Drawing on case evidence, Shupe employs classical and modern social exchange theories to explain the institutional dynamics of clergy misconduct. He argues that there is an implicit contract of reciprocity and compliance between congregants and religious leaders that, when amplified by the charismatic awe often associated with religious authorities, can lead to misconduct.
Drawing on case evidence, Shupe employs classical and modern social exchange theories to explain the institutional dynamics of clergy misconduct. He argues that there is an implicit contract of reciprocity and compliance between congregants and religious leaders that, when amplified by the charismatic awe often associated with religious authorities, can lead to misconduct.
Spoils of the Kingdom: Clergy Misconduct and Religious Community
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Spoils of the Kingdom: Clergy Misconduct and Religious Community
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Overview
Drawing on case evidence, Shupe employs classical and modern social exchange theories to explain the institutional dynamics of clergy misconduct. He argues that there is an implicit contract of reciprocity and compliance between congregants and religious leaders that, when amplified by the charismatic awe often associated with religious authorities, can lead to misconduct.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780252092404 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | University of Illinois Press |
| Publication date: | 10/01/2010 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 184 |
| File size: | 383 KB |
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Spoils of the Kingdom
CLERGY MISCONDUCT AND RELIGIOUS COMMUNITYBy ANSON SHUPE
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS PRESS
Copyright © 2007 Anson ShupeAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-252-03159-5
Introduction
Rightly it can be taken for granted that communities of faith seek integrity. At the same time we have to admit that the history of religions is peppered with misconduct, malfeasance, crime, and corruption of its elite-its clergy and leaders.The beginning of the twenty-first century is no exception. In fact, the sexual abuse crisis pounding the Roman Catholic Church provides for examination a textbook for case studies of clergy misconduct. Although there is no monopoly on clergy misconduct in any one religion, the spotlight on Catholic clergy can serve all faith communities because of the extent of revealed abuse and the long history of alternating corruption and reform recorded in Roman Catholic documents (Doyle, Sipe, and Wall 2006). The depth of the investigation into clergy malfeasance now in progress has not been equaled since the Protestant Reformation.
Every faith community already owes Anson Shupe a debt of gratitude for his analysis of their structure of conflict and reform in his classic book In the Name of All That's Holy: A Theory of Clergy Malfeasance (1995). There he distinguished the power structure of churches, dividing them into three categories: hierarchical (that is, episcopal), presbyterian (that is, democratic), and congregational (that is, of more egalitarian makeup). He analyzed how each of the three deals with clergy misconduct and what resources each has for correction and reform. Each possesses its particular advantages and limitations in its capacity for organizational response. In this volume, Shupe continues his service to religion and faith communities.
Here he focuses on the function and culture of faith communities. In the process of asking difficult strategic questions, he performs a biopsy on the American body religious and he diagnoses a cancer. All accurate diagnoses are gifts because understanding provides a possibility for intervention, treatment, and healing.
This book is significant both theoretically and practically. Shupe poses questions that bring resources from sociology, criminology, and religion into a mutually beneficial working relationship. As he says, "For too long criminology has ignored organized religion as a major source of white-collar and corporate crime, and in complementary fashion religion has shirked from examining its own underbelly." I can attest to the practical importance of Shupe's work from the vantage of an expert witness and consultant in more than two hundred civil and criminal cases of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic priests.
Shupe's analysis is distinctly sociological. He challenges the reader to understand why and how such (criminal) behaviors are able to occur in religious organizations. Clerical elites, not only in the Catholic Church, consistently try to reduce problems to the "psychological motives of greedy, weak, or sick personalities." But clergy malfeasance "occurs in a systematic, or structured, context and is not merely the result of a 'few bad apples in the barrel,' however discomforting that thought is to any religious apologists or believers."
Pregnant questions, even disquieting questions, must necessarily be posed to understand the systemic character of religious groups. But crucial questions are often resisted and rejected, even when the stakes for restoring integrity to a faith community are monumental. Why do men and women of faith and integrity rally behind leaders and clergy who prove to be unquestionably guilty of misconduct or even crime? Why does the mass of a faith community remain silent even when it has awareness and sometimes incontrovertible evidence of clergy misdeeds?
Why do some communities ostracize the whistleblower? How do faith communities conspire to conceal malfeasance? Why do some faith communities fragment and others do not when the misdeeds of a religious leader come to light? These are the vital questions that Shupe boldly faces.
Clergy misconduct has always centered on three issues: power, money, and sex. The Christian church's first synodal records, from Elvira, Spain, in 309 c.e., deal extensively with clergy malfeasance (Laeuchli 1972). Power, sexuality, and control over ecclesiastical property were of great concern to the synod fathers. Begun in Elvira, the struggle to establish celibacy-le don, or "the gift"-as a centerpiece of the Roman Catholic clerical elite has continued throughout the centuries.
These three areas of concern-power, money, and sex-have dominated canon laws and predominated as concerns in church councils throughout the history of the Roman Catholic Church. They are still, in the twenty-first century, the main areas of concern and clergy malfeasance.
