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JHow
Guest
Northerners and Midwesterners often miss this point.
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irishpatrick
Guest
I certainly did NOT miss that point. I just happen to vehemently disagree. We have killed more babies through abortion than was the total population of the USA during the Civil War days. As bad as slavery and the Civil War was (and it was quite horrrific), it pales in comparison to what has gone on over the last 30-40 years in the USA.
WE have killed nearly two Civil War total USA populations over the last 38 years, and way more than two if we include the lives lost to contraception (another great practice expanded by the baby boomers)!
When considering the reasons for the terrible abuse scandal, how can we NOT take into account how far the culture has fallen and what impact that has had?
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JHow
Guest
Good to know. Glad you didn’t miss it. I’m not trying to minimize abortion and its impact, but I would wonder, when doing comparisons of body counts, what the proportions are involved?
To a larger extent, I think the civil war is actually of a piece with the cultural decline you are talking about. If you consider the career of someone like Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., and how the war influenced his thinking and the the subsquent effect he had on legal thinking that helped bring about the current state of affairs, you can see an example of what I mean. I see the war as a great turning point in our culture.
I’m happy to join you in poking sticks at the baby boom generation, however. They present a “target rich environment”, so to speak.
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JHow
Guest
I would be interested to know how they obtained data on the number of homosexual priests, past and present, and how they measured an increase in homosexuals entering seminaries?
I think we will just have to wait to see the report.
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manualman
Guest
That’s interesting and I will try to find where in the report that is discussed. Are they claiming that prior to the late 1970’s there were not significant numbers of homosexual priests? How are they defining that? Is it a self-definition or based on some attempt to be objective? In other words, are they really just taking a guy’s word for it that he isn’t gay, even though he’s never had a sexual relationship with a woman and his sexual temptations, fantasies and physical sins all revolve around teenage boys?
Isn’t it possible that from the 70’s on, priests with SSA are just more honest with themselves and others about it? These questions might be answered in the study, but I haven’t gotten to it yet.
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irishpatrick
Guest
I suppose we shall have to agree to disagree.
[though we will join each other in poking at the baby boomers]
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manualman
Guest
Even as a Gen X fellow with a number of axes to grind on the Boomers, I must wonder how this can be largely their fault. Who ran the seminaries at the time the predators slipped through? Not Boomers. Who were the ones that organized the great rebellions against the authority of the Church in the late 1960’s? Not Boomers, they didn’t have the clout yet.
No, the cancer started MUCH earlier and just culminated in the Boomer prime years. Too simplistic a scapegoat. (Unless we’re asking “Who’s gonna wipe out Social Security?” Then Bullseye, baby).
No, the cancer started MUCH earlier and just culminated in the Boomer prime years. Too simplistic a scapegoat. (Unless we’re asking “Who’s gonna wipe out Social Security?” Then Bullseye, baby).
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JHow
Guest
Returning to the orginal post for a second, if the thesis is that the scandals were caused by poor training and preists unprepared for the sexual revolution, wouldn’t the effects of this be seen in other institutions to the same degree? What was different that was going on in seminaries from other educational institutions? And what has changed since that time in the instruction being given? Also, what does it mean to be un-prepared for the sexual revolution? Seriously, sex is not an overly complicated subject, neither is sexual morality, and we are talking about educated men here.
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AngryAtheist8
Guest
Really?
The Baby Boomers were** worse** the the slaveowners of the 19th and 18th centuries, or those who prosecuted genocidal wars against Indian tribes during the first centuy of U.S. history?
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AngryAtheist8
Guest
You make me laugh.
The absolute worst generation?
Worse than the generation of Germans who came of age during the Nazi regime?
Worse than the generation of Spanish who depopulated the Carribean Islands through their slave taking and brutal abuse towards the natives?
Worse than the generation of White South Africans that established their racist and ruthless regime?
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SpaceGhost
Guest
Below is a recent report from the Catholic League
MEDIA JUMP ON ABUSE REPORT
Bill Donohue will issue an extended analysis of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice report on the “Causes and Context” of priestly sexual abuse next week. Today, he addresses what the media are saying:
The report says that fewer than 5 percent of abusive priests were pedophiles. The New York Times takes issue with the report for defining prepubescent children as those age 10 or younger, mentioning that the American Psychiatric Association uses the age of 13. However, the American Academy of Pediatrics says puberty begins at the age of 10. This is important because the lower the age when puberty begins, the more it implies that heterosexuality or homosexuality was at work, and neither the authors of the report, nor the Times, want to squarely address the obvious.
The report says homosexuality was not a factor because a) not all homosexuals define themselves as such b) sexual relations with adolescents is ephebophilia c) the degree of abuse declined after gays entered the priesthood in large numbers in the late 1970s and 1980s, and d) they did not have access to altar girls when the abuse peaked.
