Scylla and Charybdis were mythological creatures who endangered sailors when they tried to sail between them. One or the other smashing-together monster was bound to get the unlucky. For the religiously devoted person who preys on children the two entities are the church and the state. By devoted, I mostly mean a priest or person in religious orders who is under the discipline of the Holy Roman Church, but there are other religious institutions in other regions (Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, tribal, Shinto) that presumably have the same problems as translated into their culture. In fact, I would be VERY interested to know the statistics and practices of those break-off Catholic institutions who did NOT insist on a celibate priesthood: Russian Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican religions.
“As in the Roman Catholic Church, Oriental Orthodoxy and some other churches, Orthodox bishops trace their lineage back to the Apostles through the process of Apostolic Succession.” (wikipedia) This is their replacement for the genetic succession of families. In the developmental trajectories of the Roman Catholic church, once considered sovereign over Europe, celibacy was intended to prevent corruption due to trying to develop dynastic power and wealth, while the royal houses of various countries who accepted genetic inheritance and entitlement could not very well go to celibacy. (Instead they got caught up in problems with barren wives and in-breeding.) Neither approach to the succession of power has been foolproof, but the alternative, succession by open elections, also has problems. Power and wealth are always problematic, most of all at the point of transfer.
The Roman Catholic Church once monopolized supra-national territory which it divided into parishes, which had jurisdiction over everyone there. But the competition of Protestantism forced Catholicism to transform itself into a “gathered” church, in which the believers share their neighborhoods with non-believers. Today, of course, religions of various regions of the globe are so mixed that most religions have a central core location and a shadow of diaspora adherents, who often wander off when they are removed from the original ecology of the belief system. The Roman Catholics insisted that celibate priests were a sign of virtue, part of their privileged access to God. The church has insisted on its own courts, laws and penalties. (We are hearing about the Islamic parallels like Sharia law.) Much of this work is meant to take compromising matters into their own hands so as to protect the reputation -- the juju, if you like -- of the church.
The problem for a pederast priest is how to thread a self-protective rabbit-run between the legal machinery of the church and the legal machinery of the secular world. If they begin to cooperate, it will be hard on the pederast. But if the Church lets the secular law-enforcers take over, they -- like an American Indian tribe -- lose their sovereignty and a lot of the secrecy that protects their image. The same problem exists with the religious orders, which are much more self-contained and not under the direct rule of the pope. No one has talked much about monks, male, who might or might not be ordained priests; or nuns. The power plays and secrecies among and between these organizational entities have got to be incredibly complex, esp. when considered historically.
In America, corporations have grown so large that they compete with the governments -- in fact, are international -- and we are rethinking the idea that a corporation is a “person” entitled to the protections of a “person.” We do not think that a church is a “person,” though the Pope might personify the Roman Catholics and the Dalai Lama might personify a certain kind of Tibetan Buddhism. But we do rather accept the idea that a church might be a corporation with a CEO, though we might imagine that they operate in a more protective and idealistic way than the average conglomerate. It is this imaginary assumption that allows churches to insist that they be exempted from secular law and taxation. The idea is that they do so much good in the community that this contributes to the good of the whole. It’s a shaky idea these days.
Scandal like pedophilia raises questions about privileged religious corporations, whose privilege rests on virtue, that is very dangerous for them. The church might lose protections like the laws in some states that recognize the Seal of the Confession (a great fav plot device) in somewhat the same way that the secular law recognizes that married people should not be forced to testify against each other. Committed couples (and society WILL get around to accepting the idea of same sex couples eventually) are the basic stabilizer of society: economically, residentially, and parentally. At one time the state believed that religion, in valorizing the status of married couples, was helping to stabilize them, but that only works well if the couples and their families are same religion, or at least in reconcilable religious systems. Now sometimes they are not, or maybe it is secular values that hold the couple together. At the core is economics, just like everything else.
A priest or anyone else who preys on children cannot be defended. So far contraception and economic parity between the sexes has only begun to move the ideas of various cultures around. What do you suppose the conservative Islam forces (okay, the Taliban) do about religious men who prey on children? I suspect they’re not around to make a report. I expect they didn’t get shifted to a different parish. I’d like to hear about it, if anyone can find out.
When the big sexual liberation struck in the Sixties and Seventies, we had a struggle in the UUA, not with people who preyed on children, but people who had cast off marriage, saying it was “just a piece of paper,” merely secular. Clergy DID get themselves snarled up in some nasty messes, mostly adult heterosexual stuff. I think the same thing happened in many subset denominations of Christianity, depending on their capacity to keep apart and secret. (If you’re a UU, don’t even THINK about secrecy! No such thing.) UU leaders were startled to realize that the American Buddhists were having the same problems. Obviously our privileged secular leaders got into the same fixes. These are human responses, unwise and unholy. But not institutionalized privilege used to hide the virtueless
Somehow the rules for children have not been addressed. Why not? Children must be nurtured and protected. It is now possible to tell who the daddy is. No man can hide from the evidence. The secular law now requires that both parents contribute to the care of the child, if only by writing a check. In some states you can’t get a fishing license if you don’t pay your paternity obligation.
I don’t see how religious bodies can escape surrendering power to secular forces or at least collaborating with secular authorities to throw out all priests convicted of molesting children. After all, the Roman Catholic Church throws out all priests who get married. Personally, I’d just as soon see illegitimate fishers of men who call themselves “father” or “brother” crushed between the forces of Scylla and Charybdis. For the sake of all the little fishes in the sea.
Some of this thinking was prompted by the program “To the Point.” Elaine Pagels was especially helpful with her historical focus. It does get past the salacious stuff and go to the REAL stuff, which is money and power. The program is archived here:
http://www.kcrw.com/news/programs/tp/tp100331pedophile_priests_an#idc-container
1 comment:
From what I've read over the years, and heard about, it seems to me the real problem is the insistence on total celibacy. The pressure of sexlessness makes sexuality all the more powerful—as any depth psychologist would affirm, what you repress tends to pop up elsewhere, usually more virulently and problematically.
I've talked to some Russian Orthodox pastors and lay clerics who have told me that the incidence of ALL forms of priestly sexual abuse is much lower in their churches than in Catholicism. I've heard similar things from Zen students who have asked their Zen priests and masters about the issue. The monastery can be a pressure-cooker for all things, and not everyone is suited to that life.
I've also read the memoirs of ex-monks and excommunicated priests, and they all say similar things: the real problem is celibacy. It attracts those who want to repress their own sexual urges out of self-hatred (which is often a self-hatred taught by the church institution itself), or out of unrealistic expectations of personal self-mastery. People are drawn to celibacy who would deny their own sexualities. People are drawn to the Catholic priesthood because it's been sold as a solution to problems of the flesh—rather than what it genuinely is, a crucible for self-mastery.
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