by Matthew A. C. Newsome ©2002

A very good (non-Catholic) friend of mine emailed me and asked my opinion of the current sex scandal in the Catholic Church.  I wrote him a reply, expressing the frustrations of myself and many Catholics, and also sent him a copy of the article that I had written, an abridged form of which was published in the Asheville (NC) Citizen-Times.  (You can read that article here).  He wrote back with a few questions and comments of his own.  This is my reply, dealing further with issues such as the ordination of women, priestly celibacy, and the real issues at hand that must be dealt with in light of this current crisis.  Please keep in mind that this is a personal letter, not a formal thesis by any means, so please excuse any flaws in grammar or style.

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A few thoughts on some of your comments. . .

You asked if I was just splitting hairs over the pedophilia/homosexuality difference. You asked if I felt shame in defending this behavior.  In no way whatsoever am I defending pedophilia.  It is a horrible crime and a tragic sin.  I'm just saying that the reports in the paper and on TV make it sound like all of these priests that are being accused of sexual abuse are pedophiles.  But the great majority of them are actually men having homosexual encounters with teenage boys.  This does not qualify as pedophilia.  If you want to address the problem, you have to call it what it is.

People have been complaining for a long time that since the 60s there has been a strong homosexual undercurrent in the seminaries and that it was being allowed to continue.  It wasn't being dealt with, and people were afraid that there would be consequences.  Well, now there are.  But when people try to bring this up, they are told that most pedophiles are heterosexual.  Well, maybe they are, but the majority of the priests that are causing this problem have not been molesting little boys and girls, but teenage boys (and not teenage girls).

Is one sin worse than the other?  No.  No one, at any age, of either sex, should be molested like this.  But the sickness that causes men to lust after little children is different than the sickness that causes them to lust after teenage boys.  If we want to cure the patient we must first diagnose the illness.

I wrote that priestly celibacy is not a cause of homosexuality. You mentioned that people in prison often turn to homosexuality because of "forced celibacy."  There are some major differences, though.  First, priests freely take a vow of celibacy.  Prisoners make no such choice.  Second, the character of the average person who enters a prison is greatly different from the character of the average person who enters the seminary.  Second, prisoners may turn to homosexuality because all they have available are other men.  It's their only option (well, besides chastity).  A priest, however, is out in society.  If he chooses to break his vow of celibacy and become sexually active, he can choose a man, woman, or a bull frog.  He has options.  So the two really don't compare.

My point about no "experts" saying that celibacy causes homosexuality or child abuse is that it seems like every news and radio commentator wants to somehow pin these crimes on celibacy.  But they are alone in their opinion.  These people are after a good story, and attacking the institution of the Church is a way to get it.  Not a single councilor, psychologist, sexual therapist, doctor, police officer specializing in sex crimes, or anyone else who might have an informed opinion has suggested this to be true.  It's a silly argument.  If it were true you would expect to find unusually high numbers of pedophiles and sex abusers among the clergy and virtually none elsewhere.  But this isn't the case.  You find them in all classes, in all walks of life.

As far as where and how the survey was conducted that said 5 to 6% of men have pedophile tendencies, I don't know.  I'm just quoting Newsweek.  I only wanted to point out that, even though it is horrible that this happens in a church, Catholic priests are not necessarily more likely to be pedophiles than anyone else.  In fact, if you just take into account the numbers, they seem less likely.  So to look to the institution of the Church for the cause of this is unfounded.

This is not to say that the Church's hierarchy is blameless.  The bishops here in America have let everyone down by their inadequate dealings with this situation.  But this is different from the actual teachings of the Church.  You can't blame this on the Church's teachings on celibacy, sexual morality, etc.  The problem is not these teachings, but the sin that occurs when they are not taken to heart.  Just because certain members of the Church are not holy, does not make the Church herself unholy, or invalidate her teachings.

You then ask about women priests. You say not allowing women priests makes them second class citizens.  But this is quite a jump!  In what way does this make them "second class?"  Women have been honored and respected in the Western World (and remember, until about 500 years ago the Western World was the Catholic World) more than in any other culture you can name.  Take a look at Afghanistan.

