Sex Scandal Has Far Reaching Implications

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My wife and I have been married for 37 years. We were both raised Catholic, having both attended Catholic school from kindergarten through high school. Many years ago my wife stopped attending Mass. I didn’t really know why until just a few years ago. There were several reasons for it, but the primary one has to do with the sex scandal. My wife feels that the Catholic Church has among the strictest rules of all the Christian religions, yet its leadership has committed some of the worst sins by transferring sex offending priests from one place to the other, to re-offend, time after time. She feels it is a very hypocritical organization that she wants no parts of. My wife is a good woman, with very strong moral values. She had been an excellent wife and mother to our two sons, but on this issue there is no compromising.

Last month she and I went on our first vacation in 20 years. She had been unable to travel for many years because of an illness that she is still healing from. Before our trip to the Grand Canyon in Arizona I saw that there is a Catholic Church in Grand Canyon Village that we could have attended. My wife said that she absolutely would not go, and when I suggested that I could go by myself she said that it would be a serious problem if I left her alone in the park to go by myself. To avoid an ugly confrontation on our first vacation in so many years I made the decision to not go to Mass. Did I sin by doing so? And how do I handle this on future vacations?
 
You need to seek advice from your priest on the topic of whether or not you committed a sin and need confession.
 
1ke said:
You need to seek advice from your priest on the topic of whether or not you committed a sin and need confession.
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I did go to confession about it and the priest did not tell me if I sinned or not. He just said that I am the source to help my wife heal from her woundedness, and that I must listen to her issues. I have been doing this for years, but no matter how I try I cannot convince her that it’s just a matter that priests are human, too. She sees the Church as moral and spritual leaders who failed at their primary mission and who cannot be trusted.
 
You did not commit any sin. For a start the desire to go to Mass was there even if you didn’t do so. Any sin that is committed by You or your Wife as regards the sexual abuse scandal will be added to the sins of the priests who committed the acts of abuse and to those that helped to cover their heinous crimes.

MATTHEW 18:7 NIV
"Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to sin! Such things must come, but woe to the man through whom they come!

Your Brother in Christ,
Richard.
 
Your priest did not tell you that you sinned, because you did not.

On the other hand, it was proper to go to Confession, and the discussion you had with the priest may have clarified the resolve which you have exibited to patiently tend to your wife’s illness, as well as her attitude.

Discuss with your parish priest what he would suggest before you go on vacation again. I think he will support your care for your wife as your first obligation, but he may suggest other ideas as well.

As to your wife’s attitude…if she is adamant, pray. I recommend three intercessors who have assisted me greatly with religious persuasion in my own family: St. Monica, St. Jude Thaddeus, and St. Anthony of Padua (she lost it, didn’t she?).

“Anthony, Anthony, please come round, and help her find what must be found.”

Peace, and G-d’s blessings on you both.
 
I agree that much prayer is needed for the changing of your wife’s mind on this matter.

Yes, sins have been committed, and much discussion, prayer, and action has been taking place to rectify this. The sins of those in the Church do not eclipse the truth of what the Church teaches. We all need to pray and become holier ourselves, and not point fingers at those who have failed in faithfulness.
 
Oh, and sweet and wonderful your wife must be to think that no priests were sinners until the last decade!
 
white_sheep said:
Yes, it is.
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You try to shift the weight of shame from the shoulders of paedophile child sodomising Priests to this Woman’s conscience!
I cannot write or say the words that are on my mind at this moment. I feel sick,I feel ashamed that you have raised me to anger; to sin!
I feel pity for you.
Your Brother in Christ
 
RICKY_RASPER said:
You try to shift the weight of shame from the shoulders of paedophile child sodomising Priests to this Woman’s conscience!
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No, I didn’t.
I cannot write or say the words that are on my mind at this moment. I feel sick,I feel ashamed that you have raised me to anger; to sin!
I feel pity for you.
Your Brother in Christ
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I’m sorry if I have upset you.

