On Abusive Priests, Idolatry, and the Epstein Files

There is something I’ve learned, after writing so much about the Catholic priest abuse crisis, and after witnessing the downfall of abusive priests here in town.

I have learned that an alarming number of powerful men are sexual predators. And an alarming number of less-powerful men, upon learning this,  will continue to pal around with and fawn over sexual predators. They will go to great lengths to protect the sexual predators. They will be pleased to be part of the sexual predators’ in-crowd. And eventually, when the predator is exposed, they will pretend they didn’t know.

I say “men” because, as a Catholic, I’ve only ever dealt with male priests. And I say “less powerful men” because in the hierarchies I’m accustomed to, nearly nobody powerful is a woman. I don’t know what would happen in some mirror realm where women were the powerful ones and men the ones who couldn’t be leaders in a church that was otherwise like the Catholic Church. My guess is, it would look about the same, but the predators would be female. I don’t think being a sexual predator is something that men do because of a biological difference. I think it’s to do with who gets to exercise power.

I don’t know whether this happens because the kind of person who tends to seek positions of power is more likely to be an abuser, or if it happens because being in a position of power corrupts a person until they decide to abuse. My guess is, both of those factors are part of the reason. And there are other factors as well.

I have often thought about what it would be like, if being a Catholic priest was considered an honorable position and a holy one, but not really a position of leadership.

What if a priest was considered a steward of the Lord’s house, but not the boss in charge of the house? What if he had an august and beautiful vocation, and got to be in persona Christi while he confected the Eucharist and heard confessions, but when he wasn’t doing those things, people treated him like an ordinary man? What if the idolatry of clericalism had never existed, and a priest was just one of the beautiful roles people could play in a Church where there was neither slave nor free, Jew nor Greek, male nor female, but all were one in Christ? What if the role of a priest was august and important, but no more so than the role of a mother or a catechist or somebody who cooks meals for the homeless, and the Church got her leaders in a different way?

I do think that’s what Christ intended the Church to look like.

I’ve tried to imagine a Church like that, but it’s difficult. I’ve seen too many priests who decided that their vocation gave them the right to step on everybody else. It’s hard to imagine a better one.

I have also wondered what America would look like, if the president was just a man who had a special role to lead the Executive branch, instead of a celebrity people  cheered over.

To be clear, I think that’s what the president is SUPPOSED to be and what the founding fathers wanted, but that’s not how it’s worked out. Personally, I don’t fawn over politicians. I like some of them as people, but not many. I think that if I lived next door to Bill and Hillary Clinton, I’d nod cordially at them when I saw them but never be friends. If I lived next door to the Bidens I’d probably chat with them and let them borrow my snow shovel. If I lived next door to Kamala Harris I’d be friendly with her but wonder what she was talking about half the time. If I lived next door to the Walzes I’d probably be good friends with them, and have them over for Thanksgiving. But I can’t bring myself to treat a politician like a superstar. I don’t idolize leaders; I’m just interested in what they plan to do for the country and whether I think they’re capable of doing it. I want my political leaders to be boring bureaucrats who get things done quietly without bothering me. I’m in the minority in that way. Presidential candidates have cult followings.

Other people also have cult followings that mystify me. I don’t know why anyone cares what Elon Musk thinks, for example. The extremely wealthy are not interesting to me, but other people put them on pedestals and admire them. In fact, they treat them the way a certain type of Catholic treats a priest. This is the world we live in.

And now, with the release of so many of the Epstein Files– far past the deadline and far too heavily censored– we learn the same lesson we learned with abusive priests.

Men in power tend to be extremely abusive. They prey on the helpless. They destroy young women. And then the less powerful men around them fawn and cajole and want to be friends with the powerful man anyway. All kinds of men do this: doctors, businessmen, of course politicians. They all admire the predator instead of despising him. They want to go to the abusive party instead of exposing the abuse and rescuing the victims.

In this deeply unjust world, money is power and the wealthy are treated like priests. The extremely, astronomically wealthy take on the same glamor as a powerful priest who surrounds himself with a personality cult, like Father Scanlan and Father Tiesi and the others did in Steubenville. And the men who are still rich but not nearly as rich as that extremely rich man, close ranks around him and emulate him.

I don’t want to believe the things I’ve just written. I want to believe that most people are basically good and would never do something like that.

But this is the world we live in, and this is how I’ve learned it works.

I would like to build a better world.