effects of sin and what forgiveness could possibly mean when teh victim has suffered irreparable harm.
I lived my adolescence in the sixties, and date the American sexual revolution (if in fact wide spread at all) to the San Francisco 1967 summer of love. I recall Pope Benedict referring in his letter to the 1968 revolution. Perhaps he is speaking specifically to the German audience.
In any event, i recall too a specific chart in the John Jay report which indicated that the reported American abuse cases started to rise in 1960 and continued at a straight upward sloping line though 1980. I dont understand how one can blame a late 60s social change on the abuse increases in the 7 or 8 years prior to that. I cant fairly recall social sexual upheaval in the early 60s that would suggest a causative factor. If the revolution occurred in the late 60s, I dont see a change (acceleration) of abuse in the decade that followed. In my limited world view, I think younger lay Catholics in the 60s were more worried about the Vietnam Draft and were AWOL on the sexual revolution.
Most importantly, the youngish priests of the 60s and 70s were formed spiritually, morally, liturgically by the prevailing Catholic orthodox culture prior to and at the cusp of Vatican II. Presumably they grew up in ‘practicing’ Catholic families. They entered seminaries where presumably they were encouraged to live in non material sexually abstemious, apart from the broader lay society, fashion. Such a fashion being in line with and extension of what they learned in the home, again presumably. Else why would they be drawn to the rigors of the priesthood? If this argument is plausible, I cannot then reconcile that a sexual revolution, which did not dominate society as did the Civil Rights movement or the Vietnam war could be such a strong moral temptation to men who were committed to living apart from civil society