Avoiding priests and religious

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LittleFlower

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Hi everyone,

I’ll try to be succinct.

After the Royal Commission released some of its findings and I watched the Catholic Church react across Australia, I have found myself unable to look priests and religious in the eye.

I am thoroughly disgusted with the Church and its people.

Recently I changed parishes, to one that is more active and have found myself actively choosing not to receive the Body of Christ from the priests. I leave through a side door so that they won’t shake my hand.

I know that not all priests and religious abused others. I know I should be charitable, forgiving, and not put everyone in the same basket.

However, the sexual abuse has been a worldwide issue, with the Church actively hiding and protecting the perpetrators.

Has anyone gone through similar feelings? If so, how have you managed them? If not, how do you move past this crimes?

Thanks 🌷
 
So because of the sins of a few, you’re going to judge an entire group of people? What if it was a race or an ethnicity? Would you avoid them then?
 
It’s always hard 🙂 I have had my own struggles with this, but like you said, it’s important to remember that there are genuinely good priests and religious. Loneliness, alienation, and rejection from the rest of us can be a big door for temptation for them. Remember that we are the church’s children. I remember that St. Catherine Emmerich once had a vision of the church as a beautiful but very sick woman covered in wounds. This is all a result of the fact that the Lord left His bride, Our mother, in our hands, the hands of weak men and women. It is okay to be outraged, it is okay to feel sad and hurt, but remember that this will ultimately fix nothing. Our mother is sick and abandoning priests and religious will not make her better. We have to pick her up and help her as best as we can. Let God love through you and make no judgement of others, especially if you don’t know them :). Give your feelings to the Lord and ask him to channel them, to make you and then an instrument through which He can heal Our mother’s wounds. Pray for me, I’ll pray for you too 😊!
 
adamhovey1988 said:
So because of the sins of a few, you’re going to judge an entire group of people? What if it was a race or an ethnicity? Would you avoid them then?
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Please stay on topic. Also please realise I am posting this asking for actual advice and not to start a flame war.

I am finding it very difficult to look them in the eye and this is causing me clearly distress.
 
Thank you for your response. I agree with what you have said.

I am currently in a phase of complete disgust. Working through it is very important to me.

So thank you for this. 🌷
 
99.9% of the priests & deacons in your community you can unequivocally “look in the eye”

the sinners & criminals will be punished in due course
 
Many abusers have not been able to be identified.

Also, historically the Church has a very poor track record in actually dealing with these matters correctly.

Saying that they are most likely alright is not helpful. This is not what I am asking for.
 
Don’t feel bad for your feelings or thoughts. There are times when we can’t control them. You are willing to work through them, and that is what is important. You won’t stay where you are 🙂 I know Our Lord will help you through, just don’t give up trying. Even smiling at them, even if you don’t feel like it, can be offered to the Lord as a sacrifice through which He could mold your heart and maybe even help a a good priest or religious who may be suffering. Anyway, good luck okay? Don’t worry, I know you’ll bring great glory to Our Lord through this trial!
 
The Australian study that concluded that 7% of priests have molested children is pretty bad, if it’s true. There’s another angle to the story, though: According to a study conducted by John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, the percentage in the US is about 4%, but it is roughly consistent with data on many similar professions.

An extensive 2007 investigation by the Associated Press showed that sexual abuse of children in U.S. schools was “widespread,” and most of it was never reported or punished. The Boy Scouts of America settled a $1.4 lawsuit for pedophilia. One of the things that came out in the suit is that the Boy Scouts had been keeping “perversion files” on scout leaders suspected of child sexual abuse since the 1920’s, but had been keeping them secret and trying to deal with the problem internally. I’m sure there are similar situations in Australia.

That doesn’t excuse any of this kind of behavior by priests. They should be held to a higher standard. Also, we know that so much of this has been covered up, so we don’t know if the numbers we are getting now are still not low. I attended the Virtus training, which is the US Church’s program to help eliminate sexual abuse in the Church. It was excellent training and it did not pull any punches. We came out of that training just looking for abusers, even if they were priests. We were trained how to spot them and how to report it so action would be taken. I do believe that the institutional Church now has a zero tolerance policy for child abuse. Even the most cynical would have to conclude that if nothing else, the lawsuits the Church has endured alone has motivated that.

So if 7% of priests are abusing in Australia, I think you can conclude that a like percentage of all categories of people who deal with children are also. So there are a lot of people you might not want to look in the eye: teachers, day care workers, doctors, etc. I think you can conclude that the Church in Australia, and government authorities, are doing everything they can to keep priests from doing it and that the priests who still do it are completely on their own. No one is covering for them any more.

