Vatican’s McCarrick report says Pope John Paul II knew of misconduct allegations nearly two decades before cardinal’s removal

[StudentMI]

First there has to be an honest admission as the the extent and nature of the problem. Until we get there, there is no chance of real improvement.

Sorry to butt in. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem like the Vatican is moving in that direction as per this post.

https://forums.catholic-questions.org/t/u-k-the-independent-inquiry-child-sexual-abuse-child-sexual-abuse-in-the-roman-catholic-church-report/633323/3?u=studentmi

 

[stpurl]

Yep. There are a lot of problems. And some have known more than they let on, and some have lied about it.

But we have a double-edged problem here.

Part of the problem is sexual abuse itself. There are many different kinds of abuse. And every person who engages in abuse can have a different story, so it’s not like we can assume that if we find a priest who has abused a seminarian that ‘all priests abuse seminarians because they were:
1.Abused themselves.
2.Denied normal sexual outlets.
3.Are truly attracted to other males.
4.Are psychologically immature.
5.Did so for power.
6.Did so out of delusions.
Etc. Etc.

A lot of people think that priests abuse ‘children’ because ‘they can’t have women’ and that IF the Catholic Church does away with celibacy that the ‘sexual abuse’ will stop.

Look around at the outside world where men abuse children. Most of these men are married. Knocks out ‘can’t have women’ as an excuse. And these men have tons of ‘female networks’ out there. What’s the world like with men and women interacting? Is there a lot of sexual abuse of women by men? Hmm, wonder why that is.

And the other part is the ‘coverup’. Setting aside that the vast majority of cases occurred in the Church (since we’re going into the ‘this has been for centuries’ long view) LONG before the late 1980s ‘discovery’ from the AMA that ‘gasp’ pedophilia (which is what most have ‘determined’ is the sex abuse of priests, since the majority of ‘experts’ refuse to call it homosexual) CANNOT BE CURED.

Gasp. For much of the 20th century it was assumed that those with ‘addictions’ whether it was gambling, alcohol, or sex, could be ‘cured’ and then allowed to have a ‘clean slate’. This was considered to protect the victim and the ‘now cured’ person. I’m not saying it was right, or wrong, but it was ‘what was known’. So up until at the earliest 30 years ago, and in places where the actual data wasn’t really known, bishops who sent the ‘cured’ (according to doctors) priests to another parish were not doing this to ‘keep the Church clean’, they were doing it to be ‘Christ-like’ to all. You know, the repentant sinner and all that. Again, it was what it was.

So we have a very complex situation here. And people want it fixed ‘yesterday’, while most of them still disagree as to why it happened, and how to ‘fix’ it.

 

[TMC]

So we have a very complex situation here. And people want it fixed ‘yesterday’, while most of them still disagree as to why it happened, and how to ‘fix’ it.

Yes, we have a complex situation that has plagued the Church for centuries. And which the leaders of the Church have affirmatively covered up for the same period. So we need to figure out why that is.

Why does this institution have this long standing problem that is so embedded in its culture that otherwise upstanding men are driven to lie about it and participate in cover ups? We need to stop pretending (or assuming) that this is merely a handful of individual sinners. Or that it is somehow the fault of modern culture (despite the problem predating modernity). Until those core issues are addressed, everything else is a bandaid on a gunshot wound.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

I won’t go into it here other than to say the sooner the Church abandons priestly celibacy, the better.

Marriage isn’t going to solve the problem. There’s been a ton of married men who commit sexual abuse. Sometimes even on their own kids. We see this in the community with coaches, schoolteachers, ministers, you name it.

What solves the problem is a mechanism to not only screen out those likely to abuse, but to quickly get rid of those who actually do abuse, whether they are abusing children of either gender, teens of either gender, or adults of either gender, and whether or not they are married.

I’m always baffled as to why people think a married man somehow is not going to commit abuse when we have examples like Jerry Sandusky. It’s a dangerous way to think.

 

[ATraveller]

Marriage isn’t going to solve the problem.

I’m against priestly celibacy since I’m on the other side of the Tiber. But you’re right, marriage doesn’t fix deviance. Americans can easily look to the string of abuse cases by married Southern Baptist pastors exposed last year.

