November 1993
Catholic World Report
Making Sense of the Scandal
A distinguished spiritual writer comments on the sources
of a profound moral failure, and the appropriate Christian response.
By Benedict J. Groeschel, CFR
More than any time in the past 200 years, the Catholic
Church in the United States is filled with pain. Catholics—liberal and
conservative and middle-of-the-road—are disappointed, embarrassed, and
disheartened as the media relentlessly sensationalize the failures of all too
many clergy, and by innuendo create the suspicion that things are actually
much worse than they are. Many are angry; all are distressed.
The vast majority of clergy—most of them faithful for
decades to their calling and seriously concerned about the spiritual welfare
of those entrusted to their care—are appalled by these reports, and
disheartened by the recognition of a serious moral failure in their own ranks.
Many are bitter that apparently some serious immoral behavior was ignored, or
at least inadequately addressed. Almost all priests are horrified that their
sacred calling, one requiring considerable personal sacrifice, is daily held
up to criticism and ridicule.
The bishops of the Church suffer more than the other clergy,
in that they must deal directly with the results of the scandalous behavior.
They are pulled away from other duties which, even under normal circumstances,
stretch their lives to the breaking point.
Then there are the victims, almost all of them active
members of the Church, including parents and family members, who feel deeply
betrayed. Their anger, though completely justified, often leads them into a
vindictive attitude, and they find themselves striking out against the very
Church they once loved. Many other victims are more restrained, asking only for
help. Every reasonable person must be concerned about what can be done to
eradicate the causes of this devastating behavior and to soften its effects.
Perpetrators and persecutors
Finally there are the perpetrators themselves. They are men
who were seriously dedicated to a calling that has led them now to personal
catastrophe—in some cases, even become a curse. Their families are humiliated
and hurt beyond description, their reputations are in ruin, and in many cases
their years of generous good work are all but forgotten in an instant.
In the most dreadful cases these men have become sexual
addicts, contradicting a vow that they had apparently once taken in all
sincerity. Some cases seem to involve a complete loss of all moral
responsibility. One hears of such cases with a deepened awareness of diabolical
effects on human history.
Any thoughtful person should see several reasons to resist
the worst condemnations of the Church. Clearly the Catholic Church is
undergoing a media persecution. Some clergymen of all denominations become
involved in serious moral failures, which do not generate the publicity that
engulfs Catholicism. Several distinguished non-Catholic ministers—two with the
title of bishop—have been forced to resign in recent months because of
pedophilia charges. Two American clergymen were indicted in the autumn of 1992
for murdering their wives. These cases received very little notoriety.
I am grateful for that restraint. Members of these
denominations do not deserve to suffer because of failures which, in these
times of sexual revolution, are sociologically predictable. But because of the
Church’s unpopular stand on pro-life issues and its strong voice for family
rights, Catholic (and Evangelical) clergy have become the media’s favorite
prey. There is little reason to take comfort in this realization, because the
American media have lost their conscience and are unlikely to recover it in the
near future. Why should they suddenly become fair, after prospering by being
foul?
For the committed Catholic, lay or religious, the question
remains: Can we learn anything from the bitter experience of this scandal?
Bishop Fulton Sheen often observed that there is nothing more tragic than
wasted suffering.
Taking God seriously
As a priest active in a number of aspects of Church life—including
teaching, social action, and working as a therapist with clergy and religious—I
feel compelled to say that the churches of America have not taken the transcendent
and almighty deity they claim to worship very seriously. In fact this failure
to take God’s truth seriously is the conflict behind the new encyclical on
morality, Veritatis Splendor. A misplaced compassion, leading to the
loss of an objective moral sense, could result in giving an addicted person a
convenient rationalization for seriously harmful behavior.
We have gradually come to accept the Enlightenment idea that
God is what we collectively make him to be, and not what he has revealed
himself to be. Influences ranging from biblical studies—which have tended to
focus on analysis of language and to be guided by an overbearing minimalism
(what Jesus did not say, do, know, or intend)—to psychology—which has tended to
define ethics by personal impulse—have led us very close to idolatry, making a
god to fit our own desires.
