If the church ordained women, there would be no sex abuse crisis

You are absolutely right that the clerical culture is to blame.

What saddens me, because I thought it would be different, is that women are just as likely to succumb to the worst aspects of clericalism. Two cases in point: Women in positions of authority in dioceses and chanceries can be just as bureaucratic, unfair and otherwise difficult to deal with. And ordained women in other Christian can exhibit all the signs of clericalism, including the fixation on rank and priviledge.

It is actually one of the reasons that I think that the Spirit as yet holds us back from admitting women to the clerical state in our own church. Perhaps we need to do a great deal of soul searching and look for real conversion. It might be less important who ministers and more important how they minister.

Women not in the 'ranks of power' might be able to provide that model for ministry without clericalism, so that when they are finally ordained, it will be to a renewed diaconate and presbyterate.

Thank you for this column---I have been saying just this for a while now; women would not tolerate the elephant in the living room that is the clerical subculture that pursues illicit sex with boys and/or women while passing as celibate to their parishioners. And there is no way that other brother priests and bishops didn't know about this but it was just understood this was something tolerated but never talked about. Women priests would never have allowed that...

First, Catholics drink Jameson's not Bushmill's.

Seriously,

1. Women priests would not be free of sexual misconduct, no more than women in the general population are free of sexual misconduct..it would just be a different set of issues.

2. It places improper and excessive responsibility on women to argue that women are by nature less prone to bad judgement than men. All people, regardless of gender, have potential for grevious sin and are responsible for their actions to God.

For a more expansive development of this topic, please see this writer's 2001 Saint Martin's publication:

The Unhealed Wound: The Church, the Priesthood, and the Question of Sexuality

Oh, Kennedy's words are so true. Thank God someone is saying this at last. I am now in my 70's, and it took me until my 40's before I cried "foul" and decided to do what I thought was best for me. I stopped believing in a God who was waiting for me to sin so I could be punished. I was a Director of Religious Ed for many, many years, and had quite a few pastors who simply tolerated me.

However, as sad as it is, there is one thing about which I now laugh wholeheartedly - the old one about girls being careful because if anything happened of a sexual nature on a date, it was the girl's fault. This is as bad as saying it was Eve's fault that Adam ate the apple - what kind of a stupid dummy was he?

Great. NCR, your writers should talk to each other. It would be instructive if Eugene Cullen Kennedy would read this article by Thomas Doyle: http://www.richardsipe.com/Doyle/2009/sexual_abuse_by_nuns.htm . He and Richard Sipe have both written for NCR on abuse. Both seem equally dismissive of "clerical culture," but they clearly would disagree with Kennedy's blanket assertion that sisters/women do not abuse.

.....and it will be the women who will rebuild our church, now in shambles, no less than any whore house that eventually implodes. Instead of hearing, "Francis, build my church," we'll be hearing "Frances or Francine, build my church"..... Yes, changes are needed before this hour can be!

I support women priests IF they are not part of the clerical culture. However, the writings of Mary Ann Dolan, the first woman editor of a major newspaper, indicates that many women who have the ambition to get to the top jobs have imbibed the dominant culture and are just as bad as the men they complained about. See Dolan, "When Feminism Failed," NY Times, 6-26-88. http://www.nytimes.com/1988/06/26/magazine/when-feminism-failed.html

Thank you for this. It is already telling that the ascendancy of women during the later half of the 20C is probably what brought the sexual abuse of children into the light of day, as women (some most likely themselves victims) began to populate, in numbers greater than ever before, fields like the medical and legal profession where they could more easily see the problem, work towards solution and effect change.

L.

If clerical culture was the essential breeding ground for sex abuse, why is the sex abuse problem in the Catholic Church SMALLER than among any other religious group or demographic? We have to remember that the largest group of abusers are married men and women. The largest so-called institutional group is public school teachers. Women are allowed to marry and be teachers, correct? Women are school principals and superintendents, correct? Women are on school boards, are mayors and government leaders, correct? Using your logic, they only instances of sex abuse in the history of the world would be the Catholic Church. However, reality says the opposite--the "clerical" Church is actually much better off that the scouts, little league, or any public school!

