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Roy Bourgeois: Another
scandal in the all-male priesthood
ROY
BOURGEOIS | Thursday, Aug. 23, 2018, 7:57 p.m.
As a
Catholic priest, I did the unspeakable. I called for the ordination of women in
the church. The Vatican was swift in its response. The Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith informed me that I was “causing grave scandal” in the
church and that I had 30 days to recant my public support for the ordination of
women or I would be expelled from the priesthood.
I told the
Vatican that this was not possible. Believing that women and men are created of
equal worth and dignity and that both are called by an all-loving God to serve
as priests, my conscience would not allow me to recant. In my response, I felt
it was also important to make clear that when Catholics hear the word
“scandal,” they think about the thousands of children who have been raped and
abused by Catholic priests — not the ordination of women.
In 2010,
the Vatican called the ordination of women as priests a crime comparable to
that of the sexual abuse of children. Judging from its actions, however, it would
appear that the Vatican views women’s ordination as a crime substantially more
serious than child abuse. Among the thousands of priests who raped and sexually
abused children, the vast majority were not expelled from the priesthood or
excommunicated. Every woman, however, who has been ordained to the Catholic
priesthood has been excommunicated by the Vatican.
And in
2012, after serving as a Catholic priest with the Maryknoll Missionary Order
for 40 years, I was expelled from the priesthood for refusing to recant my
public support for the ordination of women.
Today, once
again, scandal is rocking the Catholic Church. This time, it’s six Catholic
dioceses in Pennsylvania. According to a grand jury report, beginning in the
1950s, more than 300 “predator priests” sexually abused more than 1,000
children.
The
1,400-page report, written by 23 grand jurors over the course of two years,
stated that “Priests were raping little boys and girls, and the men of God who
were responsible for them not only did nothing; they hid it all. For decades.”
A “ring of
predatory priests” used violence and sadism in raping victims. A priest was
allowed to stay in ministry after impregnating a young girl and arranging for
her to have an abortion.
Another
raped a 7-year-old girl in her hospital room after a tonsillectomy. What was
his punishment? The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
decided, after reviewing his crime, that he should remain a priest and “live a
life of prayer and penance.”
The
Pennsylvania grand jury report concluded that the Catholic hierarchy “protected
the institution at all cost and maintained strategies to avoid scandal.”
Priests who got into trouble in one diocese were shuffled to another diocese
where more children were abused. The FBI determined that church officials
followed a “playbook for concealing the truth,” minimizing the abuse by using
words like “inappropriate contact” or “boundary issues” instead of “rape.”
I am
convinced that if the Catholic Church had women priests, it would not be in the
crisis it is in today. I am equally confident that if the Catholic Church does
not dismantle its corrupt all-male priesthood and welcome women as equals, it
will continue to drift into irrelevance.
Roy
Bourgeois is a Vietnam veteran and Purple Heart recipient, a Nobel Peace Prize
nominee and the founder of the School of the Americas Watch Movement. In 2012,
he was expelled from the Catholic priesthood for his public support of women’s
ordination. His story is the subject of the book, “Disturbing the Peace: The
Story of Father Roy Bourgeois and the Movement to Close the School of the
Americas.” He lives in Columbus, Ga.
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"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their
lives." Eugene Victor Debs
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