Psychologist provides analysis of Catholic church's sex abuse scandal

[Connor12]

Everyone is trying to protect the golden egg which is the institution and sweep it under the rug, … the focus all along should have been Father, Son and holy spirit.

Amen.

 

[BroomWagon]

What else happened in Western Europe?

And what’s happened in Africa (Nigeria) and India?

 

[Regina_Love]

thanks Gus!

 

[BroomWagon]

Everyone is trying to protect the golden egg which is the institution and sweep it under the rug, … the focus all along should have been Father, Son and holy spirit.

Amen.

It does make me wonder if this was a “problem” in the past and I mean say before 1950, something like that.

I did not pay it much heed when I heard it on the radio but there are those that say in the '70s I believe the Church was infiltrated, I have heard references to this as well.

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Maybe the Church needs to elaborate on this wrong into Catholic Schools, into all Catholics and especially in the Seminaries on what is wrong and yes, that is obvious but perhaps it needs to be done nonetheless.

Oh course, we know many Parishes have a daily prayer for a Priest, we even have a calender to pray every day for one. And for vocations.

And there is that book, I hope I can mention it, “Goodby Good Men” I believe, I haven’t read it. Also I read the Jimmy Breslin book, I think that is his name, anyway, he’s a pro-choice Catholic to begin with so that was of limited worth to me.

 

[Robert_Bay]

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[Elizium23]

I was hoping for more psychological analysis of the pedophilia crimes themselves

You could say the same thing about men with pedophile urges. Except the urges don’t go away and then you have priests raping children.

What pedophilia? The incidence of pedophilia in the sexual abuse cases was extremely low - corresponding to the extremely low incidence of pedophilia in society. The overwhelming majority of sex abuse cases was homosexual relations between priests and adolescents. The “pedophilia” angle is just another slur on Catholics by the mainstream media - because it is not PC to admit that promiscuous homosexuality is an intrinsically disordered desire and the cause of many of these problems.

 

[Crescentinus]

What pedophilia? The incidence of pedophilia in the sexual abuse cases was extremely low - corresponding to the extremely low incidence of pedophilia in society. The overwhelming majority of sex abuse cases was homosexual relations between priests and adolescents. The “pedophilia” angle is just another slur on Catholics by the mainstream media.

If anything, a lot of the cases are of pederasty, not pedophilia. The problem is that pedophilia is a lot easier to remember than pederasty.

 

[Phemie]

Yes. The charge of clerical narcissism of the hierarchs is illustrated, according to the excerpt, supposedly by the bishops’ concern with the “status and the accoutrements of their offices [rather] than with leadership and pastoralism.” My point was that I do not see too many bishops concerned with the status and accoutrements–indulgent parties, very expensive clothing, travel in style, etc–of their office. By contrast, I think most bishops are extremely humble, almost to a fault, except when required show off a bit as in liturgical celebrations.

Narcissism is a psychological affliction, but these types of people also show outward signs of it in their behavior, manner, dress and other things. I do not see these things.

But the problem didn’t begin with this generation of bishops. As Chris says, it has probably been with us since the Church began.

I’ve become aware that the priest who abused in my home parish had first been reported to his bishop back in 1935, two years after his ordination. His aberrant behaviour was a topic of discussion in my junior high school yard 32 years later, though we didn’t think our parents knew. It seems that some knew and one family had the courage to report him to the bishop for which they were roundly criticized by the bishop at the time, by the priest from the pulpit, and by the parishioners who felt that priests shouldn’t be criticized.

I grew up in a home where the motto was “Never speak well of a priest for fear of speaking ill of him.” IOW, the priest is never to be the topic of any conversation. Even if they had known that the priest was doing something bad they never would have said anything about it.

But it has also come to my attention that I grew up 4 doors away from a pedophile. I learned that after the priest scandal erupted and pedophilia was more readily discussed. That’s when I remembered a conversation I’d overheard when I was 8 or 9 and questioned my father about it. He confirmed that the married man was a pedophile. He’d been reported to the police on at least one occasion for having molested a girl I went to school with (never knew which one, just knew the family and there were several girls). Nothing was ever done and that family became the subject of jokes on the topic.

Nobody seemed to know how to deal with these problems because they just seemed so beyond anyone’s comprehension.