Sexual Abuse Cover-Ups

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My mom, who hates the fact that I agree with much of what the Catholic Church teaches, often talks about how abusive the entire structure of the Church is. One claim that she often makes is that pope John Paul II knew about the sexual abuse scandals for a very long time, but simply relocated abusive priests to cover up the issue. Is there any validity to this?
 
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Juxtaposer:
My mom, who hates the fact that I agree with much of what the Catholic Church teaches, often talks about how abusive the entire structure of the Church is. One claim that she often makes is that pope John Paul II knew about the sexual abuse scandals for a very long time, but simply relocated abusive priests to cover up the issue. Is there any validity to this?
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What kind of evidence is your mom giving you for such an ugly accusation against the Pope?

Antonio :confused:
 
JPII will probably not be remembered for his discipline. But the job of dealing with a parish priest lays at the feet of his bishop. An order priest is subject to his provincial.

We are facing the sad fact that we have too many weak (being kind) bishops who have been part of a cover up. I think they just wanted it to go away, or perhaps had the same “problem” themselves.

Unfortunately, but not unusual, the Catholic Church gets all the press for its approximately 2-3% of bad priests. Most protestant denominations (married men) have a rate nearly 6 times = 18%. I am looking for the source of that data in case some one asks.

Regardless, only the Catholic Church is perfect. The people in it are far from perfect.

MrS
 
And how does she know that the Holy Father, for a long time, knew about the abuses? When I am questioned about this, I just tell others that the Church is full of sinners, every last one of us.
 
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Juxtaposer:
My mom, who hates the fact that I agree with much of what the Catholic Church teaches, often talks about how abusive the entire structure of the Church is. One claim that she often makes is that pope John Paul II knew about the sexual abuse scandals for a very long time, but simply relocated abusive priests to cover up the issue. Is there any validity to this?
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Unless the bishops who went to Rome on their ad limina visits every five years were quite exceptionally negligent or - even worse - dishonest, there is no way they could not have told the Pope. These scandals have been reported in the USA, Ireland, England, Scotland, France, and other countries - it’s hard to believe that all of the bishops said nothing whatever on the subject from 1984 to 2002. One of the Irish bishops resigned in 2002, in part because a priest in his diocese had abused 66 young men or boys. I saw the documentary in which this all came out - it was unspeakably awful. And I saw only 2/3 of it.​

I hope these links help to answer your question 😦 ##
 

P.S.: FWIW, the English bishops have been taking measures to (try to) ensure these horrors do not recur. The Nolan Report , of which the recommendations were adopted by the English bishops, was not unknown to the Papal nuncio - so he could be no more ignorant the bishops that there wrere serious problems. It’s impossible to believe the report could have been drawn up without the knowledge of the Pope.​

I hope these links help to answer your question 😦 ##
 
For what it’s worth (and admittedly, it isn’t much), when a young priest formerly assigned to our parish but now in Rome studying canon law came back for a vacation, he told us that when the Pope was informed of the problem and it’s scope, caused an abrupt deterioration in his condition and he had to cancel appointments for a couple of days. A lot of bad news doesn’t make it to the CEO in any organization.
 
MrS said:
**JPII will probably not be remembered for his discipline. ** But the job of dealing with a parish priest lays at the feet of his bishop. An order priest is subject to his provincial.

We are facing the sad fact that we have too many weak (being kind) bishops who have been part of a cover up. I think they just wanted it to go away, or perhaps had the same “problem” themselves.

Unfortunately, but not unusual, the Catholic Church gets all the press for its approximately 2-3% of bad priests. Most protestant denominations (married men) have a rate nearly 6 times = 18%. I am looking for the source of that data in case some one asks.

Regardless, only the Catholic Church is perfect. The people in it are far from perfect.

MrS
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Tell that to the leaders of the SSPX.
 
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MrS:
Unfortunately, but not unusual, the Catholic Church gets all the press for its approximately 2-3% of bad priests. Most protestant denominations (married men) have a rate nearly 6 times = 18%. I am looking for the source of that data in case some one asks.
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The number of molesters was not the scandal. The scandal is what Catholic leaders did or did not do to protect our children once they had knowledge of the crimes of sexual predator priests. It was secretly moving sexual predator priests to new unsuspecting parishes time and time again, creating more and more victims which is the evil of the scandal. It is evil for Church leaders to try and redirect what the true nature of the scandal is. If Catholic leaders do have proof that Protestants, public teachers or boyscout leaders are intentionally moving known sexual predators from one set of child victims to the next as they did, BRING YOUR PROOF OUT! We do want to know about it!

