Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Sexual Predation and Power Structures
As the slow tortuous agony of the revelation of sexual predation within the Catholic church unwinds, and the faithful of the Catholic Church mourn every new outrage, there has been an enormous amount of debate over the underlying causes of the abuses, and the nature of the coverups. For some outside of Catholicism, there has been also a horrible triumphalism, as if the scandals are entirely the fault of Christianity in general, Catholicism in particular, or dogmatic or doctrinal within Catholicism. I have seen denunciations of priestly celibacy, denunciations of anti-homosexual church teachings (such teachings being blamed for somehow repressing those who chose to go into the priesthood), and even suggestions from non-Catholic Christians that the Reformation has somehow shielded them from similar abuses and scandals. And yet, as the Houston Chronicle detailed over the weekend, another denomination, the Southern Baptists, is now facing its own horrible unearthing of decades of sexual abuse and protection of known or suspected sexual predators.
I have little doubt that other such investigations will be detailed in the coming years, and for other churches of other denominations. The fact of the matter is that sexual predation can occur in any power structure, and that who the perpetrators are, on whom they prey, and how they get away with their terror is ultimately a function of the organization, its distribution of power, and the strength of the self-policing within that structure. For the Catholic Church, this has been strongly (but by no means entirely) a series of cases of the abuse of younger males by older males, but this was mostly due to the environment where mostly males were employed, and mostly only younger males were in vulnerable positions. For the Southern Baptists, however, the issues seem to be mostly older males preying on younger females instead, because that structure put those two groups together. More than anything else, this should be pointing to something beyond doctrine or denomination, but instead towards something more fundamental and quite apart from issues of sexuality.
Both the Catholic Church and the Southern Baptists can be said to have sclerotic administrations, where many posts are awarded based on whom one knows and trusts. Both are organizations where much hinges on the personal reputations of the people in them, as they are neither of them are dealing in the realms of products and services like a business, but instead in issues of personal and societal morality. Accountability of the sort fairly common to the business world is harder to achieve, and the temptation to bury scandals instead of confronting them and uprooting them is very high as so much hinges on those personal reputations. In fact, and I do not mean this as a dig at Protestants here, I would go so far as to say that the Southern Baptists have a very high burden, as indeed most Protestant churches do too, in that the pastors and pastoral staffs can make or break a congregation – in Protestant churches, the sermon is the centerpiece of the service, and people are prone to leaving churches where the pastor is not personally engaging. Yet that same sort of charisma necessary for an engaging sermon, in the wrong person, also makes for an engaging charmer who is both able to, and in a position to abuse parishioners. I’ve seen this first hand and know whereof I speak.
As I said, though, this is not a dig at Protestants, merely pointing out that this is one area where they are especially vulnerable – the Catholic Church likewise has its vulnerabilities, as do Orthodox churches, as to Muslim mosques, or Jewish Synagogues. Many of these vulnerabilities are sexual in nature because these institutions (even when flawed or corrupted) serve as a source of societal morality. Sex is bound up with who we are as human beings, and religions inform how we live as human beings, even for the non-religious. Religion is part of our very human fabric, and that makes religious institutions vulnerable really to any abuse of our humanity, for moral suasion and indeed our very souls are the realm of faith. This, though, allows corrupt humans, in positions of power, to use that moral authority as a weapon against the vulnerable, and then hide it. Businesses have their own vulnerabilities, and sexual abuse certainly happens (the current moral panics, after all, arose out of real and woefully unaddressed hidden abuses), but we associate other abuses far more with business (theft, graft, unsafe products, data manipulation, abusive CEOs, and so forth). And as fragmented and fractious as the religious world can be, the business world is a sea of isolated institutions where corrupt businesses can be taken down far more easily, and generally with less fuss. In any case, their power structures cannot afford to be eternally sclerotic because businesses are themselves ephemeral, while religion is basically forever.
But there is one other institution, nearly as eternal, that too is sclerotic. I speak, of course, of public schools. Public school systems have deep vulnerabilities, and I would not be in the least surprised should some massive scandal finally break (as has been rumored for years) within some big city school system. I would posit that the main reasons this has not yet happened (despite the repeated and sensational stories of teachers abusing or seducing students) is that in the case of the schools, the sclerotic power structures of those institutions are even more poorly governed and policed, as the teachers’ unions repeatedly fend off oversight, the city and state governments are deeply intertwined with the schools, and the full force of government bureaucracy is even more impenetrable than any religious hierarchy. And we should admit just why it is so impenetrable compared to the churches: anti-religious prejudice runs deep in our society, and religion is an easy target – and even if one is himself religious, he may well be championing his own against all the others and so join in the rousing cheer when a rival is set back. Not every one of us goes to church, and not every Christian even belongs to the same church. But most of the nation sends their children through the public schools, and we do not want to face that we may be terribly blind there.