It seems pretty obvious to me that if all of a sudden the Church is negated and participation therein is no longer of any value such that one would stop going to mass and following the Commandments of God and the teaching of the Church because of the sex scandal that the entire Church for all of history is likewise relegated to the trash bin with all the other worthless artifacts. If we are to believe that the sins of the members of the Church can so affect the reality of what the Church is, then there is no Church because it has always been a hospital for sinners. Just because you are unaware of any specific sin of priests in the past doesn’t change the fact that they are sinners as well. While I do detest their sin with the utmost passion, it is a sin, just like the others. I see no reason to quit the Church over this specific occurrence. If this is to be such a motivation for someone to do so it is entirely emotional and not grounded in objective analysis of the reality that we are all sinners, even priests and bishops, and that Christ never promised he would have a Church without sinners.
 
TruthSkr said:
My wife and I have been married for 37 years. We were both raised Catholic, having both attended Catholic school from kindergarten through high school. Many years ago my wife stopped attending Mass. I didn’t really know why until just a few years ago. There were several reasons for it, but the primary one has to do with the sex scandal. My wife feels that the Catholic Church has among the strictest rules of all the Christian religions, yet its leadership has committed some of the worst sins by transferring sex offending priests from one place to the other, to re-offend, time after time. She feels it is a very hypocritical organization that she wants no parts of. My wife is a good woman, with very strong moral values. She had been an excellent wife and mother to our two sons, but on this issue there is no compromising.

Last month she and I went on our first vacation in 20 years. She had been unable to travel for many years because of an illness that she is still healing from. Before our trip to the Grand Canyon in Arizona I saw that there is a Catholic Church in Grand Canyon Village that we could have attended. My wife said that she absolutely would not go, and when I suggested that I could go by myself she said that it would be a serious problem if I left her alone in the park to go by myself. To avoid an ugly confrontation on our first vacation in so many years I made the decision to not go to Mass. Did I sin by doing so? And how do I handle this on future vacations?
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TruthSkr: I don’t feel qualified to provide any opinion on the issue of potential sin, and it sounds like you have already sought competent authority through your priest.

On the broader issue of your wife’s view of the Church’s scandal, I feel for you. That’s something that Catholics have to deal with all the time, and it’s especially hard if one parent refuses Catholic education of their children because of the scandal. It’s doubly troubling because of the concern that in defending the Church, you could be seen as defending the sins of those involved, which no one wants to do. That being said, I’d suggest finding time to try for some honest conversation about your feelings on your Faith.

Without defending the sins committed, through act or omission, or in any way excusing the enormity of what happened (which, in my opinion, has caused the greatest damage to the Church of any event in the 20th century), these are some things that must be considered:

All institutions, even (especially) the Mystical Body of Christ, are made up of humans, and humans err and sin. The fact that we expect more, and better behavior, from the Catholic Church, testifies that in the eyes of many that it should be held to a higher standard.

The vast majority of all priests and bishops have had no part in this, and honest, hard-working priests who have devoted their lives to a holy vocation have to deal with the public’s perception that now they are all suspect. That’s a terrible thing, too, which I suspect will add to the punishment awaiting those who are responsible for this evil. It’s not right for us to add to the burden for those who have acted righteously in their lives. As the recent John Jay College of Criminal Justice study found,

If the total number of priests in religious communities who have had allegations made
against them is presented as a percentage of all religious priests in ministry, as
estimated form the study data, the percentage accused of child sexual abuse is
2.7%.

The Blessed Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict have taken strong and appropriate measures to prevent further harm to children, from changes in canon law, to (controversial) changes in the rules for seminary entry and ordination, down to the requirement at the diocesan and parish level of training for ALL clerical and lay personnel who may have any contact with children. The training (which I just took) is, I think, effective and focuses on recognizing and reporting child abuse. Some may see this as too little, too late, but as has been said in other circumstances, the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
 
While I have nothing but disgust and contempt for those who have sinned against Christ and His Church, in fairness it must be recognized that not all those who have been accused are necessarily guilty, as there are those outside the Church and within who have sought to exploit a terrible scandal in the hopes of changing doctrine, defaming Catholicism, or achieving material gain. There is no situation so bad that human evil can’t make it even worse. Due to the high cost of civil litigation, insurance companies will quite often settle civil suits against the dioceses even if a priest contests the charge. The individual priest will have no say in the matter and can be unjustly defamed for the rest of his life by the settlement. This also is an injustice for which those actually responsible will have to answer, but we should not add to the burden of those unjustly accused.

