Posted on 12/14/2009 11:06:25 AM PST by the_conscience
The current battles over clerical celibacy are nothing new. When mandatory celibacy was first universally imposed on the clergy a millennium ago, clergy and laity alike broke into riotous rebellion for more than two generations, and a good number of bishops and priests flouted these laws for several generations more. When the Protestant Reformation broke out half a millennium ago, clerical celibacy and marriage were among the most bitter grievances over which the Western Church ultimately splintered. Today, the exposures of child abuse by some enterprising Catholic priests has rejoined these ancient battles within Catholicism and between Catholics and Protestants -- and triggered all manner of media exposes, private law suits, and criminal prosecutions.
In this Lecture, I would like to revisit the original Protestant case against clerical celibacy and for clerical marriage in its sixteenth century Lutheran Reformation context. I shall then draw out a few implications of the significance of these historical battles for the theology and law of clerical celibacy and marriage today.
The Case of Johann Apel
In good lawyerly fashion, let's begin with a concrete case. Our case comes from 1523. This is six years after Luther posted his 95 Theses, three years after Luther’s excommunication from the Church, and two years after the Diet of Worms. Luther is back in Wittenberg from the Wartburg Castle. The Lutheran Reformation is gaining real revolutionary momentum in Germany and beyond.
Our case involves a priest and lawyer named Johann Apel. Apel was born and raised in Nuernberg, an important German city, still faithful to Rome at the time of the case. In 1514, Apel enrolled for theological studies at the brand new University of Wittenberg, where he had passing acquaintance with a new professor of theology there, an Augustinian monk named Martin Luther. In 1516, Apel went to the University of Leipzig for legal studies. He was awarded the doctorate of canon law and civil law in 1519. After a brief apprenticeship, Apel took holy orders and swore the requisite oath of clerical celibacy.
One of the strong prince-bishops of the day, Conrad, the Bishop of Wuerzburg and Duke of Francken, appointed Apel as a cathedral canon in 1523. Conrad also licensed Apel as an advocate in all courts in his domain. Apel settled into his pastoral and legal duties.
Shortly after his clerical appointment, Apel began romancing a nun at the nearby St. Marr cloister. (Her name is not revealed in the records.) The couple saw each other secretly for several weeks. They carried on a brisk correspondence. They began a torrid romance.
She apparently became pregnant. Ultimately, the nun forsook the cloister and her vows and secretly moved in with Apel. A few weeks later, they were secretly married and cohabited openly as a married couple. This was an outrage. Clerical concubinage was one thing. The records show that at least three other priests in Conrad’s diocese kept concubines and paid Conrad the standard concubinage tax for that privilege. Earlier that very same year of 1523, another priest had fathered a child and paid the Bishop the standard cradle tax and oblated the infant in the very same St. Marr’s cloister that Mrs. Apel had just forsaken. Clerical concubinage and even fatherhood were known and were tolerated by some obliging bishops of the day. But clerical marriage? That was an outrage, particularly when it involved both a priest and a nun -- a prima facie case of double spiritual incest. Upon hearing of Apel's enterprising, Bishop Conrad annulled the marriage and admonished Apel to confess his sin, to return his putative wife to her cloister, and to resume his clerical duties. Apel refused, insisting that his marriage, though secretly contracted, was valid. Unconvinced, the Bishop indicted Apel for a canon law crime and temporarily suspended him from office. Apel offered a spirited defense of his conduct in a frank letter to the Bishop.
Bishop Conrad, in response, had Apel indicted in his own bishop’s court, for breach of holy orders and the oath of celibacy, and for defiance of his episcopal dispensation and injunction. In a written response, Apel adduced conscience and Scripture in his defense, much like Luther had done two years before at the Diet of Worms. "I have sought only to follow the dictates of conscience and the Gospel," Apel insisted, not to defy episcopal authority and canon law. Scripture and conscience condone marriage for fit adults as "a dispensation and remedy against lust and fornication." My wife and I have availed ourselves of these godly gifts and entered and consummated our marriage "in chasteness and love."
Contrary to Scripture, Apel continued, the church's canon law commands celibacy for clerics and monastics. This introduces all manner of impurity among them. "Don’t you see the fornication and the concubinage” in your bishopric, Apel implored Conrad. “Don’t you see the defilement and the adultery ... with brothers spilling their seed upon the ground, upon each other, and upon many a maiden whether single or married." My alleged sin and crime of breaking "this little man-made rule of celibacy," Apel insisted, "is very slight when compared to these sins of fornication” which you, “excellent father,” “cover and condone if the payment is high enough.” "The Word of the Lord is what will judge between you and me," Apel declared to the Bishop, and such Word commands my acquittal.
Bishop Conrad took the case under advisement. Apel took his cause to the budding Lutheran community. He sought support for his claims from Luther, Philip Melanchthon, Martin Bucer, and other Evangelical leaders who had already spoken against celibacy and monasticism. He published his remarks at trial adorned with a robust preface by Martin Luther, and an instant best seller.
Shortly after publication of the tract, Bishop Conrad had Apel arrested and put in the tower, pending further proceedings. Apel's family pleaded in vain with the Bishop to release him. The local civil magistrate twice mandated that Apel be released. Jurists and councilmen wrote letters of support. Even Emperor Charles V sent a brief letter urging the Bishop not to protract Apel's harsh imprisonment in violation of imperial law, but to try him and release him if found innocent.
Apel was finally tried. He was found guilty of several violations of the canon law and of heretically participating in "Luther's damned teachings." He was defrocked and was excommunicated and evicted from the community. Thereafter Apel made his way to Wittenberg where, at the urging of Luther and others, he was appointed to the law faculty at the University. Two years later, Apel served as one of the four witnesses to the marriage of ex-monk Martin Luther to ex-nun Katherine von Bora.
This was a sensational, but not an atypical, case in Reformation Germany in the 1520s. Among the earliest Protestant leaders were ex-priests and ex-monastics who had forsaken their orders and vows, and often married shortly thereafter. Indeed, one of the acts of solidarity with the new Protestant cause was to marry or divorce in open violation of the Church's canon law and in open contempt of episcopal instruction. As the church courts began to prosecute these offenses of its canon law, Protestant theologians and jurists rose to the defense of their budding co-religionists. Classic Arguments for Clerical Celibacy Bishop Conrad's position in the Apel case was in full compliance with the prevailing Catholic theology and canon law of marriage and celibacy.
Prior to the sixteenth century, the Church regarded marriage as “a duty for the sound and a remedy for the sick,” in St. Augustine’s famous phrase. Marriage was a creation of God allowing man and woman to "be fruitful and multiply." Since the fall into sin, marriage had also become a remedy for lust, a channel to direct one's natural passion to the service of the community and the Church. When contracted between Christians, marriage was also a sacrament, a symbol of the indissoluble union between Christ and His Church. As a sacrament, marriage fell within the social hierarchy of the Church and was subject to its jurisdiction, its legal power.
The Church did not regard marriage as its most exalted estate, however. Though a sacrament and a sound way of Christian living, marriage was not considered to be so spiritually edifying. Marriage was a remedy for sin, not a recipe for righteousness. Marriage was considered subordinate to celibacy, propagation less virtuous than contemplation, marital love less wholesome than spiritual love. Clerics, monastics, and other servants of the church were to forgo marriage as a condition for service. Those who could not were not worthy of the Church's holy orders and offices.