But should the break come for the public schools, it will be terrible, and likely even the truly innocent will be caught up in the maelstrom. Should that break ever come, we should not gloat, we should not revel in the horror of the scandal, because it will touch many of us. Likewise, the national reveling in revulsion at the abuses uncovered in the Catholic Church should end. You may not have been touched by it, but you may know someone who is, and should your own church or business or school likewise be exposed you would then find little sympathy. Triumphalism has no place here for anyone. This was never a uniquely or strictly Catholic problem, nor was it a problem of having celibate priests, or any doctrine against homosexuality. Likewise, the scandals of the Baptists are not something borne out of their doctrine or dogma either. Rather these are human problems that stem out of human organizations, and the human desire to save face, and the human reluctance to police one’s own instead of plucking motes out of our neighbors’ eyes. These are problems all power hierarchies can face, and the people in those hierarchies are just that: people, with all their manifold flaws.
Published in Religion & Philosophy
Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit has a long running series, “Teach women not to rape!” chronicling women using their positions as teachers to exploit their students. He notes:
Sexual predators will always be with us, and will always seek out the positions that enable their predatory behaviors. The organization can not be held responsible for the threat, nor the crime- Until and unless they cover up, ignore, deny, or otherwise enable that abuse. At that point, they become the abuser as much as the perpetrator.
The problem we are seeing is that for so many years, for so many justifications, predatory behavior is being enabled and covered up. To me, that is as bad as the abuse itself. The abuser is sick. Evil, and sick. But the enabler is not sick, just evil. Selfish, unfeeling, and evil.
I don’t blame Catholicism, or Christianity, or G-d for the evil. I blame the enablers in positions of high power who are more concerned with saving face than saving victims. They are the ones who are destroying the faith, far more than the abusers themselves.
A thoughtful piece. I’d add that Jewish institutions, both Orthodox and liberal, are also experiencing crises of confidence as sexual exploitation by leaders is being exposed every day.
The one consideration I think you overlook is the absence of checks and balances in religious institutions. Businesses are ultimately checked by the market. US government is checked by competing branches. What makes religious structures unique is that we no longer have, as in the Bible, priests vs. prophets (or rabbis). Religious authorities claim hierarchical authority.
This would seem to be an even stronger criticism of the Catholic Church. As I understand it, such checks and balances are incompatible with Catholics’ understanding that the Church hierarchy itself is divinely ordained.
Yes, we are dealing with people and their flaws. But people operate within organizational structures, both formal and informal, and those structures incentivize certain behavior. Change the environment and you can channel people’s better instincts, or their worse ones. Abuse of power isn’t just an individual failing.
Yes, these were things I was trying to get at. Good points all.
This can show up in any institution, regardless of whether the victims and abusers are even really part of it. Who expected to see a child sex scandal show up in the Penn State football program? The common thread seems to be putting the good of the institution ahead of the good of individuals, whether they are congregants, students or simply bystanders.
It’s much like the failures of socialism, but on a smaller scale. Once you’re okay with trampling individuals, individuals get trampled.
Bravo, Skip! Thanks for the thoughtful and balanced nature of this piece…
Where ever there are children, pedophiles will gravitate to positions nearby. From what I have read, Catholic priests have the same rate of pedophilia as the general population. Be on the lookout for your children. Don’t trust easily.
@manny, we need to stop using the term “pedophilia”; we’re not dealing with infants/toddlers here. Child sexual abuse covers more of the spectrum – and is more descriptive of the pre-teens/teens/young adults – most often under discussion.
There are periodic scandals of individual public school teachers, and the unions are powerful, but I doubt there’s going to be one specific, titanic scandal over it, because there’s no central national leadership, and (at least in my own experience) public school teachers don’t get as close to the kids, literally and figuratively. The role is different. The public schools never set themselves up as moral guides; parochial schools did.
Most religious groups are still run mostly by men. Most public school staffs are female-dominated. The issues are different.
Wonderful post.
Not just public grade schools. An investigaion of big universities would also be in order.
There will always be individuals that can resist anything but temptation. No sin is committed in a vacuum. Having worked a vice car, and prostitution sweeps the vast majority of the arrests were of married men. Remember this; The position is ridiculous, and the pleasure is transitory.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us sinners.
Son of Spengler
A thoughtful piece. I’d add that Jewish institutions, both Orthodox and liberal, are also experiencing crises of confidence as sexual exploitation by leaders is being exposed every day.
The one consideration I think you overlook is the absence of checks and balances in religious institutions. Businesses are ultimately checked by the market. US government is checked by competing branches. What makes religious structures unique is that we no longer have, as in the Bible, priests vs. prophets (or rabbis). Religious authorities claim hierarchical authority.
This would seem to be an even stronger criticism of the Catholic Church. As I understand it, such checks and balances are incompatible with Catholics’ understanding that the Church hierarchy itself is divinely ordained.
Yes, we are dealing with people and their flaws. But people operate within organizational structures, both formal and informal, and those structures incentivize certain behavior. Change the environment and you can channel people’s better instincts, or their worse ones. Abuse of power isn’t just an individual failing.
That should be an advantage in some congregational Protestant congregations that have should have checks and balances between a voting congregation, boards, and clergy, but often responsibility is abdicated, so the advantage is lost.
A break will not be allowed to happen in the public school system. Too many Left / government forces will not allow it to happen. The public schools are their trust.
