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GAYS IN THE CLERGY:
ARCC’S
RESPONSE TO THE NATIONAL REVIEW BOARD’S REPORT
1.
BACKGROUND
In June
2002, responding to what has come to be called
the
greatest crisis to face the Catholic Church since
the
Protestant Reformation, the American hierarchy
approved
A Charter for the Protection of Children and
Young
People.
This mandated the creation of a
National Review Board, which was to commission
“a
comprehensive study of the causes and context of
the
current crisis of sexual abuse of minors by
clergy.”
The research conducted by the
Board involved
interviews with 85 individuals, both clerics and
lay experts, and it paralleled a statistical analysis
conducted
through the John Jay College of Criminal
Justice.
Both an executive summary of the John Jay
report and
the Board’s own report were issued on the
same day,
February 27, 2004.
The John Jay study made national headlines with
the
revelation that, according to the records of
cooperating dioceses and religious congregations, from
1950 to
2002 more than four thousand priests, deacons,
and
religious were accused of abusing close to eleven
thousand individuals. Well over half a billion
dollars had
already been spent to settle claims made
against the
church.
By far the
most typical claim did not involve young
children
but teenagers, most often males with whom the
offender
became involved in a social situation. Abuse
appears to
have peaked in the 1970s, with relatively
few cases
occurring since 1990. The
report issued by the National Review Board
suggested
that the changing moral climate both in and
out of the
Catholic Church during the 1970s and 1980s
was a contributing factor, and it is very specific in
linking a
failure to take disciplinary action against
a so-called
gay subculture present in certain
seminaries
and dioceses to “an atmosphere in which
sexual
abuse of adolescent boys by priests was more
likely” (p.
81).
The Association for the Rights
of Catholics in the
Church,
while respecting the good intentions of those
who
prepared this report, is concerned about what may
well be a
rush to judgment on why priests and
religious
engaged in criminal actions. We have
already
seen a move on the part of the
Vatican to ban
homosexuals
from the priesthood, and we fear that
gay-bashing will replace an authentic effort to
prevent
future incidents that offend the basic right
of any
individual to be free of unwanted sexual
advances.
Stereotyping homosexuals as having a
greater tendency to be predators is quite possibly
less likely
to accomplish this goal even as it
unjustifiably limits the right of a Catholic to honor
a vocation
regardless of sexual orientation.
2. THE
SEXUAL PREDATORS
The
prevalence of sexual predation among the clergy
was, until
2002 and the press revelations of
misconduct
in the
Boston
archdiocese, one of those
“dirty
little secrets” that understandably was not
allowed
open discussion. Even though groups such as
the
Servants of the Paraclete operated houses for
priests and
religious “who are experiencing
difficulties and working through the specific
developmental phases of life,” it was only slowly recognized how frequently
bishops and superiors were
sending on individuals who had been sexually
involved
with minors. It was also only slowly recognized
by
the bishops and superiors that offenders might
not
ever be successfully rehabilitated, and where priests
were
concerned there was a special problem in that,
despite a
public perception to the contrary,
“defrocking” a priest unwilling to accept laicization was a complex process akin
to firing a tenured
professor. Reassignment was an easier course of
action, and this is what allowed the true predator to
resume his
attacks.
If bishops
and superiors were unduly optimistic that
the
repentant sinner would not sin again, a far more
serious failing was their determination to avoid
involving
the criminal justice system, even when it
was clear
that the actions in question might actually
mandate
this. Efforts to report abuse were
systematically sidetracked, and when this did not work
there were
settlements made that called for an
effective
vow of silence on the part of those abused.
But who
were the predators? Typically, child
abusers--actual pedophiles--are not homosexuals, even
though sexual acts with adolescent males, and these
are what
the John Jay study found as characteristic in
the
reported cases, are homosexual by definition. The
efforts to understand offending priests, such as
the recent
report by David France (Our Fathers: The
Secret Life
of the Catholic Church in an Age of
Scandal), suggest that the issue was more likely to be
sexual
confusion. In the era before the Second
Vatican
Council, when most offenders were in the
seminary,
sex itself was not discussed except in a
circumspect
Latin. Celibacy is not any easier for
gays than
it is for straights, and a priest,
especially
one less aware of his own sexual identity,
could
easily rationalize a romantic interest in
attractive young men, even teenagers.
How many
priests are gay? Some estimates have put the
number of
gays and straights as about even, with a
higher
percentage of gays having gone to the seminary
or entered
religious life in the last three decades. The interesting note here, pointed out
by
France, is
that as the
proportion of gays increased and at the
same time
there was a greater understanding and
acceptance
of homosexuality itself, the number of
abuse
incidents decreased. Despite the suggestion in
the
National Review Board’s report, there seems to be
good reason
to think that the link between a
self-accepting gay orientation and a predatory outlook
is the exact reverse of what has been suggested. As
yet,
though, there has not been any systematic effort
to look at
this, although it seems easy enough to test
the
hypothesis by looking at those dioceses in which
priests who were part of this supposed “gay
subculture”
were assigned.
3. SO HOW
DO WE SOLVE THE PROBLEM?
The first
step should be a more clear definition of
what the
problem is. It is obvious that it is a betrayal of trust for priests or
religious to engage
in sexual conduct with minors in their charge.
It was
perhaps less obvious until the
Boston scandal how
devastating
this betrayal would be to those who were
its
victims. The difficulty, however, lies in
implementing a strict zero-tolerance policy that on
the one
hand fails to discriminate among various types
of offenses
and on the other accepts the outlook,
sadly
typical of abuse charges in general, that the
accused
should be seen as guilty until proven
innocent.
An initial
assumption should be that, despite a
greater
effort to consider sexual maturity and a corresponding sense of responsibility
in candidates
for the priesthood or for religious vows, there
will
be those who cross the line in some manner. Another
should be
that some individuals will be falsely
accused.
Simply turning everything over to the
criminal
justice system to sort things out is not
enough of
an answer, although it seems clear enough
that any
priest or religious needs to understand that
the days in
which clerics were immune from civil
punishment are long over. However, present church
regulations
have created a parallel system that
becomes a
nightmare for those who are innocent.
This
suggests the need for a process, applying not
just to
clergy but to anyone else involved with
minors,
that allows a freedom to come forward to those
who claim
they have been abused while protecting those who
are in fact
innocent. No adequate process exists, and
creating it
will be difficult. Nonetheless, without
it society
faces the unacceptable dilemma of either
allowing
some
predators to continue unchecked or compelling
those
falsely accused to accept a forced hiatus in
their
careers and a potentially irreversible loss to
their
reputations.
A second
consideration is that the code of secrecy by
which
serial offenders have been permitted to continue
their
predations is ended once and for all.
Parishioners and others have a right to know whether
those
assigned to their ministry have in any way been
compromised. It may well be that an ancient and minor
offense
will not matter to them, but this should be
their choice, not just that of a bishop concerned with a shortage of
priests. For this reason, in place of
the current
draconian outlook already challenged by
the
Vatican, we encourage an
ecclesiastical version of
Megan’s Law
with a bishop or superior assuming legal
liability
for anyone reassigned following a verified
claim of abuse.
Finally, we
call on the hierarchy to recognize that
sexual
orientation is not a predictor of how well anyone may answer a divine call. A
moral theology
that deals with the sexual drive in all its
manifestations is still in the
process of development,
but it seems clear that the emphasis on
procreation
characterizing a natural law approach is no
longer
adequate. Gays, we insist, have a right to be
considered
for the ministry, and the suggestion that
they be
denied this we find completely unacceptable.
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