And there was a recent Anglican YouTube show that referenced the stats that show there’s no difference in the number of abusers in Protestant churches or Catholic ones or even with schools, scout masters or sports teams. The difference with Catholicism, in addition to cover ups being amplified by a a more centralized structure, is that the abusers have more access to children. I’ll try to find that episode.
Edit:
The Episcopal priest is also a journalist for a conservative Anglican website.
I skipped it to 28:45 for the most important part but they brought in Catholicism at 26:22 and the entire topic of Anglican scandals started at 15:00.

 

[ATraveller]

A transcript of the key points:

The rate of offending in the Catholic Church is no greater than the rate of offending in Protestant churches or among schoolteachers or among scout masters. There’s nothing about being a Catholic priest statistically that makes you more likely to be an offender. It’s the same ratio

The biggest problem the Roman Catholic Church had is they just passed them from one parish to the other parish. There was a lot of shell game with pedophile priest.

The Episcopal Church, there was a case we reported where a Massachusetts priest who was a chaplain at a boys school, took some boys from Rhode Island up to Massachusetts. While he was in Massachusetts he molested them. And the headmaster found out and basically said, “Goodbye” and the guy went and got a job as a priest in North Carolina. The headmaster said, “you know, get out of here. I don’t want to know anymore”, and this man went on to offend at his parish in the wet mountains of western North Carolina for 10, 15 years until he was finally thrown into prison.

School administrators are just as likely to shuffle people around or put them, um, but actually have more money so they can put them on indefinite leave.

And here’s another episode:

There was a mini freakout last week or two weeks ago when you reported that the incidence of sexual abuse and child sexual abuse happen as much as in Protestant churches as the Roman Catholic Church. And this report [from England’s Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse] kind of clarifies that. It says, “yeah that’s what we’re finding” and we saw the same in the NZ report and the Australia report: that being Roman Catholic doesn’t make you a special pedophile. It happens in all denominations.

The difference is that the rate of offending among clergy is roughly the same. However, in the Catholic system with parochial schools, one offender may abuse a hundred, 150 boys over the course of the ministry while a parish priest who’s an offender may abuse in the Anglican system 4 or 5 over his ministry because he doesn’t have access to the victims. […] The studies coming out- I can speak only about the United States-the studies that I have read that the rate of offending among clergy, rabbis, schoolteachers, scoutmasters is roughly the same across groups. It’s just that some groups have higher access- more access to people.

 

[jack63]

Profoundly. I won’t go into it here other than to say the sooner the Church abandons priestly celibacy, the better.

I don’t think the Catholic Church should completely abandon the celibacy requirement, and I do not think celibacy causes bad apples like McCarrick or even attracts them.

I do think some older well vetted married men who are Catholic priests and not financially dependent on the Catholic Church would not put up with somebody like McCarrick for a second. Additionally, they would have the means and the life experience to get rid of somebody like him a lot earlier.

 

[OraLabora]

I’m always baffled as to why people think a married man somehow is not going to commit abuse when we have examples like Jerry Sandusky. It’s a dangerous way to think.

It’s not that married men never abuse. It’s that the priesthood is inherently unattractive to good heterosexual men with a mature approach to their sexualities.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

who are Catholic priests and not financially dependent on the Catholic Church

It’s a bit much to expect that someone pursuing what is essentially a career path as a Catholic priest is not going to be financially dependent on the Church. We’re all financially dependent on our employers, except for the small percentage of folks who are independently wealthy. A married man might be less financially dependent on the Church if his wife came from a rich family or has a high-paying career, but it’s likely that a lot of married priests wouldn’t have that kind of a wife. Furthermore, even if they had outside financial resources, there’s still only one place to be a priest if you feel called to that vocation, and that’s within the Catholic Church, unless you’re the type who would just defect to some other church, which many if not most priests aren’t.

I also don’t think those older bishops who saw McCarrick acting up or heard reports on it were lacking in life experience. Bishops aren’t fools, and quite a few of them probably had life experiences along the lines of a Karol Wojtyla where they worked jobs and perhaps even served in the military before they became priests.

