What to say to people who feel betrayed by the Church's cover up of child abuse?

[Zeno11]

I have many friends who have always been practising Catholics, but have lost all allegiance to the Church through the way the scandal of the sexual abuse of children has been handled in the past. They feel they can no longer put their trust in an institution which did everything to protect itself and nothing to protect our most innocent and vulnerable members, and that they can no longer look to the Vatican for spiritual and moral guidance or even feel their conscience allows them to accept the authority of those who have so betrayed them.

These are people who would have unquestioningly accepted anything from a priest, never mind a bishop or Pope. Now they question everything, and feel their voices should and will be heard, but what they want is everything contrary to church teachings. - women priests, contraception, reaching out to all the’ lonely and lost’, such as homosexuals, those in second relationships, people living in sin; they say we should be as Christ was, welcoming sinners, not ‘judging them and finding them wanting’.

What do I say to them?

 

[teachccd]

Christ welcomed people but never their sins…

All practicing Christians have to deal with the betrayal of Judas and the three time denial of Peter. There are no perfect people so these friends of yours would need to seek solitary confinement and even then there would be one sinner there…

 

[HailStarofSea]

Have they heard of St. Mary McKillop?

 

[Ubenedictus]

I have many friends who have always been practising Catholics, but have lost all allegiance to the Church through the way the scandal of the sexual abuse of children has been handled in the past. They feel they can no longer put their trust in an institution which did everything to protect itself and nothing to protect our most innocent and vulnerable members, and that they can no longer look to the Vatican for spiritual and moral guidance or even feel their conscience allows them to accept the authority of those who have so betrayed them.

These are people who would have unquestioningly accepted anything from a priest, never mind a bishop or Pope. Now they question everything, and feel their voices should and will be heard, but what they want is everything contrary to church teachings. - women priests, contraception, reaching out to all the’ lonely and lost’, such as homosexuals, those in second relationships, people living in sin; they say we should be as Christ was, welcoming sinners, not ‘judging them and finding them wanting’.

What do I say to them?

you tell them you are sorry. You are the church and in some way we are all responsible for the other. Apologise on behalf of others. The other concern your friends raised is the human reaction to such unpleasant event, they will find a way to make their opposition look right. Please pray, pray and pray.
Ubenedictus

 

[BlueEyedLady]

Christ welcomed people but never their sins…

All practicing Christians have to deal with the betrayal of Judas and the three time denial of Peter. There are no perfect people so these friends of yours would need to seek solitary confinement and even then there would be one sinner there…

Yeah…except most people find dealing with those past betrayals by individuals much easier to “deal with” than the systematic cover-up of sexual abuse of children that is currently happening.

Yeah, Christians believe that we are all sinners, but that isn’t of much comfort when the vast majority of us don’t molest children and/or protect those who do.

 

[gigi4747]

I have many friends who have always been practising Catholics, but have lost all allegiance to the Church through the way the scandal of the sexual abuse of children has been handled in the past. They feel they can no longer put their trust in an institution which did everything to protect itself and nothing to protect our most innocent and vulnerable members, and that they can no longer look to the Vatican for spiritual and moral guidance or even feel their conscience allows them to accept the authority of those who have so betrayed them.

These are people who would have unquestioningly accepted anything from a priest, never mind a bishop or Pope. Now they question everything, and feel their voices should and will be heard, but what they want is everything contrary to church teachings. - women priests, contraception, reaching out to all the’ lonely and lost’, such as homosexuals, those in second relationships, people living in sin; they say we should be as Christ was, welcoming sinners, not ‘judging them and finding them wanting’.

What do I say to them?

It’s understandable for people, including those of us who were not directly victimized by a priest-predator, to feel betrayed. We WERE betrayed. The faithful were betrayed by predator-priests and even more by those who covered it all up. I accept and defend what the Church teaches on just about everything and I’m a daily Massgoer. But even I don’t trust the hierarchy. I’m kind of astounded that so many do. Not only was the coverup incredibly wrong, but it was also stupid and shortsighted. I don’t know how they couldn’t have foreseen that the whole thing would blow up at some point. And now we are left to be questioned by people like your friends who actually DO have a justified complaint, ie, why should we listen to people who were complicit in evil? And we have to defend the faith in the setting of people who want to exploit the hierarchy’s compromised credibility in order to change Church doctrine.

