More Sins of the Catholic Priesthood

In what is almost a refreshing change form the endless tails of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy, the New York Times has a story on a priest who fathered a child and his religious order that knew about it and provided support to the mother and child - on the condition that it all be kept silent. Anything to protect the Church's false and hollow image. Only now, with the story hitting the media, has the priest been suspended and under investigation. I am not fan of the Church's celibacy requirement - a policy that tracks back to an effort to keep money and property in the Church as opposed to any spiritual requirement - and believe that it has been the source of all kinds of sexual impropriety among the priesthood. Nonetheless, it is the height of hypocrisy to see the Church always working to cover up issues rather than fix a seriously broken system. Here are some highlights from the Times story:
*

What Ms. Bond found was a priest — a dynamic, handsome Franciscan friar in a brown robe — who was serving as the spiritual director for the retreat and agreed to begin counseling her on her marriage. One day, she said, as she was leaving the priest’s parlor, he pulled her aside for a passionate kiss.
*

Ms. Bond separated from her husband, and for the next five years she and the priest, the Rev. Henry Willenborg, carried on an intimate relationship, according to interviews and court documents. In public, they were both leaders in their Catholic community in Quincy, Ill. In private they functioned like a married couple, sharing a bed, meals, movie nights and vacations with the children.

*

Eventually they had a son, setting off a series of legal battles as Ms. Bond repeatedly petitioned the church for child support. The Franciscans acquiesced, with the stipulation that she sign a confidentiality agreement. It is now an agreement she is willing to break as both she and her child, Nathan Halbach, 22, are battling cancer.

*
With little to lose, they are eager to tell their stories: the mother, a once-faithful Catholic who says the church protected a philandering priest and treated her as a legal adversary, and the son, about what it was like to grow up knowing his absentee father was a priest.

*

The relationship between Ms. Bond and the priest is hardly unique. While the recent scandals involving the Roman Catholic Church have focused on the sexual abuse of children, experts say that incidences of priests who have violated sexual and emotional boundaries with adult women are far more common.

*
Clergy members of many faiths have crossed the line with women and had children out of wedlock. But the problem is particularly fraught for the Catholic Church, as Catholics in many countries are increasingly questioning the celibacy requirement for priests. Ms. Bond’s case offers a rare look at how the church goes to great lengths to silence these women, to avoid large settlements and to keep the priests in active ministry.

*

The priest Ms. Bond fell in love with so many years ago, Father Willenborg, is currently the senior pastor of Our Lady of the Lake, a large, historic parish of 1,350 families on the shores of Lake Superior in Ashland, Wis. The church spire is visible from miles away, and the parish operates an adjoining school.

*

Father Willenborg’s Franciscan superiors were aware of his relationship with Ms. Bond well before Nathan was born. A year earlier, Father Willenborg and Ms. Bond had conceived another child. Ms. Bond said that Father Willenborg suggested she have an abortion, which she found unthinkable. He finally informed his Franciscan superiors of their liaison. The pregnancy ended in a miscarriage.

*

A landmark study in 1990 by the scholar A. W. Richard Sipe, a former Benedictine, found that 20 percent of Catholic priests were involved in continuing sexual relationships with women, and an additional 8 percent to 10 percent had occasional heterosexual relationships.

*

The story goes on to describe the current medical problems of Ms. Bond and her son - and the Church's ongoing efforts to avoid financial responsibility. Once again, I cannot help but wonder why the Catholic laity doesn't rise up in revolt and overthrow the current hierarchy which has proven time and time again to be utterly corrupt and morally bankrupt.