Sexual Misconduct: Law of Averages Will Always Catch Up

By Fr Joshan Rodrigues –

Allegations of sexual misconduct against the big and powerful should force us to check our own sexual ethic, and understand why the Christian moral code is true sexual freedom.

Your ‘sexist’ and ‘sexual’ escapades will one day come back to haunt you, even if it takes 30 years! This seems to be the underlying thread in news reports on sexual deviancies across the globe, from the US to Europe to India. You may think you have gotten away with it now, but it will come back to bite you many years later when you least expect it.

In the US, it is Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, who is in the spotlight, his nomination process hitting a roadblock with at least two women coming forward to allege that he sexually misbehaved with them in high school, around 30 years ago.

In India, Bishop Franco Mullakkal of Jalandhar has been arrested and remanded to police custody till October 8. He is accused on charges of rape, forced unnatural sex, criminal intimidation and illegal confinement, following allegations made by a 48-year-old Catholic nun.

Worldwide, sordid details of sexual abuse committed by members of the clergy and the subsequent failure to act by their bishops, is boiling anger within the Church ranks. Mind you, most of these allegations date back to decades ago, with many of the perpetrators even dead. The #MeToo movement continues to gather steam with a number of media moguls and powerful men being forced to resign in the last few months. Great figures who were once loved and adored by the masses are now falling like a pack of cards.

I do not intend passing judgment on any of these issues (we have the courts to look into that), nor do I want to say if someone is guilty or not. “If there is anyone here without sin, let him cast the first stone.” As I write this, today’s Gospel says “For there is nothing hidden that will not become visible, and nothing secret that will not be known and come to light.” On the issue of what is acceptable sexual behaviour, the secular world keeps changing the goalposts from time to time. In fact, that is the hallmark of secular morality – redrawing the map all the time according to the day and prevailing sentiment. Abortion, same-sex marriages, live-in relationships… are all being legalised because people do not want to feel guilty anymore. If its allowed by law, then it’s ok!

And what’s happening in the US will soon be in India. Decades ago, men felt that making lewd jokes, putting a hand around a female colleague’s shoulders, giving her a friendly massage or patting her on the back was all acceptable behaviour and society didn’t tell them any better. Women did not come forward against it and played along (for n number of reasons). Well, all that is now unacceptable and these men are having to answer for their digressions 30 to 40 years later. Not all sexual misconduct is forced; in some cases it begins by being consensual and if relations sour down the line, ‘consensual’ can soon turn into ‘rape’ or ‘sexual assault’.

Which makes one think ‘What will be the accepted standard for sexual morality 15 years down the line?’ Will watching pornography, or forwarding ‘below-the-belt’ jokes and pictures be considered bad? It’s possible. The internet never forgets, and what you posted or forwarded online can conveniently be dug up 15 to 20 years later when you are being considered for the CEO’s position in our company, or for that matter any position. It may be considered harmless now by the world’s standards, but beware!….things will change in the future. We do not have to be naïve to sheepishly accept how many people access pornography today, or forward lewd jokes on closed Whatsapp groups. Young people love Snapchat and Instagram stories because they believe that everything disappears after 24 hours. It doesn’t! It’s permanently stored somewhere in one of those giant server farms across the world, waiting to be harvested when opportune.

Let’s forget for a moment about Supreme Court nominees, bishops and media moguls. What if it was revealed that your 7-year-old child’s teacher is a regular consumer of pornography? He/she may not have touched anyone but still. What about that nice man/woman in Church who is so active in so many church associations? Did you know that he/she forwarded crass jokes on Whatsapp? Would you be comfortable with that person serving in Church? How would you feel if you were denied a promotion at work or even fired for sexual behaviour that you keep only to your private life. Should it weigh on your work life and what you do in public? I don’t know, but maybe it will in the future. As I said, society is adept at moving the goalposts.

In the case of Brett Kavanaugh, the woman who is accusing him didn’t come forward for so many years even when he was a circuit judge and passing judgment that would impact so many lives. Even when he worked at the White House! But now that he is being considered for the Supreme Court, that is a problem. I get the message that immoral men should not be occupying the highest chairs in their profession. Anything below that is ok. This is of course the American scene.

So this is my proposition. Stick to the moral teaching of Christianity which has been the same for 2000 years. God does not move the goalposts.

Abortion, contraception, live-in relationships, adultery, fornication, pornography were all wrong then, and they are wrong even now. Because God in His infinite wisdom knows what’s best for us. Each of these sins dehumanises and objectifies the human being. True love loses its meaning and commitment. We can be used and abused and we must accept it because the world says it is ok. Sex is not a sin, but it becomes perverse outside the beautiful bond of marriage. The mystical and divine love that sex communicates between husband and wife, becomes a mere primeval satisfaction outside matrimony. Here I must point out that sexuality can also become perverse within marriage, with marital rape, denying one’s spouse sexual intimacy, and all forms of sexual perversions.

The moral code on sexuality is the biggest sticking point for people when it comes to religion, both inside and outside. The biggest and most frequent moral transgressions are usually sexual in nature. Society and religion can be in sync when it comes to other issues like murder, theft and abandoning your parents. But when it comes to sexual ethics, they can be on opposite sides of the fence. Sex is the primary reason why many of the prominent atheists have chosen to reject God.

In ‘Why I Am Not a Christian’, Bertrand Russell wrote, “The worst feature of the Christian religion is its attitude toward sex.” Christopher Hitchens, another aggressive atheist, writes that “the divorce between the sexual life and fear…can now at last be attempted on the sole condition that we banish all religions from the discourse.” A whole generation of young people today rebel against Christianity mainly because of its teachings on premarital sex, contraception, abortion, homosexuality and divorce. Dinesh D’Souza, the US right wing conservative author and filmmaker, states that if just that single commandment against adultery could be wiped out, then Western man and for that matter most people, would have no problem in being Christian. The rest of the stuff is easy.

Christianity ensures that sex is always handcuffed to love. When sex is unhooked from marriage, unwanted pregnancies occur. Then comes abortion. The real horror of abortion is that a mother kills her own unborn child. People who support abortion are ironic. A day before birth, they say its not yet a human being. As soon as its born, its human! So people oppose religion and God because they want to avoid the guilt trip. They want sexual freedom with a clear conscience. If God does not exist then there is no hell and hence, no payback for all my wrongdoings. Abortion and infanticide were quite common in pre-Christian and non-Christian cultures. The reason why they became forbidden is because the West was shaped by Christianity and then the West took its values global through colonisation. If Christianity did not exist, there would probably be no debate on these issues. Everything would have depended on a majority vote.

So before we condemn those whose sins are being paraded on news channels, let us, as Jesus said, first look at our own sexual ethic. Be prepared for being cast into the light for the sins that you commit today, actions that you may not even consider to be sinful. Judgement will come either in this life or in the life to come. Look at sexuality as the divine gift it is supposed to be. The words of St Paul bear a new significance here:

“Each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband….Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control….Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I do. But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion. ” (1 Cor 7: 2,5,8,9)

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Fr Joshan Rodrigues is the Managing Editor of The Examiner, Catholic Newsweekly of the Archdiocese of Bombay. He is an alumnus of the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, Rome in Institutional and Social Communications. He has done brief stints with the DeSales Media Group in Brooklyn, New York and Communications Office of the Episcopal Conference of England and Wales, London. He frequently blogs on faith and culture in ‘Musings in Catholic Land’