VATICAN
The Tablet
Editorial
ONLY A SMALL minority of Catholic priests in the United States were ever involved in the sexual abuse of children. But the consequences of their activities have left few parts of the Church there unscathed. Bishops have felt their authority discredited; some dioceses face bankruptcy as the courts award enormous damages against them. And the whole Church is horrified by the lasting harm done to the victims of paedophile priests. In that climate it is right that steps should be taken to ensure that whatever factors caused the problem in the first place are no longer operating. Some voices in the Church have even suggested that homosexuality itself lies at the root of the problem. The Vatican’s statement in 1986 that homosexual men had a “disordered sexual inclination” has been used to suggest that they have no place in the priesthood, should not be admitted to seminaries on principle, and even that they should be weeded out from the ranks of those already ordained.
These suggestions coming from the conservative Right have been countered by the argument from more progressive quarters that it was not sexually liberal ideas as such, but the collapse of an over-rigid culture of sexual repression in the 1970s and 1980s that caused some priests, often theologically conservative in themselves, to succumb to sexual temptation. It invariably involved an abuse of power, and many such priests took advantage of the high status of the clergy that was part of a traditional Catholic culture. And there is no evidence that the holding of liberal views on sexual matters correlates with a proclivity towards the sexual abuse of minors. Nevertheless it is confidently expected, as part of the brief of an ongoing investigation into American seminaries ordered by the Vatican, that, in the aftermath of the sexual abuse scandal, consideration should be given to banning homosexually orientated men completely.