Solution to Priest Sex Abuse Scandal

[manualman]

I find the defense of the church’s actions to be so absurd. Its just unfathomable that what went on was allowed to go on.
Peace

Then you simply are not much of a student of human nature. If humans weren’t such despicable things, they wouldn’t, ahem, WE wouldn’t NEED a Savior in the first place.

Humans become no less weak or sinful upon ordination. Grace is made available to them, but no guarantees of impeccability are forthcoming. Free will applies to bishops and dockworkers alike.

 

[portarica]

Then you simply are not much of a student of human nature. If humans weren’t such despicable things, they wouldn’t, ahem, WE wouldn’t NEED a Savior in the first place.

Humans become no less weak or sinful upon ordination. Grace is made available to them, but no guarantees of impeccability are forthcoming. Free will applies to bishops and dockworkers alike.

But dockworkers do not have the ministry of discernment, only bishops do. And if a dock worker repeatedly abused his customers, it is likely he would suffer some punitive activity.

The unfathomable part isn’t that the abuse rate for priests is in the neighborhood of the abuse rate for the general population, it is that the rate of those condoning abuse and engaging in deceit and subterfuge among the bishops is so high.

Peace

 

[otjm]

Since you are an attorney then you know that ignorance of the law is not an excuse.

Ignorance of the fact, however, is. The poster to whom I originally responded wanted to whack the bishop if the priest was found to have abused. If the priest was just fopund to have abused (that is, the victim or other representative just came forward), why are we whacking the bishop?

Since you have been involved, you know how the church has lobbied through the ages in a legislative manner and with the authorities on individual cases to let them handle things “outside” of the judicial system.

What we are discussing primarily is the abuse that has come to light in the last 50 to 65 years, not what has happened “through the ages”.

And what that allowed was the notice from victims and mothers to bishops about abuse to be ignored. You might want to go back and read what I wrote. Just in case you didn’t pick up on it, I said I had no problem with bishops being dealt with if they failed to deal properly with an issue. What more do you want? that was not what I was responding to; go read the posts before you try to change the subject matter.

I find the defense of the church’s actions to be so absurd. Its just unfathomable that what went on was allowed to go on.

Peace

What is absurd is your inability to read what has been written and follow along logically.

I am not defending and never have defended bishops who hid things. I have defended bishops who sought out expert advice and followed it; they are not endowed with being all-knowing and all-wise when confronted with an issue.

Neither have I ever said that the victims were not harmed grievously.

So Let’s stay on topic, ok?

Crumpy said: “Well, the point of this thread is that the bishop should be automatically suspended and investigated with the priest-abuser.”

I said, that is ridiculous without some showing that the Bishop was in some way wrong. If the bishop was or is shown to be wrong in the matter, then suspension may be appropriate. If the bishop just found out about it and followed proper procedures for reporting it to the proper civil authorities, and moved to protect the victim by removing the priest, then nothing further needs to be done to the bishop.

Most bishops do not manage to get to a given parish even once a year; how is it that the bishop should be removed for something he knew nothing about? tht is the question, that is what I am addressing, and let’s keep it to that.

You want to start a new thread about abuse victims, that’s great. Don’t derail this one.

 

[manualman]

The unfathomable part isn’t that the abuse rate for priests is in the neighborhood of the abuse rate for the general population, it is that the rate of those condoning abuse and engaging in deceit and subterfuge among the bishops is so high.
Peace

Not so shocking when you back up and look at the context. Just 25 years ago, domestic violence and sexual abuse was WIDELY considered “not our business” when discovered by outsiders - ANY outsiders. I have cousins who were abused by an uncle and their mother KNEW and never did anything. An awful lot of people are just hard to figure out.

It is a VERY recent phenomenon to recognize child molestation as a conditon so low it almost is never recovered from. I recently saw a “Family Ties” rerun from the 1980’s where an older long time friend of the family clearly groomed and attempted to seduce the eldest daughter. When he was caught by the “hero” father, the result was that the predator quietly and privately agreed to go to counseling. That was the crux, the moral of the story. “Quietly get these people help.” As recently as that our culture had no idea how utterly depraved a human has to be before they do this. You don’t suppose the producers of “Family Ties” were trying to condone and perpetuate the abuse, do you? Then why the double standard? We were naive and so were the bishops. Combine that with the fallen human tendency to cover up embarassing things and there’s your answer, how it happened.

It’s still a total failure on the part of the bishops and they deserve harsh criticism for it. But so did the REST of our society. We ALL blew it on this issue for further back than I can remember.

