"Clergy abuse is serious, bit the Church is also a target" (opinion piece)

[St_Francis]

Link to opinion piece.

I thought this was a really balanced piece with some information I didn’t know befor.

And she has a very subtle (?) dig at lawyers who sue; her description of what one lawyer has and is doing is very telling.

Altho I have been informed that saying this was happening everywhere doesn’t cut it as a discussion point, I think we may easily be able to say that 1. we have done more to protect children and 2. we have paid more compensation. Even public schools and foster care systems have not been sued as we have been.

 

[edwest2]

A well-balanced opinion piece which uses relatively few words to describe a problem that accelerated after the permission and deceptions used by Hippies and Anarchists in the late 1960s bear their terrible fruit today.

A wrong and distorted view of what human sexuality is is at the heart of the problems that affect most of us. Who paid millions of dollars, and made legal, graphic pornography in the 1970s? Who owned all the Adult Bookstores, paid for printing, photographers and other employees? And what about the strip clubs and topless bars? Porn Addiction became the opiate of the masses. And this was all planned. The so-called “soft” porn was replaced by the very graphic variety.

And yes, there were dissidents inside the Church that sowed confusion, along with outside groups. Today, the young in particular have no knowledge of the fact that decade after decade, the problem was and is growing worse in the media. Most movies, most TV shows. That kind of sexual immorality that they display is normal? NO. 100% no. Or neutral? Or “Hey. What’s the big deal?”

Right or wrong. Pick one, but make the right choice. The god called Media is lying to you in your choices of “entertainment.” It’s filling your heads with immoral living on display.

Peace,
Ed

 

[sallybutler]

I grew up in California. I was a patient at Kaiser Permanente since from the time I was 4 until I moved out of California at the age of 55. I really like and miss Kaiser Permanente.

However, it would be understandable if someone thought Kaiser was the worst hospital system in the world. I wondered why for many years. It wasn’t until I heard a doctor talking about that issue. H e said that Kaiser had great doctors and good doctors wanted to work for Kaiser and their statistics water among the best in the country.

If you were offered a story about a one or two doctor office ding something wrong or one or two doctors that worked at Kaiser doings something wrong, which would you write about? The Kaiser doctors, of course.

A pastor here, a youth minister there is not as interesting (or as profitable) as a member of the Catholic clergy.

 

[christofirst]

There is an extra element of scandal when Catholic clergy are the perpetrators of abuse because of the supreme moral standards pronounced by, and expected from, the Church. Abuser priests are looked upon as hypocrites and especially evil, more so than the many secular instances of abuse, and understandably so. Accepting both the painful reality of clergy abuse, and that there will be opportunists seeking an advantage from the situation, should make us hyper-vigilant. As others have said, much has been done on an institutional level - good programs and rules for safeguarding children are now in place - but we can not become complacent or make excuses. To whom much is given, much will be required.

 

[nmgauss]

The documentary, “Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God” explores the case of a pedophile priest in Milwaukee who was never disciplined or defrocked. He died without being dishonored and was buried in the church cemetery.

Here is an excellent article on child abuse by priests in Milwaukee under Timothy Dolan:

usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/07/02/19247832-documents-show-milwaukee-archdiocese-shielded-pedophile-priests

 

[Tony_the_mad]

A well-balanced opinion piece which uses relatively few words to describe a problem that accelerated after the permission and deceptions used by Hippies and Anarchists in the late 1960s bear their terrible fruit today.

A wrong and distorted view of what human sexuality is is at the heart of the problems that affect most of us. Who paid millions of dollars, and made legal, graphic pornography in the 1970s? Who owned all the Adult Bookstores, paid for printing, photographers and other employees? And what about the strip clubs and topless bars? Porn Addiction became the opiate of the masses. And this was all planned. The so-called “soft” porn was replaced by the very graphic variety.

And yes, there were dissidents inside the Church that sowed confusion, along with outside groups. Today, the young in particular have no knowledge of the fact that decade after decade, the problem was and is growing worse in the media. Most movies, most TV shows. That kind of sexual immorality that they display is normal? NO. 100% no. Or neutral? Or “Hey. What’s the big deal?”

Right or wrong. Pick one, but make the right choice. The god called Media is lying to you in your choices of “entertainment.” It’s filling your heads with immoral living on display.

