CATHOLIC CONFESSION AND SEXUAL TRANSGRESSION

Inviato da Counseling Italia

Many critics of the present pontiff believe that the time has come for him to vacate the see of Peter. They argue that, from one who was once the highest authority entrusted with identifying child abuse offenders, a single oversight in handling such cases should reasonably suffice in signalling gross negligence respecting the vulnerability of minors - an area too sensitive to brook any incompetence. That said, being disinclined to any romantic Dan Brown-type reductionism in the matter, touching any devious complicity by Benedict XVI, I appeal to the handful of thinkers who, with me, suspect the conspiracy theorists of opportunistically exploiting a delicate question to satisfy our ever insatiate appetite for intrigue. Rather than buying into the idea of some wilful cover up by the former Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, I see a man guilty of not having had eyes at the back of his head at a time in which such real and tragic stories begin to require greater humanity from the Church than a team of Vatican bureaucrats alone could ever bring. Against the backdrop of a pontificate which was doomed from the outset for having arrived in an unfortunate moment in history, a growing and justifiable sense of betrayal on the part of the faithful now demands a gesture of dramatic proportions. My own view of this most unprecedented fall from grace by the institutional Church is that, scapegoat or no, either the axe falls on Benedict XVI or little restoration of credibility is likely to be forthcoming for a worldwide community of believers who, Divine intervention notwithstanding, begin in ever increasing numbers to read the Church's organogram no differently from the way they do that of any multinational organization, viz. accountable as any other and expected, as such, to perform periodical housekeeping.

From an anthropological perspective the old Christianity of the Continent has always fascinated me. With Italy numbered among the last remaining 'Catholic countries' in Europe, the crucifixes affixed to the walls of banks and schools serve as a continual reminder of how coveted a place faith holds within the very social fabric of daily life. With the cult of the dead alive and well as ever, I am still struck by the solemnity of All Souls' Day on November the 2nd and by the customary annual visit to the graves of loved ones. A walk through the cemetery of Rimini, my city, always leaves me pondering as much upon the finality of death as upon the place that deceased family members continue to occupy nationwide in the lives of parents, siblings and grandparents. Unfailingly I have a gut-wrenching moment at the graves of children, the plots of which are attentively cared for even decades after the child has died. What most strikes me is the endearing tenderness of poems inscribed in stone and the tokens of grieving remembrance arranged about the headstone : porcelain eggs at Eastertide, an improvised gift at Christmas, a toy car or a soft toy the child once played with. A father myself, I can only surmise that the death of a son or daughter must unleash a grief from which no parent can ever truly recover. I always imagine at such times that there cannot possibly be any consolation for a bereaved mother or father save that of hoping desperately for some future time when that child may be seen once more, held tight as before in a loving and a lingering embrace.

Rimini cemetery is no different from any other in Italy, with tombstones marked by images of Christ, the Madonna or some saint and I am reminded that to walk among the many sleepers there is to witness a momentary arrest in time, to be present at a spectacle which is as much cultural as it is religious and spiritual. I often have the sense that through all the brief stories narrated in the countless epitaphs a yet greater story is being told, one which goes beyond the elaborate ceremonies of some theatre of the sacred, transforming these into a dialogue with those same timeless mysteries to which no one has an answer. It is a story told and retold and it points to the necessity to give dignity and value to that which was and is no more, to grope for a solution to the fateful and persisting question of our mortality as we tearfully plod on in the fragile hope that our more treasured memories will at a future time, by some miracle, be restored. By continuing to love our dead we are able in some way to love ourselves and, hopefully, others. Tending the memory of past affections may to a grieving person represent one more motivation for continuing to live the present. It is mainly for this reason that the Church, unworthy custodian of such mysteries though she be, is more to me than just a mere anthropological curiosity.