The Catholic Church holds to a male only priesthood as a received matter of faith handed down from Jesus Christ.  Women are not classed as inferior or inadequate.  The two sexes are simply recognized as being different.  They each have different gifts, different roles.  The role of the priest is reserved to men.  Women are not suppressed by this.

You ask specifically what harm it would do to allow women priests.  I maintain that if the Catholic Church tomorrow were to begin ordaining women, it would cause greater harm to the Catholic Church and to the faith of Catholics everywhere than this present sex scandal, or anything else that has happened in her history for that matter.  Why?

Because one of the primary tenants of Catholicism is that the Church has the authority, granted by Christ, to teach infallibly in matters of faith and morals.  How do we know anything that we do about the faith?  Because we have faith in the Church that Christ founded to guard His teachings.  How do we know the books of the Bible are divinely inspired?  Because of an infallible proclamation of the Church.  How do we know that God exists in Trinitarian form?  Because of an infallible proclamation of the Church.  How do we know Jesus was the Son of God, a divine person?  Because of an infallible proclamation of the Church.

So, if the Church has been teaching, for the past 2000 years, that it has no authority to ordain women to the priesthood, and indeed has taught infallibly that women cannot be ordained, and then we are told that the Church was wrong all that time, we made a mistake, and we can ordain women now, what are Catholics to think?  If the Church was wrong in this particular infallible teaching, what else was she wrong about?  The divinity of Christ?  The inspiration of the Bible?  The graces of Baptism?  The forgiveness of sins?  How do we know what to trust?

(By the way, this is one of my main intellectual problems with Protestantism.  The various Protestant churches seem willing to accept certain infallible teachings of the Church, such as the inspiration of the Scriptures, but not others.  They pick and choose.  They each judge by their own individual standards, placing their own opinion over the Church's.  They have no authority for their faith).

This would rock the faith of Catholics in the one true Church to the core.  Where would we look to for the accurate and incorruptible teachings of Christ's church?  The only other church that even comes close is the Eastern Orthodox church, that also has Apostolic roots and orthodox teachings.  I think that if the Catholic Church began to ordain women, it would be the greatest thing that could happen to Eastern Orthodoxy.  Their numbers would swell as millions of Catholics joined their congregations.

But, that's not going to happen.  Because the Catholic Church has declared infallibly that she has no authority, no capacity, to ordain women.  And in 2000 years of existence no Pope or Church Council has ever contradicted another's infallible teaching.  It just isn't going to happen.  So debating about it is pointless, which was my point in the article.

You brought up the point of Mary, saying that if a woman was good enough to give birth to God, why isn't a woman "good enough" to be a priest.  Again, it's not a question of being "good enough."  This is not a value judgment against women.  It's just a matter of different roles.  But since you brought it up, the example of Mary is one of the better arguments against women's ordination.

Catholics hold Mary in the highest regard.  She was holy in every way.  She was the vessel for God coming to earth in human flesh.  She spent more time with Jesus than anyone.  She changed his diapers!  She knew him better than anyone else.  And she definitely played a very prominent role among his disciples.  If Jesus, or any one of his Apostles, had decided to establish a woman in the role of priest, it would have been her.  But we know, historically, that she was not a priest.

We know from the Scriptures that there were many women among Jesus' disciples, many influential.  Yet when he chose his Apostles, he chose only men.  When the Apostles had to select a replacement for Judas, they again selected a man.  When the Apostles, who were the first bishops, began to ordain other bishops and priests, they selected only men.

One of the reasons for this is because a priest, in his role as presider of the Eucharist, must stand in persona Christi, he must represent the person of Christ.  And when God chose to take on human flesh, he did so as a man.

There is no historical, and no Scriptural, basis for allowing women priests.  Any church that does so makes that change based on societal pressures.  And do you really want to put your faith in an institution that changes its teachings and values based on what the culture and society of the day pressures it into doing?  At the very least, you have to respect a church that stands firm against such pressures.

Further down you ask if Jesus said anything about celibacy, priests, or a Church?  Let's begin by looking at the last of these things, and move backwards.

I have had people tell me that according to their reading of the Gospel accounts, Jesus never intended to found a Church.  (These are usually people who do not belong to a church, or if they do it is an "independent" fellowship of sorts).  Well, I don't know what Gospels they are reading because in mine, it says in Matthew 16:18 (where Jesus is addressing Simon Peter), "I tell you, you are Peter (Kephas, Rock), and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death (hell, hades) shall not prevail against it."

