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March 23, 2002
T.W. Croft
Enron's
Attack on Our
Economic Security
March 22, 2002
Robert Jensen
Corporate Power is a
Threat to Democracy
Tommy
Ates
The
Future of Black Academia
Rep. Ron Paul
Why are We in Ukraine?
March 21, 2002
McQuinn,
Munson, & Wheeler
Stars
and Stripes:
Killing for the Flag?
John Chuckman
How Change is Wrought
David
Vest
Hail
to the Chaff
March 20, 2002
Kay Lee
Censorship at Angelfire
Robert
Jensen
The
Politics of Pain
and Pleasure
Sheperd Bliss
Notes from Hawai'i:
Trouble in Paradise
Rick Giambetti
Prozac
and Suicide:
an Interview with
Dr. David Healy
Philip Farruggio
Bullies
Lori Allen
Live
from Ramallah:
The Madness of Occupation
March
19, 2002
Tariq
Ali
Nuke
Iraq?
Phyllis
Pollack
Roger
Daltrey's LA Surprise
Amir Ahmadi
War-Mongering
Academics:
The New Tartuffe
Ben White
Bomber
Blair
Fran Shor
Child-Murderers
and Madmen
March
18, 2002
Tom Turnipseed
Crazy
is Cool
Dave Marsh
DeskScan:
What's Playing At My House
Armen
Khanbabyan
The
Pentagon in the Caucasus:
Georgia Is Only the Beginning
Gabriel
Ash
Abdullah
v. Osama
Bernard
Weiner
Middle
East for Dummies
Alexander
Cockburn
Tipping
in America
March
17, 2002
David
Vest
The
Politics of Packaging
Tariq
Ali
The
Left's New Empire Loyalists
March
16, 2002
Chris
Floyd
Ashcroft's
Secret Snatches
March 15, 2002
Doron Rosenblum
Israel's Settler Warlords
Alex Lynch
Rhetorical
Attacks On Iraq
Norman Madarasz
Neo-Con Propaganda
and the National Review
Paul-Marie
de La Gorce
Making
Enemies
March
14, 2002
Dr. Susan
Block
RIP
Danny Pearl
Francis
Boyle
Bush
Nuke Plan Violates International Law, Again
Wayne
Saunders
Memo
to Paul McCartney:
There Are Two Kinds
of Freedom, Sir
H.P. Albarelli
Anthrax
Cover-up?
March
13, 2002
Amira
Hass
Are
the Occupied Protecting the Occupier?
CounterPunch
Wire
National
Review Editors Suggest Nuking Mecca
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Personal
Responsibility
for Corporate Elites?
Robert
Fisk
Arabs
Don't Want US
to Strike Iraq
Alexander
Cockburn
When
Billy Graham Wanted
to Kill One Million People
March
12, 2002
Kay Lee
Dangerous
Changes in
California's Prisons
John Patrick
Leary
The
Return of Otto Reich
Wole Akande
US
is Being Discredited
in the Eyes of Africa
March
11, 2002
Hani Shukrallah
This
is the Way the World Ends
Tommy
Ates
Bush's
New Nuke Policy:
Target Allies and Enemies
Lidia Andrusenko
The Great
Chicken War:
Bush v. Putin
Dave Marsh
10
CDs Playing On My Desk
John Chuckman
Footprints
in the Dust
Norman
Madarasz
Max
Steel in a Time of Chaos
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
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Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
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Days That
Shook The World:
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By Alexander
Cockburn
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War Diary
CIA's Assassination Plan a History of
Torture in US Prisons
bin Laden and Bush
Business Connections
Aisha Ikramuddin on the Hidden Hype
of US Food Bombs
Peter Linebaugh on
Pakistan
Christopher Hitchens' Love for Mrs. Thatcher
Jiang Zemin Tells Bush:
Nuke 'Em
Search
CounterPunch
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How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The New Crusade:
America's War on Terrorism
By Rahul Mahajan
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
and St. Clair
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March 23, 2002
Does Pedophilia Scandal Spell an
Opportunity for Catholics?
By Brian J. Foley
The recent pedophilia crisis presents an enormous,
unprecedented opportunity for American Catholics.
