The BC Catholic
Monday, 24 October 2011 08:16
Alan Hustak
Archbishop Anthony Mancini. Photo by L. CAMERON / Catholic Times Montreal.Archbishop Anthony Mancini says inadequate training and education contribute
By Alan Hustak
The Catholic Times
MONTREAL (CCN)–Inadequate formation of priests, the Church’s fear of human sexuality, isolation, and the mistaken acceptance by parishioners of priests as a stand-in for God were all contributing factors to the sexual abuse of minors in the Church, according to Archbishop Anthony Mancini of Halifax, a former auxiliary bishop of Montreal.
No sooner had Archbishop Mancini taken up his post in the Maritimes in 2007, he found himself confronted by the criminal misconduct of a fellow prelate, Bishop Raymond Lahey, who is now in jail after pleading guilty to possessing child pornography on his laptop computer.
“I inherited all of it, when I went to Halifax,” Mancini said, “the good, the bad and the ugly.”
Mancini, one of 20 experts to address the McGill conference, told delegates that the inadequacy of the Church to understand sexuality meant that many of its priests and bishops were ill-prepared to deal with their own sexuality and to manage it.
What priests find difficult and struggle with most, he said, is not sexuality but isolation, “the failure to experience the grace and gift of being an integral part of a community of faith.”
“Isolation is deadly, whether it is generated by clericalism or by lack of a Christian community,” he said. “A priest is not meant to be a priest alone and he can’t be a priest alone.”
Archbishop Mancini said priests who find themselves alone and depressed may “seek out some kind of unacceptable compensation and relief, such as alcohol, gambling and the growing contemporary phenomenon of pornography.”
“Pornography is watched in isolation, has the effect of becoming addictive, and creates a false sense of reality,” he said. “It imprisons an individual in a world of sexual fantasies and illusions, compounding further the danger and the depth of isolation.”
Treat the cause
Archbishop Mancini said that the protocols and rules that have been put in place in the wake of the crisis treat the symptom and not the problem. He called for improved integrated seminary training.
In the past, he said, while seminaries where a place to grow in, they were not a place to grow up in. Priests must be better informed about sexuality, “not deformed.” Seminary programs, he said did not deal with sexuality, and as a result, more than a few priests remained emotionally immature and perhaps arrested in their psychosexual development.
“Celibacy is not about not having sex!” Archbishop Mancini added. “Spiritual masters and recent popes have always presented celibacy as a gift of self, a call to self-transcendence. In order for celibacy to be such a gift, there must be a ‘self’ to give away … It requires emotional maturity and, largely, the capacity to get over oneself!”
However, it is not possible if it is lived as an imposition, “if there is an imbalance, a disorder, an underdeveloped sense of self, which has not been integrated into a mature understanding of one’s identity, including sexual identity,” he said. “The subject of sexuality requires more work, insight and better understanding so that priestly ministry … can be harmonized with Catholic understanding.”
Any comments on this? I have my thoughts but in this instance would like to hear what others have to say first
Thanks for asking Sylvia,
It is the same old rhetoric of vaguely defined terms used to create and image of an institution which has finally identified the source of clergy molestation problem. Mancini very cleverly portrays the pedophiles as a victim of ways of the past. The poor things never had a chance to develop and mature. The poor things , whether it be priests or lay non- Christians have spent to much time in a state of “deadly” isolation and eventually and naturally compensate by indulging in alcoholism, gambling and porn and therefore have no other choice but to rape little children. The good thing though according to the bishop in the first half of this propoganda is that this is all a thing of the past –
The solutions he proposes in the second half are even more vaguely defined than the problem. It’s all about appointing a great mouthpiece to eloquently say essentially nothing.
Mancini not unlike many other bishops I’ve heard in the past lament “I have inherited it all.” If they would listen a little closer to what victims have inherited from the poor immature rapists and the rest of the immature enablers the Mancinis of the church would soon come to realize that they have inherited nothing.
Mancini and the rest have not inherited, but have been complicit in what has been going on decade after decade.
I listened again yesterday as a Priest lamented about the amount of politics that comes to play in the Church. Not party politics, but church politics and favouritism. I also heard about a growing number of Masons who are Priests in the Ottawa Archdiocese.
With the number of homosexual Priests, and now the Masonic ones, how many are just plain ordinary good Roman Catholic Priests? And what is the Archbishop doing about it? There is no need for him to traipse off to Ireland to help them with their problems ! He has lots of work to do here- instead of dealing with platitudes on his blog.
May God soon bankrupt the Archdiocese of Ottawa so we will get back to basics.
