Catholicism in Crisis (no spam, please)

[Maharlika]

1) Is this scandal as big a deal in other countries or is it confined to the US? I think that the Vatican initially wanted to label this scandal as something endemic to the church in the United States, but some other people are saying that abuse by Catholic priests is worse in some other countries.
This has just opened a can of worms...pedophilia is not just the issue. Aside from acts of sexual abuse you also have cases of gay priests "in hiding."

2) Do you think that widespread sexual abuse goes on in other denominations or in other religions? Are Catholic priests more likely to be abusors than say Presbyterian ministers or Baptists preachers, or are they just taking the brunt of the bad press (for now)?
Some Buddhist monks here in Thailand have been accused and proven guilty of sleeping with women using Temple money to buy these earthly pleasures. Of course they would change their orange robes into civies and sport wigs to hide their identities. Problem is, some of them forget that people can see that they have shaved eyebrows.

Just like what Ysh pointed out, these abuses are not just confined to the RCpriests. It just so happen that such acts by RCpriests are greatly magnified because society sees them as Men of God. They are SUPPOSED to be "good".

3) How culpable is the Roman Catholic Church in this whole thing? I have a feeling that like most other instances of sexual abuse, there are only a few predators giving the good priests a bad name, but they are doing a lot of abusing. If the church has covered up for abusors by transferring them from one parish to another, does that make them negligent or accomplices in subsequent abuse?
IMHO, they should actively seek the truth behind these accusations. If proven guilty then the Church must spearhead in condemning the offending priest and that such actions will never be tolerated. Yes, they can still forgive the priest but he has already lost the right to continue to do his priestly duties.

4) Is this scandal a result of a culture within the RCC that has made them believe that they are answerable only to God, and not accountable to secular society for crimes that would get your or I imprisoned for some length?
Nope. There would be other reasons why these priests would do such shameful acts but I don't think that they feel that they are answerable only to God. They KNOW they are guilty as hell and they can be imprisoned. It's only that they probably have ways to make things more difficult to prove their guilt.

However this culture that you speak of is what really happened in my country when we were a Spanish colony under the whims and power of the Spanish friars... there were a lot of abuses that were committed by these demons in holy robes.

[C Elegans]

Originally posted by VoodooDali
I think that pedophiles deliberately get jobs that give them access to children--the church, teaching, daycare, etc. The RCC probably attracted more than its fair share of pedophiles due to its policy of protecting them, and the public perception (until now) that they were above suspicion. I don't think that celibacy causes pedophilia--from all that is known about it pedophilia causes pedophilia. Most abusers were abused. It would be interesting to know whether the priests who've been found guilty were abused as children by other priests...

I'll second this. A majority of pedophiles have been sexually abused themselves as children, although it's only a minority of abused children that are pedophiles. Another sad fact is that statistically, victims of pedophilia more often end up with partners who are pedophiles although they are not perpertraitors themselves.

Pedophiles can be roughly divided into 4 subcathegories:

1. Those who understand that it's not good for children to have sexual relationships with adults, and never commit abuse to children. Instead, they try to stay close to children they are in love with by taking jobs that allows this, or by being the kind "uncle" or neighbour which allows them to spend time with the child. Those pedophiles accept that they will always have to live in unfulfilled love relationships.

2. Those who exclusively abuse their own children. This very often runs in the family.

3. Those who understand that sexual "relationships" is not good for the children, and understand they have a disorder, but can't control their impulses. This group often live in constant depression and anxiety, torn between a drive they can't control and intense feelings of guilt and remorse.

4. Those who don't think there's anything wrong with them, and that the children don't suffer at all from it. This is the group where you will find most recurrencies even after repeated punishment or "treatment", and it's also a group that more often have co-morbidities, ie simultaneous presence of other psychiatric disorders such as personality disorders and cognitive deficits.

It shouldn't be surprising that many pedophiles are attracted to jobs that allows them to spend a lot of child with children in a setting that is not controlled by other people. Daycare and school staff, leaders of youth activities, priests - all are examples of such professions. And all are professions that people in general view as "good" to some extent.

[fable]

I heard a Catholic commentator and apologist as a guest on the BBC, recently. He said something rather interesting: "Quite a few people have a vocation for the priesthood, but relatively few have a vocation for celibacy." He went on to explain that men who join and cannot sublimate or direct their sexual energies into other spheres of activitiy invariably find some outlet for them, and being in close promixity to children every day makes matters worse.

