PMB sees fit to preface any discussion of pedophilia with a simple challenge: what assumptions underlie our assumption that the crime of pedophilia is so much worse than other kinds of violent crime? Does pedophilia draw the better part of our outrage because it is a crime against the defenseless? Against the innocent? Is it worse than sexually assaulting an adult? Human trafficking? Torture? Murder? Beating a spouse? Is it worse than pushing drugs on children? Because it's a crime of a sexual nature? Because we're scared of dirty old men? Because we should be?
It is not PMB's aim to apologize for pedophilia, or to justify it, or to de-prioritize it in terms of policy or jurisprudence. PMB only wants to raise the question in an age in which the abundant media already prioritize youth and innocence, perhaps not for all the right reasons: when a pretty blond girl goes missing, an entire nation will hold vigil; when a middle-aged black man is shot dead in a Baltimore alley for $12.55 and a half-empty pack of cigarettes, it's just another Tuesday. We have entire movements dedicated to the "salvation" of unborn children so much so that they're willing to take the lives of doctors with their own families and their own children. When a young soldier is photographed maimed and dying somewhere in the Middle East, half of us shield our eyes while the other takes in the images. So young is this soldier; so innocent; too young to look upon. To put it simply, distasteful as it is, many of us already make day-to-day judgments about the relative value of human lives at different stages and in different circumstances. So we might as well question the extent to which similar judgments operate when we try to make sense of tragedies like pedophilia. Take this as a preface and put it aside for now.
We have very reasonable calls from Laurie Fendrich and Christopher Hitchens to address issues of pedophilia within the Catholic Church through secular, legal means, rather than letting the issue languish as an internal matter with the Church, to be sorted out somehow by what many assume is some kind of epic and clandestine Church bureaucracy.
The first thing to keep in mind with respect to this issue is that the Catholic Church is a massive global organization that, despite its ranging influence, is not the all-powerful monolith that many seem to think it is. This means that the Pope can tapdance for the international media all he wants, but he still won't be able to have much influence, a single man from the Vatican, on what goes on among priests at and in between the far corners of the world. As the figurehead of the organization the Pope bears mostly a symbolic responsibility, like that of the CEO of a multinational corporation whose Kuala Lumpur office gets creative with their accounting and sinks the whole ship. When an organization gets so prodigious and rangy, it's just not possible for its chief executive to have a hand in everything that goes on. Catholics in various traditions, from Europe to the Latin countries to Africa, Asia, and the US, have a range of cultural traditions associated with their Catholicism, branching off into sects and participating in varying degrees of mysticism. Despite strong Papal discouragement, for example, some Catholic Filipinos have found ways to safely and cleanly nail themselves to a cross for Lent--literally--walking away afterward with slight wounds and eventual scars, only to practice the ritual again and again in the following years. What can the Pope do about this? Where is his influence?
PMB mentions this not to excuse Benedict XVI, but to draw attention to the fact that cleaning up the pedophilia mess will be primarily the responsibility of secular law enforcement agencies and not the Catholic Church. Many seek to demonize the Catholic Church, and certainly the pedophilia crisis provides lip-smacking fodder for the demonizers; but the secular societies among (or around) us need to deal with the reality and effects of institutionalized religion as it operates within secular society, not apart from it. Whether we affiliate with or participate in the Catholic Church or not, we're all responsible for protecting victims of crime and enforcing the law against criminals. Reducing the issue to a "Catholic" thing as a way of leveraging against the Church politically sends the wrong message to everyone. For the victims of pedophilia, it suggest that secular society is not there to help and support. For the Church, it suggests that it can co-exist with secular society outside of the law and under its own law.
This is not to say that the Catholic Church is without any serious institutional responsibility. Which brings PMB to a final point: the expectation that a flesh-and-blood human being remain both celibate and without intimate companionship (i.e. marriage) for the duration of his or her life is cruel and untenable. PMB has read through much of the Church literature on this subject, and finds it nonetheless a severe problem that the Church expects priests to vow celibacy and marital or romantic solitude in order to enter the profession. Having no sexual or intimate outlet is certainly not an excuse for inappropriate sexual behavior like pedophilia, though it would not surprise PMB at all if instances of pedophilia in the priesthood were drastically reduced by allowing priests to have intimate partners, homosexual or heterosexual, and to marry in either case as well. Certainly PMB is not holding his breath for such a radical change within the Church, or even, in the case of homosexual marriages, within secular society; yet these measures will be necessary at some point, if not already, for the survival of both. For pedophilia isn't the only crisis in the priesthood. Relatively speaking, fewer people are wanting to become priests these days. Perhaps if priests weren't expected to shed their humanity, if such a thing is even possible, to enter the profession, more might want to enter. But this is a topic for another time.
