Some reflections on being Catholic
People often ask me if I am still a Catholic. That is a hard question to deal with. I do not go the church. I have reservations about the creed statements. I question much of the tradition. I am adamantly anticlerical. I despise the institution. If I were hauled before the Inquisition, I am certain I would be considered a heretic, maybe even an unbeliever. Yet, I think of myself as still Catholic.
Catholicism will always lurk deep in the core of me. That is part of who and what I am. However, my Catholicism has undergone a fundamental transformation. I find an immense chasm between the Catholic faith and its theology, between its teachings and institutional practice. Through the theological system of the catechism, the clerical structure protects its position with all the coercive power in its tremendous arsenal of weaponry. The structure is held together by fear. Fear petrifies the Petrine office. The establishment fears that it will lose its power, lose its credibility, if it allows any questioning of its hold on its jealously guarded orthodox tradition. Change is inadmissible in the climate of infallibility. And, of course, they fear losing their money.
Judged from the perspective of my own personal journey and what I have witnessed in the countless priests of my acquaintance, I have come to the conclusion that the root of the problems of institutional Catholicism is its inability to deal honestly with sexuality. Clerics panic at the very idea of revisiting the sexuality of Jesus and Mary and Joseph. Perhaps this fear is expressed most clearly in the law of compulsory clerical celibacy. Say what you will about the many good works of countless priests and religious men and women through the centuries, the law of celibacy has also created a whole menagerie of lazy, selfish, warped, unhappy, lonely and dangerous men, a surprisingly large number of whom live a tortured existence with homosexuality, which the official church condemns. A very large number (some researchers put it at over 90%) of them suffer from arrested maturation and an unhealthy obsession with sex.
The mystique created around the concept and practice of celibacy is a false one. Those of us who left the active priesthood recognize that we are better husbands and fathers for having been priests, and that we are better priests because we are husbands and fathers. But the official church will have none of us in ministry.
A very good friend of mine who was a Benedictine monk at St. John’s when I was there has been studying celibacy and the clerical culture for over 50 years. He has published numerous books and articles and has given countless lectures on the subject. Richard Sipe, formerly Father Aquinas, concluded that only a small percentage of Catholic priests achieve true celibacy (emotional and spiritual as well as physical), and less than half actually practice the celibate life. The official church stubbornly refuses to face such studies, hiding behind silence and fear-mongering to shore up the unwarranted privilege and social esteem of the clergy. They fully intend to keep doing it forever. It is the most effective way to control their workforce.
Most Catholics do not think critically about their church. They are simply content to trust their priests to do all the thinking. Even to suggest that perhaps priests are not altogether trustworthy raises cries of alarm. Simply unthinkable, sacrilegious, treachery. The conspiracy of silence about clerical abuse is as active among the laity as among the clergy. People prefer ignorance because it is easier. They stolidly attend Sunday mass in the belief that it is somehow a form of eternal fire insurance and they don’t want to take the chance of letting their policy lapse. They have been taught that the Catholic Church is the only true church, is perfect as God made it and therefore in no need of change. Only malcontents speak up. The church is better off without them. Clerics who speak out are quickly relegated to obscurity.
Very few institutional leaders appreciate the value of their loyal dissenters. Dissent does not necessarily mean the person is disobedient. Obedience without question is not a virtue and is much overrated in ecclesiastical circles. I think that kind of obedience is a liability and very dangerous in an organization because the talents, the wisdom , the search for truth of individuals is lost. Unfortunately, the church has too few hierarchs who are comfortable with those who challenge, who question, who wonder out loud.
The second aspect of unwholesomeness in regard to sexuality is the persistent and stubborn misogyny that underlies the clericalization of the priesthood, that makes Rome go apoplectic every time anyone even suggests that we use feminine language to refer to God. Not only is the hierarchical structure a world without laity, it is a world without women. The division of the church into clerical and lay is an affront to the gospel message of fundamental equality of all people as expressed in the early documents, “in Christ there is no more Jew or Gentile, no more slave or free, no more male or female.” All are radically equal. Clerical privilege creates two-tiered Christianity. That is intrinsically incompatible with the express will of Christ. Thus, the double split has created a culture that inevitably leads to injustice, intolerance, abuse, and arrogance in the exercise of power.
The official church has never asked itself why so many of us left the ministry. The extreme shortage of priests has led to the death of small parishes. As a result, the hierarchy bullies people into donating millions to build huge churches which serve not the reign of God but rather the reign of Roman intransigence. They will keep doing that as long as people are willing to pay.