 

[portarica]

Not so shocking when you back up and look at the context. Just 25 years ago, domestic violence and sexual abuse was WIDELY considered “not our business” when discovered by outsiders - ANY outsiders. I have cousins who were abused by an uncle and their mother KNEW and never did anything. An awful lot of people are just hard to figure out.

It is a VERY recent phenomenon to recognize child molestation as a conditon so low it almost is never recovered from. I recently saw a “Family Ties” rerun from the 1980’s where an older long time friend of the family clearly groomed and attempted to seduce the eldest daughter. When he was caught by the “hero” father, the result was that the predator quietly and privately agreed to go to counseling. That was the crux, the moral of the story. “Quietly get these people help.” As recently as that our culture had no idea how utterly depraved a human has to be before they do this. You don’t suppose the producers of “Family Ties” were trying to condone and perpetuate the abuse, do you? Then why the double standard? We were naive and so were the bishops. Combine that with the fallen human tendency to cover up embarassing things and there’s your answer, how it happened.

It’s still a total failure on the part of the bishops and they deserve harsh criticism for it. But so did the REST of our society. We ALL blew it on this issue for further back than I can remember.

Let me see, the churches leaders didn’t realize that raping kids was wrong?

But they knew premarital sex was wrong.

And they did know adultery was wrong.

And they did know that priests breaking their vows of celibacy was wrong.

But they couldn’t put two and two together and realize that coercing kids into having premarital sex with celibacy breaking priests was wrong?

And the excuse for it is moral relativism ? That’s pretty astounding.

Next thing you will be telling me is that all the abortions in the 70’s were OK because it was the way people handled things then.

Peace

 

[vsedriver]

NOBODY should be left alone with another person’s child. Once this was understood, the sex abuse cases with the Boy Scouts virtually ended. Catholics should adopt this same policy.

There is more to the Boy Scout policy than just not having a child alone with an adult. The Boy Scout policy excludes all homosexuals. For this they have been trashed and persecuted, kicked out of long held facilities, and dropped from charitable institutions. But they have eliminated almost all incidents of male on male child abuse.

Pope Benedict wanted the seminaries cleaned out. He and the RCC have been trashed by the media.

Ever watched "Queer as Folk’? In the original BBC version the boy was only 16 when he took an adult male lover. No one jumped up and screamed child sexual abuse.

 

[portarica]

There is more to the Boy Scout policy than just not having a child alone with an adult. The Boy Scout policy excludes all homosexuals. For this they have been trashed and persecuted, kicked out of long held facilities, and dropped from charitable institutions. But they have eliminated almost all incidents of male on male child abuse.

Pope Benedict wanted the seminaries cleaned out. He and the RCC have been trashed by the media.

Ever watched "Queer as Folk’? In the original BBC version the boy was only 16 when he took an adult male lover. No one jumped up and screamed child sexual abuse.

The Boy Scout policy on homosexuals has been in place for decades and was in place when the scouts had their big problems. And the scout policy is to remove homosexuals from the organization.

So are you suggesting that the church dismiss all the homosexual priests and bishops now in place? Because if homosexuality is really the problem, then that is a very reasonable action.

Peace

 

[vsedriver]

The unfathomable part isn’t that the abuse rate for priests is in the neighborhood of the abuse rate for the general population, it is that the rate of those condoning abuse and engaging in deceit and subterfuge among the bishops is so high.

and what exactly was that rate? I have never seen one instance of a bishop ‘condoning’ abuse.

And where were the parents? How many of these cases were not taken to the police because the parents were ashamed to have had victimized kids, or just didn’t want their kids put through a court case.

I get the impression that people believe there was a huge conspiracy involving almost all the Church hierarchy right up to the Pope to protect deviants solely because of their ordination. As if there was no attempt to correct anything but maintain business as usual. That is not true. Many good and true Bishops did what they were advised to do by the medical and legal professions and by what was the standard of the day.

30 and 40 years ago EVERYONE shoved child sexual abuse under the rug. Teachers were transferred from school to school and protestant ministers moved around to fresher hunting grounds. Doctors and psychologists picked up and started new practices. Coaches moved to new areas. It was happening but it wasn’t reported either. Business as usual.

The church’s principals and core beliefs are still sound and eternal. The people in the church are still sinners. The church has made huge improvements to correct past errors. They deserve some credit and our support in making these changes. Only time will tell if the new measures are effective since no one here has a crystal ball.

 

[portarica]

and what exactly was that rate? I have never seen one instance of a bishop ‘condoning’ abuse.

