To Deal With the Sexual Abuse Crisis of Today, We Should Look to the Sexual Abuse Crisis of the Past
I have some really bad news. The world is sinful. Structures of sin surround us. We are socialized into that sin, leading us to form habits of sin before we fully understand what it is we are doing. In part, we know, something is not right, but we follow the crowd and get caught in the sins of the crowd. We become seduced by society, and we are blinded to its failings by being made a part of them ourselves.
Different cultures fall into various sinful behaviors more than others. For us, it is easy to see that among the structures of sin which dominate our society, greed (love for money and not one’s neighbor), pride (individualistic upping of one’s worth in relation to others) and lust (objective desire for the other outside of their own good) are three of the most important. Not only have they become very pervasive, the deeds they make us do are often confused as being either neutral or actually good. We are encouraged to think it is fine to “look out for number one,” to accumulate more than our fair share of the goods of the earth to make sure we can continue to do so, and to enjoy what we can get out of others because it “makes us happy.” But the consequences of our actions are clear; not only do we hurt others, but we end up hurting ourselves. Sin encourages us to follow a limited good at the expense of the greater good, and gives us an immediate sense of pleasure which is followed by a greatest sense of angst and pain.
I do have some good news. Grace allows us to work against sin, and even to help overcome the structures of sin which pervade our society. We must, of course, struggle. We must cooperate with grace, and use it to overcome the root causes of sin. We must see what has led society to follow these sinful ways, and counteract them with the good. It is not easy to do this. Indeed, it might cause us, in the immediate sense, all kinds of grief. We might even have to make a sacrifice out of ourselves, to give our life in servitude for the other. But, just as unrepented sin leads to eternal perdition, cooperation with grace leads to beatitude, and the more we cooperate with it, the more greater our theosis will be.
I have some more bad news: even as we break free from some sins, other sins will try to take their place. We must work against them as well. Social sin can be fought and broken down; for a time, a better civilization can develop. But then, just as we see within our own personal struggles, societies can backslide and end up repeating the sins of the past. For this reason the world is in constant need for reform, and we will see sins once beaten in the past return in greater force in the future. This is true for the historical Church as well. It is a part of the world, and so is affected by the pendulum of world history. Good and bad will be done by Christians, and the structures of sin in the world can and will lead Christians, religious and lay alike, to fall for the same sins as the rest of society. The answer is not, however, a flight from the world — the world will only follow. The answer is to work within the world, to transform it as the salt of the earth. As the structures of sin are fought within the world, so it will help those within the Church. The same is true in reverse. The more the Church fights against sin in itself, the better it can work against the structures of sin in the world. But if people fail to understand this, and try to flee from their responsibility, thinking it will lead them away from temptation so it will mean they will not sin, they will find out the sins follow them into their exile. This truth can be brought out by an examination of early monasticism.
We are currently dealing with a great sexual abuse crisis in the Church. It is not, however, the first the Church has had to deal with such abuse, and it is likely not going to be the last. When we look to the ancient world, we will see the earliest monastic communities had to come to grips with this problem early on. They too suffered from a sexual abuse crisis. Like today, a culture of secrecy and seclusion allowed for this abuse. Youthful boys were seen as a temptation for many of these monks. Indeed, it is clear that they were sexually abused. Commenting about a saying attributed to Abba Isaac,[1] Caroline Schroeder explains quite well the dark underbelly of early monasticism:
From the late antique collection of texts known as the Sayings of the Desert Fathers, or Apophthegmata Patrum, this statement seems somewhat cryptic — what danger do boys pose, one might ask? Yet in the context of other stories about sex and children in the Apophthegmata, this pithy instruction evokes both the homoeroticism present in early Christian communities of celibate males and anxieties about the homoerotic, especially erotic encounters with children. The Greek term in this saying, ta paidia means children (including adolescents, but not young adults), and leaves no doubt that the monk is talking about minors. Christian ascetic literature from the fourth through sixth centuries frequently construe children as obstacles to the spiritual progress of the adult monastic. A ban on playing with boys in the rules of one of the earliest coenobitic monasteries (that founded by Pachomius) constitutes one of the few references to children in that community’s corpus.[2]
While much work was done to combat sexual sin within the monasteries, it is clear that it was not always successful. Many communities suffered from it, so much so that many monks said it was destroying their communities. Work was done to take on this problem. Strict canons were put into place, and harsh penalties given to those who fell into such abuse. The reform worked, at least for a time. It was not perfect; there were still abusive monks, and abusive communities. The reforms also allowed for good spiritual communities to be established, and they allowed many monks to become the spiritual guides they were meant to become. But, as is not surprising, the good were often mixed with the bad, and it is either the exceptionally good saint or the exceptionally bad sinner that history remembers. And for the bad, it is quite clear, their sexuality has always been a part of the narratives which we can read. Chaucer only repeated motifs which were common to all.