For myself, I’ll admit to people (if the topic comes up) that I don’t really trust the hierarchy. But the reason I go to Mass and follow Church teachings isn’t to pay homage to the bishops. I remain Catholic because I believe that the Catholic Church is the one that Christ founded and her teachings are biblically-based. So even if bad/stupid/incompetent people infiltrate the Church, I’m not going to deny myself the sacraments, especially the Eucharist. I’m also not going to use other people’s evil/stupidity/incompetence to evade accountability for my own behavior. That is to say, I’m not going to refuse to go to Mass and then blame the abusers and cover-up-ers for that.

As far as your friends’ complaints, I’m a little confused. They went from not questioning ANYTHING to rejecting everything? Well, if that’s the case, I guess you just have to take each problem they have with doctrine on a case by case basis and explain why the Church teaches what it does. I suspect though that your friends were questioning what the Church teaches before the revelations of the sex crimes.

You could also request Masses for abuse victims and their families. I don’t understand why I almost never see Masses being offered for the abuse victims.

God bless!

 

[tbcrawford]

I have many friends who have always been practising Catholics, but have lost all allegiance to the Church through the way the scandal of the sexual abuse of children has been handled in the past. They feel they can no longer put their trust in an institution which did everything to protect itself and nothing to protect our most innocent and vulnerable members, and that they can no longer look to the Vatican for spiritual and moral guidance or even feel their conscience allows them to accept the authority of those who have so betrayed them.

These are people who would have unquestioningly accepted anything from a priest, never mind a bishop or Pope. Now they question everything, and feel their voices should and will be heard, but what they want is everything contrary to church teachings. - women priests, contraception, reaching out to all the’ lonely and lost’, such as homosexuals, those in second relationships, people living in sin; they say we should be as Christ was, welcoming sinners, not ‘judging them and finding them wanting’.

What do I say to them?

We are all upset at the way the abuse scandal has been dealt with.Or we should be.
It was wrong to sweep things under the carpet.We have to stand up and say to those who criticise…yes it was handled wrongly and changes have been made to prevent this happeneing again. We pray for all the victims and for their abusers and we pray the church authorities will pay as much compensation as it takes to heal the victims of the horror they suffered. Human beings make mistakes.The Catholic Church is made of us human beings as members. The church is still the true church established by Jesus but human error has sometimes caused scandal and made mistakes. We must admit this.

As regards some people who have made these comments also making other comments about women priests etc etc these are all individual subjects.

It is hardly surprising that some people will feel disillusioned by what has happened.We can pray for them and say yes it was handled badly and we care very much for every single victim who was abused and the church is working to rectify this never happens in the future.

We can pray for all concerned…the victims,the abusers,the church decision makers who deal with these cases,the church as a whole, for all who have been disillusioned by the way the abuse cases have been handled.

 

[De_Montfort]

I had a friend who had serious hate and anger towards the Church because of the scandel. What I said to him was remember Christ picked Judas. Could it be to show us that evil can show it’s face within the Church. It is very sad that it happened and I pray for all to recover. We need to be on guard of such evil and pray, pray, pray.

 

[Uriah_Betrayed]

I cannot help on the OP question, but I need to know exactly how are we suppose to react to the Priesthood then?

Obviously seeing them as better than normal men is a lie, but I fear nowadays everyone just sees Priests as unnecessary. There isn’t any respect for them anymore, and it seems people will be shielding their children from Priests as if assuming first off that all priests are just sexual deviant pedophiles.

