Amanda Marcotte explains
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The Catholic Church sex abuse scandals are often talked
about as if they are in the past, but this summer has been a reminder that this
horror show continues to unspool, 16 years after the Boston Globe's famous
"Spotlight" series exposing the cover-up first ran. This week, a
grand jury in Pennsylvania released a report accusing more than 300 priests of
abusing more than 1,000 children over seven decades. The details are almost
incomprehensibly awful, including accusations of repeated rape, child
pornography and priests who marked their victims with jewelry to alert other
predators that these children had been "groomed" to accept abuse....
The church in Pennsylvania was working simultaneously to
shield child abusers while pushing for laws to punish women for consensual sex,
so the easy charge to reach for is "hypocrisy." But that's an
accusation that barely skims the surface. The far more troubling reality is
that the willingness to cover for sexual predators is entirely consistent with
advocating for restrictions on women's reproductive rights. Both attitudes are
rooted in the same poisonous commitment to putting men in positions of
permanent social dominance as well as rejecting the idea that women and
children have bodily autonomy and sexual safety rights.
Agreed. Marcotte argues, persuasively I think
Trump and the Christian right are aligned in their true
belief, which is that women must be kept in their place.
So there's no real conflict in the Catholic Church covering
up sexual abuse while trying to prevent women from accessing legal and safe
abortion services. In both situations, it's about using sexuality as a tool to
enforce patriarchal hierarchies. In both cases, it's about a group of
conservative men conspiring to organize the world so they hold power and
everyone else is subject to their whims.
Shame is a major factor here too. The same sexual shame that
religious conservatives try to instill with restrictions on reproductive rights
is also used to silence victims of sexual abuse. It's difficult for victims to
speak up, precisely because so much shame is built up around sexuality.
Victims, male and female, are often subject to people digging through their
sexual pasts, using their consensual activities as "evidence" that
they're dirty and therefore undeserving of protection against abuse.
It's possible that one reason more survivors of abuse are
willing to speak out these days is that the pro-choice movement has done so
much work in destigmatizing consensual sex. The fear that victims used to
experience -- of being outed as someone who has consensual sex and quite likely
enjoys it -- no longer has the power it used to have, creating more space to
speak out.
Observing "the lesson here is there is no way for
religious groups to preserve their traditions of male dominance and sexual
shaming while also eradicating sexual abuse," Marcotte logically concludes
"the only way to root out the abuse is to root out those patriarchal
values."
That would have a major impact. However, rooting out sexual
abuse by priests would require two additional steps, one which probably
ultimately will be taken by the Church and the other which will not.
Obviously, allowing women to become priests would reduce the
sexual perversion (with no quote marks necessary). At
some point, that is likely to occur.
Nevertheless, the other step which would be helpful is one
the Roman Catholic Church never will take because it would undermine the
indispensable, all-encompassing role of the priest.
Although origin of the concept is shrouded in mystery, the
"priesthood of all believers" is a fundamental precept of
Protestantism which emerged from the Reformation. The rationale may be
described as
Old Testament priests were chosen by God, not
self-appointed; and they were chosen for a purpose: to serve God with their
lives by offering up sacrifices. The priesthood served as a picture or
"type" of the coming ministry of Jesus Christ--a picture that was
then no longer needed once His sacrifice on the cross was completed. When the
thick temple veil that covered the doorway to the Holy of Holies was torn in
two by God at the time of Christ's death (Matthew 27:51), God was indicating
that the Old Testament priesthood was no longer necessary. Now people could
come directly to God through the great High Priest, Jesus Christ (Hebrews
4:14-16). There are now no earthly mediators between God and man as existed in
the Old Testament priesthood (1 Timothy 2:5).
Confession- a less formal ritual in Protestantism than in
Catholicism- and prayer are undertaken directly to God, rather than mediated
through a priest or any other mortal individual. "For there is one God,
and there is one mediator between God and men, the mana Christ Jesus,"
wrote Paul.
The Reformers' perspective was not superior, some will
argue, and your mileage will vary. Additionally, belief in the priesthood of
all believers does not guarantee that there will be fewer acts of sexual abuse
committed upon children by Roman Catholic clergy than by Protestant clergy.
There are other factors, and not only the ones pointed out
by Marcotte. Members of the clergy in many independent congregations are
subjected to a process less scholarly and formal than have clergy in either mainline Protestant denominations
(e.g., Anglican, Lutheran, Methodist, United Church of Christ, Reformed Church
in America, some Baptist) or in Catholicism. Further, there typically
will be less vetting of the ministerial candidate.
Nonetheless, the role of the Catholic priest is one which exalts him to a
remarkable level, in which he plays a part in the transmission of confession
and prayer to the Almighty. It will affect the perception of the clergyman in
the eyes of many young people, even in the West and in our most sophisticated of
times.
There may be powerful biblical or otherwise theological
rationale for eschewing the notion of the priesthood of believers. However, its
role in sexual abuse of children should not be completely ignored.
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