After reading his letter of apology to the Church in Ireland, my immediate consideration was that the pope's analysis of the hierarchy's whitewashing of sex scandals out of fear for the Church's reputation is valid, yet incomplete. He neglects to point out that today's woes are the dishonourable result of a centuries-old culture of secrecy which, though quite tarnished now by the current issue of offending clerics, is not altogether ignoble or without merit. Here I can explain myself by calling attention to the hill of Covignano, not far from where I live, where one can visit the fourteenth century friary Church of Our Lady of Graces. In one of its side chapels a glass reliquary holds the mortal remains of a Franciscan who was brutally tortured and killed in 1449 for refusing to disclose to the city's then mercenary leader, Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, the confessional secret of his second wife, Polixena. Still today, deep burn marks may be seen on the cranium, a testimony to the cruel brandings the priest was made to suffer. Upon the ossuary an inscription remembers Friar Sebastiano Lombardi, who was later beatified, as a 'martyr of the confessional seal'. When entering the church I am always reminded of the age-old guarantee within Catholicism of preserving confidentiality with penitents. As a licensed counsellor consulting in Italy my own preparation leads me to appreciate the complications posed by this policy, since a similar discretion is presented by the deontological requirement of psychologists and others within my professional community. Yet the complexity of this matter is rendered evident when we consider that priests, too, are encouraged to go to confession. With this in mind we may appreciate that, as confessor and confidant, the priest is to his parish what his own bishop is to him, viz. ideally a benevolent parent figure to whom he might turn for private counsel and with whom he feels any confessional secret would be safe. In the light of this sacramental complicity between clerics and their superiors, are we really to be so surprised that unreported child abuse cases would, at some point or another, have surfaced? Should this observation ring as a defence for present allegations under investigation or appear to exonerate the guilty, I hope I am not misunderstood. I simply mean to remark upon the fact that from its very origins the culture of secrecy within the Catholic Church has, in all effects, been part of the furniture since earliest times.

While the sacrament of confession may here be predictably seen to bode ill for the Church's institutional framework, I do think it lacks some sensitivity and insight to dismiss it all as some hypocritical rite which casually excuses wrongdoing and invests the power of God's forgiveness, by some dubious form of priest craft, in a mere man. Despite the uncovering of various abuses of the sacrament in recent years, when responsibly administered - as is usually the case - it rather represents a space within which, by reflecting critically upon one's life, one is invited to identify any shortcomings in the light of a sincere resolve to redress any harmful behaviour in the future. The idea of going to somebody else to tell of one's failings and express contrition further drives home the fact that, much like accountability, forgiveness is also a human question and does not come without a cost. Indeed a part of one's penance is precisely the recounting of those shortcomings to another human being who, at that moment, represents all those whom the penitent has wronged. In the face of a serious crime, instead of making pardon appear cheap confessors are instructed to accompany the penitent in assuming due responsibility as well as comprehending the full gravity of the deed. Though the minister of the sacrament can repeat nothing of what is mentioned, absolution may be withheld and the penitent advised to inform the police of his/her actions.

While nobody in their right mind would ever defend the more heinous crimes which a confessor or therapist entrusted with the secrets of others might hear, I nonetheless hold that a safe place for people to be frank about their wrongs and personal disappointments and be assured of confidentiality not only represents an important part of their own healing process but may also protect further victims from future injury. My own professional experience satisfies me that as long as the offender is undergoing self-examination, some first steps at least are being taken to hopefully address the problem. Moreover, the opportunity is thus presented to appeal to conscience, to accept responsibility and, according to the gravity of the case, to invite courage in taking the matter to the law. The confessional thus assumes the value of promoting a process which has, as its prime objective, the integrated development of a more responsible and self-aware celebration of humanity. Admittedly, however, echoing within the confessional box among the penitent's purifying resolutions is the hint of a warning that the same intimate space may also betray its antithesis. The presence of a confessional at the back of every church denotes the unspoken acknowledgement of a possible taste for the forbidden, a curiosity of things prohibited and the temptation to dabble in that which by its very shamefulness may be rendered secretive. When not put to the purpose for which it was originally intended the confessional risks evoking precisely what it means to discourage: a teasing provocation, among other things, to trespass into the realm of the transgressive, including some of the very criminal acts we have being witnessing in recent years.

