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| Kevin Wallin "accomplished priest" |
Meth dealers go to jail all the time, so this would hardly
be news but for the fact that this 63-year old man from Bridgeport, Connecticut
was a priest. The papers are referring to him as “Monsignor
Meth.” He was also an addict, himself. And a cross-dressing
party-loving man known for his love of Broadway musicals. And
apparently a capable secretary to two bishops, and described by
his own colleagues as a "gifted, compassionate and accomplished
priest."
I know only what I read in the papers, of course, and am not
in a position to judge the man, even if I wanted to – I don’t. But
this man appears to have two characteristics which, in the long run, were bound
to cause his downfall. He was able to live a double life like some
character out of Breaking Bad. And he lacked the strength of
character to ride out some serious financial challenges. The
Catholic Church is up against a loss of membership, for reasons that remain
speculative. But it is also suffering from the collapse of the
financial markets in 2008. Wallin was a fundraiser and this hit him
hard. So he turned to drugs.
My first response to the news story of his sentencing was
Schadenfreude. Every example of hypocrisy in the Catholic Church
brings out the “sock it to’em” impulse that lurks in some corner of my
mind. Try as I may to separate the good that is in the church from
the bad, there is a part of me which is still a church basher, so intense is
the loathing I have built up over the years over the church’s efforts to keep
women dependent on men and to guilt gays and lesbians into a life of sexual
denial and indignity. And, more recently, its willingness to throw
its weight behind Republican causes, closing its eyes to how often it
represents the interests of the moneyed classes at the expense of the rest of
us.
Stories like this one keep popping up. Inevitably,
I am reminded of the claims of
people like David Berger, that up to half of the priesthood is made up of
homosexually inclined men, most of whom live lives of denial, and many of whom
channel their resentment into sexual aggression and project their self-loathing
into ardent support for its anti-gay policies. Nothing is more
characteristic of the Roman Catholic Church (and they are not alone in this
among Christian groups, obviously) than repressed sexuality. The
consequences of that mindset have been deadly. Over and over, again
and again, opportunities for healthy growth are denied as the alleged virtues
of sexual denial and suppression are touted as the will of God.
This story captured my attention this morning because I had
been discussing the ramifications of the Pew Research Group report the
past couple of days on how many people are falling away from organized
religion in America. I celebrate this fact, but at the same time I
realize this spells heartbreak for religious friends and members of my family.
It’s an old old story, and things are not likely to change,
no matter how many more cases like this one will come to our attention. People
with messed up sexualities find their way into the church, hide behind the rule
of celibacy without recognizing the long-term cost of denial. The
moral code some Christians claim is the strongest selling-point for being
Christian in the first place - (“Without the church, what would keep us all
from killing each other!?”) – has been twisted. Instead of focusing
on the virtues of compassion and generosity and love and forgiveness, the church
has made morality all about sex. About not touching yourself down
there. About not having sex unless you are generating future
souls. About constructing a society that argues it is protecting
women when it is more interested in controlling them and keeping them dependent
on men.
Kevin Wallin is easy to ridicule. A priest
wearing a dress and high heels. Singing and dancing to Broadway show tunes. What a clown. What a joke. What an obscenity. Let’s
laugh and make fun of this hypocrite. This weakling. One
Spanish-language blog even describes his fall as "La caída de la
bestia" - the fall of the beast.
Then again, let’s not. Let’s recognize what
happens when an autocratic institution grabs hold of a weak man like Kevin
Wallin and makes him do its bidding. Makes him hide his doubts about
his beliefs. Makes him hide his true sexual nature.
In the long run, you will take sides on the basis of your
own personal and political philosophy. Do you tend to form your own
sense of morality by moving from the individual to the collective? Or
the other way around? Are you a law and order type who believes the
individual must, in most cases, surrender to the good of the collective? Or
are you a staunch individualist who believes one of the great aspects of the
American political system is having a Supreme Court that judges cases on the
basis of the rights of the individual, and overturns the will of the majority
on occasion, when they judge the individual to have been wronged? I’m
oversimplifying greatly, obviously, to make a point.
But I’ve reached my own penchant for stressing individual
rights over collective ones because I’ve been on the business end of abusive
laws and customs of a tyrannical, unjust, and ungenerous majority.
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| same guy as above - demonized |
This is a philosophical issue. Do you blame
Kevin? Stress his personal weakness? Focus on the harm he
has caused himself and other victims of drug addiction? Kevin Wallin
is easy to demonize.
It's easy to frame this story as being about a man
who has sinned and who has to pick himself up, make restitution, get right with
the Lord again.
Or do you focus on the misguided institution to which he has
devoted his life? Apparently he is seeking forgiveness and seeking
to reenter the church as a member in good standing. If he is reinstated –
and I think he will be – his contrition appears to be genuine – it will be
because he acknowledges his wrongdoing and throws himself on the mercy of the
institution. He may then go back to denying his sexual nature and
live a life of celibacy.
If he pays that price, the church will have won out. And
the harm that generated the worldview that brought him down will continue.
And that will be a great pity.
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