US Bishops Want to Study Causes & Context

[Kevin_Walker]

katherine2:

fix, when did you stop beating your wife?

I believe in basic English this is referred to as an ‘improper question’.

An improper question is one that incriminates when answered yes or no.

The lawyer tells the defendent: Answer Yes or No: Have you murdered anyone recently?

So the question, Do you still beat your wife, is an obvious joke on this thread.

 

[Kevin_Walker]

condan:

I agree.

To assert that the abusers were “orthodox” is absurd. First, because there is no way to know what a priests theological leanings are from reading the papers. We do know that Paul Shanley was a founding member of NAMBLA. 'Nuf said.

It goes without saying (at least to those who know their faith) that if you love God with all your heart, with all your soul and all your mind that you would never so offend Him by committing the abomination of homosexual behavior, especially with a child or a youth. However, if you view the Church as a purely human institution with “laws” and “rules” that are negotiable, then it is easy to see how someone can disregard the Church’s teaching and satisfy their lusty and sinful desires at the expense of others.

Its a no-brainer that the environment of dissent has fostered the disaster that is sexual abuse by priests. The only way to fix it is to remove those men who suffer from this temptation.

I agree.

A homosexual is going to lie about his homosexuality and thus become a Priest under false pretenses. The homosexual always has a hidden agenda, in this case, the homosexual uses the Catholic Church to provide an all male environment, to gain access to boys and young men under cover as Priest, and to have all his basic needs provided for him. Any all-male institution the world over has had this problem throughout history, even the celebate Buddhist monastaries in today’s Korea and China have a homosexual problem.

The Jesuit Order was founded in 1600 in part to counter the Reformation; what we need today is a new order to counter homosexuality in the Priesthood.

Zero tolerance of homosexual priests is the only way to safeguard the integrity of Catholic Priesthood.

 

[Kevin_Walker]

Philip P:

Just to interject for a second here, are those who believe that the cause of the sex abuse scandal is homsexuality implying that had it been heterosexual priests abusing girls, that would have been ok? It seems to me that what’s at issue is that 1) that there are sexual predators in the clergy and 2) that for too long, their presence was tolerated. I fail to see how debating homosexuality advances the pressing need to protect our children and restore confidence in our bishops.

Absolutely not. But it is *de facto *homosexual men sexually abusing boys and young men that is at the heart of the sexual abuse scandal in the Church, not heterosexual priests abusing girls.

I ask the question again. Is there an equivalent organization in the USA to N.A.M.B.L.A. which is trying to lower the legal age of sexual consent for girls? The answer is NO. Homosexuality is *de facto *the problem behind the massive amounts of sexual abuse the world over in the Catholic Church, not heterosexuality!

It is a simple necessity to deny homosexuals permission to become Priests in the Roman Catholic church to promote clarity of thought and emotional stability and to prevent further sexual abuse against young men.

 

[Kevin_Walker]

TPJCatholic:

Philip,

It matters quite a lot. We all want to see zero-percent on sexual abuse…yet that is a nearly impossible goal considering the sin and depravity of humans. It is critical that we do everything we can to lower the numbers of abuse to as close to zero as possible, and yes that means we have to look at every element, including homosexuals in the clergy. Please go to the links I provided…they are very telling.

I really have to disagree with this observation. Total zero tolerance of sexual abuse in the Catholic Priesthood is an absolute necessity, and even one incident cannot be condoned.

There is no child on this planet, male or female, that I would tolerate any sexual abuse towards as inevitable, and therefore an acceptable percentage.

The reprecussions for that child are just too horrible to contemplate; a lot of child sexual abuse victims have ended up committing suicide at a fairly young age, signifying the pain and mental duress they experience every hour of every day since that abuse took place.

So we do not try to lower sexual abuse within the Catholic Church as close to zero as possible, we make it zero. And this is done by ferreting out and defrocking every homosexual Priest currently ordained in the Catholic Church.

