The Silence We Keep: A Nun's View of the Catholic Priest Scandal (10 page)

As above, so below. Given all the chaos and crisis we’ve seen, imagine all the hidden chaos and crisis that we can’t see. Given all the closed meetings, doors, and sessions, we can tell that great efforts are being made to keep a growing number of clerical lids on, even though within the priesthood the conspiracy of silence appears ready to blow its top. We are hearing a growing number of “anonymous” voices from the priesthood, revealing dissent, discouragement, even disgust, as though they can hardly stand themselves or what’s happening. A priesthood that is so divided within itself that it, too, can hardly bear another scandal, another revelation of some damning truth. We are beginning to hear from the priests who can’t stand it anymore, thanks in part to the
National Catholic Reporter
, an independent newsweekly that consistently honors as sacred all voices of dissent.

One section of the October 11, 2002, issue of the
NCR
reveals what a colossal mess there is among priests and people in the Los Angeles archdiocese. The headline of the article by Arthur Jones reads “Discontent and Disaffection Grow as L.A. Archdiocese Dismantles Ministries.”
⁴
I see the words
discontent
and
disaffection
and automatically I feel the presence of God. The story is about further sex-abuse indictments in the archdiocese topped off with the dedication of a brand new $190 million cathedral, followed immediately thereafter with the “dismemberment” of traditional Catholic ministries, for financial reasons. The list of programs
axed by Archbishop Roger Mahoney reads like a Litany of Services Dead in the Catholic Church:

Campus Ministries

Prison Ministries

Minority Ministries (Asian, Hispanic, African-American)

Disabled Ministries

Gay and Lesbian Ministries

Interfaith Ministries

Pro-life Ministries

If that isn’t a litany of a dead priesthood, then what is it? In a priesthood of privilege, social justice is the first to go.

No wonder good priests are barely surviving and are ready to explode (and we need to wonder seriously about those who aren’t). Who with the mind of Christ could look at the behavior of this priesthood and not explode in anger and disgust? Speaking anonymously, one L.A. priest described what he sees going on: “I think increasingly the priests are coming to a more critical stance. There is a universal perception that as an archdiocese we’re in tremendous disarray right now.” A more outraged L.A. priest wrote an anonymous letter to the
NCR
voicing “unanimous” priestly sentiment against Archbishop Mahoney, who they feel “sold us down the river to save his own episcopal ass.”
⁵
Both voices give us a pretty clear picture of what life must be like within the priesthood. Quite clearly, they cannot keep silent much longer.

Priestly voices of dissent, like those of the laity, grow louder and clearer with each scandal. Anonymous though these voices are, this is just the beginning of the end to the silence priests keep, the beginning to the end of the way they are. It has to be. All the signs of the time point to the end of Catholic priesthood,
and with all the divine forces of Fate making this priestly transformation happen. Enrollment in the priesthood continues to nosedive, morale couldn’t be lower, public perception couldn’t be worse, and even if you were interested in priesthood, what thinking person would join now, man or woman? Given what we see brewing in Los Angeles, Boston, and New York City alone, we know things are going to get a whole lot worse before they get better. The death of this priesthood, unlike its life, is clearly not happening in silence.

The crisis, chaos, and dissent we’re beginning to see and hear in the priesthood are clear signs of the presence of God. Any true God would be outraged by the crimes, the hypocrisy, the scandal, and betrayal of these “men of God.” And I would die of despair (not really) if someone in the priesthood wasn’t disgusted over what his brethren had turned this Catholic Church into. The growing voice of anger and dissent rising among priests is the clearest sign we have that something divinely fitting, right, and just is emerging in this priestly mess. It was the priests of Boston whose dissenting voice ordained the removal of Cardinal Bernard Law as archbishop. Even the brotherhood is growing outraged and restless, and it’s only a matter of time before everything becomes undone, before all those “dominoes” really begin to fall (and all those priestly fingers start pointing at one another). It’s part of the wisdom of hidden gods that we are given no more truth than we can handle at any one time, even though it may feel like we’ve already had enough.

If we are looking for the hand of God in this holy mess, I see it in those anonymous voices of priestly dissent, “men of God” who have had enough of the scandal, hypocrisy, and betrayal. Those who remain silent, even the “very best” of them, are the ones I question; they remain stumbling blocks to revealing the whole truth, as do their supporters. A friend told me about a “fabulous”
priest in her parish who was “like a sex addict.” She said, “Just because he can’t keep it in his pants doesn’t mean he can’t be a good priest.” I thought it did. While
priest
and s
ex addict
are still cognitively dissonant to most, in the most educated Catholic mind they make sense. That’s how skewed our understanding of priesthood has become, and that’s how low our standards and expectations of priesthood have sunk. The number of “fabulous” priests who have something to hide appear to be legion, as do their accomplices.

