The Myth of Priestly Celibacy

Until the 12th century, Christian priests led sexual lives resembling those of lay people: some priests and lay people alike embraced voluntary celibacy,  others did not.  Then, at the First Lateran Council of 1123 ,  celibacy was imposed as a rule on all priests. The circumstances and reaction at the time are interesting.  John Boswell argues that among the groups strongly promoting the rule were priests who had no wives or concubines, but did have boyfriends.  After noting that Pope Leo IX, who was the first pontiff to take action against married clergy, had shown no interest in acting against homosexual practices by priests or bishops, Boswell continues with:

"Contemporaries, at least, were quick to note that gay priests were more willing than heterosexual ones to enforce prohibitions against clerical marriage";

and again

"There is some evidence of a power struggle between gay and married clergy over whose predilection would be stigmatized."

In the Eastern church, orthodox priests never adopted the rule, and were horrified by the practice in the West. An anonymous Byzantine tract of c 1274, quoted in Judith Herrin's "Byzantium", asks plaintively,

"Why do you priests not marry?... The Church does not forbid the priest to take a wife, but you do not marry.  Instead you have concubines and your priest sends his servant to bring him his concubine and puts out the candle and keeps her for the whole night."

In the centuries that followed, this charge (that clergy at all levels  no longer married, but continued active sexual lives with concubines) was widely accepted. Indeed, sexual scandals even at the level of the papacy were one of the factors that led to the Reformation.   Somehow, in subsequent centuries, many Catholics seem to have adopted the belief that since celibacy is the rule, it is now also the practice.  This is hogwash.  It never has been, and never will be.

It is well known that there has been a haemorrhaging of good men from the priesthood over the last half century, many of them leaving the priesthood explicitly to marry.   It is delusional to suppose that these men kept themselves sexually chaste until after leaving;  it is equally delusional to suppose that all those who maintained active sexual relationships, left the priesthood.  I myself have a personal friend who left the priesthood only when he 'had to get married' to the religious sister he had impregnated.  Note the sequence:  first he got her pregnant, then he left the priesthood.

In the concluding chapter of his book, "Global Catholicism", Ian Linden writes of the state of the church in the 21st century. One of his sections is titled "The Universal Crisis of the Celibate Priesthood."  Among other damaging effects, he notes:

"The number of Catholic priests worldwide in clandestine , and often exploitative, multiple sexual relationships of different duration and kind has undermined the examplary witness of those freed by celibacy for a lifetime of service.  Promiscuous - and paedophile- clergy have been a disaster for the post-conciliar Church, not to speak of their victims' suffering. Clerical sexual conduct has given rise in many parishes to a myriad of intractable problems. So the moral issue for many lay Catholics in some countries became not whether the priest was failing to keep his vow of celibacy - failure was increasingly taken for granted - but whether he was sleeping with a married woman, failing to care for the children brought into the world, or indeed had more than one sexual partner, in short the degree to which the relationship was socially damaging and individually abusive."

It gets worse.  Referring to the consequences of the emergence of HIV/AIDS, he writes:

"But it soon emerged that one consequence of the pandemic was that promiscuous priests, for fear of infection, were shifting their attentions to the local nuns on the assumption that they would be free of the virus", prompting their Superiors to challenge the bishops, without success, to protect their congregations from predatory clergy.

There is plenty of anecdotal evidence to support these contentions.  In The Future of the Celibacy Debate lies in Africa, not Miami Collen Kochivar-Baker writes about the situation in the Central African Republic, where it seems that bishops and priests for years have been living openly with wives and families:

"Africa News had reported Monday that Archbishop Pomodimo and several priests in his archdiocese would be sanctioned 'for adopting a moral attitude which is not always in conformity with their commitments to follow Christ in chastity, poverty and obedience'."

In Zimbabwe, the otherwise impressive and respected Bishop Ncube has resigned after as sexual scandal.  From Rocco Palma's "Whispers in the Loggia":

"Ncube's resignation was accepted after the 62 year-old prelate was accused of adultery in what, at the time, the archbishop maintained was a "well-orchestrated plan" by Mugabe and his allies to discredit Ncube for his globally-noticed protests of the country's authoritarian rule.