The problsm that gave rise to this whole situation was one of institutional culture. If you know that reporting a colleague’s bad behavior will likely result in nothing being done and might even backfire on you, then you have a big incentive to just “see nothing” and report nothing. The colleague who is behaving badly quickly sees he can get away with it and escalates his behavior. Unlike a corporation, the Church has no outside oversight in the form of a board of directors or auditors who could spot these problems and pressure the managers in charge to fix the problems or else be fired.

Hopefully now that the Church has suffered a lot of reputational and financial damage, it will continue to maintain a robust reporting mechanism and swiftly deal with predators. Priests don’t have to be older married men to do that.

 

[OraLabora]

We need to stop pretending (or assuming) that this is merely a handful of individual sinners. Or that it is somehow the fault of modern culture (despite the problem predating modernity). Until those core issues are addressed, everything else is a bandaid on a gunshot wound.

Indeed. Another question needs to be asked as well: why has this culture of systematic abuse and coverups occurred in the Christian Church with the most severe, restrictive and granular approach to sexuality?

I’m not saying it’s the main cause. But to exclude it from any serious analysis makes that analysis not serious at all. The proportion of homosexuals in the clergy is much higher than in the general public. Many are active, and we have the scandal of a Cardinal like O’Brien simultaneously preaching virulently against homosexuality while engaging in it himself with his seminarians. I have suspicions about others but CAF rules won’t let me say who I think they are. A good rule of thumb, the more homophobic, the more likely the person is homosexual or is hiding some other sexual issue.

The rot goes to the very top. And it’s called hypocrisy, like the Pharisees imposing a burden on the little people that they themselves can’t be bothered with.

And that is I think a problem with a very dogmatic, rather than human approach to sexuality. Dogma paints the Church into a corner. And increasingly, Catholics are not putting up with it, either voting with their feet, their money, or simply ignoring Church teaching.

The Church wants her cake and eat it too. No abortion but no ABC. No sex outside marriage, no masturbation allowed. Priestly celibacy, but only straight, normal men need apply. As a monk friend says, a sexuality designed for angels, not humans.

 

[twf]

The US is powerful on the world scene, to be sure, but only 5% of Catholics live in the US… I would find it very depressing if a US secular election was a major driving force for anything the Church does at a global level… but who knows…

 

[twf]

Based on your background, I assume your issue is with celibacy for secular priests… as opposed to say monastic celibacy…

 

[IanM]

As a monk friend says, a sexuality designed for angels, not humans.

It sounds like he is unhappy in his job. Perhaps he might feel more at home in another sphere.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Indeed. Another question needs to be asked as well: why has this culture of systematic abuse and coverups occurred in the Christian Church with the most severe, restrictive and granular approach to sexuality?

Being a sexual predator/ sexual abuser is NOT a crime of repressed sexuality. Sexual abuse of another is a crime of power. Being celibate does not turn people into sexual predators, and such people tend to act how they act whether they’re in a celibate culture like the clergy or an un-celibate culture like the movie industry.

The biggest factor in someone becoming a sexual predator is whether they were sexually abused themselves, usually as a minor, because many (though not all) victims perpetuate the pattern as adults.

Unfortunately, these discussions on CAF often conflate sex between consenting adults with rape and abuse, especially when we’re talking about gay sex between men.

McCarrick wasn’t doing what he was doing because of a culture of celibacy or because there were too many gay men in the priesthood. He was on a power trip, just like all the Hollywood actors and producers who have committed serial sexual abuse (and there’s certainly no culture of celibacy or being in the closet out there).

I honestly didn’t think there was still anyone in the world who thought sexual abuse was driven by sexuality and sexual needs/ desires rather than by the need to control another, until I came to CAF and found people posting in that manner.

Muting now because this is not up for discussion as far as I am concerned.

 

[OraLabora]

Based on your background, I assume your issue is with celibacy for secular priests… as opposed to say monastic celibacy…

I’m having grave doubts about monastics as well. Research “particular friendships”. I have first-hand knowledge about several homosexual scandals in the monastic sphere.

There’s a reason the development of Gregorian chant books for the Divine Office has slowed down. The monk at Solesmes in charge of it left in disgrace with his protégé and (male) lover.

The Church has a homosexuality problem. The problem is not that some clergy are gay. The problem is that too many are leading double lives.