And where were the parents? How many of these cases were not taken to the police because the parents were ashamed to have had victimized kids, or just didn’t want their kids put through a court case.

I get the impression that people believe there was a huge conspiracy involving almost all the Church hierarchy right up to the Pope to protect deviants solely because of their ordination. As if there was no attempt to correct anything but maintain business as usual. That is not true. Many good and true Bishops did what they were advised to do by the medical and legal professions and by what was the standard of the day.

30 and 40 years ago EVERYONE shoved child sexual abuse under the rug. Teachers were transferred from school to school and protestant ministers moved around to fresher hunting grounds. Doctors and psychologists picked up and started new practices. Coaches moved to new areas. It was happening but it wasn’t reported either. Business as usual.

The church’s principals and core beliefs are still sound and eternal. The people in the church are still sinners. The church has made huge improvements to correct past errors. They deserve some credit and our support in making these changes. Only time will tell if the new measures are effective since no one here has a crystal ball.

Do you know the definition of condone? The very idea that you didn’t see the condoning of abuse shows its value to those doing the condoning as opposed to say publicly espousing abuse.

con·done   
[kuhn-dohn] Show IPA
–verb (used with object), -doned, -don·ing.
1.to disregard or overlook (something illegal, objectionable, or the like).
2.to give tacit approval to: By his silence, he seemed to condone their behavior.
3.to pardon or forgive (an offense); excuse.
4.to cause the condonation of.
5.Law . to forgive or act so as to imply forgiveness of (a violation of the marriage vow).

Peace

 

[vsedriver]

The Boy Scout policy on homosexuals has been in place for decades and was in place when the scouts had their big problems. And the scout policy is to remove homosexuals from the organization.

So are you suggesting that the church dismiss all the homosexual priests and bishops now in place? Because if homosexuality is really the problem, then that is a very reasonable action.

exactly, the Scouts banned active homosexuals around 1990.

The church hasn’t dismissed ordained priests and bishops but has established a policy of not accepting them in seminaries. No doubt the result will be fewer if any homosexuals in the clergy in the future.

whether that has anything to do with a reduction in abuse cases remains to be seen.

 

[vsedriver]

Do you know the definition of condone? The very idea that you didn’t see the condoning of abuse shows its value to those doing the condoning as opposed to say publicly espousing abuse.

con·done   
[kuhn-dohn] Show IPA
–verb (used with object), -doned, -don·ing.
1.to disregard or overlook (something illegal, objectionable, or the like).
2.to give tacit approval to: By his silence, he seemed to condone their behavior.
3.to pardon or forgive (an offense); excuse.
4.to cause the condonation of.
5.Law . to forgive or act so as to imply forgiveness of (a violation of the marriage vow).

where is your proof that they disregarded or took no action at all? I say they didn’t disregard what was happening, and did take action. They just took the wrong actions. They moved the priest away from the situation of coming into contact with that child. They put him in treatment. But at no time did they ‘approve’ child sex abuse.

are you saying if a pedophile goes to confession and makes a good act of confession they should be denied forgiveness?

You can’t judge the past by today’s standards. That the church’s actions did not go far enough 30 to 60 years ago does not mean they condoned the activity.

 

[portarica]

where is your proof that they disregarded or took no action at all? I say they didn’t disregard what was happening, and did take action. They just took the wrong actions. They moved the priest away from the situation of coming into contact with that child. They put him in treatment. But at no time did they ‘approve’ child sex abuse.

are you saying if a pedophile goes to confession and makes a good act of confession they should be denied forgiveness?

You can’t judge the past by today’s standards. That the church’s actions did not go far enough 30 to 60 years ago does not mean they condoned the activity.

Child abuse was a crime on the non church side of the fence, on the church side of the fence, it breaks so many tenants of what Jesus taught and flies in the face of some many Church pronouncements going back as far as the Lateran Councils and further shows that your argument holds no water and in fact serves to bolster my contention that abuse was condoned by the hierarchy of the church.

At the time of the Lateran Councils the church was at the forefront of the issue, admonishing the clergy for abusing pilgrims centuries ago, it hasn’t been a hidden problem within the church, it just was just made a secret to those outside the walls of the monasteries, churches and cathedrals .

Unfortunately for those hanging on to the excuse that the leaders of the church didn’t know better, the leaders of our church did know about abuse for centuries and kept it to themselves.