As one who also attended this confrenece, I was very disappointed by Archbishop Mancini’s total focus on the needs of priests. I remember wondering if he was going to say anything at all about victims. Don’t get me wrong. I am all for hearing a variety of opinions on why abusive priests do what they do, but this sounded more like giving excuses than actually addressing the issues. I was outraged when Mancini said, “Isolation is deadly, whether it is generated by clericalism or by lack of a Christian community.” These are not separate issues. It is clericalism that has caused the lack of Christian community and the real victims are those who have been abused and not the abusers. Victims don’t have a community they can turn to. It was clericalism that caused us to put priests on pedestals. It was celricalism that caused us to fear priests and bishops and not challenge them or the Church they represented. Sure, let the hierarchy continue their futile efforts to “fix” abusive priests, but one would hope that there would at least be an equal amount of resources put into the needs of the victim. Anyways, it seems Mancini is saying the community made certain priests become abusive. If Mancini and other hierarchs feel that the “community” has so much power, then we should use that power for good. Let’s reclaim our Church. It belongs to the people, and not those hierarchs who claim to have our best interests at heart. As community, let’s support those who need it most (i.e. the victims of clerical sexual abuse). Having said that, I commend the organizers of this confrence for at least creating the opportunity to begin the dialogue. I just wish the dialogue would have been more inclusive by allowing a better balance of voices. We heard a lot from the hierarchy, but very little from victims who could have provided very valuable feedback, thus forming the basis for future dialogue. I salute Randall Penny, a victim who we did hear from. He spoke courgeously and openly about the abuse he experienced. However, he seemed like a voice in the wildnerness. Why was he the only victim whose personal story was heard? I hope there are future conferences, with much more attention paid to the stories of victims. If we really want to reclaim our Church and be community, then lets reach out to the most vulnerable among us; these being the victims of clerical sexual absue. Let’s not revictimize them by inviting more hierarchs and academics to the microphone. They are not they only voice, and they are certainly not the most important voice. Let’s help victims reclaim their own voice, and in doing so help them reclaim the Church and “community” that has been taken away from them.
I like the above comments. Sometimes the Priests seem to confused about Apologetics, and dealing with matters is Truth. I hope they do not think Apologetics are about apologies.
What is Archbishop Mancini saying…? Is he saying that the priests abusing children did this because they were isolated from the community? It was the community’s fault? It was the fault of the families? What? They should have invited the priests to their homes for dinner more often? So the priests could put the kids on their laps? Archbishop Mancini, evidently, hasn’t done much research into abuse cases, has he? From the accounts I have read of these priests-who-abuse, well, they were trusted in the community, and treated like ‘one of the family.’ What script is Archbishop Mancini reading from? The abuse happened exactly when the priests were socially accepted right into the middle of community events. The priests took the boys from the doorsteps of their parents, right out into the night to have pizza, right out into the priest’s car to go fishing, or go to the cabin for a weekend. No, Archbishop Mancini, these priests were not ‘in isolation’. On the contrary, they positioned themselves in close proximities to the families where they groomed their victims. Someone take Archbishop Mancini and send him for re-education and far away from a position of responsibility in the Diocese of Halifax. Gosh, I’m glad he knows all the ins-and-outs of his own sexuality, so that he is able to surrender it as a ‘gift to God’. The Archbishop wants seminarians to become mature in their “psychosexual development”, as a prerequisite for “self-transcendence”. Once you get past all the psycho-babble, he is saying it boils down to the fact that a wannabe priest, under Archbishop Mancini’s watch, will never know that the Catholic Church once taught that God gives lifelong purity to those who love Him. The lives of countless religious testify that Jesus Christ most often has called virgin souls to the closest intimacy with Himself… not second-hand goods.
I very much agree with the above comments. In each case where I have had a friend or loved one who was abused, the priest was anything but isolated. The community and the famlies had welcome the priests into their midst, only to be betrayed later by the priest, and then the Church. The majority of the priests who abused are NOT isolated, but very much part of the community. It is through mingling in the community that they find their prey and prepare them for the kill. But I also have to resist the temptation of being totally cynical. There are many good priests out there who deserve to be protected from the broad brush that taints the image of the priesthood, but no one is more deserving of immediate attention and compassion than the victims themselves. For those of us who want to reclaim our Church, we need to first focus on the the very real needs of primary victims, which is also the best way of bringing integrity back to the clergy and Church. Although, that is not likely to happen in my lifetime. If bishops and their delegates think that they first need to protect the institution, they have created a blueprint for their own demise. I believe there are best practices in serving primary victims that need to be followed which also came through at this conference. What I am about to say is not an endorsement of Father Atillia who also presented at the conference. I don’t know him, nor have I ever heard of him before. But I can say this. His talk and powerpoint (click below) presented some things that made sense to me in terms of supporting victims through the difficult process of disclosure and the after care that is so despeartely needed. Granted, this is only a powerpoint, but if bishops and delegates did what Atillia is suggesting, it would make things a whole lot better than they are now. Click here for Atillia’s powerpoint: http://traumaandtransformation.org/rev-len-altilia-s-j
Reclaiming Our Church, perhaps some of the time and for some people – not necessarily in you’re case- the perceived temptation to becoming totally cynical is not a temptation at all but merely an underlying fear of being labelled as such. In which case it becomes another obstacle to accepting reality as it is rather than what we want it to be.It is often very difficult to distinguish temptation from emerging truth especially when the truth undermines the foundation of our convictions. It is important to make such a distinction though because the resistance to one has a very different consequence from resistance to the other.
We are no doubt in very turbulent spiritual times but I think it is always important to bear in mind that God does not abandon His people to let them fend for themselves. He is like the wind and if we want to steadfastly follow we need to be prepared to give up our old dreams and visions for new ones.
In your post above you have made several excellent points. I responded this particular point because I believe it has such relevance for so many of us in these times.
Thanks Larry. I appreciate your point. Those of us who are trying to do this difficult work of supporting victims by challenging the hierarchy are often labelled as cynical, or worse, as trouble makers. We mustn’t let unkind labels deter us in this important work. I for one will admit that these labels are hard to bear. It is all too easy for vcitims’ advocates to start believing what others say about us, or to fall victim to what our own formation has taught us to think about ourselves when we dare challenge the powers that be. But whenever I start focussing on my own pain, I quickly refocus my attention to the pain of victims and realize that is where my focus needs to be. I wish the Church would take its attention off its perceived insitutional needs and put it on victims. In doing so, both are being served.