The older priests today are beyond retirement age and confused. The new ones are ignorant and unaware of it, conceited with little justification, poorly trained and will not admit it, and are not called by the congregations which they serve. Very few priests are even dimly aware of what it is to be tired to the bone from being up night after night with a sick child or spouse. Visits with relatives give them no reason to think they understand the dynamics of family life. They are out of touch. They had and have good intentions, but they lack experience and therefore lack relevance. It is a mystery to me why the truth is not being faced honestly and openly. Survey after survey indicates that the laity would have no difficulty accepting married priests and women priests. The clerical world can safely ignore such statistics because there is no tradition within Catholicism to allow the laity to take the lead. After all, in the words of the late John Paul II, wisdom does not come from below.
As I enter the twilight of my years, I find myself going more and more into the Jewish roots of my faith. The human Jesus Christ makes sense only in a tradition where God is a living presence which cannot be named, defined, or pictured. God is nowhere and also now here, everywhere. God is no-thing. How can I worship that God? By a radical and consistent respect and awe of all that is, all people, all animals, all plants, all nature, and it starts within myself. By being what I am in all the wealth of physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual realms. That seems to me the essence of the wisdom of the late prophets who inspired John the Baptist and Jesus.
As for my view of Jesus, I consider that Jesus lived and died a faithful Jew. After he died, his spirit was poured out in great abundance upon all, men and women, Jew and Gentile, slave and free without distinction. That spirit manifests itself in love and peace and joy and gentleness. That spirit enabled his followers to do as he did, heal the sick and give life to those who were lifeless. And thus, through his followers, Jesus lives on.
The Bible is not the only place where we encounter the “word of God.” I believe that God speaks from burning bushes in every blade of grass, in every thought and feeling of every creature. All we need do is learn to find God, as one person put it, in the wild state, to listen and respond. For the most part, there are no words in this dialogue. Saint Benedict urged his monks to seek God. That pretty well describes my life. I keep on looking with the clear knowledge that I will never find it all. And that is more than just all right. It is immensely exciting.
Looking back at my experience with Abbot Severin (my abbot for my first nine years in the monastery), I recognize that his treatment of me was not done out of bad will. I believe he was sincere in his convictions. With his consecration as abbot, he believed that he had become an authority on all things theological and spiritual by virtue of his office as abbot. Over and over in his talks he spoke of the “grace of office,” and how sacraments work. He would not use the word magic, but in some automatic fashion God gives the office holder all the gifts he needs to fulfill his role. Thus, it is always wrong to question church authority. He was absolutely confident that he was that authority. A very intoxicating formula. In compelling logic he repeated these ideas so often that he believed that himself and got me to believe it too. The absolute obedience he taught reinforced the obedience we were taught as Catholic children.
That is precisely why spiritual abuse is so difficult to come to terms with. A supposedly benign person causes untold suffering and injustice. It is the father who strikes his child “for your own good.” The child does not share that feeling but cannot question the father. Compliance with authority mistakenly assumed to be love takes precedence over freedom. Forced obedience even out of divine conviction is still slavery and wrong. It is a form of emotional and spiritual abuse that cuts as deep as, if not deeper than, physical and sexual abuse.
From where I am now, I think I have spent far too much time feeling sorry for myself, feeling helpless and hard-done-by. I spent too much energy on impotent rage against an institution that will never admit its abusive behaviour. Do I forgive them? No, I do not. It is wrong to forgive those who do not admit to their victims what they have done nor promise to make amends. It allows them to ignore their crimes, to think they are free.
In order to be healthy, victims of abuse have to move on. That is easy to say. But it is absolutely necessary, and the only way is to search inside for the inner strength to take full responsibility for their own well-being. Even when abusers voice apologies, (they rarely do) there is not much they can do beyond that. The past cannot be altered. No compensation can undo what has been done. The scars, the hurts, never go away.
An inner sense of worth welcomes outside validation, to be sure. But the key to health is the journey inside to self-discovery and self-acceptance with all the good and the bad that has happened. I worked hard at making that journey, brought all of it into conscious thought as honestly as I could, and with the help of many others have arrived at a measure of peace. I realize that the perpetrators of abuse simply do not care enough to admit anything, and no amount of fretting and fuming will make them care. I do not have any control over them. I can control only what is inside myself, and that is where healing takes place.
In the light of all that, I take comfort in how much I have learned, how much I have benefited from my experience, and how much I owe to so many who loved me. Although some bitterness persists, and likely always will, that is also what I accept. The more such feelings recede, the healthier I feel.