Peace

 

[portarica]

where is your proof that they disregarded or took no action at all? I say they didn’t disregard what was happening, and did take action. They just took the wrong actions. They moved the priest away from the situation of coming into contact with that child. They put him in treatment. But at no time did they ‘approve’ child sex abuse.

are you saying if a pedophile goes to confession and makes a good act of confession they should be denied forgiveness?

You can’t judge the past by today’s standards. That the church’s actions did not go far enough 30 to 60 years ago does not mean they condoned the activity.

Actually what the confessor could do is make the required penance be having the sinner have no contact with children or some other remedy that protects kids.

Peace

 

[otjm]

Let me see, the churches leaders didn’t realize that raping kids was wrong?

often it was not seen as rape. It was seen as consensual sex.

But they knew premarital sex was wrong.

Yes, they saw it as a sin.

And they did know adultery was wrong.

Yes, they saw it as a sin.

And they did know that priests breaking their vows of celibacy was wrong.

Yes, they saw it as a sin.

But they couldn’t put two and two together and realize that coercing kids into having premarital sex with celibacy breaking priests was wrong?

Yes, they saw it as a sin. They often did not see it as coercion.

And the excuse for it is moral relativism ? That’s pretty astounding.

No, not moral relativism. There was a profound lack of understanding of the damage that was done by the abuse. Too often, the bishops saw the issues in terms of sin; sin is to be forgiven, and then we move on. Having little or no understanding of the damage the abuse causes, the bishops wanted to a) avoid scandal, b) resolve the sin and move forward (do not sin any more), and c) avoid possible litigation (on that one, they were right on the mark as to what could ensue).

Next thing you will be telling me is that all the abortions in the 70’s were OK because it was the way people handled things then.

Peace

No, I don’t think anyone would say that. Psychologists did not know the damage that could occur due to sex abuse until they started studying the issue, and that was far more recent than people understand. How were untrained individuals to know this?

People sin, and that is not anything particularly new. People have been sinning sexually since the beginning of time. Sexual activity with youths is hardly anything new either; it certainly was well known in Greece and Rome around the time of Christ.

What was not known was the amount of harm that it caused. Playing “Monday morning quarterback” does not provide the bishops with information when it didn’t exist.

Let me give a different example: we now can see from studies that premarital sex has a far greater damage to relationships than was known 20, 30, 50 or more years ago. 50 years ago, teenagers and young adults engaged in premarital sex, and the Church’s position was that it was a serious sin, one needed to confess the sin and avoid the near occasion of future sins. And that about summed it up.

The Church still has the same position, but confessors now have more information available to them of the long lasting effects of such activity. that can be (and hopefully is) applied to teaching youth the Moral code, and in counseling those who may be approaching marriage.

No one here is making light of what happened. However, it is naivety to presume that what we know now was known then.

Further, often the bishop knew of only one or maybe two incidents that had happened; anyone paying attention to the law suits has seen that victims are coming forward who never reported the abuse to anyone.

It took the lawsuits to bring to the surface the issue of how damaging this has been to victims. The problem is people seem to think the bishops knew how damaging it was back then; they simply didn’t. Much of it was seen as a serious sin, damaging the soul; the long term damage to the psyche was simply unknown.

 

[otjm]

Actually what the confessor could do is make the required penance be having the sinner have no contact with children or some other remedy that protects kids.

Peace

and what makes you think the confessors didn’t do that?

They went even further; they sent the priests to psychological counseling - because the psychologists said they could cure the priests - and the psychologists sent the priests back claiming the priest was cured.

And so the priest was reassigned, having promised to not mess with teenage boys, and when no victims came forward (often for years), everyone assumed things were resolved.

 

[manualman]

Let me see, the churches leaders didn’t realize that raping kids was wrong?

But they knew premarital sex was wrong.

And they did know adultery was wrong.

And they did know that priests breaking their vows of celibacy was wrong.

But they couldn’t put two and two together and realize that coercing kids into having premarital sex with celibacy breaking priests was wrong?

And the excuse for it is moral relativism ? That’s pretty astounding.

Next thing you will be telling me is that all the abortions in the 70’s were OK because it was the way people handled things then.

This is such a horrendous mischaracterization and distortion of my post that I can only conclude that your day job consists of writing political TV attack ads.

Good day sir.

 

[portarica]

This is such a horrendous mischaracterization and distortion of my post that I can only conclude that your day job consists of writing political TV attack ads.

Good day sir.

What makes you think that I am one of Rove’s henchmen?

