Church Sex Abuse Scandals

[Akalyte]

[url="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/handofgod/"]http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/handofgod/[/url]

Man the story of this episode on frontline is getting me mad. The people here in south texas are complaining that the bishop here did not let this episode air. The Liberal Catholic groups are bashing the bishop and the church over this.

It's Ironic. If you ask these liberal groups if they support homosexual marriage and homosexual rights and positions of power in the curch they would say yes and defend their position. Yet, here's the Ironic part. These people are part of a political view point that put these so called "child molesters" into the priesthood and prevented straight and orthodox men from entering! A good study of the scandals tells us that almost 90% of the abuses were caused by homosexual men touching 11-12 years old "boys". 2 generations of Holy men were rejected from entering the priesthood so these dissenters and modernists could get their sissified church. (which we see virtually everywhere). I cant stand these "call to action" liberal groups bashing church teaching on celibacy. It has nothing to do with celibacy, it has everything to do with these heterodox catholics trying to infiltrate and change the church.

[url="http://www.themonitor.com/SiteProcessor.cfm?Template=/GlobalTemplates/Details.cfm&StoryID=17467&Section=Local"]http://www.themonitor.com/SiteProcessor.cf...p;Section=Local[/url]

[Mr.Cat]

Call to action was condemned here in the United States and the Vatican upheld those excommunications. The Church considers them dissenters.[quote]The Vatican has determined that “the activities of ‘Call to Action’ in the course of these years are in contrast with the Catholic Faith due to views and positions held which are unacceptable from a doctrinal and disciplinary standpoint,” Cardinal Re writes. He concludes: “Thus [u]to be a member of this Association or to support it, is irreconcilable with a coherent living of the Catholic Faith[/u].” The excommunication that Bishop Bruskewitz announced covered not only to Call to Action, but also to members of Catholics for a Free Choice, Planned Parenthood, the Hemlock Society, the Freemasons, and the Society of St. Pius X.
[url="http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=48072"]http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=48072[/url][/quote][quote]CTA was begun in 1976 based on an initiative of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. However, according to the Diocese of Lincoln, by 1990 CTA leadership was growing impatient with their own lack of influence on Catholicism in the United States and decided to take more drastic action.
To motivate change, CTA founders Dan and Sheila Daley, both former religious, drafted a document titled “Call for Reform in the Catholic Church.”
In the statement, printed as a full-page ad in the New York Times on Ash Wednesday in March 1990, they chastised the Church for “ignoring” social issues like a threatened environment, growing poverty, increased drug abuse, and international conflicts. By contrast, the solutions they offered included ordination of women, an end to the discipline of priestly celibacy, popular election of bishops instead of papal appointments, new forms of liturgy, and the use of artificial contraception.
The group has also closely linked themselves to abortion providers and strong abortion supporters and more recently have begun supporting homosexual agendas and protesting the Church’s ban on openly homosexual clergy.

[u][b]To overcome the excommunication, the release notes, is still not difficult, “Catholics who wish to return to full communion with the Church need only repudiate their membership in these groups by sending a letter to the organization and having their names removed from any rosters or mailing lists. Then, they can seek out the Sacrament of Reconciliation, where their priests can guide them in confession and penance.”[/b][/u]
[u]“They may be asked to make a profession of faith,” added Bishop Bruskewitz, because membership in these organizations often requires them to reject Catholicism and take dissenting oaths.[/u]“
The Lord loves everyone and died for everyone, and He wants all to be saved,” he said. “The best lesson that can be learned from everything that has happened is that one finds happiness, joy and satisfaction in obedience to the Church.”
[url="http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=8237"]http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=8237[/url][/quote]If you go to the website below you will see that this problem is universal, even among non-Catholics. It although only lists those from about nineteen ninety five (1995) to about two thousand and three (2003). It although totals more than eight hundred cases, most of theses supposed ministers are not confined to celibacy and in some cases married. This problem is universal to society and it is wrongful to claim it is confined to the Church.[quote][url="http://www.reformation.com"]http://www.reformation.com[/url][/quote]

Edited January 28, 2007 by Mr.CatholicCat

[RezaMikhaeil]

This is something that is worth discussing, I dont know much about it but I'd like to read the replies of others. I'm curious as to why the Roman Church has had such a problem with these "rogue priests" [I use the word "Rogue" because I dont believe that they're acting with the concent of the Roman Pope].