I find it very hard to believe that over thirty years and thousands of known victims, no parents took the time to write the Pope or go to Rome and demand to talk to the Pope about the issue. For all the parents of thousands of child victims to have simply taken the millions of dollars of Church hush money and keep their mouths shut, this would be a scandal in its self.

A Papal pronouncement encouraging people to notify him the next time a tragity of this magnatude happens, would be good. Then the Pope, though he cannot force bishops to act, could use his world wide mass media access to warn parents of such abuse by bishops. Then the people themselves could use the Popes warning to protect their children from the bishops and priests.

However, I am of the thinking that it was Rome herself who sent orders to bishops to cover over such incidents to protect Catholic worldly image.

Peace in Christ,
Steven Merten
www.ILOVEYOUGOD.com
 
One thing to remember, Steven, is that 30 and 40 years ago, pedophilia was seen, by the MEDICAL COMMUNITY, as a “curable” disease which could be treated.

Now, if your doctor assured you that “Father X”, while in treatment, could be safely assigned to a different parish and fulfill his duties there, would you believe your doctor? I think you would have, then. There was nothing to indicate, until within the past 10 years or so, that pedophilia could NOT be treated in the usual “behavioralistic” fashion as alcoholism. Concurrent to the realization of the true nature of pedophilia came the realization that there is no such thing as a “RECOVERED” alcoholic, EITHER. . .one is always IN RECOVERY.

Keep in mind that the medical community wants to keep ITS nose clean as well. Doctors are well known for keeping their colleagues’ “behaviors” INTERNAL. . .Lawyers are well known for keeping their colleagues’ behaviors INTERNAL. . .We all have seen that Big Business, the government, and certainly lately the NEA (i.e., public school bureaucracy) tries to keep ITS members behaviors INTERNAL. Even the Rev. Falwell et. al. keep their flocks–and shepherds–pretty well under wraps.

Am I excusing the bishops? Not really. As leaders, they MUST be held to a high standard of accountability. They should have been more cognizant and aware of their priests and what was going on, they should have been more proactive in demanding explanations from the medical community, and certainly more proactive in dealing with the FAMILIES. But one could point out that all the other groups I listed above should have done the SAME, at the SAME TIME. . .and they didn’t.

Once the bishops WERE aware of the true nature of the disease, the true scope of the scandal, they should have been less concerned with “how it will look” and MORE concerned with "what can WE do to protect and support the children, correct and rehabilitate or control to the best and safest degree the perpetrators, and LEAD OUR PEOPLE. Some of the bishops ARE doing a good job, many of them are at least TRYING THEIR BEST, or at least THINKING that they are. What we need, IMO, is a big dose of concurrent HUMILITY for their bishops–acknowledging what went wrong and that in trying to do or be all things to all people that they went too far in trying to aid the errant priests and not far enough in trying to aid the victim. . .as well as another big dose of ORTHODOXY. Stop TRYING to be so darn concerned, my dear bishops, over whether you’ll LOOK BAD or “OFFEND” people by not being “LOVING” enough, and just actually try to LOVE the people without considering how you “look” and by doing what you SHOULD KNOW is RIGHT–the teachings of Holy Mother Church.
 
The pope cannot force other bishops to act? If they are acting in a manner that is incompatible with Scripture and the Magisterium he can. THat is called Papal Primacy, the Pope is the leader of the Church and has the authority to censure or defrock even a Cardinal. The case would be extrordinary, but it can happen. This isn’t the Eastern Orthodox or Anglican Communion, the Pope has the power to discipline anyone else within the Church.
Steven Merten:
The number of molesters was not the scandal. The scandal is what Catholic leaders did or did not do to protect our children once they had knowledge of the crimes of sexual predator priests. It was secretly moving sexual predator priests to new unsuspecting parishes time and time again, creating more and more victims which is the evil of the scandal. It is evil for Church leaders to try and redirect what the true nature of the scandal is. If Catholic leaders do have proof that Protestants, public teachers or boyscout leaders are intentionally moving known sexual predators from one set of child victims to the next as they did, BRING YOUR PROOF OUT! We do want to know about it!

