Broken Faith
a sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Tim W. Jensen
at the Second Congregational Meeting House on Nantucket Island
Sunday April 28, 2002
***
[Extemporaneous Introduction]
This is not an easy time to be a Catholic Priest in America. The ever-expanding revelations regarding the sexual abuse of adolescent boys, and the efforts of those within the hierarchy to hide the activities of the offenders from public view, has instead resulted in a public scandal which places all priests under a cloud of suspicion, and by association every other member of the clergy as well. Never mind that the actual percentage of sexual abusers within the priesthood is probably no larger than in any other occupation which has regular contact with youngsters -- teachers, coaches, scout leaders and camp counselors -- or that for every pedophile there are thousands of other dedicated priests whose commitment to their vocation and to the welfare of the children in their care is profound and beyond reproach; any attempt now to somehow minimize the problem or place it in perspective is perceived as an attempt to minimize or defend the terrible (some might even say unforgivable) actions of the culpable few. It is almost as if there is something about the nature of the priesthood itself which contributes to this phenomenon; while our own reactions to this horrible scandal reveal as well our own ambivalent emotions about the role of organized religion in society and in our own lives, and the sacred trust we have placed in the hands of our religious teachers and leaders.
As you might well imagine, I have more than a few opinions of my own about these matters -- far more, really, than I can possibly hope to share in a brief, 20 minute sermon. So today I want to try to organize some of my thoughts at least around three distinct, but inter-related religions themes: the theme of Integrity, the theme of Fidelity, and the theme of Authority.
A high degree of personal integrity is obviously an indispensable quality for any religious leader worthy of the name. But this is not to suggest that all clergy are flawless...or indeed, that any of us are flawless; or that priests and ministers, by benefit of our vocation, somehow hold a monopoly on this important characteristic which, in many ways, might best be thought of as the ultimate goal of an authentic religious life. This past week it was even suggested to me, kind of in passing, that one of the more subtle aspects of the public relations nightmare afflicting the Catholic church in connection with this current scandal is that it has created so many opportunities for Catholic Priests and Bishops to be publicly photographed in the company of their lawyers -- not exactly the kind of image one likes to project when one has dedicated one’s life to becoming a paragon of virtue, and honesty, and trustworthiness. Integrity is a synonym for all these qualities: the very word connotes a sense of wholeness, of “integration,” of actually being what one appears to be.
Yet at the end of the day, it must be confessed that no one is ever really what they appear to be. None of us are truly “whole,” none of us are fully “integrated” -- intellectually, emotionally, spiritually. And this realization leads us to yet another insight about the nature of personal integrity: the insight that integrity is as much about an awareness of boundaries as it is an embodiment of personal virtue or character. It’s about being honest with ourselves, and knowing and respecting our own limits and limitations; it’s about understanding where “me” leaves off, and the rest of the world begins. Integrity is rooted in reciprocity: the ability to understand and respect the limits and limitations of other individuals, and to honor their imperfect wholeness as well as our own. And when I speak abstractly of “boundaries” in this context, I think it’s essential to remember that a boundary is not only a demarcation which distinguishes one thing from another; it is also the point where two things meet, and come together. Without good boundaries, there can be no real intimacy. And the capacity for true intimacy -- for a creative and mutual interaction between two autonomous souls that avoids both the twin hazards of emeshment and domination -- is what authentic personal integrity is ultimately all about.
On a slightly more tangible level, the real “fruit” of authentic personal integrity is a sense of “trustworthiness” -- the realization, by others, that there is a reliable connection between one’s professed intentions and one’s actual behavior, that you can be counted on to say what you really mean and, so far as it lies within your power, to do what you say as well. And this brings us naturally to my second theme, the theme of Fidelity. Integrity and Fidelity are basically two sides of the same reality; if Integrity is about becoming worthy of being trusted, Fidelity asks the question: what is worthy of MY trust, what can I have faith in, give my loyalty to, believe in with all my heart and mind and soul? And behind these questions are at least two others: am I really capable of trusting anything with all my heart and all my mind and all my soul, and where then do I turn when my trust is betrayed and faith is broken, and I’m no longer sure what to believe?
