PROVIDENCE (RI)
Providence Journal [Providence RI]
October 14, 2021
By Mary Ann Sorrentino
Mary Ann Sorrentino is a freelance columnist who writes from Cranston.
Thirty-five years ago, this newspaper and newspapers worldwide reported my excommunication from the Catholic Church. That action stemmed from my role as executive director of Planned Parenthood of Rhode Island, providing contraceptive care since the 1930s, and abortion services since abortion was legalized with the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. I took the reins in 1977, and became proudly linked to pro-choice advocacy.
As a straightforward person, I understand Rome’s attack on my membership in a Church which considers abortion a “mortal sin.” What I question is my unique condemnation while administrators and medical staff in such clinics worldwide remain Catholic.
I am not seeking their punishment. I am, however, spotlighting an arbitrary and sexist Church. (Can I be buried with my parents in a Catholic cemetery now that an alleged national crime boss rests in one locally?)
I ignore the clergy who condemn me, but I am moved to address this topic as major newspapers globally report on the meticulous study that found 330,000 French children were sexually abused by Catholic priests and lay diocesan workers since the 1950s. That number exceeds the total populations of Pittsburgh and Tampa.
This is in France alone. Imagine what the worldwide numbers are if France’s experience is replicated around the world.
Against this backdrop of the ruination of young lives by men ordained to minister to the faithful, women endure the constant condemnation of these same men attacking any woman’s right to terminate an unintended pregnancy. Legal abortions are singled out as the worst-sin-of-sins and women are condemned by Rome while men who impregnate them go forward blamelessly.
Despite the vow of chastity taken by celibate Catholic priests, the numbers of sexually-abused children represent an unimaginable number of criminal offenses. That vow of chastity is broken routinely, apparently, as priests engage in forbidden sexual activity with women and men of whatever age.
I don’t care if Catholic priests have sexual experiences with consenting adults, male or female.
I am, however, seeking a uniform Church policy to create a more equitable doling out of accusations and punishments for forbidden sexual activity. Preferably, I wish that the Catholic hierarchy would stop acting as if the sexual drive God instills in every human person is an evil thing. More specifically, when the coming together of a man and a woman results in an unintended pregnancy, I wish a clergy guilty of breaking its own chastity vows would refrain from comment.
There is no reason to believe that the God we love — if we have one — doesn’t embrace and understand a woman dealing with an unintended pregnancy. He may prefer a child not be brought into a world to be sexually abused by the very priests charged with living in His image.
Abortion is a private legal matter. The widespread destruction of childhood innocence and the forced sexual abuse of children we are told God wants us to have is a public crime.
With 330,000 victims in France alone, God knows how many millions exist globally. Will priests pay the price for ghastly crimes against innocent children that — when committed by a lay person — result, appropriately, in prosecution and imprisonment?
The Vatican should spend less time condemning pregnant women making heart-wrenching decisions around unintended pregnancies and more time protecting already-born children who — every day and everywhere — are physically, emotionally, and psychologically damaged by deviant, criminal, and largely unpunished priests. Their innocent priest colleagues, trying to save a jaded ministry, deserve our support as do the children Rome wants us to have.