The point here is to realize that our sexual abuse crisis is not new, but must be treated, as it has been treated in other times. Sinners must be brought out into the open, those who hide them, aiding them in their sin, must also be brought out in the open. Harsh penalties must be accepted. But we need to do more. We really need to find out the root causes to the crisis, and work to counteract them. To do this, we must admit to ourselves that reform is needed. It is not easy. Confession never is. But, once we come to see the sin for what it is, and the social structures which helped reinforce it, we can get to work.
It is also important to understand the crisis within the context of history. This will allow us to learn from the past. The early monastic crisis is indeed an interesting one and might be a good place for us to begin. What exactly did the early monks do which ultimately helped stamp out their own child sexual abuse scandal? What mistakes did they do which we do not want to repeat? If we can answer these questions, perhaps we will be able to answer better what we need to do today.
[1] “He also said to the brethren, ‘Do not bring young boys here. Four churches in Scetis are deserted because of boys,” Benedicta Ward, The Sayings of the Desert Fathers (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1984), 100.
[2] Caroline T. Schroeder, “Queer Eye for the Ascetic Guy? Homoeroticism, Children and the Making of Monks in Late Antique Egypt” in Journal of the American Academy of Religion 77 (2): 334.
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Not to make light of the subject, but I always remember in the most bizarre thing that would occur at the monastery during Great Lent. We would read the Ladder of Divine Ascent during dinner, and we would always come to the part about the mule herder falling into sexual sin at the most inopportune time. It would seem that we would always have guests over who were pious Roman Catholic couples or members of the local RC parish’s Ladies Altar Guild. Nothing like reading about monastic beastiality over dinner with your grandmother around…
But more to the point, I suppose the stark definitions of sexuality in the modern world may make us unable to read how even the early Christian conceived of these issues. As you cite, it was a universal monastic rule that older monks should watch themselves around younger monks. Indeed, there is the now infamous story of Rasputin being disgusted with what was going on in Mount Athos early last century, where young novices would perform sexual favors for older monks for a price. I would not want to lessen the focus on the victims in any way, but at the very least we shouldn’t be surprised that this is happening. It seems as perennial as the grass, which should perhaps disturb us even more.
Arturo — yes, not only was the rule there, but I am sure there was a social reason for it (which is what I was hinting at with the opening few paragraphs). We are looking at a civilization which had unusual child-rearing ideas, where it was not unknown that a student-teacher relationship would also be sexual. In this way, the monk, looked as a spiritual teacher, could easily fall prey to that mentality (and might have been expected by the child, if they have not yet had much Christian education). It seems that even if Origen did not castrate himself (I doubt he did, despite the legends), some early Christian leaders probably did to emphasize this change in education. But for the monks, who at their foundations were trying all kinds of monastic styles to find what monasticism should be like, this rule seems to be important, to keep the Christian sexual moral code active — even if it was not always successful, and we have reports of monasteries/churches “destroyed” by such practices.
Now, I think in our social climate, the reasons for the sexual abuse will be similar and different from the classical era, and it is for this reason why I think we should learn from history but not expect all that history did to solve the problems of the past will work today. As you also said, this is a perennial problem. It requires constant diligence.
In The Stones of Florence, Mary McCarthy reports that Saint Romuold, the founder of the Camoldese Order, preached against “male concupiscence” as the “most dangerous” temptation of monks. I’ve never been able to verify this claim, but St. Peter Damien got into a lot of trouble with the pope for talking about that particular sin too much.
