Call no man father

I wrote the following some months ago. Comments?

Call no man father
Bernard Ratigan

"Call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven" (Matt. 23:9). The recent Murphy report on clerical sexual abuse of children in the archdiocese of Dublin has returned this painful subject to the headlines. For the victims, of course, it never goes away. There are a range of opinions about the links between abuse and religion. Some hold it is the result of the policy of compulsory clerical celibacy that is currently the norm (but not the whole of the practice) in the western Catholic Church. Others, more aware of what goes on in other faiths such as Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism, recognise that the Catholic Church by no means has a monopoly on the abuse of children and vulnerable adults.

When Freud began to develop the treatment that is now known as psychoanalysis he began to notice something odd happening between his patients and himself. Freud saw himself as a kindly, well-intentioned, physician intent on relieving his patients of the burdens of their mental suffering. He was surprised then when his patients did not see him in quite that way. He began to realise that his patients – and the patients of all doctors and other clinicians – transferred on to him what he called “facsimiles” of earlier relationships – especially the earliest and most primitive ones – that which we have with our primary care giver – usually our mother or father. Readers have only to recall their feelings as adults before being called into a doctor’s consulting room, summoned to the boss’s office or when a police officer knocks on your door and ask to speak to you. Eventually, Freud named this universal process `’transference`’ and later psychoanalysts went on to develop understandings of the process called “counter-transference” to map the feelings experereinced by the clinician and what they bring to the encounter.

The point of all this is to try to shed some light on the relationship between the clergy of whatever faith community not just Catholicism. However, where there is an exalted notion of difference, amounting to an ontological gap, between clergy and the laity there is an increased possibility of distorted and dangerous transference (and mirroring countertransference) phenomena developing. Having a role named “father” implies a reciprocal role of “child”. In the selection of candidates for clergy training initial screening, both by clinical interview and psychometric testing, can help identify those grossly unsuitable and those who (the rest) who will need psychological work to help them develop emotionally. In teaching trainee doctors, psychiatrists and psychotherapists it is always a challenge to help them see that however inexperienced or ignorant they may be as they stumble about learning their profession those they attempt to treat will be transferring onto or projecting in to them all kinds of fantasies from earlier experiences.

Attempting to treat clergy in emotional difficulties themselves – not usually abusers – but run of the mill clergy, I am often surprised that they seem to have little notion of transference/ and counter-transference phenomena. A clergy-person may be at the liberal end of the spectrum and believe that there are few differences between the ordained and lay– and not believe that the role of priest should evoke powerful infantile feelings of awe and need to be loved as a parent-like manner. On the other hand, there are clergy (it is always male in this case in my experience) who consciously sees themselves as different from the laity by virtue of their ordination.

In the discussions about clerical sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church, right-wingers sometimes blame its rise on the liberalisation that occurred after the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. Detailed analysis will doubtless reveal if the liberals or the conservatives score more highly in this gruesome calculus. My wish is that clergy, like doctors and psychotherapists, understand better that by virtue of their status and role, their manner of practice will evoke the most primitive, early and infantile parts of the those to whom they minister. If a doctor needs to examine us, sans clothing, perhaps in very intimate, private parts of our bodies, we can easily see that emotions such as shame will be exposed. Similarly, clergy who see themselves, or more importantly are seen, as sacramental ministers have relationships to the human body, for example in the sacraments of baptism, confession, communion and extreme unction, that can parallel and evoke our earliest relationship between our mothers and our own body. The giving out of the consecrated bread and wine at communion parallels the feeding of the baby at the breast of the mother – especially when the host is placed directly on the tongue as preferred by traditionalist Catholics.

I have not directly addressed the question of clerical sexual abuse of children and vulnerable adults. If there was a greater understanding of the general dynamics of the complex relationships between clergy and laity then we may have a more informed understanding of how abuse comes to happen and be better equipped to stop it.