People in Australia, like the US, are innocent until proven guilty and the priests you meet have a 90%+ chance of not being abusers. I would give them the benefit of the doubt and let the authorities do their jobs.
 
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It’s not the priests that make the rules. They are there to help us abide by them.
 
Thank you for your extensive reply. I really appreciate it

7% is quite high, and the real number is probably much higher—especially if you take into account also those who have died (through suicide and drug overdoses) before they could probably even disclose it and those of course who never disclosed it later in life.

And that’s what is bugging me. Yes, the Archbishops have released statements that are read as PR quackery. No parish that I know of, and my friends attend, have even addressed it in any way. All the responses feel very empty.

The training is being rolled out. This is great but too late for all the others.

When I look at them, especially in their vestments, all I see is power abuse, hurt, and pain.
 
Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but, haven’t a lot of these cases occurred in a time when it was thought that pedophiles could be rehabilitated by therapy. I know some dioceses sent priests for treatment to solve the problem. Of course, the crime should be reported so that the victim can get the help they need. But, if what I said was the case, one could say they were using the faulty psychological consensus of the time.
 
Moving the priests around, knowing that they have abused disabled adults and children, is completely different. That is protecting the abuser and not those who have been abused.

This is disgusting. The Church did obstruct justice and she, in some places, continues to play a cat and mouse game.
 
redbetta said:
Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but, haven’t a lot of these cases occurred in a time when it was thought that pedophiles could be rehabilitated by therapy. I know some dioceses sent priests for treatment to solve the problem. Of course, the crime should be reported so that the victim can get the help they need. But, if what I said was the case, one could say they were using the faulty psychological consensus of the time.
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Yes they thought it was more of a treatable disease. But many were repeat offenders, who continued offending and who kept being placed where they have access to children or vulnerable adults.

Also, there are also recent cases in the last 10 years of clergy abusing children.
 
Married men abuse children too, you know? There are also practical difficulties when it comes to having married priests. Some Catholic priests are married and they can tell you how hard it is.

The truth is is that pedophiles will flock to professions/vocations where they will be in positions of trust and easy access to children, which is why plenty of teachers, coaches, and scout masters also turn up to be pedophiles. Providing a sexual outlet does not solve the problem. It’s evaluating candidates for the priesthood carefully to weed out the bad apples.
 
po18guy said:
You might consider therapy, as your reaction to the innocent is outside of acceptable bounds. You might also read the catechism regarding judgment, in particular rash judgment.

As to your parish search, once you find the ideal parish, do not join it! Why?

Because YOU will ruin it.

Fix what you see in the mirror first.

Full story.
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I think this is completely inappropriate.

I am not the only parishioner who is hurting in Australia. To say that I should just stay at home, and not try to engage with the community is hurtful and also incredibly unhelpful.

I do not understand why it is so hard to offer compassionate advice. I am not going around sprouting my discontent, I just don’t engage with priests and religious because I am hurting on the inside.
 
brian_custer said:
99.9% of the priests & deacons in your community you can unequivocally “look in the eye”

the sinners & criminals will be punished in due course
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As the Royal Commission makes clear, it is more like 94%; with a significant number of the others not being offenders, but participating in cover-ups or slothful responses to information.
 
This is not about priests, but I always like to remind people of this:

My daughter was a prosecuting attorney who used to specialize solely on Sexually Violent Predators. She left that job because it got to be too much for her emotionally, especially after she had her first child. She said that repeat predators cannot be rehabilitated. Quite the contrary, they actually get better at predation, even after they get caught. A “career” abuser eventually gets to where they are hard to catch, even though the authorities know about them.

The only thing that can be done is to keep them away from victims, completely and forever.
 
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jfz178 said:
The only thing that can be done is to keep them away from victims, completely and forever.
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And the Church didn’t do that, it did the exact opposite.

Your daughter probably helped a great many people, so thank you. 🌷
 
The vast majority of clergy neither abused, nor covered it up. I think they are generally responsible for lack of action once abuse became apparent, and for their failure to urge changes to canon law to protect children by requiring abusers to go to the police before being granted absolution. And I think many were guilty of pride in accepting the ‘beyond criticism’ approach to clergy that undermined the early attempts to bring abuse to light. But in this they are no more guilty than those who have failed to act against racism, or poverty, or the Vietnam and Iraq wars. All this inaction can be seen to be evil in retrospect, but if you assume the best of the offenders you will find it easy to believe that they did not know what they were doing.
 
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