Psychologies Magazine, May 2002.
Since the beginning of the year, in the United States, France, and Ireland, the scandal of pedophile priests, unpunished by their hierarchy, has shaken the Church. Many are questioning the link between pedophilia and priestly celibacy. Are celibacy and chastity tenable for men who, unlike monks, are fully integrated into the world? We know that many priests live in de facto concubinage or maintain secret sexual relations. Is it not time for the Church to put an end to this hypocrisy and to question the rule of priestly celibacy, imposed only from the 12th century onwards and which has no basis in the Gospels? Even if I am personally convinced of it, it seems to me that this will not solve the problem of pedophilia, which concerns individuals with a perverse psychological structure, whether they are ecclesiastic or lay.
Certainly, these crimes seem all the more odious because they are committed by men consecrated to God who have the complete trust of children. But isn't the same true in most cases of pedophilia? It is because the child is facing an "authority"—father, uncle, instructor, teacher, or confessor—that he is trapped and afraid to denounce his abuser. Should we be more offended by a pedophile priest than by an incestuous father? Both are guilty of the same crime: taking advantage of a child's vulnerability and trust to objectify him and use him as a sexual object.
The most difficult thing to accept in the cases of pedophile priests is the attitude of the Catholic hierarchy, which protects the aggressors. In all the countries concerned, the institution has avoided reporting these priests to the courts and has, most often, kept them in their positions. Apart from the fact that the Church is primarily seeking to avoid a public scandal and to acknowledge that it has black sheep in its midst, this attitude is legitimized by the secrecy of confession and "divine mercy" towards "sinners" who are always hoped to "repent." The Catholic hierarchy is displaying great naivety and culpable blindness in the face of perverts, some of whom were undoubtedly drawn to the priesthood to be in contact with children. The damage to the Church is already profound, even in the eyes of those who know how not to confuse a few deviants with the entire clergy. The fact that the guardianship institution prefers to protect its members, rather than its faithful and their children, can be neither justifiable nor admissible.
May 2002