NC Register: No Half Measures in Responding to Clerical Crisis

[Roseeurekacross]

You must ensure investigation, inquiry and prosecution is not blocked by people in your government. The church is not the law. This needs to be investigated and prosecuted in a secular world, with secular law

 

[Cruciferi]

Everyone wants a silver bullet solution

 

[Golightlyholly]

Late to this post. I have just read part of the report and I had to stop. I am sickened and hurt inside to say the least. I am very active on twitter and all I can say is that it has gone out of control.

People are calling for good priest to resign, abuse is hurled at believers. Some people see it as a chance to bring in doubts and say that it is just an invisible man you are praying to, that all is rotten, or this is why I left the church and you should too.

It is hard to swallow it. I have deactivated my account for now. I don‘t know what to think any longer and Pope Francis being silent or passive on this matter is disheartening. I think it will be hard to come back wihout serious reform and punishment.

It makes me wonder what is lurking in the shawdows in the UK.

May God have mercy on us all.

 

[Gorgias]

Thus married men are very unlikely to be sexually abusing teenage boys.

Wait – you think there aren’t closeted married men out there?

 

[Gorgias]

If there is anything strange about it, it is that it has taken to now for Pennsylvania dioceses to come to terms about it.

That’s the whole point. Pennsylvania has been addressing it, over the past 20 to 30 years!

For the attorney general to ask the dioceses of the state to start addressing it is simply political posturing.

 

[mrsdizzyd]

Ordaining married men would not help this situation. Look at Protestant denominations. Many of the serial abusers are married.

 

[AlNg]

I haven’t heard about married Orthodox priests using whips, violence and sadism in sexually assaulting children. I haven’t seen the evidence that married priests force children to stand on a bed in a rectory, strip naked, and pose as Christ on the Cross for the priests. I haven’t heard of where married priests require altar boys to be totally naked under their altar server apparel. Why do I read about this happening with priests who are not married?

 

[otjm]

Did you actually read my post, or just fire off an answer?

 

[SuscipeMeDomine]

At the very least, a priest who is a husband and father is more likely to be concerned about what happens to kids in the Church because it could very well be his kids who are molested. And if he wasn’t watching carefully, his wife would be on the job.

 

[otjm]

Because the vast majority (note to Georgias: I didn’t say “all”) of married men are not homosexual, nor are they bi-sexual.

However, you might want to read the John Jay Report (2004). 81% of the victims were male. The short of it, which has been recognized by the Church (Pope Benedict issued a rule that anyone with deep seated homosexual tendencies was not to be ordained) is that the abuse has in largest part been driven by homosexual priests.

 

[Dorothy]

I agree with what you said.

We need to pray and pray more. The solution is for our Lord Jesus Christ to sanctify us, and we need to be more attentive to the Lord than ever before.

Our Eucharistic adoration times at the church need to be filled with more people…even if they stop in for just fifteen minutes. Families need to pray together and believers need to get together in one another’s homes to pray together.

Our Blessed Mother is all too ready to help us if we ask for her intercession daily. The holier we become, the stronger the Body of Christ (the Church) will become. Little by little, one person at a time becoming holier every day will change the Church! And, I thank the Lord for those contemplatives in monasteries who are quietly praying for the Church every day.

 

[otjm]

There have been repeated comments that there is more sexual abuse by school teachers - both in total numbers of abuse, and % of abusers to the total of teachers, than there has been in the Church.

However, schools and teachers do not hold themselves out as ordained, called by God to evangelize. Nor do schools and teachers hold themselves out as moral guides.

 

[Cordelil]

Here we have a cardinal who had an open secret per Bishop Robert Barron that he liked men and was molesting them yet climbed the hierarchy and was quite an influential Catholic clergyman. Nevertheless, other high ranking clergy didn’t say boo about this corrupt individual. I second Barron’s suggestion that a lay led investigative team be assigned to figure how McCarrick was able to use the system to his advantage while breaking his celibacy vow whenever he felt like it with men which is another violation of Catholic standards.

 

[CTBcin]

At the very least, a priest who is a husband and father is more likely to be concerned about what happens to kids in the Church because it could very well be his kids who are molested. And if he wasn’t watching carefully, his wife would be on the job.

Hmm… maybe. I do see your point. However, this assumes that being a celibate man means one is less attentive or less concerned about a child being hurt. Many of the priests I know have young nieces/nephews and would never stand for someone abusing them. I do not see this as a good argument for married priests in and of itself.

 

[Gorgias]

Did you actually read my post, or just fire off an answer?