Society has reduced ethics and morality to a function of
popular opinion. (73 percent of American Catholics cuss on Sunday, so it must
be OK.) Incredibly enough, even some canon lawyers, who were once thought to
uphold the most objective standards, have followed the Supreme Court into the
muddy depths of popular opinion and preoccupation with what is “politically
correct.”
And so we have “followed our own ways,” to use a biblical
expression. We have forgotten another profound admonition of Scripture:
“Blessed are they that walk according to the law of the Lord.” “Blessed” means
an experience of abiding peace that comes to those who are in harmony with the
will of God. The corollary of this terse biblical teaching would be:
“Unblessed are they that do not walk according to the law of the Lord.”
The Catholic Church, consistently mocked for its traditional
stand on the immorality of voluntary sexual acts outside marriage, is now
vilified because of the immoral behavior of some of its clergy. The teaching of
the Church, going back to the apostolic times, has been a constant echo of the
challenge laid down by Christ himself in the Sermon on the Mount. He requires
chastity in thought and willed desire as well as in action. St. Paul was not
hesitant in listing the sexual sins, clearly forbidding sexual activity outside
of marriage and homosexual acts.
The entire New Testament calls for a continued repentance,
and promises forgiveness to those who seek God’s mercy through a good life. The
distinguished Scripture scholar Rudolph Schnackenburg, in his Moral Teaching
of the New Testament, sums up carefully the believer’s attitude toward the
moral teachings of the New Testament:
So then we must let the words of
Jesus stand in all their severity and ruggedness. Any mitigation, however well
intended, is an attack on his moral mission. But how Jesus judges those who
fall short of his demands is quite another matter. His behavior toward the
disciples gives us an object-lesson on this point. He took back even Simon
Peter, who denied him three times and yet was the leader of the circle of the
twelve, after Peter had bitterly repented of his actions, and he confirmed him
in his position as the chief of the disciples and the shepherd of the sheep
(Lk 22:32; Jn 21:15-17). Admonition and mercy are found together. It is the
mercy of God which comes first. It comes definitively into history with the
person and works of Jesus. But Jesus also longs to awaken the ultimate powers
for good in those laid hold of by the love of God and saved from eternal ruin.
They should thankfully do the holy will of God in its totality, unalloyed. If
in spite of everything they again succumb to human weakness and wretchedness,
God’s mercy will not fail if they turn back in penitence.
Fear of taking a moral stand
This quotation will highlight some of the reasons for the
embarrassment of the Church and the scandals that haunt us. It is very painful
to say, but for 25 years many Christians in America have taken the Gospel and
the teachings of the Church very lightly. Lay people have resisted the more
difficult teachings of tradition, on contraception and fornication and every
sexual deviation. Religious and clergy have correspondingly neglected to
present those unpopular teachings.
While it is true that behavioral sciences have restated
much of what theologians forgot (or denied) about the moral vulnerability of
wounded human nature, the growing awareness of human limitations and developmental
needs has given rise to a moral license, blessed by the mass media. Many
well-meaning Christians are deeply confused and even misled, simply by the
moral principles presented on their television sets. Pornography and its
lustful values, its devaluation of the dignity of even elderly people (e.g.
television’s Golden Girls), have moved from the back room of the
magazine store out into the living room of the family home. And the churches,
for the most part, have done nothing.
While becoming involved with a select array of social ills
and causes, the churches have neglected the causes that were pre-eminently
their own: public morality and the defense of the family. To my knowledge,
there has not been one serious campaign against the immorality in media
supported by any major denomination. With few exceptions, Christian religious
leaders have chosen silence, rather than the risk of being politically
incorrect.