I find it very hard to believe that over thirty years and thousands of known victims, no parents took the time to write the Pope or go to Rome and demand to talk to the Pope about the issue. For all the parents of thousands of child victims to have simply taken the millions of dollars of Church hush money and keep their mouths shut, this would be a scandal in its self.

A Papal pronouncement encouraging people to notify him the next time a tragity of this magnatude happens, would be good. Then the Pope, though he cannot force bishops to act, could use his world wide mass media access to warn parents of such abuse by bishops. Then the people themselves could use the Popes warning to protect their children from the bishops and priests.

However, I am of the thinking that it was Rome herself who sent orders to bishops to cover over such incidents to protect Catholic worldly image.

Peace in Christ,
Steven Merten
www.ILOVEYOUGOD.com
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Juxtaposer:
My mom, who hates the fact that I agree with much of what the Catholic Church teaches, often talks about how abusive the entire structure of the Church is.
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Jux, I am sure you can sympathize with your mother. I certainly do. Many Catholics agree with her. But it is not the structure that is abusive, it is the people. And indeed, they have much to answer for; nobody denies that.

One of the classic arguments against the Church is that God would not allow His one true Church to become corrupt. Catholics will respond that the fact the Church has survived despite her sometimes horrible history is the surest sign that she IS the one true Church. You, yourself, have come by struggle to the place where you can at least open the door a tiny crack. Sometimes all you can say to someone like your mother is just that there is more to this than meets the eye at first glance.

Been there.
 
Just guessing here. But another reason this may have gotten out of hand is that bishops were viewing it as a matter of sin and repentance. That’s certainly a normal Catholic view. A priest sins in a sexual matter, repents of the sin, is sent for counseling, and is declared cured. What they didn’t know or should have realized is that many of these abusers went completely through the seminary with the firm idea that celibacy is only for heterosexuals. They had no remorse, no intention of repentance, and seem to have believed that they had a right to sexual gratification. This is not something that they communicated to their bishops.
 
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Juxtaposer:
Where could I get an accurate number of accounts involving Catholic priests?
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There is a very good study called the “John Jay Study” that was released earlier this year. I have read the results that were posted by the US Council Of Catholic Bishops, here is a link:

usccb.org/nrb/johnjaystudy/index033104.htm

One important thing I haven’t noticed anyone mention can be illustrated as follows:

If you had a math teacher who couldn’t balance his checkbook, does that make math untrue?

Of course not, that teacher just couldn’t put what was true into practice, but it doesn’t make the subject matter any less true. But some students might say “why should I go to math class when the teacher can’t even take care of his own affairs?”. We can all see that they would be making a terrible mistake because to function effectively they’ll need that information later on. We can even bet that they are just saying that as an excuse because they don’t like something about math or they’d rather ditch class and avoid a responsibility that requires something of them they do not want to do, which again doesn’t affect the truth of mathematics. It’s more likely they’re chosing self-will over the will of One who knows what’s best for him.

This of course is not to minimize the awful abuses and coverup of the scandal, we must pray fervently for the souls of those involved and for a cleansing of the Church.

BTW Jux,
Re: your post on indulgences, I listened to the Scott Hahn interview and posted a couple replies but you never responded to them, I wonder if you saw them. If not please take a look 🙂 This thread by you seems similar to me because it is again an example of you perhaps looking intently for a reason to NOT be Catholic while you are recognizing the truth of the Church’s teachings as inspired and protected by the Holy Spirt Jesus promised us.

God Bless, In Christ,
Greg
 
BTW, the John Jay study (usccb.org/nrb/johnjaystudy/index033104.htm) suggests that the sexual abuse problem was not one of pedophilia but rather a problem of homosexuality. An overwhelming majority of the abuse cases (my recollection >75%) were committed by homosexual priests agains MALE ADOLESCENTS (between the ages of 13-17) and NOT PREPUBESCENT children of both sexes (this same sex encounter with adolescents would be more accurately called EPHEBOPHILIA - though it currently is not a recognized diagnosis in the DSM IV). It likely has a direct relationship to our seminaries being much to liberal and lax with entrants during the late 60’s and early 70’s. In large part because we did not have faith and pray that God would provide the shepherds for His Church, and so we panicked accepted candidates who were not fit to be priests.

Greg
 
Jock, your first link is broken, but shouldn’t be hard to fix. Looks like you’ll probably need to go into the story itself rather than the “front page”.

Thanks for the info on the second link!
 
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