When the Clergy Commit Crimes

Gerald L. Zelizer

In an episode of the popular TV series, The Practice, the firm defends a rabbi accused of rape. One lawyer complains to another, "There are hundreds of model rabbis out there. Why are the ones who come here all criminals?"

In real life, too, most clergy are people of integrity. But because ours is both a sacred and a visible calling, the felonies of a few are under a spotlight that catches in its beam all who serve in the ministry.

This year has seen several high-profile examples of what some call "black-collar crimes."

A Hassidic rabbi, Hertz Frankel, in Brooklyn, N.Y., has been convicted of siphoning off $6 million from a district school payroll to a private Jewish girls' school, while a Reform rabbi in New Jersey has been indicted and is awaiting trial for allegedly hiring a hit man to murder his wife.

Among Baptists, Rev. Henry Lyons was sentenced to five and one-half years in prison for swindling more than $4 million from the largest black religious organization in the country while serving as its president.

The virus has spread internationally, too. The Archbishop of Naples, Italy, Michele Cardinal Giordano, is being investigated by state prosecutors for allegations of usury and extortion, while in Israel, Rabbi Aryeh Deri, a prominent Moroccan rabbi and political leader, was convicted of accepting bribes for steering substantial public funds to his yeshiva.

As shocking as the clergy criminality, is the continued confidence expressed by some followers in those accused and convicted. For example, even when Lyons decided to resign from the presidency of the National Baptist Convention USA, many in his church urged him to remain as pastor because he had rendered faithful service.

Of course, clergy, as all humans, harbor sins. But what pushes some to felonies? Additionally, what motivates many parishioners, even after knowing of these crimes, to stick by their religious leaders?

The easiest answer is the Elmer Gantry explanation: Clerics are all fakes, their followers dupes, and organized religion hypocritical. But I would suggest that there is more than that easy, superficial understanding transpiring here.

Both clergy and laity are tempted to confuse the message with the messenger. It is the cleric who interprets how symbols, holidays and scriptural heroes convey a particular religion's belief system.

Whether the layperson is one of 1,000 hearing a rabbi or priest's sermon, or is sitting in the cleric's study as he consoles or counsels, the sacred is channeled through the human messenger. In that context, it is tempting for both clergy and laity to regard the person who is transmitting, and not the message transmitted, as the object of veneration, respect and awe. From there to abuse of role is but a short step.

Also, the quality of charisma, which many prefer in religious leaders, is double-edged. The same magnetism and allurement in clerics that promise, for example, to draw our youth to the church, have a potential dark side.

The charm of Grigory Rasputin that infused his religious mysticism also fed his mania.

It is indicative that Lyons, in his final denouement in court, employed the same scintillating and metaphorical language that surely made his preaching spellbinding. Instead of simply saying, "I regret what I did," his words were, "It stinks in God's nostrils. I know it stinks in the law's nostrils, and it stinks to me."

Then, again, there is the Tammany Hall factor. That political machine remained in power for so long in New York City because, besides its dishonesty, it also provided needed jobs and social services to countless immigrants. The good accompanied the bad.

In these cases of clergy corruption, too, both the perpetrators and their victims find solace in the fact that, on balance, more good was done than bad.

After Rabbi Fred Neulander tendered his resignation to a synagogue board while under investigation of complicity in the murder of his wife, a member of the congregation, Hope Proper, urged that the board reject it because "how, during his worst life crisis, can we prepare to desert the leader of our family of families?"

Political corruption abuses power. Religious corruption is more insidious because it abuses sacred power.

The antidote to fallen clergy is to rearrange the priorities that we expect to occur on the pulpit. We must emphasize clerical competence over charisma and look more to the religious message than to the messenger.

The downside may be more bland religious leaders. The upside will be a clearer faith message unmuddled by personality.

Most importantly, with less attention and power, fewer clergy will be tempted to commit felonies.