While the Catholic Church has paid dearly for its opposition
to abortion— expressed moderately, and in some places much too moderately—the
mainstream denominations have, incredibly, gone along for the ride, ignoring
the fact that the most monstrous pages of 20th-century history were written by
people who convinced their followers that certain people were not really human
beings, and therefore lacked human rights. My personal contacts with
non-Catholic clergy have convinced me that they are afraid openly to express
their own profound objections to abortion.
The source of scandal
The saddest and most shameful fact of the last 25 years is
not the scandalous misbehavior that makes the headlines. The real source of
scandal is the moral relativism implicitly and explicitly found at all levels
of moral education, in almost all denominations. The pedophile certainly
represents a serious moral and psychological disorder, but this tendency might
well have been controlled, and sublimated into acceptable behavior, if religion
and society joined forces to shape a culture that made sexual responsibility
and control normative.
The question asked by Karl Meninger decades ago is still
relevant: “What ever became of sin?” I think we Catholic Americans, as a group,
have gone along with serious moral relativism. Now we reap the bitter fruits.
An equally embarrassing question is the relativism found in
religious education. A review of popular Catholic religious-education
textbooks will reveal a playing-down or omission of major Catholic dogmas,
including the Divinity of Christ. The problem pertinent to this discussion is
not why these omissions occur, but rather, why they are tolerated by those
responsible. People often ask why more strenuous action was not taken against a
cleric accused of immorality. The same question could be asked about those who
teach obvious error in the name of Catholic education.
I believe that when other Christian churches fail to fulfill
their responsibility to the Lord, they do not sin so greatly and encounter so
much danger as Catholics, either individually or collectively. In a word, if
you will forgive me for saying anything so brash, I think we may deserve all
the trouble we are experiencing. Wow! It hurt to say that.
A time for saintly lives
Since I believe deeply in the mercy of God, and know that he
painfully punishes his children only to correct them, I suspect that the
present humiliation may have some beneficial effects. It could lead to a real
reformation of our moral practice as a Church, and to a thorough examination of
our moral teaching, from kindergarten to doctoral studies. This is not
hyperbole. It is exactly what the Holy Father has called for in his new
encyclical. We could make better use of all this suffering by putting our house
in order.
In the Jewish scriptures, infidelity often led to disasters,
which the people brought upon themselves; then, through the preaching of the
prophets, they were led to a much healthier reconstruction of their society.
The pathetic cowardice of the apostles and disciples, with the exception of the
women who remained faithful, led those men closer to repentance and a
productive life of discipleship. Bad times in Church history— times of
infidelity, moral laxity, scandal, and heresy—have often been the occasions
for many truly blessed Christian lives. Such great reformers as Ambrose,
Augustine, Basil, John Chrysostom, Benedict, Francis, Clare, Ignatius Loyola,
John of the Cross, the two Catherines, and Teresa, all had their beginnings in
times every bit as bad as our own.
If we can see things through the perspective of Church
history, and in the light of the surviving perennial wisdom of Catholicism, it
should not be so difficult to see this painful moment of scandal as the call of
grace for real reform in the Church.
A few years ago, I wrote about this desperate need in The
Reform of the Renewal. Some criticized this book as pessimistic. In fact,
the present scandals reveal an underlying deterioration far deeper and more
widespread than I had recognized. Fortunately these very troubled times have
now caught the attention of many who were previously lulled into thinking that
our troubles were going to bottom out shortly. They are not. Those who think
that way have become passengers on a ship of fools.
What to do with the pain
The pain of these times has many uses. It need not be wasted
suffering at all. The following suggestions have been worked out in the gray
light of dawn, when the quiet of the morning helps one to sort out the
bitterness of the previous day’s scandalous revelation. This list is by no
means exhaustive.
1. The individual must acknowledge his complicity in the
unraveling of the Christian life. Very few of us can honestly absolve
ourselves of all responsibility. Even those who have been warning others
about the dangerous road we are traveling must admit that we have often done
little to stop the downward plunge, because of our self-righteousness and
spiritual narcissism. Many others did not see the obvious danger in the
legitimate progress and adjustments required by Vatican II. I confess to being
one of these. Sometime in the 1970s I recall saying to myself, “We are not on a
street car named desire, but in a mini-bus named disaster.” But my own ego and
human respect often prevented me from doing anything effective. It still
does. Self-knowledge is the occasion of effective responses to scandal.
