Avoiding priests and religious

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Based on what? You can’t count 100% of the 7% as actual abuses, those were allegations and people are innocent until proven guilty. We know that the prevalence of paedophillia is less than a percent in the population so how do you reconcile the difference. Paedophillia is a very obscure condition because it serves absolutely no value in evolution, it is therefore highly unlikely to be a birth condition and basically an illness. It is inherently rare. Not even 7% of the population are gay for which, at least in thr secular consensus, the reverse is true of all my statements.
 
jfz178 said:
Yeah, that sounds like a good policy. Be aware that while abuse of prepubescent children is what is most feared, abuse of minor teenagers is actually more common. I’m sure someone as obviously conscientious as you is no threat, but as you also seem to be aware, even the appearance of opportunity by anyone is a risk for both the child and the adult.
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“Mere appearance of opportunity is a risk for both”…(I had never thought about it like that.) It is not an easy job.
 
Roseeurekacross said:
I can’t really relate to your comparison with black people. The Commission did not include country of origin or skin colour in their findings. I really can’t see how that would matter? Many of our Priests now come from Asia, India and Africa.
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The OP says they won’t shake the hand of a priest. That is literally how blacks were once treated. For example, shop keepers would refuse to put change in their hand, if serve them at all. That is the comparison i am making. Today we call that an unacceptable prejudice.

We’ve got sucked into a side issue about the scale but lets agree that between 99-93% of priests don’t abuse children. It’s totally disproportionate to make a statement that the OP won’t touch their hand and therefore its a simple prejudice.
 
LittleFlower said:
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adamhovey1988:
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.
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If you are having such a difficult time with this, why do you remain Catholic? I’m not being heartless. I ask in all sincerity.

You see, I was raised attending both Catholic and Protestant churches because one of my parents was Catholic and the other, Protestant. So I got to see both sides of their teachings of Christ and the Bible. Even though I had been Confirmed in the Catholic Church at the age of 7, the fact that I had also attended Protestant churches meant the day came when I had to decide which I was going to attend full time. I was tired of going to both and my dissatisfaction with Protestant churches was evident.

The issue of priests in the Catholic Church abusing children weighed heavily on me. I had to decide whether I could live with that knowledge and still attend the Catholic Church freely and not think of all priests being that way or keep that and anything else I learned about the Church in my mind and let it fester so that I turned away from going to church and perhaps, Christianity, entirely.

What I did is what I always do. I prayed to God about it. I asked Him to let me know where He wanted me to attend C/church. He laid it on my heart to remain in the Catholic Church. No matter what I found out about the Church, I was there for Jesus. My trust and faith were in Him. I had to trust that whether I remained in my home parish or moved to another that God was always in charge and that He would protect me from those who did such things to those who were so innocent.

God has always blessed me with priests who you can see the Holy Spirit in and working through. My mother saw this in our parish’s longest serving priest who has since passed away. She is now Catholic and credits this beloved priest with being a major influence in her joining the Church.
 
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I truly think you have missed the point and only because you cannot comprehend the magnitude of this issue.

The op, Little Flower, is having a normal reaction. Our Dioceses have the right help available to everyone who needs it regarding this issue.
On one level we all want this to go away and get back to normal, it cant, it wont, it shouldnt. Children need to be protected. Survivors and their families , and families of those lost need support , validation, love. There are ongoing legal trials, the sacrament of Reconcilliation may be dragged into a huge legal issue, going to Mass often involves running a media gauntlet, then there is a high profile court case next March.

We trust our Priests, religious, laity. How can this have happened. How long will all those ribbons be on Churches and Schools.Why is the Confessional gone. How long do Catholics have to hear all their Priests are paedophiles. Or that institutions run by nuns are evil.
Parishoners are discussing how Priest x , now jailed forever for his crimes, would drive 2hrs to farms just to hear their confessions. .

Do you get the picture?
 
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No but thank you for trying to explain it. I am not trying to be obtuse. I do understand how bad this is for the church and you are making a false assumption if you think i have no direct experience with this issue. But guilt by association is wrong and that is what is being done here.
 
I make no statements or assumptions about your experiences.

How is trust regained, once lost? What are some of the processes we go through ?

Many here are experiencing grief at this.
 
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as a person who had to grow up in secondary school in Ireland at the time of the scandals it wasn’t exactly easy for me to. I had to keep my faith somewhat hidden in school because one could be bullied and mocked. Keep in mind this was a catholic school but it still happened. Even going confession was difficult as you were afraid of what others may say. Luckily I have a brilliant parish priest. It’s still hard here especially with the Tuam and Magdalene asylum but luckily thanks to a youth prayer group I have gotten a better understanding of my faith, and come to know many wonderful priests and religious. I’d have difficulty in answering a question to do with these scandals because they are no good answers or excuses what happened.
 
When one has a first hand encounter with evil, one doesn’t run in the other direction and away from the source of all good.
Pure evil prompted these persons to commit these crimes to destroy themselves and the Church.
When we don’t pray for a removal of this evil from our society and stop going to Mass to receive Christ in the Eucharist, evil will persist.
We know of course, that truth and love will triumph. But we need to be a people working together for good. Channel that outrage into working for a safer environment in your parishes and communities.
But don’t walk away from the Sacraments. We need them more than ever now.
 