Peace,
Ed

I don’t disagree about the problem with porn. (I saw a recent scientific study showing that the brain changes, and I doubt for good, while watching porn.) The idea that acceptance of pornography was the cause of this scandal, though is not born by the evidence, in fact quite the opposite. Every indication has shown that over the last couple decades all forms of violence including sexual violence has decreased at the same time that access to porn and the mainstreaming of porn has increased. This is not to suggest that one caused the other; rather there are more important and stronger forces at work, namely a stronger societal and governmental push back against all forms of child abuse.

Prior to the seventies authority figures were allowed to do pretty much what they wanted whether they were priests, ministers, parents, teachers, etc. Challenging authority was frowned on and predators took advantage of it.

That is not to say that ‘free love’ did not play a role, but very few of the predatory priest (or the Bishops that allowed it) were of that generation or necessarily approved of hippies.

 

[Tony_the_mad]

Overall a decent article, although it is too short in specific details and hard evidence. I think the last two paragraphs about the Catholic Church being targeted because it is against a new ‘priestly cast’ is biased and incorrect. It vastly underestimates the predatory nature of media (always targeting that which they can separate from the herd) and the salacious nature of the media. No conspiracy theory about some ‘new priesthood’ is needed.

If the media is against us it is not necessarily because it has some overriding philosophy; that gives too much unified thought to a very un-unified collection of individuals and special interests. Rather, it has reflected our inability to engage the world the way it is. We have no Bishop Fulton Sheen, although Pope Frances may fill that role.

 

[Tony_the_mad]

The documentary, “Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God” explores the case of a pedophile priest in Milwaukee who was never disciplined or defrocked. He died without being dishonored and was buried in the church cemetery.

Here is an excellent article on child abuse by priests in Milwaukee under Timothy Dolan:

usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/07/02/19247832-documents-show-milwaukee-archdiocese-shielded-pedophile-priests

Some quotes from the article show how awful and biased this article truly is:

Roman Catholic Church officials in Milwaukee vigorously shielded pedophile priests and protected church funds from lawsuits during a decades-long sex abuse scandal, according to hundreds of newly released documents.

There is absolutely no evidence that the Church ‘vigorously shielded pedophile priests’. Quite the opposite, the Church tried to get them laicized. The idea that the church tried to protect Church funds from lawsuits ‘during a decades-long’ sex abuse scandal is contrary to the fact that it occurred once and it occurred after the scandal and arguably for funds that did not belong to the Church as a whole.

The 6,000 pages of documents related to eight decades of abuse cases showed in great detail the Milwaukee archdiocese regularly reassigned priests who were accused of sexual molestation to new parishes

The Church regularly reassigns all priests to new dioceses. There is no proof of cause and effect.

During a news conference on Monday, Jeff Anderson, an attorney representing more than 500 abuse victims, said the money was to be used to “pay off some of the offenders to quietly go away.”

I don’t care who you are talking about, if you are going to make a claim like this you need to back it up with evidence. This is very sloppy reporting at best and biased reporting at worst.

Documents also show the Milwaukee archdiocese transferring pedophile priests instead of removing them from the church.

They don’t have the decency to use the word ‘alleged’ pedophile priests, when every other reputable source covering every other person (even those we are pretty certain are guilty) would use the term until they are proven by law to be guilty. Even if they were later proven to be pedophiles, they should have mentioned that they were only alleged at the time. Even biased reporters on biased shows like on MSNBC do that for people they can’t stand at least for terms that have a criminal meaning.

As part of their laicization, priests such as O’Brien were paid $10,000 to start the process and $10,000 during the process and, in some cases, $1,250 per month for health and dental insurance, according to the documents. (Reporting by Brendan O’Brien and Geoffrey Davidian; Editing by Mary Wisniewski, Greg McCune and Lisa Shumaker)

Irrelevant detail included only for its salaciousness. If someone close to me was caught in a scandal like this that does not relieve me of my duty to that person, particularly if the details were not proven only suspected.

The elephant in the room, though, is that the Church presumably did not do its own internal investigation into the allegations. Allegations are quite different from proof. We live in a society of laws for a reason. The Church had a responsibility to investigate or enable the outside authorities to investigate and to respond forcefully when the allegations proved true. Who knows if the Church did or did not; this article says nothing about this real problem and focuses on irrelevant salacious details.