Digby
I don’t know Saint Romould so I don’t know if he said it or not, but it certainly seems to be a theme that many (not all) early monks had. And there is some indication that (despite the text I quoted), an aspect of why boys were of interest (at least in some times) is that because they did not have beards, they appeared feminine. I would also think some of what happens in a prison population happens in a poorly run monastery. So I think there are many factors, but it is clear, I think socialization (and poor socialization) certainly could cause such problems in a community.
I think a comment of mine on this post got in your spam queue. Can you check?
I don’t know why it keeps doing that! weird! — HK
Really interesting post, Henry.
I wonder what this evidence of sexual abuse in early monastic communities does to the contemporary insistence that “celibacy is not the problem, clericalism is”? (Something that I tend to insist upon in my discussions with folks, btw.) Do you have any thoughts on that?
Michael,
I still don’t think celibacy is the problem, but I do think it can add to the problem. I still think what I wrote a couple weeks ago – it’s not celibacy per se, but isolation and loneliness — which ends up causing the breakdown. A good monastic community, a good priestly community can and does counteract that, but many are not so good. Marriage isn’t a sure thing to stop abuse, as we know, but I think a good marriage, like a good community life, would help so one does not break down as they would if alone. It is for this reason why I think St Benedict wrote as he did about how the community should be — he saw the breakdowns, and so he thought people who lived like “hermits” often faced great difficulties few could handle. In many traditions only the “advanced” could become a hermit – and even then, could be tested before becoming a permanent hermit.
Beyond that — I don’t have answers. Right now I think it is best to look to history, to see the good and the bad, to see what has been done, and see if any of it helped when abuse became a crisis. I do know for some, it ended up with harsh penalties — and it is in those times, when the Church was capable of policing its own, it got the authority to do so. But now, it seems such policing has ended. And I think that is where we get into serious problems.
Michael, people were meant to live in some kind of “famiiy structure.” It needn’t be biological, but the relationships of ordinary family life need to be preserved, even in a communal, monastic environment.
What I think we’re seeing is that the ordinary phases of active sexuality have to be at least gone through, in most men or women’s lives, before they can start concentrating on spiritual perfection.
That’s why I think it’s ridiculous to bar “oldsters” from the priesthood or from the monastic life. Their experience of healthy, normal sexuality followed by willingness to put it aside for the sake of spiritual perfection is, I think, healthy and reassuring for others who are either novices or who are struggling with their own sexuality.
If Catholics are really serious about bettering the lots of our pastors, our priests and our women religious, we would be eager to make their living situations MORE diversified and less exclusionary, as the Buddhists and the Hindus do, with their various phases of spiritual development through a lifetime, and as the Orthodox do, with their “monks” and “married priests.” The sanest monastic community I’ve ever experienced was a Benedictine monastery-convent in New Mexico, wherein men and women religious lived together, adding to each others’ lives in a complemetary fashion.
One thing that I got reading the Fathers of the Desert was the sense that they had no sense of what “normal” sexuality was. One could accuse them of being Manicheans but I think they were just realists. In our day and age, the Catholic Church seems to be beating the war drum concerning what it thinks is normative in terms of sexual life. The presupposition is that if you follow “our program” of sexuality (for married people: no contraception, missionary position, NFP, etc.), you will be a better and happier human being. You see that with some of the Curia’s unhelpful baiting of homosexuals and the “culture of death” in these questions: “if only people did what the Church said…” I think it is tempting to pass from the idea of sin to an idea of pathology. Indeed, in the 1970’s in many religious houses, psychology was the official faith.
In the Fathers of the Desert, however, there is only sin, and everyone does it. There is no sense that one has to scapegoat one group as less than human just because they fall into X kind of sin. There was no shock that people could commit sins that we would find totally disgusting. Perhaps we live in too much of a technocratic society that we want the easiest way to “fix the problem”. But there is no easy way to fix it. You can blame it on celibacy, you can blame it on a homosexual clergy, you can blame it on an old boy’s network, but the fact of the matter is that human institutions are not guaranteed to work since they have humans in them. And humans sin and fail. That may be rather scary to us, with our well-functioning police forces, efficient post offices, and so forth, but there is not a whole lot we can do about it.
