Friday, April 16, 2010

ANOTHER INSIDER OPINION

About a week ago, I added Andrew Sullivan's The Daily Dish to my Google Reader. New posts appear on his blog with amazing speed. I haven't counted the average number of posts in a single day, but I'm sure it's quite high. His blog is exhausting but worth reading. I wonder - does Andrew even take bathroom breaks?

His post today titled Our Screwed Up Priests is spot on. I know that a good many of you disagree that celibacy and child abuse are related, but I stand by my opinion that there is a connection. By no means am I saying that mandatory celibacy is the sole cause of the abuse of children in the Roman Catholic Church - just that enforced celibacy is in the equation.

Sullivan quotes from an interview on NPR with "Dr. Leslie Lothstein [who] has treated more than 300 Catholic priests" at one of the psychiatric centers to which priests were sent for treatment.

One of the biggest challenges in treating priests, Lothstein says, is that they don't have the same kind of sexual experiences -- or history of talking about such experiences -- that an ordinary adult may have. "Many of the priests tend to be psychosexually immature," he says. "They've never taken a course in healthy sexuality."

He says some of them have gone into minor seminary at age 14 and developed "a sense of self without having appropriate lines of dating, meeting other people, experimenting with touch, kissing, ordinary sexuality."

Back in the day, some boys entered seminary at age 13, when they finished elementary school, however I gather that now one must be 18, at the youngest, to be considered as a candidate for seminary.

Sullivan says:

If celibacy is a mature choice, it can be a wonderful act of self-giving. But when mandatory for all, it prevents many healthy men from entering the priesthood, offers a cover for those terrified of their own sexuality and thereby creates a priesthood dominated by the emotionally immature.

Exactly.

9 comments:

  1. It seems so to me...a immaturity of sorts and over identification with childlikeness may be a SIGNAL...I´ve seen a child abusing priest relate to children (before we knew what he was doing with children)...he took on a almost shiny new personality as he chatted with kids informally in the course of his ministry (both male and female) and appeared almost spellbinding with them...it was odd to me, and others, that he was quite so ¨taken¨ with kids but many people adore children, just not to that extent of intense attraction/focus...the experience of knowing him has led to me ¨noticing¨ interaction more carefully between adults and children...very disconcerting to see a twist in what would normally appear to simply be warmth and kindness...makes me shudder.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Amen!

    And I too have at times seen men behaving "strangely" with children - choosing to sit at the children's table, for example, in large groups. Or paying attention to children, when the man seems inept with adults.

    So I agree, it's not "just" the celibacy - but enforced celibacy, and the absence of mature moral development, seems to be to be the cause - ok, along with a view of the priesthood as somehow ontologically "more sacred than thou".

    I'm just glad I've found an nice Eastern Orthodox parish that welcomes "everyone" (seriously!), with a married priest!

    ReplyDelete
  3. LOL about the bathroom breaks! Andrew Sullivan has several folks who write for his blog, which is how he can publish so many posts each day while we solo practitioners have to juggle other activities with our blogging. When we get famous, perhaps we will have a staff of writers, too!

    I am glad that Sullivan remains in the Roman church so that he can use his "fame" to speak out as an insider, even as I wish he would come over to the Episcopal fold.

    I also wish that the church (all of it, not just the Roman wing) could bring itself to broaden the topic and talk about "sexuality" in a more comprehensive way. Wouldn't it be nice for the church to see itself as having a responsibility to recognize, name, and uphold/support healthy and responsible sex ed, sexual expression, sexuality as an integral part of being human? So that the whole topic of sexuality might be on the table - as something God-given and life-giving rather than a means of subjugation, self-gratification and exploitation - instead of simply arguing over the definitions of the various types of aberrations as if that is the only thing the church has to say or should say about sexuality.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Leo and TheraP, I've seen the strange behavior with children that you note in a priest who is now in jail for life for child abuse, but I recognized its oddness only after the priest was accused, tried, and sentenced for child abuse. Before that, I thought he was simply quite fond of children, never imagining anything sinister was going on.

    Penelope, so Andrew has a staff of writers. Yes, now that I pay attention, I see the other "voices". I'm relieved to know that, because I thought I just didn't measure up as a blogger.

    Too many in the churches seem to be either afraid of sex or obsessed with sex, with few of the churches seeing a responsibility for sponsoring open dialogue about healthy sex, especially with teen-agers.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I enjoy kids and act like a big kid when I am with them - Mimi will attest I act like a big kid with adults too - but I like having their parents around. I know what it is like to feel less than safe in this world so it is important to me that children feel safe, welcome, and loved in church. For that matter, that everyone feel safe, welcome, and loved.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Paul, I am a trusting soul still, and back then I was naive and rather blindly trusting of RC priests. Word of child abuse in the RC Diocese of Lafayette, La., had come our way, but until more than one RC priest came under suspicion in my own diocese of Houma-Thibodaux, I thought the case from the Lafayette area was an isolated incident. Our scandals came to light before the revelations of abuse in Boston and around the rest of the country, and we were a backwater, so the national media did not focus on the problems in our area for very long.

    With the wisdom of hindsight, there was something excessive about the priest's interest in children. I'm not talking about simple friendly playfulness. I didn't see it, because of my blindly trusting attitude.

    ReplyDelete
  7. For what it's worth, I believe that 18 is too young to enter seminary. The candidates should finish college and probably work for a year or two before being accepted into seminary.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I agree with all of the Sullivan quotes in your post Mimi - I haven't previously read his blog but am going to take a look.

    Re voluntary celibacy - I sometimes wonder if celibacy can be considered a choice in any realistic sense if the person concerned hasn't had some sexual experience. I might be wrong.

    Enforced celibacy is just mad, bad and dangerous, especially if people are going into the priesthood too young.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Although I should add that in our sex-obsessed age we do sometimes miss the fact that it is possible to live without sex perfectly happily, for some people at least. But, as Sullivan says, it does have to be a "mature choice".

    ReplyDelete

Anonymous commenters, please sign a name, any name, to distinguish one anonymous commenter from another. Thank you.