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Wages of Relativism
A
Catholic priest responds to an NR cover story.
By
Reverend Benedict J. Groeschel, CFR Father Groeschel is a Catholic
priest in Larchmont, New York.
February 28, 2002 8:25
a.m.
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EDITOR'S
NOTE: This response was received as a "letter to the editor";
it has been adapted for NRO. The letter writer is author of the
upcoming The
Cross at Ground Zero
 everal
people have asked me to response to Rod Dreher's article ("Sins
of the Fathers," Feb. 11, 2002) because I have been working
with priests as a spiritual director and psychologist for thirty
years. The article is cleverly written but misses several important
points. Although he acknowledges that the vast majority of clergy
are not involved in pedophilia, he creates the impression, common
enough in the media, that bishops and their associates have been
grossly negligent in this matter. Although glaring mistakes have
been made in the past, nothing could be further from the truth.
I can testify that diocesan bishops have spent immense amounts of
time and have agonized over this issue. Thirty years ago no one
knew much about pedophilia. In my ten years of training as a psychologist
I never heard pedophilia mentioned once. When the cases emerged
therapists believed without sufficient evidence that pedophilia
could be cured. Dedicated and believing clergy worked with them
using spiritual remedies from the sacraments to thirty-day retreats.
Time has proven that like most addictions this pathology can only
be arrested and not cured. Sad experience has proven that while
you may take a chance on a recovering alcoholic, one ought not take
a chance on a pedophile because of the danger to children.
Dreher also
states that the bishops rely too much on lawyers. The bishops often
had little choice, when a diocese was being sued for many millions
of dollars.
Then there
are the enemies of clerical celibacy and of the whole concept of
clergy. It is most unfortunate that Dreher cites as an expert Richard
Sipe whose earlier writing challenged the Church's teaching on sexuality
and celibacy as non-credible, archaic, underdeveloped, incomplete,
and outmoded (cf. A Secret World, p 292f). Surely Dreher
knows he was citing someone whose position appears to be openly
hostile to the teaching of the Church.
Finally, Dreher
ignores the principal difficulty that church authorities have in
these cases. They do not have investigative procedures like the
police or even news reporters. I can attest to the fact that there
are often false charges made, especially by those seeking financial
gain. Should a superior immediately dial 911 when a charge is made,
calling the police and inevitably involving the media? Pedophile
cases are almost always tried in the media before the accused is
even heard. False accusations are known to have been made even against
members of the hierarchy. The charges appear in the headlines-the
exoneration on the back page.
I think much of the responsibility here lies on those who taught
relativistic moral theology in the past decades and those who deprived
Scripture of its credibility as a moral norm. On all sides, bishops
have been cajoled by experts with solutions, which were often simplistic
and which ultimately did not square with Scripture or with Catholic
teaching. To stop the terrible scourge of the corruption of youth
which is blatantly seen in the media every day and to protect children
from all kinds of seduction should be a goal of every decent person.
To single out the clergy and use them as a brick bat to bring Catholics
into submission so that we will not oppose abortion and the destruction
of the family is obviously the goal of many in the media. Surely,
after all that has happened the bishops are sadder and wiser men,
who are now more effectively facing the problem of sexual abuse
by clergy. I pray that the rest of the country will show a real
interest in how its youth are corrupted every day by pornography
on television and on the Internet and, in fact, in the whole media,
which pours sexual seduction into the home incessantly.
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