Reza

[Mr.Cat]

The problem is more sever and more dangerous outside of the Church, the question is what is society doing to stop it rather than a question directed to the Church. For in most cases the Church was not aware of the extent of what was happening, sadly in some cases it was known but as you will find this exists everywhere. It does not subtract from the Church for the Church consists of sinners as it did from the starting with Saint Peter the Apostle betraying our Blessed Lord by denying Him three times.

It is rather the media knows that if they pick on Protestant abuses the population will protest while if they pick on Catholics the Protestant majority will be thrilled and the Catholics will be angry but will watch it because who doesn’t watch what makes them angry? Why is it that people watch things that they know will offend them? It’s all to get ratings because you will notice the media covers things like this only when there isn’t a whole lot going on. It’s rather pathetic of the one-sided media play on this one.

The problem moreover is cultural, because we know this sexual problem exists universally. Simply go to your local sex offender list and you will see what I mean.

[SJRod55]

We have to find a 'cure' for those who have tendancies to abuse children and teenagers. This 'issue' has been with society since the beginning of time. It is not a 'new' phenonomem. Go throughout history and you find pedastry in most major societies. The question is how we prevent people getting these feelings and how we stop them from acting upon them.

[Akalyte]

[quote name='Rod' post='1178464' date='Jan 28 2007, 08:08 AM']
We have to find a 'cure' for those who have tendancies to abuse children and teenagers. This 'issue' has been with society since the beginning of time. It is not a 'new' phenonomem. Go throughout history and you find pedastry in most major sosieties. The question is how we prevent people getting these feelings and how we stop them from acting upon them.
[/quote]

Yeah but this scandal that rocked our church is different..The american seminaries during the 60's and 70's were being turned into "pink palaces". That is to say our seminaries were overloaded with homosexuals. There is indeed, a gay subculture now that wants to overthrow the church. The people running the seminaries during the 60's and 70's made sure no straight and orthodox men got into the priesthood. Read "Goodbye, Goodmen" by Michael S. Rose. He talks about straight men who testified that they were rejected from becoming priests because they were too "rigid" and orthodox" and they were being "litmus" tested by the heterodox elements running the seminaries.

[cmotherofpirl]

[quote name='Akalyte' post='1178465' date='Jan 28 2007, 09:15 AM']
Yeah but this scandal that rocked our church is different..The american seminaries during the 60's and 70's were being turned into "pink palaces". That is to say our seminaries were overloaded with homosexuals. There is indeed, a gay subculture now that wants to overthrow the church. The people running the seminaries during the 60's and 70's made sure no straight and orthodox men got into the priesthood. Read "Goodbye, Goodmen" by Michael S. Rose. He talks about straight men who testified that they were rejected from becoming priests because they were too "rigid" and orthodox" and they were being "litmus" tested by the heterodox elements running the seminaries.
[/quote]
What you are referring to happened only in a few seminaries, it was not nationwide.

[Akalyte]

[quote name='cmotherofpirl' post='1178511' date='Jan 28 2007, 11:00 AM']
What you are referring to happened only in a few seminaries, it was not nationwide.
[/quote]


It happened nationwide. It was just bigger in boston. Trust me the gay priests left their marks everywhere.

[Katholikos]

ZENIT - The World Seen From Rome




--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Code: ZE02031121

Date: 2002-03-11

"The Myth of the Pedophile Priest"

A Researcher Puts Scandals in Context

PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania, MARCH 11, 2002 (Zenit.org).- Philip Jenkins, a Penn State University professor of history and religious studies, is author of "Pedophiles and Priests: Anatomy of a Contemporary Crisis" (Oxford University Press, 1996). He wrote this article for the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, which published it March 3 under the headline "The Myth of the Pedophile Priest."

* * *

By Philip Jenkins

Every day, the news media have a new horror story to report, under some sensational headline: Newsweek, typically, is devoting its current front cover to "Sex, Shame and the Catholic Church: 80 Priests Accused of Child Abuse in Boston." Though the sex abuse cases have deep roots, the most recent scandals were detonated by the affair of Boston priest John J. Geoghan.

Though his superiors had known for years of Geoghan´s pedophile activities, he kept being transferred from parish to parish, regardless of the safety of the children in his care. The stigma of the Geoghan affair could last for decades, and some Catholics are declaring in their outrage that they can never trust their church again.

No one can deny that Boston church authorities committed dreadful errors, but at the same time, the story is not quite the simple tale of good and evil that it sometime appears. Hard though it may be to believe right now, the "pedophile priest" scandal is nothing like as sinister as it has been painted -- or at least, it should not be used to launch blanket accusations against the Catholic Church as a whole.

