Ohio Priest Arrested on Sex Trafficking Charges

[stpurl]

Clerical culture itself has some different meanings. It is not clericalism, for example, that leads to ‘coverups’. If anything clericalism which has led to a faux idee of blurring the identity of priest and lay —not the widely promoted definition of clericalism as being ‘above the lay—is the problem.

If John Priest is no more and no less than John Lay, then why SHOULDN’T John Priest feel clerically ‘entitled’ to the sexual freedom to marry etc of John Lay?

 

[TMC]

Can you please explain to me how the Church is different from virtually every other large, powerful institution in this regard? Society as a whole really only got serious about crimes of sexual abuse within the last few decades. I am not excusing the Church, but rather suggesting that as an institution, it evolves along with the rest of society.

Sure. There are many differences.

First, the Church has a much longer history of this problem than any other entity I am aware of. It is documented to go back as least as far as St. Damian who wrote about (and fought against) it in the 11th Century.

Second, those guilty of the abuses in the Church have much more power, both formal and informal, than most of those accused in other entities. A teacher has authority over a student in the classroom, but none over the parents, for example. For Catholics, the authority of the priest and the Church is so much broader, and extends to the parents equally as to the child.

Third, while some organizations have participated in cover-ups, few (if any) have been as pervasive and persistent as what has occurred in the Church.

Fourth, the Church is subject to virtually no independent outside oversight. The Church is not even subject to oversight and review by its own members. This is a very important factor, and one that has stymied many efforts to dig out these problems.

Those are short summaries, and I am sure there are more, but it seems obviously to me that the Church is not the same as other organizations, like schools. Maybe the Church is more similar to other churches, but it is not the same as Scouts or the like.

I do agree with you that society only really got serious about these issues recently. That is part of the problem - people equate lack of reporting with lack of offenses occurring. They use that to assert that this is a “new” problem and not an endemic one.
The uptick in reporting was caused by the fact that it has become acceptable to report these things, and society is taken abuse more seriously.

As to your other points - if there are “protocols” in place now, they don’t seem to be working. I do expect lay people to do more, including withholding funding if things do not improve. Lay people need to demand a larger role in the administration of the Church, more visibility into how the Church runs itself, real independent oversight, and real accountability, with lay involvement. The Church does not belong to the clerics, and the laity share the responsibility for the Church.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

As to your other points - if there are “protocols” in place now, they don’t seem to be working.

Please explain how you reach this conclusion.
Many of the incidents I hear about involving children happened decades ago, like this case. Doesn’t make it okay but if the protocols had been in place, it might not have happened.

There have been a couple of recent cases of which I’m aware, and the priests were very quickly removed and are being/ have been prosecuted. They were not allowed to continue their behavior for years, nor were they transferred around. Only one case involved a relatively recently ordained priest, which made me think the gatekeepers slipped up and I would want them to learn from that and be more careful, but like I said, I doubt we will ever have 100 percent success in prevention.

The protocols are working. Unfortunately, since we cannot accurately keep tabs on how many bad events didn’t happen because a protocol prevented it, those who want to take a negative view will always be able to do so.

 

[stpurl]

You have quite a lot of “this is”, “This has” etc expressed as actual factual and not a lot of actual ‘proof’.

Are you telling us that because the Lutheran Church which has existed only about half as long as the time line of ‘1000 years of problems in the Catholic Church” doesn’t have the same number of purported abuse in 500 years as the Catholics did in 1000 that it means this is all a ‘majority Catholic problem?

I call baloney.

Sexual abuse exists not BECAUSE of religion, i.e. ‘clericalism, celibacy, etc’, but in spite of religion.

Trying to turn treatment of abuse into something based on a perception that it is all due to religion, celibacy, and so-called clericalism ignores the fact that it is widespread among those who have NO RELIGION, are NOT CELIBATE, and have no CLERICALISM.

 

[TMC]

Please explain how you reach this conclusion.
Many of the incidents I hear about involving children happened decades ago, like this case. Doesn’t make it okay but if the protocols had been in place, it might not have happened.