[Trym]

@ Fable

@Trym, maybe I'm reading you incorrectly, above. You seem to be saying above that married Catholic men can become priests, and remain married. My understanding is that no man can become an RCC priest while married. True?

Almost true. EXCEPTIONS, as already mentioned, are possible though. This is nothing regular, it might be permitted in isolated cases. It accumulates, however. Let's assume there is this 50 year old guy. He was baptized (RC), had a church wedding and went to masses on christmas. Then something changes his mind, he is truly converted and decides to be ordinated. This could be one of the cases I meant.

[VoodooDali]

TRYM is correct. I grew up in the Episcopal church (the American equivalent of the Anglican church). The service is almost identical to the Catholic service, but there's no confession and the Virgin Mary is a minor figure. When the church became more liberal and decided to allow abortion, women priests, etc., some of the more conservative ministers (who were married) left the church and became Catholic priests. The Catholic church could not tell them to get a divorce, so they were accepted. On the flip side, some more liberal Catholic priests have joined the Episcopal church.

I do think that the higher up's in the Catholic church are being myopic about the marriage issue. I believe that the Catholic church views this issue as purely an American and European issue, but is more concerned about their much larger congregation in the latin countries. However, when I lived in latin america, people there were converting to various protestant denominations at an alarming rate. For example, almost 10 years ago, the village I lived in was all Catholic. Now that village is only about 20% Catholic. There is a tremendous shortage of priests and nuns, and in the long run, the Catholic church will have to change their position on the marriage question or continue to watch their membership wane. It would be a shame if this trend continues in latin america, because there are some aspects of the Catholic church that are quite nice--like the way that native american beliefs are assimilated into the church beliefs. The Protestant churches that are gaining ground down there are not as accepting of the native belief systems. I also feel that the pope should be more open to liberation theology, which has done a lot to improve life for people in those countries.

[C Elegans]

Originally posted by fable
I heard a Catholic commentator and apologist as a guest on the BBC, recently. He said something rather interesting: "Quite a few people have a vocation for the priesthood, but relatively few have a vocation for celibacy." He went on to explain that men who join and cannot sublimate or direct their sexual energies into other spheres of activitiy invariably find some outlet for them, and being in close promixity to children every day makes matters worse.

Certainly, man was not evolutionally made for celibacy (wouldn't have been much evolution then ) but some individuals can choose it although it's obviously not easy. A RC monk I used to know, told me that many in his community viewed celibacy as a gift (as in present, not talent), a gift that a few people get whereas most have to struggle constantly with it.

The Catholic BBC-guest IMO sounds like he's trying to defend pedophilia among priests by claiming abstinece could cause the sex drive to take different expressions and seek children as targets. There is presently no ground for assuming that could happen. Studies show that people who live in celibacy often gets obsessed with sex, and this obsession in combination with no possible way of letting it out, sometimes leads to lots of sexual fantasies, consuming of pornography etc. Over several years, people who consume a lot of pornography (and I mean *a lot*, not the sole p-movie at Saturday night) can develop desensitation to the stimuli and therefore seek more and more extreme stuff like S/M, bondage or other "sexual games". However, crossing the limit of sexual orientation is a much bigger step to take, especially when the limit is between adults-underages or humans-other species. I'm not an expert of pedophilia, but I knew other people who are, for instance most of the staff on Sweden's forensic psychiatry research team that are specialised in sexual abuse towards children. And so far, I've never heard or read about an adult having sex with a child without having an underlying pedophilic disorder. "Normal" people in Western simply don't target children as sex objects regardless of the circumstances.

[fable]

Originally posted by Trym
@ Fable




Almost true. EXCEPTIONS, as already mentioned, are possible though. This is nothing regular, it might be permitted in isolated cases. It accumulates, however. Let's assume there is this 50 year old guy. He was baptized (RC), had a church wedding and went to masses on christmas. Then something changes his mind, he is truly converted and decides to be ordinated. This could be one of the cases I meant.

Then I'm still a bit confused, since your correction seems to state exactly what I did: simply that non-RCC priests can marry, and that those who defected from the Anglican rite to the RCC (notably when women's ordination was approved) can administer the sacraments while remaining married.

[Der-draigen]

Originally posted by HighLordDave
4) Is this scandal a result of a culture within the RCC that has made them believe that they are answerable only to God, and not accountable to secular society for crimes that would get your or I imprisoned for some length?