 

[HagiaSophia]

For those famliar with Fr. Cozzens first wonderful book, “The Changing Face of the Presthood” which addressed the role of the priest pre and post council together with the problems in today’s seminaries and during formation, he has written another book and the following is a quote from a review of it:

FAITH THAT DARES TO SPEAK
By Donald Cozzens

"…As bad as or worse than the actual sex abuse committed by priests has been the response of secrecy and transfer and cover-up by some bishops and those who assisted them. Fr. Cozzens links these behaviors with a culture of clericalism rooted in the continuance of feudal structures. The practices needed to maintain this culture include paternalism, blind loyalty, authoritarianism and insensitive disregard of those not in the club. Pope Pius X articulated the underlying vision when he described the church, in essence, as a society of unequals.

Fr. Cozzens sees the vision of Vatican II as one of a community of co-equal disciples. All the baptized are members of the people of God. Any distinctions in roles are made within this basic framework and should take nothing away from this sense of mutuality. In Fr. Cozzens’ judgment, however, powerful forces within the church have been retreating from the conciliar vision. The road ahead lies in empowering the laity through changes of hearts and structures. The church of secrecy and cover-up and abuse of power needs to be overtaken by the church of openness, dialogue and respect…

ncronline.org/NCR_Online/archives2/2005a/021105/ss021105i.htm

 

[fix]

otm:

All of which does nothing to address the thrust of this thread, which is the question of whether or not we can get an honest, balanced, fair and truthful review of cause and contect of the sexual abuse crisis.

Trigilio may have many good things to say, but much of what he remarks about had nothing whatsoever to do with the sexual abuse that was occuring pre-Vatican 2. “Parishioners and seminarians being exposed to orthodox liturgy” has nothing to do with sexual abuse except in the most tenuous connection.

You keep bringing up this distinction between before and after VII. I never mentioned it. Dissent is the etiology. Why dissent became more prevalent may be debated, but it is the root of all these scandals. Homosexual abuse is a symptom, not the cuase. That is my point.

 

[fix]

otm:

Go back and read the first post. You are barking up the wrong tree. the question posed was whether or not, given the status of psychology today, and the political correctness that surrounds homosexuality, the Church can get a study doine that actually gets down to the roots of the problem. The roots of the sexual abuse problem lie in the causes of homosexuality and the selection of candidates for the priesthood.

The question posed isn’t about dissent in the Church, as the question posed isn’t even about the Church; it is about the status and beliefs of the researchers.

You and I can agree till we are blue in the face about dissent in the Church, but that doesn’t go to the question. The question goes to the scientific community; can this question even be researched, given the attitutde of much of the medical and psychological community?

I agree that the credentialed misfits who push homosexual conduct as non pathological are a large part of the problem. My argument is that bishops and others in authority listened to these people as if they were infallible. Also, bishops have not been faithful in discharging their duties and Shepherding.

Why do we need more studies from them that may very well be illigetimate from the start? The answer is what the priest from “First Things” has said many times…Fidelity, fidelity, fidelity.

 

[TPJCatholic]

Kevin,

I agree completely…the goal is clearly zero abuse–period.

If you re-read what I said, I made it very clear that I feel zero abuse is the goal. However, we live in a fallen world, where sin happens everyday (the Bible says we each sin at least seven times everyday). While it is the absolute goal to see zero abuses, it is not realistic to think we can ever attain that goal in this fallen state.

Can any person attain perfection in this life?

Our responsibility is to do everything possible to protect the children from being abused. The problem is, people are not perfect and no matter how much we try, abuse will happen (albeit at hopefully tiny rates). We also need to be very careful to not get so rabid about abuse, that we start tossing good Priests out of the clergy. It is very easy for people to gather a lynch mob mentality and oftentimes innocent people are slaughtered in their wake. Which is why I stated we must look at “every” possible cause for the abuse, because in order to protect children, we must not be culturally afraid to be honest about certain situations.

 

[TPJCatholic]

Kevin,

BTW, I never said I condoned even one abuse! I do not condone any abuses of any kind!

 

[puzzleannie]

well like, duh. gee, bishop, what do you think the cause of the crisis is? is it that we have structured our priestly formation system to attract deviates and discourage normal guys, or is it that we have adopted the cover-up as normal means of doing business and to h— with pastoral concerns, or is that we have been disobeying canon law and church teaching for so long it has become a habit? Well, I don’t know, bishop, it is probably just that we are victims of media bias. why don’t we do another study and find out.

as long as you keep doing studies you have an excuse to avoid solutions to the problem, good work, guys.

