Episcopal Oversights
The Crisis in the Catholic Church Extends Far Beyond Sex Scandals
by Kenneth D. Whitehead
The long-awaited meeting of the Catholic bishops of the United States, after months of media revelations of priestly scandals and episcopal cover-ups, finally took place under intense public scrutiny in Dallas on June 13–15. As was surely inevitable, the “zero tolerance” policy towards the sexual abuse of children and young people was not, as such, enacted. This was the policy vociferously being demanded by victims’ groups and other interested parties and strongly seconded by the media.
For one thing, as most media reporting failed to make clear, the laicization of priests in the Catholic Church, or their defrocking, as the secular world prefers to call it, whether for sexual abuse or for other reasons, can only be carried out in accordance with canon law—which bishops’ conferences voting on “policies,” even under the pressure of grave public scandal, cannot alter or abolish by themselves.
For another thing, the bishops were looking over their shoulders at what Rome was likely to sanction. In this case, it is the Holy See, not the votaries of more “democracy” in the Church, that is insisting that even accused abusers have rights and reputations and that strict due process is called for even when particularly heinous acts are involved. Rome is not, in fact, likely to approve without modification what the bishops decided upon in Dallas.
Nevertheless, under unprecedented public and media pressure, the bishops enacted the closest thing to zero tolerance: Even one single act of sexual abuse by a priest—past, present, or future—is to result in immediate removal from active ministry of any kind, and even if a priest thus removed is not actually laicized, he will still not be permitted to celebrate Mass publicly, to wear clerical garb, or to present himself as a priest.
Moreover, dioceses will now be required both to reach out to victims and their families and to have procedures in place to deal with any further accusations that are made. These procedures will include diocesan review boards that will have some lay members. A national Office for Child and Youth Protection will coordinate and oversee diocesan efforts. Dioceses will automatically report any “allegation of sexual abuse of a person who is a minor to the public authorities,” and the law will then take over to investigate and evaluate the evidence.
Finally Able to Act
All this is pretty strong. It strains the imagination, in fact, to try to think of many other sectors of our generally permissive society that require anything as stringent. Press reports stating that the bishops fell back on some kind of “compromise solution,” or victims’ groups claiming that the bishops did not go far enough, are quite off the mark.
Of course, given the glare of public scrutiny and the enormous pressure on the bishops built up as a result of months of serial revelations of sexual misdeeds by priests and even by some bishops—more than 200 priests and four bishops have had to resign since the first of the year, with probably more to come—there was little chance that the bishops would opt for anything that was not severe. The bishops had to prove they were serious, and, for the moment, they did. It was certainly not their last word on the subject, but it represented essential damage control. Even though their action was forced upon them, it is still salutary to see that they were able to act.
And it is all just as well. The continuing revelations that men ordained to Christ’s priesthood could engage in this kind of evil and shameful conduct were outdone only by the even more embarrassing revelations of bishops complacently—and, it would seem, mindlessly—giving passes to such grossly immoral behavior as if it were not really very serious, and then going on to reassign the culprits to positions where they could continue with their predatory and immoral actions.
Kenneth D. Whitehead is the 2004 recipient of the Blessed Frederic Ozanam Award for Catholic Social Action of the Society of Catholic Social Scientists (SCSS). He writes frequently on Catholic social and moral issues.
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