The hierarchy has an incredibly strong hold on its priests. Marketing 101 has the 4P's: Product, Price, Packaging and Promotion. The hierarchy of the RCC has its four P's for absolute power: Placement, Promotion, Penance and Pension. All four are controlled exclusively by either the bishop or the order's superior. The 4P's are strong enough strings to make most priests dance. It is the difference between being stationed in the inner city or a country club parish. The four P's are real power and very real control. Anyone of these strings when pulled by a superior can affect behavior. When all four are controlled by the same person, it is a recipe for total control. The four P's of hierarchical power explain a great deal of the global priestly silence, but they can't explain it all away. Enter Moynihan's theory of defining deviance down in order to maintain control.
Combine the 4P's of power with the concept of deviant control and you seal lips forever. Take an abusing priest of either homo or heterosexual nature. How much stronger is that priest's allegiance when the priest knows his bishop or cardinal will protect him? Defend him by every means available? Will keep him out of jail, out of site and then ship him to a new parish, a.k.a. hunting grounds, where he can once again ply his immoral trade?
The Code of Silence Testifies to These Truths
Edmond Burke said," All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
This could be the motto of the Roman Catholic Church. One of the most astonishing and disturbing facts of the Clergy Abuse Scandal is the singular solidarity of both priests and bishops in refusing to speak out against their brothers who have abused children. This silence is a condemnation of the entire church and its leadership. Out of forty thousand priests in the United States, only a handful have ever publicly spoken out against clergy abuse. Only a handful have ever aided victims in their quest for justice. The only internationally known priest advocate for survivors is Fr. Tom Doyle. The silence of the priesthood is not only about the abuse, it also applies to the outrageous crimes committed by the hierarchy in their handling of clergy abuse cases. The bishops have brought down great scandal upon themselves, their priests and the church yet the majority of "good" priests remain silent.
The question begs itself, why this deafening silence from men of God? Crimes as heinous as the rape, sodomization and molestation of children should inspire outrage, yet there was and is only silence. The cover-ups by the hierarchy should have resulted in calls for removal, yet there was and is only silence. The monumental scandal and shame brought down upon the church should have brought screams of anguish from every pulpit, yet there was and is only silence. Has every priest, like their bishops, lost every spark of humanity, been so dehumanized as to be indifferent? Are we to believe that in the thousands of rectories across the United States not one good priest is upset about this? What compels men of God to maintain their wholesale silence?
As striking as the silence of the priests is regarding clerical sexual abuse, it is just as striking on the subject of homosexuality. The RCC is one of the most vocal anti-homosexual religions in the world. The tirades let loose from the pope on down to the pulpit on the evils of homosexuality are legendary. They are strong, inciting, inflammatory and resolute in their condemnation. Yet at the same time, the website Religious Tolerance 16 offers, from a wide variety of sources, various projections (anywhere from 15% to 75%) on the number of homosexual men in the priesthood. Their conclusion is that about a third of the priests in the United States are homosexual. Is that anything new? I refer the reader to the church's own history mentioned earlier.
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