Sex Among The Sacred

An evolving sex scandalinvolving dozens of Roman Catholic priests and their often young parishioners has the media focusing on sexualpredators concealed for decades within religious institutions. Complete with cover-ups by higher-ups, thedisturbing stories of sex among the sacred has gained a life of its own in the mainstream media.

Over the past weekend, retiring Roman Catholic Archbishop Rembert Weakland ofMilwaukee "apologized" for having his archdiocese pay $450,000 to a 54-year-old man who said he hadbeen sexually assaulted by the archbishop 22 years ago. On May 28, 2002 while visiting with the Pope in Rome,President George W. Bush said , "I am concerned about the Catholic Church in America." Bushspokesman Ari Fleischer said the sex scandal was mentioned in the context of how it is damaging the influenceof the Catholic Church in U.S. society.

On May 28, 2002, Dateline NBC 's lead story dealt with allegations of widespread childmolestation within the Jehovah's Witnesses religious organization that has been kept secret. Former Churchelder Bill Bowen called the Jehovah's Witnesses a "pedophile's paradise." Mr. Bowen maintains a website that documents the shockingabuse. 

Here in Columbia, South Carolina on May 26, 2002, The State newspaper revealed thatthe 5,500 member First Baptist Church is facing a lawsuit alleging a church deacon working as a youthvolunteer raped a 12 year-old girl he knew through the church. The suit also alleges that the church's pastorfailed to check the deacon's past criminal record of such abuse and ignored parent's complaints about him.

What's new? Remember Sinclair Lewis' "Elmer Gantry", a 1927 novel and 1960movie that satirized the life of a slick and sleazy preacher who used and abused his congregants as prey forsex, money and power. Gantry, the ever-upwardly-mobile evangelist employed sex to save-the-souls of his youngfemale believers. Throughout human history, religious dogma has distorted the beauty and reality of humansexuality into an ugly aberration of guilt and repression.

When those "closest to God" in the priesthood and higher echelons of theRoman Catholic Church take the vows of celibacy, they purposefully turn away from the "aims and desiresof the world." Turning away from the "aims and desires of the world" is a most unnatural coursefor those who are the ultimate purveyors of spiritual advice on human sexuality to all the Roman Catholics inthe world. Antiquated and unrealistic doctrines about sex like celibacy and chastity were not of the Hebrewtradition. The first words God utters to Adam and Eve are found in Genesis 1:28: "Be fruitful andmultiply." The Christian Church has used a presumption that Jesus never married or engaged in sexualactivity, but no biblical or authoritative sources in the early Christian communities affirm his celibacy.

Some contemporary Catholic theologians suggest that behind the image ofJesus-the-celibate-male lies an imbedded sexism that seeks to support a social system affording men dominanceand privilege. The thought of a non-celibate Jesus was an anathema to the Church Fathers of the firstcenturies who established the connection between sex and sin. St. Ambrose wrote that, "The ministerialoffice must be kept pure and unspoiled and must not be defiled by coitus." St. Augustine (354-430) becamethe Church's greatest advocate for celibacy. He felt sex was always tainted and the "original sin"of Adam could only be passed on by intercourse and conception. Remarkably, St. Augustine said he considered anerect penis a visible sign of man's inner revolt against God.

Celibacy was used to expand the political power of the Catholic Church during theMiddle Ages. It was used to separate every priest from the economic and political ties of family inheritanceand local politics and bring them into a powerful international bureaucracy centered in Rome. The Church'seconomic power was further enhanced as celibacy was used to discontinue the inheritance of real estate frompriest to son. The Church became the owner as celibacy made Rome a power broker in real estate.

Meanwhile, monastic orders gained great power from mandatory celibacy in the 11th and12th centuries. Catholic scholars describe the phenomena of monastic homosexual activity as reachingproportions that the Church had never known previously. The celibacy-centered monastic movement and itsasceticism also found a powerful ally in St. Thomas Aquinas who taught that women were inferior beings whosebodies cause their emotions to rule over reason. Celibacy's sordid history is based on the pursuit of power.The issues of birth control and women in the clergy lurk behind the ugly revelations of sexual improprietiesamong the men in the clergy.

Religion's reactionary role in defining human sexuality from the denial of birthcontrol to the doctrine of celibacy in the priest hood is shameful. President George W. Bush's order to cutoff U.S. financial support for global population control efforts was political pandering to right-wingreligious zealots. Using religion to gain a big turnout of your "base" vote by engaging in apolitical act that allows millions of unwanted and uncared for babies to be born in poor countries isdisgraceful. It is wrong to debase your vow as a cleric by having sex with a young parishioner. It is alsoevil to use narrow, irrational, religious dogma for political purposes.

Tom Turnipseed is an attorney, writer, and civil rights activist in Columbia, South Carolina.