Calling Sin by its Real Ugly Name

As reparation for my sins, and to help me be a better protector of children, I have been reading the Grand Jury Report from Pennsylvania. The Report documents the history of clerical sexual abuse in six of the Pennsylvania dioceses (excluding Philadelphia and Johnstown-Altoona, which have been the subject of other reports). It is truly horrifying reading, enough to make your blood boil with rage at the men who did these wicked evil demonic things and the foolish incompetent men who failed to properly respond to them.
 
The most horrifying thing about the report is not just the cold, clinical way in which these awful sins are described by the Report. That's somewhat understandable, because it's an official document and they should strive for a tone of objectivity. Rather, it's the cold, clinical, impersonal way that the internal Church documents discuss the offenses and how diocesan officials were reacting and handling them.
 
The Report singles one statement that is really beyond belief, but it is sadly not untypical:

In another case, a priest raped a girl, got her pregnant, and arranged an abortion. The bishop expressed his feelings in a letter: "This is a very difficult time in your life, and I realize how upset you are. I too share your grief." But the letter was not for the girl. It was addressed to the rapist. (6)

That kind of indifference to the victims and solicitude for the offenders is all too typical of the internal Church documents cited in the Report. It is incomprehensible to me that those diocesan officials did not die of shame when they read Matthew 18:6 ("whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened round his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea") and 19:14 ("Jesus said, "Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven").
 
One of the hallmarks of the culture of silence and cover-up was the systematic use of euphemisms to describe what was happening. Terms such as "inappropriate sexual relationship", "boundary issues", "this difficult time", and priests being "reassigned" or "out on sick leave" were used to conceal the true nature of what was happening. Plain words like "crime", "sin", "rape", "sodomy", and "torture" were rarely if ever used.
 
We have to call sin by its real name. Yes, those names are ugly, but not as ugly as the sins they describe. Nothing is as ugly as that. The Catechism provides a full panoply of very blunt talk about sexual sin, such as:

• "Rape is the forcible violation of the sexual intimacy of another person. It does injury to justice and charity. Rape deeply wounds the respect, freedom, and physical and moral integrity to which every person has a right. It causes grave damage that can mark the victim for life. It is always an intrinsically evil act. Graver still is the rape of children committed by parents (incest) or those responsible for the education of the children entrusted to them." (CCC 2356)
• "sexual abuse perpetrated by adults on children or adolescents entrusted to their care... is compounded by the scandalous harm done to the physical and moral integrity of the young, who will remain scarred by it all their lives; and the violation of responsibility for their upbringing." (CCC 2389)
• "Among the sins gravely contrary to chastity are masturbation, fornication, pornography, and homosexual practices." (CCC 2396)
• "intrinsically and gravely disordered action" (masturbation, CCC 2352)
• "gravely contrary to the dignity of persons" (fornication, CCC 2353)
• "grave scandal when there is corruption of the young" (fornication, CCC 2353)
• "disordered desire for or inordinate enjoyment of sexual pleasure" (lust, CCC 2351)
• "a grave offense" (pornography, CCC 2354)
• "Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered. They are contrary to the natural law." (CCC 2357)

You hear none of that plain language in the internal documents of the Church cited in the Report. Indeed, you get little sense that the gross immorality of the abusive behavior was even on the radar. Nor do you feel any degree of moral outrage at the evil behavior of the offenders, nor any effort to seriously discipline them. There is virtually no indication that any bishop ever seriously considered using the ample penal procedures of the Canon Law. All the priests were treated as if they had an illness to be treated quietly, not as if they had committed grevious sins for which they needed to repent and do reparation.
 
The only way that this horrendous scandal can be adequately dealt with requires first and foremost that we tell the truth. About the failures to respond to allegations appropriately. About the failures to bring law enforcement into the picture. About the failure to protect others from known offenders. And, to be fair, about the strides that we have taken in the last decade to improve things.
 
But more than anything else, we need to call sin by its real ugly name. And treat it with the revulsion it deserves.