How the sex abuse crisis requires the Church to heed its moral theology
The courage of survivors
in taking civil action against the Church is a welcome reminder of how
authority among the people of God should be properly shared and
exercised
The word “apocalypse” conjures up images of catastrophe and pain, but theologically the word means a revealing of something we did not know before, or could not see clearly and now can. With knowledge, everything changes. A feature of apocalyptic theology is a distinct rupture between what came before and what unfolds now: between sin and salvation, between our self-destructive ways (Romans 7:15 ff) and life in Christ (John 10:10).
But pain and catastrophe do, of course, often accompany revelations. The truth hurts. The sexual abuse crisis in the Church is certainly apocalyptic: the revelation that sexual predators and enablers are more widespread among the clergy than any of us imagined painfully tells us many things about the Church that we did not know before, or did know but chose not to address.
In particular, the crisis reveals moral demands of justice in relationships and structures in the Catholic Church, and thereby also clarifies the Church’s practice of synodality, which the International Theological Commission (ITC) earlier this year defined as the “involvement and participation of the whole People of God in the life and mission of the Church”.
One painful moment of the crisis simultaneously revealed both a practice of justice and an exercise of courageous synodality on the part of the laity. Abuse survivors and their advocates confronted their bishops and, not finding justice there, took the matter to the civil authorities. Such a move might seem – and in some cases, felt to the survivors – as if they were leaving the Church behind, by going to the local prosecutor’s office. What they left behind, however, was not the synodal church envisioned by the Second Vatican Council but a kind of shadow church, characterised by the misuse of the charism of governance.
The survivors’ simple act of standing up for themselves became the lever that, braced against the fulcrum of justice, began to dislodge harmful misunderstandings of relationships in the Church, and revealed a painful path to authenticity.
Survivors gave the Church a sobering lesson in moral theology, via a deeply practical application of the Sixth Commandment. Superficially, the Sixth appears simple: “You shall not commit adultery” (Exodus 20:14). Conventionally, the commandment reinforces sexual fidelity, and this understanding was in play when the crisis exploded into awareness in the United States in 2002.
As a result, however, the crisis became narrowly defined as a “delict against the Sixth” (Code of Canon Law, 1395), so the remedy became the quick removal of vow-breaking priests by bishops who had largely been slow about taking (or had been antagonistic to) corrective measures. But, by its own internal logic, the Sixth Commandment concerns not only the agents of harm but all those who were directly and indirectly victimised.
While recognising the Sixth’s prohibition of adultery, Thomas Aquinas saw the Decalogue’s commands as precepts of natural law and of the cardinal virtue of justice.
The harms manifested in adultery – or any action violating sexual vows and boundaries (for example, sexual harassment, rape and the covering up of abuse) – naturally extend beyond the individual agents and, in justice, need to be redressed. But the emphasis in canon law on vow-breakers meant that resolution of the problem remained among the ordained. Calls for transparency and accountability on the part of survivors and other laity could be, and were, minimised or (depending on the bishop) ignored.
From this perspective, the sexual abuse crisis reveals a deeper crisis of community. Why does it take the force of civil law to simply make the bishops reveal what happened? One irony of the situation in the United States is that civil society and secular legal structures, utilised by Catholics who are also Americans, have a better understanding of this deeper meaning of the Sixth; both the civil authorities and lay Catholics effectively call on the Church to attend to its own moral commitments, which thereby fosters a more credible synodality.
To be sure, synodality does not amorphously merge all vocations and charisms in the Church: hence the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s insistence on further study of the concept. Nonetheless, in its document, the ITC defined synodality as “the action of the Spirit in the communion of the Body of Christ and in the missionary journey of the People of God”. In today’s Church, it is hard to think of actions more Spirit-inspired than the work of justice undertaken by sexual abuse survivors and their advocates.
This work of justice calls the bishops to more conscientious witness. By definition, a bishop is not a fixed role but a dynamic relationship with a twofold purpose: unity with all other bishops under the primacy of the Pope, and vitality of the life of faith among all people in a bishop’s diocese.
Insofar as the Sixth demands structural justice, however, we can see where synodality has become one-sided. The crisis is still being handled “at the top”, in decisions among the hierarchy – apart from individuals and faith communities, who from their perspective see bishops’ work among other bishops absorbing energy and attention. Meanwhile, the vitality of faith suffers, with the laity getting angry, protesting and – not waiting for the bishops to act – asking civil authorities to open investigations. In pressing to restore priority to the vitality of faith, the laity are calling for an old-yet-new manifestation of the Church.
Of the survivors featured in the 2002 Boston Globe investigation, I remember Patrick McSorley the most. He was one of the first to speak out about being molested by a priest. He protested angrily at revelations of the transfer of priest-abusers to other parishes. McSorley befriended fellow survivors and sought to be a “voice of the victims”. They recognised, as one of them put it, that he “gave so many others the courage to come forward and to persevere”.
News of his death at age 29, probably due to the medication he took to relieve his post-traumatic stress, unsettled me mightily. If the “Pilgrim Church” survives this crisis, it will happen because Patrick McSorley and others, in the “Church in Heaven”, intercede for us at the mercy seat of God. And therein lies yet another feature of apocalypse: hope of salvation.