We have often heard the phrase "pedophile priest" in recent weeks. Such individuals can exist: Father Geoghan was one, as was the notorious Father James Porter a decade or so back. But as a description of a social problem, the term is wildly misleading. Crucially, Catholic priests and other clergy have nothing like a monopoly on sexual misconduct with minors.

My research of cases over the past 20 years indicates no evidence whatever that Catholic or other celibate clergy are any more likely to be involved in misconduct or abuse than clergy of any other denomination -- or indeed, than nonclergy. However determined news media may be to see this affair as a crisis of celibacy, the charge is just unsupported.

Literally every denomination and faith tradition has its share of abuse cases, and some of the worst involve non-Catholics. Every mainline Protestant denomination has had scandals aplenty, as have Pentecostals, Mormons, Jehovah´s Witnesses, Jews, Buddhists, Hare Krishnas -- and the list goes on. One Canadian Anglican (Episcopal) diocese is currently on the verge of bankruptcy as a result of massive lawsuits caused by decades of systematic abuse, yet the Anglican church does not demand celibacy of its clergy.

However much this statement contradicts conventional wisdom, the "pedophile priest" is not a Catholic specialty. Yet when did we ever hear about "pedophile pastors"?

Just to find some solid numbers, how many Catholic clergy are involved in misconduct? We actually have some good information on this issue, since in the early 1990s, the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago undertook a bold and thorough self-study. The survey examined every priest who had served in the archdiocese over the previous 40 years, some 2,200 individuals, and reopened every internal complaint ever made against these men. The standard of evidence applied was not legal proof that would stand up in a court of law, but just the consensus that a particular charge was probably justified.

By this low standard, the survey found that about 40 priests, about 1.8 percent of the whole, were probably guilty of misconduct with minors at some point in their careers. Put another way, no evidence existed against about 98 percent of parish clergy, the overwhelming majority of the group.

Since other organizations dealing with children have not undertaken such comprehensive studies, we have no idea whether the Catholic figure is better or worse than the rate for schoolteachers, residential home counselors, social workers or scout masters.

The Chicago study also found that of the 2,200 priests, just one was a pedophile. Now, many people are confused about the distinction between a pedophile and a person guilty of sex with a minor. The difference is very significant. The phrase "pedophile priests" conjures up images of the worst violation of innocence, callous molesters like Father Porter who assault children 7 years old. "Pedophilia" is a psychiatric term meaning sexual interest in children below the age of puberty.

But the vast majority of clergy misconduct cases are nothing like this. The vast majority of instances involve priests who have been sexually active with a person below the age of sexual consent, often 16 or 17 years old, or even older. An act of this sort is wrong on multiple counts: It is probably criminal, and by common consent it is immoral and sinful; yet it does not have the utterly ruthless, exploitative character of child molestation. In almost all cases too, with the older teen-agers, there is an element of consent.

Also, the definition of "childhood" varies enormously between different societies. If an act of this sort occurred in most European countries, it would probably be legal, since the age of consent for boys is usually around 15. To take a specific example, when newspapers review recent cases of "pedophile priests," they commonly cite a case that occurred in California´s Orange County, when a priest was charged with having consensual sex with a 17-year-old boy. Whatever the moral quality of such an act, most of us would not apply the term "child abuse" or "pedophilia." For this reason alone, we need to be cautious when we read about scores of priests being "accused of child abuse."

The age of the young person involved is also so important because different kinds of sexual misconduct respond differently to treatment, and church authorities need to respond differently. If a diocese knows a man is a pedophile, and ever again places him in a position where he has access to more children, that decision is simply wrong, and probably amounts to criminal neglect. But a priest who has a relationship with an older teen-ager is much more likely to respond to treatment, and it would be more understandable if some day the church placed him in a new parish, under careful supervision.

The fact that Cardinal Law´s regime in Boston seems to have blundered time and again does not mean that this is standard practice for all Catholic dioceses, still less that the church is engaged in some kind of conspiracy of silence to hide dangerous perverts.

I am in no sense soft on the issue of child abuse. Recently, I published an expose of the trade in electronic child pornography, one of the absolute worst forms of exploitation, and my argument was that the police and FBI need to be pressured to act more strictly against this awful thing.

My concern over the "pedophile priest" issue is not to defend evil clergy, or a sinful church (I cannot be called a Catholic apologist, since I am not even a Catholic). But I am worried that justified anger over a few awful cases might be turned into ill-focused attacks against innocent clergy.

The story of clerical misconduct is bad enough without turning into an unjustifiable outbreak of religious bigotry against the Catholic Church.