Several months later, the prelate admitted to the affair in a documentary interview." In the same post, Pollo  also refers to situation in Bangui.

There have been many instances publicised in the West (and many more unpublicised), of which  the case of Fr Mario Cutie in Miami is just the most recently prominent.    Nor have the sexual partners been restricted to women.   Censor Librorum at Nilhil Obstat has written on the voracious sexual appetite of the late Cardinal Spellman for young men, and former Milwaukee archbishop Rembert Weakland has recently come out publicly on his experience as a gay Bishop in the church.

A  sexual appetite is a fundamental human urge. Modern research shows clearly that healthy, active expression of this urge contributes to physical and mental health. While I fully accept that voluntary celibacy is entirely possible and acceptable for those who embrace it willingly in maturity, I have grave misgivings about imposing it by compulsion.

The pretence of priestly celibacy is not just a myth:  the consequences are intensely damaging, in many ways, to the whole Church and its people.  I will expand on these consequences later.

Clerical Abuse: The Story So Far, Looking Ahead.

For a long time I resisted writing about the assorted scandals of clerical sexual abuse from around the world.  After the Irish Ryan report though, I broke my silence, writing for the first time of own experiences, which I presented as just a preamble, declaring my interest, and promised more. You may be wondering what has happened to the rest of reflection on the topic.

In fact, the theme is far from forgotten or neglected, occupying a great deal of my thinking time - and the more I think about it, the wider the scope becomes.  It may not be immediately obvious, but a good portion of what I have written over the past few weeks is part of the argument I am developing.  (Indeed, it could be stated that almost everything I put onto this site is part of my argument - but that is jumping rather too far ahead.)

For now, I would just like to restate what I have published this far and how it fits in to the bigger picture. Then, I will point to the material which is in preparation, and an outline of where I am headed.

Starting from the beginning:  I wrote earlier of the  reasons for my initial silence :

"1)   This is personal.

2)   The issues are far more complex and multifaceted then press reports, or popular commentary, would lead us to believe.

3)  Too often, those attempting to spell out in honesty the complexities and subtleties of the issues, are simply branded as apologists for evil."

Of these three, I have fully explained the first, and there is nothing more to be said.  (If you missed this little personal memoir, you may see the two posts combined on the page "Sexual Abuse: My Experience" ).  Of the third, I think it will be clear by the end that I am anything but an apologist.

It is the second item, the many facts of the issue, that is the problem. This very complexity leaves me having to spin out what is far too often presented in a few glib sentences  and stock phrases over many posts, slipping into what appear to be unrelated digressions.  They are not unrelated at all.

Some of you may have seen my earlier post some months back on Bishop Geoffrrey Robinson's book, "Confronting Sex and Power in the Catholic Church", in which he argues that the three primary causes of clerical sexual abuse are sexual immaturity in some individual priests; enforced celibacy; and excessively centralised power structures in the church.

It was because enforced celibacy is central to the problem, that I wrote about the Myth of Priestly Celibacy.  I will follow this up shortly by expanding on how enforced celibacy leads to abuse.  (My recent items on coming out were not only because they were appropriate to Pride week: they were also important because sexual honesty is crucial to mental health, and so key to this discussion). It will also be necessary to say more about the problem of excessively centralised power in the church - although it will be obvious to my regular readers that this is something I touch on constantly.

This alone does not deal with the full complexity  of the problem.  I noted when I first wrote about abuse that the language is gravely inadequate to the reality, which is covers a wider range of practices, all lumped together into a single term.  I want to show how the problem is much wider, and there is a sense in which we are all, at some level, victims of clerical abuse of some kind.

Conventional responses to the problem are also in my view grossly inadequate.  Simply pointing fingers at the perpetrators and the Bishop who covered up the scandal, attempting to make amends with financial payouts, does not even scratch the surface of the healing process required. Instead, in looking towards a more viable approach, I have been recalling the approach of South Africa in dealing with the appalling atrocities committed in the name of apartheid, or of the "struggle" against it.  Key to this was the Truth & Reconciliation Commission, magnificently led by Archbishop Desmond Tutu.   Dealing with this, and my personal response to the TRC, wil require a short digression into South African history, and to some reflection on the concept of truth.

