Palm Sunday, 2002
Fr. Dominic Taranto

In the past few weeks a large number of stories have appeared in the media concerning sexual abuse, particularly of children, on the part of Roman Catholic clergy. In place of the sermon that I had prepared for this Sunday, I feel that there are some important things that it would be appropriate to say about this issue. This weekend, Father Howden and I had a conversation about this, and it was clear to both of us that this matter has much more direct relevance to our church than we would like to think.

Some people look at these cases in the Roman Catholic Church, and think that the major issue is the sin committed against children by Roman clergy. I don't at all want to diminish at all the gravity of this sin, or say one word to suggest that what has happened has been of small importance. Jesus said that it would be better for a man that a millstone be hung around his neck, and he be cast into the sea, than that he cause one of His little ones to stumble. Many of the innocent have been spiritually harmed, some very grievously, by their abuse at the hands of those who should have nurtured and loved them as Christ's holy representatives.

It is very important, however, to recognize that there is an even more important and more fundamental problem involved here. I do not say this at all lightly, and this is not a rhetorical device, or a mere transitional phrase. There is an even more important and more fundamental problem involved here than the existence in the Roman Catholic priesthood of a relatively small number of pedophiles.

In all of human life, there is very little that is more certain than that human beings tend to use power over others to get what they want. Sometimes this is good, as when a teacher imposes order on a classroom. But with power over others, there is always a temptation to use this power wrongly in order to get something from others. This temptation to use power to get things, rather than to serve, is not restricted to any specific kind of power, or restricted to gaining any type of thing. Some people use religious authority to gain access to children for wicked purposes, some people use sexual power to gain money, some people use emotional power to get a certain behavior out of others. At this point, I don't care about the specifics, I just want to make the point that the deeper spiritual sin, that of abusing power to gratify the self rather than using power to serve the Lord, is a temptation that at some level every one of us faces, whether we pay attention to this or not. Clergy, laity, men, women, children, doctors, lawyers, nurses, teachers, housewives, office workers, everyone faces this temptation in numerous ways.

So, as egregious as the sins of the Roman Catholic priests who are making headlines are, there is a broader issue at play here, that is, the human disposition to sin by using power to abuse others. And this broader issue, the temptation to abuse power, is by no means at all restricted to the Roman Catholic priests who abused children, but is universal.

However, I do want to narrow our focus from this point on. While great deal of practical importance could be said, for example, about the differences between how men and women tend to abuse power, and the different ends that they seek, or how people who in society's eyes are weak can still be subject to this kind of temptation, rather than spending time on these sorts of issues, I want to focus on the abuse of power by the clergy of the church.

First of all, the Roman Catholic Church is our church, too. When problems like this surface in such spectacular ways as this in some other communion of Christ's body, we often immediately, if unconsciously, react by noting that it is happening somewhere else, to someone else. If something like this happened with some REC clergy in New York, we would be very focused on it, but since this issue involves Roman Catholic clergy, at least at a psychological level we can put some distance between ourselves and this scandal. But this is wrong. By wrong, I mean that if you think that this scandal does not involve us, you are simply factually mistaken. St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12, that if one part or member of Christ's body suffers, then the whole body suffers. Paul does not say that if one part suffers, everyone feels bad, he says and means that the body of Christ is an organic unity such that if one part of the body suffers injury or takes harm, particularly of a spiritual nature, then we all are affected in some way by this, regardless of whether we understand how or are even aware of the harm that comes to all of us. I will talk about more aspects of this later, but in some ways it is of course easy to see that the credibility of the whole body of Christ is affected by the sins committed by certain Roman Priests: the trustworthiness of the Christian ministry is called into question; the doctrine that fellowship in Christ's church and participation in His sacraments will produce spiritual growth and strengthening is held up to ridicule. The true tragedy in this is that this spiritual harm is so great precisely because these objections to the credibility of the clergy and even the truth of the Church's teachings are entirely rational ones. Make no mistake, I think that these criticisms can be answered, and that they do not constitute sufficient grounds for abandoning the Church, but they are legitimate criticisms, and do have weight.

Second of all, and this may be the most important point that I make this morning, the real scandal in the Roman Church is not the presence of pedophile priests. The real scandal is the complicity of the clergy of the entire Roman Catholic Church as a group in the sins of these priests. I am certainly not saying that every Roman Catholic priest covered up for a pedophile, or that every single Bishop was involved in transferring a priest known to have abused young people to another assignment. My point is that as a group or class of people, the clergy of the Roman Church clearly were not trustworthy to serve and protect their own people. The priesthood as an institution could not be relied upon to safeguard the interests of the weakest and most vulnerable members of their flock. I am deeply saddened that in every official response to this by the Roman Catholic Church that I have seen so far, I have not yet heard this fact clearly and explicitly recognized or repented of. I have seen Roman laity write about this, but I have not yet seen Roman clergy do so.

Now I want to make this point not because I want to attack the Roman church, or to suggest that Roman Catholics should leave their parishes. I make this point because the problem is real and of great importance, and also because we here in the REC face this same problem ­ that is, the temptation of the clergy to think of themselves as a separate group, a brotherhood, that needs to stand together for the good of the Church and the sake of Christ's ministry, even when fellow clergy use their clerical authority to exploit those over whom Christ has placed them.

I don't know how many of you heard this, but last week, wedged in between revelations of more Roman Catholic priests being relieved of duties because of misconduct, there was report of a lawsuit filed by a man against a Protestant minister, charging that he and the man's wife had been having an affair when the minister was supposedly doing marriage counseling. I have a friend who knows of a conservative, evangelical, church in which every member of a seven member elder board has been divorced. I do think that there are some extreme cases in which divorce is a biblically warranted option. But I strongly suspect that something is amiss when all seven of a church's elders have been divorced. Protestant ministers are tempted by power, sex, money, prestige, and the position of authority and respect that they rightly have gives them power with which to secure more power and the opportunity to use that power unlawfully.

And, what is worse, the temptation to use power wrongly also coincides with a temptation to look the other way when fellow clergy use power wrongly. If I cut him some slack, he will cut me some. If I refrain from criticizing this other fellow, then if I step over the line then someone will cover for me when I do. A 'code of silence' is embraced, and the clergy become an order unto themselves, not an order dedicated to the service of others in the love of God.

And there is always a reason to give for not holding a fellow clergyman to account. The prestige of the Church will be affected, or a dynamic ministry used of God will suffer, or, in the worst case, personalities or ideologies become so involved that the clergy take sides and the issue becomes political, not moral. Do not think that the Reformed Episcopal Church is above this. This is a problem that the clergy in the REC must constantly be on guard against, and it is a problem that has actually happened in the REC.

I want to close with a few of things that you all, the laity of our church, can and ought to do in light of these things. First, your own moral integrity is important because you need to have the ability and confidence in your ability to make wise moral judgments about others, if and when the need arises. Second, you need to be in constant prayer for the clergy of your church. Again, Jesus said that it would be better for a person to have a millstone hung around his neck, and that he be cast into the sea, rather than he make one of His little ones to stumble. The duty and responsibility of the clergy is immense, and as St. James notes, their judgment is more strict, and we earnestly beg your intercessions on our behalf that we live and do as Christ commands. Third, you must be prepared, if and when the situation arises, to support clergy who take a proper, godly, stand against injustice or abuse of power by other clergy. The power structures of all human institutions tend to try to suppress and discredit dissent. This tendency often works against efforts to hold people accountable for misuse of power and authority.

We ought to be humbled by the problems that are going on in the Roman church. Let us look at their sins and know that we too are beset with the same weaknesses and temptations each in our own lives, and must face these same problems as an institution.

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