How has the Pennsylvania scandal affected you personally?

  • Thread starter Thread starter SacredHeartBassist
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Tis_Bearself said:
Are you kidding? Ted Bundy came from a dysfunctional family.
Click to expand...
As I said, I wasn’t sure if I was remembering correctly.
Having said that, being born out of wedlock probably won’t make a child into a psychopathic killer.
 
I don’t think I’d leave the church. But I’m more wary of priests and my diocese for sure
 
Tis_Bearself said:
I’d like to know too, why people react to scandals by wanting to leave the Church, because in my case I don’t feel motivated to leave the Church at all. I never did. Where would I go? Jesus is here. I’m here because I want to be with Him.
Click to expand...
This is beautifully put.
 
Hello.

I haven’t read about it yet, am preferring now to focus on what the Catholic church teaches instead of how it has failed on this earth. Am still dealing with abuse from other sources in my life.

I will remind everyone that there’s a Gospel that says whoever is without sin can throw the 1st stone. I’m not saying that there shouldn’t be justice but that justice isn’t justice without mercy.

The teachings are solid, but we are not.

Please pray for vocations, for more good & holy priests. We are in need of good & holy priests.
 
Don’t think I could handle reading something like that → "John R. Powers “Catholic schoolboy” novels.

Didn’t even know they existed.
 
No, but being lied to about his parentage, finding out by accident that his purported father is not his real father and that it’s not clear who his real father is, and also having a purported father (the grandfather) who beats his wife, kids and the family pet and is abusive in other ways, and a purported mother (the grandmother) who is mentally ill, could certainly affect a child’s behavior. It’s not the “being born out of wedlock”, it is how the family handled the situation. I have actually known several people in this situation where they were lied to about their true parentage due to a family scandal. One of them did end up in prison and another of them spent her whole life looking among her friend circle for a “family” to kind of glom onto.
 
I honestly believe some of these (if not all) these dioceses need to do some house cleaning.

I was just reading over some of the indictments, and the diocese assistance coordinator from Pittsburgh called the one priest, accused of raping multiple children, “courageous” and his years of pedophilia as a “journey.” Are you kidding me right now?
 
The letter in question is 15 years old and the “Diocesan Assistance Coordinator” is not a clergy person herself and is presumably the person with the job of trying to help priests who have been accused or otherwise gotten in trouble. Part of that job would be speaking to them in some way that might alleviate their emotions because there is a very real possibility that an accused or even guilty priest might kill himself or do something rash. (Some of them have committed suicide.) Obviously the Church doesn’t want to see this happen (even if the victims and everybody else would rejoice) and would like to see the priest repent and be placed somewhere where he can serve the Lord without harming anyone. I agree that such letters are not well received when they come into the light, but you can’t expect her to write a letter that says “Bad priest, no donut.”
 
Last edited:
SacredHeartBassist said:
How are you dealing with it
Click to expand...
I’m not really affected by this personally. It’s tragic and criminal and some people will hopefully go to prison over it all. But I must distance myself from this sort of thing or it will consume me emotionally. I will continue to go to Mass as before but it has no bearing on whether or not I will ever formally become Catholic. It has nothing to do with the faith of the church as a whole. It is a crime to be dealt with as all other crimes.
 
Your Protestant friends should definitely not gloat. Their churches are in the same very leaky boat. There have been several posts on this thread citing articles that describe abuse cases in Protestant churches and organizations.

My husband and I were Evangelical Protestant for 47 years before converting to Catholicism. We were not church hoppers, but we were involved with several churches due to college, moves around the country, etc. EVERY Protestant church that we were involved with experienced a sexual abuse situation.

in my childhood church, a janitor was actually RAPING young teen girls (keep in mind that back in the 1960s, many teen girls were not taught about sex–I wasn’t, and didn’t know about the "mechanics until I was in 9th grade).

In my husband’s childhood church, a youth minister was sleeping with the teen girls in his youth group. He was fired, but there was never a public admission of his crimes.

In the church we attended when we moved away from our childhood home, the youth pastor was sleeping with…someone who was not his wife. We don’t know the details because they were never revealed. All we know is that the pastor “left” the church and the explanation given was “sex sin.”

In the last Protestant church we were in, someone was preying on young teen girls, and sadly, my daughter was possibly one of those girls. Nothing was ever made public, not even to the members.

These are just the churches in my experience. Many of the top Evangelical leaders have been dismissed or are being investigated for sexual sins. One example is Bill Hybels of the Willowcreek megachurch–to me, this is the equivalent of seeing a Catholic bishop caught in sexual sin! Hybels has been a mover and shaker in Evangelical Protestantism for decades!

