Wednesday, May 15, 2002
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Wednesday, May 15, 2002 |
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Sacred vows, sacred cows: Catholics and gays By DANIEL L. WEISS
Everyone's talking about the crisis in the Catholic Church. What about the crisis in the media? Specifically, how can liberal journalists roundly condemn the Church without harming their sacred cow: homosexuality? These crises began in January with the Boston Globe's stories about defrocked priest and convicted-child molester, John Geoghan. The Globe used the term "pedophile priest" to describe Geoghan, an accurate depiction since "[a]lmost always, his victims were grammar school boys." When the larger story revealed other abusive priests, however, few in the media bothered to clarify that Geoghan's particular abuse was an anomaly. Thereafter, every priest charged with sexual misconduct was viewed as a predatory pedophile in the eyes of the public. The problem is that few priests guilty of sexual abuse were involved with prepubescent children a requirement for pedophilia. The vast majority estimates range from 90 to 95 percent were involved with adolescents, specifically teenage boys. Illicit attraction to sexually mature, but underage teenagers is not pedophilia. The appropriate term for this behavior is ephebophilia. But even that term clouds the truth. Almost exclusively, the abuse aligns with classic homosexual youth obsession. The best data on Catholic clerical sexual abuse is found in a comprehensive study conducted by the Archdiocese of Chicago in 1992. The study found that of 2,252 priests serving over a 40-year time period, there was only one case of pedophilia, that of a priest molesting his nieces. The media, however, doesn't seem particularly inclined to draw this distinction. By continuing to maintain that the abuse is pedophilic in nature, sympathizers can deflect the arrows of blame away from homosexuality with reasonable success. Even when homosexuality is mentioned, reporters find extraordinary ways to avoid implicating the lifestyle in the crisis. Recently, New York Times reporter Laurie Goodstein wrote: "The assumption that homosexuality has anything to do with this crisis has arisen largely because a disproportionate number of those abused were male." A more noncommittal analysis is hard to find. In another example, although numerous books documenting the Church's problem with homosexual abuse have been available since the mid-1990s, writer Jon Meacham chose to ignore such research in Newsweek's May 6 cover story. He takes all of three paragraphs to reveal his ideological myopia. "Some Catholic traditionalists are trying to manage the scandal's fallout by arguing that the sexual predation of children and teens is largely a homosexual issue," he writes. "By pointing their fingers mainly at homosexuality, these church leaders are avoiding discussion of the questions that should be front and center: the roots and costs of a culture of sexual repression and secrecy. [T]he Catholic crisis should prompt a broader conversation about how far Christianity still has to go to resolve its complexes about the larger issue of sexuality." Meacham later examines three of Christianity's supposed complexes in detail refusal to embrace homosexuality, mandatory celibacy, and rejection of female priests and frequently cites the latest Newsweek poll to prove his points. It shouldn't surprise anyone that the media would have a difficult time reporting the true nature of this abuse. Homosexual groups like the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and the Human Rights Campaign have long enjoyed favorable coverage in the news. The current scandal changes nothing. Like Meacham, many of the most prominent "experts" outlining the causes of the abuse seem to parrot the theme of a recent press release by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. "Catholics across this country are challenging the doctrine of the Catholic Church in many ways, including how it pertains to homosexuality, divorce, celibacy, and the priesthood, birth control, the right to choose and the ordination of women. We encourage the hierarchy of the Catholic Church in the U.S. and the Vatican to examine all of these issues and to end outdated, discriminatory and oppressive policies," the statement said. Oh, if only priests were able to marry and divorce their homosexual partners and female fellow priests, use birth control, and abort their unwanted children, we wouldn't be in this mess. All of this predictably misses the point and misses it badly. It was the rejection of Catholic doctrine in the first place that led to the sexual abuse and resulting cover-up. As Fr. Richard John Neuhaus of "First Things" put it, "If the bishops and priests had been living according to the teaching of the Catholic Church and had been faithful to their own sacred vows, there would be no scandal." Faithfulness to one's journalistic vows to tell the whole story truthfully and accurately would be a welcome development as well. [Daniel L. Weiss is a social research analyst for Focus on the Family, a nonprofit, evangelical ministry based in Colorado Springs.]
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