This prohibition on marriage, first universally imposed on clerics and monastics by the First Lateran Council of 1123, was defended with a whole arsenal of complex arguments.
The most common arguments were based on St. Paul’s statements in I Corinthians 7. In this famous passage, Paul did allow that it was better to marry than to burn with lust. But Paul also said that it was better to remain single than to marry or remarry. “It is well for a man not to touch a woman,” he wrote. For those who are married “will have worldly troubles.” It is best for you to remain without marriage “to secure your undivided attention to the Lord.” These biblical passages, heavily glossed by the early Church Fathers, provided endless medieval commentaries and commendations of celibacy. They were buttressed by newly discovered classical Greek and Roman writings extolling celibacy for the contemplative as well as by the growing medieval celebration of the virginity of Mary as a model for pious Christian living.
Various philosophical arguments underscored the superiority of the celibate clergy to the married laity. It was a commonplace of medieval philosophy to describe God's creation as hierarchical in structure -- a vast chain of being emanating from God and descending through various levels and layers of reality down to the smallest particulars. In this great chain of being, each creature found its place and its purpose. Each institution found its natural order and hierarchy. It was thus simply the nature of things that some persons and institutions were higher on this chain of being, some lower. It was the nature of things that some were closer and had more ready access to God, and some were further away and in need of mediation in their relationship with God. Readers of Dante’s Divine Comedy will recognize this chain of being theory at work in Dante’s vast hierarchies of hell, purgatory, and paradise. Students of medieval political theory will recognize this same theory at work in the many arguments of the superiority of the spiritual sword to the temporal sword, of the pope to the emperor, of the church to the state.
This chain of being theory was one basis for medieval arguments for the superiority of the clergy to the laity. Clergy were simply higher on this chain of being, laity lower. The clergy were called to higher spiritual activities in the realm of grace, the laity to lower temporal activities in the realm of nature. The clergy were thus distinct from the laity in their dress, in their language and in their livings. They were exempt from earthly obligations, such as paying civil taxes or serving in the military. They were immune from the jurisdiction of civil courts. And they were foreclosed from the natural activities of the laity, such as those of sex, marriage, and family life. These natural, corporal activities were literally beneath the clergy in ontological status and thus formally foreclosed. For a cleric or monastic to marry or to have sex was thus in a real sense to act against nature (contra naturam).
The Lutheran Position on Celibacy and Marriage Johann Apel’s arguments with Bishop Conrad anticipated a good deal of the Lutheran critique of this traditional teaching of marriage and celibacy. Like their Catholic brethren, the Lutheran reformers taught that marriage was created by God for the procreation of children and for the protection of couples from sexual sin. But, unlike their Catholic brethren, the reformers rejected the subordination of marriage to celibacy. We are all sinful creatures, Luther and his followers argued. Lust has pervaded the conscience of everyone. Marriage is not just an option, it is a necessity for sinful humanity. For without it, a person's distorted sexuality becomes a force capable of overthrowing the most devout conscience. A person is enticed by nature to concubinage, prostitution, masturbation, voyeurism, and sundry other sinful acts. “You cannot be without a [spouse] and remain without sin,” Luther thundered from his Wittenberg pulpit. You will “test your neighbor’s bed” unless your own bed is happily occupied and used.
“To spurn marriage is to act against God’s calling ... and against nature’s urging,” Luther continued. The calling of marriage should be declined only by those who have received God's special gift of continence. "Such persons are rare, not one in a thousand [later he said one hundred thousand] for they are a special miracle of God." The Apostle Paul has identified this group as the permanently impotent and the eunuchs; very few others can claim such a unique gift.
This understanding of marriage as a protection against sin undergirded the reformers' bitter attack on traditional rules of mandatory celibacy. To require celibacy of clerics, monks, and nuns, the reformers believed, was beyond the authority of the church and ultimately a source of great sin. Celibacy was a gift for God to give, not a duty for the church to impose.
It was for each individual, not for the church, to decide whether he or she had received this gift. By demanding monastic vows of chastity and clerical vows of celibacy, the church was seen to be intruding on Christian freedom and contradicting Scripture, nature, and common sense. By institutionalizing and encouraging celibacy the church was seen to prey on the immature and the uncertain. By holding out food, shelter, security, and economic opportunity, the monasteries enticed poor and needy parents to oblate their minor children to a life celibacy, regardless of whether it suited their natures. Mandatory celibacy, Luther taught, was hardly a prerequisite to true clerical service of God. Instead it led to "great whoredom and all manner of fleshly impurity and ... hearts filled with thoughts of women day and night."
Furthermore, to impute higher spirituality and holier virtue to the celibate contemplative life was, for the reformers, contradicted by the Bible. The Bible teaches that each person must perform his or her calling with the gifts that God provides. The gifts of continence and contemplation are but two among many, and are by no means superior to the gifts of marriage and child-rearing. Each calling plays an equally important, holy, and virtuous role in the drama of redemption, and its fulfillment is a service to God. Luther concurred with the Apostle Paul that the celibate person "may better be able to preach and care for God's word." But, he immediately added: "It is God's word and the preaching which makes celibacy--such as that of Christ and of Paul--better than the estate of marriage. In itself, however, the celibate life is far inferior."
Not only is the celibacy no better than marriage, Luther insisted. Clergy are no better than laity. To make this argument cogent, Luther had to counter the medieval chain of being theory that naturally placed celibate clergy above married laity. Luther’s answer was his famous theory of the separation of the earthly kingdom and the heavenly kingdom. For Luther, the fall into sin destroyed the original continuity and communion between the Creator and the creation, the natural tie between the heavenly kingdom and the earthly kingdom. There was no series of emanations of being from God to humanity. There was no stairway of merit from humanity to God. There was no purgatory. There was no heavenly hierarchy. God is present in the heavenly kingdom, and is revealed in the earthly kingdom primarily through "masks." Persons are born into the earthly kingdom, and have access to the heavenly kingdom only through faith.
Luther did not deny the traditional view that the earthly kingdom retains its natural order, despite the fall into sin. There remained, in effect, a chain of being, an order of creation that gave each creature, especially each human creature and each social institution, its proper place and purpose in this life. But, for Luther, this chain of being was horizontal, not hierarchical. Before God, all persons and all institutions in the earthly kingdom were by nature equal. Luther's earthly kingdom was a flat regime, a horizontal realm of being, with no person and no institution obstructed or mediated by any other in access to and accountability before God.
Luther thus rejected traditional teachings that the clergy were higher beings with readier access to God and God’s mysteries. He rejected the notion that clergy mediated the channel of grace between the laity and God—-dispensing God’s grace through the sacraments and preaching, and interceding for God’s grace by hearing confessions, receiving charity, and offering prayers on behalf of the laity.
Clergy and laity were fundamentally equal before God and before all others, Luther argued, sounding his famous doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. All persons were called to be priests their peers. Luther at once “laicized” the clergy and “clericized” the laity. He treated the traditional “clerical” office of preaching and teaching as just one other vocation alongside many others that a conscientious Christian could properly and freely pursue. He treated all traditional “lay” offices as forms of divine calling and priestly vocation, each providing unique opportunities for service to one’s peers. Preachers and teachers in the church must carry their share of civic duties and pay their share of civil taxes just like everyone else. And they should participate in earthly activities such as marriage and family life just like everyone else.