It’s this that leads to the culture of coverup. Because coming down too hard on pedophiles risks revealing too many other skeletons in the closet.

This has been a HUGE disappointment for me especially as I have two LGBQT children. It has shaken my faith in the institutional Church to the core.

 

[OraLabora]

Being a sexual predator/ sexual abuser is NOT a crime of repressed sexuality.

I don’t disagree. My premise is that the priesthood simply isn’t attractive to straight normal men. So it attracts those on the sexual margins. It’s the quality of the candidates that is the issue, not repressed sexuality.

 

[KMC]

One of my personal pet peeves with the leadership of the Church is not that these things happen and have happened but in how the Church, which has had centuries to figure it out, has failed time and time again to respond responsibly. I mean, i know governing bodies move slow in their actions but come on, centuries? Why haven’t protections and preventative measures been developed to prevent these things from happening after having centuries to do so?

I only know the situation in the US, but the reforms instituted in 2002 have brought the sexual abuse incident rate to rates lower than virtually any other institution in the US. In 2018, out of more than 50,000 priests in the US, there were credible accusations of abuse against 3. That represents 0.005% of all priests. The incident rate for society in general is 3-4%

However there has never been a really good answer from the Church as to why priests can’t marry if they so desire.

1. Christ was celibate
2. Priests act “in persona Christi”
3. Christ praised celibacy. (Mt 19: 10-12)
4. from a practical perspective, married priests have to split their time more between Church and family. Unmarried priests do not have to deal with the obvious family issues.

 

[KMC]

the sooner the Church abandons priestly celibacy, the better.

Indeed. Another question needs to be asked as well: why has this culture of systematic abuse and coverups occurred in the Christian Church with the most severe, restrictive and granular approach to sexuality?

I’m not saying it’s the main cause. But to exclude it from any serious analysis makes that analysis not serious at all.

The John Jay Report disagrees with you. According to the report: ““Features and characteristics of the Catholic Church, such as an exclusively male priesthood and the commitment to celibate chastity, were invariant during the increase, peak, and decrease in abuse incidents, and thus are not causes of the “crisis”

Also a 2018 report from Psychology Today repeated this: No empirical data exists that suggests that Catholic clerics sexually abuse minors at a level higher than clerics from other religious traditions or from other groups of men who have ready access and power over children (e.g., school teachers, coaches)

Separating Facts About Clergy Abuse From Fiction | Psychology Today

The Church wants her cake and eat it too. No abortion but no ABC. No sex outside marriage, no masturbation allowed. Priestly celibacy, but only straight, normal men need apply. As a monk friend says, a sexuality designed for angels, not humans.

Perhaps your issue is with God? The teachings on abortion, no ABC, no sex outside of marriage, no masturbation, and priestly celibacy find their roots in revelation or or logically connected to what God revealed in revelation.

You seem to think that finding sinful humans within the Church is a surprise. No, Jesus Himself said this would be the case. Mt 13: 47-50 say “the kingdom of heaven is like a net which was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind; when it was full, men drew it ashore and sat down and sorted the good into vessels but threw away the bad.” The Church is the kingdom of heaven, but people forget the Church is comprised of the Church Triumphant, the Church Penitent, and the Church Militant. At some point there will be no Church Militant…the bad will be thrown away. There are other passages to support this if you are interested.

Specifically to what is happening today: Celibacy is not a cause of the abuse. I would ask you provide evidence if you believe contrary. Also, the root cause is man’s sinful nature. I don’t excuse ANY of the abuse or coverups. I want ALL guilty clergy thrown in jail. But, factually, one CANNOT deny that reforms (at least in the US Church) has made great improvements, such that it should be consider a model for other organizations. That does not mean more improvements should not be made…they should…any incident rate above 0.0% is too high.

 

[OraLabora]

You seem to think that finding sinful humans within the Church is a surprise.

I don’t but I expect a higher standard for those, well, called to a higher standard.

 

[Feanor2]

St. JP II was a great and holy Pope. I just don’t think handling the sex abuse crisis was one of his strengths.

I have read that the Pope had a difficult time even understanding that a priest could do such evil things so may have put it out of his mind in some way.