Originally appeared in slightly different form May 1, 2002, in the Chicago Free Press.
IT HAS BEEN FASCINATING to watch the ballooning disclosures of sexual improprieties by Catholic priests and the crisis management efforts at minimization, cover-up, denial, and blame shifting by the Catholic hierarchy - as well as the attempts by various Catholic factions to promote their own agendas - from doctrinal crackdown and the expulsion of gay priests to abandoning celibacy and ordaining female priests.
Those of us who are not Catholic have no vested interest in how all this turns out but perhaps it is worthwhile offering some speculations about why this situation arises, if only to stimulate others to offer better speculations.
1. Celibacy is contrary to human nature - that is, the nature of "the human person."
Sex is built into us: It is how we evolved and it is why we evolved. Our ancestors are the early humans who felt the most sexual desire and so had the most sex, passing their genes down to us. No doubt there are some people who because of low sexual desire or superhuman effort can achieve celibacy, but we should not be surprised when many do not.
Accordingly, there are limits to any institution's ability to regulate sex by laws, rules, injunctions, threats, bribes, etc. Churches that try the hardest to regulate sex, channeling it or forbidding it, have more problems with sex than other churches, not just because they are fighting against an intrinsic part of "the human person," but also because they keep people's mind focused on whatever they are supposed to avoid.
2. The Catholic church presumably expects priests to have a healthy, mature attitude toward sex so they can manage their celibacy intelligently.
But it is difficult to know how anyone who has not experienced something significant, such as sex, can know what they are giving up, be sure it was a wise decision, or have a genuinely healthy attitude toward it. It seems possible that they will develop an unhealthy aversion or unhealthy curiosity, or a distorted understanding of its role in the human psyche, including their own.
And maturity is a process that is based on experience and reflection on that experience. How can a sexually inexperienced seminarian acquire the necessary experience to develop this mature attitude? Or if a priest only had sex only as a youth, how can his understanding develop beyond the understanding he had at that point? Isn't it just as likely to be halted, fixated at that age of understanding - and possibly at that age of attraction?
3. If bright, sensitive Catholic youths feel little interest in dating and find they are not strongly attracted to women, they - or their parents - may mistake that response for a call to the priesthood and celibacy. But as many of us know from our own experience, a lack of strong interest in girls and dating was simply a function of being gay but not being fully aware of it yet.
In a religious culture that remains lingeringly repressive and officially homophobic, it may be especially difficult for gay youths to come to the realization they are gay. They may suppress that self-understanding and adopt a false consciousness of "having a vocation," only to realize years later that they were deceiving themselves. Worse yet, many parents and relatives, for their own selfish reasons, may support and encourage the youth's self-deception.
However odd it seems to say so, it may be best to acknowledge that pushing any youth into the priesthood track before he fully understands himself constitutes a particularly offensive kind of child abuse. Yet, an international Catholic organization called the Legion of Christ reportedly recruits boys as young as 10 to leave their families and follow a course of study to become priests.
4. Attempting to expel gay priests, even if one could find them, might have less effect than many conservative Catholics seem to assume.
Some, many of the priests who perpetrate sexual contacts with young males may not be homosexual at all. Sexual desire is sexual desire, and under pressure the usual direction of preference may break down. This is facilitated by the fact that underage teenage youths may be slender and slightly androgynous, lacking some of the distinguishing physical features of adult masculinity.
We have the readily available parallel of heterosexual men in prisons. Deprived of their preferred outlets for sex, a large proportion make do with what is available; then when they return to civil society they resume their preferred behavior.
5. The Catholic church uniquely provides prolonged clerical contact with young males in large numbers through the structure of the Catholic educational system and religious practice - from clerical involvement in Catholic high schools and seminaries to all-male retreats and the institution of altar boys.
Above all, the institution of private confession produces an unusual degree of emotional and psychological vulnerability, repeatedly stirring up a heady mix of sex, guilt, and defenselessness, and provides regular occasions when youths may reveal themselves as confused, vulnerable, or manipulatable.
No doubt much more is involved than I have suggested here. But so far I have seen too little serious discussion of how the Catholic church itself brings about the very situation it claims to deplore.