Pope Emeritus Benedict - The Church and the Scandal of Sexual Abuse

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“AlNg said:
Muslim women still dress modestly.
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And so do Amish women. Surely you are able to see what Pope Emeritus Benedict is referring to in regards to the sexual revolution of 60s in relation to the Church. Lust unleashed a blanket of toxin that we are still dealing with. Violence, gluttony and greed also rear their ugly heads. Would you like to talk about violence and Muslim women? Wherever there is authentic Christianity there is superseding goodness for women. There are studies that prove it. The key is authentic Christianity.

Look up Doctor Nidhiya Menon and read her studies.
 
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His words are worth reflecting on, thinking about. Without being aware of everything that the Pope Emeritus said, I do know scandals existed prior to the “sexual revolution”… but I do think that the sexual revolution and cultural revolution has seen a lot of downfall in the US and West.
 
TMC said:
I see no rational connection between what you frame as a move away from Vatican II and a reduction in abuse.
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As you say, these may be separate things. At least they can be discussed independently. I am not familiar with the methodology of the study and I don’t know if I even believe the declining incidence of reported abuse. The reluctance of so many US dioceses to open their files, along with their non-disclosure agreements with the victims, makes it less likely that people would be reporting incidents publicly. The graph may simply show how the Church was able to silence the victims, rather than reflecting a true decrease in sexual abuse. Yes, I’m skeptical of it.

On the other point of effects of Vatican II, JPII and a lot of bishops made the effort, the first in 400 years, to publish a Catechism to address a lot of errors that they saw stemming from the days of the Council. And, in this regard, the CCC was addressed primarily TO THE BISHOPS of the world, like “hey, get a clue.” Second, it was also addressed to the laity to bypass the bishops and tell everyone “the truth.” It may have been a high priority item amidst all the paper that JPII put out during his papacy, but it was a very high profile item, or was supposed to be.

I don’t know if I’m confusing something about the CCC. Was there a rumor or backlash to it, that it was DOA? Is that true? Where did it come from?

These are purely my perceptions. Likewise, I scanned through the document and I think Benedict is totally correct in pointing to the deficiencies of Canon Law. PF says that “concrete actions” need to be taken and, lacking an admission of the significance of homosexuality in the hierarchy, nonetheless we need some concrete changes in Canon Law to deal with these problems. What Vatican II did was to emphasize the role of Bishops in controlling the Church. Well, there you go – how did THAT turn out?
 
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Donkey said:
Surely you are able to see what Pope Emeritus Benedict is referring to in regards to the sexual revolution of 60s in relation to the Church.
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Seeing that did occur about the time of Vatican II, or slightly after Vatican II, would you say that Vatican II had anything to do with it?
Donkey said:
And so do Amish women
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Amish women were not so much affected by Vatican II changes?
 
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otrrl said:
I think Benedict is totally correct in pointing to the deficiencies of Canon Law.
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I agree with your agreement. At the same time, it’s not just the 1983 Code that is to blame, since lots of abuse happened prior to 1983 and it was not addressed. So, I would say that in addition to what may be (have been) deficient in the Code(s), there was also deficiency in how the law was applied.

Dan
 
We were just talking about the “sexual revolution” the other day. A man reminded me, that is also around the time “the pill” came to be. So, thus, perhaps there is a relationship with the pill.

Addendum, just saw this but this article is from 2004, so whether these figures are still accurate, I would not know.
Myth : The abuse is still going on at the same rate. Fact : The number of alleged abuses increased in the 1960’s, peaked in the 70’s, declined in the 80’s and by the 90’s had returned to the levels of the 1950’s.
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Facts, Myths and Questions

For those who have been following the sexual abuse crisis in the American Catholic Church since the mid-1980’s, the reports by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the National Review Board for the Protection of Children and Young People provided confirmation of hunches and the destruc
www.americamagazine.org www.americamagazine.org

I don’t see how they can have firm facts in this whole ordeal.
 
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I’m not so sure as to why Muslim women would have been brought into the conversation but need we forget, polygamy, one can have multiple wives. And from there, I won’t go on. This certainly does not appear to be some positive.
 