Only then will I finally be able to present my full conclusions:

• A full understanding of the problem of clerical abuse will show that at some level, we are all victims;
• By allowing the church to persist in the exercise of excessive power, and to pervert the truth for a twisted sexual theology, we are all at some level complicit, and share to some degree in the blame;
• But by simply getting on with our lives, by ignoring those parts of sexual doctrine which are obviously untenable, by showing more sensitivity and compassion in our local parishes than the institutional church does in its documents , and by speaking up vigourously against abuse (of all kinds) wherever we encounter it, we are also, thankfully, already part of the solution.  By asserting our right of participation as formulated at Vatican II, creating if necessary our own structures and forums to have our vocies heard, we can extend still further this healing.

I hope you will stay with me as I elaborate this argument in the weeks ahead.

Sexual Abuse: My experience

THE PADDYWHACK AND ME (Originally posted   26/05/2009 ) "The Time has come, the walrus said, to talk of many things: Of school, and sex, of paddywhacks, and too, of boy scouting."

Preamble

I have up to now steered clear of much commentary on the persistent and abundant stories of clerical abuse.  There is however a limit to how long one can hold one's tongue.  The reasons for my silence up to now are simple:

1)   This is personal.

2)   The issues are far more complex and multifaceted then press reports, or popular commentary, would lead us to believe.

3)  Too often, those attempting to spell out in honesty the complexities and subtleties of the issues, are simply branded as apologists for evil.

So, silence has been easier. Now, however, reports are coming closer to home, and I can no longer bite my tongue.   Before spelling out my take, though, some obvious points in full disclosure.

First, I speak not from abstract knowledge, but from personal experience.  I was myself at the receiving end of some of these things, in two separate contexts.  To my own experience, I have added reflections on stories I have heard from others, and from published sources.

Second, I take it as axiomatic that any form of abuse of young children, whether sexual or physical, or evn simple neglect, is inexcusable and unacceptable.

I state freely that my own sexual orientation is primarily homosexual; - that is, I am attracted sexually to other men.

This attraction, however, is emphatically to men - adult men - and not in any way to children, adolescents, or even to young men.  My own attraction has always been to those of around my own age.

I have no intention whatsoever, of excusing, explaining 0r justifying sexual abuse by anyone.  And yet.....

The Problem

The problem as I see it is that too much of the standard reaction is one of near hysteria, bundling a wide range of behaviours into the catchall 'abuse', and assuming that all instances of inappropriate behaviour by adults with children are damaging to the child's future development.  I am not so sure.  Further, there needs to be a little more recognition paid to the allocation of responsibility in these matters:  at least in the case of older children, some at least are at times complicit in welcoming,  encouraging or even inviting inappropriate attention from adults. there is surely a huge gulf in significance, and possilbe longer term harm,  between the vicious rape of a young child, and inappropriate touching or caressing of a flirtatious teenager.  Yet both of these extremes are loosely and carelessly lumped together, along with other behaviours, under the blanket term 'abuse'. I am also a little cynical about at least some of the claims being made, and wonder if the case for substantial monetary compensation is always fully justified.  Finally, discussion of the problem of clerical abuse frequently struggles with the issues of just where, realistically, one can apportion responsiblity and blame, and what is to be done to prevent future problems.

Trying to spin out these complexities will take me down several byways, sharing experiences and reflections, and cannot be brief.  To avoid a tediously lengthy post, I will spin it out into several bites: my primary school experience with the Christian Brothers;   secondary school with the OMI priests; parallel experiences in the boy scouts; my thoughts on the lasting impact on my life; and my conclusions on the implications for the church.

My experience: Double abuse with the Christian Brothers.

Reports of clerical sexual abuse of children have been emerging for several years now, particularly from the USA, but also form other countries. The reason I have been personally stung in particular by the latest scandal, is that they emerge from Ireland, that great source of missionary educators during the 20th Century, and at whose hands I and my sister received a substantial a substantial part of our schooling in South Africa.  Much (not all) of what is described in the Irish reports is immediately recognisable to me, as having been directly replicated by Irish men and women transplanted across the globe.