This statement of Christ's is there in every translation I have read so far.  Now, whether you agree with the Catholic Church that Peter is the rock to which Christ referred (and it seems pretty straight forward), it isn't relevant to the question at hand.  Here you have Christ speaking directly to the fact that He intends to build (or found) a Church.  What of this Church Christ founded?  We can read many of its characteristics in the Epistles and in the Acts of the Apostles.  One of the things that Paul tells us in 1 Timothy 3:15 is that this Church is the "pillar and bulwark of truth."

On to your second question.  Does this Church have priests?  In Peter's first letter he makes mention of "a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 2:5).  On the surface, though, this question seems hard to answer.  There are three levels of ordination--bishop, priest, and deacon.  In the New Testament, the language used to describe these three offices is rather fluid.  For instance, Paul describes himself as a "diakonos" (meaning servant, or deacon), in a couple of his epistles, even though as an apostle, he held a much higher rank than that of deacon.

The word for bishops is "episcopoi" and this Greek word is translated in different ways in the New Testament.  Sometimes it is translated as "elder" and sometimes as "evangelist."  Examples of bishops in the New Testament (other than the apostles) would be Timothy and Titus.

The Greek word for priests is "presbuteroi" and this either gets translated as presbyter (in fact "priest" is just a contraction of presbyter) or sometimes elder.

So, yes, we can say that the New Testament speaks of bishops, priests, and deacons, but only if we interpret the words used to mean these things correctly.  The question, then, is are we interpreting it correctly?  The only way to know that for certain is to go back to the earliest records of the Church and see if they had priests, bishops and deacons like we do today.  As it turns out, yes they did.  Some of the earliest writings we have about the organization of the early church come from St. Ignatius of Antioch.  He was a student of the Apostle John and wrote in 110 AD:

"Now, therefore, it has been my privilege to see you in the person of your God-inspired bishop, Damas; and in the persons of your worthy presbyters, Bassus and Apollonius; and my fellow-servant, the deacon, Zotion. What a delight is his company! For he is subject to the bishop as to the grace of God, and to the presbytery as to the law of Jesus Christ" (Letter to the Magnesians 2).

There is a large body of early church writing to support the existence of bishops, priests, and deacons, but we will take this one as our example.  Ignatius was alive when the New Testament was still being written.  He knew the Apostles personally.  Surely he is in a better position to know these things than we are.

The other thing you ask about is celibacy.  Did Jesus teach that His priests must be celibate?  No, He did not.  Which is why priestly celibacy is not a doctrine of the Church.  It is a discipline practiced in much of the church.  As I stated in my article, only priests in the western (Latin or Roman) Catholic Church are required to be celibate.  Eastern Catholic rites, such as the Byzantine rite, do allow married clergy.  In fact it is the norm.  And even in the Roman rite, married clergy can be allowed under certain circumstances.  There are about 100 married Roman Catholic priests serving in America today, mostly converts who were married Anglican or Lutheran priests, and who received a special dispensation to be ordained in the Catholic church.  The Church has not always required a celibate priesthood, and it may not always in the future.

But Christ did speak highly of the celibate life.  Jesus Himself was celibate, as were Mary and Joseph in their marriage.  Paul lived a celibate life, and encouraged priests to follow his example (in 1 Corinthians 7, as well as other places in his writings).  The reason is to imitate Christ.

I have examined the issue of priestly celibacy from a historic perspective.  It seems that from the earliest days of the Church, priests were encouraged to be celibate, though it was not enforced.  A married man could become a priest, but an unmarried priest could not marry after taking holy orders.  Nor could a widower priest remarry.  This is the way it is among Eastern churches today still.  And it seemed that the bishops were selected mostly among the celibate priests.  It was in the fifth century when priestly celibacy first began to be mandated in the West, though the enforcement of that was lax at times until the 12th century.

But we are talking about voluntary celibacy for priests, not for all.  You say, "If having a wife helps you to learn to love others as you love yourself, then Jesus would be all for it."  Well, sure!  And all Catholics are free to marry.  They are encouraged to get married and have children.  In fact, most Catholics are called to do just that.  But a few are not.  And these individuals set aside their lives, either as an ordained priest, or as a lay religious brother or sister, and devote themselves entirely to Christ and His Church.  There is nothing wrong with that.