I am wondering how you arrive at the opposite conclusion. I reach this conclusion in part because of cases like this one, but also because of other cases of corruption in the Church, like the bishop who was finally reported by his assistant in NY, or the massive corruption (albeit not sexual) uncovered in WV. I see no evidence that the Church has turned the page from these issues. The WV corruption is relevant, in my view, because it is part and parcel of the cultural issues that allow serious problems to persist and fester. As to the notion that these abuses are all in the past, - a long lag in reporting is an unfortunate feature of this kind of abuse, and I fear that a decade from now we will still be hearing that all the reported cases are a decade old.

If we love the Church we will fight to fix these problems, not ignore them. If we are honest with ourselves, we will admit that no humans should be running a massive multi-trillion dollar organization with such authority over so many people without proper oversight.

 

[TMC]

You have quite a lot of “this is”, “This has” etc expressed as actual factual and not a lot of actual ‘proof’.

Are you telling us that because the Lutheran Church which has existed only about half as long as the time line of ‘1000 years of problems in the Catholic Church” doesn’t have the same number of purported abuse in 500 years as the Catholics did in 1000 that it means this is all a ‘majority Catholic problem?

I call baloney.

Sexual abuse exists not BECAUSE of religion, i.e. ‘clericalism, celibacy, etc’, but in spite of religion.

Trying to turn treatment of abuse into something based on a perception that it is all due to religion, celibacy, and so-called clericalism ignores the fact that it is widespread among those who have NO RELIGION, are NOT CELIBATE, and have no CLERICALISM.

I have no idea if the Lutheran church has as pervasive a problem as the Catholic Church. I also never said the problems were caused by religion, or celibacy. You are reading that into my comments. What I am saying is that this issue is not resolved, the laity has a responsibility to insist this is actually resolved, and that resolving such an endemic problem will take much more time and effort.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

the bishop who was finally reported by his assistant in NY, or the massive corruption (albeit not sexual) uncovered in WV.

I thought we were talking about sexual abuse of minors, not every bad thing a clergy might do with adults or with stealing from the till.

I don’t see any point in lumping every bad thing together. Obviously a case of misusing funds calls for a different response than a case of a priest grooming and sexually abusing kids.

As for “We will fight to fix these problems”, again, What Exactly Am I Supposed To Do, except report it when I see it? I would note that the last case of misuse of parish funds around here, which also involved a pastor’s engaging in sexual activities with consenting adults outside the parish, was reported by the pastor’s own staff who found a suspicious account in the pastor’s name on a Venmo site. The pastor was removed immediately and prosecuted. So if I’m on the parish staff or even if I happened to see Pastor X’s name on a weird looking Venmo, I should report it. But the vast majority of us aren’t following the pastor around tracking his activities.

You seem to have the idea that we’re all just standing around dismissing these incidents or “ignoring” them. That’s not what I see. I also don’t get all this “Fight this” and “Fight that”. I don’t see how picketing the Chrism Mass for example, like one parish did, is going to make this situation any better. Nor are we all ignoring the situation simply because we say “problems are being addressed”. It’s called Keep Calm and Carry On and it’s how every crisis gets solved in the end.

 

[Dr_Meinheimer]

If celibacy the primary issue in stemming the tides of lust or power, why do abuses of pornography, infidelity, and abuse occur among married men? SUrely, their easy access to sating their urges would take care of that.

If there is some causal science you can share, please do so. Otherwise, it is just cojecture and the argument amounts to “well, duh. These men need sex.”

 

[ReaderT]

It’s called Keep Calm and Carry On and it’s how every crisis gets solved in the end.

The hierarchy needs to be pressured, unfortunately, to do the right thing. If the 2018 PA Grand Jury report taught us anything, it’s that the church often does not come clean about these things willingly. Several priests listed on the report were still in active ministry when the report came out, despite their known abusive pasts. The Bishops have to be compelled.

As TMC mentioned, just last year the Bishop of Buffalo was found to keep a secret list of abusers in his broom closet. His secretary found it while looking for a vacuum - the list had 106 priests, but the Diocese told the public there were only 42 (source). That same Bishop quietly put an accused priest “on administrative leave” and gave him secret payments (from your tithes!) in 2020.

