The Church’s “Sexual Crisis”: It’s Not About Sex

Marie M. Fortune

The difficulty for the Church to respond adequately to clergy sexual abuse and crossing of sexual boundaries in the pastoral relationship runs parallel to the angst that has characterized the Church’s addressing heterosexuality and homosexuality for the past thirty years.

Sometimes these parallel tracks have blurred—for example, right now as we see gay priests too often scapegoated in the face of the disclosures of pedophilia by priests and the efforts of Roman Catholic seminaries to exclude gay men from the priesthood. But each track is assumed to be about sex and our difficulties in Christian churches in dealing with sexuality.

Conservative churches have generally taken the “sex is a necessary evil: save it for someone you love” approach to promoting abstinence outside of marriage. This has encouraged the ethical discussion to focus on technicalities—for example, is oral sex really “sex”—rather than on qualities of intimate relationship.

The liberal churches have pursued the “sex is a good gift from God” strategy, resulting in some excellent religious education curricula on human sexuality but also in a laissez faire attitude that can avoid a critical, ethical discussion. Sex is a good gift from God. But this affirmation does not go far enough.

Both ends of the spectrum seem to continue to focus on “sex” as the issue: the issue isn’t about sex after all.

Let’s revisit II Samuel 11–12. David, the most powerful king of biblical Israel, is attracted to Bathsheba. He has Bathsheba’s husband sent to the front lines of battle, where he is killed so that David can have her to himself. Nathan, David’s adviser, comes to him and tells him a story about a rich man who takes a lamb from a poor man for the rich man’s own use. David reacts with outrage and says that the rich man deserves to die and that he should restore the poor man fourfold. Nathan then says, “You are the man!” and proceeds to delineate the ways that David had betrayed the trust that so many, including Nathan, had placed in him. In spite of your great gifts, in spite of your deeds, in spite of your power and prestige, “You are the man.” Nathan names the abuse of David’s power as king to have what he wants and so to compromise his moral authority. In scripture, David is chastened and sobered, and he acknowledges Nathan’s naming of his sin and betrayal of trust. He accepts the consequences, which include the loss of his first-born son. David, however, does not have to deal with the political consequences of his recklessness. He is, after all, still king. He goes on to be Israel’s greatest king.

What is most significant about this story is that when Nathan confronts David with the story of the poor man’s lamb being taken, he never mentions “sex” as the issue. He never refers to adultery. He tells a story about the meager resources of the poor man being stolen by the rich man. There is still much confusion and resistance to dealing with sexual abuse in the Church. I believe the core of these issues has much more to do with theft than sex.

When the U.S. Bishops of the Roman Catholic Church produced the Dallas policy on the sexual abuse of children, we saw some interesting revelations. The bishops directly tied the definition of sexual abuse to a moral standard based on the sixth commandment in Hebrew scripture: “You shall not commit adultery.” If this is the basis of their ethical understanding of sexual abuse, then no wonder the perception persists that the bishops simply don’t “get it.” The average layperson would rightly ask, “I thought adultery was about adults having sex with someone they are not married to. What does sexual abuse of kids have to do with adultery?”

The fundamental ethical question is “why is it wrong for an adult to be sexual with a child or teen?” The answer is not rocket science. It is a betrayal of trust, a misuse of adult authority, the taking advantage of a child’s vulnerability, and sexual activity in the absence of meaningful consent. When you add to this the fact of a priest being sexual with a child, it is also a betrayal of the role of the pastor. Our job as clergy is to nurture the flock, protect them when they are vulnerable, and empower them in their lives – especially children and youth. Our people assume they can trust us to do no harm because we are clergy. Sexual abuse betrays that trust.

Sexual abuse harms the child or teen. It is a sin to cause this harm. In Christian scripture, Jesus is very clear: “It would be better for you if a millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea than for you to cause one of these little ones to stumble” (Luke 17:2). The bishops got the wrong commandment. Instead of the sixth commandment, they should have gone to the seventh: “You shall not steal.” To steal is to take something that doesn’t belong to you. To sexually abuse a child is to steal their innocence and their future, often with profound and tragic consequences.

When an acknowledged pedophile priest can say that he didn’t see what was wrong with his sexual behavior with a child since he was taught not to have sex with adult women, we can begin to see the inadequacy of this ethical analysis. The sexual abuse of a child or teen is about the misuse of power by the adult. It is about theft: taking advantage of a child’s naivete, stealing his or her future. The Roman Catholic bishops will never be able to move forward and restore credibility to the Church and the priesthood unless they can get their commandments right. They should be worrying about the theft of their children, not about some abstraction of adultery.

The resistance to opening the door wide on the problem of clergy sexual abuse directed against children or adults is not simply because it is often viewed as being about sex. The real resistance is because it is about entitlement. To confront boundary crossings and sexual abuse by clergy is to challenge their entitlement to sexual access to vulnerable people, which appears to be a time-honored tradition at least among some male clergy. Entitlement is the assumption on the part of those who have some degree of power that they can take what they want (see King David) without consequence and that the rules don’t apply to them. Whether their behavior is naïve wandering that crosses boundaries in harmful ways or predatory patterns of abuse, it rests on the amoral assumption that because they have power (role, status, money, etc.) there is no problem misusing that power to meet their own needs and desires. So to challenge the long history of sexual abuse by clergy is to challenge the history of entitlement. It is no wonder that our religious institutions have been slow and resistant to addressing this problem. It is no wonder that the modern-day Nathans have seldom been welcomed by denominational hierarchies.

Now don’t get me wrong here. I know very well that the unethical, abusive members of clergy, both male and female, are a minority. But frankly, we don’t know how many there are. I know that the majority of clergy, male and female, are thoughtful, conscientious, careful, and responsible in their clerical roles. However, I have heard too many stories and been involved in too many cases of boundary crossing and abuse by clergy not to know that we have a serious problem among us—even to the extent that some male clergy have described being taught by their older clergy mentors that sexual access to the women of their congregation is a perk of ministry, in lieu of an adequate salary.

As clergy we are privileged to be placed in a position of trust and authority, a position that makes ministry possible. This does not entitle us to take—sexually, financially, and emotionally—from those who trust us. The solution here is not creating a faux sense of mutuality between clergy and laity. The solution is to teach clergy to use their resources responsibly, and when they don’t, to take away their power and deny them access to vulnerable people.

I have no doubt that a healthier view of sexuality in general would make for a healthier church, and no doubt that accepting the fact of gays and lesbians in the pew and in the pulpit would free up enormous energy and resources for ministry in our denominations. But unless we as church deal with power and vulnerability, entitlement and woundedness, we will not see the day that sexual abuse by clergy is a rare and peculiar occurrence and the integrity of the pastoral relationship is restored.


The Rev. Dr. Marie M. Fortune is the founder and senior analyst at the FaithTrust Institute where, since 1977 she has trained, encouraged, and prodded religious institutions to address sexual and domestic violence. She is an educator and pastor, a practicing ethicist and theologian. Her latest book is Sexual Violence: The Sin Revisited (Pilgrim Press). She is ordained in the United Church of Christ.