Polish Archbishop Allegedly Claims Children of divorcees more likely to be victims of sexual abuse by Priests

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This story was on the front page of the HuffingtonPost, and it took my breath away when I read it.

uk.reuters.com/article/2013/10/08/uk-poland-church-idUKBRE9970X320131008

According to the Article:

Poland’s Archbishop Jozef Michalik said child sexual abuse by priests was unacceptable, but the debate about it needed to be broadened out beyond the immediate physical or psychological wounds inflicted on the victims.

“And one has to say … how many wounds are inflicted when parents divorce? We often hear that this inappropriate attitude (paedophilia), or abuse, manifests itself when a child is seeking love,” said the clergyman, who is head of the Roman Catholic episcopate in Poland.

“It (the child) clings, it searches. It gets lost itself and then draws another person into this.”
I give the archbishop the benefit of the doubt that it was “a pure slip of the tongue.” I think everyone needs to be very careful and sensitive about how they speak about this difficult issue due to the deep wounds that exist among the victims.
 
If our Bessed John Paul ll were here, I think he would have a few choice words for this very ignorant Bishop in his first tongue, Polish!😃
 
I’m from Poland. The story is legit and the translation is correct.

To the Archbishop’s credit, he retracted his statement three hours later.

Also, some context. The press conference where Archbishop made his unfortunate remarks, was called to discuss events which happened last week:

(1) a Polish missionary in Dominican Republic has been accused of child abuse and escaped to Poland. Dominican Republic filed an extradition request via Interpol, but it was denied since Polish constitution forbids extraditing a Polish citizen. dominicantoday.com/dr/local/2013/10/4/49170/Graphic-pedophilia-evidence-mounts-against-Polish-priest

(2) one guy who claims to have been molested by a priest 10 years ago filed a civil suit against the diocese for shielding the abuser (think Boston or L.A.) and demands $70,000. The diocese offered him $700 (about one monthly salary in Poland) in settlement, but he refused.
 
Why are people shocked by this? First of all, the vast majority of priests are not guilty of these horrible offenses. The few who are pedophiles prey on the vulnerable. If a child’s parents are divorcing and the child is looking for comfort he may approach a teacher, relative or priest. If the priest happens to be one of the few who are pedophiles then he falls victim to the abuse. Children from more stable families are probably less likely to be seeking solace from a priest. The bishop was speaking the truth but people are attacking the messenger.
 
It’s a well-known fact that kids from broken homes are more susceptible to abuse, whether it be physical, verbal, or sexual. A lot of predators (inside or outside the circle of family and friends) go looking for vulnerable kids, lonely kids, kids without strength to resist or trust that other adults will believe them.

The same is true in adulthood. Women and men with disordered lives (even through no fault of their own) are more likely to be preyed upon. Widows and widowers are often targets of crime and abuse. Old people without close family watching out for them are often victimized. If criminals know that nobody will notice you’re gone, they have a lot of potential time to mess with you.

A lamb separated from the flock is a big fat juicy target for any hungry predator. Sometimes a shepherd finds the lamb. Sometimes a wolf finds it.

It’s not the lamb’s fault. But pretending that lambs aren’t in danger is not going to help the poor lost lambs.

It is right and good that children who need love should want to trust adults who seem nice and trustworthy. Good adults will respond by being good mentors and parent figures.

But not all kids run into shepherds; some of them run into wolves.

Now, this does not mean that every child of divorce is doomed to be prey. Divorced parents who care will do their best to make their kids emotionally healthy despite the broken family. Nor does it mean that every child of good parents is absolutely safe, because we’ve all heard the stories of bad stuff happening to kids from solid families. But that’s the way the statistics run.