Here, between thesis and antithesis there may be a fine line indeed and it is to this paradox within Catholicism that I mean to turn next. Though I do not wish to suggest that all such transgressions are of a sexual nature, having once lived in South Africa as a candidate friar in two separate religious orders in the early nineties, I well remember not only hearing 'inside stories' of priests who were over-fond of young seminarians but being also among the subjects to whom such affections were on occasion directed. In fairness to the gay clergy in question I have to say that, upon gracefully declining their solicitations, I never found them persistent. Nor did I especially encounter any overt indignation on their part towards our unshared sexual orientation provided, perhaps understandably, that they did not feel judged or derided on account of their preferences which, being neither endorsed nor checked from above, were largely met with indifference by superiors. I now suspect, in retrospect, that this was owing to the fact that finally it was the heterosexuals who were in more danger of compromising the community's identity. Having no chance of ending up with some accidental pregnancy, gay relationships were at considerably less risk of becoming complicating -or expensive- to the order. Nonetheless, if community members gave vent to their sexual desires it was more the exception to the rule than a commonplace practice. Homosexual brothers remained in the minority and nothing gave me the impression they were any less committed to their vocations and to celibacy than their heterosexual confreres. To illustrate my point I relate one episode in particular which comes to mind. It happened once that the novice master was unexpectedly called from the house to urgently attend for some days to a private family matter. Being out preaching retreats, the priory's two remaining priests were also away, so leaving the three novices at liberty to take advantage one night of their superiors' absence and invite some ladies over for a sleep-in.

Before we point a self-righteous finger at the sexual exploits of a few novices we do well to remember that the incident treats of consenting adults and that these were not ordained men, but students for the priesthood. Obviously this is not all that was happening in the Novitiate and I do not wish to paint a picture of some hedonist club in which everyone went about merrily unleashing their sexual passions in blissful abandon. This was not the case. The life of the order's founder and the Rule of Saint Augustine was being studied and a genuine care was being taken to assist young aspirants in weighing up their future choices by encouraging time for reflection. Gardening in the cloister was one such moment, and was designed to cultivate a climate of silence, prayer and private discernment. Moreover, no small attention was paid to the spiritual and psychological development of the novices. As to the incident to which I have referred, I later came to learn that, though all three novices in the class of 1990 subsequently left the order, one alone ended up making solemn vows and living some years as a friar. In fairness I must add that, though it soon came as no surprise to me that candidates for the priesthood continue to discover their sexuality during their training, I generally had the sense that, upon concluding their studies, the vast majority of ordained clergy are able to creatively channel these not insignificant energies into committed and responsible service within their communities. That said, to my knowledge no priest or nun among the healthier and more integrated personalities I have known over the years has not fallen hopelessly in love with someone at some point during their parish or mission activities (more open discussion on these matters has been encouraged in enlightened seminaries and religious houses of formation since the Second Vatican Council). Whether just once or a number of times, whether gay or straight, consummated or no, the stories I have heard treat always of consenting adults and I have never directly learned of minors being abused. Mind that the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience are not some kind of magical formula promising automatic fidelity but are intended instead to help nuns and priests to become poor, chaste and obedient over the course of their lives. All the same, none of this convinces me that the only great challenge for consecrated persons lies in the area of sex and love, which certainly are not necessarily synonymous. Whenever quizzed on the matter, the majority have told me they encounter more difficulty with the vow of obedience than they do with that of chastity.

But to return briefly to my experience, two years sufficed for me to arrive at a decision to eventually discontinue - or at least interrupt - my adventure. Contrary to popular horror stories associated with a traditional Catholic upbringing, it was the fruit of very happy years passed as a student in two different schools run by the Marist Brothers which formed my initial romance with the priesthood and, though deeply content as a married man today, for some years afterwards I continued to believe I had a vocation. Being nineteen and very ingenuous when I entered the priory, I may say that the only defence for having allowed myself to be so scandalized was my tender age. Indeed I remember having a sense of the fathers being relieved, perhaps rightly so, to be rid of one too green to see the humanity of the Church for what it was. A matter-of-fact comment from a senior member of the order made it clear that they had suspected as much from the outset. Upon learning of my desire to join the order, his suggestion to me was to 'go, get drunk and have some sex before you enter'. A good-humoured taunt on the whole, yet flung out so glibly and, as I remember, with the slightest hint of irritation, that my later experience among postulants and novices led me to view this particular priest as a wizened old cynic who knew all too well that it was frankly unrealistic to presume that the order's young recruits would not bring their libido with them into the Church. What was hoped was that over the ensuing years in the seminary, around seven in all, the selection committee would be able to reach an informed choice upon the suitability of candidates following long examination of, among other things, what kind of relationship they had developed with their own sexuality and whether they had truly understood that celibacy is really more a commitment to community life than it is simply a sexual decision.

