A distinguished spiritual writer comments on the sources of a profound moral failure, and the appropriate Christian response.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.