The break had / has to happen with the religious institutions. Too many Left / government forces want it to happen so these institutions are diminished/ destroyed. It is sad that the institutions nurtured the seeds of their destruction with the hypocrisy they protected. They did it too themselves
I wonder.
I understand that it’s dicey to ever assert that any feature of modern society in particular might contribute to the increased occurrence of sexual abuse and certainly the monsters who commit these acts are entirely responsible for their own decisions.
But I do think that for men there are basically two romantic types: Some men want to be married to their best friend, others are looking for a damsel in distress. The former group are the best suited to the modern dating world. Men and women have more similar experiences of life than ever before, providing ample opportunity for shared interests and friendship within marriage. For the second group things are tough. Today’s society produces few fair maidens and more self-reliant working women, many of whom know at least as many dirty jokes as their men.
That vast majority of men in the second category find virtuous and productive ways to over come this difficulty, either looking for traditional femininity where it can be found, making peace with modern women or even dedicating themselves to the quality of purity which they admire by pursing a celibate life in the church.
Unfortunately it may be that for a small fraction of these men, and an all too large fraction of those who choose the clerical option, their attraction to innocence may, through temptation or defects of character, become perverted into something evil, a disordered attraction for the, ever younger, portion of society who still posses that quality.
Those aren’t mutually exclusive categories.
Hey, just like the Baptists!
Yes, that seems right.
But don’t they preach a lot about diversity, inclusion, tolerance, not doing drugs, having sex with condoms, and saving the environment?
Yeah, that seems right. But First Baptist Church has two or three men who might be a problem if they’re predators. The local high school might be 70% staffed by women and have a female Principle, but there will still be upwards of ten men.
Actually, no, or far less than you’d think reading Breitbart or listening to Hannity. The right-and-wrong stuff they teach in public school is vague and much of it is not different from what I learned in public and Catholic schools fifty, sixty years ago. We called diversity “don’t be racially prejudiced”. Same with tolerance. Not doing drugs wasn’t part of the curriculum in 1957-69, but I wouldn’t call that intrusive government moralism.
The only time either of my kids ever ran into this kind of thing was before entering college; UCLA requires enrollees to take a two hour online training session. It’s dull and pedantic, but it’s largely aimed at foreign students, of which UCLA has many, along the lines of “Back home, maybe killing women and homosexuals is A-OK, but it’s not here”. A number of our guests from the Middle East and Asia need to know this.
True, but they do represent opposite poles. Friendship is based on familiarity, sameness and a certain sense of equality. It’s hard to idealize your friends. And while friends can and should sacrifice for each other, if the sacrifices start to run exclusively in one direction, the relationship starts to look more like an unhealthy dependance than genuine friendship. Romantic relationships can rest on a similar basis but can successfully take others forms as well.
Fair enough.
I’d only add that the vagueness may be a bigger problem than the left-wing preachiness.
Nice comment!
Augustine follows Cicero in his definition of friendship–it’s a mental and spiritual thing consisting of agreement on all things. Mrs. Augustine is a much better friend to me (either than she might have been or than just about anyone else could be) because we agree on nearly everything. If she should be the damsel in distress or the independent woman, that wouldn’t change the friendship all that much.
Yes. And every organization, church, school, business, social club etc are full of these humans. Balancing trust in such communities with the understanding that any human in any fellowship can be untrustworthy and abusive is a hard balance. You don’t want to be too trusting and you don’t want to be so jaded that you deprive yourself of fulfilling communion with your fellow humans. Like Goldilocks, I try to balance these to “just right”. And I’ve been wrong before, in both directions.
Agree. Unfortunately there is no one word for teen abuse. Some rationalize it and claim it should be legal. Not me.
Not sure that is true. I don’t have data but perusing the newspapers I come across quite a bit of public school child abuse. And the public schools do a great job of keeping it under the radar when it is found out.
Pederasty.
There may never be such a scandal. Indeed I hope I am deeply wrong about that speculation. But some school systems are better than others, and some are especially notorious for their impenetrability, and I’m not sure I’d be that surprised to find that major issues come to light in one or another. But I was trying to think of something akin to the universality of religious institutions, and this post actually stemmed from a conversation I had offline with someone who knows quite a bit about some pretty serious allegations that have been covered up in one system.
Precisely so, Sir Percy…and the length of time that word has been with us is a reminder that there is nothing new under the sun, yes?
Thanks. I guess it’s not commonly used.
Hopefully, it doesn’t come up as often as it has been.
https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2019/02/evangelical-apocalypse?fbclid=IwAR1ckNv5XtA5dK8Y5c_OJBB9MtGp6jhMbLbqAMvqJYqqyTSv1i3_D-IvuA8
In one church I used to attend, this was exactly what I saw: “The problem isn’t that they offer the mercy of Christ to persons caught in sinful patterns, but the idea that extending such forgiveness means the person should be allowed to remain in a position of authority.” Multiple people were caught in infidelities, and actual sexual abuse of minors, but not only allowed to remain in positions of authority in the church, but bolstered in those position by public declarations before the congregation that calls for removing such people were themselves sinful, and demonstrating a lack of forgiveness.