Um, well, IMO being answerable to God would imply that committing and/or abetting abuse of any kind is wrong...

I haven't read the rest of this thread so I apologize if some of this has already been said:

I am Catholic, and I'm very angry and saddened by the evil that has been exposed within the church. However, let me make the following points:

1.) I do not believe that being a Catholic priest makes someone into an abuser. You might as well say that being a camp counselor or a day-care person makes people into abusers, since not too many years ago an identical scandal focused on children being preyed upon at camp and day care. What about the many cases of sexual abuse at the hands of school teachers? Are we to say that being a teacher makes a person sexually abusive? This is simply not logical.

The reason why people are so quick to say that the priesthood itself inherently causes pedophilic tendencies is because of the Catholic church's requirement of priestly celibacy. Now the argument of whether celibacy should be abolished is another matter. The point I want to make here is that celibacy cannot be the cause of pedophilia in the church. Say for instance priests are sexually frustrated. Then why not have affairs/relationships with grown adults their own age? There would be a reason to express repressed sexuality in this manner; but there is simply no reason to say that repressed sexuality is necessarily vented through pedophilia. There are plenty of sexually frustrated people out there who aren't pedophiles.

So what is the reason, if not celibacy?

IMO, the priesthood, rather than making people have certian sick tendencies, attracts people who have those tendencies to begin with. In other words: Pedophiles may enter the priesthood because they are already pedophiles, and know that the priesthood will give them access to children in a trusting situation. Or, they may believe that entering the priesthood and taking a vow of celibacy will somehow magically "cure" them of their pedophilia. Know what I mean?...

{EDIT: And I just realized that CE has said basically the same thing, only in a much more intelligent fashion. Thank you, CE, for lending your professionalism to this issue. I think it's something people need to hear. }

{EDIT: And thank you too VoodooDali. I'm just getting caught up }

I believe that the majority of Catholic priests are good, faithful people who are just as repulsed by this scandal as anyone else -- indeed, perhaps more so. However, there is a minority that is polluting the priesthood by this monstrous behavior and it's that minority that the media wants us to hear about. Funny how we're just not hearing anything about good priests these days. Believe me, I've known many of them.

2.) This is not going to go over well at all, because it simply isn't politically correct. However:

If this keeps on the way it's going, we're going to have a witch hunt on our hands. People with hissy fits on at the Catholic church for whatever reason, wanting to "get back" at it and/or to get their proverbial 15 minutes of fame, plus the lawsuit-engendered wealth and any book or movie deals that might come along. This kind of thing is extremely hard to prove. All someone has to do is say "Father so and so took me into the rectory bedroom in 1964 and raped me. There were no witnesses." How do you prove this? It's hard to prove, and that makes it easy to say.

Now before you jump down my throat and call me a Nazi, let me explain what I mean here. I have no doubt that many -- yes, perhaps all -- cases that we're hearing about now truly happened. In those cases justice must be pursued. There must be punishment for the abusers and healing for the victims. There also must be vindication for those who may be falsely accused. It's happened before. There was a case in Canada (I think) some years ago where a child accused her father of sexual abuse and he went to jail for something like 11 years. Well guess what? Some years later she comes out and says she lied about it because she was pissed off at him about something. One of the biggest fears among teachers these days is that they will be falsely accused of abuse at the hands of an angry kid who wants them to "pay" for giving him/her a D on the final. I know -- I was a teacher once myself. Don't even think for one second that there aren't fame-and-fortune-seekers out there who are just thinking of ways to take advantage of this crisis. And that not only ruins the lives of innocent people -- it's a monstrous insult to the true victims.

I admit I'm worried about the church, but Christ said the gates of hell would not prevail against it, so that's what I'm holding on to at this point.

[fable]

Originally posted by C Elegans
The Catholic BBC-guest IMO sounds like he's trying to defend pedophilia among priests by claiming abstinece could cause the sex drive to take different expressions and seek children as targets.

The fact that he separated out a "call for celibacy" from a "call for the priesthood" in itself runs completely counter to RCC policy, which sees them as one and the same. This is just the kind of speculation that JP is adamantly opposed to, since he will no more tolerate any discussion in print or aloud among the priesthood about the issue of celibacy than he will about women's ordination.

