Talking Out Of Turn

A friend emailed me today about the documentary film Deliver Us From Evil. I’ve not seen it, but apparently it deals with pedophilia and other sexual abuses in the Roman Catholic Church.

A few points:

1. I’m not exactly sure why pedophilia has so afflicted the Catholic Church in particular, in a way that it has not struck other religions or religious institutions. Of course, by framing it this way, one appears to regard pedophilia as a disease and not as a sin. So that’s the first point — pedophilia is a sin, plain and simple. There may be a diseased element to it, but at the end of the day, pedophilia is a moral choice to commit an immoral sexual act with a child.

2. Let’s also note that a child does not understand sexuality in the way an adult does. He may understand it in the way anyone can understand Washington, D.C. is the capital of the United States. But he has never visited Washington, D.C. Likewise he does not understand sexuality in a real, firsthand sense since he has not gone through puberty. Yet, is it not odd that a molested child still knows that what has happened to him is not normal, and is in fact wrong? This is very important to bring out.

3. But why the Catholic Church in particular? Why has pedophilia run so rampant in the Catholic Church? I don’t really know. But I can venture a guess or two.

a. The most obvious is that the Catholic Church is filled with sinners. And I don’t mean sinners saved by grace, as for instance we might expect to find in an evangelical church, but I mean unrepentant sinners. This includes their clergy. As such, in the most important place, that is, in the depths of their heart, Catholic clergymen are no different from the rest of the world. They are likewise spiritually dead. So it should not come as a surprise to us that there is sin in the midst of the RCC: by and large, its laity as well as its clergy do not have “a new heart and a new spirit.” They are still unchanged, uncleansed, and unrepentant.

b. It seems to be the case that those who are sexually abused have a higher tendency to become sexual abusers themselves. And there’s been a long history of pedophilia within the RCC (e.g. cases have been cited from before Vatican II). With this in mind, imagine a priest molesting a child. That child grows up. If he should want to become a clergyman, well, it’s fairly easy to see sexual abuse propogating itself within the Catholic Church in this fashion.

c. Perhaps the RCC even acts as a sort of magnet to draw the abused to join its ranks, with its system of guilt, confession, penance, etc. There’s an element of co-dependency in how the RCC relates to its members and vice versa.

d. Maybe the requirement of celibacy for the priesthood has led to a sexual frustration in certain clergymen. They’ve been sexually repressed and have no outlet. And children usually tend to make for easier targets since they are children and not adults.

The problem with this is that pedophilia is specific. It is a sexual craving for children. So it’s more difficult to see how a sexually repressed but otherwise normal human would ever desire to molest children. One would rather expect him to be an adulterer before a child molester.

e. On the other hand, there’s something to be said for not having a normal family life, not having the care and support of a husband or a wife, children, and so forth. Of being different from the vast majority of one’s flock, yet needing to deal with family related issues on a daily basis. Such things take their toll on a person — psychologicaly, emotionally, etc.

f. Along the same lines, these days, Catholic clergy are no longer as isolated from the rest of society as they once might have been. It’s easy for them to turn on a TV, to watch a movie, to surf the internet, etc. These can and are certainly used for beneficial things, but they might also feed into the corruptions of an unrepentant heart.

Furthermore, at least in my opinion, morality in the USA seems to be on the decline. More aberrent (and abhorrent) behaviors find their way into public mediums such as the TV and radio. Among them is sex. Sex sells. “Great is Aphrodite of the Americans!”

If we take these two points together, we can see how this would be a temptation to a Catholic clergyman. And for the closet pedophiles and other sexual predators in the RCC, it’s another hole in the dam. The only question left is, how many holes does it take before the filthy river of sin breaks out and spews forth its bile?

g. Keep in mind clergy are still much respected by their flock. No one wants to speak out against a clergyman. And even if someone does speak out, the benefit of the doubt is almost always given to the clergyman. Generally speaking, it is right and good to respect our elders and clergy, but in the RCC we’re not necessarily dealing with true servants and shepherds of Jesus Christ. (At best we could be talking about hired hands.) Anyway, there’s a strong community pressure to keep silent about sexual abuse in the RCC. Suppression is far more likely than exposure.

4. All this said about pedophilia, many of these sexual abuses have actually not been limited to children. Another predominantly affected group seems to be adolescent males. Moreover, in these cases the sexual predators are largely male clergy. This would then indicate a strong homosexual element within the RCC.

There’s no reason to forbid homosexuals from joining a church, as long as they are truly repentant Christians, and thus no longer practice homosexuality. But for whatever reasons, the Catholic Church appears to admit many homosexuals to their clergy. Not merely the laity, mind you, but the clergy itself. And I presume these homosexuals are unrepentant homosexuals, because the only other option would be that they are terribly backslidden. But this option is quite hard to believe since it assumes they are true Christians in the first place. Yet if they are somehow true Christians, serving as clergymen in the Catholic Church, and are truly backslidden, the first duty of their brethren (assuming they, too, are true Christians) should be to call for these clergymen to step down as clergymen. Or, in the most dire event, they should follow Paul’s command in 1 Cor. 5:5.

As things stand now, though, it appears the Catholic Church has a huge problem with homosexuality in their midst. But I want to emphasize: homosexuality is not the problem here; it is a symptom. It is a symptom of the greater problem that many Catholic clergy are not true Christians.

5. My friend implied that other religions might also have pedophilia amidst their ranks. Yes, this may indeed be true. But is that the point? No. Theoretically, no religion is completely free from pedophilia (or other terrible sins). This could very well include Protestant churches, too. However, whereas a church faithful to the Bible would attempt to expose such sins in their people and bring them to light, and discipline those who have sinned, etc., sadly, it seems much of the Catholic Church wants or at least originally wanted to cover up their sins (e.g. by moving suspected priests elsewhere). The bottom line, then, is not so much whether pedophilia exists, but what a religious organization does once it is found.

In sum, I’m reminded of these words from Blaise Pascal: “These days the truth is so obscured, and falsehood so well-established, that unless we love the truth, we shall never find it.”