What Is The Cause Of Priestly Debauchery?

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A long read but I thoroughly enjoyed reading the version by Abbé Francois Trochu
 
The Media is pretty guilty of misquoting Pope Francis and stirring things up. Pope Francis’ English is not as fluent as his Spanish or Italian or Latin. Therefore it’s easy to spin a partial statement of his out of context.
 
I appreciate all of the wisdom offered here. I was hoping for a Deep, rather than Shallow-Head-In-Sand discussion. I noticed my own Priest, a wonderful kind man, wore an altered expression during Mass last Sunday. His honest face looked ashamed, angry, preoccupied. This is certainly a difficult time for the Good Shepherds.
 
let me understand. you don’t want to point fingers and get abusers out of the ministry? that’s bad?
 
For starters, they relaxed a lot of the rules in screening for the seminary. Combine that with modernism and this idea that you could use your “conscience” to justify just about anything and no concept of mortal sin or fear of hell took any shackles off and gave them free reign.

I also think it’s important for laypeople to not forget to pray or even fast for good priests.
 
I think the short answer is evil and spiritual factors but the long answer is more complex.

Ie:i honestly think that for some of these priests there is some sort of psycho-sexual-social immaturity thing/distorted worldview going on.
I don’t believe the Catholic Church teaches a warped view on sexuality,(actually the contrary it teaches a “better view” of sex then the ‘world’ and that it shouldn’t be just casual or men using women etc), but in the old days there was some Catholics that were either taught taught,or misinterpreted, that sex was shameful etc so they develop some ‘interesting’ pathology around it.
I’ve actually heard a priest say something along those lines (older priest approx 10 years ago).
It almost seems like some of those priests doing those gay sex abuses to children don’t have a clear understanding that they aren’t on the ‘same level’ as those children as from what I’ve read they seem to view it not as a crime but as a sin they had ‘participated in together’.
It’s like they aren’t registering that the mindset of a child is not the same as an adult etc.

I think these priests lack mental and emotional maturity but when they went into the priesthood they wer probably accepted because those things probably weren’t known or discussed as much (especially openly) as they are today.

Apart from those ones, and this is scary to think about,but maybe some other priests have intentionally gone into the job knowing they can be close to children/trusted ?
 
Flor said:
. What should Pope Francis do to change the Culture of Debauchery ?
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Pope Francis should do what he has called all in the Church to do . . . . . . .Fast and Pray .

I wonder how many are so concerned about the abuse scandal that they have actually responded to Pope Francis’ call by fasting and praying .


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Flor said:
what has caused it in the first place ?
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Failure to properly screen seminary candidates.
Failure to collect complaints of sexual abuse.
Failure to remove credibly accused clergy.
Flor said:
What should Pope Francis do to change the Culture of Debauchery
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Properly screen seminary candidates.
Properly collect accusations of misconduct.
Properly remove clergy credibly accused.
 
The cause is men committing evil. The guilt lies with those individuals who carried out these acts and those individuals who covered for them.

We need to be very careful about blaming institutional structures etc as this can end up shifting the guilt.

I also find it hard to accept the ‘lack of emotional maturity’ argument. Is it really that hard for someone to grasp that molesting a child, or using your position of authority to gain sexual acts from others, is very wrong? How emotionally mature does a person need to be to realise that?
 
I think that as a “Man of God” priests held a certain amount of religious authority over ordinary Catholics… sadly that authority has been abused by some priests…and it’s probably been happening for centuries because nobody could challenge their authority…it’s easy to see how corruption and evil could flourish under those conditions…I once had a workmate from Chile…he told me one of his cousins who was a priest in Chile had urged him to join the priesthood…he said they had the best food…the best wine…even women…power…no one dared criticize them…my workmate told me he had never set foot in a Catholic church after his cousin told him those things.
 
Pretty sure the causes are so multiple and so inter-meshed that untangling that rat’s nest is pretty near impossible. When we are understandably horrified and want one quick and easy answer, we lay open the potential to not only NOT reverse this crisis but to add more injustice and crisis into the mix.

Bishop Robert Barron has some good suggestions, including full investigation by a team of lay forensic investigators. We can’t really fix a problem when we don’t have accurate information about the who, what, where, when, and how of it. The why we may never really understand. For sure, there is a deep culture of “keep it in the family” within the Church hierarchy that has become a particularly vicious cycle. There have been mistakes made, some honest (such as thinking that sexual offenders only need “rehab”), some not honest (such as "you hide my sins, I’ll hide yours). The speculation and sensationalism of the media, the demand for “purging” and the zero tolerance for any misstep on the part of anyone even remotely involved in wrong doing is not going to make anyone want to step up and say “Here is what I knew and this is what I didn’t do about it”. Remember, these men can’t just go find another job. They literally are dependent on the Church for their everything. Its not an excuse, or even a suggestion that they shouldn’t come forward, but I completely empathize with the fear of losing, literally everything. Even those who are completely innocent are afraid they will be dragged out and set up as an example.

Obviously, we need to fast and pray. So many brush this aside and it is truly the core of any reform. People would much rather yell and scream and make demands and carry signs, because it makes them feel better. But praying and fasting, while requiring considerably more self-discipline and devotion to God, is more effective.

Stricter vetting for seminaries has also been suggested.

It took years for the crisis to get this big…it will take time to solve it.
 