My earliest schooling was in co-educational classes in local convent schools in Cape Town, later in Johannesburg, run by two orders of religious sisters, about which I have nothing to say - my memories are blurred but generally positive.  I was then removed from the increasingly female environment, to a Christian Brothers school some substantial distance from my home, where I stayed for two years, before transferring, with great relief to a small secondary school much closer to home.  Those two years with the Christian Brothers were, without any doubt, the unhappiest years of my school career.  Over the ensuing four decades, whenever I have met people who like me have experienced education with the Brothers, I have shared my views - and always found agreement.  "The Christian Brothers are notorious", has been a common response.

I freely acknowledge there were external, unavoidable reasons why I would in any case have been ill-disposed to the school:  a long, cumbersome journey involving a bus, a train, and a lengthy walk were too much for a ten year old;  I did not enojy compulsory participation in a sport (rugby) that I did not care for or understand; and suffered as an outsider for arriving as a painfully shy, sensitive bookish lad two years later than most of my classmates had done - by which time friendship groups and social routines had been long set.  I was never going to fit in too easily.

But those I could have coped with.  The real problem, shared by so many others I have spoken to, was the unrelenting regime of physical punishment. I make no claims to angelic virtue, but as a bright and naturally quiet student who enjoyed schoolwork, I cannot imagine that my behaviour can have been particularly bad, while my academic results were consistently good.  Yet my memory (probably faulty) was that scarcely a day passed when I was not beaten in one way or another, for some misdemeanour at least once during the day.  It must surely have been worse for naturally rowdy boys, or for those who were punished ( as some were) for simple ignorance or substandard work.

Not all the Brothers were equally vicious, although there was a general expectation that most would use the cane or the strap as the first line of correction for any fault, whether of behaviour, academic slackness, or ignorance.  Two exceptions stand out in my memory:

The first, exceptional as being even more vicious than the others,  was one man who had a particular fondness for the "paddywhack", an infamous Irish instrument of schoolboy torture constructed of strips of leather stitched together down the edges, containing within it pennies - hard coins to give  the instrument additional weight and bite. I can still see the distinct gleam in his eye as he caught sight of some poor boy caught out in minor wrongdoing.  "Lookitt, lookitt", he would cry at frequent intervals through the day, before bringing the weapon down hard on the miscreant's outstretched palm.  This creature terrorised me for almost half my lessons, over both the two years I was there.

The other was exceptional in quite another way.  This was the teacher of religion, whom we saw for just one lesson daily, for one of my two years.  He was gentleness itself, seldom (if ever) resorting to physical punishment. Instead of the stick, he preferred to use the carrot of praise, with which he was generous to a fault.  If any one achieved any minor success in written or oral work, he would be sure to find himself called to the front of the class for public recognition, where he would find himself standing on top of teacher's desk, for all the class to get a better look at the little saint.  To further show his approval, this teacher would then give the boy a gentle little pat on the knee, while explaining just why the achievement in question was so worthy.  In doing so, the hand would somehow remain in place on the knee, and then slowly sidle up the thigh, and under the shorts.  Even at ten years old, and widely ignorant of the ways of men, we knew just what he was doing, and snickered about it amongst ourselves.

The Irish report describes three broad categories of 'abuse':  physical neglect or harsh conditions, excessive physical punishment, and sexual abuse.  I have no experience of the first, but do have direct personal experience of both the others. What was the impact on my life?

There is no doubt I resent the beatings. Physical punishment of course was not unusual at the time, and I experienced it also in my later school - but not to anything like the same degree of frequency or severity, and I was able to take in in my stride.  But my experience of punishment from one of those Christian Brothers in particular was so gratuitous, so clearly sadistic, that it has always remained a bitter memory, colouring my recollection of the order as a whole.

The touching (more accurately, groping) was entirely different.   Viewed with adult eyes, this was clearly sexual in intent, and entirely inappropriate, as even at that age we recognised.  But to us at the time it was more a joke, the weakness of a sad old man, than actual harm.  I did not then resent it, nor do I now.  Indeed, it would be true to say that I welcomed the attention and delighted in the praise.  If the price was a little bit of touching up on my thigh, that was fine by me.