I personally believe that Protestant churches and organizations are even more inundated by sexual sins among the clergy and lay leaders–please keep in mind that in Protestant churches, lay leaders are often hired to head up various ministries, e.g., music, business, women’s and children’s ministries (many Protestant churches do not ordain women or allow them to be called “pastors”), etc.

When a Protestant church minister is discovered to be guilty of sexual sin in his church, the Protestant leaders have historically dismissed him privately and the denomination (if there is one) removes his license to be able to get hired (called) by another church. I am sincerely hoping that this has changed since we left Protestantism–I HOPE that Protestant churches and organizations report sexual crimes to the police. But I have my doubts–a Protestant church or organization can be totally destroyed by this kind of scandal, especially if there is no denomination to send in an Interim Minister and begin restoration-type ministries in the stricken church. Non-denoms are generally dead in the water when sexual sin (or any kind of sin) is uncovered.
 
I will say that this crisis did actually reinforce my faith in one respect, by forcing me to test it. When I was particularly down, I was looking up the procedures to convert to the Orthodox Church. One of the things I read about was the public denunciation (repeated three times) of the Catholic Church and it’s teaching.

Now, I’m not an uber-traditionalist, and there are some Catholic traditions that frankly rub me the wrong way. But I knew immediately I couldn’t do that. It would be like spitting in my mother’s face.

So…we can’t run. All we can do is stay and fight for the punishment of the offenders. Start writing letters, start being tactical about where your money goes, and stay angry.
 
Thanks for the link. I’ve been saying for years that the laity needs to be more involved and demand accountability!

Those who have infiltrated our Holy Church are destroying it from within while we wring our hands, make excuses, and look the other way. We have naively believed that the very hierarchy that allowed these crimes to go on for decades should be trusted to resolve the problem. We will all be held accountable.
 
I suggested the very things mentioned in your last paragraph a few years ago, and was basically run off the boards.

I agree wholeheartedly with your suggestions.

ETA: I haven’t been here in so long, I forgot to hit the quote button in my reply sooooo, ah well … It is what it is.
 
Last edited:
😞 I know what you mean. I spent about 20 years not practicing. I don’t want to be alone without the Sacraments.

I was under the impression that the scandal a number of years ago cleared out all the weeds.

I guess I’m naive.

My oldest son never was an altar server, my youngest is about the age to start. I wouldn’t have thought to say no before.

I’m angry now.

I have the feeling that no one is safe anymore.
 
We need to bear down and lean into the cross right now. The Church will weather this storm, not without casualties, but she will get through it. Our diocese, as I am sure most, has in place mechanisms to prevent the coverup of this sort of thing. If we witness anything inappropriate, we are taught that it is to be reported and documented immediately. The first call is NOT to be to our immediate superior. The first call is law enforcement. Period. No exception. Then and only then do re report to the church authority. Everyone knows how this is to be. This takes the possibility of the Joe Paterno/Jerry Sandusky scenario out of the equation.
 
Peeps said:
in my childhood church, a janitor was actually RAPING young teen girls (keep in mind that back in the 1960s, many teen girls were not taught about sex–I wasn’t, and didn’t know about the "mechanics until I was in 9th grade).
Click to expand...
These past few days I’ve been dwelling on a memory from when I was 13. My cousin and I are about a year apart. Her school had hired a janitor who was about 18 or 19. I had gone to visit and we went over to the school for some summer program. She had a crush on him. At 12 that’s normal. He led us into a supply closet to talk. At the time we thought it was cool that the teenager wanted to talk to us. All that happened was talking.

In retrospect how dangerous was it for him to lead us to a closed supply closet. Was he testing how far he could go? Practicing to meet another girl? We didn’t think to say no. He worked at the school. He was supposed to be “safe”. This was the early 1980’s.
 
Your sons are just as much at risk of being abused by a teacher at their school, a sports coach, your neighbor, or the parent/ relative of one of their friends, as they are of being abused by a priest at this point. It’s likely that teachers and coaches present an even greater risk. I suppose homeschooling could remove some of the risk, but homeschooled kids usually need to get out and do some kind of activity under the supervision of an adult other than their parents, once in a while.

I would suggest you just tell them that if they see or experience any type of “bad touching”, sexual talk, or if an adult offers them pornography or alcohol, they should get away and immediately inform you, regardless of who the adult is, whether it’s a teacher, priest, parent of other child etc, and that they should pay no attention to any threats or “let’s keep this a secret” talk made by the adult.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top