 

[gus]

It upsets me that people have made sexual abuse a Catholic issue. Even the response of Bishops was and is a pretty normal respone even too today. Most people don’t understand the size of Sexual abuse in society and by making it a Catholic issue they become part of the coverup
In the John Jay study using data for 50 year period there were 10,000 reported cases. There were about 1500 priests accused. Over 51% of the priests had one accusation. That means less than. 750 priests accounted for over 9,000 of the cases. Lets put this in prospective.
Last year alone there were a minimum of 650,000 reported cases in the U.S.Some estimates are in the millions.
The Catholic Church is the only institution that I know of that
has put in place a comprensive plan on reporting and prevention.
Will it be 100% stopped? No!!
It does seem to be working. We as Catholics have to be informed and remain dedicated
Who else is doing anything to prevent this crime?
No one that I could see.
We as Catholics should be in the fore front of this war.

 

[PumpkinSeed]

How did the church ‘cover it up’?

If the church didn’t report the molesters to the authorities, then I’d have a problem with it, otherwise its not the churches fault, its the priest or whoever it was that molested the children’s fault.

 

[mini_me640]

How did the church ‘cover it up’?

If the church didn’t report the molesters to the authorities, then I’d have a problem with it, otherwise its not the churches fault, its the priest or whoever it was that molested the children’s fault.

I’m sad to say that not only didn’t bishops report the molesters in many cases, they also moved offending priests to other parishes where they again offended. I am a loyal Catholic, but the way the hierarchy dealt with many of the cases in an effort to keep it quiet is reprehensible. The only defense is that while the Church is perfect, the hierarchy is human and make mistakes. We don’t abandon Peter because of Judas.

 

[hannajomar]

I consider myself a faithful Catholic, and I have serious trouble with this issue. If our Church is to be a moral authority, its members need to behave better than society. And the hierarchy needs to behave better than other members. The thing that sticks in my craw about this whole thing is how the hierarchy appears to have done nothing about this, has not appeared to show remorse about this until they were backed into a legal corner, and losing a lot of money and over this. I have seen too many times where things were treated more as a public relations matter than a matter of the sins of priests. I’ve read too many statements produced by Church institutions that read as though they written by lawyers, not by compassionate ministers representing Jesus Christ.

When someone confronts me about this issue, my response is something along the lines of, “it’s pretty horrible what happened.” There is no defending this, and whenever I hear someone attempt to mitigate this scandal, my stomach churns. Within the last week, I heard someone say in essence, “well, most of these cases were with teenage boys, so it’s not as bad as people are making out to be.” UGH! However, I am still Catholic, I am still dedicated to practicing my faith and trying to live it more and more each day. I love my Church and strive to live in obedience.

I believe we will not move past this until we as a Church are able to just say plainly, It was wrong. A lot of people sinned. And lot of other people allowed them to sin. And a lot of people were seriously hurt by those sins. And it’s very likely that a lot of souls have lost their salvation because of things that happened. We’ve learned many lessons, and will never repeat these mistakes again. If we as a Church are to simply be sincere, this is how I believe we would speak.

 

[tbcrawford]

I consider myself a faithful Catholic, and I have serious trouble with this issue. If our Church is to be a moral authority, its members need to behave better than society. And the hierarchy needs to behave better than other members. The thing that sticks in my craw about this whole thing is how the hierarchy appears to have done nothing about this, has not appeared to show remorse about this until they were backed into a legal corner, and losing a lot of money and over this. I have seen too many times where things were treated more as a public relations matter than a matter of the sins of priests. I’ve read too many statements produced by Church institutions that read as though they written by lawyers, not by compassionate ministers representing Jesus Christ.

When someone confronts me about this issue, my response is something along the lines of, “it’s pretty horrible what happened.” There is no defending this, and whenever I hear someone attempt to mitigate this scandal, my stomach churns. Within the last week, I heard someone say in essence, “well, most of these cases were with teenage boys, so it’s not as bad as people are making out to be.” UGH! However, I am still Catholic, I am still dedicated to practicing my faith and trying to live it more and more each day. I love my Church and strive to live in obedience.

I believe we will not move past this until we as a Church are able to just say plainly, It was wrong. A lot of people sinned. And lot of other people allowed them to sin. And a lot of people were seriously hurt by those sins. And it’s very likely that a lot of souls have lost their salvation because of things that happened. We’ve learned many lessons, and will never repeat these mistakes again. If we as a Church are to simply be sincere, this is how I believe we would speak.