These questions are all basically religious in nature, but when I frame the topic in these terms, I hope it becomes a little more apparent why issues of spirituality and issues of sexuality are so frequently interwoven in contemporary discourse. One of the things that fascinates me, as a non-Catholic, about this current scandal in the Catholic church is how quickly and easily the discussion seems to move from the details of these particular events to a more fundamental disagreement about the nature and direction of Catholic faith itself. On the one hand you have those folks I will kindly call neo-Conservative, who basically feel that the real problem is that American Catholicism has too readily embraced the “infidelity” and moral relativism of modern, secular culture, and who call for a return to the moral and theological certainties represented by the teachings of the Church prior to Vatican II.
And on the other hand there are the so-called liberals, whom conservative Catholic and Harvard Law professor Mary Ann Glendon characterized in last Sunday’s New York Times as “persons who would really like to turn the American church, or at least the church in Boston, into a kind of reformed Catholicism, or a Catholic Unitarian Universalism.” These liberal Catholics tend to point to doctrines like clerical celibacy and the refusal to ordain women as the true source of the crisis within the Catholic church, while at the same time asserting that the real scandal has been the tendency of conservative church leaders to cover-up the misconduct of errant priests in a misguided attempt to preserve the reputation of a priesthood which is out of touch with the realities of contemporary society.
Far be it from me to attempt to arbitrate these disputes; we have problems enough within our own denomination without trying to take on those of our Catholic brothers and sisters. Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones. But it does seem to me, as an outsider, that both these groups are about half right. And it also occurs to me, as a historian, that from time immemorial, Catholic priests have basically fallen into three different categories: there are those who have embraced their vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, and found them a source of great spiritual liberation; there are those who have endured their vows, as the price they must pay in order to be faithful to the discipline of their vocation; and there are those who have ignored their vows, and chosen instead to follow their own lights. And these same categories no doubt hold true in many other areas of life as well. But just because a few unfaithful individuals have chosen to break faith with the promises they have made, it does not follow that we should lose faith in the validity of the promises themselves, or the values that they represent.
This brings us at last to my final theme of Authority, and the related issues of leadership and accountability. And on this topic I promise to be brief, with the additional promise of returning to it again in greater detail at another time. But it seems to me to go without saying that the sexual abuse of minors by those in positions of moral leadership represents an egregious violation of trust and boundaries which threatens the integrity of everyone concerned. Our compassion for the victims demands that those who are responsible for these activities must be held accountable for the consequences of their actions, because accountability is the price we all must pay for the authority to make decisions about the conduct of our own lives.
Yet I can also appreciate the moral quandary that those in positions of leadership within the Catholic church have wrestled with these past few decades, as they have attempted to balance their compassion for the victims with their concern for the reputation of the institutional church, their desire for justice with their respect for due process and the code of canon law, not to mention that profound sense of Mercy always essential for effective religious leadership, which acknowledges that even the most offensive perpetrators are also human beings. We’ve all seen and understand how Justice without Mercy is too often merely an excuse for vindictive retribution, an institutionally sanctioned form of revenge which legitimates itself by hiding behind a mask of self-righteous indignation and moral outrage. But this current scandal within the Catholic church also vividly demonstrates how Mercy without Justice can often simply create more victims and extend the influence of evil, by allowing those who would do harm to others to avoid having to confront the consequences of their behavior.
To remain faithful to one’s principles without succumbing to self-righteousness, to be firm in one’s convictions without becoming rigid or uncompromising, to maintain one’s own integrity without violating the integrity of others -- these are the qualities which give leaders their authority, and the ability to be authoritative without resorting to authoritarianism. Because when all is said and done, the world has little need for plastic leaders who glide through the world posing their arms in whatever attitude seems to fit the whim of the moment. The world needs real leaders of flesh and blood: humble, compassionate, generous, courageous, fair, flawed, forgiving, forward-thinking men and women whose personal integrity, and whose fidelity to the values they aspire to live by, can inspire us as well to follow where they lead....
