EW ORLEANS - Members of the world's largest association of
Catholic theologians, gathering on the eve of an unprecedented meeting of
bishops struggling to bring the clergy sexual abuse crisis under control,
yesterday called on the Catholic Church to re-explore its power structure,
its priesthood, and its teachings about sexuality.
Rejecting the narrow focus of US bishops on how best to deal with
abusive priests, the theologians declared that the current crisis suggests
a need for ''thoroughgoing church reform.''
''The bishops are more interested in the pragmatic issues and the
pastoral issues of how to deal with this crisis, but we are not bishops,
we are theologians, and therefore we want to know what kind of church
theology allowed this crisis to occur,'' said Rev. Peter C. Phan,
president of the Catholic Theological Society of America, which represents
1,500 scholars teaching at Catholic universities, seminaries, and other
institutes of higher education around the country. ''The crisis is not
going to disappear because the bishops set out policies. Without
considering these issues, the policies will not work.''
The society did not vote on the statement, saying it might not
represent the views of each of its members. But Phan, a professor of
religion at the Catholic University of America, said the statement,
unanimously endorsed by the society's board of directors, will be mailed
to the leaders of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and the 16 bishops
who are also theologians. During a discussion of the document, not a
single theologian spoke against it, although some suggested changes.
''The scandals facing the church today have led us to conclude that a
thoroughgoing church reform is both legitimate and necessary,'' the
document declares. ''Public outrage has been directed not just toward the
instances of clerical sexual abuse themselves, but toward church
leadership's systemic failure to maintain, even minimally, the kind of
open communication, consultation and participative decision-making that
ought to characterize the church as communion.''
Individual theologians speaking at the meeting made it clear they share
the dissatisfaction many lay people, and some bishops, have with the way
church leaders have handled clergy sexual abuse over the last several
decades.
''I have been profoundly scandalized by the behavior of bishops,
archbishops, and cardinals who responded to credible accusations of clergy
child sexual abuse in a disgraceful way,'' said Barbara Hilkert Andolsen,
a professor of social ethics at Monmouth University in New Jersey. ''We
absolutely have to look at our theology of the laity and our theology of
priesthood with a sweeping, fundamental reconsideration ... We are clearly
in a crisis that requires the laity to demand accountability from the
bishops and the Vatican.''
And Terrence W. Tilley, chairman of religious studies at the University
of Dayton, said bishops who fail to remove abusive priests from ministry
should be held to the same standard as priests who abused children. ''The
bishops are accessories before and after the fact ... Any bishop who has
allowed a man to stay in ministry after two strikes ... should be
removed,'' he said.
The theologians are meeting days before the nation's Catholic bishops
are scheduled to gather in Dallas to debate a policy that would require
all dioceses to report abuse allegations against clergy to state
authorities, would ask the pope to defrock priests who abuse children, and
would set up a national office to oversee the church's efforts to combat
sexual abuse.
The theological society represents the church's most prominent teachers
in the United States, and its membership is predominantly made up of
priests and nuns who work in academia. But the society has previously been
at odds with the bishops. Cardinal Bernard F. Law of Boston has been
sharply criticial of the society because it called for discussion of the
restriction of the priesthood to men. The hierarchy has been concerned
enough about the loyalty of theologians that last year, under pressure
from the Vatican, the bishops approved a measure requiring Catholic
theologians to seek an endorsement of their teaching from their local
bishops.
But several of the 420 theologians gathered here said the church needs
to consider broader issues, including how to hold bishops accountable for
failing to remove abusive priests for ministry, as well as systemic issues
that some believe contributed to the crisis.
''This is obviously a crisis that has theological implications,'' said
Vernon Meyer of the University of Dayton. ''If we don't voice our
perspective, this crisis will only be focused on punitive judgments.''
The statement is most provocative in calling for a reassessment of the
priesthood, which is currently restricted to celibate men. The statement
says theologians ''must ask difficult questions regarding the canonical
and even doctrinal strictures that severely limit who is permitted to
respond to the call to priestly ministry'' - a sentence that refers to the
canonical prohibition against the ordination of married men as Roman
Catholic priests and the doctrinal prohibition against the ordination of
women.
The document was drafted by three prominent theologians, Lisa Sowle
Cahill of Boston College, Richard Gaillardetz of the University of Toledo,
and Rev. Ladislas M. Orsy of Georgetown University.
The theologians dismissed the notion that celibacy causes sexual abuse,
declaring that notion ''too simplistic.'' But, the statement asks whether
''these strictures ... contribute to a clerical and elitist closed
system'' and declares that ''any reform that does not attend to these
issues will, rightly, be viewed as merely cosmetic.''
''It is evident that the exclusion of women from any consistent and
formal role in higher governance has contributed to the clerical culture
that many increasingly deplore,'' the statement says. And, it adds,
''there is ... reason to wonder whether mandatory celibacy does not
sometimes foster a clerical culture in which, because he does not have a
relationship to a spouse and to children, the priest's primary focus of
loyalty becomes the institutional structure of the church.''
The theologians declare that the subject of gays in the priesthood must
be researched. On the one hand, they take issue with some bishops and an
increasingly vocal group of conservative lay people by declaring that
''homosexual men who are committed to a celibate vocation may be ordained
to the priesthood.'' But the theologians also declare that ''among the
issues worthy of more investigation are whether an isolated, all-male
environment is more likely to attract homosexuals; ... to encourage sexual
transgressions by homosexuals more than by heterosexuals, and whether
greater cultural and moral openness to homosexuality, reflected even in
church documents, has had a deleterious effect on clergy sexual
behavior.''
The statement calls on the church to explore ''new canonical
structures'' to facilitate lay involvement in the church, saying that the
current structures, such as diocesan pastoral councils representing the
laity and presbyteral councils representing priests, ''in many cases ...
have atrophied into uselessness, whether through benign neglect or
deliberate suppression.''
Michael Paulson can be reached at mpaulson@globe.com.
April 10
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