This same two kingdoms theory also provided Luther with a new understanding of the place of marriage within this earthly life. For Luther, marriage was one of the three natural estates of the earthly kingdom, alongside the church and the state, and was essential to the governance of the earthly kingdom. The marital household was to teach all persons, particularly children, Christian values, morals, and mores. It was to exemplify for a sinful society a community of love and cooperation, meditation and discussion, song and prayer. It was to hold out for the church and the state an example of firm but benign parental discipline, rule, and authority. It was to take in and care for wayfarers, widows, and destitute persons--a responsibility previously assumed largely by monasteries and cloisters.
The marital estate was thus as indispensable an agent in God's redemption plan as the church. It no longer stood within the orders of the church but alongside it. Moreover, the marital estate of marriage was as indispensable an agent of social order and communal cohesion as the state. It was not simply a creation of the civil law, but a Godly creation designed to aid the state in discharging its divine mandate.
The best example of such an idealized marital household was the local parsonage, the home of the married Lutheran minister. The reformers had already argued that pastors, like everyone else, should be married--lest they be tempted by sexual sin, deprived of the joys of marital love, and precluded from the great act of divine and human creativity in having children. Here was an even stronger argument for clerical marriage.
The clergy were to be exemplars of marriage. The minister’s household was to be a source and model for the right order and government of the local church, state, and broader community. As Adolf von Harnack put it a century ago: “The Evangelical parsonage, founded by Luther, became the model and blessing of the entire German nation, a nursery of piety and education, a place of social welfare and social equality. Without the German parsonage, the history of Germany since the sixteenth century is inconceivable.” [SNIP]
That said, it must also be said that there seems to be something gravely amiss with the American Catholic Church’s insistence on maintaining mandatory clerical celibacy -- despite the mounting evidence of homosexual and heterosexual abuses among its clergy, and despite the rapid dwindling of eligible novates within its seminaries. There is something strangely anomalous with a hierarchy that will ordain married Anglican and Orthodox priests to fill its vacant parishes, yet deny Catholic priests and novates any such marital option.
To be sure, the First Amendment free exercise clause mandates that the Catholic hierarchy be free to conduct its internal affairs without interference by the state. And to be sure, this constitutional protection frees the Church to find its own internal resources to repeat, repair, or replace its rules of clerical celibacy as it sees fit. The First Amendment is one of our most cherished freedoms, which protects popular and unpopular religious practices alike.
But the First Amendment does not license violations of the life and limb of another, and does not protect corporate complicity and conspiracy. Child abuse is a very serious felony which the modern criminal law now punishes severely. And even mutually consensual sexual contact with a minor is a strict liability offense called statutory rape. Priests who engage in such sexual acts with minors must be aggressively prosecuted and severely punished if found guilty after receiving full due process. Bishops who harbor and hide such sex felons are accomplices after the fact and are just as guilty under modern criminal law as the sexual perpetrator himself. Church corporations who conspire in such subterfuge invite serious charges of corporate criminality and corruption.
The American church hierarchy today needs to stop hiding behind constitutional walls and sacramental veils and take firm public responsibility for its actions and omissions -- ministering first and foremost to the abused victims and their families, exposing and evicting the clerical sex felons and accomplices within their midst, and getting on with their cardinal callings of preaching the word, administering the sacraments, catechizing the young, and caring for the needy.
In medieval centuries past, the church and its clergy may have been above the law of the state, and thus privileged to deal with such clerical abuses by their own means, in their own courts, at their own times. No longer. Privilege of forum and benefit of clergy have been dead letters in this country for more than a century. Clergy are not above the law. They should exemplify its letter and its spirit. The church is not above the state. It should set a model of justice and equity.
Few issues are as sublime and serious today as those involving sex and sexuality. Few crimes are as scarring as rape and child abuse. To rape a child is to destroy a child. To abuse a child is to forfeit one’s office. No cleric found guilty of child abuse can continue in office. No Christian church found complicit in child abuse is worthy of its name. Bureaucratic wrangling and political lobbying are no way for the church to respond to recent events. Repentance, restitution, and reformation are the better course.
This text is drawn in large part from his From Sacrament to Contract: Marriage, Religion, and Law in the Western Tradition (Westminster John Knox Press, 1997) and Law and Protestantism: The Legal Teachings of the Lutheran Reformation (Cambridge University Press, 2002).
Yet the point is that the pastor ought to serve the needs of the Church. You know as well as I do that a husband and wife team do that very well. But in theory, there is no real distinction between the pastor and his wife. They only have different roles in the Church. If you want to talk theology, then of course, you are really talking about your rejection of a sacerdotal priesthood. The mass is not strictly speaking a “service.” What the priest does and what the pastor does, as very different not only in form but intention. In a pinch, a member of the congregation can do what the pastor does. The priest is “set apart”by the act of ordination. Of course a married priest is equally so, but in terms of example
the celibate priest even more. His only bride is the Church.
Although we of course can't channel the dead, the fact that you would feign ignorance over what these early reformers would have thought about about women and active homosexuals being pastors of their religion says a great deal about the distorted understanding contemporary protestants have about these reformers.
Second, the issue of women clergy is a different issue and, at best, only tangentially related but the theological issues are of a different kind than clerical celibacy.
The presence of women and active homosexual pastors is completely related to the manner in which the Luther instituted his reforms. These heretical perversions are a natural consequence of the early reformers divorcing themselves from magisterial authority in order to achieve their worldly ends. The openly homosexual Lutheran clergy of today simply followed in their namesake's footsteps.
Finally, most conservative Protestants reject homosexual clergy while at the same time holding to the old arguments against a celibate clergy.
The funny part is how conservative Lutherans are now forced to declare other Lutherans as having fallen into apostasy in the same way that the early Lutheran reformers declared that the Catholic Church had fallen into apostasy. The fact that protestants today are still rehashing their tired arguments against Catholic priestly celibacy without any acknowledgment of the public scandal of their own fellow Lutheran pastors is hilarious!
Again, a different issue with different theological principles. Theology should drive pragmatism not the other way around.
Both issues have the same underlying cause. Pragmatism has no place in true theology. The protestant reformers clearly distorted the theology of the day to sever their relationship to the Catholic Church in order to serve their own sexual desires. The fact that the vast majority of Lutherans now belong to synods that permit women and active homosexuals to be their clergy speaks volumes about the failure of Luther's reforms against clerical celibacy. Had such reforms been virtuous, they would not have led to such greater evils.
This was sarcasm, no?
Then you replied about my more serious questions: "Your response misses the point (perhaps intentionally)." This sounds like you are accusing me of sarcasm. I am not being sarcastic. I want to understand the concept more fully.
Then you say:"If you are not the master of your sexual and other urges, and are unable to abstain from them as virtue and prudence may require, then you are acting like a beast. Saying this is not the same as saying that having sex makes you a beast. Not sure why you equated the two."
Let me ask my questions in more simple terms:
If a man is happily married and has good and satisfying relations with his wife and if, due to this level of satisfaction, he is not bothered by imprudent sexual urges how is this man leading a less beastly life than a man who somehow manages to suppress strong sexual urges and abstains from ever having sex?