 

[fix]

puzzleannie:

well like, duh. gee, bishop, what do you think the cause of the crisis is? is it that we have structured our priestly formation system to attract deviates and discourage normal guys, or is it that we have adopted the cover-up as normal means of doing business and to h— with pastoral concerns, or is that we have been disobeying canon law and church teaching for so long it has become a habit? Well, I don’t know, bishop, it is probably just that we are victims of media bias. why don’t we do another study and find out.

as long as you keep doing studies you have an excuse to avoid solutions to the problem, good work, guys.

Right. There is little purpose to such studies. Errors that are glaring are overlooked while more studies are done to find the obvious.

 

[otm]

TPJCatholic:

otm,

You are correct to say sexual abuse pre-dates Vatican II, yet in your statements you seem to be implying that there was the same level of abuse before the council, as there was after the council…that is simply demonstrably false. According the report given to the USCCB, sexual abuse peaked well “after” the second Vatican council, once dissent was in full bloom. Please carefully review the following links:

http://www.usccb.org/nrb/johnjaystudy/prev3.pdf

http://www.catholicleague.org/research/abuse_in_social_context.htm

I am quite aware of the statistics. In the mid 80’s a priest in the Archdiocese of Oregon was found to be an abuser. When the news hit the press, my mother immediately called with the question “Did he ever touch you?”. I had been riding to school with him when I was in high school. (No, he didn’t, but he gave me the creeps).

I was really trying to make a couple of points. 1) the thread started about the possibility of getting good research. 2) the cause of the abuse was and is, at its roots, homosexuality. 3) a large protion of the abuse was by priests who were ordained prior to Vatican 2, which would indicate also that the tremendous rise in dissent occred well after they were ordained; therefore it is irrelevant to try to point at either Vatican 2 or the subsequent dissent casuing poor priestly formation as the caasue, or even a cause, of the abuse.

A couple of other points. The abusers are the main source of the scandal, but a secondary, and in at least certain circumstances a very major cause of the scandal was the failure of bishops to address the abuse properly. Although some bishops may be appointed in their 40’s, most are in their 50’s. Almost every one, if not every one of the bishops who failed to address abusing priests properly was ordained anywhere form before Vatican 2, to long before Vatican 2.

In addition, there is a bit of a knee-jerk response to the issue of “dissent”. There is a lot of difference between dissenting from a doctrinal issue and dissenting from a disciplinary issue. Further, much of what is labeled dissent runs more in the issue of poor training than intentional rejection of the disciplinary issue. Failure to distinguish between these issues results in labeling people as dissenters, when they truly are not dissenting; what they are doing is more in the order of disobeying, or sloppy practice, or failure to make an informed judgement. It gets so broad (the use of the word “dissent”), that someone who sins (e.g. the practicing homosexual) is labeled a dissenter because they violated a Commanment. That reduces us all to dissenters, at which point the conversation about dissent becomes essentially meaningless.

 

[fix]

otm:

a large protion of the abuse was by priests who were ordained prior to Vatican 2, which would indicate also that the tremendous rise in dissent occred well after they were ordained; therefore it is irrelevant to try to point at either Vatican 2 or the subsequent dissent casuing poor priestly formation as the caasue, or even a cause, of the abuse.

When did the majority of abuse occur? In the 1940s-50s or 60-80s?

A couple of other points. The abusers are the main source of the scandal, but a secondary, and in at least certain circumstances a very major cause of the scandal was the failure of bishops to address the abuse properly. Although some bishops may be appointed in their 40’s, most are in their 50’s. Almost every one, if not every one of the bishops who failed to address abusing priests properly was ordained anywhere form before Vatican 2, to long before Vatican 2.

What years did the cover ups occur during?