END QUOTE

Jay

---------------------
Blessed Father Damien, pray for us!

[kujo]

I feel very passionate about this issue because I am absolutely in love with my Church. I love Her and Her members. I love Her so much that, if anyone talks ill of Her or does something that defames Her name, I want to lash out in anger because NO ONE talks bad about the Catholic Church.

That said, when this whole sex abuse scandal was going on, I felt that these priests should be hung out to dry--defrocked and imprisoned. I would have no problem with them receiving treatment in jail, but I am not one of those people who believes that if child molestors are "reformed" in jail we can let them out. You lock them up and throw away the key. 'Nuff said.

Furthermore, I felt that the scandal was blown out of proportion. Every news outlet was up in arms, saying that Church attendance was going to plummet and how the Pope (JP-the Great at the time) needed to do something. But what got to me was how they made it seem like pedastry only occurs in the priesthood. Pedophilia is a disease that permiates our society--doctors, lawyers, school teachers (even women ones!!! ), homeless people, ice cream truck drivers, etc. Basically, I'm saying let's keep some perspective here.

Finally,while I would agree that there is a bias within the media pertaining to the way Catholics are depicted (heck, this country was founded by men running away from our Holy Mother Church), I would also say that Christianity as a whole is misrepresented and insulted on a daily basis. What we have to do (or at least what I do) is say "Screw it. I'm going to be the best Catholic I can be. I'm gonna screw up and I'm gonna fall down. All of that will probably happen in front of other people, which could potentially lead to scandal. I just gotta be who God made me and fight the battle as hard as I can regardless of what people around me say or think."

Anyway, that's my $0.02.....

[Katholikos]

Pedophiles use all of society's institutions to gain access to children. The Church was a victim in these scandals also.

[Jesus_lol]

[quote name='Katholikos' post='1178576' date='Jan 28 2007, 11:37 AM']
Pedophiles use all of society's institutions to gain access to children. The Church was a victim in these scandals also.
[/quote]

I agree with what you said. in the odd case celibacy might have been a contributing factor(though i doubt that it was a common contributing factor), and not all "peadophile preists" joined the church for the sole purpose of molesting children. it is a position of power and power corrupts. (not always but it does happen)
many peoples problem was not with all of the church being peadophiles, but that the church tried covering up some of these cases. and that is a problem.

i think to look at this problem and blame it all on gay preists in the seventies is frankly ridiculous. if you knew anything about rape/abuse, you would know that it doesnt take a homosexual to be a gay rapist. with rape it isnt about your preference, its about holding power over your victim and availablility. so in most cases it doesnt matter what gender they are. the main reason why many of these victims are boys, is that it is so much easier to use the social stigma of being gay, to keep them quiet. no one would want to admit to having sex with another man, willing or not. and the perverts know this and use it to their advantage.
for instance sexual abuse in prisons, to loosly quote the shawshank redemption "no, its not because they are gay. in order to be gay, they would have to be human first, and they are not. they are just monsters"

Edited January 28, 2007 by Jesus_lol

[Mr.Cat]

If you go to the website below you will see that this problem is universal, even among non-Catholics. It although only lists those from about nineteen ninety five (1995) to about two thousand and three (2003). It although totals more than eight hundred cases, [u]most of theses supposed ministers are not confined to celibacy and in some cases married[/u]. This problem is universal to society and it is wrongful to claim it is confined to the Church.

[url="http://www.reformation.com"]http://www.reformation.com[/url]

[Anomaly]

Does this make it any better?

Shouldn't PRIESTS, who are supposed to be Right Moral Examples, were 'Called by God', were given additionaly graces, have a better than average rate of predatory behavior?

Shouldn't Bhishops, who are the Creme de la Creme of Priests, have a better grasp on basic moral behavior and not shuffled the Priests and covered it up?

It is down right SICK that it makes any of you feel better, telling yourselves that Priests aren't any worse than the average joe. Hello! They SHOULD be BETTER!
Yeah, they're human and as a group, won't be perfect. But according to the myths of the R Catholic Church, these men were called by God, go through psychological screening, spend years in theological study, receive all sorts of 'special' graces in Ordination, are supervised by other 'Holy' men, supposedly spend more than the average 'joe' in prayer. But statistically, the aren't any better?

I'd laugh at the sheer lunacy of the feeble excuses, if the tragedy of the victims and the lives these monsters have destroyed wasn't so sobering.

[Jaime]

and if you invest about 10 minutes into any actual statistics you'll find that the rate of abusive priests is well below teachers, protestant ministers, etc.