1 1 Catholic Clergy Sexual Abuse Meets the Civil Law by Thomas P ...

(bishop, priest, deacon) is derived from divine institution. 294 The law states that “sacred
ministers” are called “clerics in law.” 295 This does not mean that the clerical state is
believed to be of divine institution as well since it came into being at least four centuries
after the institution of the priesthood, according to Catholic teaching. 296
Clericalism as a pejorative term describes an attitude the clergy themselves
caused by fostering the false assumption that the clerical state is of divine origin. 297
Much of clericalism is about power. Power seeking, power sharing, and power keeping
are part of the clerical mindset, but not part of the essential concept of authority, which is
rooted in scripture. 298
Clericalism was deeply entrenched in the pre-Vatican Church, and in the secular
culture as well. The clerical mind set assumes that clerics are meant to be the dominant
elite in the Church, responsible for all aspects of governance and direction, while laity are
meant to be subservient. 299 The clerics were the essence of what the pre-Vatican II
Church defined as the “perfect society.” 300 Although certain manifestations of
clericalism have changed over the years, it is still firmly entrenched as a religious and
social phenomenon.
Most clerics progressed from early adolescence to adulthood within a completely
ecclesiastical milieu. The seminary system began at the high school level, and
progressed through the college level and then to the final four years of theological
294
1917 Code c.207.
295
Id.
296
New Catholic Encyclopedia, Catholic Univ. of America, 1967 vol. III, at 948.
297
Donald Cozzens, Sacred Silence: Denial and the Crisis in the Church 117 (2002).
298
Bishop Peter Cullinane, Clericalism: Avoidable Damage to the Church, Australasian Catholic Rev.
187 (1997) (stating “Power sharing, by those who want it, and power, by those who have it, belong equally
to the clericalist mindset, and not to the Gospel understanding of authority.”).
299
Shaw, supra note 277, at 9.
300
See New Catholic Encyclopedia, supra note 296, at 691-93.
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