Peace

 

[Reuben_J]

The priest sexual abuse scandal hurts the Church and her people so much. It can fill us with anger, frustration and hopelessness. Thankfully now that we realized the wrong that been committed we are the wiser and can play a part to stop it from happening again. What has happened cannot be undone; we can only pray for the damage it had caused to be healed ultimately. Only the grace of God can help us being healed though it can never be completely forgotten especially for the victims. Christianity is a forgiving religion and hopefully this tenet of the religion helps us to pull through this traumatic era and to move on.

We can always say ‘what if …’such and such being done, would it have solved this problem. Probably yes or probably no, we could never know, and the Church did not know better in the circumstances. The bottom line hopefully none of the top clergies knowingly condone this crime; and I think that none did.

Will the demonstration outside the Vatican helps to stop this from recurring again in the future? We can never be sure; the issue is too complex and too difficult to pin the source. However we know that it had happened and would be in a better position to prevent it from happening again.

Shall we judge the priests and the Bishops who were involved directly and indirectly in this? I guess not; so it will be always our dilemma, our problem and our vulnerability. It hurts and it causes the Church to be hurts but by the grace of God we will overcome.

God bless.

 

[portarica]

The priest sexual abuse scandal hurts the Church and her people so much. It can fill us with anger, frustration and hopelessness. Thankfully now that we realized the wrong that been committed we are the wiser and can play a part to stop it from happening again. What has happened cannot be undone; we can only pray for the damage it had caused to be healed ultimately. Only the grace of God can help us being healed though it can never be completely forgotten especially for the victims. Christianity is a forgiving religion and hopefully this tenet of the religion helps us to pull through this traumatic era and to move on.

We can always say ‘what if …’such and such being done, would it have solved this problem. Probably yes or probably no, we could never know, and the Church did not know better in the circumstances. The bottom line hopefully none of the top clergies knowingly condone this crime; and I think that none did.

Will the demonstration outside the Vatican helps to stop this from recurring again in the future? We can never be sure; the issue is too complex and too difficult to pin the source. However we know that it had happened and would be in a better position to prevent it from happening again.

Shall we judge the priests and the Bishops who were involved directly and indirectly in this? I guess not; so it will be always our dilemma, our problem and our vulnerability. It hurts and it causes the Church to be hurts but by the grace of God we will overcome.

God bless.

Your last paragraph was paradoxical, the abuse crisis hurts our church but we are supposed to tolerate the kind of behavior of our hierarchy that causes hurt to our church?

That is sort of cowardly, Jesus wasn’t wimpy like that , he would be disgusted with the way the crisis continues to be handled. Do you think he wants the mothers of victims to live out their lives with the pain inflicted upon them by the church’s leaders, just to cover their backsides?

The world knows the church tolerated and protected the abusers, the continued subterfuge going on is just a waste of breath from Rome, it doesn’t help the church and it doesn’t make what went on better.

Peace

 

[otjm]

Your last paragraph was paradoxical, the abuse crisis hurts our church but we are supposed to tolerate the kind of behavior of our hierarchy that causes hurt to our church?

Considering that the Church has made some radical changes in how it treats issues of abuse, your sentence does not make much sense. The behavior is not being tolerated. What point are you trying to make?

Any judgment of priests and biushops is one that must be made witin the context of judging their actions, not their moral status, as that is solely within God’s provence, as the Gospel tells us.

And any judgment of their acts must be done in the context of all the facts surrounding the specific issues. And frankly, most people do not have all the facts, let alone even most of them. The result of that is that in most circumstances, people have opinions that are not based on all the facts; the results from that should be fairly clear.
portarica;7229422:

That is sort of cowardly, Jesus wasn’t wimpy like that , he would be disgusted with the way the crisis continues to be handled. Do you think he wants the mothers of victims to live out their lives with the pain inflicted upon them by the church’s leaders, just to cover their backsides?

And what is it that you want done?

The world knows the church tolerated and protected the abusers, the continued subterfuge going on is just a waste of breath from Rome, it doesn’t help the church and it doesn’t make what went on better.

It is seriously debatable what the world knows. In some circumstances, bishops tolerated and protected abusers; and at least one bishop has resigned because he was an abuser. In other circumstances, the church most certainly did not tolerate abusers. Such a broad charge is not only lacking in charity, it is also lacking in truth. As in, such a broad statement is a flat-out lie.

Approximately 2 to 3% of priests abused. That does not make all priests abusers; it does not make all priests complicit in the abuse by the few. Nor, because one bishop handled things wrong, does it make any other bishop wrong; each case needs to be judged on the totality of its facts. Broad sweeping accusations are good for venting one’s spleen, and precious little else.