California Catholic Daily
July 17, 2008
http://www.calcatholic.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?id=d8d5fecf-c7e5-46cc-9e9b-b83a1520afd6
Catholic ethicist says retired Australian bishop wrong about cause of sexual abuse crisis
“Annoying and misleading” is what Sulpician ethicist Fr. Gerald Coleman has called a retired Australian bishop’s attempt to link celibacy with clergy sexual abuse of children.
Writing in the July 11 San Francisco archdiocesan Catholic San Francisco, Coleman, the former rector of St. Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park and currently the vice president for ethics for the Daughters of Charity Health System, challenged Geoffrey Robinson, a former auxiliary bishop of Sydney, Australia. In May, Cardinal Roger Mahony forbade Robinson to speak in the Los Angeles archdiocese, as did Bishop Tod Brown in the Diocese of Orange and Robert Brom of the San Diego diocese. Robinson ignored his fellow bishops.
Robinson has recently completed a speaking tour on his book, Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church: Reclaiming the Spirit of Jesus, in which he calls for a reexamination of Church teachings on extramarital sex, women’s ordination, homosexuality, and papal power in order to properly respond to sex abuse by clergy. Robinson formerly headed the Australian bishops’ conference’s committee that drew up policy to respond to sexual abuse victims.
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| Geoffrey Robinson, a former auxiliary bishop of Sydney, Australia |
According to Coleman, Robinson admits in his book that “celibacy is not the sole cause of sexual abuse by priests and religious,” and that if “celibacy were abolished tomorrow,” clergy sexual abuse would not disappear.
But though Robinson traces back clergy sex abuse to various factors, he says, according to Coleman, that “celibacy and its lifestyle” are “the primary culprits that create an abusive environment” and that “this problem cannot be honestly addressed until the question of obligatory celibacy is faced.” Robinson, according to Coleman, thinks “obligatory celibacy… contributes to depression, misogyny and homophobia. This unhealthy environment contributes to the sexual abuse of children by priests and religious.”
But Robinson’s arguments are flawed, said Coleman, because most sexual abuse occurs within families. Coleman cites two studies, “A Sourcebook On Child Sexual Abuse, License to Rape, The Dark Side of Families” and “Child Sexual Abuse” as proof. According to Coleman, studies show that 30% of sexual abuse of minors is done by fathers, uncles, or cousins; 60%, by acquaintances; and about 10%, by strangers. Some studies, said Coleman, show that 20 million Americans have been abused by parental incest.
Robinson’s treatment of celibacy and sexual abuse is “superficial and is more the result of other fundamental disagreements he has with the Church,” said Coleman. The “sexual disorder of pedophilia or ephebophilia” (an older person’s sexual attraction to post-pubescent youth), not celibacy, said the Sulpician ethicist, is at the root of clergy sexual abuse.
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