C
ChadS
Guest
I’d heard something similar too a while back regarding this. It went along the lines that the reason for pedophilia was that the particular priest was attracted to one particular individual and that if removed from that situation by placing them in another parish/school etc. their temptation and attraction would be then gone. I don’t know if this was prevalent thinking in the psychological profession at that time or not, but it is perhaps a reason.As somebody who is 53 and can remember the 60s and 70s and 80s (and was working in the health field from the 70s on) I can tell you that our dear friends the MDs (psychiatrists) and their fellow psychologists and therapists etc. were telling the bishops in the 70s and 80s at least (and THAT is when much of the abuse and ‘switching’ took place) that pedophilia could be cured and part of the cure was giving the person a ‘chance’ to prove himself in a new venue without a ‘record’ hanging over his head.
It boggles my mind that NONE of these MDs is held accountable for giving information on treatment that turned out to be wrong and that instead, the bishop who, in good faith and with perfectly understable acceptance of medical authority of the time, is the one being pilloried.
Right now, I bet y’all have seen the reports that mammograms are NOW being suggested for women to start after age 50, not age 40. That, because of the screening at age 40 that was presented as medical authority and standard for the last many years, many women wound up being worse off and that this is the reason they are now advocating screens at a later age.
So. . .I **presume that y’all are now going to go and sue your doctors because they gave wrong advice for the last 15 to 20 years and more regarding mammograms.
If not, why not? Because they aren’t priests? **
Also, we should remember that these bishops were also having to deal with their friends and brother priests when these allegations surfaced. The natural inclination would be to give them the benefit of doubt and perhaps there was a natural willingness to turn a blind eye and gloss over the problem. Then of course there would’ve been the institutional pressures inherent in dealing with the day to day operations of a large dioceses, financial issues, perhaps pressure from other bishops dealing with similar issues.
It’s all a tragic combination of circumstances where a lot of people followed bad advice and made even worse decisions and a lot of innocent people got hurt.
ChadS