By Rama Coomaraswamy, MD
It behooves the priest to be most vigilant, to live by the spirit, to excel all other leaders of men in solicitude and zeal, to guard by day and by night the army and the camp, to work unto exhaustion.
St. John Chrysostom
“The priest who is responsible for pedophilia commits spiritual murder. He who rejects the Church because of this scandal commits spiritual suicide.”
St.
Francis de Sales
There is a great deal of talk
about how marriage would solve the problem of both homosexuality and pedophilia
among the clergy. First of all, with
regard to homosexuality, it is clear that marriage is not at issue as the innumerable
examples of married men engaging in homosexuality proves. If this is true for
homosexuality, it is also true for pedophilia.
While homosexuality is
offensive to God, and hence to man, pedophilia is of a slightly different
order. The fundamental impulse in pedophilia is not so much sexual pleasure as
the destruction of innocence. The victim is for ever scared and only with
difficulty can come to accept the sexual act as both sacred and beautiful. This
is far worse when someone who purports to be a representative of Christ (be he
the child’s father or the priest) is the perpetrator.
Current psychological
treatments hold out little realistic hope for “curing” the pedophiliac. I think
the reason for this is that the “disease” is not so much of the psyche as it is
of the heart.[1] The
perpetrator of pedophilia has allowed evil to enter into his heart – for how
else could he wish even in part to corrupt the innocent – and the only cure of
the heart is a genuine conversion. By conversion, I do not mean joining any
group or society, religious or otherwise, but rather a “change of heart”
whereby evil is as it were ejected. Psychological treatments may encourage an
individual to understand his motivations, but in general – there are of course
exceptions - tends to ignore the problem of evil, and certainly do not aim at
true conversion.
What is clear however, is
that once a priest has indulged in this most horrible of crimes, he is no
longer able or suitable to serve as a priest. This does not mean that God
cannot forgive him, for indeed God could even forgive David who murdered and
committed adultery. It does not mean that such an individual is cut off from
divine grace (only he can refuse to accept grace), or that he cannot achieve
high levels of sanctity. It simply means that he can no longer serve as an
altar Christus – another Christ = within the
community. Justice demands that he be defrocked.
Returning for a moment to
homosexuality, which as mentioned above is offensive to both God and man. This
does not justify our discriminating against them in the public forum.
(Vengeance is the Lord’s) However, one is fully justified in protecting one’s
children from their influence (and the influence of school programs which
strongly push their agendas). Just as one would not let a leper into one’s
home, so also, one would not encourage close relationships with homosexuals
with one’s children. One should remember that both in the Old Testament and the
New, the homosexual is clearly condemned. In the Old Testament he was to be
killed, and in the new, sodomy is listed as one of the four sins which God is
said to punish in this life – along with murder, abortion and defrauding a
workman of his just wage. The fact that we take none of these “sins” seriously
is quite beside the point. But how can we take them seriously if we don’t take
God seriously.
One must be careful as to how
one defines pedophilia. Older definitions such as Webster’s or the Dictionary
of Psychology characterize it as sex with children. Current psychiatric texts
tend to define it as sex with a pre-pubertal child – usually under 13 - by
someone who is at least 5 years older (Ismund Rosen, Sexual
Deviation Oxford, 1996). It is however well known that young men who are
post-pubertal are often confused and unsure of their sexual orientation and
hence vulnerable to abuse. To consider homosexual relationships with such
individuals distinct from pedophilia is a matter of semantics (ephelbophilia) rather than reality.
One might well ask why the
current spate of Pedophilia and Homosexuality among the Catholic clergy. While
sin is nothing new, the increasing prevalence among those who are meant to be
representatives of Christ on earth is truly shocking. Here one inevitably falls
into the realm of opinion – and for what it is worth, I suspect it has a great
deal to do with the change in Sacramental practice. The new mass – the Novus Ordo Missae – no longer provides grace ex opere operato. However
devoutly said, it no longer provides the priest with those graces which flow
from the act itself independent of the insufficiencies of the person saying it.
Perhaps equally important is that priests trained in the spirit of Vatican II
no longer tend to see their primary function lies in performing the Sacrifice
that is in saying Mass – a condition that implies that they make every effort
to unite themselves with Christ’s sacrifice. How can one who comes off the
Cross turn around and abuse a child? Deprived of these graces, the priest,
whose life is at best rather difficult, is exposed without protection to both
temptations and evil.[2]
One should not let these
scandalous events, however terrible, distract us from the far more serious
problem of the mutilating alterations in the sacraments, and the almost certain
destruction of the Apostolic Succession – such as are documented on this web
page.
And so it is that these
comments are offered in hopes that we can return to a certain sanity – that is
health – in our thinking.
© Rama
Coomaraswamy, MD
2002
[1] Treatment modalities center around castration, either anatomical or chemical. Since anatomical therapy is considered radical, it is rarely used. Chemical castration is dependent upon the individual cooperation. In any event, there is no change in the mentation achieved.
[2] It will be argued that prior to the liturgical changes there were cases of pedophilia, and this is certainly true – a case in point being that of Rousseau. It should be clear that just because a priest is properly ordained and says the true Mass in no way guarantees that he has joined himself to Christ in any spiritual sense. Whether in ignorance or from lack of belief, he is in the same state as one who says a false Mass – though one who receives the sacraments from him is still protected providing he does not have a contrary internal intention. The difference is that even the best intentioned priest-president who says the novus ordo missae cannot unite himself to the Sacrifice of Christ because in the novus ordo there is no sacrifice of Christ – there is only a “sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving,,” but no true sacrifice that makes present “here and now” the true Sacrifice of Christ.
The fact that other religious leaders are guilty of similar violations of trust is beside the point. The priest is meant to be an alter Christus. His violation of trust (vows, commitments) is far more serious.