Along with the priestly voices of dissent and disgust, it’s no small comfort for Catholics that we have holy beginnings, we have Scripture to turn to, reminding us that the God of Jesus Christ also holds in horror those priests who turned away so many with their scandal and hypocrisy. Jesus calls these priests a “brood of vipers, whitewashed tombs, and frauds.” “You present to view a holy exterior while you are full of hypocrisy and a secret rottenness” (Matt. 23, 27). And to those who show scandal? There is no room whatsoever in the priesthood of Christ for them. “Woe to whoever scandalizes the little ones. It is better for him that a millstone be hung around his neck and he be drowned in the depths of the sea” [not readmitted to priesthood] (Matt. 18:6). While our hearts may be troubled and afraid by what we see happening in the Catholic Church, we have God’s Word that the Holy Spirit of truth is always within us, far more powerful and freeing than the silence we keep. That’s a promise.

The voices of dissent that we hear in the priesthood and in the people are the clearest voices of God I know. And the voice of God we hear in Scripture is the clearest call to the priesthood of Christ I know. While we have hardly begun to understand the ways in which we’ve been victimized and betrayed by the Church Fathers, enlightenment will come as a newly transformed priesthood rises from the people again and moves forward. What is most true and
divine about Catholicism can never die. What’s true about any religion can never die. True gods can be buried for centuries in hypocrisy, crime, and scandal, but they can never be killed, no matter how decadent and deadly silent their priesthood. That’s been infallibly true in the Catholic Church for more than two thousand years.

From what I can see of the priesthood, this is just the beginning—the beginning of the end to the criminal thinking and hypocrisy, as well as the emergence of a new priesthood in the Catholic Church. There are already millions of Catholics—good priests and sisters among them—who always have and always will protect and preserve the truth like the Word of God that it is. It’s those Catholics faithful to the truth who have always held together Holy Mother Church, and it’s those faithful Catholics who hold her together now when she seems to be falling apart. All those touched by God through this crisis, both in and out of the pew, are leading the way. We have good reason to believe that God is with us. No matter what stunning truths are revealed to us in the months and years to come, the priesthood of the people has come alive in ways the Catholic Church has never seen in its history—“A Death Blow is a Life blow to Some.” Just as we are witnessing the transformation of priesthood by the people in the Catholic Church, so, too, are we beginning to witness the transformation of sisterhood by women in the Catholic Church.

PART TWO

Sisterhood

Introduction

O
NCE A DISCUSSION
OF the “big priest scandal” winds down, the next question I am asked, oddly in a more subdued, almost reverent tone of voice, is “What’s going on in the sisterhood?” Are nuns just as sexually active as priests? Is celibacy as ignored in the sisterhood as it is in the priesthood? Are nuns abusing children sexually, and are we hiding, protecting, and supporting them, too? Those of you who work with us, play with us, pray with us, and know us so well, do you see a culture of privilege and rampant sexual activity in the sisterhood? Are the media just missing “the nun story”? Is there any evidence at all that a big nun scandal is brewing and about to blow wide open any day?

As a sister for forty years, I haven’t seen any of that at all. But I didn’t even know 40 percent of American Catholic nuns are victims of sex abuse by priests and sisters. Just because we don’t see in the sisterhood the excesses of sexual activity and cover-ups that we see in the priesthood doesn’t mean the sisterhood has been void of sexual activity and sexual abuse or is not prone to secrecy and cover-ups. Nothing can be further from that truth, as history serves divinely to remind us. Whenever religious life and celibacy are not freely chosen, hidden sexual activity and abuse (though women rarely become pedophiles) will be found. Once celibacy becomes forced, the chain of sexual abuse has begun; we force ourselves to think and act in ways that are contrary to how we feel. It’s a divine law of human nature that the
more sexual activity feels prohibited, the more it goes underground and flourishes, wrapping us in deadly silence. According to Carl Jung, “Whatever we don’t bring to consciousness comes to us as Fate.” The exact opposite happens every time celibacy is forced on those who don’t want it, nun, priest, or anyone else.

But even if you add up the incidents in history of sisters having sex with priests, one another, or anyone else, it will never come close to the culture of privilege and sexual permissiveness that exists in the priesthood. Why not? Because while celibacy is experienced by most priests as an enforced rule (though not really), it’s welcomed freely as a divine way of life by women in the sisterhood. There’s nothing forced or oppressive about celibacy for the sisters I know. Quite the contrary. Most of us can’t imagine living happily any other way. With all due respect to marriage, children, and even sexual liaisons, every sister I know prefers the solitary splendor and divine freedom that come from within a celibate sisterhood. Unlike the priesthood, which has resisted celibacy for two thousand years, the sisterhood embraces the vow as its heart and soul. In the priesthood, celibacy is all about sex and sacramental powers; in the sisterhood, celibacy is all about the experience of God and the call to lives of service.

For centuries, nuns have been seen—correctly—as the silent, submissive women of God, called on to do the church’s works of mercy: the compassionate works of nursing, teaching, community service, and caring for everyone who calls, Catholic or not, friend or enemy. It was the Church Mothers, not the Church Fathers, who really educated us as Catholics and taught us to pray. Nuns were the ones who introduced us to God and the power of prayer before we could read. They were the ones who cultivated the feasts of the saints and introduced us to their miraculous lives. At the age of five we were taught by these
mysterious women to believe that we were surrounded by saintly spirits and carried God within us wherever we went. While the priest displayed his divine powers daily on the altar, it was the sisters who cared for our hearts and souls. While the Church Fathers may have been the official ordained representatives of God, the Church Mothers were God’s sisters and angels of mercy. Sisters made me the Catholic I am today.