In the first chapter of this book, Shupe does not exaggerate the scope of the current crisis of clergy malfeasance in faith communities in general and in the Roman Catholic Church in America in particular. Although concerns for integrity in faith communities are perennial, the media (including the Internet), victims' movements, grand jury reports, criminal and civil cases against ecclesiastical entities, and public outrage at the behaviors of bishops and other church elites are being spotlighted for careful examination as never before. What are the dynamics of clergy misconduct and institutional complicity? Shupe's analysis and insights into the dynamics of clergy malfeasance and his use of social science are crucial to understanding the current phenomena.
Roman Catholics form the largest Christian denomination in the United States, numbering 66 million. The clerics who rule it form a relatively small group. In 2005, there were fewer than 43,000 priests and bishops: 20,000 active diocesan priests, 9,000 retired or inactive priests, and 14,772 religious priests (those who belong to orders such as Jesuits, Benedictines, Dominicans, etc.).
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) and the Catholic Church are examples of religious systems at the top end of the hierarchical spectrum. The Catholic Church maintains a monarchical structure. The pope in Rome ultimately controls the structure and religious discipline of the organization. He also appoints every bishop, but each bishop has autonomous control within his territory, called a diocese. A bishop's ecclesiastical authority extends over the Catholic priests, religious institutions, and laypeople within his territory.
The clerical system of the Catholic Church is homosocial. Only celibate males can qualify for any ecclesiastical position of authority within the system. All priests and bishops are required to be celibate, that is, not married and promised to "perfect and perpetual chastity." In practice this means no sexual activity of any kind, with oneself or with others (Canon 277).
Shupe's second chapter is especially useful because he does not overburden the reader with an exhaustive exploration of social exchange theory but does provide a workable primer. I find his approach useful for my work since he takes a "pragmatic epistemological triangulation of methods that appreciates postmodernist suspicions of much social science but does not throw the baby with the bath." He cites records of adjudicated legal cases. He presumes, as I have experienced, that court decisions and convictions "reflect investigations and thoughtful deliberations of judges and juries." He gives weight to personal testimonies of victims that are frequently circumstantially corroborated. And he respects media investigations "that meet high evidentiary standards for legal purposes."
Celibacy is le don, the basic social contract between the Catholic Church and its members. It is the core of the social exchange between the hierarchy/clergy and the members of the faith community that Shupe speaks about in the second chapter of this book. The assurance of the celibacy of Catholic clergy is exchanged for the trust, respect, belief, support, obedience, and allegiance of the faithful. They in turn receive comfort, forgiveness, and salvation. In the Protestant ministry the gift is "servantship." In the rabbinate the gift is scholarship and interpretation. Shupe deals with multiple examples of the violation and betrayal of the exchange by clergy misconduct. All "involve power inequities, conflict, emotional-physical harm, and, often, crime."
The responsibility of the Catholic bishop to preserve his flock from violation is clear. He is responsible for the celibacy of his clergy. Because celibacy is essential for ordination and priesthood, a priest who is ordained or assigned to any parish or ministry in a diocese is by a bishop's sponsorship certified sexually safe to the parishioners and the public.
There is no comparable system, religious or secular, whose hierarchical and homogeneous character is so closely bound with sex and power. Every priest is educated in a system that follows the same standardized required curriculum. Every priest is required to take the same doctrinal oath.
However, the violation of doctrine-heresy-is not the major betrayal concern of Catholics today. Sexual abuse of minors is. The Catholic Church's general knowledge of sexual abuse of minors by clergy is well established and documented. Multiple regulations were written and promulgated by the Vatican in 1662, 1741, 1890, 1922, 1962, and 2002 (cf. Doyle, Sipe, and Wall 2006, 295-300). Awareness of the problem of priests' and bishops' sexual activity is not a recent phenomenon. The documents cited are consistent in their acknowledgment of clerics who have sex with minors and the existence and prevalence of other violations of celibacy. It is clear that abuse has been a perennial problem, not restricted to ancient history or of recent origin.
Clearly, sexual abuse by clergy has deep systemic roots. Understanding the sociology of clergy malfeasance is of critical importance for dealing with and solving this incessant religious juggernaut.
A great deal is known within the Catholic clerical system about the sexual activity of its clerics, but in the social tradition of all hierarchical structures, knowledge of misdeeds are shrouded in secrecy. When I completed a twenty-five-year ethnographic study of Catholic clergy (1960-85) I was confident that at least 6 percent of Catholic priests involved themselves sexually with minors. The John Jay College of Criminal Justice investigation of the sexual crisis in the Catholic Church in the United States reported that 9 percent of Catholic priests were alleged abusers during that same twenty-five-year period of time (CLRCR 2004). I published estimates of a range of noncelibate behaviors and celibate achievement in 1990 under the title A Secret World: Sexuality and the Search for Celibacy.
