A simple set of structural reforms would probably create a Catholic Church that was much safer for both its members and the world at large:
1. All priests must be married men with children of their own [See Andrew's comment for the biblical justification for this].
2. All priests must have normal day jobs and do their job as head of a congregation avocationally, not vocationally.
3. To make (2) possible, most of a priest's day-to-day duties are distributed among the congregation, with no one getting a portion too big to be done by someone who also has a day job. In computer science this is called distributed processing. It lets a network of ordinary computers do many software operations that used to require a big honking mainframe.
4. Make most of the church hierarchy above that of congregation leader (i.e. priest) also avocational work, with full time work reserved for the highest levels, and all of those only done by people who had previously had a career in the real world.
5. Make all the work in the hierarchy callings, not jobs you can apply for. This ensures that ambitious, power-hungry individuals will look elsewhere as an outlet for those ambitions.
Someone familiar with comparative religions will recognize these as features of the Mormon church. But there's nothing in the Bible that would prevent other conservative Christian religions from adopting these innovations. And it certainly doesn't create the sort of religion conservatives would be uncomfortable with. Look at the Mormon lifestyle--about as conservative as it gets.
Just as the Episcopal/Anglican churches preserved many features of the Catholic church--ancient rites etc.--a Catholic church with these innovations could retain the look and feel of today's Catholic church. But it would be orders of magnitude harder for pedophiles to get into positions of responsibility. Not impossible--but much, much harder. Especially homosexual pedophiles. And the church hierarchy would be more connected with ordinary people's lives and challenges.
NYTimes columnist Maureen Dowd has written several columns questioning her Catholic faith and berating her church for failing to protect its children. The column got hundreds of comments, nearly all talking about how the church had to go after its pedophile priests and stop harboring them, or about the futility and evil of all religion, along with a handful of defenders of the faith.
My structural comment got almost no reader recommendations. I think because people find structural reforms bo-ring, while defending your faith in toto or attacking it in toto or seeking revenge on the bad guys is exciting.
But even if the Catholic church quit protecting its pedoPriests, its structure will continue to attract them and the problem will continue.
It's like if your home is invaded by ants. Sure, you can get out the Raid and kill ants right and left. But they'll keep coming until you keep the kitchen so clean that ants will find nothing to eat and quit coming.
It's the fate of centrists to find their observations rejected by zealots of the Left and Right, who prefer to live in a hard, bright world of Right and Wrong, even though it doesn't map to reality.
[Note: I posted this as a comment to a column by conservative Catholic columnist Ross Douthat. The NYTimes editors picked as one their highlighted comments.]
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Sex Abuse Lawsuit Is Settled By Mormons for $3 Million
By Gustav Niebuhr
New York Times Sep. 5, 2001, A-14
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints disclosed yesterday that it would pay $3 million to settle a suit by an Oregon man who said he was sexually abused as a child by a church member. The suit said Mormon officials had known well in advance of that abuse that the accused man had also faced child molesting allegations before.
Washington state jury says bishop didn't report crime
Deseret Morning News/November 23, 2005
By Geoffrey Fattah
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said Tuesday it plans to appeal a $4.2 million award decided on by a Washington jury in a case alleging an LDS bishop failed to report to law enforcement the sex abuse of two teenage girls at the hands of their stepfather.
A jury last Friday found the LDS Church liable for misconduct and negligence in the case of Jessica Cavalieri, 24, and her younger sister, Ashley, 19.
Attorney for the girls, Timothy Kosnoff, said at trial that the girls were abused in their home from 1988 to approximately 1994 and that Jessica Cavalieri told her bishop, Bruce Hatch, in 1994 about the alleged abuse and that Hatch did not report the abuse to law enforcement.
I'm sure this is true. But what's your point? Every religious institution has an incentive to bury its scandals and abuse its authority.
The difference is statistical. The Mormon church is much smaller than the Catholic Church, but as far as I can tell the number of incidents per capita is vastly different, because of the structural reasons I discussed.
scripture itself admonishes that the "bishops" be married to godly women with CHILDREN Titus 1:6- also when you wrote "(Peter was responding to a particular person with his "burn" quote, not adding a Commandment)" do you apparently meant "Paul" , instead, as in his epistle 1 Corinthians 7:9b "for it is better to marry than to burn." ??
Thanks for the added data & the correction, Andrew. My spouse is a Sunday school teacher & would have caught me having robbed Paul to pay Peter. Obviously she hasn't read it yet. I'll dial that in.
Andrew II--my biblical spouse tells me there's even more about Bishops needing to be married in 1 Timothy 3:1-7.
The Mormon church is much smaller than the Catholic Church, but as far as I can tell the number of incidents per capita is vastly different
You are making an assumption. The facts demonstrate that priests are no more likely to commit child abuse than other men or other clergy, including Mormon clergy. This Newsweek articlenotes that Catholic churches pay the same insurance premiums for abuse coverage as other denominations, and it quotes other experts who likewise suggest that Catholic priests commit child abuse slightly less often than do other men.
I wish there were a structural solution to the problem of child abuse. But the problem has to do with sin and human nature, not with the structure of a human institution. As you note, all human institutions have an incentive to bury scandals.
while i honestly respect the mormon church yet am not a member, your assessment is very much inaccurate. just google "mormon sex abuse" and do some reading.
i don't think your statistical analysis is accurate, either.
any and all churches have problems, and the mormons do have errant bishops, hiding the crimes of members, attempting to resolve them out of the limelight or out of the criminal justice system.
percentage wise, i'm assuming your assessment, while very interesting and well thought out, is anecdotal.
