Catholicism in Crisis (no spam, please)

[HighLordDave]

I am not Catholic but have been following the recent sex abuse scandal with some interest. I have a couple of questions for some of our friends overseas as well as to people in general:

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.

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)?

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?

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?

[Rob-hin]

I think priests and all of those are the worst child abusers there are! It's happend a lot here too and it really pisse me of! Most of the time it are people who work with childeren.

Just the other day a tv "detective" busted a school teacher who also trained kids in a socer team, he had been terrorising a boy via msn an phone and all. Forcing him to meet him to watch childporno. "come in a small sport pants"
BAH! Lower then low!

[fable]

Originally posted by Rob-hin
I think priests and all of those are the worst child abusers there are! It's happend a lot here too and it really pisse me of! Most of the time it are people who work with childeren.

My impression is that a very small percentage of priests have been accused of pedophilic behavior. Do you think that this behavior in any case is due to vows of celibacy? Would the RCC be served better if these vows (which are a relatively recent phenomenon in the history of the organization, post-13th century CE) were changed into acceptance of marriage at low levels within the RCC hierarchy?

As a note, there *are* currently some officiating RCC priests who are married. The group is comprised entirely of renegade priests from the Anglicans, who couldn't stomach the idea of women in the priesthood. They were allowed to join the RCC and keep their religious vocations without any penalties.

[Yshania]

Maybe the fact that priests outwardly personify what is 'good' there is more of an outrage? Do you think the number of priests reported exceed the number of teachers or careworkers, say, as a representation of their profession? People are less surprised if the eccentric recluse on the street corner is accused, than someone they have trusted with the company of their children....

[Rob-hin]

Originally posted by fable

Do you think that this behavior in any case is due to vows of celibacy? Would the RCC be served better if these vows (which are a relatively recent phenomenon in the history of the organization, post-13th century CE) were changed into acceptance of marriage at low levels within the RCC hierarchy?

I honestly don't know.
In my opinion, they must be able to be married without consequences. (sp?) The whole consept is out of date.
But they are people too, and not beiing able to have a wife and all can build up frustrations. Then people do wrong things.

Perhaps it doesn't really happen that more as I think, but because of their function it comes more in the media.

[Dottie]

A very similar thing have happned in sweden, but concerning personal at daycare centers. So I doubt this is caused by a specific faith, or RCC culture.

@Ysh: I think that is correct, We seem to want to belive that crimes can only be commited by social outcasts roaming the streets at night, Rather than "normal" people.

[fable]

I've just heard on the radio that the group of American cardinals and archbishops has drawn back from publically endorsing the "zero tolerance" statement of the Pope. Apparently, there's no agreement on this proposal among this lot. Not surprisingly, they're all in their 60s and 70s, and the most uncompromising arch-conservatives were appointed by JP, himself. This includes grim-faced, 78-year-old Tony Belivacqua, Philadelphia's archbishop, who has repeatedly gone on record stating that the accusations of pedophilia in his archidiocese were false and made by liars seeking attention and money.

[HighLordDave]

I think that there is some considerable danger whenever someone is accused of pedophilia that the charges may be baseless or fabricated. Under most western justice systems, innocence is assumed until guilt is proven. The rationale behind rejecting a "zero tolerance" policy is that an accused child molester may indeed be the victim of a personal vendetta and may not in fact be a criminal.

Of course, not everyone who accuses a priest of molestation is out for money or character assassination, but equal skepticism must be applied to the accusor as to the accused, especially when often it is one person's word against another's.

[fable]

The Pope's idea of zero tolerance, @HLD, isn't against those accused of pedophilia within the RCC, but those priests found guilty by those in Church authority of at least one molestation. In other words, they seem to be balking at the punishment.

[HighLordDave]

On one level, the Catholic church (and indeed all of Christianity) is built upon the notion of forgiveness and redemption. If the church adopts a policy of zero tolerance, it is essentially saying that no matter how much a pedophile priest changes or is repentant for his sins, he cannot go back to being a man of the cloth. In essence, it would be denying the power of one of its holiest sacraments: confession and absolution.