If you don’t have a reasonable answer to my response, I’m thinking that the real question is why it was so easy to refute your assertion…

Seriously, though – why do you think the prospects of marriage will reduce child abuse… especially considering that most abuse happens in the home, where the men are generally married, not celibate?

 

[Gorgias]

Because the vast majority (note to Georgias: I didn’t say “all”) of married men are not homosexual, nor are they bi-sexual.

Fair enough.

Yet, “allowing marriage” is not the same thing as “reducing abuse.” Just because married men might be allowed to be ordained, doesn’t mean that you’re keeping potential abusers away from children.

 

[AlNg]

Seriously, though – why do you think the prospects of marriage will reduce child abuse… especially considering that most abuse happens in the home, where the men are generally married , not celibate ?

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops released a national study in 2004-FEB. It concluded that about 4% of all U.S. priests since 1950 have been accused of sexual abuse of children. However, it might be greater than 4% because there could be many victims who have remained silent and not come forward to accuse their abuser(s). AFAIK, all these priests were unmarried.

Ordaining married men would not help this situation.

Married men wouldn’t change anything.

Can you give us an example of a few, or at least one, married priest, either Roman Catholic, Eastern Catholic, Eastern Orthodox or Oriental Orthodox who has been accused of molesting children?

 

[otjm]

For starters, I did not suggest that married men was any solution, so I don’t know where you are getting that - not from me.

The Archdiocese of Oregon has implemented a child protection policy which is fairly rigorous,. That does not mean that some practicing homosexual priest has not had sex with a boy (before you allege that); but it is a very positive step in the right direction of protecting children - both boys and girls.

What you may find in the Pennsylvania reports is that a good number, and potentially a large number of the priests are already dead. Other abusers are likely to be of an age where they are no longer sexually active, and no longer in parishes or schools, so access is seriously limited in terms of access to potential victims.

I have no problem with prosecution; what I do have concern for is political games of changing the statute of limitations. There already, across the US, have been cases of false accusation (seeing verdicts which are literally 67 figures can induce prevarication quite easily; and the farther away one is from the incident, the harder it is to be able to defend oneself when one is innocent.

I am all for cleaning house… I don’t know how we are going to accomplish that if it is left to the bishops and the Curia; some get it. Some don’t, or won’t get it. Fear, intimidation, horror at the size of the verdicts and settlements (several dioceses have gone bankrupt already), incompetence, inability to face the shame, and for some, skeletons in their own closets (yes, I intentionally chose that phrase) will make it difficult at best. However, I don’t believe there is anything in Canon Law which puts any laity in a position of being able to make changes (such as getting priests removed from ministry…

It bears saying that on a world scale, the US has had a reputation of a strong streak of Puritanism, and while that is waning, there are other areas of the world which are and have been for a long time tolerant of homosexual sexual activity, if not more than just tolerant. The US does not make up the sum total of the Church; it is but one part. ```

 

[otjm]

Most abuse occurs in the home, but that includes physical and emotional abuse. and from my practice, most of the sexual abuse of boys was not by their fathers, but by a relative or a boyfriend of the mother. Sexual abuse by fathers however against their daughters is significant.

all of which has nothing to do with Pennsylvania, or the fact that the majority of the sexual abuse by priests (81%) was with boys by homosexual priests.

You can keep trying to change the conversation, but Pope Benedict was right - although I still say that putting foxes in charge of the hen coop is not a way to clean up the problem.

 

[Gorgias]

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops released a national study in 2004-FEB. It concluded that about 4% of all U.S. priests since 1950 have been accused of sexual abuse of children. However, it might be greater than 4% because there could be many victims who have remained silent and not come forward to accuse their abuser(s).

Think, for a minute, about statistics. How many cases in the '50s are unreported? 60’s? Basically, not enough to change the statistics. Now, think about the cases from the 90’s. If there are unreported cases, do you really think that the number of them would change the percentages for 70 years of cases?

So… when you realize the answer is ‘no’, you’ll realize that the claim “it might be greater than 4%” is bunk.

AFAIK, all these priests were unmarried.

That’s what happens when you don’t know how to do statistics. You take a subset of the data, and pretend it’s representative.

So, what you’re really saying is that a small percentage of priests, which is a small percentage of abuse cases, is not only representative, but also that you can extrapolate them and pretend that celibacy is to blame? When a far greater percentage of abusers are married?

For starters, I did not suggest that married men was any solution, so I don’t know where you are getting that - not from me.

Although you said “not a solution”, you later said that married men don’t abuse. As in “so, that will help.”

In any case, my response – which you claimed wasn’t relevant – directly addressed your claim (that is, that married men don’t abuse). So… go figure.