Kenny Looks for Lessons in Sex Abuse Scandal

By Bill Spurr
The Chronicle-Herald
October 6, 2012

http://thechronicleherald.ca/religion/144431-kenny-looks-for-lessons-in-sex-abuse-scandal

Nun/doctor brings considerable expertise to issue that has troubled Catholics worldwide for decades

As a nun and a pediatrician, Sister Nuala Kenny devoted much of her professional life to helping people feel better.

Her new book, Healing the Church, aims to apply balm to the Catholic Church. Subtitled Diagnosing and Treating the Clergy Sexual Abuse Crisis, the book is aimed at a particular audience.

"Ordinary lay people," Kenny, semi-retired, said from the Halifax convent where she lives with three other sisters.

"It's an attempt to find some way to get people to begin talking about what are the lessons that we have learned from this crisis, about who we are as a church, with specific attention to how we are when we relate as clergy and laity."

Kenny has considerable expertise on the topic, having served on the 1989 commission that investigated sexual abuse of children by Newfoundland priests, and having previous extensive writings.

Healing the Church is written in the form of a workbook.

"Ideally, I would love to see this in parishes, with priests and people working together, so that people commit themselves," she said.

"It's structured for six sessions, but they could do it any way they wanted.

"What happened here is a direct contradiction to the mind and ways of Christ. That's the lesson I want us to learn. I want it to be something that breaks the silence on talking about this, and even when people do talk about it, (they're) negative, discouraged, depressed, angry.

"No one knows this topic in Canada better than I do right now, and I've been through all that, but I want to say, 'What do we have to do to be better?' to be more faithful to the kinds of responses that we know the Lord himself would have given."

Kenny writes that a report co-authored by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2004 identified four per cent of active priests as abusers. That was an especially troubling figure for a church that teaches "a very high standard of sexual morality."

"(But) in the Catholic church, we have no higher incidence of sex offenders against children and youth than in society as a whole. The commonest person to offend sexually against a child is one of their own relatives. It's the mother's boyfriend, it's uncle Joe, it's the hockey coach," said the author, who feels the church is the victim of a double standard.

"On the other hand, it's because you can sue our church. You can't sue uncle Joe. Let's be really clear about this. No one is angrier, or morally outraged about this, than I, but there are also some factors that have made our church the poster boy for this.

"Half of the priests who offended were what we call situational offenders. These were guys who either had confused or conflicted notions of sexuality. They became priests before they had finished their normal psychosexual development. Some of these priests went into the seminary when they were 14, some of them at 18, right from high school."

Kenny writes that while clergy represent just .0004 per cent of the Catholic population worldwide, "they hold all the power and authority."

She doesn't think that celibacy, or a totally male priesthood, can explain sexual abuse.

"Celibacy, in and of itself, that practice for our priests, does not make you at more risk to offend against a child or youth than if you are non-celibate," said the nun-doctor.

"Remember, the commonest offender, sexually, against children and youth is a father, a grandfather, a brother, a cousin, mother's boyfriend of the month or a hockey coach. And those people are not celibate.

"The way celibacy plays a role is that the notion of the priesthood as separate and special makes it extremely difficult for these men to have healthy and holy relationships."

Kenny, who will be hosting a conference on clergy sexual abuse next month at Saint Mary's University in Halifax, said she wanted the book to capture a combination of authoritative information and the spiritual dimension, and write it in a way that was accessible.

She said any reform movement of the church has to start at the grassroots level.

"Ministry of youth, even today if you asked our own archbishop, one of the great needs is how to bring the gospel message to young people because today's young people are very different than they were."

Contact: bspurr@herald.ca