Primarily, the Church’s task at this point is to apologize to the victims and protect potential victims. Scapegoating or other ways of blaming on “the Other” will not help in that process.
Primarily, the Church’s task at this point is to apologize to the victims and protect potential victims. Scapegoating or other ways of blaming on “the Other” will not help in that process.
That is right. And when you said, One thing that I got reading the Fathers of the Desert was the sense that they had no sense of what “normal” sexuality was, I think you are onto something there, which sort of goes with my view that there is no one all-out solution, but the need for constant reform to deal with the circumstances as they develop, and to change things when new circumstances lead to grave sin. And in doing this, one must recognize no one universal cause with one universal solution. There are many causes, some more important in different circumstances than other. But it is important, for any sin, to repent and to truly do so requires, again, what you said, to stop scapegoating.
Henry, Once again thank you for this thought provoking complex issue. I think the complexity of sexual abuse begins with the fear of the passions associated with first being human and secondly being sexual.
The theological foundation of understanding humanity begins with us being made in the image and likeness of God and then immediately crushing that with being deliberately rebellious against God as though we should have known better. There seems to be an underlying hostility and fear at the root of human relationships that permeates all of our encounters. Where we have the most passionate feelings associated with being human is where this fear and hostility will be acted out in the most cruel and sadistic fashion.
Once something is repressed for a long time it almost has a will of its own and will overpower the area of the prefrontal cortex that is involved in decision-making and modulating emotions.
Children, adolescents and adults continue to be viewed as objects to be formed by the hierarchy without the correct understanding of what it means to be a human being. We are either good or bad objects to be used for the good of the church or to be dismissed as a bad object who needs to repent.
If we have no value other than what someone else determinesn then the other person has even less value and can be used by the object in power for his own pleasure, whatever that may be.
What I think needs to be addressed is the underlying fear of being human that permeates the entire church. The sexual molestation is the obvious and most brutal example of this fear and objectification.
We must be open and honest with our fear of one another and it must begin with self. The hierarchy must be the example for this and they must begin with destroying every symbol that separates them from the rest of humanity.
Fear prevents the maturation of the passions and to repress that fear creates danger in every human encounter.
Ronald,
Yes, I think fear is one of the things which permeates our modern society and has caused a lot of the social problems we see — from the immigration bill in Arizona, to the fear of the Church to deal with this problem openly, to the fears which cause wars. It is also fear which often prevents daily relationships with people from maturing. There is an inability to be “real” and let everything out. People are taught to keep everything within, and of course, it just makes for more broken relationships with people not knowing why because they can’t communicate!
Of course, I think many causes can end up creating the same problem. But for all problems, we most overcome the fear (and shame) we feel once we fall for them. Until then, we just let the problems build up.
Henry, A quick “thought without a thinker”. What do you think about the idea of everyone associated with Vox Nova meeting together in one place to develop a general picture of the crises in the church and preliminary strategies to address these crises?
I am willing to go anywhere to do this. There are so many great thinkers here and it would be wonderful to see and hear all of the contributors and commenters in one place to focus on developing something concrete to present to the faith that I love so much.
Ronald
It would be nice, but near impossible to actually schedule. I will see what others say to see what they might suggest, but right now, I think it would be very difficult, since we are all dealing with various obligations. But – let’s see what people suggest. I think something in the DC area, within the next couple months, might work — depending upon many things. That is as much as I can think of right now.
Spring of ’71 and my sophomore year at Penn State wearing my Air Force shirt, long hair and beard and demonstrating against the war with 200,000 others in DC. It was amazing. I wasn’t pure in my actions though. Smoked dope and hoped to have some of the free love I had heard about. Instead, I got paranoid, isolated and ate everything I could get my hands on. I did not fit in on either side–Thank God.
Henry, I wouldn’t be able until August at the earliest.
Thanks for your effort.
Some while ago I suggested that the Church would need “new saints” to cope with the abuse crisis. Actually, after reading this article by John Cornwell, I think that Pope Ratzinger is about to beatify the very “saint” the Church needs–Newman. And Newman’s solution to the crisis of the modern priesthood? The very “particular friendships” that the hierarchs rail against!