Anonymous I & Anonymous II:
I read the Newsweek article you cited, and it certainly supports the thesis that Catholic priest sex abuse seems large simply because the Catholic church is so large.
However, the article also points out that no one actually knows, since everyone agrees this is an underreported crime.
Also, the critical fact was that insurance companies don't charge Catholic churches more for sex abuse insurance.
However, that has nothing to do with the incidence of sex abuse in an institution. It has to do with successful claims that cost the insurance company money.
So while you could conclude that no more sex abuse occurs in Catholic churches, it's also possible that Catholic churches are more effective at silencing victims and witnesses, and at moving priests around.
For example, the common practice of swearing both victims and abusers to silence on pain of instant excommunication is not something I've heard of in other religions.
Also, institutions like the Mormon church can't move their priest-equivalents around to escape scandal and prosecution, because Mormon bishops (their equivalent to priests) are lay leaders who must be residents of that congregations physical territory, and must have wives and children at home. They aren't portable, and the Mormon church can't and doesn't move them around.
Also, the religious convictions of all those involved in studies of these things can affect their fact-finding, more than if they were studying something less personally significant.
This is true in both directions. I've never met anyone as anti-religious as ex-Catholics, and ex-Mormons aren't far behind.
So we have to be on guard against those who cry wolf and those who hide wolves.
So while it's true that I'm speculating and working from anecdotal experiences, contradictions to my speculations aren't as nailed-down as you might think.
As for human nature vs. human institutions--this is a profoundly important issue that I'll address in a separate entry in my blog.
The allegedly Divinely appointed founder of the Roman Catholic Church , and its first pope, and so its apparently premier and exemplary bishop, was married Luke 4:38 !
The scripture incontrovertibly in Titus 1:6 and 1 Timothy 3:2 requires bishops to be married to "one" wife (who is an example of humble obedience) and have well-behaved children (i.e. definitively more than one child) - as such the tradition of episcopal celibacy makes of none effect the Word of God , Mark 7:13.
The Roman Catholic Church if she seeks to abide by scripture and the example therein of her allegedly most illustrious and sanctified bishop must rescind its celibacy laws and require married bishops with children (as for deacons though the scripture clearly asserts the requirement of their marriage it is ambiguous as to whether deacons must have children or at least one child 1 Timothy 3:12 for while it refers to the "children" of deacons , the very plurality of the subject , it appears to me , makes the plurality of object inconclusive as to its application to the subject taken as collectively or to each thereof in particular).
I remember reading your comment in the NY Times and recommending it.
As has been pointed out by others, there are many instances of abuse by Mormon leaders toward not only children but the women ("sisters") of the church. The abuse may be sexual or physical, but also exists in more subtle ways such as making domestic or sexual abuse by the husband the fault of the wife (priesthood holders just don't do that, now do they), excessive guilt for not bowing to the pressure to have a large litter of children, and outright discrimination toward those who are non-traditional or somehow different than the Mormon norm.
Granted your point is that this is not as heavy a burden as that of the Catholic Church simply because of the numbers involved. But it illustrates that human nature trumps sexual repression in a sick, exaggerated way.
Sexual repression and distortion are rampant among members of the Mormon church beginning with the early days of polygamy. (For example, to this day members of Mormon offshoot religions don't allow menopausal women to have sexual relations when their childbearing years are over because sex is only for procreation, and women were created primarily to bear and raise children.)
I agree it's far better to acknowledge that part of our human birthright is to be sexual. One would hope that a realistic response in dealing with it would result is less perversion overall.
Your suggestion of married priests is a good one, and I would also suggest eliminating the prohibition against birth control. The threat of pregnancy is its own form of sexual repression.
Thank you for your well moderated comments in such a public forum. In the face of rampant right-wing, religious extremism so often taken for truth in this country, the need for thoughtful consideration of issues is ever greater.
Lynn Allen
Broomfield CO
Lynn, I agree that the Catholic Church's prohibition of birth control is bad for women. I also think it's geocidal--read some of my stuff on overpopulation and you'll see.
As for your critique of the Mormon church--my own experience differs from your critique, but my spouse's ward is in a college town, and the men and women I know from there typically have advanced degrees and live in a highly cosmopolitan area.
So while they do believe in traditional marriage, I see few signs of female downtrodden-ness.
But these aren't typical Mormons.
However, I don't see a reason to single out Mormons from other conservative American christian faith communities. If you control for standard demographic features--rural, socioeconomic status, level of education, degree of local dominance, cultural homogeneity--I doubt you'd find much difference from, say, Southern Baptist regions in the deep South.
Though even there, the fact that the Mormons aren't fundamentalists helps, and the fact that they're ordered by the leaders of the church to treat each other respectfully within the parameters of traditional marriage also helps.
All organizations have an incidence of abuse. Humans are pretty flawed, we'll all agree. But if you control for demographics I doubt you'll find a higher incidence of abuse among Mormons. I haven't seen any reputable studies to indicate that.
And structurally the dispersion of responsibilities in a congregation make a Mormon congregation leader less powerful and more exposed than in churches where a paid, self-appointed leadership enjoys a greater concentration of authority.
My own view of how marriages should work is probably closer to yours than what the Mormon church advocates. However, my observation is that educated Mormon marriages are closer to what you'd approve of than you might realize.
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