A young military officer wrote me recently. “Have you written anything,” he wanted to know, “on pederasty in the priesthood? So many facets of this are very troubling for those of us who raise our families in the Church. Still, we must fight what seems to be a natural impulse to withdraw from the Church in an effort to shelter our children and ourselves.”

“Very troubling facets” is putting it mildly. From those segments of the Church that are dangers, one should “shelter our children and ourselves.” We never suspected danger on that front.

The American bishops and cardinals who convened in Rome with the Holy Father to discuss the situation, showing it is not just a problem for the laity, said: “We know the heavy burden of sorrow and shame that you (priests) are bearing because some have betrayed the grace of ordination by abusing those entrusted to their care.” Christ came to call sinners, including clerical sinners, perhaps them above all. The Holy Father has been careful, as a matter of principle, not to deny the basic Christian supposition that men are free, that they can repent. Such a free way is the proper way in any sinful situation.

But St. Thomas tells us that law can be used to coerce those whose sins are more dangerous to others. Sin is broader than law, but law needs to be invoked at times. Part of the trouble today is our confusion in the civil order about just what is right and wrong. Christ did not need to explain to us that such sins as these are sins. We are not to be confused about that fact.

A lady wrote: “I am not sure that a convocation of red hats in Rome did a thing. I hope something concrete comes out of the Dallas meeting in June. We need to see some higher-ups go. People are much more disturbed about the cover-up than they are about the dreadful abuse.” This comment seems right. The puzzle about the current scandals is not that they happen—“Woe to thee by whom they come”—but about the ineptitude in identifying them and facing them in time. Until the public scandal and legal costs, nothing much happened.

The good thing about sins, often-times, is that they make us face facts. The Church is an institution designed to forgive sins. But it is also an institution formed, whether we like it or not, to spell out what exactly sins are. Active homosexuality, abortion, euthanasia—today such things are called “human rights.” Meantime, the Church itself constantly affirms “human rights.” Not surprisingly, people are confused when the practice of certain “rights” is advocated or found within a Church that officially rejects them. In one sense, this crisis is also a crisis of the Church's own loose usage of the term “rights,” something of less than pious origins in modern thought.

Seeing the Right

The public astonishment at this unclarity over whether the Church accepts “all” rights has long needed attention. The Wall Street Journal editorial had it right about the meaning of the problem in an April 26 editorial:

“So there is outrage in the pews. … Like the Pope, millions of American Catholics have been grievously wounded to learn that priests entrusted with the innocence of their children have betrayed them—and that their bishops used the collection plate to pay off millions in hush money to victims. There is, however, a parallel anger at work here, which proceeds from different motives. It represents a mindset that has long viewed the Catholic Church—correctly—as one of the last institutional voices objecting to anything-goes sexual morality. Think of the irony: A sex-drenched American media culture is now upbraiding the Catholic Church for being too forgiving toward licentious sexual behavior. … When we talk about hostility to the Catholic Church, we are talking about a culture that sees the Church as one of the few institutions willing to say no.”

What particularly bothers many clerics and laity, I suspect, is the slowness of bishops and superiors to affirm this “no.” Many worry about a perceived failure to back up the theoretic suppositions of philosophy and theology that require them clearly to state this “no,” to explain effectively its meaning and justification. The Pope has often been left to do this all by himself.

Neither in the Church nor the culture can we have it both ways. We cannot say, first, that homosexuality and pedophilia are “rights” and, secondly, that priests practicing the same “rights” are wrong. The obviousness of this contradiction has more recently effected a lessening of media interest in this troubling topic. We have, in the name of “rights,” chastised the military services and the Boy Scouts for being leery of active homosexuals within their structures. It turns out that there is good reason for this caution.

Maggie Gallagher, a mother of two sons, said it succinctly in the March 14 Washington Times: “The Catholic tradition teaches that men and women are made for each other. Any sexual union outside of marriage between a man and a woman is wrong. But all of us are subject to sexual temptations, and there is nothing in Catholic theology to suggest God is harder on same-sex sins than any other kind. I still believe that. But now certain sexual—not theological—truths seem apparent, too: It is simply not practical for an all-male organization committed to celibacy to ordain men who are sexually attracted to males. Am I the only one who sees this?”

Evidently, everyone is beginning to see it.

Shaping Things to Come

We should not forget that there are those who promote pedophilia as a “right.” The age of consent is pressured ever downward. As commentator John Leo has pointed out, there are advocates of pedophilia as just another “normal” practice; the only problem for them, of course, is those moralistic dullards who think something is wrong with it.

Some within the Church publicly maintain that, if the Church had a married clergy, no restrictions on sexual practice, and none of this anti-contraceptive or anti-abortion nonsense, all would be well. The problem, it is said, is celibacy—if not the commandments themselves. Of course, if the Church were to buy this doctrine, after 2,000 years of teaching the opposite, there would be no reason for any sane person ever to belong to the Church. Consistency remains a Catholic virtue. Philip Jenkins is right: “This is not a celibacy problem with frustrated priests being driven to perversion and molestation,” he wrote in the March 26 Wall Street Journal. “It is, in the end, a fundamental cultural conflict, the outcome of which will script the future shape of American Catholicism.”

The “moment of grace” is present. The popular culture has long said “yes” to sexual libertarianism, but now finds itself agreeing with the Catholic Church that some things practiced under that umbrella are clearly wrong. It is one thing to delight in the Church's embarrassment over having arbitrary, even inhuman, “rules” about certain males in orders, and then seeing those same “arbitrary” orders disobeyed. The temptation to cry “hypocrisy” is great.

But the logic remains. If it is “right” for everyone, it cannot be “wrong” for the clergyman without violating his fundamental “rights.” But if it is wrong for everyone, it follows that something is wrong with the culture.

In the end, for those who insist that homosexuality is a “right,” it is best to change the subject. It is too dangerous. The “moment of grace” is that the bishops also begin to see the necessity of upholding their own rules both in theory and practice.

Jesuit Father James Schall teaches political science at Georgetown University.