Bp Schneider lists 4 causes of sex abuse crisis

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None of these things explain the years of priest shifting, victim blaming, and sweeping under the rug the actions of abusive clerics by Bishops and others.

And since most of the priests implicated in abuse in the US were ordained prior to Vatican II, that is also a “strawman”.

But what is a common thread- clericalism.

Hmmm… 🤔:roll_eyes:
 
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I believe this is a complex issue and if there is only one thing that is at fault, it is sin. But to tackle the problem we must know which sins. It will make no sense to try to address this issue thinking that only “X” is at fault.

How can we heal if the body has a virus and we use a bandaid to feel better?

I agree with the Bishop and a few others. And also with the Pope.
 
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I’d say he is dead on what created this culture. Not sure how helpful this is now…
 
How do you reach that conclusion considering that most of those in the US who have been implicated, for the most part were educated and ordained prior to Vatican II?
 
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I suppose you can ask anyone that. Where I live there is one pre vatican II predator and 2 post. In the last 5 years. One of them was ordained in a seminary in Europe now closed. I think modernism and relativism were alive pre and post council. Heck, pre and post incarnation! I do think the modern Church has as an unintended consequence of some post council theology that allowed this to flourish and could have foreseen the problem.
 
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We have had some serious less desirable conduct in the past. There is a pope that was even called a heretic by another pope. I forgot the name at this moment, but it is easy to be found. Heave had popes that clung to power by bribes. we’ve had a pope that sold the papacy twice, and left the papacy to go live with the woman he was in love with. and still died being the Pope. [Very interesting story that was]

As I understand when the people began protesting the church in the 1500’s there was also lots of corruption and error, and much more.

But all of this will be conquered. How? I have not a clue, but God will make it happen. We have His word. Will the church get small and persecuted? Will many leave the church in years to come?

Attacks on the Family, babies, what it means to be man and woman, violence, intolerance, and all the types of isms, have always existed. What do we do about it? Pray, hope and do not worry.

But we have to also be alert. The enemy is prowling like a stalker our every move.
 
For those who don’t want to give LifeSite any more clicks, here you go:
  1. Homosexuality among the clergy
  2. Relativism of doctrine
  3. A lack of ascesis in seminaries
  4. Above all the absence of a deep and true love for Christ
 
CilladeRoma said:
How do you reach that conclusion considering that most of those in the US who have been implicated, for the most part were educated and ordained prior to Vatican II?
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On one EWTN Program I read that the peak ordination year for predators was 1971 (I can’t give you a source, but seems plausible). We really don’t know how many of the accused pre Vatican 2 priests are actually guilty. Too much time has elapsed.

I think the problems the bishop refers to began a little before Vatican 2. Fr Charles Curran and his legion of sex dissenting theologians were already on the job in seminaries, but recently appointed, during Vatican 2.

I would say the seminaries from 1960 until 25 or 30 years later, exhibited the problems he described. There likely already was a climate of relativism and dissent under the radar screen by the late 1950s.
 
OK, I can agree with this.

But, and it’s a big but…
The Bishops and other higher ups were still educated and ordained prior to VII.
And, for me, while having abusive priests is horrible, it was the cover-up, the victim blaming, the shifting of guilty priests to other unsuspecting parishes and Bishops/Cardinals and even Popes looking the other way that has caused the true scandal in the Church today. Homosexuality is just an easy scapegoat.
 
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The Church’s handling of sex abuse decades ago should have been better than the secular world. Instead, it was no better, no worse. (I worked in the area of sex abuse for years).

I agree, homosexual orientation should not be made a scapegoat. But dissent from Church teaching on homosexual acts is indeed a problem.
There was a climate in seminary that “all people have a right to sexual expression”, and that Church teaching on Restraint makes things worse. Combine that with Fr Curran, CTSA, etc making dissent practically a prophetic act, along with the tidal wave of the media. My cousin in seminary quoted the NYTimes like it was Scripture.

It’s not the average gay priest that’s the problem, it’s the writer, seminary teacher, or media that undermines Church teaching. They lead the weak brother 9 steps towards the cliff, tear down the fence, then they are shocked, SHOCKED, when someone goes over the cliff
 
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CilladeRoma said:
Homosexuality is just an easy scapegoat.
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Yes and no. I think homosexuality resulted in a climate of secrecy, because if a secretly homosexual bishop was to severely punish a pedophile priest, he risked having his own homosexuality exposed.

But that also probably applies to heterosexual priests who have things to hide, such as the horrible things we’ve been reading about (and confirmed by Pope Francis) concerning the abuse of women religious by priests, including procuring abortions.