The nature of my experience was, of course, much less severe than that experienced by many others, nor can I imagine how others on the receiving end might have viewed their own experiences.  But given how so much of the standard media attention focuses on the sexual abuse, I have to point out that for me, this was not what mattered.  I condemn unreservedly any abuse of the very young, and of more substantive sexual contact.  But I do have to ask, in the light of my own experience, are the milder forms of inappropriate touching really as heinous as the public outcry usually suggests?  Ek vra maar net.  (Afrikaans:  "just asking")

I should also add, as an aside, that my sister says her own experience of what she saw as the sadistic punishments meted out by the convent sisters, was enough to turn her against the Catholic Church, and organised religion, for life.

M0re later.

MORE WORMS

(Originally posted 06/06/2009)

Preamble:

Scroobious responded to my previous post by quoting Chandler from Friends: “Can – open. Worms – everywhere!”  Sorry to do this, Scrooby, but today there are more cans and more worms - and they're breeding.

The content of this post does not belong on this blog.  It has (almost) nothing to do with the church, and nothing strictly to do with LGBT/queer.

It is also not easy to write (especially as my daughter is one of my most loyal readers), and may be disturbing to read. Those of a sensitive disposition - be warned. However, it is an important  sequel to my last post on the subject, and an essential prelimiary to my more important observations on abuse in general, and of the church in particular.  And so it must be done.

The Gang Show, Johannesburg, 1960's.

In my early teens, I spent some very happy years as a boy scout in a troop affiliated to our Catholic parish (although the church connection is only minimally relevant here).  A highlight of these years was my annual participation in the local "Gang Show" - a variety concert produced annually as a regional fundraiser, by individual boys and adult scouters drawn from scout troops across the city.  From my own troop, there were three adults fully involved (sometimes more), and 6-8 boys.  Transport was provided for the whole group by the dedicated scoutmaster, who drove a typically 60's VW 'Kombi minibus, in which we all travelled twice a week to rehearsals, and later to performances.

During the third year of my participation, when I will have been about 13, I found myself being befriended by a man who was the District Commissioner for my own troop.  It did not occur to me to question why I should have been singled out for his attentions - although I did become aware that he had a reputation for having befriended other pretty young faces in previous years.  On a few occasions, he volunteered after rehearsals to drive me home in his smart red convertible.  These trips were without incident - exccept for the  icecreams he treated me with en route.

The climax of the rehearsal period always came with a weekend scout camp, for intensive rehearsals, wardrobe fittings, and technical preparations,  as well as more conventional scouting fun things - an evening campfire and the like.   Given the large numbers attending, there were not tents for all, so the boys and some of the adults spread our sleeping bags in a large shed of some kind:  30 or 40 boys, and perhaps 6 or 8 adults.  Surprise:  one of those adults was my district commissioner, who contrived to lay his sleeping bag next to mine.

After lights out, after quiet had begun to settle, he began to whisper endearments, then surprised me by slipping  his hand inside my sleeping bag, and caressing me - before giving me my first experience of fellatio.  I vividly remember two incidental features in particular:  his constant assurances that what he was doing was not wrong, as he was simply expressing his great affection for me; and the after action cigarette he lit up, the red coal glowing brightly like a beacon in the night.   (Complaints from the other adults about the smoking made it clear the other adults were not yet all asleep).

During the 40+ years since, I have never thought of the experience as particularly traumatic.  What I found remarkable, and want to stress now, is not that the event occurred, but the obvious (albeit passive) collusion of the other adults around us.

This man will have been well known to the adults of my own troop - he was our district commissioner. They must surely have known of his reputation - if I, in my innocence and naivety, overheard rumours of his attentions to other young boys, so would they.  Yet they went along with him in allowing him to butter me up on transport home.  Then, on the night of the camp, could the other adults n the shed really have been oblivious to what was going on amongst them?  Even if they did not realise the full extent, nor made out the actual words, surely they must have realised that the constant low murmuring was from an adult man addressing a young boy under cover of darkness?

