All this discussion of priests, child abuse, pedophilia, pornographic watches, etc., and you know that I would chime in eventually.
This is not a new problem. My beloved partner, with whom I am not with now, was abused by a Roman Catholic priest 45 years ago, more or less, and was raped and molested systematically, repeatedly, over a period of years, and he was one of a number of the boys in that parish who receoved the priest's attention. Pete displays every pathological symptom that follows from being abused as a priest. Tom Paciorek, sports announcer, former White Sox player, who is in his mid50s, recently went public how he was molested all those years ago, as were two of his brothers, by the same priest. Paciorek has dealth with his life in a better way than my lost partner. This is not an American problem. The prelate of Poland resigned in the last 6 weeks because, as he put it, people misunderstood the favors he was showing to young men. The best movie on the subject is "The Boys of St. Vincent" and is a Canadian film about a Canadian situation in a boarding school. This is not an issue of celibacy - although celibacy has a role, and it is not an issue of the ordination of women, for women can also be sexual predators of the young, and it is not an issue of homosexuality, and it is not a problem of heterosexuality. This is not a problem with American Roman Catholic clergy. It is a problem with Roman Catholic clergy, and it is worldwide, and I don't think most people have the scope of the size of the problem. I am not picking on Roman Catholics. Certainly there are problems with child molestation in every segment and strata of society in every generation of human history. We live in perhaps the most enlightened time period, post-Freud, for understanding the hoirrendous evil done to a child who is sexualized in violation of the normal development of sexuality in an individual. But what we have here now is a RC problem. And that has to to do with the function and structure of the RC church. There is very little, if anything, comprable to the power that is invested in the image of "Father." Any sexual abuse by any clergy is "worse" (as it were) than by other adults, or even other adults who arfe in authority positions vis a vis children, and that is because that brings in the "God" element. But the protestant pastor, the orthodox priest, the rabbi, do not have the power and authority that is invested in the role of Father. Today the pope has responded by saying that priests should be perfect. Wrong, pope. Wrong again. No human being is perfect. We are, as is said in the Lutheran liturgy, echoed in all protestant liturigies in some way shape or form, all of us sin bondage to sin, there is none of perfect, nor can we ever be. The expectations of protestant clergy can be awfully high and unrealistic, but we have never been weighed down with the burdens that have been set upon RC clergy persons. In all of the verbiage coming from the archbishops and cardinals about how they have so criminally handled these situations, note that they are saying, mea culpa, we will no longer handle this as a moral failing but as a psychological matter. Gees, these dudes will never get it. It is not a moral failure, so that one can be told, don't do it again, which they were told, and they did it again; treating this as a moral failure means that by one's own efforts one can pray enough or try hard enough and overcome one's moral weaknesses. Bullshit! And because it is a so-called moral failue, the hierarchy could never announce that a priest had done this, because that would weaken the public assumptions of the Roman Catholic priest collectively and as individuals. It would chip away at the facade of "Father." When protestant clergy commit such acts, it is far more likely that the bishop (or superintendent or conferance minister or by whatever terminology) will act, and given the absense of the secrecy of the RC heirarchy, you can bet anything that the word will spread. And if a protestant bishop (or by whatever terminology) were to merely counsel and then re-assign a child molesting clergy from one parish to another, that bishop would be ousted at the next scheduled election of bishop. Protestatnt clergy are not assigned as Roman clergy are; we get asked by the church committee that interviews, why did you leave your last parish, or why are you looking to move? Our laity talk to each other at our regular assemblies. When I was in the Lutheran church, because of our annual synod assemblies, I was known by at least one person in almost every parish in the synod. We lived our lives in a fishbowl. The UCC, in to which I am transferring, is the same way. And as a clergy person, I am prepared and willing to live myh life in a fishbowl. Not so with the Roman church. It is not a democratic body. Without reference to whether that is good or bad, it is a fact of life. There is no way that the pope will let Cardinal Law resign, because that would mean that the people made the decision by all of the protests calling for his resignation, and this pope, basically all popes, will not give in to public pressure because that would move the decision making away from the heirarchy and into the hands of the people, who would have successfully brought public pressure to bear. About 