In other words, how is mastering strong sexual urges through suppression more honorable than bringing them to the marital bed?
I am not being sarcastic. I want to understand this teaching.
Also please supply chapter and verse for your assertion that we are by called by Jesus to imitate his total celibacy.
This was sarcasm, no?
Then you replied about my more serious questions: "Your response misses the point (perhaps intentionally)." This sounds like you are accusing me of sarcasm. I am not being sarcastic. I want to understand the concept more fully.
Then you say:"If you are not the master of your sexual and other urges, and are unable to abstain from them as virtue and prudence may require, then you are acting like a beast. Saying this is not the same as saying that having sex makes you a beast. Not sure why you equated the two."
Let me ask my questions in more simple terms:
If a man is happily married and has good and satisfying relations with his wife and if, due to this level of satisfaction, he is not bothered by imprudent sexual urges how is this man leading a less beastly life than a man who somehow manages to suppress strong sexual urges and abstains from ever having sex?
In other words, how is mastering strong sexual urges through suppression more honorable than bringing them to the marital bed?
I am not being sarcastic. I want to understand this teaching.
Also please supply chapter and verse for your assertion that we are by called by Jesus to imitate his total celibacy.
Sorry for double post. Slow connection.
I’ve thought it odd that the Catholic Church would be against their priests marrying, yet still look the other way when bishops, cardinals, and popes had concubines. It would seem to me that they should follow Paul’s advise and if they do have earthly desires, then let a man marry. It’s rather hypocritical to pretend there is no problem.
It'd be interesting to see to what extent, if any, that clerical concubinage was permitted by canon law in the Middle Ages.
There is a heirarchy among Angels, Animals, Plants, and inanimate objects, why not among men?
Is the saint in heaven not better than the just man on earth?
Is the just man is not better than the sinner?
Is the sinner not better than the damned in hell?
Among the just are there not more and less virtuous men? Are there not better and worse sinners?
Was St. John the Baptist not the best of all men born from women? (St. Matthew 11.11)
And as to the notion of heirarchy being "Romanist", heirarchical division of society are and always have been clearly present among men in all societies, ancient and modern, primitive and advanced.
Dark Ages = what? From the "fall" of Rome? From the time of the Gothic Wars until Hildebrand (Pope St. Gregory IX)? After Charlemagne until the Crusades? Where they the same in all places?
Did the Dark Ages start with Constantine Augustus in AD 313 when Rome was in its glory and held sway over all the west and middle east? The first surviving legislation of the Church mandating celibacy came from Spanish and French Church Councils circa AD 310.
Was St. Augustine a Dark Age denizen? The Council of Carthage in AD 390 reiterated celibacy as an Apostolic Tradition, with Blessed Augustine taking part.
the rich places scorned by St. Bernard and other reformers
St. Bernard and other reformers created the rich monasteries of the Cistercians.
It can’t be arbitrary—or artificial, as you say—and be changeable. The rule can be changed but only in accord with Church tradition. The pope can allow married men to be priests in the Latin rite, but that is the tradition in the Eastern rites. But he cannot allow a priest to marry, nor a woman, because these things is contrary to tradition. That is, because these things are not in accord with THE Tradition, he has no authority.
As for St. Bernard, don't think you would like to have lived in one of his monasteries. They were set up in the wilderness and the average monk survived about 7 years. The improvements, of course, eventually increased the value of the lands greatly, but at first his was a pioneer's existence.
No, he was an Apostle and a man of authority. His deputies and his converts in the towns, the settled leaders, were more properly “clergy.”
Now I feel that mandated celibacy for the priesthood is not good, being a celibate priest is not bad either.
What are things uncreated?
John 1:3: Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.
But Campion, you are more educated than that. Was a ruler marrying two women unheard of in Europe before the Reformation?
No it wasn't. It wasn't as common as say modern day Europe, but many rulers found ways to get rid of one wife, or just marry another. Read some of the history around the Crusader states. Many had a wife back home and one in the Holy Land. Many also had concubines who had some sort of recognized role even in inheritance law (i.e. the kids weren't full bastards under many legal systems). For a real interesting read look at the various mistresses of the French kings (though that is a bit of an extreme).
Luther made a mistake, and caught a lot of flack for it. Phillip was going to have his mistress anyway, so Luther tried to give his friend a semi “legal” way out. It wasn't right, but it was known to happen.
If a man is happily married and has good and satisfying relations with his wife and if, due to this level of satisfaction, he is not bothered by imprudent sexual urges how is this man leading a less more beastly life than a man who somehow manages to suppress strong sexual urges and abstains from ever having sex?
Okay, and if the church asserts that a valid "calling" to the priesthood presupposes a "calling" to the virtue of apostolic celibacy, then ... ?
When Jesus referred to "eunuchs for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven," to whom was he referring?
No, what was at least relatively unheard of was a Christian cleric excusing a ruler's concubinage.
My point was simply that there was no lack of moral corruption on either side (as is always the case when sinful humans are involved!), and the reformers were not infallible sources of Christian doctrine on the topic of human sexuality.
Really? Luther's reforms have lead to the present sinful practices of some of today's liberal clergy?
This doctrine of enforced, required celibacy, which didn't apparently come into vogue (as mandatory requirement) did not arise until at least TWO CENTURIES after the original Apostles. One could reasonable surmise, that matter of such import would have been addressed somewhat earlier on. But nevermind that, for now...
You seem to be arguing that one should judge a tree by it's fruits, yes? While pointing at the evil fruit of the fem-bot/gay clergy, yes?
Sounds ok, but if such logic is indeed applicable, in broad strokes of the tar coated brush, what does same that logic say in regards to "some" (not all, mind you, just "some") of the historical evidence regarding human sexuality in the Catholic Church?.
Here ya go, buddy. Read 'em & weep;
7. The most dramatic and explicit condemnation of forbidden clergy sexual activity was the Book of Gomorrah of St. Peter Damian, completed in 1051. The author had been a Benedictine monk and was appointed archbishop and later cardinal by the reigning pope. Peter Damian was also a dedicated Church reformer who lived in a society wherein clerical decadence was not only widespread and publicly known, but generally accepted as the norm. His work, the circumstances that prompted it and the reaction of the reigning pope (Leo IX) are a prophetic reflection of the contemporary situation. He begins by singling out superiors who, prompted by excessive and misplaced piety, fail to exclude sodomites (chap. 2). He asserts that those given to “unclean acts” not be ordained or, if they are already ordained, be dismissed from Holy Orders (chap. 3). He holds special contempt for those who defile men or boys who come to them for confession (chap. 6). Likewise he condemns clerics who administer the sacrament of penance (confession) to their victims (chap. 7). The author also provides a refutation of the canonical sources used by offending clerics to justify their proclivities (chap. 11, 12). He also provides chapters which assess the damage done to the church by offending clerics (chap. 19, 20, 21). His final chapter is an appeal to the reigning pope (Leo IX) to take action.
8. The pope’s response, included in the cited edition, is an example of inaction similar to that of contemporary church leaders. Pope Leo praised Peter Damian and verified the truth of his findings and recommendations. Yet he considerably softened the reformer’s urging that decisive action be taken to root offenders from the ranks of the clergy. The pope decided to exclude only those who had offended repeatedly and over a long period of time. Although Peter Damian had paid significant attention to the impact of the offending clerics on their victims, the Pope made no mention of this but focused only on the sinfulness of the clerics and their need to repent.