The attitude of the order's father provincial is an example of the apparently unspoken consensus among seminary rectors and professors from around the middle of the last century to cast a blind eye to some of the sexual activity about them, provided that it was discreet, that it did not disrupt the smooth running of the community and that no single member became so attached to another as to compromise his availability to study abroad or be transferred elsewhere. This all has its own logic when we consider that new reflections emerging after the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), just two decades after the war, meant unprecedented debate on the role of the Church in the world. After the horrors of fascism and dictatorship, then still fresh in everyone's mind, the Council's welcome developments coincided with an already existing mistrust for authority and a curiosity for experimenting with the very alternatives which few before had entertained the courage to propose. The same revolution from within initialized a process of shaking a moribund, top heavy model of Church government which had evolved little since medieval times.

It was years after my experience in the priory and following some time of oscillating between a sour feeling of betrayal by the Church and a nagging nostalgia for its simple liturgies and sense of the sacred that I began to believe that to indignantly close the door upon it all would be to deny a not insignificant aspect of my personal identity. It would be to disown a relevant part of a noble and shared history which traverses centuries and connects my own faith story to that of countless men and women, living and dead, of all cultures and ethnicities. I now postulate that, in the wake of my early disillusionment among the friars, what led to the initial estrangement from Catholicism was the subconscious expectation on my part that Holy Mother Church should for once live up to her name and be truly 'holy'. What had infuriated me, indeed, was the great resounding thunderbolt of an experience which had pressed me to unwillingly acknowledge just how human the Church can be. Yet shedding one's illusions might all be just another ingredient to growing up, which includes some cultivation of tolerance and an outlook which is less easily satisfied by superficial criticism. I have since preferred the view that it is in its progress towards an ever more adult response to the message of Christ that the Church is invited, instead, to become holy. Rather than representing an obstacle to the Church, the humanity of its members forms an integral part of its vocation. To quote the words of Benedict XVI in his Urbi et Orbi address of Christmas 2006: 'Christ does not save us from our humanity but through it'.

Notwithstanding the many contradictions, what convinces me to remain a Catholic today is an objective look at the consecrated men and women in the Church who have made the choice to commit themselves to its service. Here I do not wish to paint a rosy picture as certainly I see the glaring eyesore of aging men and women who grieve at how fast the years have passed, disappointed by the antics of careerists among their ranks or demoralized by the lack of young blood joining their once teeming religious houses. I see cynical priests and nuns who reluctantly preach love yet struggle to endure those in the very religious communities in which they live and whom they call brother and sister and I see the desperate cases known to us all: the disillusioned spinsters and bachelors, the solitary, dejected alcoholics. Yet is the Church only about hypocrisy or antiquated piety or some dated model of centralist authority? Though I can only speak from my own experience, I can say that my years in South Africa, as well as those in Italy, have also revealed to me a genuine vitality, fuelled by that more numerous group of priests and nuns whose contribution is valued by their communities and who, despite their human limitations, continue to serve faithfully and prayerfully.

