The Catholic Church Sex Abuse Scandal - Facts and Perspective
Mon June 14th, 2004 02:45 MSTBecause the subject of the Catholic Church “Child Abuse” Scandal keeps coming up, I am putting my analysis on this blog rather than constantly typing it into the blogs of others.
There are frequent questions and controversies over the so-called Child Abuse problem in the Catholic Church. The news coverage of these events is rarely sufficient, leaving a number of false impressions of the nature and extent of the problem.
It is important to understand the difference between abuse of pre-adolescent children and the abuse of adolescents. The abuse of pre-adolescent children is done by true pedophiles. The abuse of young men is done by pederasts who are homosexuals.
About 10% of the incidents involved pedophiles. 90% were committed by pederasts.
The Catholic Church made a theological decision to accept homophiles (individuals with homosexual sexual preferences) into its seminaries decades ago, with Vatican II. The reasoning was that while homosexual behavior is strongly prohibited, a priest takes vows to remain chaste, and hence a homophile priest (one who has homosexual desires) is as doctrinally as acceptable as a heterophile priest.
Around the same time, many with liberal or leftist viewpoints entered the seminaries. They brought with them ideas from the current fads in psychology, and less respect for authority.
Over time, theologies were developed by many homophile priests justifying the violation of their vows of chastity – in other words, rationalizations for engaging in sexual behavior. In addition, some seminaries came under control of homosexuals with this attitude, and in some cases, non-homophile priest candidates were kept out.
The result was the creation of one or more informal homosexual undergrounds in the Catholic Church. An estimated 40 to 60 percent of American Catholic Priests are homophiles. It is important to recognize that most homophile priests remained and remain chaste, properly adhering to their vows of chastity. Unfortunately too many did not. Some of these were pederasts who used their position to engage in sexual abuse of adolescent males under their influence.
Pedophiles have infested organizations that work with children for a long time. The rise in “child molestation” in the American Catholic Church is a result of the increase of pederasts in the priesthood, but the rate among school teachers is even higher.
The American Bishops were slow to deal with this issue, requiring pushes from the laity and later the Pope in order to adequately fight this problem. In the meantime, as is common in bureaucracies of all types, some chose to hide the problem, ignoring their moral and legal duties.
Because the Church believes in redemption, because the analytic psychological theories of the time were considered capable of dealing with homosexual child abusers, and because sending a priest off to a retreat was a convenient way to do away with a problem, many offenders were sent to retreats in order to redeem themselves, rather than being handed to authorities. After their supposed redemption, they were returned to priestly duties, and many re-offended.
The church is now much more active in fighting molesters in its midst, although many laity call for stronger measures, such as automatic defrocking of molesters, and were disappointed when the Pope did not make this a requirement.
In evaluating this problem, it is important to recognize that the American Catholic Church is a large organization with many priests in different roles and with different viewpoints. Hence the behavior of individual priests or bishops is not necessarily representative of the Church’s values.
It is also appropriate to recognize that this same problem affects all organizations which work with adolescent boys, including other Religious denominations, charitable organizations, and schools.
The Boy Scouts in 1998 decided to exclude homosexual leaders because of the tremendous legal liabilities accrued as a result of pederast child abuse. In 2000, the Supreme Court upheld their right to do so. However, the organization has suffered considerable persecution in many cities, as homosexual organizations retaliate. Often this persecution is falsely justified by the Boy Scout’s other requirement, which prohibits atheists.
Big Brothers and Big Sisters no longer can get liability insurance because they accept homosexuals, because of the associated increased risk of pederasty.
The rate of pederasy among school teachers is larger than was the rate in the Catholic Church.
What to do, what to do? Could someone open the
closet door please? If I see you people back out
here, and I see you looking at any kids, you’ll wish
that your request to move to Abu-Ghraib had gone
through. (Delete as necessary)
A question that hasn’t been addressed to my
knowlege, what is the rate of infection in the
abused? The psychological future of the abused has
been severely compromised, what about their physical
future?
About 10% of the incidents involved pedophiles. 90% were committed by pederasts.
There’s no telling how many of these cases of child molestation have been settled from within the Catholic Church or how many cover-ups. So the 10% is just what has been leaked from the Catholic Church or from those that have went public with these abuses. So I wouldn’t bet the house on those numbers.
The problem I have is the way the Catholic Church handles these allegations. The clergy shouldn’t be afforded the opportunity to hide behind the Church, nor should the Church be allowed to handle these allegations on their own. They (along w/ these athletes and celebrities that get away with anything) shouldn’t be given any special considerations. They should be turned over to the authorities and the Catholic Church should cooperate with the authorities in a full investigation, and if need be, tried by their peers and if found guilty, serve the sentence handed down to them. The priest can then repent for his sins in jail not at some retreat.