9. The repeated violations of clerical celibacy were amply documented in the canonical collections of the medieval period. The most authoritative source is the Decree of Gratian already mentioned. Though mandatory celibacy had been decreed by the 2nd Lateran Council in 1139, this law was received with neither universal acceptance nor obedience. Medieval scholars attest that clerical concubinage was commonplace. Adultery, casual sex with unmarried women and homosexual relationships were rampant. Gratian devoted entire sections to disciplinary legislation which attempted to curb all of these vices. He demanded that the punishment for sexual transgressions be more severe for clerics than for lay men. His treatment of same-sex activities was less extensive than that of other celibacy violations, yet his attitude is evident because he cited the ancient Roman law opinion that stuprum pueri, the sexual violation of young boys, be punished by death.
10. From the 4th century to the end of the medieval period it is clear that violations of clerical celibacy were commonplace, expected by the laity and highly resistant to official disciplinary attempts to curb and eliminate them. Referring to concubinage for example, one noted scholar said:From the repeated strictures against clerical incontinence by provincial synods of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, one may surmise that celibacy remained a remote and only defectively realized ideal in the Latin West. In England, particularly in the north, concubinage continued to be customary; it was frequent in France, Spain and Norway.
Clerical sodomy continued to be a known problem though it did not attract as much legislative attention as clerical concubinage and this quite possibly because of the ongoing attempts to eliminate clergy marriages. The 4th Lateran Council (1215) repeated the previous council’s condemnation of celibacy violations. It added however a specific mention of homosexual sex by clerics and decreed that those found guilty of this transgression were either to be dismissed from the clerical state or confined to a monastery for life. The former amounted to social exile and the latter to imprisonment.
11. The documentation from the medieval period indicates that although homosexual liaisons were not uncommon among the secular or diocesan clergy, most celibacy violations involved heterosexual forms of abuse. Illicit sexual activity by the monks was another matter. Although concubinage and even illicit marriages occurred among the monks, the fact that they took vows of chastity precluding marriage and lived a common life theoretically isolated from women meant that their sexual outlets would be considerably restricted. The monks became known for the frequency of homosexual activity especially with young boys. Many monasteries passed local regulations in attempts to curb the rampant abuses. In his Rule, Benedict commanded that no two monks were to sleep in the same bed. Night lights were to be kept burning and the monks were to sleep clothed. Many monasteries enacted their own rules forbidding various kinds of sexual behavior and added punishments that were often more severe than those meted out to the secular clerics.
So common was clerical same-sex activity that some scholars have concluded that homosexual relationships were commonly associated with the clergy.
12. There are two aspects of the ecclesiastical legislation and overall attitude toward clerical sexual activity that stand in marked contrast to the contemporary period. The first is the documented fact that in addition to a stringent admonition by Peter Damian in the Book of Gomorrah, at least two general or ecumenical councils took direct aim at church leaders who supported errant clerics by their failure to take decisive action. The 4th Lateran Council (1215) and the Council of Basle (1449) both recognized the fact that curbing the vices depended on cooperative superiors. The canon from the Lateran Council is succinct:Prelates who dare support such in their iniquities, especially in view of money or other temporal advantages, shall be subject to a like punishment.
The other unique feature of this period is the collaboration of the church with secular authorities in the enforcement of ecclesiastical laws. The Catholic Church was the only Christian denomination and the dominant social force in the medieval period. Separation of church and state was unheard of which meant that the boundaries between the secular and religious were often blurred. Church authorities considered celibacy violations to be more than a purely religious matter. They caused some degree of scandal and therefore were a matter of public interest. To enhance the opprobrium the church often tried accused clerics in the ecclesiastical tribunals and then turned them over to secular authorities for additional prosecution and punishment. Penalties were harsh and sometimes included execution.
13. The Protestant Reformation of the 16th century was sustained by much more than the controversy over the sale of indulgences. Luther and the other major reformers such as Zwingli and Calvin, all rejected mandatory celibacy. The rejection was motivated in great part by what the reformers saw as widespread evidence that clerics of all ranks commonly violated the obligations with women, men and young boys. In reference to life in the monasteries on the eve of the 16th century Protestant Reformation, Abbott says that the monks’ “lapses” with women, handsome boys and each other...became so commonplace that they could not be considered lapses but ways of life for entire communities.” Up to this time the Church’s leaders continued to advocate the long-standing remedies of legislation, spiritual penalties, physical penalties and warnings, none of which worked. Living in the midst of a clerical world of non-celibate behavior, the reformers believed that this supposedly celibate world caused moral corruption: The sexual habits of the Roman Catholic clergy, according to reformers, were a sewer of iniquity, a scandal to the laity, and a threat of damnation to the clergy themselves.
No prior reform movement in the Catholic Church had an impact equal the 16th century Protestant Reformation. In spite of attempts to propagate revisionist versions of the Reformation, the Church’s primary reaction, the ecumenical Council of Trent (1545-1563), was itself proof of the deeply entrenched and wide-ranging corruption in the Church. Secular princes had urged a reforming council but the popes resisted until 1545 when Pope Paul II summoned one to be held in the Italian city of Trento. The council met in 25 sessions with several periods of adjournment. It ended in 1563 after session 25 when most of the major reforms were enacted.
14. The reaffirmation of clerical celibacy did not conclude without strong opposition from a significant number of bishops who argued that mandatory celibacy was simply not working and accomplished no more than denying priests’ “wives” and children a share in their estates. A canon was proposed which would have permitted marriage for clergy but this was rejected and mandatory celibacy re-enforced. The canon upholding celibacy was followed by one which extolled it as superior to marriage:
15. The council also dealt with concubinous clerics in the final session. The detailed canon describing the procedures to be followed by bishops and the penalties prescribed for guilty clerics are clear proof that the definitive legislation of the Fourth Lateran Council was indeed not that definitive in practice. The canon of Trent mentioned not only priests but guilty bishops.
16. In spite of the reforming legislation and the establishment of mandatory training, education and formation for priests, the bishops at Trent were no more successful at curbing celibacy violations than their predecessors. Illicit sex with women, men and young boys continued but for a time were much less obvious. By 1566, in the first year of his pontificate, Pope Pius V (1566-72) recognized a need to publicly attack clerical sodomy. The constitution Romani Pontifices promulgated legislation against a variety of actions and practices, including the ‘crime against nature.” This short canon condemned all who committed this crime and prescribed that they be handed over to secular authorities for punishment. Clerics however were to be first degraded, presumably by an ecclesiastical court, and then handed over to secular authorities.
17. Two years later the same pope apparently found it necessary to fire another salvo at clerical sodomy. The constitution Horrendum specifically named clerics who committed “the sin against nature which incurred God’s wrath” (“quae contra naturam est, propter quam ira Dei venit in filios diffidentiae.”) and stipulated that they be punished with deprivation of income, suspension from all offices and dignities and in some cases, degradation.
18. Summarizing the medieval period, it is clear that the bishops were not as preoccupied with secrecy as they are today. Clergy sexual abuse of all kinds was apparently well known by the public, the clergy and secular law enforcement authorities. There was a constant stream of disciplinary legislation from the church but none of it was successful in changing clergy behavior. In spite of a millennium of failure, the popes and bishops never gave serious thought to the viability of mandatory celibacy. The variety of spiritual punishments was joined, in the later period, with severe corporal penalties, inflicted by secular authorities. Finally, and most important, at certain periods, church authorities recognized that the problem was not only dysfunctional clerics, but irresponsible leadership.
