21/04/02

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Sunday Herald - 21 April 2002    
The end of celibacy?  

As the Pope prepares to meet American cardinals to discuss the paedophile priest crisis, Home Affairs Editor Neil Mackay looks at the outcry that could transform the Catholic church   'PAEDOPHILE priest jailed for sex with under-age boy' is a headline which has almost become a clichZ. But the trial of Father John Geoghan in January this year in Boston for child sex abuse wasn't just another disposable story about child abuse and the clergy; it has set in train the biggest shake-up within the Catholic Church since the 1960s. The aftermath of the Geoghan case will be the crucible in which the Roman Catholic Church is forged in the 21st century.  On Tuesday 13 American cardinals will sit down with the Pope in the Vatican and discuss just how the Church is supposed to deal with the seemingly endless series of accusations and arrests for paedophilia which are dogging Catholicism across the world. America, Ireland, Germany, Poland, England and Scotland have all had a taste of scandal.  The Geoghan case, with its claims that some of the highest-ranking clergymen in the US moved the priest from parish to parish as his crimes were discovered and then covered up by the hierarchy, has forced the Church to take a cold, stark look at itself and its priests.  Cardinal Francis Stafford, an American who heads the Vatican's Pontifical Council for the Laity, said the meeting would cover celibacy, gay priests and the ordination of women. Everything, it seems, is open to debate. This scandal isn't just rocking America, though. The clergy in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales is also tearing itself apart over the question: Where now for the Church? In Scotland, leading Catholic clergymen and theologians are preparing to tear up the rule book.  One of the bravest comments given to the Sunday Herald in an exhaustive round of interviews with senior clergy scholars and prominent Catholic lay people came from Keith O'Brien, Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh . 'I have no problems with celibacy withering away,' he said. 'There is no theological problem with it ending. The loss of celi bacy would give liberty to priests to exercise their God-given gift of love and sex rather than feeling they must be celibate all their lives.'  As president of the Scottish Bishops' Conference, O'Brien is seen as first among equals in the Scottish Catholic hierarchy. His words carry considerable weight, though on the reactionary wing of the church his views could be seen as tantamount to heresy. Lining up beside him is the renowned Dominican scholar Fr Fergus Kerr. As regent of Blackfriars Hall at Oxford University and an honorary senior lecturer in philosophy and theology at Edinburgh University, Kerr is perhaps the most eminent Catholic thinker in the country.  He believes it is inevitable that priests will one day be allowed to marry. 'Celibacy will become an optional extra for the Catholic clergy,' he said. 'I would assume that priests will be marrying in under 20 years.'  Kerr said priestly celibacy was introduced to stop the children of priests inheriting church property. 'The big problem in terms of ending celibacy is money -- not theology,' he said. 'It's always been about money. Historically, it was about property; now it's about salary. It's easy to support a celibate priest, but supporting a married priest with children would be a big drain on resources. Accepting married Anglican priests into the Church when they broke away over women in the priesthood was the beginning of the end of celibacy.'  Kerr went further by championing women in the clergy. 'There are theological arguments against having women in the priesthood, but I don't think they are very impressive,' he said. 'One argument is that Jesus didn't ordain women. The answer to that is that He didn't ordain any non-Jews either.  'Others say the Eucharist is a rerun of the Last Supper, and the celebrant was Jesus so the priest must be a man. The counter-argument is that those who believe this are just taking symbolism to the extreme, and symbols aren't inviolable. I'm not opposed to celibacy falling away or women in the clergy -- we have to start looking at the arguments.'  It's little wonder Scotland's most powerful Catholics are now wrestling with such hard questions as the tremors from the US abuse scandal are felt around the world. Some even predict it could cause the US church to split from Rome. More than 450 people in the Boston area alone claim they've been sexually abused by priests. Across the country at least 62 clergymen have been suspended for alleged sexual abuse since January, but in total some 3000 priests face allegations of paedophilia.  The public is clamouring for the resignation of Boston's Cardinal Bernard Law, who has admitted allowing Fr John Geoghan, a man he knew to be a paedophile, to continue as a priest. Geoghan, who was jailed for 10 years, has been accused of molesting up to 200 children. In 1994 Fr John McCormack, then secretary for ministerial personnel under Cardinal Law, offered to find Geoghan a 'safe house'. McCormack is now bishop of Manchester in New Hampshire. Cardinal Law also allowed another child abuser, Fr Paul Shanley, to continue to have access to children, despite having full know ledge of his crimes through a church-ordered psychiatric evaluation.  Law also moved Shanley from diocese to diocese without informing officials of his history. There had been 15 complaints against Shanley, dating back 30 years. The Church also had information about a speech Shanley gave at a meeting in the 1970s in which he defended paedophilia. The meeting led to the formation of the North American Man-Boy Love Association. Some dioceses have already paid millions of dollars to settle lawsuits brought by victims, with Boston footing a bill of around $30 million. The total cost to the church in the US is somewhere in the region of £1 billion. A number of dioceses are facing bankruptcy .  From Boston the allegations spread across the US. In Los Angeles a special unit of detectives has been set up to investigate 70 allegations involving 50 priests. Cardinal Roger Mahony of the Los Angeles Archdiocese has admitted responsibility for transferring Fr Michael Wempe, who was accused of child molestation, to a hospital with a paediatric unit without telling medical staff.  