Many Catholics have long known that something
was rotten in the Church. They were discouraged, however, by
the Church from exploring further. Such authoritarianism stems
partly from the failure of Church leaders -- and Catholics
themselves -- to embrace the reality that the people in the
pews are often smarter, better educated and better informed
than the priests, bishops and cardinals who tell them what to
think.
Americans have long understood that participation
and dissent are necessary for a healthy democracy. The recent
scandal reveals, however, that participation and dissent are
necessary for healthy institutions of any sort. The Church's
failure to handle this situation properly reveals that the
Church is an institution, run by human beings, who are fallible.
It needs help.
Where does that leave Catholics?
They can dig in and defend the Church.
Many conservative Catholics are already responding by saying
that there is nothing wrong with the Church or its teachings;
the priests are the problem. This view effectively cancels any
serious inquiry or questioning.
Or, Catholics can recognize that, as
in other areas of their lives, they should not simply accept
what their leaders say. Catholics should demand broader participation
in leading their Church, applying the thinking that one applies
to other institutions: reason, experience, common sense, fairness.
Here are some things that Catholics should
now address:
CELIBACY
FOR CLERGY: What reason exists
for this? Most other religions and denominations do not require
celibacy, and their spiritual leaders work effectively. Is there
a relationship between celibacy and pedophilia? Many mental
health professionals think so. In any case, it appears that
other churches are not facing this problem to the extent the
Catholic Church is.
Moreover, experience tells us that celibacy
is not required for spiritual life, or the other roles that
clerics play -- leader, counselor, teacher. Many CEOs are married.
U.S. presidents have almost always been married. Rabbis and
ministers marry. Time-pressed doctors often have husbands and
wives.
Letting priests and nuns marry would
result in an influx of energetic, well-rounded people to the
clergy. People who had ruled it out would consider it. Very
few people have joined in recent years, and many clerics have
quit, for this reason alone.
Given the positive nature of contemporary
views on sexuality, how many emotionally healthy young people
can the Church reasonably expect to choose a lifetime of celibacy?
Especially when other denominations do not impose this restriction
on their clergy? Of course, some good people will still join,
but why limit the pool?
Some of the most amazing, spiritual,
intelligent, conscientious people I know are priests. Yet they
are being deprived of good, new people to their communities,
which results in a deep loneliness, a despair that makes many
quit.
WOMEN PRIESTS: Why bar women from the priesthood? Women have
proven they can be the presidents and prime ministers, legislators,
judges, astronauts, jet fighter pilots, surgeons, CEOs, journalists.
The list goes on. Women are ministers and priests and rabbis
in other churches and religions.
The Church has arbitrarily shut out meaningful
participation from about half of humanity. This represents a
failure to tap talent, and it has caused an exodus of women
who want no part of an institution that treats them as third-class
citizens.
AUTHORITARIANISM: Catholics should participate in their parishes
and help lead their church. At the end of Catholic Mass, most
parishioners simply leave. There is little or no sense of community.
Input from parishioners is not sought. Instead, they are simply
told what to do and what to think.
For example, I once heard a priest tell
a young woman who questioned a rule that the woman needed to
"pray for understanding," until she accepted the rule.
The message: She was the problem, the rule could not possibly
be wrong.
Would more participation and questioning
have prevented some of the pedophilia scandals?
A friend once told me that at his Catholic
high school, boys were routinely punished by a certain clergyman
who took them all to the shower and made them do pushups --
wearing only their jockstraps. No student or parent reported
this to the relevant authorities. It is doubtful that such behavior
would have gone unreported in a public school.
More to the point, would a majority of
parishioners agree to quietly reassign a pedophile priest to
the children of another parish?
Catholics should rejoice if bishops and
cardinals resign due to public pressure, or ask forgiveness
from their flocks. This will signify to Catholics that the Church
is subject to questioning, that its members matter. Only then
can the Church change. It will probably improve. It might even
flourish.
Brian J. Foley
is a professor at Widener University School of Law in Wilmington,
Delaware. He can be reached at Brian.J.Foley@law.widener.edu
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