Priests’ Support News

The Ethical Rights of Priests

By James Keenan, S.J., Gasson Professor, Boston College

Parts 1 and 2 appeared in the February and March 2005 issues, respectively, of In the Vineyard. This is the final installment.

The Right of Association

The right of sharing in the ministry of the bishop leads to fostering right relations among the clergy. Therefore Canon 275.1 states that "since clerics all work for the same purpose, namely, the building up of the Body of Christ, they are to be united among themselves by a bond of brotherhood and prayer…." But these bonds are not to separate the priests from the laity. The Code adds immediately, “Clerics are to acknowledge and promote the mission that the laity, each for his or her part, exercises in the Church and in the world.” Thus, the associations among the clergy are intimately tied to promoting the laity's involvement as well.

Though an earlier canon (215), defined the right of all the Christian faithful to form associations, canon 278 establishes it as the first canonical right for priests: “Secular clerics have the right to associate with others to pursue purposes in keeping with the clerical state.” Noteworthy is that in developing the revised code, the commission rejected a proposal that placed associations of priests under the local ordinary. To do so would be to infringe on the exercise of the very right that was being promulgated.

The code derives its inspiration from the natural law and from earlier encyclicals. For instance, in Pacem in Terris (24), Pope John XXIII upheld the natural right to assemble and to form in their own way their own associations. Moreover, the pope argued against a "one-type-of-association" fits all. Rather, he wrote “It is most necessary that a wide variety of societies or intermediate bodies be established…."

From the natural law, our own experience, papal encyclicals, and the code itself, we recognize the ethical right of priests to form associations. In recent years, we have seen free-standing priests’ associations emerge. This ethical right validates these groups. Moreover, these organizations do not replace presbyteral councils but represent a few of what Pope John XXIII referred to as the “wide varieties” of gatherings necessary for human flourishment.

The Right to Exercise One’s Ministry

While there is an obligation to exercise one’s priestly ministry, there is also a right to exercise that ministry according to one’s judgment. Here we think of pastors, for instance, who must discern whether this particular couple is actually ready to get married in the Church. Or when pastors must discern the appropriate place or time for a child’s baptism. The question of the exercise of ministry has been raised in rectories throughout the land. Often it takes the shape of wondering aloud – If the chancery sends out a letter asking a topic to be addressed and a position to be advocated in the Sunday sermon, how specifically bound is the pastor to the chancery's initiative?

In the USCCB document on Sunday homilies “Fulfilled in Your Hearing,” bishops call pastors to listen to the Scriptures and to the Congregation and to respond to that listening. Is there something that happens existentially in that listening that prompts the pastor to hear the needs of the laity of his parish in some other way than what a statement from the chancery may convey? Could there be times when the laity believe that something beyond what the chancery has articulated needs to be recognized? And if the priest is also obliged “to foster peace and harmony based on justice,” as canon 287 states, could he not be prompted eventually to engage at least other perspectives that might witness to the particular congregation he serves?

This is not advocacy for rebel priests. Rather it recognizes both the context in which a priest exercises his ministry and the process by which he comes to articulate the sermon and other forms of ministry. Though by his faculties a priest exercises his ministry at the bishop’s pleasure, there seems to be another claim on the priest that comes not from the bishop directly but from the people whom the priest serves. Like other expressions of his ministry that he shares with the bishop and with the laity, a priest’s preaching calls for a conscientious integrity to witness to the Gospel as he sees it expressed in his midst.

The Right to Fair Treatment

To appreciate this right we need to see the zero tolerance policy as it appears (paragraphs 56-60) in the Report on the Crisis in the Catholic Church in the United States by the National Review Board for the Protection of Children and Young People. There, the ten lay authors endorse the policy because some bishops and religious superiors "badly underestimated" the situation. “To prevent any recurrence of such situations, the Charter and Essential Norms remove any further discretion on the part of bishops and religious superiors in this regard.”

Besides restraining the bishop's authority, the decision affects priests. The Report notes: “Accordingly, the zero-tolerance policy applies without regard to any assessment of the degree of culpability of an offending priest based upon such factors as (i) the nature of the sexual act (e.g., the improper touching of a fully clothed teenager versus the sodomization of a child), (ii) the frequency of abuse (e.g., an isolated event versus a protracted history), or (iii) efforts to address the problem (e.g., successful treatment of a problem that had led to an act of abuse years ago versus untreated problems that manifested themselves more recently.) The policy also applies with equal force to a priest who reports himself as having engaged in an act of abuse in an effort to obtain help with his problem.” Zero tolerance recognizes no relevant circumstance of any kind, nor any due proportionality, the very factors that make treatment "fair." If zero tolerance is not fair, then how can it be just?

The Review Board acknowledges that “the zero-tolerance policy may seem to be too blunt an instrument for universal application.” Nonetheless, they believe “that for the immediate future the zero-tolerance policy is essential to the restoration of the trust of the laity in the leadership of the Church, provided that it is appropriately applied." They offer no manner of determining when after the "immediate future," fairness may be restored.

Moreover while the Report acknowledges “that there is no equivalent policy of zero tolerance for bishops or provincials" who assigned these priests, they argue that bishops “must show that they are willing to accept responsibility and consequences for poor leadership.” But here again, they offer no concrete expressions of how that responsibility ought to be expressed. Fairness cuts two ways. If a zero tolerance policy is applied to priests, where is an analogous policy for the bishops? In sum, zero tolerance is unfair.

Conclusion

I propose these four rights–to participatory leadership, to freely associate, to exercise one's ministerial judgment, to be treated fairly–in the hope that these may further encourage the voice of the clergy. Throughout these recent years, the voice of the clergy, when it does occasionally, though not at all often enough, address either the harm and shame attached to the abuse of children or the rights of the laity and bishops, has done so most frequently in the place that they are called to be: the parish pulpit. I suggest that if priests begin to recognize the rights due them—especially at a time when many find themselves, as the Report states, demoralized—they might in turn be more vocal in recognizing the rights of others and in fostering the communio that the Church so desperately needs. Healing grace always accompanies restorative justice.

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