19. Solicitation in the Confessional In spring, 2003 the American media drew attention to an obscure Vatican document issued in 1962 which prescribed special procedures for processing cases of an especially vile form of clergy sexual abuse: solicitation of sex in the confessional. The Pope and various regional bishops issued a series of disciplinary laws against solicitation, beginning in 1561 and extending to 2001. Papal laws were promulgated in 1561, 1622, 1741, 1917, 1962, 1983 and 2001. In addition to the legislation itself, the church courts prosecuted individual cases in great numbers. The most complete records have been found in the Spanish and Mexican tribunals and reveal a shockingly high volume of complaints from women and men, accusing priests of solicitation and sexual abuse in a variety of forms. The most complete study of cases from the Spanish tribunals revealed that between 1723 and 1820 3775 cases were completed and sentences handed down. The author concluded that this number represents a small portion of the actual cases in that it reflects only those completed and not the total number started and later abandoned.
20. After the promulgation of the Code in 1917, the Vatican issued special legislation on procedures to be followed in solicitation cases in 1922. This document, like the 1962 document, was sent to the world’s bishops but otherwise retained in total secrecy. In 1962 Pope John XXIII approved the publication of renewed special procedural norms for processing solicitation cases. Like the 1922 document but unlike all previous papal legislation on this subject, this document was buried in the deepest secrecy. Although it was promulgated in the ordinary manner and then printed and distributed by the Vatican press, it was never publicized in the official Vatican legal bulletin, the Acta Apostolicae Sedis. The document was sent to all bishops in the world. The dispositive section of the document is preceded by an order whereby the document is to be kept in the secret archives and not published nor commented upon by anyone. No explicit reason was given for this unusual secrecy nor is any justification given for the document or some of the surprising changes contained therein.
21. It introduced several significant elements including an exceptional degree of confidentiality imposed on the document itself and the persons involved in processing cases. Compared to previous papal documentation confronting clergy sexual abuse this document contains several significant changes which reveal the church’s policy on clergy sexual crimes.
This legislation introduced the following innovations in church policy:
b. Secrecy-officials: Tribunal and other church personnel who are involved in processing cases are obliged to maintain total and perpetual secrecy and are bound by the church’s highest degree of confidentiality, known as the Secret of the Holy Office. Those who violate this secrecy are automatically excommunicated and the absolution or lifting of this excommunication is reserved to the pope himself.
c. Secrecy-parties and witnesses: Even the accuser and witnesses are obliged to take the oath of secrecy. The penalty of automatic excommunication is not attached to the violation of the oath. However the official conducting the prosecution can, in individual cases, threaten accusers and witnesses with automatic excommunication for breaking the secret.
d. Anonymous denunciations. Anonymous accusations are not automatically ruled out though they are generally to be rejected. They are to be considered and acted upon if circumstances require and if there appears to be some semblance of veracity to the accusation.
e. Other sex crimes. Title V of the document specifically included homosexual acts between clerics and members of their own sex, bestiality and sexual acts of any kind with children. The document uses the Latin word “impuberibus” which means “before the age of reason.” This is defined in canon 88 as one who is seven or under. The Code also contains a canon prohibiting sex with minors which is defined in canon law as one sixteen or under. A careful reading of the relevant paragraphs of the 1962 document (par. 71-73) leads to some confusion as to whom the crimes apply to. It is clear that sex with children is included and sex with males of any age, as well as sex with animals. The only category of possible victims that is unclear is sex with young girls.
The other sex crimes included under Title V are not crimes connected with solicitation but the actual sexual abuse itself. These are to be processed in the same manner as crimes of solicitation. Thus, the three classes of clergy sexual abuse were cloaked in the highest degree of secrecy.
22. Little was known about the 1962 document until reference to it was included in the recent Vatican legislation on sex crimes, the 2001 Letter sent to all bishops from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on more grave crimes reserved for consideration to that same Vatican office. The 1962 document was issued prior to the promulgation of the revised Code of Canon law in 1983 and therefore would, under ordinary circumstances, have lost its legal force. The recent letter however clearly indicates that it had been in force until May of 2001. When this document‘s existence was publicly revealed in March 2003, it surprised many bishops and canon lawyers who claimed not to have known about it. Furthermore there is little if any evidence that the document was ever referred to in any of the hundreds of civil cases brought against dioceses and religious communities over the past 15 years.
The 1962 document is significant because it reflects the church’s urgent desire to maintain the highest degree of secrecy and strictest degree of security about the worst sexual crimes perpetrated by clerics. The document does not include any background information about why it was issued nor is there any reasoning available for the imposition of extreme secrecy and the inclusion of the crimes in Title V. One can only presume that cases or concerns had been brought to the attention of the Vatican authorities which prompted the decree.
Since the archives of the Holy Office, now known as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, are closed to outside scrutiny it is impossible to determine the number of cases referred to it between 1962 and the present. The other factor impeding a study of cases is the prohibition of local dioceses from ever revealing the very existence of cases much less the relevant facts.
23. The public exposure of clergy sexual abuse of youth which began in the mid-eighties was mistakenly believed by many to be a new phenomenon which of course it is not. In spite of a series of high profile cases from around the world the Vatican issued no disciplinary documents until 2001. Although the pope had made several statements about clergy sexual abuse this was the first attempt by the Vatican to take concrete steps to contain the problem. The document, which is a set of special procedural norms, is not exclusively about sex abuse although that is the predominant theme. It is about the processing of certain crimes considered by the Vatican authorities to be so serious that prosecution of them is reserved to the Vatican itself.
The 2001 document reflects much that is found in the 1962 procedural norms. There are significant developments however:
24. The Contemporary Era
It cannot be disputed that the bishops as individuals and as a group were aware of the probability of sexual abuse of children and adolescents by clerics by late 1984 and certainly early 1985 in light of the national publicity given to the celebrated case of Fr. Gilbert Gauthe in Lafayette, Louisiana. The claims that they were unaware of clergy sexual abuse or the serious nature of such abuse prior to this time are empty and contrived in light of information that has been uncovered in the various civil and criminal trials since 1985, documents issued by church authorities and various studies conducted under church auspices over the past 50 years.
