Religious Life Without
Integrity
The Sexual Abuse Crisis in
the Catholic Church
By Barry M Coldrey
19: PROFESSION, ORDINATION,
MEMBERSHIP
There is a presumption with ordination and
final profession in a Religious Congregation that a permanent life
commitment has been made.
In fact, as everyone knows, many priests resign
from the active ministry, and in some Congregations, final profession is
honoured in the breach.
However, despite heavy resignations from the
priesthood - well over 100,000 worldwide since Vatican II - and the
constant attrition from religious orders, the current crisis has seen
priests and religious convicted of serious crimes wish to remain in the
consecrated life...and the same with those who have breached their vows of
celibacy in a persistent way - not criminally and/or not
caught.
'In the novel, Fall from
Grace (Andrew Greeley), the bishop who is so reluctant to
believe or investigate tales of clergy abuse has himself been involved in
a sexual relationship with a man who proves to be a member of a paedophile
ring.'
- Jenkins, P. Pedophiles and Priests:
Anatomy of a Contemporary Crisis, OUP, 1996, p.
104.
The way of dealing with this situation has
become fuzzy. Canon law exists; internal disciplinary measures used to be
plain, but since the 1960s have fallen into disuse. Why is this
?
the sway of personalist philosophy which
glorifies the wishes of each separate priest or male religious with less
sense of the whole - the Congregation, the diocese, the church. Scandal
does not matter.
the desperate shortage of priests and male
religious in some countries; and the insistence that the church must be
seen to forgive the offender.
the existence of specialised treatment
centres and therapies to assist religious with sexual
problems.
the existence of a wide variety of
missions in which a man can be placed, some of which are said to give no
access to minors. There is a good deal of illusion on this
score.
the sympathy that for so many years, young
religious were thrown into complicated ministries in residential care
institutions and boarding schools with little or no knowledge of the law
on abuse towards minors, the harm that sexual molestation could cause;
or the pressures that relentless, unremitting hard work would place on
their ordinary human resources. Most of the worst abusive molestation
cases concern the residential care institutions.
the fact that most of the graphic abuse cases
concern events of many years ago; the convicted priest or religious is
well into middle or old age and has (literally) nowhere else to
go.
the replacement of the association, club,
organisation model of a religious congregation with the family model. In
an association there are rules; and breaches of the rules have
penalties; extreme breaches bring expulsion from the association. On the
other hand, in the family one remains a member no matter what the
conduct; 'Joseph Carruthers' children remain such no matter what their
circumstances; they are stuck with Joseph as their father; he is trapped
with them.
It is the stance in this exploration, that
the family model has been taken too far in Religious Congregations, and a
situation where any priest or religious can resign legally over a couple
of months, but the congregation can never remove a religious no matter
what his conduct if he 'digs in his heels' seems
unbalanced.
The membership rules need to be
rewritten.
The writer has membership of a sporting club
which has some status in this part of the world. In 1996, there was a
very public case of a member who breached the rules. The football was
savage; the umpiring desperate; the member furious; and as the opposing
team left the field through the race, he spat at one young gentleman to
whose conduct he took exception. Unfortunately for the irate member, his
action was caught on a video monitor. The club committee were unimpressed;
he was called to answer a charge of 'conduct unbecoming a gentleman'. He
was reprimanded; mercifully it did not involve 'suicide or Australia' in
Oscar Wilde's witty sally, but the member was warned that any repeat of
such an action would involve suspension of membership. Actions have
consequences.
There are five ironclad principles in
regard to supervision of former perpetrators of paedophile behaviour among
the Brothers or among the priests of a diocese:
There is no clear, confirmed, decisive cure
for paedophilia. Recidivism is common.
A Brother cannot be supervised merely by
living in community, with the Superior (or the other community members)
'keeping an eye on him'. Once a Brother walks out the front door - or
more commonly, drives out the front gate, 'we' have no idea where he's
really going; and to suggest otherwise is a dangerous
delusion.
It is possible for any priest/Brother/church
worker to live a double life. The case of Bishop Roderick Wright, late
of Argyll & the Isles (Scotland) who led a varied active sexual life
over twenty years is merely one case in point. We have many of our own
examples in Australia.
Ordinary Catholic people tend to trust a
priest/Brother even if he carries a formal conviction for a sex offence
- especially if the clerical/fraternal rumour mill has spread the word
that he was 'not really guilty'; 'it's all exaggerated'; 'the accusers
are drug addicts' and so on, but at a certain stage the truth
dawns.
