By James Alan Wilkowski
The Epoch Times [Chicago IL]
February 21, 2006
http://www.theepochtimes.com/news/6-2-21/38435.html
In recent weeks, the Chicago metropolitan and suburban Catholic community has again been besieged by the latest wave of the clerical sex abuse scandal. In reporting this latest chapter, the media has focused on the issue of hierarchal protection of clergy whose acts of abuse have been documented. The question that seems to be begged is why those guilty were being protected while innocent victims were not. As a survivor of clerical sexual abuse I have often asked myself that same question.
I believe that it is the ecumenical moral obligation of every pastoral leader to protect their local congregations from predators. This is an obligation from which no person in a position of jurisdictional leadership can be relieved. Yet, we continue to hear some jurisdictional leaders striving to find ways to relieve themselves of this obligation.
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I would like to speak on behalf of another group of individuals who have also been victims of a related form of clerical sexual and psychological abuse—seminarians who have struggled against lecherous priests on staff in seminary formation programs, only to have themselves forced out of their seminary programs because they refused to "put out."
Seminarians reside upon the lowest rung of any ecclesial ladder. They are expected to do as told under the guise of obedience. This makes seminarians, in general, most vulnerable to sexual and psychological predators. Seminarians are like minnows in a shark pool.
Once a seminarian is profiled for exploitation by a clerical member of a seminary staff, two alternatives are possible. The first is that they give in. If so, they are rewarded with promotion through the seminary. The second is that they resist. In this case, every step of their journey though the seminary system becomes pure hell; they may be sent packing home. During my years as a Roman Catholic seminarian I witnessed gifted and spiritual men expelled and sent home because they didn't put out. Prior to dismissals, these men were isolated from their peers and left without having any authority figure come forward to champion their cause. Many of their bishops ignored their plight and went along with the seminary's generic recommendation for dismissal. Even though these individuals did not compromise their bodies for ordination, they are nevertheless victims of sexual and psychological abuse by clergy. I left the Roman Catholic Church over this issue. In my current capacity as the Evangelical Catholic Bishop for the Diocese of the Northwest, I dialogue with many men and women regarding vocations to the priesthood. I also receive inquiries from those who had been chewed up and spat out by their previous seminary system, solely for not compromising their bodies. Despite the abuse these men suffered in the past, they are still willing to respond to God's vocational gift. Sadly, many of these victims are so traumatized by their experiences that it is not appropriate to accept them into our program at this time. For these men, it will take many years of healing before it would be in their best interest to return them to formation.
And the real losers are the People of God.
It is my hope and prayer that something will be done to help protect defenseless seminarians from sexual and psychological predatorial abuse. I would advocate an independent, third party individual to act as an ombudsman representing and protecting the interests of the seminarian. I believe that having such a system in place might act as a check and deterrent for those individuals of a seminary staff who look at the student body for the body of a student.
Seminarians are the hope and future for all jurisdictions. We must protect them also.
Bishop Wilkowski is the Evangelical Catholic Bishop for the Diocese of the Northwest. He can be reached at bishopjaw@aol.com
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