Clericalism Part Four: Senator Kennedy and Cardinal Law

                           Apples and Oranges?

  Let me illustrate my point  about Clericalism by making a comparison between the downfall of a churchman and a politician: Cardinal Law and Senator Kennedy. There are striking similarities between the two. Both were based in Massachusetts, both seen as successful Irishmen, both were consultants to presidents, both highly influential in their own sphere as well as beyond its boundaries, and both went through an excruciatingly painful scandal that destroyed their public image.  Both still have their fans and their despisers. Both were substantially the same persons before their date with destiny as afterwards. It was public opinion of them that had changed, not their basic characters.   However, Kennedy was able to be rehabilitated after Chappaquiddick and continue his career in the Senate, and Law had to leave town and country in disgrace.  Public opinion allowed Kennedy to reinvent himself, while Law had to go into exile in Rome.

Is it fair to compare the two cases?  Their fall from grace took place at different times and circumstances. By comparing a cardinal with a senator, are we comparing apples and oranges? My contention is that in spite of all the similarities and difference, the decisive factor between their two cases is Clericalism. There are huge differences, of course. The feeding frenzy the Boston Globe provoked over Law’s situation, the deep pockets of the Church which attracted so many lawsuits, the justified public outrage over the sexual abuse scandal, the heinous nature of the crime itself, the reassignment of sexual offenders, all of these serious factors demand attention. But the basic difference between the two is that Law was a priest, and Kennedy was not. Law was a sign of Someone Greater than himself, and Kennedy was not. Kennedy was a cultural Catholic, nothing more. As a sign Law was presumed to be greater than he humanly was (idealization), and expected to incarnate perfection. After all, he was a prince of the Church! When the idol he should have been turned out to have clay feet in the public mind, well, the mob wanted blood. It would have meant little, (nothing really), to say that Law sacramentally was configured to the person of Christ by ordination and actually was doing his best to be the holy person Christ was calling him to be. The public wanted perfection by its idealized standards, not Christ’s.

 Clericalism set the Church up for the scandal, for the public outrage, for the media feeding frenzy, and for the preying lawyers who continue to loot the Church’s coffers.  The biased perspective the Public had against Law did not exist against Kennedy because Kennedy was a layman, whereas Law was and is a priest and a churchman. A somewhat sarcastic rhetorical question asks: If you were accused of being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you? The question should apply to all the baptized, but because of the superficial way most of us live our Christianity, no matter what our denomination, society no longer accuses Christians of trying to be the light of the world or salt of the earth. Even priests are not expected to be salt or light, most of the time. Most Catholics are happy with their priests if they are “nice”, that is, politically correct and blandly inoffensive. Challenge is not “nice”. The question of Christian witness should be applied across the board, not only against a despised churchman like Law.

  Kennedy had his enemies who were out for his blood, but nobody ever presumed Kennedy was perfect, nor admired him on that basis. Those who really knew and loved him knew he could be his own worst enemy and had to be protected, from himself, and from the public. He may have been looked up to because of his wealth, his charm, his power, his political skills, the Kennedy mystique, etc., but no one seriously harbored any doubts that he was like the rest of men. His survival was partly possible because he did not have to live up to idealized standards of perfection, only appear to do so.

Cardinal Law, on the other hand, did have high moral standards, and was living up to them in his personal life. He did not drink to excess, did not engage in illicit sexual behavior of any kind, and had made innumerable positive contributions to both Church and State. He was presumed to be a paragon of perfection. It made no difference in his defense to point out that the percentage of priest abusers was lower than that of abusers in other professions, no difference to explain that Law was operating on the basis of the  best professional medical advice of the day,  it made no difference to point out that today’s society was judging yesterday’s crimes by today’s standards of awareness which did not exist  when the crimes were committed, and it made no sense at all to speak in terms of mercy, forgiveness, repentance and conversion, nor  gradations or degrees of sexual offense.  The only thing that mattered was that the outraged public that needed someone to be pay.

Where did that hatred come from?  Was everyone was swept up in the tsunami of public opinion? A “yes” answer to that question ignores the facts.  I believe it is a fact that school administrators had long been in the same position the cardinal was, and indeed had long been guilty of “passing along the garbage” by transferring their sexually abusive teachers to other schools. There was not the same call for their resignations, nor was there a public outcry for their blood, in spite of the betrayal of trust that they were guilty of and complicit in.   It is also statistically provable, I believe, that other denominations had (and have) a significantly higher percentage of clergy who commit pedophilia that the Catholic Church does. Yet public outrage against them was hardly noticeable. Pedophilia is pedophilia, whether it is committed by a priest, minister, rabbi, doctor, lawyer, coach, or teacher. If concern for children is the most important issue to the public, then the same outrage that was displayed over clergy sexual abuse should have been poured out in the other instances as well.  Why was not the same vilification heaped on other professions when those professionals are guilty of the same outrage? My conclusion is that Clericalism is the factor that makes the difference.

If you find yourself disagreeing, please see if the following fantasy makes any sense to you: Imagine a Catholic bishop or cardinal of great public stature as Cardinal Law before his disgrace. Imagine that this esteemed Prince of the Church is crossing a wooden bridge on an island with an attractive woman in his car late at night, and the car slides off the bridge somehow and into the deep water below.   Somehow the cardinal gets out and swims to shore while the woman drowns. Imagine too that as soon as he gets to shore he pulls out his cell phone and calls for help immediately. There is no delay, no suspicion of a cover up, no liquor on his breath. There are no aggravating factors that could justify suspicions, just an immediate call for help. An autopsy of the woman is performed which shows she died by drowning. That’s it, the whole story,   clean of any salubrious implications or grounds for doubt. Would it fly? Would people allow the prince of the church to continue in office? I would bet any amount of money they would not. A Cardinal in Kennedy’s situation, even if it were not as bad as Kennedy’s would be treated worse than Kennedy was, because the Cardinal is a man of the cloth. As a man of the cloth, he is idolized and victimized, praised and scorned, exalted and sacrificed, because he is seen as a living image of a Presence greater than himself. He is therefore presumed to be more than himself, the living incarnation of a holiness that the world fears and finds foreign.

As an idealized embodiment, the priest is a sign of contradiction, in success as well as failure, because no human, even a saint, is ever a complete embodiment of an ideal. Some will hate the priest no matter what he does because of the Christ Whom he re-presents to them, or because of incorrect impressions of what they think Christ represents. When Law failed, the protective wall of Clericalism crashed down with him.  The secrets of many hearts are laid bare. People stood before God with no welcome or unwelcome barrier interposed. Naturally they were not happy about being confronted with the supernatural!   

To be Continued...