By Reid Collins on 3.19.02 @ 12:02AM
Whether in the Yates case or the pedophilia scandal, our tendency is to look away from evil, hope for an easy fix, and ignore what doing good requires.
The verdict in the Andrea Yates case has rubbed relativism the
wrong way, reverting as it seems to do to a simpler rule of
determining legal responsibility when insanity pleas are raised.
The old M'Naughten Rule: did the defendant know what he was doing,
the nature and quality of his act, and could he distinguish between
right and wrong at the time of the offense. It's been around since
1843. Attempts have been made to parse it, dilute it, pervert it,
but by and large it speaks to what juries comprehend in reflection
of their life experience.
There is the "irresistible impulse" defense, one that the Court
of Appeals of the District of Columbia found irresistible in 1954
in the Durham case, but which the same court junked in 1972 in
favor of the simpler test embedded in the model penal code.
But none of this counts with the average pundit, or the street,
which has determined that Mrs. Yates should not be held accountable
simply because of the horror of the crime, its multiplicity. We are
still likely to be transported into the wood of the modern alienist
who can find diminished capacity, irresistible impulse,
uncontrollable impulse, automatism, or a dozen variations of the
theme to excuse culpability. This is our millennium mission: to
avoid culpability. To stand naked in the world and cry, "Here am I,
Lord, a sinner -- but that guy over there made me do it." To
somehow find Andrea Yates innocent of crime, a victim of other
unseen impulses, would make us all feel better, knowing as we would
then that no one is really capable of such horror without the
intervention of another force. We are all really okay, now, aren't
we?
So it is that Roman Catholics are now treated to the posit:
celibacy for the priesthood may be a bad thing. The wellspring
here, the exposure of widespread pedophilia among those who have
taken a vow of celibacy in dedicating themselves to the love and
service of Christ. An editorial in the "Pilot," the official
newspaper of the Boston Archdiocese, suggests the church must
acknowledge the question of whether to drop the celibacy
requirement for priests. The editorial seems simply to ruminate out
loud on the question, not to take a stand, which would be a
challenge to Rome.
Missing from that sectarian argument is a matter of law and
fact. Who is suggesting that marriage is a cure for pedophilia?
This current curse of the Church is not priestly philandering with
adult parishioners. What is appalling and what is costing is the
admitted abuse of children, young boys who, in some cases, grow to
knowledgeable adulthood before the statute of limitations has run.
It is not a matter of celibacy but of law, God's and man's.
But again, the desire for unaccountability drives the argument.
Marry them off, sanction the relief of their prostates and testes,
and again we will have avoided the need to acknowledge another
covenant broken. After all, wasn't it found years ago that
abstinence from the consumption of red meat on one day a week was
too great a burden for the laity?
If there is any balm to be found it must lie in an appreciation
of the good. A decent respect for those who labor on under heavy
burdens, more acknowledgment of the woman who struggles to meet the
responsibilities of a large family, encouragement and insight from
those near her. And a new regard for men who take on in a world
teeming with the trappings of indulgence the self-denial required
by their Church in the salvation of souls.
topics:
Law