There was a church in my hometown that its preacher was discovered to have been molesting his three adopted little girls. The church handed him over to the authorities, he went to trial, found guilty and is serving time in prison, where he belongs.
The Boy Scouts in 1998 decided to exclude homosexual leaders because of the tremendous legal liabilities accrued as a result of pederast child abuse. In 2000, the Supreme Court upheld their right to do so.
I back the Boy Scouts decision to exclude homosexual leaders fully and commend the Supreme Courts decision. And I agree w/ the BSA’s statement that reads an avowed homosexual cannot serve as a role model for the traditional moral values espoused in the Scout Oath and Law and that these values cannot be subject to ‘local option’ choices. Maybe the Catholic Church, especially here in the US, should adopt the same high standards for priesthood as that of the BSA for their leaders.
Often this persecution is falsely justified by the Boy Scout’s other requirement, which prohibits atheists.
The same applies to atheists. The BSA is an organization that promotes a duty to God and teaches conservative sexual morality. We’ve already seen the decline of moral values in our public schools when God and prayer in public school offend an atheist and are therefore removed. Like Ronald Reagan once said in a speech The Supreme Court opens its proceedings with a religious invocation. And the members of Congress open their sessions with a prayer. I just happen to believe the schoolchildren of the United States are entitled to the same privileges as Supreme Court justices and congressmen. If the atheists don’t want to pray, he can’t be made to pray, just as he can’t be made to say the pledge. He can sit there quietly playing his gameboy. While the rest of us exercise our First Amendment right, which was never intended to require government to discriminate against religious speech.
The BSA is one of the last organizations where conservative moral values are upheld and is founded upon God and His Word, therefore the BSA can defend moral absolutes and thus its moral system is consistent and non-self-contradictory. The same cannot be said concerning the atheistic worldview, which is why the BSA does not accept atheists and homosexuals.
God Bless
Mayo
Mayo
These numbers come from an organization of Catholic Laity who were very unhappy with the way the church was handling the issue. They are also consistent with numbers from other organizations. I believe they are correct.
The laity agree that the clergy should not be allowed to hide behind the Church or for that matter, hide at all. These are law enforcement issues and that is the position of the laity. I think that is the position of the Church or at least of most Bishops today, but I am not sure. They have learned the hard way what cover-ups do.
I would not be surprised if there are some officials who would cover things up - for two reasons: (1) Avoiding damage to their own reputation - bureaucratic CYA, or (2) In some cases, they may be part of the “purple mafia” - a term some in the laity have used for the instances where homosexuals have conspired within the church, and thus protecting co-offenders.
The only priest that I knew who was caught in this was sent straight to the police. I had met him a couple of times - he was at my daughter’s primary school. But he was a pederast, not a pedophile, so she was safe. He is now in jail.
In other words, as far as the Catholic Church, we are in total agreement as is the Catholic laity and I believe the bureaucracy.
Re: Boy scouts. I agree also. It is unfortunate because it excludes some homosexuals who will not offend, but since the only criteria which has sufficient predictive value is homosexuality, the boy scouts have no choice.
Essentially it is classic profiling, a concept which has been badly abused by short-sighted “civil liberties” advocates, when applied to a number of areas, but most critically, anti-terrorism.
As an aside, if American Muslims are involved in the next big attack (and there will be one, and I’d bet Al Qaeda will make sure that these people are involved), the civil libertarians are going to come out looking like accomplices. They don’t understand this because they are so focused on civil liberties that they are losing the context. They don’t realize that the threat to civil liberties isn’t now (except for the Campaign Finance “Reform”), but the response after a major attack. Hence instead of helping create reasonable compromises that have their input, they are going to be ignored as Congress charges ahead without their input, because the civil libertarians will have been discredited.
The Catholic Church cannot adopt the same policy as the boy scouts. They have a shortage of priest candidates in the US, and without the homophilic priests, that shortage would get much worth. In Catholic doctrine, and I think this would probably be true in general Christianity, having homosexual desires is not sinful, but acting on them is.
The issue, unless that changes, becomes how to minimize the probability that these priests will offend. I haven’t a clue how to do that, but in fact, as the statistics indicate, most do not and hence are good Christians and appropriate for the priesthood.
Regarding the Boy Scouts, I consider it both a bastion of morality, but also a cultural icon - an important part of our traditional culture. This is why it is under so much attack: the attackers want to destroy any morality in our culture, and hence attack any institutions which seek to maintain it.