Back to the issue of women priests, you seem to think that the fact that Jesus selected only men to be His Apostles was an accident ("just because there were no women around").  But indeed there were women around.  We have already talked about Mary, His mother.  There was also Mary Magdalen and others.  It was women who first discovered the empty tomb.  Women were gathered around Him at His crucifixion.  Women made up His disciples as well as men.  There are many women with Jesus in the Gospel accounts.  The fact that He selected only men was not an accident.

You also say that it makes no sense that a woman could be a saint and not a priest.  But the two do not go hand in hand.  A saint is a holy person.  All are called to be saints.  The Church confers the title of "Saint" to a person whom we know to be in heaven, by their virtuous lives and by the evidence of their sanctity.  No, not all saints are priests.  And I dare say not all priests are saints (as has been made abundantly clear by John Geoghan and his lot).  We are all called to be holy (saints).  We are not all called to be priests.

I quoted from the papal encyclical Ordinatio Sacerdotalis in which John Paul II declares infallibly that the Church has no authority to ordain women.  You criticize this document by saying that the Pope gave no explanation, no justification, for this statement.  But do you really think that the entire document consisted of the brief passage that I quoted?  Of course not.  My purpose in citing this document was to show that the Church has infallibly taught the male priesthood as a doctrine, and, as an infallibly proclaimed doctrine, it could not be changed.  So I naturally only quoted the part of the document that demonstrated that.

But this statement of John Paul's was not isolated.  The document itself is not long.  You can read it in its entirety at:
http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/JP2ORDIN.HTM

Also remember that papal encyclicals such as this are not meant to be stand alone documents, but are to be taken together with other official church documents to form a whole.  We have church writers from as early as the second century speaking of a male only priesthood.  There is a large body of church writings on this, so John Paul II did not need to restate the entire history of this position to make his infallible statement.

The entire reason I dealt with the topics of priestly celibacy and women in the priesthood in my article was to illustrate two things.  First of all, how different these two issues are.  And second of all, how they do not relate to the present crisis.

I was frustrated at how nearly every article I read in the secular media (when this scandal first came out--they are getting better now) seemed to take this information about pedophile priests (remember, they are making no distinction between pedophilia and homosexual molestation), and conclude that to solve this problem the Catholic Church must allow priests to marry and ordain women.

They treat celibacy and women's ordination like one and the same issue, which shows that they really have no firm grasp of Catholic theology.  And moreover, they make a false assumption that if we had married priests and women priests, this problem would disappear.

Did you know that most pedophiles are married?  So how would allowing married clergy address this problem?  And although women are less likely to abuse children than men, they still do.  So how would women priests address this problem?  Especially since no one is suggesting we do away with male priests and have a woman-only priesthood.  You would still have male priests to contend with.  How in the world would this help prevent sexual abuse?  It's nonsense (or as one of my favorite Catholic writers, Karl Keating, would say, "It's nonsense on stilts").

That was the motivation that I had to explain these issues more fully.  I made the point in my article that it is the liberal media who are suggesting that allowing priests to marry would "cure" their attraction to teenage boys.  Yet it is also the liberal media that has been telling us that one does not chose to be homosexual, one is born that way.  It is genetic, and not something that can be cured.

I brought this up, not because I claim to know what makes one gay or straight.  But I know one thing.  Something is rotten in Denmark.  There is a fundamental flaw in their argument.  Which is it, are we "born gay" or would a good wife cure that problem?

I agree with you.  We have a choice in all of our decisions.  Some people may be more inclined towards a certain vice.  Some people will have a harder time resisting a certain temptation.  But in the end, what we do is our choice.  And we will be held accountable for our choices.  I know that the Father Geoghans out there will be.  And that is what the real focus needs to be.

I have to disagree with you on one point, though.  You say that many of these priests who succumb to their temptation do so because they are surrounded by adolescent boys and this makes it more difficult for them to resist.  This, I suppose, is true.  But then you said that if there were altar girls instead of boys, we would see adolescent girls being abused.  In fact, there are altar girls.  The Catholic church has allowed them for a while now.  But still, it is by and large the boys that are abused, which points towards the homosexual nature of the problem.

