Your Holiness, I hope this letter somehow reaches you. I think it might help you find a way out of the mess you are in.
I’m referring to the accusations being made that you allowed a priest, Fr. Peter Hullermann, who had been identified as a pedophile in the diocese of Essen back in 1980, to come to your diocese in Munich, and after a brief period of therapy, he was permitted to take up his ministry without any enforced restrictions about staying away from kids.
And now the New York Times has made known that Dr. Werner Huth, the psychiatrist who treated (or tried to treat) Fr. Hullermann, reported to the Munich diocesan authorities at the time that Fr. Hullermann had refused to engage in one-on-one therapy and that he was “neither invested nor motivated” in his therapy. Dr. Huth recommended to your diocese that Fr. Hullermann could be readmitted to priestly ministry only under the strictest conditions – namely, “that he stay away from children, not drink alcohol, and be accompanied and supervised at all times by another priest.”
Well, Fr. Hullerman was soon assigned a parish post, and Dr. Huth has stated that these conditions were “enforced only intermittently.” It must have been very intermittently, since Hullermann was convicted in 1986 of sexually abusing minors and distributing pornographic materials.
The Vicar General for your diocese at the time has covered for you and said that you did not know that Hullermann was assigned to a parish. Also, Dr. Huth cannot prove that his stern warnings that “For God’s sake, he desperately has to be kept away from working with children,” were ever communicated to you.
Even if you can prove that you knew nothing about the reports of the psychiatrist or of the assignment of Fr. Hullermann, you cannot avoid the question that comes thundering into the mind and onto the lips of anyone reading about this: WHY DIDN’T YOU?! HOW COULD YOU NOT HAVE?
Your Holiness, excuse my bluntness: You are sailing down that well-known creek without a paddle. You need to do something to clear your name and to reinstate the confidence of the Catholic church (that is, the Catholic people) in your leadership.
The legal, perhaps moral, solution would be for you to resign, as it would have been for the bishops mentioned by the Massachusetts Attorney General’s 2003 “Report on the Sexual Abuse of Children in the Boston Archdiocese.” These were the bishops who cooperated with Cardinal Law in the cover up of pedophile priests. All of them went on to be promoted to head other dioceses, while Law himself was removed and promoted to a plush post in the Vatican. (The Boston Bishops I’m talking about are: Thomas Daily, Robert Banks, Alfred Hughes, William Murphy, and John McCormack.) None of these men were really held responsible by Pope John Paul II or by you. So we can’t really expect you to hold yourself responsible.
Therefore I’m suggesting that you can all keep your jobs and still show the Catholic people that you are serious about reforming the church and the all-male clerical caste-system that, according to many and most recently Hans Küng, is at the root of the deception and the sexual abuse.
All you have to do is drop obligatory celibacy for the priesthood and admit women to the priesthood!
Both of these moves are theologically possible, as the majority of your Roman Catholic theologians and scripture scholars will explain to you. And, the move would enable you to have a sufficient number of priests around the world to enable the Catholic people to keep their “Sunday obligation” of going to Mass. (Right now, because you make celibacy more important than the Eucharist, there aren’t enough priests.)
So that’s the deal: You and the offending bishops can keep your jobs, and regain the respect of your people – simply by admitting men and women to the priesthood without requiring them to deprive themselves of the intimacy of sexual love.
As easy as that! How about it?
Amen Paul!
I am 3/4 through, Without Buddha I Could Not Be A Christian, and I love it. I’ve described myself as a CathaBud or sometimes as a Budaholic so your book truly resonates with me. Thank you so much for writing it.
Rick
Thanks, Rick. CathaBu! I like that.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Truth/Divine/God is impartial to religion. To hear “internal” reflection/reprieve is refreshing and the first step towards. That we might remove the plank from “our” own eyes, in the sense of a religious entity.
That is a most unusual letter.
You seem to believe that the Pope is guilty of covering up for some sex abusers, you then are prepared to ignore the consequences of such an act ,as long as the Pope fits in with your plans.
How ethical is that?
Thanks for your question. The letter was done with a certain in-crowd tongue-in-cheek tone. My teasing point was that given the clerical establishment in which all power is concentrated in the pope and bishops, we (i.e. the people) could let them keep their jobs if they would open the priesthood to married men and women. That, I suspect, would do much to change the clerical, clandestine culture that has spawned the pedophile actions and cover-ups. I’m not sure this makes sense. I hope it does.
[...] Paul Knitter, now teaching at Union Seminary in New York, suggests that the only way out of the current mess is confession, followed by bringing an end to the celibacy rule. For Knitter’s full commentary. [...]
Married priests (including gay marriage?)and the ordination of women to the priesthood are necessary reforms. I doubt, however, that imposed celibacy and pedophilia are directly linked. Many pedophiles have spouses. The Church needs to clean house at the Vatican, but is that a pipe dream?