I have refrained from commenting on Roman Catholic issues to do with power abuse up till now. This is partly because I do not want to sound like a critical outsider taking aim at another church body. My reason now for wanting to refer to the Pope’s recent pronouncements on sexual abuse is to suggest that his recent statement is illustrating some fundamental failures of understanding as to how to deal with scandal. This is a problem for the whole Church, including the Church of England. Looking at what the Pope has said may help us to see our own Anglican problems a little clearer.
The recent 2000-word pronouncement about child sexual abuse from the Vatican seems to say, at first reading, all the right things. It lays blame on corrupt priests for taking advantage of the vulnerable and asks for prayers and fasting by the whole church for these ‘atrocities’. It sees the whole thing as a grievous stain on the Church.
The theologian Richard Sipe was a Catholic researcher who studied celibacy among Catholic priests in America and died quite recently. I have one of his books at home (I am away at present) and one of the striking claims he made which stuck in my memory was that only half the Catholic priests in his country were in fact celibate. To put it another way 50% of American Catholic priests are sexually active. I do not recall how this sexuality is normally expressed but one is reminded of the two French priests and their ‘arrangements’ in the pre-war comic French novel, Clochemerle. Each of the priests in the story had a compliant female housekeeper but they knew that their activities in bed were sinful. In the novel we hear the ways they arranged to confess to each other and receive absolution. This process involved each of them pedalling hard 20 km to each other’s village and picking up a penitence after a brief recital of their ‘delinquency’. The penitence required became ever more truncated and peremptory. This went on over several years. A sexually active priest is, by definition, having to carry out his activities in secret and this will frequently compromise any potential honesty and mutuality in the relationship. From the outside there may often appear to be a damaging element of control involved. A priest’s ‘lover’, male or female, will frequently end up damaged in the medium to long term.
A Catholic priest may of course act out his sexuality in ways that include criminal acts against children and young people. The law is clear that such relationships are not tolerated in any modern society. The law of the Catholic church, because all sexual activity by a priest is regarded as sin, may be less explicit in its utter revulsion for crimes against children. The Clochmerle relationships may or may not have had an abusive element in them but they were clearly far from being as culpable and damaging as the abuse of a child. Behind the prohibition of any sexual activity for a priest is the vexed issue of compulsory celibacy. This institution clearly does not serve the Church well. Nevertheless, the Church of Rome has shown itself unwilling to address the issue. In theory the Church expects all its clergy to control sexual longing. This enables it to present the priestly caste as somehow pure and holy, being removed from and above the distractions of carnal lust. Because this ideal is failing 50% of the time, the Church is in fact being deeply damaged in several ways. It is damaged by the creation of numerous victims, such as the 1000 children identified in the Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report. It is damaged because clergy are forced into secretive liaisons that force many of them into a permanent state of hypocrisy. One of the most telling aspects of the Pennsylvania Report was the suggestion that cover-ups of the worst abuses were made possible because Catholic bishops in informal relationships felt unable to discipline their child-abusing priests because the latter had the power to blackmail them for their own sexual compromises.
I cannot tell the Pope what to do, as the task of cleaning up the Church of Rome is vast. Clearly a start has to be made in deciding what should be realistically asked of a young priest in terms of dealing with his sexual side. One way forward could be to allow priests to marry. The hypocrisy of expecting ‘purity’ from all priests can never completely work as it is in conflict with the normal functioning of human nature. Some may succeed following the path of celibacy but many will not. There is also always going to be a high cost that the institution has to pay each time a scandal emerges. The age of the Internet means that these scandals can never be easily be covered up in the future.
