Silence We Keep A Nun's View of the Catholic Priest Scandal

IN TRYING TO UNDERSTAND the current crisis in the Catholic priesthood, I confronted dimensions of the problem I had never noticed before. The first realization came with my seeing how much this scandal had everything to do with me. I saw how suspect the silence of the sisterhood appears now, and how these scandal-ridden times beg us to say something about what we know. I saw the voice of all women in the church as mysteriously silent, most especially my own. The second realization came as I tried to clarify the problem. I saw how accepting we've always been of some sexual relationships in the priesthood, and at the same time how outraged and betrayed we feel over the criminal abuses and cover-ups. No wonder so many feel confused soulfully. At some level, we bought into the hypocrisy. In taking a studied look at how priesthood emerged in the Catholic Church, my heart sank when I realized how old the problem of priestly privilege and abuse is, and I still shudder every time we receive more evidence of how criminally corrupt the priesthood is. The fact that the Catholic Church survives is a daily miracle. Everything I see when I look at the Catholic priesthood led me to return to its beginning in order to understand why we are where we are today. Because the seeds of self-destruction appear to be that deeply grounded, I looked at priesthood in the early church, priesthood in the Middle Ages, and priesthood now. In forty years as a sister, I was never asked about the priesthood. Now I am asked about it almost daily. Friend and stranger, Catholic and non, look at me as though stunned, and over and over pose the same question, "What in God's name is going on in the Catholic Church?" Most wonder what I think of the "big priest scandal" and what nuns "know about it." Both subjects top nearly every conversation I have, and both subjects called me to explain what I see happening in the Catholic Church. All of a sudden I find myself pressed to answer questions I've never been asked before and never needed to think about. All of a sudden, a scandal that had nothing to do with me became a scandal that had everything to do with me. Persistent questions called on me for answers that I didn't have, many of which still leave me speechless. The answers I did find are what make up this book. In looking at priesthood today, it's no surprise that some attention would shift to the sisterhood and what we know. Sisters worldwide were always perceived as priests' helpers (and cheap labor). In every parish, priests were responsible for everything that happened in church, and sisters were responsible for everything that happened in school. Together they took care of what we knew as "parish life." When we looked at those who built the community life of the church, we saw priests and sisters sharing the workload, though never equally as partners. Nuns were submissive to priests, servants extraordinaire to these privileged "men of God," and major contributors to the priesthood's culture of privilege; some still are. As young sisters, it was customary for us to deliver and serve meals at the Priests' House. It was also customary for the convent kitchen to prepare special meals for the fathers. While the sisters ate turkey croquettes and Spam, for example, the priests dined frequently on steaks and roast beef. In every convent I lived in, when Father came to dinner, a special meal was prepared (with no expense spared) and all conversation centered on him. No one questioned Father's authority or disagreed with what he said. The author Lorenzo Carcaterra told the story of how growing up in Italy his father frequently brought the sisters hams, which they in turn always gave to the priests. All gifts given to the Italian nuns were routinely turned over to the priests. No one worshipped the ground priests walked on more faithfully than nuns. And given that general perception, one caJackowski, Karol is the author of 'Silence We Keep A Nun's View of the Catholic Priest Scandal', published 2004 under ISBN 9781400050550 and ISBN 1400050553.