Although liberal theologians have used the abomination of this scandal to push for their own agendas (the end of celibacy and the ordination of women), the evidence clearly shows that celibacy does NOT contribute to child abuse. Before marriage, I was celibate for many (long) years, and I never even considered sex with a child, I thought about women. Most normal people are the same. The rate for sexual abuse of children in non-Catholic and non-celibate denominations, which seems to be even higher than among Catholic priests, provides further argument against the liberal position. The condition of celibacy does not pervert you into becoming a child molester unless you already had such inclinations.

Similarly, the occupation with the highest incidence of sexual molestation against children - school teachers and faculty - are not especially celibate, and have had their own scandals in covering up crimes. If I wanted to create a statistical profile for the adult individual most likely to sexually assault a child, it would be 1) a male 2) married, and 3) the parent of the child, but neither you nor I would countenance jokes about being potential child molesters just because we’re husbands and fathers.

There were numerous factors that lead the Church to this point, but if you would like to promote dialogue, you might suggest your wife read some works on how we got here. Take a look at three books - all of which are critical of the Church’s handling of the scandal, but are fair and in two cases, written from the orthodox Catholic perspective. All are, I’ll be honest, quite depressing to read but offer hope.
  1. The Faithful Departed: The Collapse of Boston’s Catholic Culture by Philip F. Lawler, looks at how the Catholic Church rose to a position of cultural and secular power in Boston, and how the diocese’s desire for liberal political accomodation (in opposition to the traditional teachings of the Church) created the conditions that contributed to the scandal. Lawler also examines how trust in the therapeutic mode for treatment of sexual disorders (in contrast to the traditional experience of the Church, which recognized that attraction to children had low probability for successful treatment, and which traditionally either removed the priests from holy orders or put them in secluded monasteries for the rest of their lives) failed to address the problem, but which was the dominant secular mode for dealing with such disorders during those decades. Essentially, we trusted to secular theorists and abdicated our responsibility for effective stewardship of the Church.
  2. Goodbye Good Men, by Michael S. Rose looks at how the collapse of the seminary system and vocations during the 1960s and 1970s may have produced some of the priests involved in the infamy, including the introduction of twisted, schismatic views of human sexuality and spiritual life within the seminaries, and how the dominance in some seminaries at that time of an aggressively homosexual subculture that, combined with declining vocations brought about by changes in society as a whole, brought and kept people into the priesthood that never should have been there. This should be read in concert with the recent study on the issue by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice: nccbuscc.org/nrb/johnjaystudy/
  3. Pedophiles and Priests by Philip Jenkins. Jenkins is not a Catholic, but an Episcopalian (I think) but he treates the Catholic Church with fairness, that support his conclusions with good evidence. Jenkins ties the media reporting of the scandal to traditional American anti-Catholicism, while not glossing over the very real problems with how the Church handled the problem.
Good luck to you, you have a long road ahead of you, as we all do.
 
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Keep it charitable
 
TruthSkr said:
My wife and I have been married for 37 years. We were both raised Catholic, having both attended Catholic school from kindergarten through high school. Many years ago my wife stopped attending Mass. I didn’t really know why until just a few years ago. There were several reasons for it, but the primary one has to do with the sex scandal. My wife feels that the Catholic Church has among the strictest rules of all the Christian religions, yet its leadership has committed some of the worst sins by transferring sex offending priests from one place to the other, to re-offend, time after time. She feels it is a very hypocritical organization that she wants no parts of.
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If she’s worried about hypocrits in the Catholic Church, tell her not to worry, there’s room for one more.
 
Your wife needs to understand that the Church is a perfect organization made up of imperfect people. Yes, I’m sure some of the abuse scandals could have been handled better than they were, but no matter how much is done about it, there is always someone out there who thinks it wasn’t enough.