The counter example is that:

1. Women's religious orders tolerated psychological, physical, and yes sexual abuse by troubled women in their midst for a very long time
2. Those same orders have tried to "soft pedal" the issue, content to hide behind the abuses by male priests and religous
3. The response of those orders when confronted has been every bit as "corporate" as dioceses and religious orders of men

The problem is that institutions tend to try to preserve themselves and their members, at the expense of outsiders, and even the Truth.

I therefore must reject the author's premises and his conclusion.

I have a little trouble sympathizing with Kennedy because while "the Church" appears male dominated (until you get into the offices, advocacy groups, diocesan employees,and other places where women are in positions of influential leadership), you are still left with the fact that individual "churches" (i.e. parish staffs) are largely run by women.

Of course this question has more to do with governance and authority than theology, and the kind of inclusiveness that Kennedy is talking about takes theology as part of series of antiquated token gestures such as saying "your majesty" or perhaps more applicable for Kennedy referring to senior clergy members as "your excellency" or "your eminence". The language of church teaching can then be deconstructed to mean whatever someone wants it to mean.

Of course it would be easier to reformulate our understanding of Christ and the Church into a genderless uniform, because it would seem to be clear that the normative language provided by the New Testament is also a byproduct of its times. In this view, "in persona Christi" should have little to do with mirroring the intrinsic relationship between Christ and His bride the Church and more with gender politics.

This is all part and parcel with the times we live in, where gender is a matter of self-designation and identity rather than anything ontological. Gender is instead understood as being socially conditioned. When this happens, we are left only with the biological identification of our sex, and that too is no longer a clear indication of gender. When we embrace this ideology, then any talk of gender designation in Church language is rendered meaningless.

The history of our faith celebrates the interplay between the masculine and feminine, as witnessed to in all walks of life: in the family, through the saints, in our parishes, and even ultimately within the relationship between Christ and His bride the Church. At all walks, including in the sex abuse crisis, women have been a prophetic voice that have combated the excesses of clerical culture. But that in itself isn't a reason for women to be ordained priests.

And it should be noted that far and away, the experience of everyday Catholics shows that sexism and male chauvinism are intolerable and priests today go to great lengths to remind us of this. Precisely for this reason, I believe it's wrong to equate an all-male ordained clergy as sexism in today's church. The problem is when the clergy is equated with power rather than servitude. This isn't about equality, about women being raised up to a higher position of power precisely as clergy. We would do better to advocate for more transparency in the hierarchy, where there is accountability for clergy, and where the laity embraces its role in providing that accountability. Making women priests doesn't solve that problem and we shouldn't boil the struggle for the reform of clerical culture to gender politics. We have not exhausted our need of a unique priesthood whose role it is to stand in the person of Christ the Bridegroom.

I believe Eugene Kennedy is sincere in his statements that the sexual abuse of children by priests would not have gone on if there were women priests somehow keeping the entire clerical structure more balanced. Unfortunately, I cannot agree with this simplistic argument, although I do support the ordination of women who are called to the priesthood. The sad fact is that sexual abuse of children goes on in secular society at an alarming level, and all too often it goes on at home, right under the mother's nose. Sometimes these mothers know what's going on, sometimes they have their suspicions, and sometimes they are completely oblivious. Sexual abuse of children is a problem we still do not entirely understand, but you can be sure that abusers are powerful manipulators who have elevated deceit to a high art. The best defense against such persons is the education and empowerment of children themselves, who must be taught from a young age that it is safe to speak the truth and that they will be believed and protected if they do so. Far too many adults still, to this day, live, believe and teach that obedience is the highest virtue, thus making it far too easy to prey upon the "obedient child."

How can one not be glad that Professor Kennedy has lost none of his one-track imagination?

Oh, yes. If women truly are for only one function, procreation, then the decision of Bishop Olmstead to excommunicate Sr. McBride becomes perfectly rational. It doesn't matter if the mother died -- the procreative result of the sex act must be defended at all costs because it originated from the actions of the superior male. So what if the mother died. One can always find another woman somewhere to be the 'vessel'.

I love men -- have been married to one for nearly 57 years. But I have also dealt with misogynist men all of my 80 years. One doesn't need to be a theologian to recognize unhealthy cultures, and Eugene C. Kennedy has described the unhealthy clerical culture perfectly. And he isn't even female!

