Spoils of the Kingdom: Clergy Misconduct and Religious Community

3. The Iron Law of Clergy Elitism

56 3 The Iron Law of Clergy Elitism In his book Papal Sin, contemporary Catholic historian Garry Wills (2000, 2) cites nineteenth-century British Catholic historian Lord Acton’s famous dictum, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” What most people do not realize, as Wills points out, is that Lord Acton was not writing of power generally. Instead, he was purposefully indicating Catholic ecclesiastical authority and the papacy itself. There is a singular truth in Acton’s claim, though it is not restricted to the Catholic hierarchy: There is an almost inevitable tendency in religious groups, unless they rigorously eschew both institutionalization and the cultivation of hierarchy, to regress from the spiritual equality of laity and clergy toward oligarchy, that is, political control of the many by the few. I term this tendency the “iron law of clergy elitism,” a variant of the “iron law of oligarchy” explored by early-twentieth-century Belgian sociologist Robert Michels (1959). Michels, once a Marxist activist, attempted to explain how the expanding turn-of-the-century (nineteenth to twentieth) proletarian workers’ movement lost its revolutionary and democratic momentum; it turned into its own set of corporations, the very thing it started out fighting. He concluded that oligarchy was an irreparable sociological development: “Thus the appearance of oligarchical phenomenon in the very bosom of the revolutionary parties is a conclusive proof of the existence of immanent oligarchical tendencies The Iron Law of Clergy Elitism 57 in every kind of human organization which strives for the attainment of definite ends” (Michels 1959, 11). Michels reasoned that three social forces virtually ensure oligarchy . First, there is the reality of sheer population density, which renders direct democracy impossible, hence gradually requiring at a minimum a republican, or representative, system of governance. Second, there is the unavoidable “apathy” of most citizens/members whose energies and time are typically consumed by mundane obligations of family, work, leisure, and rest. And third, there is the inevitability of growing elites’ or representatives’ self-interests, which include indulgence in the “perks” of power: exclusive knowledge; personal aggrandizement; and controlling client, patient, constituent, or congregant awareness of elite behavior (see also Olson 1968, 309–10). Such a view is also consistent with the famous interpretation of religious evolution of leadership developed by German sociologist Max Weber. Weber’s most important contribution was to analyze how personal charisma becomes rationalized, bureaucratized, and oligarchic (Weber 1964b, 398). He defined personal charisma as a “certain quality of an individual personality by virtue of which he is set apart from ordinary men and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities. These are such as are not accessible to the ordinary person, but are regarded as of divine origin; or as exemplary and on the basis of them the individual concerned is treated as a leader.” Yet Weber (1964a, 46) distinguished between the prophetic and priestly roles in religion, the former based on individual characteristics that attract and hold followers, the latter based on hierarchical authority and the oligarchic practice of succession. Weber states that priestly authority is based on the “charisma of office,” what in Catholic Christianity , for example, is the legitimacy of bishops through apostolic succession and the alleged primacy of the Apostle Peter as first bishop of Rome. Weber’s entire concept of rationalization in religious organization can be seen as inexorably pointing to oligarchy. As Wach (1967, 337) summarizes , “Charisma of personal character appeals more to the emotions; official charisma is more ‘rational.’ Whereas the former claims complete loyalty, even personal surrender, the latter usually demands a circumscribed or ‘tempered’ audience.” The priesthood, as any brotherhood or sisterhood of clerics, forms an oligarchy and consequentially the stratification of any religion’s followers ensues. If, as assumed, religion is about the power of divine wisdom 58 spoils of the kingdom and human inequalities to discern it (and such discernment is, to repeat, a scarce resource), then oligarchy and therefore elitism seem inevitable. This point becomes important for understanding repeated, systematic misconduct by clerics and other religious leaders. Based on this brief theoretical review, I offer two propositions. First, religious elites, out of various demands of professionalization, come to identify themselves, rather than the laity or mass of believers, as the essence of their religious institutions. This identification is their license for furthering their self-interests at the expense of laity. Second, power inequities between...