In addition, there is a bit of a knee-jerk response to the issue of “dissent”. There is a lot of difference between dissenting from a doctrinal issue and dissenting from a disciplinary issue. Further, much of what is labeled dissent runs more in the issue of poor training than intentional rejection of the disciplinary issue. Failure to distinguish between these issues results in labeling people as dissenters, when they truly are not dissenting; what they are doing is more in the order of disobeying, or sloppy practice, or failure to make an informed judgement. It gets so broad (the use of the word “dissent”), that someone who sins (e.g. the practicing homosexual) is labeled a dissenter because they violated a Commanment. That reduces us all to dissenters, at which point the conversation about dissent becomes essentially meaningless.

Dissent, lack of faithfulness, is the issue. An environement that encourages dissent, poor formation, which is related to bad theology, dissent and liturgical abuse and gate keepers with an agenda, all helped form the abuse scandal. Keep in mind the abuse scandal is but one of many scandals plaguing the Church today.

 

[TPJCatholic]

otm,

I feel you are forgetting a couple major elements.

First, the culture began its sharp decay into moral relativism at roughly the same time of Vatican II (roughly). You are correct when you say most Priests during the peak of the abuse crisis were likely ordained before Vatican II; however, you are failing to note that Priests have become (by and large) a product of the culture and not a product of their formation and faith. Many Priests in pre-Vatican II days and years have taken on the culture, rather then trying to convert the culture.

Second, while your point that the Priests were likely ordained before Vatican II is quite accurate, you are not recognizing that at that time seminaries were not looking at the orientation of candidates coming into the system–that only began in the early 90s, which is why the abuse cases dropped so dramatically in the 90s and even to this day.

The numbers tell the story of cultural decay, along with the decay of our clergy in the exact same timeframe…that is no accident. Also, the numbers show us that once the Church started looking at orientation (late eighties to early nineties) the numbers of abuses dropped like a rock.

The relativistic cults of the 60s lead to the decay we have seen in the culture and the Priesthood. Gladly, it seems we are moving beyond those darker days and towards a more orthodox faith. If the Church leads, the culture will slowly change.

 

[Exporter]

The Original Question was :“The U.S. bishops are commissioning a study on the causes of sex abuse by clergy. And they are looking at the problem in terms of an epidemic.”

The U.S. Bishops will “look into” the cause of sex abuce by the clergy". They want to hire a neutral research group to tell them why some clergy are guilty of sex abuses. This may take six months to find such a research group. Then the study will take over a year, maybe two, to get the results. Then the results will be delivered to the Bishops. They will take another year to decide what the results mean. Maybe after four years pass the U.S. Bishops will make a statement. Then it will take another yesr to do a thing about it.

If Walmart had the same problem amoung their supervisors and managers…how long do you thik it would take for Walmart to TAKE ACTION? Walmart has more “employees” than the Church in the U.S. I would think Walmart would take action within three months.

 

[otm]

Philip P:

Just to interject for a second here, are those who believe that the cause of the sex abuse scandal is homsexuality implying that had it been heterosexual priests abusing girls, that would have been ok? It seems to me that what’s at issue is that 1) that there are sexual predators in the clergy and 2) that for too long, their presence was tolerated. I fail to see how debating homosexuality advances the pressing need to protect our children and restore confidence in our bishops.

Approximately 80% of the abuse was between priests and boys. It does not appear that the remaining 20% were priests and girls, because some of the 20% was between priests and seminarians over the age of 18.

No one is suggesting that any form of abuse be tolerated. There do not appear to be any reliable statistics as to how many priests are homosexual, but the general consensus is that is probably in the range of 20 to 30% (there has been one estimate at 80%). If we assume 20%, and 80% of the problem is from a sub-group of 20%, then the reason for the focus becomes much more clear in terms of long-term direction. That is, the question has been posed as to whether or not the Church should ordain a man who is homosexual by orientation, or has those tendencies.

By asking that question, no one is ignoring or suggesting that any other forms of abuse do not need to be addressed.

I hope that makes the reason for the study more clear.

 

[otm]

Kevin Walker:

I agree.

A homosexual is going to lie about his homosexuality and thus become a Priest under false pretenses

That is rather a broad statement, and more than a bit judgemental. A few of them may, but many will be honest about their orientation; furhter, a good psychological assessment can sort out at least a good part of one’s orientation (as well as a thorough background investigation). There is no reason to assume that all homosexuals are going to lie about their orientation; some will and some won’t.
Kevin Walker:

The homosexual always has a hidden agenda, in this case, the homosexual uses the Catholic Church to provide an all male environment, to gain access to boys and young men under cover as Priest, and to have all his basic needs provided for him.

