The Silence We Keep: A Nun's View of the Catholic Priest Scandal by Karol Jackowski Read Free Book Online Page B

other sects had, the power of patriarchy, the power of becoming divine laws unto themselves. As a result, and in the name of God, equality in the priesthood was subordinated to the divinely intended male-only tradition, and the inclusiveness of the People of God became the exclusiveness of the “priesthood of the elect.” The presence of God was no longer celebrated in the home, but was taken exclusively into churches, by law now the only sacredplaces for worship. And even within their own church, the People of God were no longer seated around the communion table. By the fifth century, the priest, in persona Christi , stood on the altar alone, with his back turned to the people. Christianity’s discipleship of equals, once recognized by the way they loved one another, became a house so divided within itself that it could not stand. Priesthood no longer came from the people, only from the elect. The Eucharistic table, around which all were welcome to gather, became the altar of sacrifice at which only the priest could stand. The voice of the community was silenced. The Holy Spirit present in the People of God became the exclusive property of the Catholic priesthood and the pope, the disastrous consequences of which become full blown in the Middle Ages. In looking at priesthood in the Middle Ages, we enter into the darkest soul of the Catholic Church.

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Priesthood in the Middle Ages
    I N ORDER TO UNDERSTAND what happened to the priesthood in the Middle Ages, we need to know about Saint Augustine (354-430), recognized as one of the greatest theologians in the Catholic Church, certainly its most influential thinker. More than any other Church Father, Augustine’s writings most define Catholicism to this day, especially his teachings on the goodness of violence, the intrinsic evil of sexual pleasure, the seductively subordinate nature of women, and a law of celibacy in the priesthood—all of which contributed significantly to the decadence and depravity of priesthood in the Middle Ages, as well as to the problems we see in the Catholic priesthood today. For better and worse, the Church Fathers are still very much in line with the fifth-century thinking of Augustine.
    Violence becomes part of the priesthood in the teachings of Saint Augustine. Among all Church Fathers, Augustine was the first to develop a theological justification of violence in spreading Christianity, the “just war” theory, making it a sacred duty to hate, torture, and kill “in the name of Jesus Christ.” It’s very similar to the concept of Islamic jihad. Forced conversions became standard during the Middle Ages. Holy wars against pagans, heretics, schismatics, and all deviants became glorious and triumphant works of God. The culmination of Augustine’s blessing on violence “in the name of Christ” is revealed in the horror and evil of the Inquisition, as well as in the subsequent papal bans ondissent, including those we still experience. Hating and killing “in the name of Jesus Christ” becomes the papal blessing on all those who refuse to believe in Catholicism, including fellow Christians. It was a far cry from the priesthood of the Jesus Movement in which disciples were known to be Christian by the way they loved one another, not by the way they hated and killed one another.
    The Catholic Church’s obsession with legislating sexual morality also enters the priesthood with the thinking of Augustine. His most famous prayer appears to be the tormented prayer of the Catholic priesthood still: “Lord, make me chaste, but not yet.” And while some church historians tend to minimize and even deny Augustine’s obsession with sex, I find that his teachings prove otherwise. One has only to look at Augustine’s writings (especially on original sin and the seductive nature of woman) to see that this is clearly a man who could not, without anguish, stop thinking of sex, and could not stop blaming women for his misery. Augustine fails to see as