Victoria33 said:
We were just talking about the “sexual revolution” the other day. A man reminded me, that is also around the time “the pill” came to be. So, thus, perhaps there is a relationship with the pill.
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Indeed there is a relationship. The widespread rejection of Humanae Vitae and the widespread acceptance of artificial contraception was a prime enabler of the sexual revolution. It separated sex from marriage, separated sex from procreation, children from parents and family, and acted to corrode the foundation of the family. And it continues to do so.
 
gracepoole said:
Then-Cardinal Ratzinger knew of every case of priestly sexual abuse that occurred while he was head of the CDF and he turned none of them over to law enforcement. If I didn’t know that while reading this letter, I would applaud it. But it’s impossible to go back to the bliss of ignorance.
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This really requires a better response than I was able to give last night. It is borderline slanderous IMO,
First, let me address the issue of not turning cases over to law enforcement at that time. Until recently, that has never really been an issue. Simply put, in the 70s, 80s, and early 90s, at least in the US (and I suspect more so in Latin America and Europe) law enforcement was not interested in prosecuting cases of sex abuse of minors. It simply rarely happened, regardless of when it happened. An acquaintance of mine worked much of his career as an assistant DA in California and he told me these cases were simply never prosecuted. In the rare case the police were involved, they effectively considered it a domestic matter (or a matter for a school/church to handle) and at best turned it over to CPS. My own knowledge from my teenage years confirms this, as a neighboring school had a football coach who got a young cheerleader pregnant. He lost his job, it was a scandal, I never remember any threat of criminal charges against him. Society largely considered it a psychological problem that could be cured. Especially post-adolescent boys were often targeted by the homosexually culture of the time and nothing was ever done. Statutory rape was the one type of case that was prosecuted at times, but it was not done for abuse as much as the unfortunate 20 year old boy who got a 15 year old girl pregnant and the parents insisted on charges being brought. It was not used to process abuse cases. One of the very early lawsuits brought against a diocese was the Rudy Kos case in Dallas. The lawsuit took years to finally reach a judgement against the Church in 1997, yet Kos was not prosecuted until 1998. There was plenty of evidence to prosecute him earlier. Times change. Yes, they should be turned over to law enforcement, but even when the US church was deciding what to do in 2002, that was not one of the big issues. Even at that late date, people did not think about prosecution for criminal crimes in these cases. So to lay that on then Cardinal Ratzinger is completely unfair.

ETA: Also, few families would have wanted the Church to turn the cases over to law enforcement in those days. They wanted the Church to take action, to help them. They were most often disappointed with how the Church did handle it, but they would have been furious if the Church would have turned it over to the police and the stigma that would have been attached to it for their child. Which, BTW, is exactly why the prosecutors and police never did anything about these cases in society in general.

tbd…
 
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Secondly, as to knowing about every case that occurred while he was the head of CFD, that is also likely false. He held that position from 181 until 2005. It was not until 2001 that the responsibility in the Vatican for handling abuse cases was shifted to the CDF. This was done by Pope John Paul II at the suggestion of Cardinal Ratzinger. He did not see all the cases before that, but he had become aware of the severity of the problem and that the the existing means of handling the cases was not working. The laicizations of accused clergy started to happen in large numbers at that time.

So no, @gracepoole, you are not absolutely right. Benedict XVI was not, for most of his time as head of CDF in a position to do something, when he was placed in such a position, he most certainly took action.
 
Not to mention Pope Beniduct was far more severe in imposing penalties on offenders that any pope before (or after) him.
 
Yes, and I will also add that it was after 2001, when the CDF was put in charge of these cases that the curia officials who were protecting Fr Maciel of the Legionaires of Christ for years knew the game was up. The Pope’s Rottweiler was on the case.
 
The way people often simply receive the Holy Sacrament in communion as a matter of course shows that many see communion as a purely ceremonial gesture. Therefore, when thinking about what action is required first and foremost, it is rather obvious that we do not need another Church of our own design. Rather, what is required first and foremost is the renewal of the Faith in the Reality of Jesus Christ given to us in the Blessed Sacrament.
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Your interest in defending Benedict is laudable to a point, I suppose. Personally I’d rather not become complicit in his failures by defending him too vociferously. Laicization certainly was one response to the crisis. It was insufficient. These men needed to be prosecuted. And while local authorities may have balked at times at pushing for prosecution, Ratzinger’s call for it likely would have led to very different outcomes. The generalizations you’re offering about how law enforcement and families viewed the situation are, like many generalizations, unhelpful as they can be easily countered by many contrary examples. The 2006 film Deliver Us from Evil explores some of these. I also recommend you view Mea Maxima Culpa.

Until you’ve done so, kindly steer clear of accusing me of near slander.
 
tafan2 said:
Yes, and I will also add that it was after 2001, when the CDF was put in charge of these cases that the curia officials who were protecting Fr Maciel of the Legionaires of Christ for years knew the game was up. The Pope’s Rottweiler was on the case.
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He permitted JPII to publicly honor Maciel knowing that he was a serial abuser.
 
The pope has to be permitted by the head of the CDF to honor someone?
 
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