Priestly Perversions: A Solution

Faster than you can say ‘pedophilia,’ the long-simmering problem of perversion in the Roman Catholic priesthood has suddenly boiled over the top of the pan. The whole reeking mess has slobbered down the sides, onto the stovetop and into the burners below, and no amount of scrubbing will get it clean. The story even made the cover of TIME magazine, which implies that it’s at least on a par with the war against terrorism and the struggles of Canadian figure skaters. 

What can you say about a church that allows its priesthood to become a refuge for the most socially repugnant and life-damaging of personal vices? (According to the Time article, several of the abused boys later committed suicide.) The weak, frustrated and lonely men who indulged their wayward impulses are only part of the problem, just as the Watergate break-in was only a minor episode in the monumental scandal that undid Nixon. The Catholic Church hierarchy has been methodically covering up the problem for years, simply reassigning the offending priests so they could offend again in another parish. You can only shove so much dirt under the rug before it creates a noticeable lump.

Finally, after the ghastly exploits of one predatory Boston priest made the news, everyone suddenly saw the lump and flipped the rug over. We gasped at what we saw, as if the dirt under the rug teemed with crawling maggots and millipedes and stinking rat carcasses. Naturally the media and the public pointed a few thousand fingers at the bishops who helped perpetuate the mess by tolerating it for so long. I was shocked by the extent of the scandal, but I could see it as a logical outgrowth of a creed that generally frowns on sex (except as a necessary vehicle for producing legitimate offspring) and absolutely forbids its clergy to indulge. Combine sexual repression with authoritarian leadership, and you don’t have to be St. Thomas Aquinas to see that the Church might be headed for trouble.

Growing up as a non-Catholic Christian, I always wondered at the fervor with which Roman Catholics venerated the Virgin Mary. I could sense that they loved her better than the unknowable and distant God who created the heavens and the earth. It even seemed that they rated her a notch above Jesus, who was usually represented in their art either as a powerless babe or a powerless dying man on a cross. Why would they make a virtual goddess of a simple young woman whose primary achievement, at least in the eyes of the faithful, was conceiving a child without benefit of an earthly husband or lover? Why insist that she lived out her entire life as a virgin, as if even married sex would have toppled her from grace? With that kind of attitude weighing on their adolescent souls, it’s a miracle that Catholics grow up to be as sexually well-adjusted as they obviously seem to be in France, Italy and Latin America. You’d think they’d be haunted and thwarted by guilt-inducing demons as soon as they venture to sample the delights of the bedchamber. But most of them grow up just fine. Those that don’t seem to gravitate to the priesthood.

I know it sounds cruel to dismiss the Catholic priesthood with one glib and flippant line. I’m aware that the pedophiles represent only a small fraction of the clergy, most of whom lead exemplary lives of service and self-sacrifice. But the Church has to do something to save its dwindling priesthood from clutches of the boy-chasers, and it has to act now. There’s been ample talk about ending the archaic pledge of priestly celibacy, which has intimidated healthy young Catholic men ever since the sexual revolution. I’m all in favor of allowing priests to marry. I’m just not convinced that it would put an end to the abuses. Most same-sex pedophiles probably aren’t the marrying kind, anyway. When half the priests are married and half aren’t, does that mean we can we look forward to half as many episodes of sexual abuse? 

I’d guess that the pedophiles are drawn to altar boys not only because they’ve been denied conventional sexual outlets, but because the Church saturates their minds with a reverence for purity. They see the cherubic faces of those boys, and their hearts fill with pure, blameless love. Then their love, taking the unpredictable path that love often takes, turns to lust. 

My solution to priestly abuse is simple but ruthless: ban the use of altar boys in the Catholic Church. Replace them with 65-year-old men who wear trusses. Replace them with former janitors, bespectacled accountants and elderly Irish women. But replace them NOW. My plan would make it so easy to end the abuse that I’d have half a mind to launch a campaign if I weren’t so congenitally lazy. I hope you’ll feel free to take up the cause, but remember that you heard it here first: Replace altar boys with altar geezers, and you can be sure that no priest will ever again be led into temptation.

Cynic's Pick of the Week

It was African-American night at the Oscar® ceremonies this past week, with Denzel Washington and Halle Berry nabbing top acting honors. That’s fine, even laudable. But was it just a coincidence that the Academy also happened to honor the first-ever black Best Actor, Sidney Poitier, with a special award the same evening? In any case, now that Hollywood has paid tribute to two fine black stars in one evening, it can safely go back to snubbing them with a clear conscience for the next thirty or forty years.