(Death, Heaven, Purgatory, Hell)
Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults
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Pedophiles and priests
Colleen Clements
The Roman Catholic Church is the latest target of media hysteria and demands for 'zero tolerance.' Strangely, every time we hear that phrase a once-independent organization is required to hand over some authority to the state.
The secular
public square has again collided with religious institutions over ethics, law
and, in this case, psychiatry and knowledge about homosexual pedophilia and
homosexuality. The handling of sexual abuse charges within the Roman Catholic
Church decades ago has suddenly become a media event, with the intense focus and
hidden agendas that such media events have as their primary characteristics. The
issue is complex, but can be broken down into understandable units.
Psychiatry has maintained for some time that certain pedophilias are not
amenable to treatment. The two major categories are pedophilias in which the sex
object orientation is exclusively young children, and those in which the sex
object orientation is a confusion of sexual attraction and predation (predatory
serial killers). The definition of "young children" is generally prepubescent
children, but it has been extended at times to teens. The current media
presentation of the issue within the Roman Catholic Church has not been clear on
the definition, unfortunately. But in general, the abuses being covered in the
media occurred two decades or more ago, and for the most part involved young
teenage boys in a homosexual incident with male priests.
There are other types of pedophilia cases that also need to be considered to
give adequate context to the problem. Some cases are false charges generated by
couples in a custody battle. Some are incest cases within barely functioning
families. Some are again false charges due to malpractice in psychiatry—the
common recovered memories court cases in which the therapist implants the memory
and the implanted memory then becomes incorporated by the person as really
having happened, with all the tragic consequences that follow. Some cases are
generated by a pre-existing mental illness which incorporates current events
into the delusions. Some are the "Lolita"-type cases. And some cases are unloved
or socially rejected teens who either sell their bodies to survive, or fall in
love with an older person who gives them the nurturing they are searching for.
All become lumped together in an effort to "save the children," which, like
patriotism, may become a rallying cry for scoundrels.
Mental health professionals need to be careful their diagnosis and treatment
is scrupulously scientific in such situations, because the potential for damage
is high.
I remember my homosexual friend when I was an undergraduate. He was an
English professor at my college, and we were quite close. One day, he called to
ask me to come with him while he saw a friend in another college town. He needed
the company, he told me, because he suspected this other English professor was
going to share with him something my friend would not be comfortable with. His
professor friend was older than my friend, and without a companion. When we
arrived, the professor invited us in with a huge smile and secretive look. He
wasn't completely at ease that I was there, but I gave my friend what he wanted,
a good reason to leave soon. Standing in the elegant living room was a teenage
boy, looking a bit spoiled and sullen. The professor showed him off as if
showing off a trophy, and it was uncomfortable. This was his new lover, and he
was as giddy as if this was first love. My friend was caring and sweet with the
professor, but he begged off staying too long because the two of us would have
to be leaving.
When we got back on the road, my friend sighed. He had been afraid this was
what he would find, and he told me how difficult it was for elderly homosexuals
to get or maintain an exclusive relationship with someone, to have genuine love.
He felt genuinely sorry for his old friend, and worried more about the teen
harming his friend than the reverse. Such relationships could end in theft,
physical abuse of the homosexual professional or murder. His hope had been that
he was wrong about what his friend had wanted to show him, but he was bright and
empathic, and he had read the situation correctly. He was so glad I had come
with him. And for the rest of the trip, he was very sad. He was no longer in a
long-term relationship, and I suddenly felt great concern for him. I would not
have wanted him to descend to the place his professor friend was in. Neither of
us considered the teen a child, and it was hard to tell who was exploiting whom.
My friend was one of the most ethical persons I have known, in the deep sense
of ethical. Given his flaws, as all humans have, he always tried hard to do the
ethical thing, and he felt deeply for people. Because he was exclusively
oriented to men as sex objects—a biological reality of his existence—he had
broken many social values surrounding the issue of sex. Despite that, he loved
people, was helpful and caring, would try never to hurt anyone, and worked to
conduct his life in as ethical a way as possible. I still consider him one of
the most ethical people I have known. And I bring up this memory because the
media investigation of the Roman Catholic Church, despite media denials and
distortions, does involve the issue of homosexuality.
The Catholic hierarchy itself has identified it as the cause of most of the
problems, because most of these old cases involve homosexual relationships
between teens and priests, or between priests and seminarians or young priests.
The church accepts sex-object orientation, but insists on celibacy for both
heterosexuals and homosexuals.
Throughout the long history of the church, both have had much difficulty
living up to the celibacy standard. The two proposed solutions have little to do
with pedophilia of the first definition. The traditional church wishes to screen
out homosexuals as a way to prevent future abuse. The radicals in the church
wish to allow priests to marry to prevent abuse. The latter is plain silly (we
are not talking about cases of heterosexual abuse). The former would be a witch
hunt of homosexuals rivalling the brutality of the destruction of the monastic
order, the Knights Templar.
The solution has little to do with religion, in fact. Societies look at the
variances of sex-object orientation and decide reasonably that some orientations
should not be acted on. Strict celibacy is required for exclusive child
pedophiles or incarceration must substitute. It is not realistic to expect a
pedophilic sexual predator (serial killer) to practise celibacy, so
incarceration for life (or the death penalty) is the only solution. Strict
celibacy—given the Catholic Church's position on homosexual behaviour—is the
only option for homosexual priests, and if they fall from grace frequently,
removal from the priesthood should be swift upon proof. Since having sex with a
minor is also a secular crime, the minor and family should be encouraged to
report it to the secular authorities for investigation. It may be a mistake for
society and church to require the religious institution to report charges of
criminal behaviour. For ethical reasons such as becoming an arm of the state, I
am opposed to all institutions being required or mandated to report a variety of
unacceptable behaviours.
Finally, the media demand for zero tolerance has a familiar ring, as it
should. Zero tolerance is unethical and unproductive. Its hysterical application
after school violence incidents winds up harming the good students and not
stopping the bad ones. Its equally hysterical application after media cases of
physicians having sex with patients results in damage to innocent physicians,
creates an adversarial relationship with patients, degrades the professional for
not succeeding in creation of utopian paradises, and catches all sorts of decent
people in its undefined and forever expanding net. In the end, it is degrading
to women patients, placing them in the class of incompetents, and damaging to
social relationships.
The phrase zero tolerance gives away something else about this media
blitzkrieg on the Roman Catholic Church. Since the 1970s, activist groups with
postmodern political agendas have been busy politicizing all social institutions
with an existence independent from government. The strategy or tool used to
achieve this takeover of higher education, secondary and primary education, the
business world, the armed services and medicine has been the charge of sexual
abuse or harassment. Managers eager to look ethical have cloaked themselves in
saving helpless women, saving the children and preventing sexual degradation of
the weak. Who could dispute such a goal? That it is a fantasy hasn't stopped
anyone.
Strong religious institutions are the next target. They will be politicized
(controlled by the secular state), and will no longer be a base for opposition
to state authority or decisions. Lacking a current media story to begin this
process, we are presented with decades-old cases and a total media blitz. It is
the repeating pattern of current bioethics, and it has been successful every
time it has been applied. The church authorities have been as caught offguard
and as ineffective as the armed services, the universities and the physician
organizations. Pedophilia has very little to do with it.
—Colleen Clements is clinical associate professor of psychiatry at the
University of Rochester, Rochester, N.Y.