What utter rubbish! Ever heard of Protestant denominations with both married and female ministers and just as much (or perhaps even more) sex abuse than in the Romana? If not, spend half an hour surfing on the internet and you'll be well informed. Women are just as sinful as men, sometimes maybe in different ways, but certainly not less. We all live in the same broken world and have to fight equally hard to conquer our own selfish desires. Don't use the sex abuse crisis in order to grind your own axe. It is unfair towards the victims and it won't do your case any good.
"Healthy women do not put up with unhealthy men". True, but not all women are healthy, nor all men unhealthy. And of course you can turn this around: 'Healthy men do not put up with unhealthy women'. There are about as many unhealthy specimens of one as of the other kind.

I have thought it interesting that the institutional church refers to itself in the female gender (Holy Mother Church) and yet denies women full participation in the miniistry.

This is an interesting hypothesis, however I think that women as well as men are capable of developing and aiding a clerical culture. I think you are right about about the abuse issue, however we run the same into ot he same problem when ever we establish anyone or any group as better than and above it all. Don't do that to women. Sheila

Mr. Kennedy is entirely too optimistic about the role of women within a clerical culture. Many of the women who work in the Chancery Officies in the United States are more 'culturally clerical' than the priests they work for. It is easy also to point out holy dedicated women, and holy dedicated clerics who are spending themselves working for the coming of the Kingdom of God.

As to 'ordained women' being a good anchor for moral stability within the parishes and offices of the Church -- take a good look at our Episcopalian brethren -- just to take two examples -- lately they have just ordained an announced notorious lesbian Bishop to follow up on their announced homosexual Bishop of New Hampshire. It is hard not to have 'schadenfreude' in such circumstances.

Yay!

The biggest example of male superiority is that Jesus is God. A god who
created man and woman as equals would not have chosen to become a "man"
rather than a "woman." Either choice would have been wrong because the God
of the Universe is not prejudiced. Jesus is not God. Therefore we can
resolve the issue of male superiority. Male and female are equal though
different.

I think that it is more important that the laity win real power in the church than that women are permitted to join the "priestly elite" if the sexual abuse scandal is to be fixed and the "clerical culture" changed. There seems to be no major sex scandal in the Eastern Orthodox churches even though they have an all-male priesthood. But unlike the Roman church, not only are their priests allowed to marry, but, more important, their laity has a strong voice in the hiring and removal of the priests who serve their congregations. I believe that it is more important to have a watchful laity which possesses real power to solve this problem than to let the "girls" join the exclusive "boys' club".

This is sexism, but from the other side of the coin. It is as preposterous to suggest that the abuse crisis would never have occurred if there were women priests as to say that, as many feminists have, that war would not exist if only women ruled. This is ideological fantasy and does the cause of women's ordination no justice.

I realized how unhealthy the RCC is towards women when my then 8 year old said she wanted to be Pope when she grew up. Her brothers, 6 and 9, immediately jumped on her with unbounded enthusiasm and said, "You can't. You are not a man." She, broken-hearted, asked her Mom and me "If Jesus doesn't love me as much as my brothers." She didn't buy our explanation even though we told her we thought there was no valid reason for a woman not to be a priest.

What really struck me, however, was that these two young boys already had somehow picked up that the RCC thought women are less loving of Jesus than males and not "as good as males" in the eyes of the Church.

Later I told this story to a well known Jesuit theologian who acknowledged that the RCC has a problem with women and affirmed that she, "may be Pope but not in my lifetime".

My daughter is much older now; has visited Rome and Assisi and argued over lunch with the Franciscan Superior General that women should be allowed to be priests. I'd say she has adapted just fine...but is still a terrible loss to the RCC because she has all the attributes of an excellent priest except a penis.

It would seem your conclusion is that there are no sex abusers, who also happen to be women. Since that statement is untrue, your hypothesis is flawed.

There is no litmus test for abusers that I am aware of, and if there is one, simply being a female priest does not a good priest make.

Caroline McCoy-Hansen ( a mother of two)

Your hypothesis assumes that if a priest is a women, there will no longer be abuse. That is more than flawed, it borders on ridiculous.

As a women and a mother of two, I am very comfortable knowing my children were safe, with all of the priests I they were exposed to.