The Catholic Church, like other religious systems, has produced and maintains a social construct that obviates external and civil oversight as much as possible. Shupe describes the essence of the construct when he writes, "Power, authority, and public reputation, balanced by obedience, faith, and trust, are the sociological archetypes of clergy malfeasance. They form the organizational and emotional elements of the opportunity structures provided by religions."
The structure is a double-edged sword-protective and at the same time an instrument of possible self-destruction. Bishops, priests, and lay Catholics are all subject to civil laws and authority in regard to sexual behavior. The ecclesiastical structure crumbles or at least trembles when external examination or exposure penetrates it.
The power of a Catholic bishop is extensive. When a Vatican official was asked in 1994 why the church had not been more active in intervening in the abuse crisis in the United States, the reply was swift and clear: "Rome cannot understand why the bishops cannot control the press and the courts better!" Power is not limited to the control of other institutions. Shupe points out that "for believers in a given tradition religious authority is a part of social reality and represents a very real form of power-usually the more ecclesiastical [hierarchical] the group, the more powerful." The concept of religious duress has substantiated this reality in multiple legal cases of clergy sexual abuse.
Bishops and religious superiors in the United States most commonly concealed the facts when they knew a priest abused a child or minor. This concealment (pattern and practice) extended to parishioners, other priests, and even law enforcement. This practice is demonstrable at least from 1946 onward. The practice of neglecting violations has also been firmly in place for some time. It is not isolated to or even created by American bishops but has its origin in and sponsorship from the Vatican, which insists that "scandal" should be avoided at all costs. Documents dating to 1959 demonstrate that dioceses at that time were employing secret procedures to deal with cases of sexual abuse.
As recently as May 20, 2002, a judge (P. Gianfranco Ghirlanda, S.J.) on the Roman Rota (highest Vatican court) wrote in a Vatican-approved periodical that bishops should not report sexual violations to civil authorities lest the image and authority of the church be compromised and victims harmed instead of being protected. Governor Frank Keating of Oklahoma, appointed in 2002 by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops as chair of the National Review Board for the Protection of Children and Young People to investigate sexual abuse by Catholic bishops and priests, accused the hierarchy of behaving like the Cosa Nostra.
Equally demonstrable is the church's practice of transferring an offending priest from one parish to another, to another diocese, or to a foreign country. Correspondence between bishops who exchanged offending priests and other documents have made clear the acceptability and frequency of this practice. The practice was so well accepted that it was a matter for open communication between all bishops. A 1963 open letter from one bishop to all the American bishops asked if anyone was interested in giving ministerial employment to an offending priest (treated for abusing minors) who could not be reassigned in his own diocese.
Civil authorities, traditionally relatively indulgent toward the "foibles" of all clergy, became increasingly interested in the operation of a clerical system that denied knowledge of abuse by its members when blatantly clear data proved the opposite. Laypeople became outraged. Reports dated September 1952, from a treatment facility for offending clergy run by the Servants of the Paraclete, stated, "Many bishops believe men are never free from the approximate danger once they have begun [to abuse boys]." There are records from 1963 reminding bishops of the serious civil consequences of a priest's sexual behavior with minors, beyond any spiritual damages. The treatment facility, founded in 1947 and based in Jemez Springs, New Mexico, had, by the late 1950s and early 1960s, a clearly defined "code" (the number 3) to identify priest sexual abusers.
Psychiatric hospitals were used as early as 1936 to deal with sexually offending priests. The alliance between religion and psychiatry was firmly established to treat deviant priests, especially for alcoholism and sexual problems.
Clerical malfeasance and its destructive consequences are not limited to individuals. Because victimization is a social and systemic reality, it affects the five communities of faith that Shupe considers and three groups who witness this victimization: "the direct victims themselves and their sympathizers and advocates, the perpetrators and their elite protectors, and the larger community, consisting of both believers and nonbelievers."
Secrecy within the Catholic clerical system is the cornerstone of the social construct of clerical celibacy. Celibacy is the capstone of clerical power. The power structure of the Catholic clerical elite has done all it could to keep the abuse of minors and sexual activity by its members a secret outside the system. But this does not mean that clerical sexuality is kept secret within the system.
Secrecy is an unwritten but clear code within the system of the clergy elite. This group often extends its prerogative of sacramental confessional confidentiality beyond law or reason to include any material it wishes to keep secret to preserve its image and at times for its convenience. A bishop responded, "I only lie when I have to" when chided by a priest for denying abuse the bishop knew about. That modus operendi and justification for deception is common and is often justified by the traditional moral doctrine of mental reservation, which states that one does not have responsibility to tell the truth to one who does not have a right to it. The motivation to save the reputation of the church and the priesthood from scandal has been paramount since the Protestant Reformation. Caution about giving scandal is frequent in canon law (twenty-nine times). The dictum to "not to give scandal" is impressed upon students in Catholic education as early as the first grade.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Spoils of the Kingdom by ANSON SHUPE Copyright © 2007 by Anson Shupe. Excerpted by permission.
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