Now, if the archbishop was talking some kind of weird Lolita thing – well, it’s still the adult’s job to recognize that a kid desperately trying to act sexy is still just a clueless kid. Kids attempting to seduce adults are usually kids who’ve suffered a lot of sexual abuse themselves, and who only know one method to relate to people. A good adult doesn’t take advantage of that. A good adult either teaches kids to act like full human beings, or finds someone more qualified who can.
 
justice99 said:
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That is what YOU said, not the archbishop.
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No, that’s what the Archbishop said, which is why the media was having a field day with it. Here’s the offending statement:
Wiele tych molestowań udałoby się uniknąć, gdyby te relacje między rodzicami były zdrowe. Słyszymy nie raz, że to często wyzwala się ta niewłaściwa postawa, czy nadużycie, kiedy dziecko szuka miłości. Ono lgnie, ono szuka. I zagubi się samo i jeszcze tego drugiego człowieka wciąga.*

A direct translation is:

A lot of these molestations could be avoided, if relations between parents were healthy. We hear not once, that often this inappropriate attitude, or abuse, is released, when a child is looking for love. It] clings, it seeks. And it gets lost by itself, and it even drags another person into it.*

*] Polish language uses “it” when referencing a child of unspecified gender.

Retraction 3 hours later:

Oczywiście - to zdanie może być interpretowane niewłaściwie - lgnie do człowieka, szuka miłości, ma prawo ją znaleźć piękną i czystą. Niejednokrotnie człowiek zagubiony wykorzysta to dziecko. …] Dziecko nie ma siły wciągać drugiego człowieka. To człowiek, ten zly, wciąga to dziecko w orbitę swoich niewłaściwych zainteresowań. To jest pomyłka ewidentna, za która przepraszam.

Retraction translated:

*Of course – this phrase can be wrongly interpreted – [a child] clings to a man, seeks love, has a right to find [this love] pure and clean. Not once a lost man will abuse this child. …] Child has no strength to drag another man [into something]. It’s man, the evil one, who drags the child into the area of his improper interests. It was an obvious mistake, for which I apologize.
*
 
sscott said:
Why are people shocked by this? First of all, the vast majority of priests are not guilty of these horrible offenses. The few who are pedophiles prey on the vulnerable. If a child’s parents are divorcing and the child is looking for comfort he may approach a teacher, relative or priest. If the priest happens to be one of the few who are pedophiles then he falls victim to the abuse. Children from more stable families are probably less likely to be seeking solace from a priest. The bishop was speaking the truth but people are attacking the messenger.
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You’d better believe that young people with fractured families are more vulnerable to abuse. He may not have worded it with the sensitivity needed, but he is right on.
 
Country_Gal said:
You’d better believe that young people with fractured families are more vulnerable to abuse. He may not have worded it with the sensitivity needed, but he is right on.
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That is not what the bishop said, however. He said that the abuse was caused (at least in part) by the the child looking for love. And of course, if the child is looking for LOVE, the child should find that in a priest! But love is not sex. And it is entirely the priest’s fault that the child looking for love is abused. It is an outrageous breach of trust.

That said, of course children of divorce are more likely to be abused. Women walking alone at night are more likely to be raped, especially if they are attractive. It does not follow that the woman was “asking for it.”

Now there are cases, probably, where teenage boys with some sexual savvy (and a true need for intimacy) make advances on priests, and in these cases the level of responsibility for both parties is *somewhat *more blurry. Perhaps the archbishop meant to talk about these cases? If so, he should have been much more clear. These are not really cases of pedophilia, anyway.
 
Country_Gal said:
You’d better believe that young people with fractured families are more vulnerable to abuse. He may not have worded it with the sensitivity needed, but he is right on.
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And the priests who are pedophiles will consciously or unconsciously identify such a child as a potential victim. Somehow, the Church needs to rid itself of pedophiles. So far, for some reason, it has failed to do so.
 
Daphnexyz said:
And the priests who are pedophiles will consciously or unconsciously identify such a child as a potential victim. Somehow, the Church needs to rid itself of pedophiles.

So far, for some reason, it has failed to do so.
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Our Church is doing so!
 
I think a sexual predator would take advantage of any situation, not just the separation of parents, and then offer the child false love like they do on the net pretending to be 17 when they’re 65. " Oh and were shall we meet, now it’s very important that you don’t tell mammy and daddy."

Now to accuse the child of tempting the abuser, that’s putting it a bit too far, I don’t think the Archbishop meant it that way.

So give the man a break, I think he has a valid point, although its bigger than the picture The Archbishop painted. :twocents:
 
I think what he was getting at is when a vulnerable child is seeking love they are more easily coerced by predator adults. Feeling rejected by their parents and seeking love they also lose the parental confidence, protection and oversight.
 
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