The Anglican Church in dealing with its own scandals has in some ways behaved like the Church of Rome in its desire to protect itself. For the Vatican the supposed ‘purity’ of priests and thus the blameless institution they serve, seems to have been an overarching preoccupation. This approach, resulting in secrecy and rampant hypocrisy, has had little regard for those who inevitably have been damaged by the system of celibacy, particularly the under-age targets of priestly desire. For some Anglican leaders there seems to be a preoccupation with preserving not purity, but the assets of the organisation. On many occasions when a victim of abuse approaches the centre he/she is pushed away, sometimes brutally, because it is assumed that they are only interested in financial compensation. From my own dealings with victims this is generally not the case. Survivors would like the courtesy of being heard, having letters answered and generally being allowed a voice. This ‘othering’ of abuse victims by bishops and senior officials is unbelievably cruel behaviour when applied to someone who has already had their life ruined by the original abuser. The way that Anglican and Vatican authorities seem to react and think alike is because everything is seen only within the perspective of the institution and its interests. Commentators, such as I, can see the situation from other vantage points. Of course, the interests of the institution have to be weighed up and respected. But other perspectives are needed to obtain a rounded picture of what is really going on. To some of these, church authorities seem sometimes to be deaf and blind. First, we have the legitimate and just rights of survivors. If these are not listened to then the central mission statement of any church is trampled under-foot. How can any church put up with a situation where someone ‘causes one of these little ones to sin’? We all know how the text continues. When the Church, the guardian of morality, is seen to fail one of these ‘little ones’ it is judged very harshly by the wider public. The public relations impact of the recent child abuse scandals is wreaking enormous damage on both church bodies. The man on the Clapham omnibus is fast concluding that all churches are unsafe, even dangerous, places for children and young people. However good safeguarding practices are being put into place at present, failure to deal with past crimes will negate all the current good work.
In the past week social media has recorded the story of a survivor who was told by a Church of England clergyman to go back under a stone and that he had probably enjoyed his abuse. I normally double-check stories of this kind, but this report seems to chime in with the continuing revelation of how some senior clergy seemed to be uncaring and indifferent to the stories of survivors who disclose to them. The Smyth story has continued to reveal names of individuals who put the reputation of the Iwerne network above the protection of vulnerable young people. When will the damaging stories about the Church of England and the Catholic Church stop? They will stop when there is a change of mindset. The mindset has to include the ability to embrace the full reality of the scandals so that the protection of the institution is never the only or even the main consideration. Church leaders must learn to see the whole picture. This will always involve acknowledging the pain of victims as well as the increasing righteous anger of all who witness what is going on. The Church of Rome and the Church of England seem to struggle in their ability to see what is there in front of them, so that the health of both bodies is profoundly damaged.
Thank you Stephen. Yes, I think the man on the Clapham omnibus is right and the sooner the clergy and those in the pews also realise the continued dishonesty of the church leaders the better.
They need to hear how the responses of some (many?) bishops and other clergy aren’t just uncaring to those who disclose abuse to them but actively hinder or obstruct victims’ recovery or healing, and they need to know that these sort of responses aren’t just from the past but are happening now.
So far the mainstream media don’t seem to have focused on the fact that bishops and other leaders are actually making recovery almost impossible for victims in the church. I hope they pick up on the “crawl back under a stone” response and start to understand that this is just one part of a spectrum of continued harm being done.
My message to the C of E bishops is “Stop the dishonesty and start taking responsibility to put things right for the victims. It’s not rocket science – in fact I think it emerges from the gospel.”
Hear hear.
The problem I have experienced very recently is that church leaders, including the NST, in spite of having policies, which they have written, in front of them will not be consistent in acting as to what is in them. Point this out by literally copying and pasting and referencing the relevant part and they go silent. Press the point for a few months with no response then they turn round and say, ‘we don’t want to distress you any further so we won’t continue down this route’. I have even been told that policies are only very general guidelines and open to numerous interpretations based on the individuals case.
No! Be consistent do what is in the damn policy or don’t bother to write it.
Yet every time a case bubbles over into the media their wretched policies are the first thing they hold up as evidence of improvement and pastoral care. This, as JayKay says, makes any sort of healing almost impossible because the hypocrisy is sickening and the anger that often has to be swallowed makes you ill.
SCREAM!!
I’m so sorry you are experiencing this too, Trish. I’ve been experiencing it for years!
We need to find some way to bring these responses to wider public attention, so people in the pews understand how appalling the responses can be and how they fail to comply with the church’s own policies. (Unfortunately failing to comply with policies doesn’t make for an eye-catching story in the media.)
Truth is a pre-requisite for healing and I think the bishops and church leadership need to be strongly challenged on this basis.
Incidentally, if you have some good examples of how the church leadership effectively denies that it needs to follow their own policies it might be worth sending them to IICSA in case they could be useful for the third stage of hearings.
Why does a third party have the right to decide what is distressing someone without reference to the person concerned? Rhetorical question. Having discussions like this with the princes of the church always leaves me open mouthed.