AlNg said:
n IMHO, it would help to require all priests to marry, although allowing some exceptions. I don’t think that this would be a total cure, but I think it would help to alleviate things.
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This ignores the fact that the vast majority of sex abuse cases involve homosexual abuse against teenage boys and young men. So requiring homosexual men and child molesters to marry is not going to fix anything; instead screen out people who do not have real vocations from the seminary. How about putting the burden on the married laity to be open to life and have large families and inculcating the faith in their children in order to increase the pool of potential vocations? As for married priests, a man then has to be concerned with his wife and raising children, as if that alone is not a vocation in itself that takes 100% of your life. Furthermore, with all due respect, wives can be known to nag their husbands; I can already hear it now, the poor fellow trying to juggle both vocations…

“ oooh, you think you’re sooo holy—how about you spend more time with your family?? We need a new house! You need to ask for a raise. More children? We can’t even afford the one’s we have! You’re never home, you don’t love me anymore. You left all your church stuff out again, how many times do I have to tell you that I’m not your maid, I’m NOT cleaning up after you. Friday is our date night! How could you forget?? Sorry but our anniversary falls on that date, tell the bishop you can’t make it. Johnny has his recital on Wednesday, it would be nice if his father would show up for a change. Tell the bishop that your wife is NOT happy! . . …

32 I would like you to be free from concern. An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord’s affairs—how he can please the Lord. 33 But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world—how he can please his wife— 34 and his interests are divided. An unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the Lord’s affairs: Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit. But a married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world—how she can please her husband. 35 I am saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord. 1 Cor. 7:32-35
 
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They lost their way, they forgot why they became Priests in the first place—SERVICE to the Church to others and to God.

I don’t know if some of them really knew why they became priests from the get go…I once saw a local talk show on TV where 3 newly ordained priests were being interviewed…not one of them when asked why they had become priests…mentioned anything about being called by God to serve his church…no mention of Jesus Christ…it was just mundane answers like helping people…a respected position etc…and you’re right about you can’t require somebody to marry…Protestants have just as many…if not more Pastors…Ministers who have committed sexual abuse…it’s just harder to investigate because many Protestant churches are their own authority…when I was a Pentecostal (decades ago) I heard of a few instances where Pastors had suddenly left their church…much later you would hear that in most cases it was because of infidelity with one of the female congregation…there are investigations over sexual assaults in the armed forced…the police forces…now we are hearing i in the TV/movie industries…the scouts have had problems…etc…etc…marriage won’t make a difference…how many sexual abuse cases happen within families…some Catholics are calling for women to become priests…what does that prove except that for 2 thousand years the church founded by Jesus Christ and who said his church would be guided by the Holy Spirit made a mistake by not choosing any women among his Apostles.
 
I’m about four minutes - at the very end of the night - Catholic.
 
Flor said:
Because many of the Priests, and Bishops, surely started out with good hearts and intended to serve God with their entire lives. Something must have happened, a defining moment when they turned into a monster.
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This is an error in your thinking. People do not “turn into monsters”. They are still people.

We use the term “monster” because we want to somehow dissociate humanity from acts that we think are particularly heinous. The humanity is still there though. The priests who committed, or may have committed, awful acts were doing all kinds of good things, probably at the same time. They were marrying people and baptizing babies and giving counseling and saying the Mass. They may have also been marching for civil rights or trying to make peace in some part of their area or the world.

I recently read the online obit of an accused priest and people left guest book comments. Most of them were very positive remembrances of how well this priest taught Confirmation prep and how he was always there for parishioners. One lady remembered how she attended the parish school and one day fell down on the playground and the other kids made fun of her for falling. The priest saw this and took her off to the rectory, made her a peanut butter sandwich and cheered her up.

People sin a little, they think oh it doesn’t matter, others are doing it, I can get away with it…then they sin more. They get in a habit of sinning. As the GnR song goes, “I used to do a little but the little wouldn’t do it so the little got more and more.”

The sins get bigger and the person can’t find his way out of them gracefully.

Also if you are among a group of others (such as other priests) committing sins, it becomes normal after a while. Or if abuse was committed on you as a young person, it may seem like just how things go. Whatever you live around, becomes the new normal for you. This is why you need to avoid bad companions.

I worked in the criminal justice system for a while and one thing you discover is that murderers and such are people too. I worked with people who admitted to doing awful things. Often they were under the influence of alcohol or drugs when they did them. One sweet Christian lady had gotten so whacked out on crack that she set her mother-in-law on fire.

Not monsters. People. There but for the grace of God, many of us might have gone.
 
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Rob2 said:
I wonder how many are so concerned about the abuse scandal that they have actually responded to Pope Francis’ call by fasting and praying .
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The reason for the pope calling for fasting and prayer is because fasting and prayer is the ONLY way to rid certain demons entrenched in the clergy. We see how Jesus told the apostles how certain demons can only be exorcised through fasting and prayer. So if we really want do do something tangible to help the situation, then fast and pray. Since he became pope, Pope Francis has warned about the devil more than any pope in recent history. One has to realize that the army of the devil targets those who are in God’s camp, so the Church, the clergy and the Christian laity re prime targets for demonic activity; thus the need to always pray lest one falls into temptation.

There’s the story of Mother Teresa asking a priest about his prayer life; when he confessed that he was too busy to pray much, she said “o father, you’re not going to make it”…

Prayer and fasting. People often hear it but don’t do it. Yet it is prescribed throughout the Bible. Imagine if the amount of time that people devoted to criticizing and complaining was diverted to prayer and fasting, entire legions of wicked spirits and fallen angels would be vanquished… it’s a spiritual war against the forces of hell; not merely an administrative problem. So yes, prayer and fasting is a powerful weapon…
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I can see how an individual fasting could help make that individual an uncomfortable place to dwell in but in what way would me fasting help the Church?
This is a genuine query.
 
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