Again, an overbroad assumption that all homosexual priests are entering the priesthood with the intent to abuse young boys. Given that only a portion of the homosexual priests have abused boys, the facts do not support your judgemental statement.

Underlying your judgemental call seems to be the assumption that if one is a homosexual, then one is an active homosexual. That is no more valid an assumption than to assume that because one is a heterosexual, one is a sexually active heterosexual. and that is part of the issue that the Church has been struggling with for quite some time.
Kevin Walker:

Any all-male institution the world over has had this problem throughout history, even the celebate Buddhist monastaries in today’s Korea and China have a homosexual problem.

True. Part of the difficulty is that there are a number of incidentals of the priesthood that can make it very attractive to someone who is homosexual, and have absolutely nothing to do with any sinfulness.
Kevin Walker:

The Jesuit Order was founded in 1600 in part to counter the Reformation; what we need today is a new order to counter homosexuality in the Priesthood.

And what makes you think such an order would not be attractive to some homosexuals?
Kevin Walker:

Zero tolerance of homosexual priests is the only way to safeguard the integrity of Catholic Priesthood.

On that point, many would agree. In fact, Rome has made such statements, which have obviously been ignored; and there is no evidence that it has been ignored only by America, or America and Europe.

The difficulty is going to be getting the hierarchy to actually do something, and the cause of the difficulty will be the question of how many of the hierarchy, and the various individuals below the level of bishop in the Church bureaucracy, are either homosexual, or know other priests/bishops/Cardinals who are homosexual. The question revolves not around the approval of a homosexual lifestyle, but around the approval of those either not involved in the homosexual lifestyle, or not openly involved. It is tantamount to the comment “physician, heal thyself”.

The depth of this problem is far greater than most people realize, and the solutions are anything but simple.

 

[otm]

Kevin Walker:

I ask the question again. Is there an equivalent organization in the USA to N.A.M.B.L.A. which is trying to lower the legal age of sexual consent for girls? The answer is NO.

Perhaps you should look at the agenda NARAL and Planned Parenthood. As they have actively promoted the distribution of contraceptives to young teenage girls and the e opposition to Parental Consent and Information, I would say that they actively promote either the lowering of age of consent or simply doing away with the issue
Kevin Walker:

Homosexuality is *de facto *the problem behind the massive amounts of sexual abuse the world over in the Catholic Church, not heterosexuality!

Maybe you might look at the issue of celibacy in Africa particularly, and other areas outside of Europe and the US before you make such a bold statement.

 

[otm]

Kevin Walker:

I really have to disagree with this observation. Total zero tolerance of sexual abuse in the Catholic Priesthood is an absolute necessity, and even one incident cannot be condoned.

There is no child on this planet, male or female, that I would tolerate any sexual abuse towards as inevitable, and therefore an acceptable percentage.

The reprecussions for that child are just too horrible to contemplate; a lot of child sexual abuse victims have ended up committing suicide at a fairly young age, signifying the pain and mental duress they experience every hour of every day since that abuse took place.

So we do not try to lower sexual abuse within the Catholic Church as close to zero as possible, we make it zero. And this is done by ferreting out and defrocking every homosexual Priest currently ordained in the Catholic Church.

TPJ and you are on the same page. He said nothing of tolerating abuse. He simply remarked that no matter what steps are taken, there is no way to guarantee zero abuse. There is no way to make it zero. We can all agree that the Church needs a major change of direction.
Let me state TPJ’s statement another way. The Church has zero tollerance for embezzelment. But occasionally, even with all the accounting checks and balances on parish finances, occasionally a priest embezzels. Zero tollerance is never going to equate with zero abuse; it seeks zero abuse but the reality is that abuse will occur.
We can all agree that a priest who violates someone under the age of 18 should never be given that opportunity again. However, defrocking may not always be the best answer, for any number of reasons. However, all of this strays from the original question of the thread.

 

[TPJCatholic]

otm

You summarized my position very well. Thanks for the assist.