So Richard. this 13th century saint, was known for being kind and caring to everyone…except when it came to priests (himself included) who violated their vows of chastity.

Butler begins his discussion of Richard’s short biography by telling us:

In order to keep faithfully his baptismal vows, he from his infancy always manifested the utmost dislike to gay diversions, and ever held in the highest contempt all worldly pomp: instead of which his attention was wholly employed in establishing for himself a solid foundation of virtue and learning.

Really? From his infancy? That’s severe, to say the least…this enmity Richard experienced with anything that could conceivably be considered pleasure-based.

And, sure enough, Richard’s life is one of sacrificial giving, unstinting service, and rising up the ranks of Christendom. becoming the Chancellor of Canterbury (pre-Reformation). He gave to the poor, refused to take pay or privilege, and was known for his earnest application of Christian virtues. He visited the sick, buried the dead, provided for the poor, and happily accepted as God’s will a fire that destroyed his home and few meager possessions.

But pleasure? No. No. NO. Butler relates:

The affronts which he received, he always repaid with favours, and enmity with singular marks of charity. In maintaining discipline, he was inflexible, especially in chastising crimes in the clergy: no intercession of the king, archbishop, and several other prelates could prevail with him to mitigate the punishment of a priest who had sinned against chastity. Yet penitent sinners he received with inexpressible tenderness and charity.

See any disconnect here? Richard could make room for anything except clergy sexual activity. Moreover, the Unforgivable Sin, in Richard’s eyes, is described as being a sin against chastity. It’s not a sin against God, nor a sin against another person with whom a priest might engage with in sexual congress–it’s is a sin against an abstract concept connoting innocence and purity.

Whatever compelled Richard to negate his and his fellow priests’ sexuality is wildly out of proportion with someone who could accept the repentance of those who committed any other sin “with inexpressible tenderness and charity”–and his sex-negative perspective predates puberty.

Here’s my educated guess: Richard, while still a child, was violated by a priest. The only evidence I have to suggest this is of the “if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck” variety–yet what else adequately explains how Richard came to regard the sexual acting out by priests as so utterly unforgivable, no matter the circumstances? And how else to trace this bedrock of conviction of Richard’s back to his “infancy”?

The sexual abuse of children by those whom they trusted robs them of so very, very much. It robs them of the belief that pleasure can be a good in and of itself. It robs them of the belief that they can trust their own desires. It robs them of the ability to trust others. It robs them of the belief that they can be good, save in draining their own lives of any and all individuality and pouring themselves out to serve the needs of others.

If indeed this happened to Richard and if he devoted his life to interrupting this cycle of abuse rather than perpetuating it through being intractable regarding similar clergy abuses toward any others, then–hey, this un-happy man deserves canonization!