Sorry to hear that JayKay, we can scream in unison.
My diocese which has a stand alone safeguarding document written by a previous DSA actually has a complete section in it entitled ‘Acceptable behaviour by children and vulnerable adults,’ which then proceeds to discuss restraint and uses such forward thinking ideas as people with ‘mental illness’ are prone to be disruptive!
Seriously I think Charles Dickens had more social awareness though in fairness to the diocese I think the section on sending people to the workhouse may just have been removed! Of course the brilliant independent audit declared the document as somewhat dated but still fit for purpose!
I will send examples to IICSA but responses trickle in so slowly that just as I think, that’s it, another delightful email plonks into my in-box. I never, ever read church emails unless I am in a safe space.
This makes me feel that the Bishop who insisted I needed counselling when the counsellor said I didn’t was a lightweight in comparison!
My sister has just sent me a link to the following article, detailing how the RC Church’s handling of abusive priests impacted more heavily on minority ethnic communities and the poor. https://rewire.news/religion-dispatches/2018/08/27/from-pa-to-new-mexico-colonialism-and-the-crisis-inside-the-crisis-of-catholic-sexual-abuse/. It’s difficult to read it without becoming both angry and sad.
I was glad to come across this forum by chance, and this particular blog, especially as I am a convert from Anglicanism to Catholicism, and have witnessed power abuses in both churches. Celibacy is certainly one thing that sets the Catholic Church apart, and underpinning that, is the notion that at ordination an ontological change takes place whereby the soul is marked and and the man becomes a priest for ever, a different order of being to lay people. The power that can then be afforded to the priest is very troubling, and the temptation to abuse that power and wreak havoc amongst the vulnerable is very strong, and sadly not always resisted. A different paradigm of priesthood must be discovered, away from the powerful man set apart, a different order of being, towards the prayerful servant, emphasising our common humanity and frailty. Less power must surely mean less abuse.
Maybela – Your comment has prompted me to consider again the subject of priesthood and power. Picture two people standing on either side of a table with bread and wine; priesthood says that one has a power over that table that the other does not. So inescapably we have a power issue from the outset. Tony Benn used to speak of the five questions we ought to ask of people in power, “What power do you have? From whom did you get it? Over who do you exercise it? To whom are you responsible? And how can we get rid of you?”. The kicker is in the last one. Priests might possibly say they can answer the first four but the last one is the pertinent one for today. Who rules the ruler in the Churches today? Is it going to be the civil authorities who have power to imprison and thus remove from the place of influence or exercise? It is beginning to appear more like it if the Church does not change its attitude and practice.
As an addendum, the word priest (hiereus) was a post apostolic introduction to Church language because leadership in the New Testament Churches was always overseer (episcopus) or elder (presbuteros). No-one apart from Christ was referred to as priest (for He had something to offer – the definition of a priest) – Paul would run out the door in horror if he heard us referring to him as such. What that difference of nomenclature means and implies is an area that needs to be looked at today however awkward.
Brilliant, thank you.
In Reformed (conservative evangelical) churchmanship the word ‘priest’ is seldom used; they stick to the NT idea of presbyters. Indeed, they would say that in English the word ‘priest’ is derived from ‘presbyter’, via ‘prester’. You can see traces of this evolution in place names such as Preston and Prestbury, the ‘village with a prester’.
They would also say that being a ‘priest’ is functional rather than ontological.
However, they exercise power of a different sort. God’s Word – the Bible – is held to be the ultimate authority in all things, and the minister interprets the Bible for his (it usually is a he) flock. This gives the preacher enormous power, especially if he is a magnetic preacher.
I would like to think that women exercise priesthood in a different and more collegiate way, and I think that to some extent this is true. Hopefully female priests are slowly changing the way the CofE conceives of and exercises ministry. It won’t really change, though, until we have people exercising real servant ministry right at the top – and when women make their way into any sphere of work, it’s the ones who function most like men who get promoted. For some years, at least.
I notice decades ago that it’s the ‘steamroller’ models who too often get bumped up the hierarchy, and I can’t see that that has changed – with a few shining exceptions, of course.
Thanks Janet, I hadn’t realised the etymology of the English word priest. It shows that etymology isn’t everything in theology because the understanding of the word has leap-frogged the New Testament “presbuteros” and been linked to the Old Testament “hierous” instead and the rest, as they say, is history in the elevation of a spiritual power of clericalism.