The Girl Scouts, unfortunately, has been taken over by the feminists. In fact, there are new organizations being formed to take their place and hold to their original goals.
There is one other very important organization where moral values are still upheld: the military. Some sexual morality is not well upheld (and never have been - I was in the Navy and use of prostitutes was not really discouraged - as indicated by the condom machine in our barracks/
The military operates on values and would be a disaster without a strong set of values and ethical principles. This is why, under Clinton, the feminists went after it, with witch hunts like Tailhook (which should never have cost a single career), and forced equality of females in all branches of service except the Marines, who simply fought it off successfully.
When I see a woman in uniform, I feel both proud and disturbed. Proud because I am seeing a soldier. Disturbed because I know that while that individual may be a great asset for the military, the over-feminization has created serious problems. A close friend of my daughter wanted to become a police woman (a profession where I think females definitely are important), so she joined the Army and was trained as an MP. Then she got pregnant, and just like that, she was out of the Army. Although her pregnancy in this case did not result from an affair in the military, it certainly cost the military a soldier they had spent resources training.
One thing that we may learn from Iraq (if the information can be extraced without the PC Police hiding it) is the impact of female roles in the military.
Recommended on this topic: George Weigel’s book “The Courage to be Catholic”. I’m not Catholic, but Weigel’s premise is useful for understanding the catastrophic influence of Leftist thinking.
Weigel describes the disintegtrative effects of a “culture of dissent” in the Church, and how easily it accepted open homosexuality in the priesthood. With it came certain features of the homosexual lifestyle…sensuality, flamboyance, iconoclasm, emphasis on youth and appearance and personal rebellion. Homosexuality is the problem, not pedophilia, which is a behavioral tendency of some homosexuals, not all. But the effect is obvious today.
I am involved with BSA. We’ve also combined all our charitable giving for the Boy Scouts. It’s easy to do, considering the other “charitable” klepto-bureaucracies out there, such as The United Way, The Red Cross and anything associated with the UN. And the Boy Scout’s resistance to The Left is enough on its own. Screw The Left and fight to the death, everywhere, all the time, to the bitter end.. If need be, dissolve the organization and start over.
Nowhere is The Left’s loathesome hatred for conservativism more obvious than in its war on The Boy Scouts. It has nothing to do with homosexuality and everything to do with introducing another set of subversive ideas into the institutions they hate for purely personal reasons.
The issue for me is not whether I approve or disapprove of homosexual conduct. The issue is the right to disassociate, which descends from the right to associate. It is essential in non-homogeneous societies, it is the means by which divisive social pressures are relieved, and the only way cultures and subcultures are made continuous.
The absolute and utter lunacy of The Left is that the fraud of multiculturalism can only be achieved through a lethal kind of egalitarianism. When all differences are rendered meaningless or illegal, then we can pretend to be different. Never, never, never give in.
Greetings John
Thanks for the reply, I’m really enjoying your website, lots of good info, and I appreciate the work you’ve put into it.
Re: The Catholic Church. I’m not a Catholic; I’m a Baptist, Independent and Fundamental, scary huh. I would like to add to your statement that homosexual desires are not sinful, but acting on them is. For example, I myself will look at an attractive woman and wild thoughts will escape, and the Lord said that I’ve already committed adultery w/ her in my heart and that’s a sin, but as long as I’m living in this flesh I will sin, but I now have an advocate in Jesus Christ and that goes with any professing Christian that’s accepted Christ as their Savior. Now I try to discipline my thoughts the best I can, but sometimes it’s tough.
Although I disagree the Catholic doctrine, they’re still good people and not all priests are untrustworthy. And you will find issues of sexual promiscuity in any denomination and not just the Catholic Church, which seems to have a spotlight on them. IMO, allowing priests to marry may curve a lot of these problems and I haven’t read anywhere in the Bible where a pastor is required to be celibate.
Re: The Boy Scouts. I really hope that the future leaders of the BSA will continue to maintain its standards, but I’m afraid that the attacks will continue and continue until their foundation is so weakened that they will slowly start to give up, piece by piece any bastion of morality left. It’s encouraging to hear that there are other alternatives to the Girl Scouts popping up.
I agree w/ you concerning American Muslims will be involved in our next big attack. It’s scary to think that, but I believe it’s important to know the enemy and the enemy is Islam. I expect our Government to do whatever it takes to keep close tabs on these Islamic organizations within our boarders as well as abroad. I believe that not all Muslims are terrorists or have any desire to harm Christians or Jews, but again Muslims are in the minority here in the US and we can’t forget that we were attacked from within our own boarders. I live within 10 minutes of the Islamic Society of North America. Some of the hijackers on 9-11 passed through there. And ISNA is currently under investigation by the State Department concerning them supporting terrorist overseas. And we can’t turn a blind eye towards history and the role Islam has played.