Poing being: I agree with TMC that laity need real administrative power and oversight. Bishops have proven, time and again, that they cover things up.

 

[TMC]

I thought we were talking about sexual abuse of minors, not every bad thing a clergy might do with adults or with stealing from the till.

As I pointed out, I bring it up as an example of the Church continuing to have serious problems with oversight and accountability.

You seem to have the idea that we’re all just standing around dismissing these incidents or “ignoring” them. That’s not what I see.

I’m glad you are seeing people take action, but I am not seeing enough. I am seeing mostly more of the same - Church leaders providing oversight of each other, which has not worked in the past and is still not working now. Keep Calm and Carry On sounds to me a lot like Pray, Pay and Obey, which is a big part of what got us into this situation.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

I understand giving laity administrative oversight and I thought in a number of dioceses this was already being done via the appointment of oversight boards that include laity. There are probably dioceses that still need to implement this and of course Buffalo diocese is an extreme example of a messed-up situation. Not all dioceses are in that bad shape.

I think one problem we all have when discussing this issue is that our perspective is colored by what we see in the dioceses we’re most familiar with. If I were in WV or Buffalo I would likely see a big mess with very little having been accomplished. That is not what I see based on the three or four dioceses where I spend time; there appears to have been a definite change and improvement, and problem clergy are swiftly removed and, if they have committed crimes (not limited to sex abuse crimes), they are prosecuted.

In any event, I’d like to be able to provide positive feedback on good changes I see happening without people constantly acting like I’m dismissing the problem if I don’t go around in some state of perpetual outrage.

With that, I am muting the thread as it has ceased being about the original subject and is treading ground we’ve been over many times already.

 

[goout]

Are you even willing to admit we have a (mostly) celibate priesthood, and that celibacy is simply one of the factors that make up clerical culture?
Can you simply admit that, without even making further value judgments?

 

[stpurl]

Actually, I can’t. Not if you are attempting to make celibacy into a ‘factor’ where you would not make ‘heterosexual marriage’ into the mix, where all priests ‘able to marry’, just as much and with exactly the same weight you are assigning to ‘celibacy’.

No, ‘celibacy’ is not part of ‘clericalism’. It isn’t some kind of mystic status, nor yet some kind of torture preventing men from utilizing normal sexual urges in a normal marriage.

Until people realize that celibacy is as much a choice as marriage, and that clericalism doesn’t mean a group of men ‘in chains’ and thus acting out in a disordered way, we’ll just have more of this type of misunderstanding and scapegoating of celibacy. . . And of clerics.

 

[goout]

Actually, I can’t. Not if you are attempting to make celibacy into a ‘factor’ where you would not make ‘heterosexual marriage’ into the mix, where all priests ‘able to marry’, just as much and with exactly the same weight you are assigning to ‘celibacy’.

No, ‘celibacy’ is not part of ‘clericalism’. It isn’t some kind of mystic status, nor yet some kind of torture preventing men from utilizing normal sexual urges in a normal marriage.

Until people realize that celibacy is as much a choice as marriage, and that clericalism doesn’t mean a group of men ‘in chains’ and thus acting out in a disordered way, we’ll just have more of this type of misunderstanding and scapegoating of celibacy. . . And of clerics.

I didn’t make any nefarious claims about celibacy causing anything. And I didn’t make any negative assertions about celibacy.

If you can’t admit that celibacy is a part of clerical culture, you are de-facto in denial.
And that is where we are folks.
and this is why not much changes, decade after decade.

 

[stpurl]

I truly think you are misunderstanding me, and you are definitely misunderstanding both celibacy and clericalism.

Part of ‘clerical culture’ then by your definition along with celibacy would be offering the Holy Mass, Confession, praying the breviary. . .being out in the community perhaps attending the local Catholic school functions, presiding at Bible studies, etc. Right?