at the Second Congregational Meeting House on Nantucket Island
Sunday April 28, 2002
***
[Extemporaneous Introduction]
This is not an easy time to be a Catholic Priest in America. The ever-expanding revelations regarding the sexual abuse of adolescent boys, and the efforts of those within the hierarchy to hide the activities of the offenders from public view, has instead resulted in a public scandal which places all priests under a cloud of suspicion, and by association every other member of the clergy as well. Never mind that the actual percentage of sexual abusers within the priesthood is probably no larger than in any other occupation which has regular contact with youngsters -- teachers, coaches, scout leaders and camp counselors -- or that for every pedophile there are thousands of other dedicated priests whose commitment to their vocation and to the welfare of the children in their care is profound and beyond reproach; any attempt now to somehow minimize the problem or place it in perspective is perceived as an attempt to minimize or defend the terrible (some might even say unforgivable) actions of the culpable few. It is almost as if there is something about the nature of the priesthood itself which contributes to this phenomenon; while our own reactions to this horrible scandal reveal as well our own ambivalent emotions about the role of organized religion in society and in our own lives, and the sacred trust we have placed in the hands of our religious teachers and leaders.
As you might well imagine, I have more than a few opinions of my own about these matters -- far more, really, than I can possibly hope to share in a brief, 20 minute sermon. So today I want to try to organize some of my thoughts at least around three distinct, but inter-related religions themes: the theme of Integrity, the theme of Fidelity, and the theme of Authority.
A high degree of personal integrity is obviously an indispensable quality for any religious leader worthy of the name. But this is not to suggest that all clergy are flawless...or indeed, that any of us are flawless; or that priests and ministers, by benefit of our vocation, somehow hold a monopoly on this important characteristic which, in many ways, might best be thought of as the ultimate goal of an authentic religious life. This past week it was even suggested to me, kind of in passing, that one of the more subtle aspects of the public relations nightmare afflicting the Catholic church in connection with this current scandal is that it has created so many opportunities for Catholic Priests and Bishops to be publicly photographed in the company of their lawyers -- not exactly the kind of image one likes to project when one has dedicated one’s life to becoming a paragon of virtue, and honesty, and trustworthiness. Integrity is a synonym for all these qualities: the very word connotes a sense of wholeness, of “integration,” of actually being what one appears to be.
Yet at the end of the day, it must be confessed that no one is ever really what they appear to be. None of us are truly “whole,” none of us are fully “integrated” -- intellectually, emotionally, spiritually. And this realization leads us to yet another insight about the nature of personal integrity: the insight that integrity is as much about an awareness of boundaries as it is an embodiment of personal virtue or character. It’s about being honest with ourselves, and knowing and respecting our own limits and limitations; it’s about understanding where “me” leaves off, and the rest of the world begins. Integrity is rooted in reciprocity: the ability to understand and respect the limits and limitations of other individuals, and to honor their imperfect wholeness as well as our own. And when I speak abstractly of “boundaries” in this context, I think it’s essential to remember that a boundary is not only a demarcation which distinguishes one thing from another; it is also the point where two things meet, and come together. Without good boundaries, there can be no real intimacy. And the capacity for true intimacy -- for a creative and mutual interaction between two autonomous souls that avoids both the twin hazards of emeshment and domination -- is what authentic personal integrity is ultimately all about.
On a slightly more tangible level, the real “fruit” of authentic personal integrity is a sense of “trustworthiness” -- the realization, by others, that there is a reliable connection between one’s professed intentions and one’s actual behavior, that you can be counted on to say what you really mean and, so far as it lies within your power, to do what you say as well. And this brings us naturally to my second theme, the theme of Fidelity. Integrity and Fidelity are basically two sides of the same reality; if Integrity is about becoming worthy of being trusted, Fidelity asks the question: what is worthy of MY trust, what can I have faith in, give my loyalty to, believe in with all my heart and mind and soul? And behind these questions are at least two others: am I really capable of trusting anything with all my heart and all my mind and all my soul, and where then do I turn when my trust is betrayed and faith is broken, and I’m no longer sure what to believe?