The following is a chronological listing of various indicators:
1952: Fr. Gerald Fitzgerald, founder of the Paraclete Order and associated treatment facilities for priests located in New Mexico, Missouri and California, wrote to Bishop Robert Dwyer of Reno, NV, about priests afflicted with sexual disorders that cause them to abuse young boys. This letter indicates that Fr. Fitzgerald had already treated a “handful” of men charged with such abuse. He shared his recommendation that such men be laicized since they would never be free of the temptation to act out. This letter is remarkable in that it clearly assesses both the disorder and the risks. He warns against the very solutions that many bishops resorted to in the ensuing years: “Hence, leaving them on duty or wandering from diocese to diocese is contributing to scandal or at least to the approximate danger of scandal.” Fr. Fitzgerald’s efforts at helping troubled priests were unique and quickly became known to all US bishops. It is safe to assume that his opinions about sexually abusing priests were known to most if not all bishops. Concerning priests who sexually abused minors he said “We find it quite common, almost universal with the handful of men we have seen in the past five years who have been under similar charges - we find it quite universal that they seem to be lacking in appreciation of the serious situation. As a class they expect to bound back like tennis balls on the court of priestly activity. I myself would be inclined to favor laicization for any priest, upon objective evidence, for tampering with the virtue of the young, my argument being, from this point onward the charity to the Mystical Body should take precedence over charity to the individual and when a man has so far fallen away from the purpose of the priesthood the very best that should be offered him is his Mass in the seclusion of a monastery. Moreover, in practice, real conversions will be found to be extremely rare. Many bishops believe men are never free from the approximate danger once they have begun. Hence, leaving them on duty or wandering from diocese to diocese is contributing to scandal or at least to the approximate danger of scandal.” (See Fitzgerald Letter, dated Sept. 12, 1952,)
1957: Fr. Fitzgerald wrote to Bishop Matthew Brady of Manchester NH on September 26, 1957: ‘From our long experience with characters of this type, and without passing judgment on the individual, most of these men would be clinically classified as schizophrenic. Their repentance and amendment are superficial and, if not formally at least subconsciously, is motivated by desire to be again in a position where they can continue their wonted activity. A new diocese means only green pastures.”
1957: Again, Fr. Fitzgerald writes to Archbishop Edwin Byrne (Santa Fe) that he thought it unwise to “offer hospitality to men who have seduced or attempted to seduce little boys or girls.” He went on to utter an eerie prophecy of the future:
If I were a bishop, I would tremble when I failed to report them to Rome for involuntary laicization. Experience has taught us these men are too dangerous to the children of the parish and the neighborhood for us to be justified in receiving them here....They should ipso facto be reduced to lay men when they act thus.
1961: The Sacred Congregation for Religious issued an official document entitled, “Careful Selection and Training of Candidates for the States of Perfection and sacred orders,” 2 Feb. 1961. The document states that one of the common causes of “defection’ or departure from the priesthood is “...sexual tendencies of a pathological nature...” which refers to homosexual tendencies. Later in the document reasons for dismissal are listed. The following statement is found:
1966: A workshop for psychologists engaged in the assessment of candidates for the priesthood and religious life is held at the School of Nursing of the Saint Vincent’s Hospital and Medical Center in New York. One of the participants stated : Perhaps the most troublesome and most frequent appearing sociopathic features or disturbances in assessment work concern the high incidence of effeminacy, heterosexual retardation, psychosexual immaturity, deviations or potential deviations of the homosexual type….A recent study of 107 male candidates, for example, shows that 8% of these were sexually deviant, whereas 70% were described as psychosexually immature, exhibiting traits of heterosexual retardation, confusion concerning sexual role, fear of sexuality, effeminacy, and potential homosexual dispositions.”
1967: The first public discussion of priest sexual abuse of minors took place at a meeting sponsored by the National Association for Pastoral Renewal held on the campus of Notre Dame University in 1967. All U.S. Catholic bishops were invited to that meeting.
1971: Dr. Conrad Baars and Dr. Anna Terruwe presented a scholarly paper to the 1971 Synod of Bishops at the Vatican and to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Citing 40 years of combined psychiatric practice treating about 1500 priests, they concluded that 20-25% of U.S. priests had serious psychiatric difficulties and 60-70% suffered from emotional immaturity. They concluded that the psychosexual immaturity manifested itself in heterosexual and homosexual activity.
1972: Dr. Eugene Kennedy published a psychological study of U.S. priests commissioned by the Bishops’ Conference. His findings concurred with those of Baars and Terruwe and concluded that American priests were
Kennedy and Heckler stated that the underdeveloped and maldeveloped priests (74%) had not resolved psychosexual problems and issues usually worked through in adolescence. “Sexuality is, in other words, non-integrated into the lives of underdeveloped priests and many of them function as a pre-adolescent or adolescent level of psychosexual growth.”
1978: Fr. Bruce MacArthur, priest of Sioux Falls SD, is convicted of the rape of a 51-year-old patient in a nursing home. He serves 31 months in prison. After his release his bishop helps him find pastoral work in Mexico and Africa where he serves until 1990. He has been charged with sexual abuse of underage girls from 1963 onwards
1983: The revised Code of Canon Law is promulgated, which includes a canon (1395, 2) which explicitly names sex with a minor by clerics as a canonical crime.
1984: The Times of Acadiana published a series by Jason Berry exposing the mishandling of the case of Fr. Gilbert Gauthe in Lafayette Louisiana.
1985: In January Rev. Mel Balthazar is sentenced to seven years for child molestation in a Boise, Idaho court. The presiding judge said at sentencing: “I think the church has its own atonement to make as well. They helped create you and hopefully will help to rehabilitate you.”
1985: In May The Problem of Sexual Molestation by Roman Catholic Clergy: Meeting the Problem in a Comprehensive and Responsible Manner, commonly known as “The Manual” is written by Michael Peterson, Thomas Doyle and F. Ray Mouton. The 100 page detailed handbook was prepared in on the initiative of the three authors with the support and input of a number of influential bishops. The U.S. Catholic Bishops Conference, though aware of the manual, dismissed it as unnecessary claiming that it already possessed all the data contained in it and had policies and procedures in place by 1985.
1993: The Pope issues his first public statement on clergy sexual abuse in a letter directed to the Bishops of the United States. The bishops form the first ad hoc committee to study the sexual abuse issue. The committee published a three-part manual in 1994, 95 and 96 successively.
1994: The Vatican published the official Catechism of the Catholic Church which contains a remarkable paragraph about child sexual abuse: “Connected to incest is any sexual abuse perpetrated by adults on children or adolescents entrusted to their care. The offense is compounded by the scandalous harm done to the physical and moral integrity of the young, who will remain scarred by it all their lives; and the violation of responsibility for their upbringing.”
1995: The late Bishop Bernard Flanagan, former bishop of Worcester MA, stated in a deposition (June 6, 1995) that in 1971 he had heard of clergy sexual abuse in dioceses other than his own and that bishops were privately discussing this issue.
1995: Hans Hermann Cardinal Groer, Archbishop of Vienna, is forced to resign following credible accusations of sexual abuse of minor boys. On April 14, 1998, under orders from Pope John Paul II, he relinquishes all privileges, titles and practices associated with the episcopacy and the cardinalate.
2004: On February 27 the final reports of the survey conducted by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the study done by the National Review Board are released. Both reports were commissioned by the U.S. Bishops in 2002. The John Jay survey reveals almost 4500 clergy perpetrators reported by dioceses since 1950 as at least 10,000 known victims. The National Review Board report places blame for the widespread scandal directly on the bishops’ negligence.
In spite of claims to the contrary, the canonical history of the Catholic Church clearly reflects a consistent pattern of awareness that celibate clergy regularly violated their obligations in a variety of ways. The fact of clergy abuse with members of the same sex, with young people and with women is fully documented. At certain periods of church history clergy sexual abuse was publicly known and publicly acknowledged by church leaders. From the late 19th century into the early 21st century the church’s leadership has adopted a position of secrecy and silence. They have denied the predictability of clergy sexual abuse in one form or another and have claimed that this is a phenomenon new to the post-Vatican II era. The recently published reports of the Bishops’ National Review Board and John Jay College Survey have confirmed the fact of known clergy sexual abuse since the 1950's and the church leadership’s consistent mishandling of individual cases.