10 years ago in the local Episcipal diocese a well-known clergy was accused of sexual abuse (of adults) and the bishop got that priest out of that parish pretty damn fast since the annual diocesan assemly would have torn the bishop to shreds had the bishop not acted. Lo and behold, it turned out that the bishop himself was guilty of sexual abuse (of adults) and the presdiing bishop of the Episcopal church didn't evenneed to get on the phone with the local bishop, since the local bishop resigned rather than face public accountability by the people who elected him and entrusted him with the office of bishop. Accountability is the key. It does not occur in the Roman church because of the way it is structured. Anyone can go up to a protestant bishop (or superintendent or by whatever term) at any time and say, what the hell did you do this for? This limits us at times because sometimes our bishops are slow to act because they are covering their political ass. But it makes our bishops accountable, it makes our clergy accountable. The monthly church council meetings are about the people, not the pastor, making decisions, and the best we could do was attempt to persuade, to educate, to beg, or to answer questions about why we did what we did. Hell, every year at the annual meeting of the congregation, I had to stand there and face everyone and anyone could up any subject and I'd have to deal with it publicly. I couldn't even get divorced in private like you all; it was a congregational issue. And if my answers weren't good enough,. well, the accountability part of the meeting was always before they voted on the budget, to wit, my salary.... Whatever the psychological dimensions of sexual abuse of children, it is something that needs to be treated and treated NOW, not buried in a burearcracy that is out to preserve its own power. Look what is happening - the pope calls the cardinals to Rome to talk about to deal with this. It is all political for them. Why didn't the pope invite the victims, invite psychologists and therapists and lay people and experts and parfents who are scared? Because it is about power. And protestant or Jewish church body would have, and they have and they are, set up church wide committees with public meetings and reports made public to everyone, and the issue would be analyised and out there for all to see, and standards are set up, and reporting mechanisms... and the removal of clergy and any adult from the church who violates expectations... and as I type this, the pope is talking about the power of redemption - not treatment, but a moral issue again, and the pope is grieved because priests are supposed to emulate moral and holy lives... what bullshit, still. No clergy, no human being, can model a holy life. We can only call people to hear the Gospel and struggle together in our weaknesses to live as God has called us. This struggle to be holy, to be superman, is doomed to failure. The clergy person is not there to be some extraordinary saint-like icon that is superhuman and has none of the flaws of a human being; we are all sinful, we are all equal, none of us has the key to perfection and morality. We are called to be one of the people, with our calling we have a responsibility to teach, guide, lead, preach, struggle with our people, not because we are more holy, but probably because we are less holy - we are aware of our own weaknesses and thus aware, able to help others with theirs. It is no mistake that in the Lutheran liturgy, the pastor first confesses his/her sin before the people do - we are merely sinners as all are, redeemed as all are, with a calling to assist others in their life as a person created by God. The image of a priest as holier than the people has got to be destroyed before there will ever be ways to resolve these things in the Roman catholic church, and that won't happen as long as the hierarchy has so much invested in its power stemming from its supposed holiness. Power. Why is it that the ordination of women is so resisted? I remember the days when women were first ordained in the Lutheran church - we lost our good old boys club, no doubt about it, it opened up our clergy to whole new ways of relating, and power was lost by some people and suddenly given to a whole new group of people - and it was good, and needful, and long overdue. Women will never be ordained in a church that values hierarchy (and that includes the orthodox) not for any theological reason or Biblical reason but because it would open up the power structures and those with the power will not let go. (The Epsicopalians are unique here, not quite so hiearchiacal as they seem, the people have a striong and clear voice in the Epsicopal church, but there are still rearguard actions against womenm going on in some segements in the world wide Anglican community.) In the independent catholic (not Roman) body in which I am now a bishop, I am leaving it to return to the protestant church through the UCC because I am sick and tired of these damned power struggles within this world. It was supposed to ecumenical, but the Roman ways die hard for some, people resisted the annual assemblies of the church, resisted yielding any of their supposed powers as bishop to the vote of the people, resisted being held accountable by laity, by