The flip side of this is that a priest who abuses his parishioners has violated the trust of one of the most basic relationships many of us have, that between a man of God and the people of God. There is also ample evidence that pedophiles are often repeat offenders and addicts to a behaviour similar to drug users or alchoholics. That is, single offense abusors are rare; pedophiles are often serial abusors. Knowing this, abusive priests must be expelled from the ministry and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

I think the dilema for the church is that they must balance thier spiritual foundation of forgiveness with the ability to protect followers from being preyed upon by those they trust the most.

[fable]

The RCC has also had a very uneasy relationship with secular governments. In the Middle Ages, it formulated a policy of acknowledging a secular sphere of control in which the government reigned supreme, while in sacred matters the RCC reigned supreme. The implication was that all RCC matters, ipso facto, were matters of the spirit, which is why when Henry of England put to trial several priests accused of abusing secular law in the secular community, the local Bishop, Thomas a Becket, threatened excommunication. Nowadays, excommunication has little power against governments, but the RCC has never gotten out of the habit of believing that secular crimes committed by priests were automatically beyond the jurisdiction of secular courts.

And yes, you're right, @HLD: that brings us to the issue of recognizing one's fault and seeking forgiveness, which the RCC (and many evangelical Christian churches, such as the Southern Baptists and various far-right Pentacostals) view as more important than punishment for one of their own. The crime against society becomes a sin against God, and left completely out of the equation is the crime's effect on the victim, and the psychological conditions which led to the crime in the first place. Result: repeat offenders, and damaged children who are ignored by the very institution to which they were entrusted.

Nothing, to me, is more personal than my religious beliefs. Nothing would seem to be more innocent than childhood. To tear both the sacredness of belief and the innocence of childhood to pieces with one act would seem to be the kind of crime whose spiritual dimensions one would seek solace from in church. Instead, ironically, it is the church hierarchy itself that has proven the indirect culprit.

And now, there is talk about accusations hurled against the priesthood of more religions and religious denominations. This may just be the first blow on the door.

[VoodooDali]

Originally posted by fable


My impression is that a very small percentage of priests have been accused of pedophilic behavior. Do you think that this behavior in any case is due to vows of celibacy? Would the RCC be served better if these vows (which are a relatively recent phenomenon in the history of the organization, post-13th century CE) were changed into acceptance of marriage at low levels within the RCC hierarchy?

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...

[Shadow Sandrock]

The scandal seems to have strong debates here, as most of the scandals have happened in the immediate area of my residence. One of the local church's that had a pedophilic priest was the school that my little brother and sister attend, St. Mary. Because of many local scandals there has been a sharp decrease in the amount of people that attend Catholic church and school.

I don't blame the church... *snip*

@Sleep I fixed it, you're right it is too serious for that.

[Trym]

I heard Rome tries to solve the problem of internal concealment in the national churches by ruling that any cases of child abuse have to be directly reported to the Vatican.

@ HighLordDave

For an absolution the sinner has to regrets his deeds honestly. A criminal offender who has not yet been convicted has to do more than this: He CANNOT be granted the absolution if he doesn’t accept the secular punishment voluntarily (exceptions: death penalty, torture) as well to prove his regrets and take responsibility for his offense/s. The idea of the confession does not not include the ignoration of the secular criminal law.

@ fable

There are more married catholic priests than the ca. 6.000 "renegade priests from the Anglicans", because priests from other Christian denominations convert to Catholicism once a while, not only due to major theological reforms in their old denominations. The largest group however are those who "have a late calling to priesthood"; they are mostly already married laymen. The principle is: If you are alreday married at the time of ordination, a divorce is impossible because it would violate the sacrament of the holy matromony.

[fable]

Originally posted by Trym
There are more married catholic priests than the ca. 6.000 "renegade priests from the Anglicans", because priests from other Christian denominations convert to Catholicism once a while, not only due to major theological reforms in their old denominations. The largest group however are those who "have a late calling to priesthood"; they are mostly already married laymen. The principle is: If you are alreday married at the time of ordination, a divorce is impossible because it would violate the sacrament of the holy matromony.

@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?

[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.