I am not familiar with much of what happened in australia, but here in the US a huge part of it was the faulty way we prepared priests. We took them at adolescents (teens…young teens) at the height of sexual feelings, and put them in same sex seminaries and then expounded on the evils of sex over and over in an unhealthy way. Some of these boys ended up quite warped by it, and later were only attracted to boys about the age they had been when in those seminaries. WE also ordained a whole bunch of people that NEVER should have been priests, who were not called to celibacy, who preyed on the vulnerable.

This process has been totally changed, and now you must be an adult before starting seminary, and the discernment process is very different. It is my understanding that most of the abusive priests came from that earlier time period. (not all, as there will always be evil among us)

The rules here in the USA are very strict now,a nd I have faith that this will not continue. Priests are NEVER allowed to be alone with children, ever ever ever, and neither can deacons, catechists, etc.
 
I can’t answer that as I’m not a trusting personality. I know the base rates of most kinds of predators and once you know the probabilities then you are going to meet them in your life. I get your point that you don’t expect to meet them in church though. To be honest the cover up disturb me as much as the acts.
 
On a technical level, the problem in the Church wasn’t so much pedophilia as it was ephebophilia and hebephilia.

Hebephilia is an adult attracted to 11-14 year olds, and ephebophilia is adults attracted to 15-19 year olds.

The vast majority of victims in the sex abuse scandal were 11-18. Some were under 11(pedophilia), but the majority were 11-18.
 
Roseeurekacross said:
The op, Little Flower, is having a normal reaction
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It doesn’t seem normal to me.

It seems like an extreme and, frankly, unfair reaction to me.

It sounds like a case of Hierophobia to me, which she should seek professional mental health help in overcoming
 
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I agree the reaction is not normal for an uninvolved person…but it is normal for someone who has been traumatised in the past in some way related to the trust issues involved.

A clear emotional/intellectual dissonance is in play. Non traumatised people follow their intellect which says its ok to look 90% of priests in the eye because they wont be contaminated by the rotten 10%. Our poster cannot do that.
There will be a reason…
 
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LittleFlower said:
This post is about the emotional impact abuse has on the Church community and parishioners.
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@LittleFlower, @Roseeurekacross, and others, I have a question that gets right to the matter of emotional impact while not diminishing the importance of examining the problem and making it right:

Is the emotional impact being magnified disproportionately by the media?

I am reminded of the September 11 attacks and how the emotional impact was fueled by the media in the weeks following the attack. It seemed like you couldn’t turn on the television without seeing the World Trade Center exploding in flames or collapsing in a cloud of dust.

The media took full advantage of the situation. Of course the viewers demanded it. People needed to know what happened. But there is no denying that the media did what they do best, seeking every sensational and heart-wrenching aspect of the story in order to maximize their viewership – and profits.

The emotional impact of 9/11 was magnified and prolonged because of this. I dare to say that the emotional impact was out of proportion to the actual magnitude of the tragedy. Compare, for example, the inattention of the media and the nation to motor vehicle accidents, which claim many more lives. Where’s the outrage?

So, returning to the issue at hand, what is Australian media’s role in the emotional impact of this in Australia?
 
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No. Your reaction seems a bit much in my opinion. Teachers have abused kids too. Will you avoid interacting with all teachers?

It’s your behavior that’s disgusting.
Treating innocent people like criminals.
 
I’ve also read about plenty of public school teachers, sports coaches, and doctors who have molested children.

I do not go running away in disgust when I hear that someone is a teacher, a coach or a doctor, and I also do not go running away from priests or nuns. (Or rabbis, or ministers - some of them molest too. )

You are behaving unreasonably. If this stems from a bad experience you yourself had with a priest or religious, you may want to get professional help in overcoming your aversion. Otherwise, you just need to get over it and realize that there are some bad people, as well as many good people, in all walks of life.
 
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Maybe it would help you to research what standards and practice are in place now, to avoid this happening again? That might go a long way to making you feel better about the current situation?
 
If we are getting technical, a lot of the problems with the Church scandals aren’t any of those. Those conditions are deviant sexual preferences. Indications are that most abuse of minors is predation, which is a whole other category. There is every reason to believe that is also true of the Church scandals. True pedophiles, ephebophilies and hebephilies are rare. Predators are much more common. I think it’s important to understand what we are actually dealing with and not throw terms about that don’t describe the problem.

The modus operandi and the victimization profiles on the two are very different. X-philes actually believe they are in love with their victims and that their victims want what they have in mind. They take great care to select and “groom” their victims and to con the parents. They want the abuse to be “consensual,” even though of course that is a misnomer. This is a small percentage of abusers.

Predators just want what they want from whoever they can get it from and they use a position of advantage, be it psychological, physical or institutional to get it. They have contempt for their victims. The abuse is more about control than it is sex. These are the worst and the most common abusers.
 
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