The ironic thing is that when he first became pontiff, all the lifestyle media, at least in the US, jumped around like lapdogs. National Public Radio in particular made a huge deal about how he "spoke 50 languages." Actually, he could say hello in 50 languages, and spoke probably four fluently, which in any case means nothing. He was widely viewed as a liberal. Once the honeymoon wore off, it quickly became clear that this was the most conservatively doctrinaire and unimaginative Pope that's been seen this century.

[fable]

The reason why people are so quick to say that the priesthood itself inherently causes pedophilic tendencies is because of the Catholic church's requirement of priestly celibacy. Now the argument of whether celibacy should be abolished is another matter. The point I want to make here is that celibacy cannot be the cause of pedophilia in the church. Say for instance priests are sexually frustrated. Then why not have affairs/relationships with grown adults their own age?...

For the same reason that Southern plantation owners used to have their post-marital flings with black slaves, and that members of the nobility were advised during the later Middle Ages to sink their sexual frustrations in peasant women whom they found alone: a powerless target can be converted in the human mind into a non-human target. It is always easier to cover abuse in such instances with the cloak of power. Such things aren't possible between equals.

And that brings up a second point: some priests *do* maintain covert homosexual relationships. The risks there are greater, however, than with a defenseless child. While the child may not know what's going on, the other priest will definitely understand, and might not simply reject advances but take the matter up with superiors.

I'm not saying this is true in all cases, but these two reasons seem sensible to me.

[Der-draigen]

Originally posted by fable
For the same reason that Southern plantation owners used to have their post-marital flings with black slaves, and that members of the nobility were advised during the later Middle Ages to sink their sexual frustrations in peasant women whom they found alone: a powerless target can be converted in the human mind into a non-human target. It is always easier to cover abuse in such instances with the cloak of power. Such things aren't possible between equals.

And that brings up a second point: some priests *do* maintain covert homosexual relationships. The risks there are greater, however, than with a defenseless child. While the child may not know what's going on, the other priest will definitely understand, and might not simply reject advances but take the matter up with superiors.

Again, you're talking about relations (forced or otherwise) between adults here. This issue is pedophilia, quite a different matter. I'm saying that sexual frustration is not necessarily expressed through pedophilia. Pedophilia is in a different class entirely. It is its own sickness, quite apart from sexual frustration.

Let's take a close look at the theory that lack of an active sex life causes people to sexually abuse children. In that case, an awful lot of people I know would be pedophiles. What about people who haven't had sex in years? They're out there. What about "older virgins" (they're out there too, believe it or not...)? All these people would be preying upon children if your theory is true -- but they're not.

Not having sex does not cause pedophilia. As someone else on here said in this thread -- pedophilia causes pedophilia.

In the above examples, if carried forward to their logical conclusion, you also imply that the church encourages abusive behavior, just as the American South and medieval Western Europe encouraged sexual power over the weaker members of society. In the case of the RCC this is patently untrue; and if anyone thinks it is true, they're paranoid to a frightening degree. (When I say the church does not encourage abusive behavior, I'm not talking about the shuffling of abusive priests from parish to parish; I'm talking about the church saying "Yes, go out and abuse children because they're weaker than you and you can take out your sexual frustrations with impunity." What utter nonsense.)

The bottom line is that simple logical thinking does not support celibacy as a cause of pedophilia. We need to look closely into this issue to find the root of the problem, not just jump automatically to the conclusion that celibacy is to blame, simply because the world has a hangup about sex.

[Der-draigen]

@fable -- I edited that.

[Ode to a Grasshopper]

It seems to me that a lot of the scandal generated by these allegations of paedophilia could be avoided if priests were made accountable under the same common laws that apply to the rest of the citizenry. Not all of the scandal, certainly, but a significant amount.

[Raen-Qil]

[/quote] I lived in Italy for a couple of years and know a man who had been a priest for many years while being married. He left the Church later for ideological reasons, but explained that although his case had been a rare exception, he wasn't unique.

[Trym]

@ fable

Then I'm still a bit confused, since your correction seems to state exactly what I did: simply that non-RCC priests can marry, and that those who defected from the Anglican rite to the RCC (notably when women's ordination was approved) can administer the sacraments while remaining married.

Sorry, it's probably my lousy English that is confusing you.

Let's assume there is this 50 year old guy. He was baptized (RC), had a church wedding and went to masses on christmas. Then something changes his mind, he is truly converted and decides to be ordinated. This could be one of the cases I meant.

I didn't mean "convert" in the sense of changing the denominition. I tried to express that our exemplary guy has always officially been a member of the Catholich church, but not a true believer.