I personally don’t think the 4 causes listed by the good bishop tackle the root cause. Ascesis? Come on, seminaries aren’t Carthusian monasteries. No. 4 I can buy though. Relativism of doctrine? One of the most vocal defenders of the Church’s doctrine on homosexuality was the conservative Cardinal O’Brien. Surprise surprise, he turned out to be a homosexual predator himself (on his own seminarians). The more rigid someone is, the more suspicious I am of him. No matter how hard one defends the doctrine, sin is sin. Orthodoxy of doctrine is far from an inoculation against sin.

I rather think it’s an unhealthy approach to sexuality in general that is at cause, asking virile men to have an angelic sexuality.

It’s never been very successful in the secular world, and not likely to be very successful in diocesan priests living in the secular world either. Religious priests are another matter, at least they have the support of their brethren in community, and their existence is nowhere near as lonely as that of secular priests in an un-churched world.

When man tries to defy nature, nature usually wins whether in the realm of sexuality, or withstanding hurricanes. Channeling one’s sexuality into a healthy direction is the only solution I see. And the only healthy outlet for one’s sexuality, is marriage.
 
Can’t Homosexuality be part of the problem?

Does the problem in the church have to be a one thing only?

People say clericalism was the culprit. Ok, how does clericalism tempt a man to have sexual relations with a minor?

How does Clericalism account for all the abuses caused by other institutions such as schools, sports, politics, family, and even just walking the street?

I do not disagree Clericalism is not a problem. It is part of the problem, but not the only problem. If we address this problems with clericalism we will create other problems.
 
That is my point exactly. I never said homosexuality wasn’t part of the problem. But it is not the only problem, or even the biggest one as far as I am concerned.
 
Just focusing on the words of the Bishop here, he’s not wrong that all four of these issues have caused the sex abuse crisis. Note that he didn’t say that these are exhaustive. No one can argue his fourth point, and we see the other three “roots” stem from this. But I think one root to focus on is, yes, ascesis.
Ascesis? Come on, seminaries aren’t Carthusian monasteries.
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No, seminarians are not in a monastery, but that doesn’t mean they (and the laity) should not practice ascetical disciplines. For just as the bishop says, this will decrease the chances of us succumbing to sinful desires. In reading this, I immediately thought of the words of another priest who recently wrote on the subject.

It’s interesting to look at the perspective of the East on this. Fr. Thomas Loya is a Byzantine Catholic priest, and in his recent “Consider This” newsletter, he wrote the following. I share that below, and if you’d like, you can subscribe at the Tabor Life Institute’s website here. It’s interesting to see how he notices the same things independently of the Latin Bishop:
Can anything healthy grow in bad soil?
While discussing with me the sex abuse crisis in the Church, a friend of mine involved in seminary formation made an alarming statement: “If (for example) there were forty seminarians in the seminary I would be confident in seeing only three out of those 40 men ordained to the priesthood.” The rest, he said, (the vast majority) are, “too psycho-sexually wounded and disintegrated to even think they could survive or live fruitful lives as celibate priests.” Very discouraging and alarming odds, yet sadly understandable if we take an honest look at recent history.

Candidates for the priesthood do not come out of the air or beam down from the planet Mars. They grow out of the moral soil of our culture. This soil has been rendered radioactive by the nuclear fallout of the so-called sexual revolution: contraception, divorce, pornography, gender identity confusion, entitlement and narcissism, moral relativism, the breakdown and war on fatherhood and masculinity, attachment and a spirituality of entitlement. Add to that a general absence of even minimal ascetical disciplines such as abstaining from meat on Fridays.

Now generations of young men have been rendered handicapped in the areas most essential to priesthood— chastity, a deep, mystical sense of manhood, fatherhood, spousalhood and the ability for self-donation and mature intimacy with humans and with God the Father. Herein lies the source of the sexual abuse and vocation crises in the Church.

continued below
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I think the problem is that a lot of people consider this a “new” problem. I believe the problem of molestations by priests have been going on since back to the Middle Ages, if not earlier. The reality is that most men with healthy attitudes towards sex are not going to commit themselves to a life of no sexual activity. However, some men who are aware they have unhealthy or socially unacceptable sexual attitudes have looked to the priesthood as a safe haven, almost with the hope that joining will somehow make their problems disappear. Of course it isn’t a fix, and eventually we find priests who act out by molesting others. This will continue to be a problem until the Church decides that it’s no longer going to be a safe haven for these individuals. It can no longer allow the priesthood to be a place to hide for these problems. I think a first step would be allowing married priests. Take away the requirement for celibacy, and the priesthood will look less attractive to those people who are trying to hide from their sexual dysfunctions.

The Church still has a long way to go before it “gets real” in dealing with this problem.
 