In the modern world, while priests or
Brothers may live a double life for lengthy periods, the truth tends to
come out eventually. The longer the successful deception, the deeper the
humiliation of the Catholic people, the church, the Congregation. In the
modern world you can't keep it secret for ever.
The Hidden Defender
The reason why religious executives and
diocesan bishops are slow to tackle members who have clearly scandalised
the Congregation or 'God's people' in more than a tissue of platitudes, is
that the 'sexual underworld' in just so pervasive that the diocese or
Province may be torn apart.
If even ten or fifteen percent of a province or
diocese have had public difficulties with their vows, a move against even
a spectacular offender will seem as a threat to all. Each has friends. The
province could be torn asunder with recriminations. This is the
fear.
Hence the executive paralysis and the savage
character assassination directed at anyone who might care to point out
unpleasant realities.
'The church authorities were ignorant of the
incorrigible nature of paedophilia; the priest would present his case as a
moment of weakness...the church would offer forgiveness. If he showed
repentance and promised not to do it again, he would be offered
counselling and a fresh start...(This) does nothing to assist the victim.
Indeed, it seems to confirm that the spiritual needs of the priest come
first, and the suffering of the victim hardly counts.'
- Longley, C. 'Control abuse, sex abuse',
The Tablet, 2 August 1997, p. 974.
Sexual Abuse: the Legal Defence
There is much criticism of the institutional
church's management of the civil cases which have followed in the wake of
the sexual abuse crisis. Some of this criticism comes from 'survivor
groups' and can be classed as self-serving, but some carries conviction.
The whole issue has so often placed the institutional church in the
wrong.
The arguments presented by the Church - in
court, in negligence cases - run along the following lines:
(a) The Church - in English common law - from
the time of King Henry VIII - does not technically exist;
(b) The trustees of a diocese or a
Religious Congregation are only responsible for management of church
plant and other assets and are not responsible for
negligence;
(c) The (offending) Brother or priest is not
a servant or agent of the provincial or bishop and is responsible only
to God;
(d) The bishop or Province Leader is not
responsible for the actions of a previous bishop or Province Leader. In
the case of the Christian Brothers, Province Leaders change regularly
and it is therefore argued that they have no responsibility because the
past Province Leader is no longer the present Province
Leader.
(e) The Church/Religious Congregation was not
aware of the abuse or the extent of the abuse. (Forster, D. 'Battle for
justice continues', The Needle, Spring 1998, p.
7.)
The general framework of the above points was
expressed in a different way in the following summary. Church officials
pretend to be concerned for victims, but they use the following
tactics:
They keep lay Catholics ignorant of the
extent of sexual abuse by clergy;
They keep responsibility away from the
(Arch)bishop(s) as far as possible;
They confine payments of compensation to the
minimum and are smug about this;
They allow suspected offenders to remain
in parishes;
They pay for expensive legal counsel to
defend perpetrators in court;
They employ every legal tactic to avoid
responsibility;
They interfere with the legal process by
approaching the victim/accuser after the priest or Brother has been
committed for trial at a Magistrates Court and offer to pay compensation
if the accuser will drop the criminal charges. (Mac Isaac, C. 'A Trust
Betrayed', In Fidelity, No. 10. March 1996, p.
4.)
In January 1998, ABC TV aired a two-part series
on the Catholic Church in Australia called 'The Shifting Heart Revisited'.
It followed a previous 1996 programme, 'The Shifting Heart' which
addressed the sexual abuse issue in the church.
The presenter, Geraldine Doogue, claimed that
she - a practising Catholic - had not wanted to present (in 1998) the
sexual abuse issue to any extent, but found it impossible not to do so.
She found:
· 'an institution in turmoil' over sexual
abuse by priests and teaching Brothers and denial by church
authorities;
· the enormity of the sexual abuse
problem;
· a lot more frustration and anger in the
laity from '96 to '98;
· parishioners disturbed by the reaction of
church authorities when phone calls from loyal parishioners were not
returned from the bishop's office;
· criminal files being 'pulled' from police
stations;
· church officials interviewed for the
programme refused the face the sexual abuse issue square on. (Vickery,
C. 'Parish the thought', Herald Sun, 28 January 1998, p.
5.)
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