Final reflection:

Whenever I have had cause to recall these events, I have felt and believed that I did not  feel particularly 'traumatised' or 'victimised'.  That was certainly so at a conscious level. However, in starting to write this series of posts, and thinking about this one in particular, I have found myself emotionally affected at a level I have not done before.  I also now recall something previously forgotten - a deep feeling of confusion and panic as I realised he was doing down on me.

Now I have to ask:  if writing about psychological trauma is healing and therapeutic, but I have never before felt traumatised, why have I now felt the need for healing?

I hope this has not been too uncomfortable to read, but you were warned. Thanks for sticking with me.  Now there will be no more dirty lttle secrets - the next instalment will move on to the lessons and conclusions I draw from the experiences.

Church, Power & Abuse

Depressing church news over the past two months has led me to pick up and start reading a book which has been on my shelves some time, but which I have previously only dipped into.  The removal of  excommunication of SPXX  members has received wide and ongoing publicity; clerical sexual abuse is again in the news with the FBI reopening old investigations in LA Diocese, and fresh revelations over   Fr Marcial Maarciel Delgado of the Legionnaires of Christ.  Meanwhile, on the progressive wing of the church, there has been less coverage in the MSM of the silencing or excommunication of the priests  Fr Roger Haight,  Geoffrey Farrow and Roy  Bourgeois, or of bizarre goings-on in the parishes of St Mary's, Brisbane and St Stephen's, Minneapolis, where attempts to muzzle complete parishes have led to resistance (St Mary's) or exodus (St Stephen's).

What all these have in common is that they are concerned with power in the church - its extension, its abuse, or attempts to defy or resist it.  so I picked up again  "Confronting Power & Sex in the Catholic Church", by Bishop Geoffrey Robinson.  I am pleased that I did.  Published in 2007, this book has much to say that is directly relevant to current events. Although I have not yet finished reading, and this is far from a formal review, I have already found much of value that I thought would be worth sharing.

Bishop Robinson was Auxiliary Bishop of Sydney from 1984, and in 1994 was appointed by the Australian Bishops to a position of leadership in the Australian church's response to revelations of sexual abuse.  Following his retirement in 2004, he felt freer in speaking his mind, leading to the publication of this valuable book.

Even in his introduction, he wastes no time in setting out immediately his key thesis, that there are three interlinked causal factors which can lead to sexually abusive behaviour:  an unhealthy psychological state, unhealthy ideas about power and sexuality, and an unhealthy environment or community.  In its institutional structures, argues Robinson, too easily and too often reinforces or even creates conditions that reinforce these unhealthy conditions.  It is easy enough to see the broad argument as it applies to sexual abuse, about which many others have written, and which I do not intend to elaborate.  But it is the central section of the book where he spells out the nature and expansion of church institutional power, that fascinated me.

In a very brief summary of the history of the papacy, he shows how an institution which began as just one Bishop of a single diocese, albeit a most important one, moved from a position of 'first among equals' to one of dominance.  Even then, for most of two millenia, the role of the Pope was one of guidance and co-ordination, not one of control.  Not until Pius X and the First Vatican Council, with its promulgation of the doctrine of infallibility, did 'the doctrine of universal jurisdiction of of the Pope over every aspect of the Church' become established.    It is against this longer term view of Church history that we need to evaluate Vatican II, which is now attracting so much welcome attention.  Quite contrary to the view of the Lefevbrists and other conservatives in the church,  Vatican II was significant not for overturning tradition, but for seeking to re-establish it.  (This same point was made last week on Bilgrimage, where  William D Lindsay wrote his own helpful piece on the meaning of Church and tradition in the context of the two Vatican Councils.  It is unfortunate that most of us are so conscious of Vatican II and its upheavals, that we lose sight of Vatican I and the many councils before it.)  Helpfully for Pius X and his successors, his attempts to establish universal control were greatly enhanced by the advances in communication technology, enabing him to be quickly informed of events in far flung parts of the world - and to communicate his response, desires and commands as quickly.