These questions are all basically religious in nature, but when I frame the topic in these terms, I hope it becomes a little more apparent why issues of spirituality and issues of sexuality are so frequently interwoven in contemporary discourse. One of the things that fascinates me, as a non-Catholic, about this current scandal in the Catholic church is how quickly and easily the discussion seems to move from the details of these particular events to a more fundamental disagreement about the nature and direction of Catholic faith itself. On the one hand you have those folks I will kindly call neo-Conservative, who basically feel that the real problem is that American Catholicism has too readily embraced the “infidelity” and moral relativism of modern, secular culture, and who call for a return to the moral and theological certainties represented by the teachings of the Church prior to Vatican II.
And on the other hand there are the so-called liberals, whom conservative Catholic and Harvard Law professor Mary Ann Glendon characterized in last Sunday’s New York Times as “persons who would really like to turn the American church, or at least the church in Boston, into a kind of reformed Catholicism, or a Catholic Unitarian Universalism.” These liberal Catholics tend to point to doctrines like clerical celibacy and the refusal to ordain women as the true source of the crisis within the Catholic church, while at the same time asserting that the real scandal has been the tendency of conservative church leaders to cover-up the misconduct of errant priests in a misguided attempt to preserve the reputation of a priesthood which is out of touch with the realities of contemporary society.
Far be it from me to attempt to arbitrate these disputes; we have problems enough within our own denomination without trying to take on those of our Catholic brothers and sisters. Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones. But it does seem to me, as an outsider, that both these groups are about half right. And it also occurs to me, as a historian, that from time immemorial, Catholic priests have basically fallen into three different categories: there are those who have embraced their vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, and found them a source of great spiritual liberation; there are those who have endured their vows, as the price they must pay in order to be faithful to the discipline of their vocation; and there are those who have ignored their vows, and chosen instead to follow their own lights. And these same categories no doubt hold true in many other areas of life as well. But just because a few unfaithful individuals have chosen to break faith with the promises they have made, it does not follow that we should lose faith in the validity of the promises themselves, or the values that they represent.
This brings us at last to my final theme of Authority, and the related issues of leadership and accountability. And on this topic I promise to be brief, with the additional promise of returning to it again in greater detail at another time. But it seems to me to go without saying that the sexual abuse of minors by those in positions of moral leadership represents an egregious violation of trust and boundaries which threatens the integrity of everyone concerned. Our compassion for the victims demands that those who are responsible for these activities must be held accountable for the consequences of their actions, because accountability is the price we all must pay for the authority to make decisions about the conduct of our own lives.
Yet I can also appreciate the moral quandary that those in positions of leadership within the Catholic church have wrestled with these past few decades, as they have attempted to balance their compassion for the victims with their concern for the reputation of the institutional church, their desire for justice with their respect for due process and the code of canon law, not to mention that profound sense of Mercy always essential for effective religious leadership, which acknowledges that even the most offensive perpetrators are also human beings. We’ve all seen and understand how Justice without Mercy is too often merely an excuse for vindictive retribution, an institutionally sanctioned form of revenge which legitimates itself by hiding behind a mask of self-righteous indignation and moral outrage. But this current scandal within the Catholic church also vividly demonstrates how Mercy without Justice can often simply create more victims and extend the influence of evil, by allowing those who would do harm to others to avoid having to confront the consequences of their behavior.
To remain faithful to one’s principles without succumbing to self-righteousness, to be firm in one’s convictions without becoming rigid or uncompromising, to maintain one’s own integrity without violating the integrity of others -- these are the qualities which give leaders their authority, and the ability to be authoritative without resorting to authoritarianism. Because when all is said and done, the world has little need for plastic leaders who glide through the world posing their arms in whatever attitude seems to fit the whim of the moment. The world needs real leaders of flesh and blood: humble, compassionate, generous, courageous, fair, flawed, forgiving, forward-thinking men and women whose personal integrity, and whose fidelity to the values they aspire to live by, can inspire us as well to follow where they lead....
posted by The Eclectic Cleric at 10:53 AM