The writer to the Hebrews wrote his letter not to help in the institution of a new priesthood after the old but to show the Old Testament priesthood being but a shadow of the things to come was to find its conclusion and climax in Christ the High Priest (archhierous) who offered himself once for all.
The power of the priest then found its locus at the table where “I have a power that you do not have, and you are dependant on me for the spiritual goods that you require”. By the middle ages this power could terrify a continent. Though that has faded its ghost is difficult to get rid of.
Addendum – I don’t doubt the power of the ‘charismatic’ preacher but at least we all have the Bible now and can, like the Bereans of Acts 17:11, check out the quality of the goods being offered.
Thanks all. I am finding this discussion very useful and informative.
Athena, I’m glad you’re finding it interesting!
Leslie, the point is that for the Reformed wing of the Church the meaning hasn’t leapfrogged. When they use the word at all they still mean ‘presbyter’; and even in Anglican evangelical and charismatic churches you often find a group of elders who work with the clergy. That was the case in one of the churches where I was a curate.
And although I do still prefer the New Testament concept of a group of elders working together rather a single leader, I’m not entirely convinced by the Reformed account of the derivation of the word ‘priest’. Or at least, I think that is only one of the concepts behind our word. Since the CofE is descended from the Church of Rome, I think ‘priest’ has another direct descent from the ‘hieros’ tradition.
In any event, the Reformed tradition has not prevented clergy from exercising an inordinate degree of power, and sometimes doing so harmfully. Gordon Rideout, who first explained Reformed Anglican concepts to me, was much later convicted of 36 counts of child sexual abuse. And Bp. Wallace Benn, who shared Gordon’s Reformed views, attempted to protect Rideout from the consequences of his crimes.
Hi Janet – I’m sure you’ve probably got the derivation of the English word right but the use of it in the sacerdotal sense of an intermediary making offerings on behalf of others is what constitutes the difficulty. The New Testament’s understanding of Christ as High Priest is that he is both the offerer (ie the priest) and the offering (the sacrifice). To continue the use of the word priest implies that there is a continuing need for an offering. The priest then offers Christ to God on behalf of the people by a particular understanding of the bread and wine on the table. This is what the Reformers objected to; Christ was the offerer not men (or women).
As far as other polities of Church governance are concerned I’m not going to go there – there are sinners and disobedient to God in every one – but I do think that the post-apostolic re-establishment of priesthood institutionalised a power system that has been difficult to shake free of. The shepherdly understanding of leadership became changed to look much more like civil and military authority.
Leslie, I think you’re right. In the CofE, many Anglo-Catholics have a Roman Catholic understanding of “mass” rather than “communion”. Bishop Stephen Sykes, in one of his books says that is really not Anglican (see 39 articles) and possibly blasphemous. The idea that the priest is repeating the sacrifice, I mean. To me, as an old puritan, “once and for all” means just that.
And both of you are right, imho, that priests wield power. And then say they haven’t any. One Archdeacon of my acquaintance said rather gloomily that he didn’t have anything like the power I imagined. The “or as I thought” being unspoken! I’m sure that’s true. Including in the sense that if they try to protect people from bullying, it doesn’t work. I’ve seen that for myself. But they have the power to change lives. By favouring, or otherwise. By what they say, and the way they say it, they can totally stuff you. Even the lowliest parish priest can do that.
Thanks EA and Janet for your comments. I certainly don’t want to declare that priestly episcopalian government whether Catholic, Anglican or other is the cause of present troubles though we do see a lot of dirty washing from those quarters being pulled out.
A few weeks ago I pondered a change to an old chorus I used to know:-
Sex is the answer to my every need
Sex is the answer
It is my friend indeed
Problems of life my spirit may assail
With sex as saviour I can never fail
For sex is the answer to my need.
We live in a climate that is awash with sex. I found out yesterday that Channel 4 are onto a second series of a programme called “Naked Attraction” where candidates agree to come onto the show and stand naked in glass boxes to be ogled at by someone who has to choose their “date” as the glass boxes rotate so that a good glimpse can be had by all – including the voyeurs on TV.
Look along a list of Magazines in a newsagent and see how many have something on the cover to do with sex.
Living in an ocean like this affects the minds and hearts of people whether clergy (married or celibate), worshippers old and young.