You have fallen for the temptation of the ages, by the great tempter. Even your salacious writing indicates where you thoughts are coming from. At your age, with as they say, "One foot on the grave, and one on a banana peel," I would rethink my premise if I were you.

I will say a prayer for you.

Caroline McCoy-Hansen

Eugene it would have been good if you had also showed in your writing up, how the 'ordnation' of women among other Christian denominations has affected cases of sexual abuses, and the status of women in relation to the so many cases of sexual abuses in the society or even among families, in ths respect. Even without going into the theological reasons why the Church only ordain men as priests, I think your arguments are very unconvincing.

I agree that having women priests would have impacted the current crisis before it became a crisis. My father, who studied to be a priest, here in the states and in Rome, promised me women priests before he died. Alas, that promise was not kept. He died in 2001. It is high time that the Church recognize the great works accomplished by women and permit them to serve the faithful as priests.

Well stated! You are indeed a courageous man to release these thoughts to the press. I have said similar statements for years but few men will agree. After all I'm only a woman...a woman who has earned a Master of Divinity degree in a Catholic seminary. At the beginning of a semester quite a few years ago a new seminarian asked me if I was a sister. When I replied that I was not, he said, "Then what are you doing here? You should be at home cooking or cleaning." Fortunately, he was the only person who verbalized thoughts of that nature to me. The majority of the men were open-minded, cordial, talented and intelligent people who welcomed others to Church ministry. With today's present conservative Church, I probably would not be permitted to pursue the same course of studies, nor welcome to join my classmates in social events.
The good old boy's club is alive and very well, as the author stated.
But God loves us all, and invites both men and women to serve as disciples in ministry. Equally.

I respect Eugene Kennedy's insights and welcome his weekly writing in the NCR. On this topic, I have my reservations. I have seen within the Episcopal Church a clerical culture that is centered around women of power, abusing their power often simply because they can. I doubt they would reform a clerical culture in any setting. As one bishop I worked for years ago said, "I am in favor of ordaining women, but not the ones that are demanding it." One gender's power politics is no better than the other's.

Even if we all want women priests, it doesn't change the fact that the Church has no authority to ordain women.

I wonder, if the church permitted men to become pregnant would the abortion rate drop? but again in this situation the Church has no authority to allow to male species to become pregnant.

If the Church would allow 1+1 to equal 3 it could solve the problem of world debt, however the Church has no authority to change this either.

What a shame you don't recognize that the Catholic Church is not an institution of power that you wish it to be, but one which recognizes its own limits and responsibilities.

I would suggest reading Ordinatio Sacerdotalis with an open mind.

NO sex abuse crisis? I think that statement is way too pie-in-the-sky.

I don't doubt that the problems would have been many fewer, but none? There are incidents on the record of sisters/nuns abusing girls and boys.

Professor Kennedy raises some valid points about the sometimes boyish clergy culture being changed if women could become Roman Catholic priests.

However, he fails to make note of the abuse of children by some religious sisters, the Magdalen laundries in Ireland being an example, and the spate of sexual abuse cases involving female public school teachers in the USA.

I personally have no problem with women priests, having become friends with several women clergy, including a fairly High Church Episcopal priest, but I don't believe they'd be the cure-all for sexual abuse.

So, do you admit the possibility of unhealthy women in the priesthood as well?
What is to say that the clerical culture could not include women abusers as well as men? A priesthood of any sort still leaves out the laity like it or not.

Great truth in this article by Kennedy. John A Sanford wrote many wonderful books about the need for balance in the priesthood, both males and females and how in each man and woman there are both hormones present (male and female). How Jesus was a sexually mature, well-rounded, healthy sexually and emotionally. John A Sanford was a priest for 19 years, a parent and husband and a psychologist too. Jesus chose 7 Women Apostles as well as 12 Male Apostles. Paul names as well many women too (Romans, NT). Both sexes have real Apostolic Succession. Junia is called "Foremost, Outstanding among the Apostles". It is necessary to ordain women too in the church.

Sigh - one more time someone has confused sexual abuse with sex. It isn;t. It's rape.

But there is also a fallacy involved when one assumes that by virtue of their sex that womwn are less likely to abuse power when they have it - they aren't. They just currentlu have fewer venues of abuse.