Other dioceses accused of covering up for serial child molesters include New York and Milwaukee, and Church authorities are also dealing with allegations in St Louis, Florida, California, Philadelphia and Detroit. In Cleveland, Ohio, Fr Don Rooney killed himself this month after been accused of sexual misconduct from 1980. Two men have taken legal action against the Vatican itself -- an unheard of and historic move. The lawsuits allege that the Church protected priests accused of molesting children in Florida and Oregon by transferring them to other states to avoid prosecution.  Although 70% of America's 64 million Catholics believe revolutionary changes such as ending celibacy will end child abuse, few of Scotland's Catholic thinkers believe scrapping the chastity vow will magically remove paedophilia from the priesthood. There are just as many paedophiles in the Church of Scotland or the Free Church or among Jews or Muslims, they say, as among Catholics. However, most admit that celibacy feels like an odd, even medieval, hangover. And it raises eyebrows. Celibacy seems to predicate a twisted or stunted sexuality -- at least to the public mind, which appears to equate a celibate priest with a potential paedophile.  For Philip Esler, professor of biblical studies at St Andrews University, abandoning celi bacy won't just do the Church the world of good in terms of public relations -- it will also help tackle another crisis facing Catholicism, the massive fall in the numbers of men choosing a life in the priesthood. Esler, a practising Catholic, says: ' People aren't entering the priesthood. Abuse is deterring potential priests and members of the congregation. In some places it is getting hard for the public to get to Mass as there are too few priests.  'The church needs a radical solution. To suggest that celibacy is central to the ministry is nonsense. Once one Anglican priest who was married joined the Catholic Church, that became the exception that destroyed the rule. We need suitable people to conduct Mass whether they are married or not.  'What is wrong with taking a good, married Catholic and ordaining him? The days of celibacy are numbered. The Church is resisting because those who run the Church have been socialised by celibacy. It is all they know. They wanted to marry and have children, so to say to them 'celibacy is unnecessary' would by like saying, 'You made a huge mistake -- that harsh, lonely existence you opted for was pointless.' Celibacy is central to their identity, but they have their heads in the sand.'  Esler is equally frustrated by the establishment's refusal to budge on women priests. 'The Church has set its face against this, and I'm really sorry for that,' he says.  Professor John Haldane, a devout Catholic who teaches divinity, philosophy and humanities at Cambridge, St Andrews and Georgetown University in Washington DC, says: 'The world is so heavily sexualised that you could see it, symbolically, scantily-clad and clutching a bottle in its hand. Anyone who tries to choose a life of restraint or celibacy today is in for a tough if not impossible time.'  Haldane says he knows of many priests who have been 'privately and secretly' married, who wish celibacy would end so they could reclaim a 'real life'. He suggests a middle ground for the Church. 'Maybe we need to get to a situation like the Eastern Church, where you can't marry when you are a priest, but you can become a priest if you are married.'  Not all Scotland's Catholic thinkers are of the liberal variety, and there are signs of a split emerging. Dr Francesca Murphy, who teaches at Aberdeen University's School of Divinity, wants celibacy retained. 'Celibacy,' she says, 'is a beautiful thing. A man without a woman is a person who has totally abandoned the world -- and that is what religion is all about.'  She does, however, have some suspicion that celibacy may play a part in paedophilia. 'Celibacy is about loneliness,' Mur phy says. 'Perhaps we need to see priests and bishops living together in a community to get rid of paedophilia. Someone on his own has more opportunity to fixate on his sexuality.'  Dr Mario Aguilar, a Chilean former priest and senior lecturer in divinity at St Andrews, says there is 'no dogmatic reason why we need celibacy'. He suggests leading clergymen who favour an end to the rule call a Vatican Council to debate it. The most recent Vatican Council, the liberalising Vatican II, was in 1962; the only other one took place in 1870.  'Many people say we need a new Vatican Council for the 21st century, a few like-minded bishops should get together and convince the Pope the issue needs to be debated,' says Aguilar, who supports women in the priesthood. 'Only a Vatican Council could change this. If a Vatican Council backed change, then so would I. Many Catholics wouldn't care if their parish priest was married or not.'  Patrick Reilly, emeritus professor of English at Glasgow University and a philosophy lecturer at Scotus College seminary in Bearsden, is concerned that some men may be attracted to the priesthood because 'the vocation allows access and opportunity to exploit children'. He wants celibacy to remain, however, and he believes the problem of gays or women in the priesthood is insuperable.  He stands for the old guard. 'In the eyes of Christianity, being gay is a disorder. The Christian view is that men and women should be together in a faithful marriage, which is best for children, the family and the state. On the issue of women, only a man can be a representation of Christ in his role as a priest. To think of a woman as a priest is as illogical as thinking a woman could be a bridegroom. Christ didn't commission any women to act as his apostles.'  For Reilly, new-fangled ideas like ending celibacy are no panacea for collapsing numbers in Catholic congregations or the woes of Mother Church. He has his own rather innovative solution to the crisis in Catholicism. 'In Asia, Africa and Latin America, the number of priests is rising and their congregations are rising too,' he says. 'Perhaps we need priests from those countries to become missionaries in Europe. They can do for us what we did for them -- minister to the masses and make converts. That's what's important.'  

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