Justice Talking Debate on Catholic Sex Abuse Scandal

by Bill Creasy

This essay was written for the July 2002 issue of WASHline.

The NPR radio show Justice Talking held a debate entitled "Faith under Fire" on the topic of the Catholic priest sexual abuse scandal on June 24, 2002, at Evergreen House of Johns Hopkins University. The debate was aired on NPR stations, including WYPR in Baltimore, on July 14, 2002.

This issue has raised ethical questions about the Catholic Church, not only about the individual priests who committed abuse, but also about the Catholic heirarchy who protected and reassigned guilty priests. In some cases, these priests committed additional abuses for a long time after reassignment.

This radio program was not as much a debate as an apology for the church. The speakers were both Catholic priests, Father Robert Silva and Father Chris Coyne, both wearing collars. Silva has been a priest in Stockton, CA, for 37 years, and he is president of the National Federation of Priests' Councils. Coyne is the Media Spokesman for the Archdiocese of Boston. No speaker with an alternate point of view was included, which is unusual for this program, although questions from audience were very frank and direct, and even hostile in some cases. The priests were clearly on the defensive, but they also gave pointed criticism of Church policies. The host of Justice Talking is Margot Adler, NPR correspondent.

The audience was 100-200 people, the largest studio audience the show had ever had. The interest in the topic was even more clearly demonstrated when the air conditioning in the room was turned off for the taping, and the temperature rose above 90 degrees.

In an opening statement, Silva stated that Supreme Court Justice Scalia questioned the moral authority of the Catholic Church because of the scandal. Both priests were unsatisfied by the response of the Catholic leadership to the crisis. Coyne said the bishops' Dallas conference was weak on how the leadership would deal with problems in the future. Who would be accountable? Silva agreed that the policy was too administrative and had no moral basis in the Gospels.

The first question from the audience set a confrontational tone. Sounding outraged, an audience member said, "This is not much of a debate." He said that the abuse was immoral, and it was unconscionable to say the guilty priests were good men. Silva responded, they were "flawed," as we all are. Coyne added, with something that sounded like moral relativism, that we are imposing current standards on actions from 30 years ago. He further clarified by saying that priests simply didn't know how to talk about or address sexual issues then, but now they have been better educated. Both seemed to agree with the leadership position that ordained priests were "once a priest, always a priest," so that offenders should be given the opportunity to repent and be forgiven.

These comments raised the issue of whether unmarried, childless priests could understand the outrage of parents who learn that their children were sexually molested. Surprisingly, both priests agreed that the policy of celebacy should be reconsidered. Silva questioned celebacy and suggested a choice of marriage for priests because celebacy separated priests from ordinary people. Coyne generally agreed but added the qualification that the policy shouldn't change because of the current crisis. Both also agreed that gays shouldn't be excluded from the priesthood.

Another audience member asked whether the criticism of church was caused by the church's conservative moral stands against abortion, homosexuality, etc. Silva agreed. Coyne said the problems are a call to faith.

An audience member had "sorrow" for the church. He suggested that guilty priests and bishops should resign from positions of authority and perform penance and "humble public service." Coyne responded that the problem was systemic in the church. If the church got rid of priests and bishops, it might not get better ones.

These comments seemed to imply a lack of confidence in the moral leadership and authority of the Church by the priests as well as audience members. Coyne said that anyone who breaks the law should be punished by the justice system, priests like anyone else, and they must "always, always, always" be concerned for the victim. Silva said that the laity should have an equal seat at the table in control of the church. Secular law and lay church members were pointed to for addressing the crisis. It sounded like Coyne was admitting that the church lacked strong leadership. Change in the church was being forced on it from the outside by financial lawsuits. Neither priest seemed to have particular guidance from Bible except that they should try to be better people.

In summary, Coyne noted that people realize there is no quick fix, and the solution will take long time. Neither thought the pope would solve the problem. They disagreed about whether he had been informed about it. But on the other hand, neither thought that the church would loose large numbers of members.

Although both priests took the controversy very seriously, Coyne made some comments that the church had already changed its policy about reassigning priests in the mid 1980's. Only two new cases of sexual abuse by priests have been reported since the policy change. All of the current cases are more than 15 years old.

For more information about this show, look at the Justice Talking website.