The issue is openness. Tell the truth even when it is costly.

It is honesty and faithfulness - to marriage vows to chasity beofre marriage and to chastity within holy orders. It isn;t brain surgury - it is just remembering that "having it all and wanting it all" may be American - it isn;t faithfully Christian. It is not our call in Christ.

linda, osc

I am an ordained clergy in a faith group (United MEthodist) that has been ordaining women (in parts of its tradition) since the late 19th century and that has granted full clergy rights to women since 1956. John Wesley even allowed women to preach in Methodist "societies" (Methodism in England was a "renewal" movement within the Anglican Church) in the 18th century. One of the United MEthodist women who is ordained clergy is my wife of nearly 28 years and the mother of our children.
Much as I might like to uncrticially applaud Kennedy's statement, I cannot. We do still have "straying" clergy. We do still even have pedophiles on occasion in the ranks of clergy. I can say that such behavior is rarely, if ever, "tolerated" or "covered up" by United Methodist Bishops (who wield as much power over the "appointment" of clergy as Romas Catholic Bishops do).

Women would not have put up with it. It's true. Thank you for confirming what I've been saying all along. This male domination of the church is like allowing the fox to guard the hen-house. They should never be left to their own devices because they seek power and domination over everything else. It is natural for females to protect the children. It should also be natural for the males to try to protect families.

It is true in the abstract that "Healthy women do not put up with unhealthy men", but we self-select our life's work in part to solve our own wounded souls.

I am a Pediatrician. Medicine is quite thoroughly sexually integrated now, but I see the same pathologies played out by both genders; the same need for power, the same egos devastated in childhood working out their 'issues' in how they treat patients and one another, the same (at times) genetically based psychiatric difficulties.

I see some physicians and nurses who enter medicine for pathological reasons. Invariably when there are women priests, as I pray will happen, there will be some who enter for unhealthy reasons, just as some men (a minority) have entered wrongly acting out their own illnesses. I think it is a vast oversimplification to assert that the predatory behaviors which are possible whenever there are significant disparities in power or reputation would not exist, simply because of the presence of both genders. The need for self-glorification transcends the sexual boundary.

Respectfully.

Eugene, you speak the truth. The saddest part of an all male clergy is that our view of God is skewed from childhood. God is neither male nor female, yet every "in Catholic church" experience emphasizes the masculine nature totally. Men and women are different, yet our homilies are always come from a male perspective. This is sadly ironic when we know that Jesus himself asked Mary Magdelene to be the first person to proclaim the good news of the resurrection and that women were more equal participants in the very early church. Ordination of all called to ministry - male or female - is long overdue.

Judging from his unbalanced and often emotional language in his observations, it seems to me that Mr Kennedy should be seeing a psychotherapist himself. He seems to forget that there is also a much higher percentage of child abuse in non-Catholic Christianity, according to the John Jay report, up to ten per cent in certain cases. In many of these groups, there are also "ordained" women, but again Mr Kennedy seems to conveniently forget these in order to bolster his own nonsensical theory about ordaining women. Really, NCR should not allow such rubbish to be printed in its pages.

To finish, I would not presume to go into all the distasteful aspects of his article, but I would like to quote Dr Samuel Johnson of "Lexicon" fame, in an aside to his Boswell, who had asked him to give an opinion on women preaching. He replied: "Sir, a woman preaching is like a dog walking on its hind legs. It is not well done, but one is surprised to see it done at all".

Peace.

Eugene once again you have spoken the truth in a profound way that very few in the church ever do. It gives me hope to knowing that someone like you can speak the truth without fear. I am most grateful.

"the longing for independence that is symbolized in the abortion struggle would have been lessened"
So the deliberate decision to kill a vulnerable dependent innocent in the womb is a symbol of a longing for independence?
How coldly selfish and cruel our society has become.

Wow! You take my breath away, Professor Kennedy. I wish I'd been able to take a course with you! Imagine, indeed. Of course, you will be attacked for this column, and protests will be lodged that you generalize and besmear all priests. There are, no doubt, many healthier priests who do not abuse children, who do not demean women, but even these are complicit.

