Sexual Abuse in the Purple Culture

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he behavior of bishops throughout the western world in the clergy sexual abuse scandal remains on daily exhibit in the media: the cover-ups; the transfer of pedophile priests from parish to parish, diocese to diocese and beyond; the stone-walling of victims and their parents; the attempt to ‘manage’ the ‘problem’ through attorneys.

        

We’ve heard their lame excuses: “most priests are good priests,” as if we should expect some pedophiles to emerge from their seminaries; “priests are only human,” as if raping or sodomizing a child is human.

        

We’ve seen them turn to scapegoating: saying that “gays are responsible and therefore should not be ordained,” (a statement shot down by competent psychotherapists); portraying children as “very seductive tempters and temptresses, sexually enticing;” depicting the abusers as the real victims; painting victims as money-grabbing complainers who want the money that would otherwise go to charity. The list goes on.

        

All of the above merge to exhibit a group of men, who posture as our moral leaders, acting uniformly out of a purple culture that immunizes them from empathy for the sufferings of children. It is narcissism at its zenith.

        

We should remind ourselves again just how powerful were the voices of the laity in the first centuries of the Church. They were strong enough to influence apostles and popes, and to move them in a different direction. Can anyone imagine there would have been a deluge of clerical sexual abuse of children if bishops had asked the laity, especially parents of young children: “Do you mind if I place accused Father Pedophile in your school, or parish?” 

The bishops never turned to the laity, an implicit denial of the wisdom they would find there. We will see going forward how the cultural box in which bishops are immersed prevents them from acknowledging their errors and from acknowledging the correctness of lay wisdom on other significant life issues.

 

Resource:

Sex, Priests and Secret Codes:  The Catholic Church's 2,000 Year Paper Trail of Sexual Abuse, by Thomas P. Doyle, A.W. Richard Sipe, and Patrick J. Wall.

Lay Wisdom Leads Away from the Church

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here is no returning for the vast majority of bishop members of the Purple Culture, no returning to a time when error or imperfections could be admitted. The assumption of perfection and infallibility has permanently disabled members of the culture from emitting such human utterances as “I was wrong,” and/or “I am sorry.” When wrong or sorrow is obliquely admitted, it comes out with fingers pointed outward as in “certain theologians were at fault.” Those cultural assumptions lie buried beneath consciousness and often creep into prelates’ giving mouth to trivia.

        

We need not be surprised that a third of Catholics have left the Church in this country. The wisdom gleaned by the laity in the everyday grindings of work and human relationships hones their experience to recognize the basic truths of living and loving. They also recognize the gap between their lived experience and that of the ‘let’s pretend’ experience common to those enclosed in the purple culture. This recognition is especially true for younger generations who have never permitted fear, gathered from teachings and preaching, to gain root in their psyches. Nor do they accept a portrayal of God as more beast than loving creator. The centuries-old instilled fear of damnation is so incongruent with a loving God, they reject it spontaneously. If it’s all about love, then God wants love to motivate us, not fear.

        

And so these young people go elsewhere – to a more promising spirituality or church.

        

A recognition of this lay wisdom lies beyond the ability of purple culture members. It will take a tsunami of departures and an inward tsunami of grace to bring about this realization.

 

We have the answer to another question raised in our opening issue, i.e. why don’t religions get together and mutually promote peace in the world, if for no other reason than our shared acknowledgment of the Golden Rule? The answer is evident. From the position of our Catholic leaders’ views on primacy, there can be no action that would admit a significant degree of validity in another religion. It is a matter of turf protection, and turf expansion. For an expansion example, look at how the Vatican has recently tried to gain Anglican recruits by assurances that the bias against women and homosexuals entering the priesthood is secure within the Roman Catholic fold. It is simply another tactical version of using ‘soup’ to get hungry (bigoted) people into the Church.

The Way We Were: The Lost Partnership Between the Laity and Church Leaders

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e begin with a bit of history.  In the early days of Christianity there existed a genuine partnership between what we now call the laity and the Church leaders. The Church was a combination of the two groups. And the partnership extended to all Church matters. The laity had equal voices in matters of administration, doctrine, discipline and all expressions of piety. The following two examples, one regarding discipline and the other doctrine, illustrate this historical fact: 

1.  In Chapter 15 of the Acts of the Apostles we are told that some Jewish Christians came to Antioch and began telling the Gentile Christians they were required to observe all the prescriptions of the Torah, including the practice of circumcision and the food restrictions. The Gentile Christians reacted strongly, asking in effect, what do circumcision and those other laws have to do with what Jesus taught?   

The Church--those Gentile Christians--sent Paul and Barnabas to Jerusalem (the Vatican of that time) with their complaint and their wisdom, and their voice prevailed. It is worth noting here that Church Leaders in these early centuries worked full time jobs to support themselves.  

2.  The Council of Nicaea, 325 A.D., condemned a heresy, Arianism, which stated that Jesus was not quite God. He was the highest of all creatures but still a creature. 

Arianism, however, did not die with the condemnation. The Emperor, Constantius II, favored it and exiled Pope Liberius for his refusal to support it. Eventually, Liberius, in exile, gave in to the Emperor and was returned to Rome. 

In Rome, the Christians, who now considered Liberius to be a traitor, would have nothing to do with him and began turning to an anti-pope, Felix. “The people would not even go to the public baths lest they should bathe with the party of Liberius.” (“Arians of the Fourth Century” by Cardinal John Henry Newman). The Pope got the message and changed back to his original opposition to Arianism. Again from Cardinal Newman: “The Catholic people, in the length and breadth of Christendom, were the obstinate champions of Catholic truth, and the bishops were not.”

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Today we can’t imagine sending a bishop anywhere, much less with the mission of carrying the wisdom of the people to the Vatican. Nor can we imagine having a voice in the discipline of the Church. Nor does the laity have a voice in doctrinal matters today. Does anyone recall an instance where the bishops asked for an opinion on "infallible" definitions, or on the content of encyclicals? What happened to that partnership between laity and Church Leaders so pronounced in the early centuries?

We will continue our search for the answers in next week’s blog issue. When and how did Christianity lose its original egalitarian character? And what have been the consequences of that change?

See also:

 
 The Arians of the Fourth Century, by 
 John Henry Newman

 A History of Christianity, by Paul

 Johnson.