So I came across the story of Sister Louise Akers, a Catholic nun in Cincinnati. Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk of the Cincy Diocese has banned her from teaching at archdiocesan parishes and institutions because she supports the ordination of women, according to the local press.
You know, I used to not care one way or another what the Catholic Church did. They really don’t have a direct impact on my life, as a Baptist.
But then the child sex abuse scandal hit. Some of the lawsuits about child molestation were filed here in Louisville. There was a lot of emotion here for a while, for good reason. Entire families left the Roman Catholic Church over it.
Now I am very much of the opinion that Sr. Akers and her supporters need to take a very public “they’d rather ordain pedophiles than women” stance.
One of the excuses that I hear for not ordaining women is that from the perspective of the Church, allowing female ordination would be compromising Doctrine. It merely an issue of popular sentiment of the moment conflicting with the eternal teaching of the Church, and the eternal teaching will not budge.
I can get behind that. The Word of God is the Word of God. But man’s the one who makes policy. Doctrine drives a lot of church policy, yes. However, one can still hold doctrine and change policy.
F’r ex: For doctrinal reasons, Catholics are supposed to suffer a little bit on Friday in memory and union with the sacrifice of Christ on the cross on Good Friday. In policy, thats been translated to “no meat on Fridays with meals, y’all”. But the RCC changed that a few years back, and now the choice of the Friday sacrifice is up to the individual worshiper.
(And let the record show that the history of Christianity is full of this sort of thing, by the way. Take a look at Leviticus and the other law books of the Old Testament, and ask yourself how many Christians follow those rules that [supposedly*] came down from the mountain with Moses. One of the major themes of the New Testament is that Christ changed or removed some policies in order to help us connect better with God, because those policies were getting in the way of that).
If you haven’t already, I urge you to rent the excellent and heartbreaking documentary Deliver Us From Evil. Pay close attention to the Special Features, which contain interviews with sex therapists and church historians.
The film follows the particular case of Oliver O’Grady, but it’s not just limited to that. The filmmakers show that not only was O’Grady not an isolated incident, but demonstrates clearly that it was Catholic Church policy to protect him and priests like him. Even worse, it’s been the RCC policy for decades, possibly even centuries. The current Pope knew about it before he was Pope and supported it.
The RCC derive this policy from the Doctrine of Forgiveness and the policy of celibacy. Within the priesthood, since any sexual act is regarded as a sin, all sexual acts are equally sinful. So a sin of child sexual abuse is the same as a sin of sleeping with an adult woman. Thus, a sin of child sexual abuse can be confessed away, can be forgiven, just like any other. So the molester confesses, forgives and is shriven. And once it’s over and done with, he’s moved elsewhere to be given that merciful second chance.
Coincindentally, this approach also spares the Church a public scandal, because why should the Church’s work suffer for the crimes of a priest?
The pedophilia scandals are a great example of a policy that could change overnight without hurting doctrine in the slightest. But it means the RCC taking responsibility for decisions it made centuries back.
You see, by pushing priests to celibacy as a matter of policy, the Church created an unhealthy attitude among priests towards sexuality. One that, it’s alleged, created an atmosphere perfect for pedophiles to take refuge in, and may even contribute to creating pedophilia in priests.
Nearly a thousand years ago Peter Damien detailed some of the sexual abuses (and general sexual misconduct) going on in monasteries in his book Liber Gomorrhianus. But Pope Leo got ticked off at the report, and RCC policy didn’t change, even though they had plenty of doctrinal material and tradition to allow them to do so.
And so, ten centuries later, the Roman Catholic Church is still dealing with it because they refuse to change policy. So far in the United States, that refusal has cost them around a billion dollars in settlement fees (as per Deliver Us From Evil). I can’t help but wonder how much more it will cost them before they get a clue.
The RCC may think its standing for the Word of God when they hold on to the priestly-celibacy-at-all-costs policy. But they look an awful lot like an organization with a protect-our-pedos-at-all-costs-in-order-to-avoid-scandal policy. This leads Catholics and non-Catholics alike to start asking very pointed questions about the doctrines that may be driving the policy.
This is why I say policy can and should change. There’s a very strong argument that the celibacy/no women policy attracts men to the priesthood with something to hide, or who are questioning their sexual proclivities. This isn’t to say that most candidates don’t go into the priesthood with a clean heart. But there obviously are also those who are there for other reasons: to be close to children, to try to suppress their feelings, or with hope that God will take away their urges.
Change the policy. Ordain women and marrieds. It won’t mean that the doctrine of forgiveness changes. It means that the Church values it members and wants to protect them from those who would use Church authority to injure them.