BTW, I served in the US Navy as well, ’92 – ’94. I was a Quartermaster aboard the USS Stephen W. Groves (FFG-29) stationed in Pascagoula, Ms. Best four years of my life and I’d probably still be in to day if it weren’t for Clinton downsizing.
Mayo
Mayo,
Thanks for the comments.
The issue of marriage for priests is not absolute Catholic dogma. Some nations have married priests. There is one here in town who was married before he converted from Episcopalian to Catholic. However, marriage does nothing for homophilic priests, and the Catholic church expects priests and nuns to “marry the Church” as I understand it.
By the way, when I was in Mexico City in 1985 doing disaster relief, the Southern Baptist Congress did an outstanding job (although the Mexicans tried to keep them out - they do not allow proselytizing there, and Catholic priests are not allowed to vote). The Baptists had a whole bunch of semitrailer disaster relief setups - each truck had sophisticated ham radio communications (which is how I found them), kitchen, disaster supplies, etc. I was very impressed with how they found the poor who were not being taken care of by other groups and set up their operation. They were very good people.
I suspect the Boy Scouts might be able to withstand the attacks. I certainly hope so. I was a boy scout, explorer and Order of the Arrow and think it is a fine and important organization.
Some of the hijackers did flight training here, perhaps using the same planes I had flown in the past. I have friends from Muslim countries who are no longer Muslim, but I fear for their safety after the next attack.
I think we are in a near-apocalyptic struggle here. If we are lucky, we can win with our nation intact and without having to kill hundreds of millions of muslimes. If we are not lucky, we will do what we have to do (unless Kerry is president, I fear).
I helped design the FFG’s. I was involved in operational research of CIC designs - to determine things like the expected interactions of the crew and equipment in response to a pop-up anti-ship missile attack. Unfortunately we found out in one case: The USS Stark vs. the Exocets - the latter won.
I suspect that whatever makes a person homophile, it also hugely increases the drive, so that the effort to remain chaste is greater. However, if it’s true that 40-60% of the priests are homophile, AND chaste, that would make my suspicion wrong. If, on the other hand, they were mostly active with each other, and merely covering it up, my suspicions would be confirmed. I’ve heard of a “gay mafia” in Catholic Seminaries, and suspect it to be true.
Allowing priests to marry is no full solution, in that it would bring other, prolly greater problems.
I hope the BSA, in fighting Leftist junk, gets smaller, and stronger; and then larger again. But the right to a large membership organization, based on beliefs and actions, must be maintained.
Tom,
I believe that most of them are in fact chaste. After all, if heterophiles can stay chaste, why shouldn’t homophiles? Admittedly the sexual preferences are different, but the “brain circuitry” that causes sex drive, and probably the “brain circuitry” for both religion and self control may be normal. Obviously, I’m not an expert. However, my daughter is a psychiatric researcher at one of the top med schools in the country, although this is not her field (she looks for genetic causes to certain serious mental illnesses), but she is curious about this issue (as a devout Catholic and a psychiatric research) so she may do some digging around in the scientific literature (which is likely to be sparse due to the controversy around gay issues).
A lot of my information comes from my wife Anne, but some from my reading.
As to the “gay mafia” in seminaries (also known as the “purple mafia”) - it is true. It has been known by conservative Catholics for decades. How much of it remains is an open question.
By the way, I asked Anne about scriptural references to chastity. I believe it was St. Paul who said something to the effect of “We should all be eunuchs for the church” - referring to leaders. There is also another passage supporting this.
So there is a scriptural justification (but not commandment) for chastity, but the Roman Rite Catholic Church adopted chastity for practical reasons: married priests were too often neglecting their duties due to family issues or family crises. Today, with modern medicine reducing the infant and mother mortality rate, that might change (my opinion only), except the scriptural justification is still there.
It is important to realize that only 4% of Catholics are American. This is one reason we see the Pope do strange things, like admonish the US for the Iraq war. He has Catholics whose lives would be forfeit if the Church supported America. I had not truly appreciated this until recently.
Another important point is that, although the American Catholic Church is having trouble getting enough priest candidates, no such problem exists in Latin America and other parts of the world, and the homosexual movements have little or no power in those countries. Expect in the future to see many priests in America from those countries.