The story you recounted of Adam and Eve and the forbidden fruit made me remember the theology of the "Fortunate Fall."  Adam and Eve, by their disobedience, introduced sin into the world.  Why is this fall fortunate?  Because God gave us free will.  God did not create us as little robots who have no choice but to love him and do good.  Instead, we are intelligent creatures with free will.  We live in a world where there is good and there is evil.  There is sin and there is virtue.  And we have the capacity, through reason, though faith, to choose one over the other.  If we chose to turn away from sin, and to love God, then that love, that goodness, is so much more powerful and glorifying than if we did good and loved God because we had no other choice.

So I do not agree with you when you say that the only way to avoid sinning is to take away the opportunity to sin.  This may very well be the case, but how in the world would one take away all opportunity to sin?

Some people theorize that these sexual predators in the priesthood entered the seminaries because they were "running away from their sins."  They knew they had a problem, and they entered religious life as a way of dealing with it.  This may or may not be true, I don't know.  But it just points to the fact that we need better screening in the seminaries, which I think would be a major step in the right direction.

I mentioned in the article that over two thirds of the priests that abuse young boys were themselves abused as young boys.  You asked about these numbers.  I got them from a priest who is also a psychologist and works with the US Council of Bishops in cases where a priest is accused of sexual molestation.  I heard him in an NPR interview.  I have his name written somewhere, but I can't put my hand on it now.  Anyway, my point in citing that statistic was to show that this is a problem that perpetuates itself, which points to the strong need to deal with it (or as Barny Fife would say, "Nip it in the bud!")

And lastly we come to the conclusion, where I mentioned a problem in Western society.  Your comment makes it sound like I was saying Western society itself is bad.  That's not what I meant.  I agree with you, wholeheartedly, that Western society is the best thing going.

Yes, we have violence, we have poor people, we have starving families, we have crime, we have oppression, we have corruption.  But when you take a look around the globe, we have a lot less of these things than anyone else.

Western society has given us the most freedom, the most liberty, the most security, the best advances in medicine, technology, hygiene, government, and education.  Western society has produced the highest forms of art, music, literature, and architecture.  We have the best foods, we brew the best beer, distill the best whiskey and make the best wines.  And we have done all of this in relative peace.  And most of this was while embracing the Catholic faith, as I mentioned earlier.

We have a lot to be proud of.  But this is not to say that we do not have problems.  We do.  And mostly in the areas of faith and morality.

You can see this everywhere.  John Paul II has called it the "Culture of Death."  Did you know that prior to the 1930s every Christian denomination taught against contraception?  Then they started changing their minds, one by one.  When the pill was introduced in the 60s people thought the Catholic church was going to accept this form of birth control, but they stood firm.  The pill was supposed to liberate women.  But has it?

I have a friend who is a medical doctor, who has done a lot of research on this.  The pill was invented by men, of course.  They first were working on a pill for men, but after a few side effects were found, developed one for women instead.  How does it work?  It makes the woman's body believe it is pregnant all the time.  Speaking as someone who lives with a pregnant women, this is not a good thing.  It wreaks havoc on their bodies.  Because of hormonal changes in the mammary glands during pregnancy, use of the pill has lead to a drastic increase in breast cancer rates.
In some women it can also lead to sterility.  And now doctors are prescribing this for acne?

Since the pill has been on the market, cases of spousal abuse, date rape, and the divorce rate have all climbed.  How has this been beneficial to women?

It came as a part of a whole "sexual liberation" mentality that basically said to do what feels good.  If you separate sex from the consequences, what do you get?  You know how we used to say, "First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in a baby carriage?"  Well, in most cases that order is reversed today.

If you take away moral guideposts, who is to say what is right and wrong? One of the accused priests, according to a news story I saw the other night, was a member of NAMBLA (the North American Man-Boy Love Association).  He supposedly gave a talk to a NAMBLA group that said sex between a man and a boy is actually beneficial to the boy, and the only harm comes to the boy when the man is prosecuted for his "crime."  The fact that an organization like this even exists and is taken seriously is cause for concern.