Fr. Loya continued…
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Tightening the Dallas Charter, stricter Safe Environment policies, routing out the bad guys, holding hasty summits, transparency, accountability and full disclosure are simply bureaucratic default positions that focus on after-the-fact. These measures play to the secular media and make it appear that we as Church are really doing something about this crises. But these measures will not get to the origins and healing of the problems. It will require a soul level transformation of Church and society. This is a tall order.

In the meantime priestly formation must retrieve two essential pillars of the spiritual life that have gone missing—the mystical and the ascetical. With the help of tools like St. John Paul II’s theology of the body, the writings of the Church Fathers and the spiritual wisdom and praxis of the desert fathers and great mystics of the Church, candidates for the priesthood must come into a mystical and palpable understanding that they are to be men in the fullness of everything that manhood means such as being a husband and father. Seminarians and priests cannot be urged to run from their sexuality but rather to run headlong into it— into its mystical, sacramental and revelatory nature. But even this will not be sufficient:

The place where priesthood finds its fullest identity is at the Altar, the Eucharist. If priestly formation can be transformed to immerse a candidate into the deep, mystical understanding of his husbandhood and fatherhood, then it becomes critical that the priest finds a congruency at the place that most defines his priesthood.

The Liturgy of the Church is the ultimate context for the mystical meaning of human sexuality, of complementarity, which is a sharing in the relationship of the Bridegroom Christ and His Bride the Church. Classic Church architecture, Art, ritual, gesture and text preserved this fundamental nuptial character. After the Second Vatican Council (but not actually because of the Council itself) this nuptial character was all but obliterated when in the Liturgy of the Latin Rite, the priest began facing the people and the separation between the holy of holies (sanctuary) and the nave disappeared.

Pope Benedict XVI’s realized the essential connection between the deep meaning of the male priesthood and the Altar. The Holy Father’s Moto Proprio giving permission for priests to offer the Liturgy facing the Altar, (facing East—Ad Orientum) far from being some throwback to the ‘old days,’ was one step on the way toward restoring the ancient, yet ageless nuptial character of the Latin Rite Liturgy.

If mystical manhood, fatherhood, husbandhood, and the nuptial character of the Liturgy and the priesthood can be re-integrated it will help men to know who they are as priest-men and how to be that for their Bride. Those who cannot relate to this will know that they simply need not apply.
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So I am confused. You said first that nothing that the Bishop stated was the cause of this and that all of them have clericalism in common. Then you answered that your point is that homosexuality is part of the problem, but not the only one.

AT this point I am not sure what you mean. The Bishop pointed to four issues that are problems. What did the Bishop get wrong?
 
It is the “fixation” on homosexuality I have a problem with. There is an element in the Church which seeks to demonize any one with homosexual inclinations, whether they are chaste or not.
Is homosexuality part of the problem, yes, but I would put it closer to the bottom of the list.
As I would with much of what the Bishop says here. It is the culture of cover-up and protecting the institution at any and all costs that is the true scandal, and that was/is what clericalism breeds.
 
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OraLabora . . .
One of the most vocal defenders of the Church’s doctrine on homosexuality was the conservative Cardinal O’Brien. Surprise surprise, he turned out to be a homosexual predator himself (on his own seminarians).
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I was not aware Cardinal Keith O’Brien was so staunch against sodomy.

Thanks for that info. OraLabora.

Here (from Wiki) is a summary of the quite public knowledge of what OraLabora is referring to regarding the Cardinal chasing around his seminarians.
Keith Michael Patrick O’Brien (17 March 1938 – 19 March 2018) was a Scottish Catholic cardinal. He was the Archbishop of Saint Andrews and Edinburgh from 1985 to 2013.

O’Brien was the leader of the Catholic Church in Scotland[1][2] and had been the head of its conference of bishops until he stepped down as archbishop in February 2013. O’Brien’s resignation followed publication of allegations he had engaged in inappropriate and predatory sexual conduct with priests and seminarians under his jurisdiction and abused his power.[3] O’Brien was opposed to homosexuality, which he described as “moral degradation”,[4] and a vehement opponent of same-sex marriage.[5]

On 20 March 2015, the Vatican announced that though he remained a member of the College of Cardinals, O’Brien would not exercise his rights or duties as a cardinal, in particular voting in papal conclaves (he had already stayed out of the 2013 conclave).[6] O’Brien died after a fall on 19 March 2018, two days after his 80th birthday.
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Which just raises the questions of WHY after uncovering this way back in 2013, he REMAINED on the College of Cardinals even in a limited capacity and WHY was he not barred from hearing Confessions, visiting Seminaries, etc. through early 2018??
 
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