When transferring errant priests, the Bishop is only acting on one of the fundamental precepts of the Church: forgiveness and repentance. It wouldn’t be much of a church if we didn’t practice what we preach.

The Church isn’t bad, though some of its members are. Remember that Jesus told Peter (paraphrasing Matthew 16:18) that the jaws of death will never prevail against the Church.

The Church must not be condemned on the actions of a few bad apples. To those who accuse the Church of hypocrisy I say “you take care of your own soul; let God take care of the hypocrites.”

My 2 cents.
 
Monicad said:
Not sure if this helps at all, but “moving pedophiles around” was common practice everywhere. Public schools did it, private schools did it, other churches did it…again, not excusing it but if your wife were to look at what the church did in context she might see that many Bishops were following the accepted practice of the day which was to give the priest some counseling, remove him temporarily from duties then once he was “better” to move him somewhere else. Again, not sure if this will convince her because the actions had terrible results and it sounds like an excuse but for what it’s worth there you have it.

Probably a bad analogy but at one time slavery was once accepted in our nation. There are many great founding fathers that a lot of us admire, however they were also slave owners. Many people admire them even though they engaged in horrible behavior by owning a slave, why? Because they are taking into account the accepted practive of the day and age. So too goes with some Bishops, it seems bizarre now, but at one point in time moving pedophiles around was a common way to handle it by many, many, many organizations including the Catholic church. That doesn’t make it right anymore then owning slaves was ever right but it can perhaps give some insight and understanding?

Certainly victims of abusers find it shocking and impossible to understand, I do too but maybe this will help your wife?

Another famous quote I love is that “The church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints” Our churches are not necessarily always filled with holy people, our churches are filled with liars, thieves, rapists, murderers, drug addicts and abusers as it should be.

I feel sorry for your wife because she will never find a church that is acceptable, every church, every denomination had that happen. It is sad that so many people have been effected by the scandal and I pray for their healing and recovery.
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I understand and agree with most of what you and Lost Sheep have said, however I worked in law enforcement for many years and it was common knowledge that sex offenders can not be “cured”. The best you can hope for it to manage their behavior and NEVER put them back into situations that put them or their potential victims at risk. This is why parolees who committed crimes against the young are not allowed to go near schools, etc. I do not understand how the church had professional counselors who would encourage the Bishops to take the offending priests out of the frying pan and put them into the fire. Your analogy about slavery is good, although it does not lessen the seriousness of the crimes, and I understand that forgiveness and repentance are vital, and that it’s best not to accuse anyone of being a hypocrit lest you be one yourself. I know that the church has done much to prevent this type of problem from reoccuring, however since it first came to light I have heard only one priest who had to courage to publicly apologize before our parish for the harm that was done. There is much damage control that still needs to be done to prevent more of the faithful from leaving the church.
 
TruthSkr said:
…I have heard only one priest who had to courage to publicly apologize before our parish for the harm that was done. There is much damage control that still needs to be done to prevent more of the faithful from leaving the church.
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This is a strange sentiment. Presuming you are (like me) a middle class white person, how many black people have you apologized to for the atrocity of slavery? That’s about as absurd as an innocent priest apologizing for sexual predation.

The sexual abuse crisis occurred precisely because far too many catholics (bishops, priests AND laity) all tolerated an excessively secular vision of catholicism decoupled from legitimate catholic sexual teaching. Nobody wakes up one morning and decides “Hey, maybe it would be fun to sexually molest a kid!” That sickness is one that comes on in stages. You don’t get there until you commit a LOT of earlier sexual sins, many of them trivialized in our culture today (masturbation, promiscuity, porn, sodomy, etc). The OP’s wife is unwittingly walking down the path (secularism) that leads to MORE of this sickness in society instead of less.

I’m confused about why she prevented the OP from attending mass. Were you backpacking in the wilderness and she feared being eaten by bears? Was she really terrified to be left alone in a hotel room for 2 hours? What does she do when you’re at work? Maybe I’m missing the details here, but I’d be concerned that she’s starting to try to manipulate the OP into giving up on his faith like she has hers.
 
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