I recognize in these times that many people (and even some bishops and cardinals) have been emboldened to criticize the Church's more unsavory traits. May your column help nourish that impulse toward tearing down the unhealthy clerical culture and building a Church truly dedicated to the Way.

Great article Professor Kennedy, I hope some of the male leaders in the Catholic church read it and think about what you have clearly stated in your article. Unfortunately, they are too busy trying to make excuses for the sexual abuse scandal that has been going on in the Church for centuries. The USBBC are off again focusing on making the health care bill that passes congress a target for another assult. I am sure they are hoping that this proposed legislation will take the minds of Catholic people in the pews off the sexual abuse scandal.

Your article reflects a surprising niavete about women. The female guards at the concentration camps and the scandal of the treatment of some girls in the orphanages of Belfast show women equally capable of cruel and abusive behaviour. Any soul male or female is capable of behaving in an abusive manner.There but for God's grace could go any one of us.
Putting the boot into catholic mothers who took great comfort and joy in the fact that their sons became religious is pretty shabby.Most mothers look forward to grandchildren and want to see their sons happy. Although they accept God's will I am sure many worry for their priest sons seeing them tiring and ageing premateurelu because of the demands of the ever critical laity and the anti priest mentality being fostered.
As for abortion it robs women of their female essence as surely as the crime of murder cost Lady Macbeth her peace of soul.

what you say is not true. abuse of children would occur whether women were ordained or not (and they should not be ordained). it's not the clerical culture that you want to put the blame on but human nature (original sin) that is the cause. women as well as men are capable of and have committed these sexual crimes against children. your resentment against clerical culture is pretty transparent Mr. Kennedy.

Mr. Kennedy, you make an assumption that women priests would be less susceptible to getting drunk on power, which is what the current Church crisis is really about, and extends beyond the "sex abuse crisis". It also sounds like you assume women are naturally and automatically morally superior to men.

Men may be physically and sexually more abusive in their quest for power, but women can equal them in emotional and spiritual abuse, as well as manipulation.

Therefore, in answer to your question, it is possible that the sex abuse scandal may not have happened had there been ordained women, however, another equally disturbing scandal may have taken its place.

The real problem, as I see it, is that Christianity--all denominations--has substituted the principles of building itself into a power on this Earth, where material wealth and social standing are more important than following Jesus; where outer appearances and posturing outrank the fruit of the Holy Spirit: "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control" (Gal. 5:22-23).

If we don't learn NOW that this is the root of the problem, we may be doomed to repeat scandal after scandal.

Thank you sir. You have spoken truth very eloquently. The age of woman is at hand whether or not the Catholic Church recognizes it.

WRONG VERB TENSE here:

"Clerical Culture was the essential breeding ground of the sex abuse crisis. This crisis was also hidden in the violet trimmed folds of this unique social milieu. It conferred respect, esteem, and the benefit of the doubt on those priests who could not earn it on their own and who carried out furtive erotic raids on the innocent in its maze-like structure. This culture allowed the unhealthy to pass for healthy and lead secret lives whose corrupt form they themselves did not understand."

PRESENT tense verbs ARE still needed here, cuz these good ole boyz ARE waging a fight to the death to preserve this clerical culture well into the FUTURE!

This hasn't prevented the Anglican and Episcopal churches from maintaining a pretty good clerical structure with all the pomp and circumstance of Rome

Yeah, right--and if *Jesus* had only been a woman, HE would have been a "better man" too--right??? Sheesh. What a ridiculous assertion.

Men who are priests don't need to be more "woman-like"--they need to be more CHRIST-LIKE. In other words, they need to be *real* men.

Wow! There is so much power and truth in these statements and yet they are so inflammatory for that very reason. I am sure many people won't be able to get past being offended to see the validity of the arguments. The more I read, the more I see, the more I study and pray, the more I realize "the Emperor has no clothes!"

I suggest the writer do an investigation on women in the priesthood of the Anglican church, especially the mpresiding bishop of the episcopal church. H e may be surprized at what he finds

"It should have tried letting women do the job"

It will never happen. There is a little item called "Ordinatio Sacerdotalis" which has been declared a part of the deposit of the faith. The Church has no authority to ordain women as I'm sure you know, Mr. Kennedy. So get over it, or better yet, go join the Anglicans. They even have homosexual bishops!