Shame in the species
Just as the UNC will survive the scandals regarding Panday's finances, and the PNM has survived corruption scandals involving several of its former ministers, the catholic church will survive the sex scandals involving untold numbers of its priests. After all, the church has survived worse scandals, the worst of them in my view being the murderous, intolerant, and zealously self-righteous inquisition. But survival of the church despite moral or ethical failure (or simply intolerably ugly conduct!) is hardly the most important issue involved in the sex scandals. What is far more important is whether and how communities and societies can prevent such failure and ugliness.
'Ugliness' is the apter of the two epithets. I am not sure that the priests who have sexually abused impressionable and trusting infant and young boys did so because of a failure in their attempts at righteous living. They may have been committed to a life of sexual probity but been felled by some carnal weakness, I am not sure. But then, they may not have been spiritually or mentally averse to exploitative homosexuality in the first place either. They may have calculated that the priesthood afforded them near-perfect shelter to satiate their lust, that it enabled them to operate in the shelter of public reverence and devotee trust, that they had an endless source of victims, and that, wretchedly, they were able to do so without sneaking. What conduct could be uglier?
And even if they believed their conduct was wrong, but just couldn't help themselves, their behaviour would still be intolerably ugly, for it involved exploitation of minors, who, by definition, typically model their morality on that of adults and have not yet developed (enough) moral discretion.
Can society rid itself of such conduct?
Perhaps not. For over six thousand years of recorded human history, it has not, not even in its highest places. Sexual abuse is quite clearly a function of the combination of mental and carnal dispositions and social stratification, perhaps with the first factor being the underlying driver. Somehow, we have a proclivity towards lust and general selfishness, and those in authority always take advantage of those under it. We are a violent species and our ways of living have been predicated on violent processes such as war, slavery, fiefdom, indentureship, racism, ethnicisation of religion, exclusion, ad nauseam.
The behaviours that stand in the way of such exploitative violence include education of the mind and emotions, development of personal independence and integrity, and a conscientious aversion to ugliness and crassness. These behaviours are obviously forged in communities that work on the achievement of high levels of likemindedness, but they require a great deal of consistent personal work underscored by reflective thinking and concern for the welfare of others.
Despite the passage of thousands of years, however, as well as the dizzying expansion of knowledge, violence and exploitation have not gone away. Indeed, they seem to be expressing themselves in increasingly subtler ways - in economic trade, technological innovation, official language policy, education, religion. Can we escape? How?
I have suggested that we can escape through mental and emotional education, personal independence and integrity, and a deliberate aversion to ugliness and crassness. But that apparently is not enough, if my religious education is anything to go by. That education has taught me that this modus operandi is insufficient apart from help from Jesus, the Son of Man and God.
In brief, it says that human nature is sinful (whether biologically or socially (initially through Adam and Eve's sinning), I am not sure) and needs to be replaced by Jesus' spiritual nature in this life by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Our own efforts at right treatment of others are insufficient, apparently through no fault of our own; we did not make ourselves. We were created that way so that we could appreciate the need for perfection, that is, a sinless way of life, which can only come about through Jesus living his life in us and, eventually, transforming us into incorruptible spirit beings.
Scriptures in Romans 7 are thought to bring this out particularly well. Here is a sample, with the apostle Paul being the experiencer, victim, and conqueror:
For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. Then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not…. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me…. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Emphasis mine.)
These scriptures present Paul as being morally averse to wrongdoing but also as being too weak in himself to prevent such wrongdoing and as being in need of Jesus' spiritual help. Are those sinful and sinning priests all like Paul in this dangerous tension between desire to do right and natural inability to achieve that desire?
But if they are, why don't they, like Paul, exercise the Holy Spirit or the spiritual help that Jesus makes available?
Archives / Winford James Homepage / Previous Page
^^ Back to top