Regarding the BSA… are you familiar with Robert Conquest’s Second Law? Robert Conquest was an author publishing well researched books about the reality of the USSR back when the “experts” were completely fooled. Here is his second law:
“The behavior of any bureaucratic organization can best be understood by assuming that it is controlled by a secret cabal of its enemies.”
I have my own set: Moore’s Laws of Bureaucracy.
A warning, a reason that the BSA is under such assault, and the reason it has not fell to the assault is given by O’Sullivan’s First Law:
All organizations that are not actually right-wing will over time become left-wing.
The difference between ‘homophilia’ and pederasty is misleading. The catagory that counts is chastity. No one should be foisting sex on children, but homosexuality activity, whatever the age of the partisipants, is also out. For the Chrurch so is sexual activity outside marriage.
That it means something that some of the church sex scandals can be catagorized as ‘homosexual’ rather than ‘pederast’, is a red herring. As one of the sinners for whom the Church is a beacon, I feel that the Church should pursue this matter with full vigor. It is ironic that the pro-homos-exual bias of the media has resulted in the media pressure being lifted from the Church in this matter. They did the right thing for the wrong reason. Problems like this are not soloved by name calling and condemnations, but by clear thought and resolute action.
Paul Rhoads
I think you miss the difference. Homophilia is compatible with chastity, whereas pederasty, or homosexual sex, is not.
I don’t understand your point. Pederasty is an issue which has additional import because it involves a victim other than the sinner and has legal implications. Thus it is, in the larger context, an issue of grave and immediate danger. If you are saying this is covering up some other problem, my question would be what? Failure of chastity? I don’t know anything about the frequency of that among homophile or heterophile prieses.
The reason that I emphasized the homosexual component was for two reasons:
1) To show how the news media had protected homosexuals, shifting some of the blame by outside groups hostile to the church, since those groups tend to be pro-homosexual agenda (by agenda, I mean the agenda employed by activist groups). In other words, the church was being incorrectly accused, in a way which allowed groups friendly to homosexual activism to not confront the fact that homosexuals were the major problem in the scandal.
2. To help justify the exclusion of homosexuals from leadership by Boy Scouts and other groups.
That the church should pursue the matter of pederasty and pedophilia is obvious and vigorously pushed by activist laity.
What other matter are you talking about?
The toughest area for Christian missions is often said to be Islam. Nevertheless, Samuel Zwemer purposed in his heart to minister to Muslims. On this day, June 28, 1890, he set out to fulfill that goal, sailing from his homeland in the United States on a Dutch liner called the Obdam. He stopped briefly in Europe to contact the only other evangelical group working among the Muslims and then by train and boat headed for Beirut. In London he bought a copy of Arabia Deserta. Years later he sold it to Lawrence of Arabia.
Zwemer’s exploits have none of the popular renown of T. E. Lawrence’s, but were, nonetheless, of great boldness. By January 12th he was in Arabia itself. On his first lengthy trek he took fever from continual exposure to outside temperatures of 107 degrees. He allowed no impediment to deter his work. In the end he would travel to many of the bastions of Islam in the world: the Balkans, India, China, Africa, the Mid East. For example, on this date June 28th, 1933, he was traversing China to bring the gospel to the Chinese Muslims.
But his greatest achievement was to penetrate Sana’a in Yemen, a place no lone white man had ever gone before. At one point his life was saved only when a Bedouin guide swore a great oath that Zwemer was neither Englishman nor a government agent. At another point, Arabs argued whether to hold him for ransom. In spite of adversities, not the least of which were annoying bedbugs, he managed to distribute Christian literature the entire way.
“No agency can penetrate Islam so deeply, abide so persistently, witness so daringly and influence so irresistibly as the printed page,” he said. Nothing but confiscation could stop him from distributing Arabic leaflets and Bibles. Everywhere he went he wrote and preached: to Arabs, salvation; to Westerners the soul-need of Islam. He lived, breathed and thought of one thing alone: cracking open the Moslem world for Christ. Others included the noted Borden of Yale. From the start Zwemer’s work was allied to that of his fellow laborer James Cantine. When he married, his wife also worked persuasively with Islamic women.
Zwemer set up presses, especially under British protection in Cairo. These poured out a continual stream of books to educate Westerners about the need of Islam and Arabic language books to educate Arabs about Christ. He authored or co-authored at least 48 books in English, titles such as Arabia, The Cradle of Islam; Childhood in the Moslem World; The Moslem Doctrine of God. He noted that in Islam the tender fatherhood of God was unknown. Printed Christian prayers from his presses were prized by some Islamic people who found them to have more meat than their own. Zwemer penetrated Islam, but the great work he began remains unfulfilled to this day.
interesting article
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