Washington — If I am accurately perceiving the national
controversy over pederasty in the American Roman Catholic Church, I
have to conclude that the Boy Scouts of America are vindicated! The
only logical conclusion deducible from the media’s outrage over
revelations of pederasty in the pulpit is that the Boy Scouts’ ban
against homosexual scout leaders is okay. The vast majority of
irregularities reported in the present scandal have been between
errant priests and post-pubescent boys. Apparently, the Boy Scouts’
wisdom and prudence goes beyond tying knots and putting out forest
fires. Maybe now the Boy Scouts will again have access to
government facilities and to the largess of such charities as the
United Way.
It is only a matter of time before the American Catholic Church
adopts the same standards for the priesthood that the Boy Scouts
have maintained for Scout leaders, despite the criticisms of the
politically correct. Soon, if the spirit of reform in the Church
continues, every priest in the Church will be able to take the Boy
Scout oath without winking. Perhaps Scout leaders will soon be
admitted to the priesthood, and American intellectuals will begin
to speculate on when the Roman Catholic Church will finally select
a Boy Scout leader as Pope.
The last few months’ revelations that the Catholic hierarchy
covered up for hundreds of priests, having sexual relations with
perhaps thousands of boys, provoked anger all over America. Even
Liberal forward-lookers are angry, though now they are in the weird
position of opposing homosexual priests while favoring homosexual
Boy Scout leaders. Embracing such contradiction is for Liberals
their special art form; but if it becomes too much a strain there
is a remedy to this contradiction, to wit: Liberals could drop
their boycott of the Boy Scouts if the Boy Scouts promise to enlist
homosexual priests as Scout leaders.
As for the American Catholic Church, its cardinals who recently
met in Rome with Pope John Paul II have now adopted a policy for
the “dismissal from the clerical state of a priest who has become
notorious and is guilty of the serial predatory sexual abuse of
minors.” That really is not very convincing. For now Catholic
parents intent on religious instruction for their children had best
send them to the Boy Scouts where the young will also learn to
identify poison ivy.
The Church hierarchy bears a heavy responsibility for this
scandal, a scandal that abounds with ironies in a country that is
windswept with conflicting notions of sex. Yet the Church’s
teaching on sex, particularly sex in the priesthood, is not
ambivalent. The hierarchy has known about certain priests’
misbehavior. The errant priests compose a small percentage of the
priesthood, but obviously they have acted with an astounding
abandon that should have elicited action from the hierarchy years
ago. Part of the problem is that the hierarchy is so insulated from
normal Americans. In fact, I am not all that clear it is capable of
relating to normal Americans.
At the expense of sounding crass let me venture the comparison
of the hierarchy of the Catholic Church (or any church for that
matter) with the faculty of practically any public school system.
Both clerics and teachers claim (not without reason) to possess a
special expertise. Both claim to be open to the ordinary citizens;
in the case of the Church, the faithful; in the case of the
teachers, their students’ parents. However, in the crunch, both
Church leaders and teachers follow their own professional
interests. Their special expertise inclines them along on that
preordained course. Try arguing with a cleric or a teacher about
the way either carries out his or her duties.
The Church’s professional interest has been to avoid scandal and
to keep as many priests as possible in the parishes. Thus they have
been ignoring a serious problem. The standard they adopted in Rome
falls far short of addressing the problem, “notorious” and “serial”
sexual predators are but the worst of a bad lot. Any priest who
cannot avoid sexual activity with young men, or for that matter
with young women, has already shown himself to be unable to keep
his word. Priests vow celibacy. For those who have broken that vow
the Church ought to find a suitable monastery or retirement from
the clergy.
The fact is that many dioceses for many years have been
ordaining priests who were unworthy of the calling. I have known
morally-upright priests who have been objecting to this laxness in
the Church. Most have been ignored and exiled to remote regions.
Now their warnings have been vindicated. Bring back the vindicated
critics, and remember how easily it is for hierarchies to lose
touch with their constituents and with their purpose. And take the
Boy Scouts’ oath without winking.