Anselma Dolcich-Ashley is a concurrent assistant professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame.
The word “apocalypse” conjures up images of catastrophe and pain, but theologically the word means a revealing of something we did not know before, or could not see clearly and now can. With knowledge, everything changes. A feature of apocalyptic theology is a distinct rupture between what came before and what unfolds now: between sin and salvation, between our self-destructive ways (Romans 7:15 ff) and life in Christ (John 10:10).
But pain and catastrophe do, of course, often accompany revelations. The truth hurts. The sexual abuse crisis in the Church is certainly apocalyptic: the revelation that sexual predators and enablers are more widespread among the clergy than any of us imagined painfully tells us many things about the Church that we did not know before, or did know but chose not to address.
In particular, the crisis reveals moral demands of justice in relationships and structures in the Catholic Church, and thereby also clarifies the Church’s practice of synodality, which the International Theological Commission (ITC) earlier this year defined as the “involvement and participation of the whole People of God in the life and mission of the Church”.
One painful moment of the crisis simultaneously revealed both a practice of justice and an exercise of courageous synodality on the part of the laity. Abuse survivors and their advocates confronted their bishops and, not finding justice there, took the matter to the civil authorities. Such a move might seem – and in some cases, felt to the survivors – as if they were leaving the Church behind, by going to the local prosecutor’s office. What they left behind, however, was not the synodal church envisioned by the Second Vatican Council but a kind of shadow church, characterised by the misuse of the charism of governance.
The survivors’ simple act of standing up for themselves became the lever that, braced against the fulcrum of justice, began to dislodge harmful misunderstandings of relationships in the Church, and revealed a painful path to authenticity.
Survivors gave the Church a sobering lesson in moral theology, via a deeply practical application of the Sixth Commandment. Superficially, the Sixth appears simple: “You shall not commit adultery” (Exodus 20:14). Conventionally, the commandment reinforces sexual fidelity, and this understanding was in play when the crisis exploded into awareness in the United States in 2002.
As a result, however, the crisis became narrowly defined as a “delict against the Sixth” (Code of Canon Law, 1395), so the remedy became the quick removal of vow-breaking priests by bishops who had largely been slow about taking (or had been antagonistic to) corrective measures. But, by its own internal logic, the Sixth Commandment concerns not only the agents of harm but all those who were directly and indirectly victimised.
While recognising the Sixth’s prohibition of adultery, Thomas Aquinas saw the Decalogue’s commands as precepts of natural law and of the cardinal virtue of justice.
The harms manifested in adultery – or any action violating sexual vows and boundaries (for example, sexual harassment, rape and the covering up of abuse) – naturally extend beyond the individual agents and, in justice, need to be redressed. But the emphasis in canon law on vow-breakers meant that resolution of the problem remained among the ordained. Calls for transparency and accountability on the part of survivors and other laity could be, and were, minimised or (depending on the bishop) ignored.
From this perspective, the sexual abuse crisis reveals a deeper crisis of community. Why does it take the force of civil law to simply make the bishops reveal what happened? One irony of the situation in the United States is that civil society and secular legal structures, utilised by Catholics who are also Americans, have a better understanding of this deeper meaning of the Sixth; both the civil authorities and lay Catholics effectively call on the Church to attend to its own moral commitments, which thereby fosters a more credible synodality.
To be sure, synodality does not amorphously merge all vocations and charisms in the Church: hence the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s insistence on further study of the concept. Nonetheless, in its document, the ITC defined synodality as “the action of the Spirit in the communion of the Body of Christ and in the missionary journey of the People of God”. In today’s Church, it is hard to think of actions more Spirit-inspired than the work of justice undertaken by sexual abuse survivors and their advocates.
This work of justice calls the bishops to more conscientious witness. By definition, a bishop is not a fixed role but a dynamic relationship with a twofold purpose: unity with all other bishops under the primacy of the Pope, and vitality of the life of faith among all people in a bishop’s diocese.
Insofar as the Sixth demands structural justice, however, we can see where synodality has become one-sided. The crisis is still being handled “at the top”, in decisions among the hierarchy – apart from individuals and faith communities, who from their perspective see bishops’ work among other bishops absorbing energy and attention. Meanwhile, the vitality of faith suffers, with the laity getting angry, protesting and – not waiting for the bishops to act – asking civil authorities to open investigations. In pressing to restore priority to the vitality of faith, the laity are calling for an old-yet-new manifestation of the Church.
Of the survivors featured in the 2002 Boston Globe investigation, I remember Patrick McSorley the most. He was one of the first to speak out about being molested by a priest. He protested angrily at revelations of the transfer of priest-abusers to other parishes. McSorley befriended fellow survivors and sought to be a “voice of the victims”. They recognised, as one of them put it, that he “gave so many others the courage to come forward and to persevere”.
News of his death at age 29, probably due to the medication he took to relieve his post-traumatic stress, unsettled me mightily. If the “Pilgrim Church” survives this crisis, it will happen because Patrick McSorley and others, in the “Church in Heaven”, intercede for us at the mercy seat of God. And therein lies yet another feature of apocalypse: hope of salvation.
Anselma Dolcich-Ashley is a concurrent assistant professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame.
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