Another aspect of the "Culture of Death" is abortion.  Until this century, it was one of the great hallmarks of Western Society that we had done away with infanticide.  Now we bring it back.

I read a book recently about the Aztecs, and how they practiced mass human sacrifice.  One estimate was that 1 out of every 5 children in Mexico were killed on the altar of an Aztec god.  That number is shocking, and one of the reasons why the Spanish so wanted to Christianize the Aztecs.  But compare it to this statistic.  One out of every three babies in America is killed by abortion.  To what God are we making this sacrifice?  Our own convenience.

Despite all of our scientific advances, we turn a blind eye to the fact that the child in the womb is alive and legalize its killing.  Most people, when polled about abortion, say they favor it only when the life of the mother is in danger.  But, also due to our great medical advances, this is almost never the case today.  Most people have abortions for selfish reasons.

I heard something really scary the other day.  Remember how when we were kids, the average American family had 2.4 children?  (Picture the Far Side cartoon with the three kids sitting in their living room in front of the TV, one of them split down the middle, a little left of center).  Well guess what it is today.  1.9 children per household.  That's right.  We are below the replacement level.  That means if it were not for immigration, the population level in America would be going down!  And it is worse in most European countries.  The West is literally killing itself slowly by contraception and abortion.

Add euthanasia to the picture, where you believe that sick elderly people are dispensable, and you have a whole class of "disposable people."  We need to recognize the dignity of life in every human being.

Another problem in the West is the rapid spread of relativism.  This is the mindset where people refuse to make any kind of value judgment.  One choice is just as good as another.  You and I may not agree on everything when it comes to faith and morality, but at least we agree that these are important questions to consider, with answers that have consequences.  Most people just don't care.

We are taught the wrong kind of tolerance.  We are told to respect the beliefs of others, but we take it too far.  We think that we must hold other people's beliefs, customs, etc., at an equal value to our own.  Whatever is good for you works.  We deny the existence of objective truth, and that is at the real heart of the problem.  What is true for you is not necessarily true for me.  What was true yesterday is no longer true today.  This has created rabid apathy in our culture, and also given rise to much of the breakdown of sexual morality I mentioned above.

I don't think that my Muslim neighbor should be oppressed by our government, or discriminated against, or insulted or terrorized.  And I may respect many things about his heritage and culture.  But I do not think that his religion is just as good as my own, an equally valid path to God.  If I did, they why would I stay in my own church?

I don't think that my homosexual neighbor is any less of a person than I am.  I don't think he should be lynch mobbed, or oppressed, or discriminated against.  But that does not mean that I think my children should be taught that homosexuality is a "valid choice" and a "healthy lifestyle" at school.  It does not mean that I think that we should change our laws to allow them to legally "marry" and then adopt children.  They gave that up of their own free will.  It does not mean that because I love and respect them as people, that I have to deny my own faith which tells me that the acts they commit are sinful.

Anyway, just a few thoughts.  You asked what kinds of problems we face in Western society.  Those are a few.

Regarding the question at hand of the sex scandals, I think the bishops need to step up the plate.  The priests who commit these crimes are guilty of a great sin, and need to be held responsible.  But I, and many others, wonder where their bishops were.  A bishop is responsible for all the priests in his diocese.  In the cases of these predatory priests, one has to ask:

1) Were the bishops completely ignorant of what was going on?  If this is the case, they were not doing their jobs very well at all.  (However, as more and more becomes known about this, ignorance on the bishop's part does not look likely).

2)  Were the bishops aware of what was going on, but chose to sweep the problem under the rug to protect their own reputation and the reputation of their diocese?  If this is the case, they are guilty of the sin of pride, and again not doing their jobs very well.  In fact, they are abusing their jobs.

3)  Were the bishops aware of what was going on, but did not consider the behavior of these priests to be immoral and worthy of correction and condemnation?  If so, they these men are completely unqualified to be bishops (or priests or deacons, even altar boys, for that matter!).

Regarding the individual priests who committed these crimes.  Send 'em to jail, or at least put them away somewhere where they are not around children at all.  Pray for their repentance.  But if you want to fix the greater problem, you can't stop there.  We need to address the problem of these bishops and their ability to properly do their jobs, and ensure that men like these never become priests in the first place.

My two cents, plus change.
Matt

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webbed on 4/23/02