Churches slam doors on sex offenders

I asked Jimmy Akin, director of apologetics at Catholic.com to respond. He paused before answering. "Catholics have the same human nature as everyone else, and there is a delicate balance that has to be struck between offering forgiveness and reconciliation to everyone and taking sensible precautions to protect the community," says Akin. Dennis Mikulanis, vicar for ecumenical and inter-religious affairs for the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego and pastor of San Rafael Church in Rancho Bernardo, Calif. -- not far from Carlsbad -- says he can't speculate on how a particular congregation would react. ("Look," he said, "the Catholic Church has obviously had its problems with sex offenders.") But Mikulanis did say he "could understand how a congregation would react" the way those at Pilgrim church have and that it's likely whatever decision they come to will be criticized. "In this society today the church can't do anything right, and people of religion can't do anything right," says Mikulanis.

The Rev. Kenneth Munson, an evangelical minister (who is also my father-in-law), holds a weekly Bible study at a halfway house in Buffalo, N.Y., for those recently released from prison. Munson said Christ was, indeed, a friend to those considered sinners. "Jesus said, 'A physician doesn't come to the healthy, he comes to those who are sick,' and 'I didn't come to call the righteous, but I came to call sinners to repent,'" says Munson. But he also says sex offenders aren't like other sinners because the public believes they are incurable. "To be honest," he says, "it would probably be easier for a congregation to accept a former murderer."

Britt Minshall, pastor of Cathedral Church of St. Matthew in Baltimore and a former police officer, says his racially mixed congregation includes several members who went to prison and after release came back to church, including former prostitutes, drug dealers, thieves and murderers. "We had a member who served 25 years in a federal penitentiary for conspiracy to commit murder and when he came to us he was very accepted. He worshipped here until he died. But if I brought a sex offender to worship at our church, it would be blown apart," said Minshall. "And this is probably one of the most accepting congregations in the country."

The faithful, of course, are not perfect just because they have faith. They can be hypocrites like everyone else. "We want to be like Jesus, but we know we're not there yet," explains Alan Duce, a minister and professor of pastoral ministry at Nazarene Bible College in Colorado Springs, Colo. Minshall says it doesn't help that in the last couple of years the media has whipped society into a paranoid frenzy over registered sex offenders. When a 60-year-old sex offender wanted to worship at the Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd in Reno, Nev., last month, the Rev. Rebecca Schlatter, the associate pastor at the church, said, "Clearly, we are called to love. But is it safe to love this particular person up close?" One of the congregants, Mary Carlson, the mother of an 8-year-old girl, was quoted as saying she was astonished that "this individual had already been worshipping among us and that we were unaware of it. Evil has already touched our lives." It has become so bad, says Minshall, that "There is no way for society to see these people as redeemed, the way they do other criminals. I'm certainly not defending sex offenders, but this is hysteria."

The uncharitable tenor of the sex-offender debate is disheartening to many church leaders, and goes against their scriptural beliefs and ministerial training. Sadullah Khan, imam of the 1,500-member Islamic Center of Irvine in Irvine, Calif., says, "[I believe] anyone who wants to come and worship, and whose presence in the mosque is not directly harming anyone, should be permitted to come," Khan explains. "If you had only perfect people in the mosque you wouldn't have any worshippers." The Rev. Shockley at Pilgrim said barring Pliska from their sanctuary has implications beyond its effect on the man. "We have to consider not only what it means to receive him, but what it means to send him away."

About two years ago the Rev. Steve Nickodemus of Christ Our Redeemer Lutheran Church in Sandpoint, Idaho, found himself in the same position as Shockley at Pilgrim church. A 40-year-old man who had served time for child molestation (involving a stepchild) wanted to worship at the church. "He found out from his probation officer what he would need in order to worship here and he agreed to chaperones and to attend only certain services. He's an honest man, he wrestles with feeling condemned all the time," says Nickodemus. "He said if he wasn't a Christian, he would want to leave society and isolate himself. I felt compassion for him. I think he had a real transformation in prison."

Nickodemus' congregation struggled with the issue, and some left. But others who had judged this man harshly at first later apologized to him, and these were people with young children. "They ended up asking his forgiveness, and I think we as a congregation are better for it. We have been tested many times and this time we asked ourselves: Are we going to be authentic Christians in terms of confession and forgiveness? Because this is what it means," says Nickodemus. "This is real."

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