Do I have to choose?

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traillius

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I am a male survivor of childhood s**ual abuse, though my case never involved any members of the clergy. I also am a practicing catholic. It burns me up when I hear about the scandal of priests being pedophiles, and what bothers me the most is finding myself in the hard position of both supporting the RCC, and standing up for my fellow survivors, both female and male. I can’t go all to one side or the other, but I can’t refuse to decide one way or the other. Any advice.
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Trail
 
You don’t have to choose between one and the other; that would be like having to choose between being a loyal, patriotic American (because you love your country) and supporting the victims of the Japanese internment camps perpetrated by the U.S. against its own citizens during World War II.

We are all just as appalled as you are by the Church’s sex abuse crisis. Granted, most of us can’t relate to the pain you feel because of your own history, but we all agree that what happened was absolutely, totally unacceptable in any institution, let alone God’s Church.

But that doesn’t mean that the Church is wrong when it teaches that the Lord Jesus Christ is the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father by whom all things were made. The Truth is the Truth, no matter what crimes have been committed in its name, no matter what terrible decisions or mistakes were made by the people of God, and no matter who has been hurt by the terrible actions and omissions of those who above all were expected to do better.

When you are challenged about how the Church can possibly be believed now, given what we know about the sexual abuses committed secretly against so many people over the years, the answer is that the Church, while holy, is imperfect; and some people in her ranks committed terrible crimes; others covered them up; still others turned a blind eye; and even more were negligent in uncovering the crimes. Those involved should pay, and everyone else should be careful to make sure that nothing like this ever happens again.

But that doesn’t change the fact that the moral teachings of the Church – as distinct from the actions of her priests – remain true.
 
THE most important thing to remember and nourish is our personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

The sins of others should have no effect on my continuing to practice my Catholic Faith by attending Mass and receiving the Sacraments. I do not have to answer for their sins. Nor am I expected to defend their sins.

Man’s imperfections does not make God wrong. Rather, man’s imperfections is WHY we need God. The sexual abusers in the Catholic represent less than 3% of all ordained clergy. I stand with the 97% who do right.

You may want to take some time and read the Charter at this location. I think you too can stand and defend this Charter.

http://www.usccb.org/ocyp/charter.shtml
 
Maybe it’s helpful to you and also to people of other faiths (or no faith at all) to remember that these people were pedophiles who decided to become priests. Just like some pedophiles decide to become hockey coaches, teachers, boy scout leaders, etc. Or they might be neighbours or relatives… (please believe that I understand you quandary).

I often feel defensive whenever a Catholic priest is found to be guilty of this criminal behaviour. It ends up giving ammunition to the anti-Catholic sentiment which is already prevalent. (I’ve noticed this in conversations with co-workers.)

In my Archdiocese, there is very good leadership and any criminal behaviour is meant to reported to the police. I kind of understand (and disagree with) why these matters were swept under the carpet in the past. It was misguided and caused a tremendous amount of damage to people and undermined the Catholic Church. However, hopefully from this point forward, good leadership in the Church will effect a positive outcome.

God Bless You.
 
Is every adult a child molester? Will every man, or every woman molest a child?

I too am a survivor of child sexual, physical and mental abuse. I blame the persons that did this, and I do NOT generalize that blame out to all possible “suspects”.

If you can not support your church because a tiny minority of Priests have been child molesters, then your faith is indeed weak. Standing up for your church is not in any way condoning this behavior, nor is it NOT standing up for your fellow victims.

Sadly, too many Bishop’s and religious superiors saw this as a problem of sin (which it is), but ONLY as a problem of sin. They believed that if a person were counseled religiously, they would stop sinning and never do this again. This was largely ignorance at work, not malice.

I personally believe that the large cash rewards being made to victims are utterly wrong. It is punishing the Church in a way that neither helps the victims, nor does it do anything to stop future abuse. It simply enriches lawyers, and a few greedy people, at the expense of the lay members of the church. It does not hurt the Bishop’s, it hurts the people of the church, who have to fork over their money to keep the church operating.
 
At first I too was unable to sort this out, but then I realized that these evil wicked men were acting against the teachings of the Church. The Church is good, and people who follow the teachings of the Church are good. It was those who went against the teachings who are bad and did terrible things.
 
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