ONE cheer for the Roman Catholic hierarchy on the wrenching issue of clergy pedophilia.
Eight years of media attention, a spate of lawsuits and vast disaffection among the Catholic laity have finally forced American bishops and Pope John Paul II to act.
With their newly formed committees to confront sexual abuse of children, the prelates are moving beyond their earlier denial that a problem existed.
But to move further forward, the bishops must now look back. They must honestly and openly examine all causes of priestly abuse and the historical pattern of institutional cover-up.
An examination of causes would demand serious answers to questions concerning the spiritual and psychological training of Catholic priests.
Evaluating the cover-up pattern would give answers to persistent questions involving the structure of the clerical order itself, viewed by growing numbers of Catholics as in a state of collapse.
Collapse? Many priests have dropped out. Others are burned out. Seminaries continue to close. Only a fraction of retiring priests are replaced by new recruits.
A good number of priests under the vow of celibacy privately admit to sexual activity. Disproportionate numbers of young priests and seminarians, relative to the general population, are commonly said to be gay.
The illegal sexual misconduct of some priests has visited the worst burden of all on the remainder: suspicion.
The Catholic Church will not escape this morass until it re-examines its overall approach to human sexuality: its distaste for sex and its idealization of virginity.
It is an approach peculiar to Catholicism and it leads church teachings into sexual absolutes. Significantly, this is not the case with issues such as war and economics, which the church views in terms of relative morality.
This month, the church is commemorating the 25th anniversary of the papal encyclical Humanae Vitae, which reaffirmed the church's ban on artificial contraception for married couples and was very much a product of Catholic sexual absolutism.
The anniversary provides a window through which to view a deeply ingrained distortion.
Catholic priests and theologians widely dissent from the document and 9 of 10 U.S. Catholics disregard it altogether.
Yet that has not caused the hierarchy to budge an inch. Humanae Vitae is not to be taught as an ideal. No, it is an absolute -- and cannot be reconsidered. Such rigidity suggests an institutional neurosis that has seriously eroded episcopal credibility and moved many Catholics to question other church teachings.
