For Christ's Sake - Bishop Geoffrey Robinson

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Abuse: A Review of the Literature’, The John Jay College Research Team, Karen J Terry, principal investigator and Jennifer Tallon, primary researcher. See also ‘The Nature and Scope of the Problem of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests and Deacons in the United States’, a Research Study conducted by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Both documents may be found on the website of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops at http:/www.usccb.org/ocyp/webstudy.shtml

       PART ONE

      Factors Contributing to Abuse

       CHAPTER ONE

      In any religion, everything without exception depends on the kind of god that is being worshipped. It is the single most important fact about any religious system, for every aspect of the system will flow from it.

      Ideas concerning this god will inevitably contain many elements that arise only from human minds; for, while there is only one God, there are an endless variety of human misunderstandings of God. Unable to grasp the infinite God, human beings constantly create a lesser god in their minds and worship that god, a god who is usually a very large human being rather than the true God.

      In particular, all people have both profound fears and profound longings within them, with the fears leading to ideas of an angry god, and the longings to ideas of a loving god, and then with these two forces in conflict within them.

      We can perhaps see this more clearly by looking at some developments in moral thinking in the Bible, reflecting developing ideas of God.

       SIX LEVELS OF MORALITY

      In the moral journey of the people of Israel in the First Testament, we may distinguish a number of levels of moral thinking through which they gradually rose as their understanding of God changed and developed. I suggest six levels.

       Level Six

      In Genesis 4:23 a man named Lamech demanded seventy-seven fold vengeance for any wrong done to him. This is surely the most primitive level of relationships between people, the very starting point of a long journey, and it reflects a very primitive idea of God. If a whole society were to adopt this criterion of seventy-sevenfold vengeance for any wrong done, it would be condemned to an endless cycle of violence and chaos, and any technical progress it made would be repeatedly destroyed by the violence. It may be called the level of superiority and vengeance, for Lamech sought vengeance because he considered himself superior to all other people. No one is immune from falling back to this level at any moment. Indeed, whenever a serious wrong is done to us, it is often our first spontaneous reaction: ‘If you hit me, I’ll hit you twice as hard.’

       Level Five

      The people of Israel began to rise above the level of Lamech, but progress was slow, and the next level was no more than that of the well-known biblical saying: ‘An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.’3 It was progress, for its force was: not seventy-seven teeth for one tooth—not even two teeth for one tooth—no more than one tooth for one tooth. It came from a time long before police forces and prisons, and so from a time when justice tended to be primitive, direct and physical. Far from requiring vengeance, it actually sought to restrict it. It may be called the level of justice without mercy.

      In practice, however, it was still too close to the level of Lamech, and Mahatma Gandhi’s comment on it was: ‘An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.’ It is the morality of ‘getting even’ (‘He hit me first’). One is reminded of the chilling phrase attributed to Joseph Kennedy: ‘Don’t get mad; get even.’ If humanity were to make serious progress, this rule would also have to give way to higher levels of morality.

       Level Four

      Throughout human history, people have related to other people on one of two bases: either the usefulness of others to themselves, or the essential dignity of others. Sadly, in all cultures and at all times (including our own) the first has tended to dominate, with people esteeming those who were useful to themselves while pushing to the margins of society those who were seen as ‘not useful’. This is the moral level of self-interest based on the usefulness of others to oneself. Needless to say, most of our relationships are reciprocal, that is, we both give and receive, and this is a good thing. But it leaves the question of how we should relate to both individuals and whole categories of people (e.g. the elderly, the Aboriginal people, homosexuals) who may in the eyes of some seem to have little to offer us. This level is reflected in many incidents in the Bible.

      Self-interest will always be a powerful force in human relationships, but it is not an adequate basis for living in community. A community will inevitably disintegrate if it is based solely on self-interest and there is no mutual respect and concern.

       Level Three

      The third level is that of the Ten Commandments,4 the level that best reflects the practical influence of the great Covenant between God and the people of Israel. This was the gigantic step upwards of the First Testament—reflecting a very different understanding of God—for the Ten Commandments were a serious attempt to base human relationships, not on the usefulness of others to ourselves, but on their essential dignity and on the rights that flow from this dignity. It may be called the level of respect for dignity and the rights that flow from dignity. Five consecutive commandments call for respect for one’s neighbour’s dignity as a human being. In the first four they do this by demanding respect for:

      • life and physical integrity (you shall not kill)

      • the relationships that make life worth living and give it meaning (you shall not commit adultery)

      • material goods (you shall not steal)

      • a good name in the community (you shall not bear false witness).

      Within the Catholic Church, a whole world of teaching on all aspects of sex is usually given under the commandment concerning adultery. I believe that this is a restrictive understanding and I suggest that this commandment should rather be seen in terms of respect for the relationships that give life meaning.

      There would be little quarrel about the importance of life, possessions or a good name; but the Ten Commandments insist that we add relationships to the list, for much of our life depends on them. Furthermore, just as ‘you shall not kill’ includes ‘you shall not wound or harm physically in any way,’ so not harming the relationship of marriage through adultery includes not harming any relationships that are important to people in making meaning in their lives e.g. relationships with parents or children or siblings or friends.

      I suggest that these four commandments are meant to be taken together, for when taken as one whole, they are a powerful affirmation of one’s neighbour’s dignity. If one respects any three of the four, but violates the fourth (e.g. relationships), this is not a 75% success, but a basic failure to respect one’s neighbour.

      In the fifth of the series, the commandments forbid even desiring to harm one’s neighbour (‘You shall not covet your neighbour’s house; you shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour’).

      There is a powerful new understanding of God in the idea of an essential dignity in every human being that demands respect and that gives rise to binding rights.

      As well as being a great step forward, the Ten Commandments are also the essential basis on which any higher level must be built, for it is impossible to truly love another person unless one first has a genuine respect for the dignity of that person and the rights that flow from this dignity.

       Level Two

      The third level was based on negative commandments: ‘You shall not’; that is: ‘Because you respect your neighbour’s dignity, do no harm.’ The second highest level requires that we not merely do no harm, but also do positive good to our neighbour. If I respect

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