The bishops have, at various times, claimed that they were unaware of the serious nature of clergy sexual abuse and unaware of the impact on victims. This claim is easily offset by the historical evidence. Through the centuries the church has repeatedly condemned clergy sexual abuse, particularly same-sex abuse. The very texts of many of the laws and official statements show that this form of sexual activity was considered harmful to the victims, to society and to the Catholic community. Church leaders may not have been aware of the scientific nature of the different sexual disorders nor the clinical descriptions of the emotional and psychological impact on victims, but they cannot claim ignorance of the fact that such behavior was destructive in effect and criminal in nature.
In the 16th and 17th centuries there is evidence that church authorities often subjected accused clerics to canonical trials after which they were turned over to secular authorities for additional punishment. In the 20th century at least two civil trials received limited local publicity: Fr. Bruce MacArthur (El Paso, TX, 1979) and Fr. Mel Balthasar (Boise, ID, 1983-84)
John Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), p. 42
See Pierre Payer, Sex and the Penitentials (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984)
Pierre J. Payer, “Introduction” to The Book of Gomorrah (Waterloo, Ontario, Wilfred Laurier University Press, 1982), p. 5. “The Book of Gomorrah stands out as a carefully planned and eloquently executed discussion of the subject reflecting both a legalistic concern with correct ecclesiastical censure and a passionate pastoral concern for those caught up in the behavior.
John Boswell, op. cit., p. 187: “There is in fact a considerable body of evidence to suggest that homosexual relations were especially associated with the clergy. Some Christian authors have rather defensively rejected this idea but with little supporting documentation.
Vern Bullough, Sexual Practices and the Medieval Church, p. 61
Decree of Gratian, D. 1, de pen., c.15 in Decretum Magistri Gratiani, editio Lipsiensis Secunda, editor, A.L. Richter,( Graz, Friedberg, 1879, 1959). (The manner of citing Gratian is unique. The citations here noted refer to the first part of the Decretum, and each number refers to a section known as a distinctio.
John Lynch, “Marriage and celibacy of the clergy: the discipline of the western church: an historico-canonical synopsis,” Jurist 32(1972): 199-200
Canon 11, 3rd Lateran Council in H.J. Schroeder, editor, Disciplinary Decrees of the General Councils, (St. Louis, B. Herder Book Co. 1937) , p. 224
John Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality, (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1980), p. 188
Michael Goodich, “Sodomy in Ecclesiastical Law and Theory,” in Journal of Homosexuality 1(1976), p. 427: “in the 13th century, the few references to homosexuality suggest that it was generally regarded as a clerical vice. Both the manuals of penance of the early Middle Ages and the conciliar and synodal legislation initiated in the 12th century placed greater emphasis upon the prevention and suppression of sodomy among the clergy.
See Peter Damian, Book of Gomorrah, chapter 2, p. 30: “ And some rectors of churches who are perhaps more humane in regard to this vice than is expedient absolutely decree that no one ought to be deposed from his order on account of three of the grades which were enumerated above....Consequently when someone is known to have fallen into this wickedness with eight or even ten other equally sordid men, we see him still remaining in his ecclesiastical position. Surely this impious piety does not cut off the wound but adds fuel to the fire. It does not prevent the bitterness of this illicit act when committed, but rather makes way for it to be committed freely.
Schroeder, Disciplinary Decrees of the General Councils , p. 256
See Richard Sherr, “A Canon, A Choirboy and Homosexuality in Late 16th Century Italy: A Case Study,” in Journal of Homosexuality 21(1991), p. 1-22. This is an interesting story of a priest accused of sodomizing a 13 year old choirboy in the town of Loreto. The priest was tried by the church court, defrocked and then turned over to civil authorities who sentenced him to death by de-capitation. The victim was whipped and banned from the papal States
Elizabeth Abbott, A History of Celibacy (Cambridge, DaCapo Press, 1999), p. 108, 113 and John Lynch, “Marriage and Celibacy of the Clergy: The Discipline of the Western Church: An Historico-Canonical Synopsis,” Jurist , 32-2(1972), p. 207.
Elizabeth Abbott, op. cit., p. 102.
Ibid., p. 554.
See Cross and Livingstone, op. cit., p. 1050. Pope Paul III himself had three sons and a daughter yet promoted the reform.
Brundage, Law, Sex and Christian Society, p. 568.
Canon 10, Session XXIV in H.J. Schroeder, editor, The Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, (St. Louis, B. Herder, 1941), p. 182.
Session XXV, canon 24 in Schroeder, p. 247-48.
Pope Pius V, “Romani Pontifices, 1 April 1566, in P. Gasparri, editor, Codicem Iuris Canonici Fontes , Vol. 1, (Vatican, Typis Polyglottis, 1926), p. 200 (Hereinafter identified as Fontes.)
Pope Pius V, “Horrendum” Papal Constitution, 30 August 1568 in Fontes p. 229.
Charles Henry, a History of the Inquisition in Spain.( New York, MacMillan, 1907), p. 135.
Acta Apostolicae Sedis or Acts of the Apostolic See is the official periodical that contains Vatican legislation. Canon 9 of the 1917 Code states that official publication takes place through the Acta.
“Sacramentorum Sanctitatis Tutela,” May 18, 2001, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 93(2001), p. 785-788.
Jason Berry, Vows of Silence (New York: The Free Press, 2004), p. 97-98 citing Eileen Welsome, “Founder Didn’t Want Molesters at Paraclete,” Albuquerque Tribune, April 2, 1993.
Sacred Congregation for Religious, “Careful Selection and Training of Candidates for the States of Perfection and sacred orders,” 2 Feb. 1961 in Canon Law Digest, Vol. 5, p. 471.
W.J. Coville.” Basic issues in the development and administration of a psychological assessment program for the religious life.” In W.J. Coville, P.F. D’Arcy, T.N. McCarthy, and J.J. Rooney, editors, Assessment of candidates for the religious life: Basic psychological issues and procedures (Washington, DC: Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, 1968), p. 28-29.
A.W. Richard Sipe, “Affidavit,” Doe v NOSF, District Court of El Paso, Texas, Feb. 9, 2004, . 19, p. 5-6.
Conrad Baars, M.D., “The Role of the Church in the Causation, Treatment and Prevention of the Crisis in the Priesthood.” Unpublished, 1971.
Eugene Kennedy and Victor Heckler, The Catholic Priest in the United States: Psychological Investigations. (Washington, D.C., U.S. Catholic Conference, 1972).
Ibid., p. 11.
Jason Berry, Lead Us Not Into Temptation (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1992), p. 30
Thomas Doyle, F. Ray Mouton and Michael Peterson, The Problem of Sexual Molestation by Roman Catholic Clergy: Meeting the Problem in a Comprehensive and Responsible Manner. 1985. (Private)
Catechism of the Catholic Church (New York, Doubleday, 1995), no. 2389, p. 574.
Deposition of Bishop Bernard Flanagan, June 6, 1995, Barry vs. Roman Catholic Bishop of Worcester, a Corporation Sole and Thomas A. Kane, defendants. C.A. No. 93-02438, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, p. 152-153.
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