What Robinson recommends is not the abolition or destruction of Papal power - he notes that the Protestant faiths which have eliminated central authority ahve seen endless continuing fission within themselves - but a restoration of balance.  A partnership between Pope, the college of Bishops, and laity not only reflects the (unfilled) promise of Vatican II, it also restores the earliest traditions of the Church, reflects established  constitutional principles in secular democracies of a balance of power. The challenge in achieving this restoration in balance is that teh excessive power structures that have been built up are not simply the work of mischievous individual Popes and scheming officials. Rather, tehy have become institutionalised, built right into the 'systme' of Church governance, so that it is unremarkable that the autocratic structures began to re-establish themselves after the immediate enthusiasm following Vatican II.  I have yet to read Bishop's Robinson's views on how this re-establishment of balance is to achieved, but have one thought of my own.

I find it striking that Luther's first great challenge to the abuse of power in the Church, and the unfolding Reformation that followed, were greatly aided and fuelled by the expansion of literacy and publishing, with the demand of the laity for access to the scriptures.  In the preceding centuries, with limited access to literacy, manuscripts and a common literary language, it was inevitable that the Church would retain a virtual monopoly on knowledge in all its forms.  With the widening of access to the tools of learning, it was natural that a widening circle of  laity would demand access to at least some of that.  The church's intransigence led to rebellion, and the the Protestant churches immediately were characterised by an emphasis on reading of scripture by all.

The Catholic Church eventually backed down on this, but still restricted higher studies in theology to priests.  That too has now gone, and today there  are more lay people studying formal theology than seminarians.    The information age, and its rapid expansion of the tools of learning, has now taken access to theology outside the formal classroom.   Knowledge is power.  The expanding blogosphere empowers us all to extend our own knowledge.  The more obvious it becomes that the officials of the curia do not have a monopoly on truth, the more we use the media available to us to voice our response to abuses (as we have witnessed over the last two months), the more obvious it will becomes to those at the top of the power  structures that their 'power' is not after all as absolute as they might imagine.  Then, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, they may at last begin listening as well as pronouncing, and they may again acquire Authority to accompany their power.

Priests, Paedophiles, and Purity.

I generally refrain from commenting on paedophile scandals, inside or outside the church.  But two stories which almost co-incided a few weeks ago have been niggling at me since I encountered them.  Now, in the diocese of LA, clerical misconduct of a sexual kind is once again in the news:  The Wall Street Journal reports the archdiocese is under investigation for failing to report abuse ("in the distant past", retorts teh diocese.).

It was reported earlier that the Church's own investigation into its seminaries has yielded the gratifying conclusion that 'homosexual' activities in seminaries had declined since the crackdown on admitting gay candidates, and that as a result, there was confidence that clerical paedophilia would consequently cease to be a problem.

The second report, published just a short while previously, was of an investigation into clerical training in United States seminaries (of all faiths, not specifically Catholic - but there is no reason to suppose that Catholic institutions are any better than the rest.  Quite the contrary.).  One alarming finding was that the majority of seminaries made no provision at all for basic sexual education.

The implications are breathtaking.  "The glory of God is humans fully alive", St Irenaus teaches us, and sexuality we know is a fundamental part of our humanity, contributing significantly to both physical and mental health.   I have long found it extraordinary that the Catholic Church sees fit to leave the formulation of doctrine on such an important topic to men who as a result of deliberate perosnal choice, either have no direct experience of the subject, or are living double lives in defiance of those vows. This is itself ridiculous.  But I now realise that it gets worse:  not only do these peole have no direct experience of sex, many of them also lack proper professional training in such matters.

Against this background, it is no surprise at all that many priests have developed so poorly in their sexual identities that they have ended up preying on the vulnerable, as is well known.  But what are the chances of parishioners who find themselves troubled by sexual issues, getting psychogically sound advice from their pastors?

It seems to me that the scandal of paedophilia indirectly caused by the church's ill-advised policies may well extend far beyond just the abuse by clerics, but also to a wider, hidden level, of people whose psycho-sexual health myhave been derailed by well-meanng but untrained and incompetent clerical advisors.

Trying to fix the problem by simply driving away from the seminaries those well-adjusted people with the honesty and self-knowledge to acknoweldge their sexuality is craziness, and can only compound, not solve, the problem.