Things couldn’t get much worse for the Catholic Church. In the past few years, a spate of scholarly books have taken the ecclesiastic hierarchy to task for its abominable treatment of European Jewry during the Holocaust; similar tomes have unraveled the manufactured mythology the Church used to quell critics past and present regarding its collaboration with Italian and German fascism. And now, sex scandals. Everywhere. Pedophiliac priests exposed and then shuttled to other parishes; confidential settlements with victims whose stipulations apparently included vow-of-silence-like provisions; embarrassing rebuffs from Vatican spokesmen that wayward fathers are the result of “a culture of pansexuality.” Throughout it all, the amazing spectacle of millions of American Catholics attending Palm Sunday masses, their faith perhaps shaken but their resolve still strong, supporting Mother Church in what could be considered growing pains or death spasms, depending on your point of view.
Allegations of priestly impropriety have been especially tortuous for the American psyche in the wake of the tragedy of Sept. 11. By this I mean to suggest that there exists a pervasive, widely held belief in our culture that religion and evil do not mix, that they are mutually exclusive. Consider that in the wake of the collapse of the World Trade Center, the Bush administration and congregations of Jews, Christians and Muslims here (and, one might add, abroad) denounced the militant suicide pilots as “not Muslims,” as “not representing Islam,” as “defaming a great religion.” Our president, who, you will remember, cited Jesus Christ as the political philosopher from whom he had learned the most, lectured to the Chinese that freedom of religion was essential because “faith gives us a moral core.” If he had been a little gloomier about it, you might have been able to make the case that G.W. had been reading Kierkegaard.
But such a belief system has a bit of trouble accounting for the faithful who do bad things. For instance, are priests who sexually abuse children still Catholic? This depends, of course, on how one defines “Catholic.” More importantly, it also depends on whether anyone asks the question in the first place. And when it comes to members of the Church, it appears that the question doesn’t need to be asked. Fly a plane into a building in an effort to martyr yourself and you’re not a Muslim. Anally penetrate a child in an effort to sexually gratify yourself and you’re still a Catholic. Have we found a way to discriminate even in our revulsion? What gives?
Everything, actually, and the house of cards thankfully comes tumbling down. Americans would do well to disabuse themselves of the notion that religion is always and only religion if it is a collegial, somber, earnest, restrained, philosophical exercise?in other words, something like an Episcopalian service. Religion is also disgusting, violent, discriminatory, sexist and abhorrent at least as much as it is pleasant, and, if history is any indication, perhaps it traffics more often in the dark underbelly of human existence. When we equate religion with reason?when we assume that to be religious, something must conform to liberalism’s particular understanding of what it should do?we risk badly misunderstanding the roots and consequences of religiosity, not to mention the fact that such a contention is often false.
Ironically enough, it is the sexual scandal rocking the Church that illustrates this example for us most thoroughly. In response to accusations of pedophilia against priests, Church officials investigated, adjudicated and settled the claims on their own. Civic officials were not notified because no legal mechanism existed to compel Church representatives to be forthright about criminal activity among priests in the first place. Evidently the moral imperative to notify parishioners of documented pederasts in their midst did not seem to be appropriate news to distribute in diocesan newsletters?this in the face of numerous variants of Meagan’s Law, now on the books in several states, where convicted pedophiles are compelled to make their past crimes known to their new neighbors.
And yet, save for one high profile case in Boston, the priests in question are not convicted pedophiles because they were not tried in court for their crimes. Rather, children and families accepted millions in settlement payment from the Church in exchange for their silence, as well as their acquiescence to the demand not to bring criminal charges at a later date. It’s a brilliant legal maneuver. It kills two birds with one stone. And it’s a morally repugnant abdication of responsibility. Doesn’t the Church teach that free will makes human beings accountable for their own actions? Who is accountable in this case: the priests themselves, the bishops who reassigned them, the lawyers who wrote the settlements or the institution for which they all work? None of the above, apparently. The message: The Catholic Church need answer to no authority save its own.
This should leave all of us, believing Catholics or not, grossly unsatisfied. If we understand religion as inseparable from human action?and in this respect a vast gulf separates it from the academic discipline of theology?we must not shy away from holding religious figures and religious institutions accountable for the crimes they commit. The trappings of tradition and spiritual authority that the Church has used to its advantage should not dissuade the just from seeking recompense. Pedophiles should be in jail or in therapy, regardless of whether or not they wear a collar. Bishops who knowingly put children at risk should be tried appropriately. If this controversy involved any secular institution, these steps would have been taken long ago. Sadly, they weren’t, and won’t be so long as we continue our practice of confusing holiness with justice.
Joshua Adams graduated from the College in 2000. He served as managing editor of production, contributing editor and associate editor of the Voice. Currently, he studies religion and literature at the University of Chicago.
