REVIEW & OUTLOOK
The Church and Its Critics
Anti-Catholic opportunitists seize on a sex scandal.
The lion in winter can still roar. After summoning America's top Catholic cardinals and bishops to Rome, Pope John Paul II made it clear to them and the world that there is "no place in the priesthood and religious life for those who would harm the young." He enjoined the bishops to come up with a policy that boils down to one injunction: Practice what you preach.
After nearly three months of daily headlines, no one needs reminding that the scandal of sexually predatory priests is in good part of the church's own making. It began as a Boston story about John Geoghan, a defrocked priest accused of molesting dozens of children. But it exploded into a national scandal when previously sealed court records revealed that Cardinal Bernard Law had known about Geoghan's abuse when he transferred him from one unsuspecting parish to another.
So there is outrage in the pews, and it is genuine. Like the Pope, millions of American Catholics have been grievously wounded to learn that priests entrusted with the innocence of their children have betrayed them--and that their bishops used the collection plate to pay off millions in hush money to victims.
There is, however, a parallel anger at work here, which proceeds from different motives. It represents a mindset that has long viewed the Catholic Church--correctly--as one of the last institutional voices objecting to anything-goes sexual morality.
Think of the irony: A sex-drenched American media culture is now upbraiding the Catholic Church for being too forgiving toward licentious sexual behavior. And a culture that has learned to tolerate anything (perjury isn't perjury if it's about sex) is griping that the bishops haven't endorsed a "zero tolerance" standard toward priestly misbehavior.
When we talk about hostility to the Catholic Church, we are talking about a culture that sees the Church as one of the few institutions willing to say no. And with good reason. Any institution that speaks without irony of sin and holiness, as the bishops did last week in Rome, will always be an obstacle to liberty as defined by libertines.
That is why those with this worldview remain implacably hostile to anyone trying to make the most obvious distinctions in this scandal. Begin with the fact that most of what we are talking about here is not pedophilia but homosexual behavior between priests and teen-age boys. This invites questions that are next to impossible to raise in any public way today without inviting elite ridicule. Just ask the Boy Scouts.
By contrast, in their own letter released Wednesday, the bishops at least take the blame for their own pastoral laxity and moral fuzziness. Priests must "promote the correct moral teaching of the church," they write, "and publicly . . . reprimand individuals who spread dissent and groups which advance ambiguous approaches to pastoral care." These words suggest that the bishops understand they are now reaping the consequences of passing the pastoral buck to their lawyers, insurance companies and psychiatrists.
Some useful reforms are already under way. Some dioceses, such as Chicago and Los Angeles, have set up independent review boards, including laypeople, that aim to prevent sexual-abuse cases from being swept under the ecclesiastical carpet. And when the bishops meet in June in Dallas to come up with what the Pope insists ought to be a uniform national policy, it will doubtless include more safeguards, such as the automatic reporting of abusive priests to law enforcement authorities. The bishops' statement used the word "crime," which is not the same thing as a sin and implies secular justice.
An outstanding question is whether Cardinal Law of Boston should resign. We understand that the church doesn't want to be seen to be responding to public pressure. But it's noteworthy that most calls for resignation have come from Catholics themselves, who want the church to retain its teaching authority. This requires accountability, and if Cardinal Law sat atop any other American institution he would have had to step down long ago.
Readers of this page know that we have clashed with the bishops in the past, especially over their forays into politics and economics. But like most Americans, Catholic and non-Catholic, we do not believe the actions of a few ought to invalidate the work of the majority of priests, who teach our children, care for our sick and otherwise make the fabric of American society richer by their ministries.
When we look across the breadth of modern American life, in short, we see the institution of the Catholic Church as one of our great assets. The current scandal will have served some purpose if it forces America's bishops to take more seriously accusations against their misbehaving priests. But we aren't about to join those whose real agenda is to leave the church crushed and humiliated.