A homosexual is defined by his actions, not his identity. Ephebophilia has no clinical definition and is nothing more than a description of adult men who have sex with adolescent males. The surge of gays in the seminaries began in the 1960s—not in the late 1970s—and as the report says, “Men ordained in the 1960s and the early 1970s engaged in abusive behavior much more quickly after their entrance into ministry.” Finally, there are so few incidents of abuse these days (an average of 8.3 per year since 2005), that it makes no sense to compare the percentage of male victims at the peak of the scandal to what has happened since altar girls were allowed. The latest study on abuse notes that 83 percent of the allegations made in 2010 were by males, and the bulk of incidents took place in the early 1970s. Besides, priests had nothing but access to male altar servers before the 1960s, and the report notes that sexual abuse was not a problem then. That’s because there were fewer gay priests then.
Finally, the report says that 81 percent of the victims were male and 78 percent were postpubescent. Since 100 percent of the abusers were male, that’s called homosexuality, not pedophilia or heterosexuality.
Contact our director of communications about Donohue’s remarks:
Jeff Field
Phone: 212-371-3191
E-mail: cl@catholicleague.org
MEDIA JUMP ON ABUSE REPORT
Bill Donohue will issue an extended analysis of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice report on the “Causes and Context” of priestly sexual abuse next week. Today, he addresses what the media are saying:
The report says that fewer than 5 percent of abusive priests were pedophiles. The New York Times takes issue with the report for defining prepubescent children as those age 10 or younger, mentioning that the American Psychiatric Association uses the age of 13. However, the American Academy of Pediatrics says puberty begins at the age of 10. This is important because the lower the age when puberty begins, the more it implies that heterosexuality or homosexuality was at work, and neither the authors of the report, nor the Times, want to squarely address the obvious.
The report says homosexuality was not a factor because a) not all homosexuals define themselves as such b) sexual relations with adolescents is ephebophilia c) the degree of abuse declined after gays entered the priesthood in large numbers in the late 1970s and 1980s, and d) they did not have access to altar girls when the abuse peaked.
A homosexual is defined by his actions, not his identity. Ephebophilia has no clinical definition and is nothing more than a description of adult men who have sex with adolescent males. The surge of gays in the seminaries began in the 1960s—not in the late 1970s—and as the report says, “Men ordained in the 1960s and the early 1970s engaged in abusive behavior much more quickly after their entrance into ministry.” Finally, there are so few incidents of abuse these days (an average of 8.3 per year since 2005), that it makes no sense to compare the percentage of male victims at the peak of the scandal to what has happened since altar girls were allowed. The latest study on abuse notes that 83 percent of the allegations made in 2010 were by males, and the bulk of incidents took place in the early 1970s. Besides, priests had nothing but access to male altar servers before the 1960s, and the report notes that sexual abuse was not a problem then. That’s because there were fewer gay priests then.
Finally, the report says that 81 percent of the victims were male and 78 percent were postpubescent. Since 100 percent of the abusers were male, that’s called homosexuality, not pedophilia or heterosexuality.
Contact our director of communications about Donohue’s remarks:
Jeff Field
Phone: 212-371-3191
E-mail: cl@catholicleague.org
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AngryAtheist8
Guest
The lives lost to contaception?
So avoiding pregnancy is the same as abortion?
Well if we assume abortion is murder (as Catholic theology does) then nuns are guilty of murder due to their vow of celibacy. Of course we can get pregant women without sex now (some of them almost certainly modern day virgin births), but I understand that that is a sin too
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bigquests
Guest
This is the “Woodstock” explanation for sex abuse by Catholic religious and priests.
I don’t understand exactly how it applies to Ireland, though…
If the Catholic Church does not take ownership of the crisis, and stop blaming it on others, it will never be healed.
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antonivs
Guest
Abortion and the Civil War are really off topic and adding nothing to the discussion on this important problem. Please stop derailing this thread.
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NewEnglandPriest
Guest
The report only addressed the issues in the USA. It didn’t even attempt to address the root causes of issues in Ireland.
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He_Man
Guest
Since it is a matter of opinion and an unporvable point you are trying to assert and/or refute, I’ll simply say “yes, they were.”
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manualman
Guest
As usual, Bill Donohue asks good questions and makes good points, with a glaring exception. I seriously doubt that it is possible to get good data on abuse rates prior to the 1960’s. Even the 60’s is pushing it. The entire subject was taboo back then and nobody reported it, documented it or admitted it if it happened. Reporting statistics become unreliable across such a cultural divide. Mere lack of reported numbers do not mean it rarely happened before the 60’s. We just don’t have data for that period an ought to admit it.
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bigquests
Guest
I heard Bill D’s dismissal of the testimony about abuse in Ireland and found it contemptible.
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manualman
Guest
I’m not sure I understand the objection. Ireland is smack dab in the middle of Western Civilization. The 60’s happened across ALL of the West, it wasn’t an American phenomenon. Bill’s just saying that the John Jay report cannot address Ireland because no data from Ireland was gathered by the study authors. Or are you referring to something I missed?
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