 

[PumpkinSeed]

I’m sad to say that not only didn’t bishops report the molesters in many cases, they also moved offending priests to other parishes where they again offended. I am a loyal Catholic, but the way the hierarchy dealt with many of the cases in an effort to keep it quiet is reprehensible. The only defense is that while the Church is perfect, the hierarchy is human and make mistakes. We don’t abandon Peter because of Judas.

I hope those bishops are locked up. Prison for the rest of their lives. Disgusting.

 

[Sue_Cox]

There is NO excuse for clergy abuse of children, there is even less of an excuse for the appalling cover ups. Instead of agonising about what you should say, use your own heart and mind and say that these crimes are an abberation and should be dealt with in the same way as any others.Stand and be counted with the survivors rather than the perpetrators.
If you ned to ask what to say, you may need to question your humanity!

 

[tbcrawford]

There is NO excuse for clergy abuse of children, there is even less of an excuse for the appalling cover ups. Instead of agonising about what you should say, use your own heart and mind and say that these crimes are an abberation and should be dealt with in the same way as any others.Stand and be counted with the survivors rather than the perpetrators.
If you ned to ask what to say, you may need to question your humanity!

 

[Ubenedictus]

Yeah…except most people find dealing with those past betrayals by individuals much easier to “deal with” than the systematic cover-up of sexual abuse of children that is currently happening.

Yeah, Christians believe that we are all sinners, but that isn’t of much comfort when the vast majority of us don’t molest children and/or protect those who do.

i dont think the previous post was in support of the coverup, it simply answer those who want anything against the church and use ‘christ and sinners’ as excuse.
Ubenedictus

 

[Ubenedictus]

There is NO excuse for clergy abuse of children, there is even less of an excuse for the appalling cover ups. Instead of agonising about what you should say, use your own heart and mind and say that these crimes are an abberation and should be dealt with in the same way as any others.Stand and be counted with the survivors rather than the perpetrators.
If you ned to ask what to say, you may need to question your humanity!

wow good post and welcome to catholic answers, hope you definition of survival isnt ‘anyone who opposes the church’. Welcome.
Ubenedictus

 

[Ubenedictus]

It’s understandable for people, including those of us who were not directly victimized by a priest-predator, to feel betrayed. We WERE betrayed. The faithful were betrayed by predator-priests and even more by those who covered it all up. I accept and defend what the Church teaches on just about everything and I’m a daily Massgoer. But even I don’t trust the hierarchy. I’m kind of astounded that so many do. Not only was the coverup incredibly wrong, but it was also stupid and shortsighted. I don’t know how they couldn’t have foreseen that the whole thing would blow up at some point. And now we are left to be questioned by people like your friends who actually DO have a justified complaint, ie, why should we listen to people who were complicit in evil? And we have to defend the faith in the setting of people who want to exploit the hierarchy’s compromised credibility in order to change Church doctrine.

For myself, I’ll admit to people (if the topic comes up) that I don’t really trust the hierarchy. But the reason I go to Mass and follow Church teachings isn’t to pay homage to the bishops. I remain Catholic because I believe that the Catholic Church is the one that Christ founded and her teachings are biblically-based. So even if bad/stupid/incompetent people infiltrate the Church, I’m not going to deny myself the sacraments, especially the Eucharist. I’m also not going to use other people’s evil/stupidity/incompetence to evade accountability for my own behavior. That is to say, I’m not going to refuse to go to Mass and then blame the abusers and cover-up-ers for that.

As far as your friends’ complaints, I’m a little confused. They went from not questioning ANYTHING to rejecting everything? Well, if that’s the case, I guess you just have to take each problem they have with doctrine on a case by case basis and explain why the Church teaches what it does. I suspect though that your friends were questioning what the Church teaches before the revelations of the sex crimes.

You could also request Masses for abuse victims and their families. I don’t understand why I almost never see Masses being offered for the abuse victims.

God bless!

the heirarchy is really big, try using the qualifier ‘some’, it will make your point true.
Ubenedictus