letting others into the decision making process, resisted the making of every church document public -- so i am going back into the protestant world where I may live in a fishbowl and struggle with that, but where I am merely a pastor, a person with a calling, and not the center of power in the congregation. Let me add two final thoughts. All this porographic watch stuff - it is not easy being sexual, being a clergy person. This post is too long already, but when people discover that one is clergy, they assume that you are asexual or antisexual. We ujsed to seminary, when going to a party, never tell them you go to seminary, call it grad school, or you will never get a date. People make such assumptions about us -- I am so tired of having people say, "can't tell that joke with a pastor around!" And if I tell that same joke, I am often assumed to be a scum pastor, or not quite religious enough, because I know jokes like that. I have toi work a lot harder to be one of the gang than a lay person, in many situations. There is a young man of 23 I know, the kid is so beautiful, he is very sexually desireable, but if I say that out loud, people don't think it is a normal human reaction of a normal human being (who is gay) to someone who is hot - it is perceived as a moral failing on my part. (Note: I would never touch the guy, but damn is he hot, and I am merely observing the beauty of God's creation when I say that.) Now it is tricky - because if that young man were to come to worship at my congregation, that puts our relationship (now, as friends) into a new rubric. There is a different way that one must relate to a member of the parish, or to any person to whom one might be called to do ministry, than one does to any old person. The sexual dynamic gets very difficult in the clergy world. In my straight days, it was risky to even date my future wife because some people assumed that I was using my role as her pastor in the midst of her first divorce to take advantage of her. Now in my gay days, I am ever more aware of that factor. I do know more about peoples lives because I am their pastor, and that knowledge could be useful in a seduction effort, and there must be clear lines that the pastor/parishoner relationship is not one where sexual action will result -- must never result because that is an inexcusable violation of the trust that must exist in the pastor-parishoner relationship - thus I am left to date (if I could get a date, which I can't these days, but that is its own story) people who are outside of the church to any extent to which I relate to the church - in other words, people who do not share my religious values, or at least, belong to some other church body. What I need is some nice attractive 40 something year old who does not have hangups about clergy and is probably not all that religious since many religious people cannot function easily with clergy with all of the religious person's saint-God-pastor complexes... so I need a Jewish guy, an agnostic, or someolne who will not be freaked out that the pastor is sexual, but is not a part of any ministry that I wll do. This is a problem, as yoiu may imagine. That is why protestant p;astors have affairs with the church organist and so many straight Roman clergy married nuns. The pool of available people there is not that large, and so if one fishes close to shore... ... and that is why sexual abuse of children must never be allowed, because since the pool of potential sexual parteners is limited, since the kids are there and are vulnerable in ways adults are not... and the kids are there.... I can understand much, but sexual abuse of children, cardinal law and all the others should be shot, if I weren't a pacifist, but they must be thrown out of office but the Roman church won't allow that, has no mechaisms for that, but I am enraged anew every day becauuse the man I love is a fucked up victim of clergy abuse of children, and I can see all too clearly, as I have for years, all the ramifications of what happens when a priest tells a boy that sex is bad, that sex is sin and evil, that Father says let me give you a massage, let me suck your cock, you little evil child, you seduced me, suck me, you little evil thing, it is your fault, I am a man of God and you damned little child corrupted me with your beauty, damn you to hell, and just wait until I get my hands on you after the next mass... oh, I have lived with what happens to the kid that that happens to. Cardinal Law, the pope, all of those bishops, damn you to hell for letting those perverts run free with the children, assigning them from one parish to another, having them repent and be more holy instead of getting them treatment, putting them back in contact with more children rather than separating them from where they could do harm... and my last note. I apologise for poor typing. I know the issue too damned well to type this as well as I should, I am too emotional about this right now, and I have some inflamed tooth that is coming out via surgery later this week and the pain is so intense from that that I cannot see straight, and I am so emotionally angry over the fact that those in power will stay in power and until that power is broken, there will be many more victims... it is so ironic to sign this as always (the Rev) Vince
