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October 3, 2002, 9:00 a.m. Theological Malpractice The roots of scandal. By Father Matthew Lamb

he coverage of the Catholic-abuse scandals in the media seems second only to the coverage of the war on terrorism in the aftermath of 9/11.

No adequate diagnosis of the contributory causes of the Catholic-priest-abuse scandals can overlook the role of dissent among theologians. I am afraid that we theologians have failed to acknowledge our own failures and the lies, to use St. Augustine's strong language, which we have been communicating in our teaching and writings.

To what extent, for example, have we been responsible for students losing or weakening their Catholic faith and moral, virtuous practice? Our society does not force one to belong to a particular religion. When theologians claim to be Catholic, while dissenting from important Church teachings, they are living a lie. They hold theological positions that might be espoused in another Christian denomination, but instead of honestly joining that denomination, they claim they are still Catholic.

Surveys and studies have for some time been charting the sorry consequences of this schism in the soul of Catholic theologians. Graduates of Catholic schools are woefully ignorant of basic tenets of the faith, worship, and morality. Dissent thrives in this ignorance as it seeks to rationalize the prejudices and preferences of disordered minds, hearts and lives. The vibrant light of divine faith and holiness that shines so clearly in the lives of the saints — think of someone like Mother Teresa — is jeopardized by ignorance and darkened by dissent.

How many of the priests and bishops who have brought such suffering to minors and scandal to the public were encouraged by teachers and theologians to cut corners and dissent from this or that truth of Catholic faith and moral teachings? Many priests and future bishops read articles dissenting from Catholic sexual ethics in the 1960s and 70s.

A climate of dissent was promoted by wholesale dissent from Catholic sexual ethics. This found expression in the widely read book Human Sexuality: New Directions in American Catholic Thought edited by Fr. Kosnik and commissioned by the Catholic Theological Society of America. That book made excuses for masturbation, cohabitation, swinging, adultery, homosexuality, and even bestiality.

The book was severely criticized by the Committee on Doctrine of the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops in 1977, and censored by the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1979 for its "erroneous principles" and distortions of Catholic teachings. Despite these authoritative censures, the Catholic Theological Society of America did not demand that the authors of the study rework the book, nor has the society in any way ever publicly repudiated the book's flagrant dissent from official Catholic teachings.

In the same year that the book was first censored by the Committee on Doctrine, then-Fr. Shanley echoed its dissent and erroneous principles when he maintained that "homosexuality is a gift of God and should be celebrated," and said there was no sexual activity that caused psychic damage, "not even incest or bestiality" (October 1977 speech). In the year the book was censored by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Shanley co-founded the North American Man-Boy Love Association. The Catholic Theological Society of America has few assets. If it had the kind of assets large dioceses do, one wonders if lawyers for the victims of abuse would be filing theological malpractice suits against the society.

When the history of this tragic scandal is written, the role of dissent on the part of Catholic theologians will play a central role, as it already has in George Weigel's The Courage to Be Catholic and in the reports on the scandals by Fr. Richard Neuhaus in First Things. They show that the present crisis is rooted in the infidelity of Catholic clerics and laity to Catholic doctrinal and moral teachings. No amount of spin to justify dissent will do justice to the sufferings such infidelity and dissent has wrought on so many.

— Father Matthew L. Lamb is a professor of theology at Boston College.