It is for this generally positive experience that, in the light of the past abuse of children by priests, I deem it frankly myopic to pretend to trace such behaviour to institutional bachelorhood or to suggest that one corrects these offences by eradicating mandatory clerical celibacy. Similarly, although personally in favour of married clergy I do not believe an option for the vowed life or for holy orders is less difficult than a life of being married. Neither am I of the opinion that people in convents or friaries are fleeing reality or that they somehow have it easier than most single or married people. Much like living in a family, commitment to a religious community includes no less the challenge to maintain and defend the way of life in which one has chosen to invest one's efforts. In either circumstance, and in varying degrees of earnestness and forbearance according to personality, this often takes the form of courageously trying to cultivate patience in the face of differences, compromising sometimes on leisure and comforts and generally working towards a climate of stable interpersonal communication. Such sacrifices belong to the realm of any lifelong pledge and they do not discriminate on the basis of whether a person is married or celibate. Past and current sessions with clients at my counselling practice lead me to believe that it is simply indefensible to privilege celibacy as some form of psychic incubator for personality disorders or mental instability (married or single lay people with similar problems are no exception). Though certainly the form and typology of personal crises do vary according to circumstances, I remain unconvinced that they come any less with lay people than they do with celibates. Instead, it is the idea of a lifelong commitment which raises issues. We must remember that holy orders, the vowed life and marriage were all instituted at a time in which few people expected to live beyond fifty years of age at most. It follows then that, upon considering that I will probably die at around forty-five I may more easily be persuaded to become a faithful husband, charismatic preacher or pious friar for the remaining twenty-five years of my life. Given our present longevity owing to improved dietary practices and advances in medical science, if we ask a woman to wake up in the same bed beside the same man for a further sixty-five years or a monk to live the Rule of Saint Benedict for as much time, good intentions notwithstanding it becomes frankly unrealistic to expect that they will never be at least tempted to dishonour their original commitment - perhaps not so much for the need be unfaithful as for the pedestrian bore of doing the same things week after week or of going to choir four times a day.

That said, as to the introduction of fresh reforms concerning the way priests are trained, rather than insisting upon ditching celibacy or naively believing that married clergy are likely to be less criminal, perhaps we should have a level-headed look at what any lifelong commitment begins to entail in the world of today. At the risk of trying to heal the Church by applying new plasters to old wounds, in supporting both married people and priests in their appreciation of the responsibility of their vocations we might more effectually protect our children by having a constructive rethink about what kind of interior tools are necessary in contemporary society to such committed roles as these.

To conclude, and to return to the pontiff's pastoral letter to the Irish Church, certainly I share his sad allusion to the general despondency of many who are perhaps too enraged by past hypocrisy and negligence to ever willingly enter a church again. I am sure he laments seeing the faithful abandoning the Church to its hapless demise or even hoping that it finally close shop altogether as yet another inept institution which has failed its users and which, some may conclude, has done more harm than good in recent years. However, this to me would be tantamount to amputating a gouty foot instead of taking measures to first remedy the complaint. Being an Irishman myself I think that on this score I can vouch for the Catholic Church as being too integral a part of Irish social, political and cultural life to be sacrificed without considerable loss to Irish identity as a whole. Yet here I see the ball squarely in the pope's court, at least in marshalling the necessary foresight to gauge that when the call for blood is loud enough then some sacrifice must needs be made in order to salvage what modest consensus remains – or else the ship may sink altogether. However much this call for blood be well-informed or misinformed, whether media tactics were or were not more malicious than usual or whatever measure of adult reasoning may or may not have prompted it all in the first place becomes peripheral to an overriding sense that, rather than compromising the collective, sometimes it is deemed more honourable to simply save face and devise a graceful exit strategy. It is thus with no small regret that I begin to believe at this point that only the pontiff's resignation could really send a message to Ireland and to the world that Rome is on the side of all the faithful, whether consecrated or lay, and that she acknowledges that it is time to turn over a new page in the handling of clerical abuse, so bringing fresh transparency and a spirit of cooperation in addressing what we justly term righteous anger. I do not say this out of some perverse desire to see Josef Ratzinger humiliated. I have much respect for him as a man of esteemed learning and immense spirituality, a talented thinker whose life has been marked by noble and generous service to the Catholic family worldwide. Whether successive generations will consider him a casualty of his time or not, as one whose great fidelity and devotion to the Church has always convinced me, I little doubt that the man who now wears the ring of the fisherman would not hesitate to resign were he persuaded that such a gesture would be for the good of the Church at large.

Dott. Nicolaas F. Fouche
(BA Soc. MA Couns. MBACP)
COUNSELLOR PROFESSIONISTA
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47900 Rimini ITALIA
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