So ok. The local Protestant pastors and Jewish rabbis, not to mention John Q Layman, are out there doing everything but offering Mass (the pastors and rabbis have services, and the lay people have various functions depending on their jobs). And for the married and for the celibate among them (for there are unmarried men BY CHOICE who are not homosexual or fornicating, but truly celibate), the ‘rates of abuse’ are equal to or greater than that of a Catholic priest.

So here’s the thing. It is quite obvious that celibacy in and of itself is no more a factor in sexual abuse than ‘non-celibacy’.

That being the case, why are you attempting to give it a key position in a so-called ‘clerical culture’?

In trying to do so, you are once again shying away from the whole problem with sexual abuse and attempting to claim the cause of sexual abuse can be laid at the feet of those ‘clerical celibates’ because their ‘culture’ engenders it.

What I want you to tell me is exactly how you define clericalism, how it causes sexual abuse, and what then in the non-celibate group (you know, that group of married non priests out there whose rate of abuse is higher, and the percentage ratio with regard to priests is MUCH higher) is exactly like your ‘clericalism’ such that IT is the cause of sexual abuse among the non priests.

Until then, I think you’re in denial that sexual abuse exists in all spheres.

 

[goout]

Whataboutism is never an option to solve problems.
The Catholic Church has a problem that is unique, whereby celibate males who are formed in a primarily male culture, which has an authority structure, which has positions of spiritual respect and power, and has wide access to young people…

are abusing primarily young males (called “pederasty” in the technical language).

Correctly noting that other positions in life have statistically the same rates of abuse, or similar rates of abuse, DOES NOT SOLVE THE PROBLEM.

Using the common sinfullness of humanity to deny reality is irresponsible.
And that’s really the outrageous thing in all of this over the years: the continued irresponsibility on the part of those who ought to making real changes. We are at a point where all legitimate possibilities are not even admitted for consideration. If you are not even competent to consider all the legitimate factors in a solution, you get crappy solutions.
It’s bad enough that innocent people are abused, but when problems are denied and potential solutions are shrugged off, it rubs sand in the face of the victimized.

 

[stpurl]

You see, you are still not getting it.

It is not ‘whataboutism’.

It is an attempt to determine what is the ROOT CAUSE of the problem.

Celibacy is not the root cause.

Marriage is not the root cause.

A ‘Bunch of celibate males formed in a primarily male culture with an authority structure, positions of spiritual respect and power, wide access to young people and primarily abusing young males’ is not the root cause.

It is not even the biggest group.

So, since the majority of those being abused, including the majority of males abusing young males Is taking place outside of the Catholic Church and the clerical culture What we need to do is find the common denominator Here, as well as with the abuse of young women and men through sex trafficking, prostitution, rampant sexualization of society, etc. etc.

That is what will solve the problem, not attempting to p(name removed by moderator)oint one group and attempt to paint clericalism/celibacy as the cause of sexual abuse.

 

[Sarcelle]

I offered solutions. Body cams. Witnesses. Marriage. A wife. Better weeding out of candidates.

Pedophiles are pedophiles. Marriage and a wife does not cure pedophilia.

If you are so certain of it, would you have your kids watched by a married man who has been convicted of pedophilia? After all he’s married now. A wife should cure him of that disorder.

Really, if it were that simple, there wouldn’t be any child who hasn’t been raped by her own father. Sadly, they do exist.

 

[Sarcelle]

I have a cop friend who works in the vice department. A lot, or even most men who are arrested for soliciting prostitutes are married men.

Again, marriage does not cure anyone of a sexual disorder.

Since you are of the mindset that forced celibacy can lead to crimes, why don’t we just go ahead and arrest all single men of marriageable age, not just priests, and put them in jail. It’s just a matter of time before they give into the urge to commit sexual assault brought about by celibacy and the lack of a sexual scratching post, aka, a wife.

This viewpoint that celibacy cause sexual disorder manages to denigrate both men and women, as well as contradict the teaching of Jesus himself that properly ordered celibacy is a good thing.

 

[AlNg]

you realize that other people abuse children as well right?

There is a difference between other people and a Roman Catholic priest. A Roman Catholic priest is supposed to be another Christ and as such is held to a higher standard of conduct.