Christian reform, focused on the forceful teachings of Christ, continuously
reminds us that we must examine and acknowledge our failures.
2. In time of
scandal we must actively and openly support the good. This is no time for
hang-dog passive aggression, or self-centered withdrawal to our own little
church. There is an immense amount of good in the Church in America, and we
should openly support it. Here I have a painful word for some conservatives.
Personally I have found that those who identify themselves by this title are
often useless in the work of reform. Some have become so addicted to negative
criticism that they really hope for the worst, so they can keep on complaining.
Ordinarily in the life of the Church, the good coexists with
the indifferent, the pathetic, and even a mixture of what may be the dangerous.
Perhaps the most obvious example is in religious education. Everyone
interested in the good of the Church should be involved, insofar as possible,
with religious education. The new Catechism of the Catholic Church is a Magna
Carta for such involvement. A person interested in reform should find some
need, and fill it intelligently.
3. Confronting what is wrong is the principal challenge in
this time of scandal. When one encounters something that could be a scandal,
one must proceed with justice, common sense, and patience. Anyone who lacks
these three qualities should not even attempt to make a change. Unjust
accusations never help the cause of the Church. This is the sin of calumny. And
it is the sin of detraction to make the unknown faults of others known to those
who have no right to know about them. The media in our times live on calumny,
and frolic in detraction. We consequently sometimes forget that both are
serious sins.
Common sense is indispensable in changing a widespread
pattern of confusion and decline. Without compromising, we can make progress
in correcting a bad situation, one step at a time. Then, if many attempts at
change prove hopeless, by reason of ill will or the weak-mindedness of those
responsible, we may be forced to move on and try elsewhere. The new Code of
Canon Law permits lay people to choose their own parish. The Church has always
carefully allowed new religious communities to begin, having ascertained that
they fill a need. The Church also permits priests and seminarians to change
their diocese. Common sense suggests that one try to change things over a
period of time, gradually. But if this fails, one must move. Brave people
attempt the difficult, fools the impossible.
Fruits of repentance
Patience is necessary in changing any living thing, and
especially when free will is involved. Reading the lives of the great reformers
will reveal a combination of patience and singleness of purpose that is often
heroic. For those who patiently wait, I might suggest that they patiently work,
not just wait.
We are seeing today a discernible shift in the thinking of
many Catholic clergy and laity. The disasters and the moral scandals are waking
people up, making it more respectable to suggest personal and ecclesiastical
reform. A chorus needs to rise, calling for serious adherence to the Gospel in
all phases of life-including sexual morality. Start the singing. I await the
day when some of those responsible for the most notorious scandals may come
forth themselves to share the fruits of their repentance.
I am in a position to know a number of people who are in
fact deeply repentant. They were called to repentance by adversity and
embarrassment. Those reasons are as good as any. I hope that they may share
with us, in writing, what they have learned from their own repentance, and
their evaluation of the situation in the Church which may have brought them to
disaster. Perhaps now they can see more clearly the erroneous decisions that
were made in the past.
Let us begin work on a truly personal and faithful reform of
the Catholic Church in America. Our violent revulsion at the present scandals
should give our rockets a boost. All we need to do is follow the way pointed
out to us by Christ two thousand years ago, and renewed in every age of serious
scandal throughout the history of the Church.
The closing words of the Sermon on the Mount give us a
powerful image. Christ relates these two images to the individual and to
personal response. One shows a house built on sand, in ruin. The other shows a
house built on rock, withstanding the storm. The difference is entirely to be
found in listening to the words of Christ, and ignoring or heeding them.
Father Benedict Groeschel is a spiritual writer and
psychologist working in the South Bronx.
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