Why does the Church keep failing on sexual abuse?

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Yes, I mean a homo pervert problem. Celibacy is not the problem, per se. Just look at Jerry Sandusky. But when you have a system in which men have vowed to give up their sex lives, you are going to attract a fair number of weirdos with “issues”. Perhaps married priests should be seriously considered.
 
But since more pedophiles are married men, having married priests is going to ramp up the pedophilia, and the homosexual problem is going to remain the same, because the majority of pedophilia cases are men on boys.
 
Not to mention the fact that we also open up the gates to married Catholic priests who are sued for divorce by their spouses and whose alimony and child support will be paid by the diocese. . .also the "preachers’ kids’ syndrome which is well known to Protestant pastors will hit the ‘priests’ kids’. . .
 
the press is by and large liberal, with little knowledge of the Faith, and a significant disdain, if not outright hatred of what it perceives the Church to be.

Further, sex sells, scandal sells, and good stuff doesn’t.

The current scandal re: Pennsylvania is old news. McCarrick is not. And the church, because if is world wide, makes a far better target for national news than does the local grade/high school, or just about any other institution.

And a good number of the bishops who resided over the chaos are already dead, not that such fact would slow down either the news or the District Attorney/Federal Prosecutor/Attorney General.
 
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The recent scandal in the Baptist Churches shows that the problems that the RC faces isn’t primarily due to celibacy, homosexuality or married Preists. These Baptist’s were heterosexual, married and not celibate.

We need to start searching for what the problems REALLY are.
 
I’m going to say it’s because the Church is an institution, and institutions naturally prioritise protecting the interests of the institution and its leadership. This is by no means unique to the Catholic Church. We see it in virtually every institutional setting in which sexual abuse has occurred. Indeed, in the UK currently we have an inquiry that is addressing institutional failings in addressing child sexual abuse, including churches, schools, prisons, local authorities, and central government.

For example, it is now known that the late Sir Cyril Smith, a sometime mayor of Rochdale and for twenty years the town’s MP, was a sadistic and prolific paedophile. However, he was seemingly protected by various institutions, including the police, MI5, and prosecutors, because of his public position, in particular because as Liberal Party chief whip in the House of Commons he would have played a key role had the Liberal Party been called upon to enter a coalition government.

The Catholic Church has finally come to the realisation that protecting abusers within its ranks is actually counterproductive, as the cover-up does more harm to institutional reputation than the abuse itself. Sadly, there are other institutions that have no yet caught up.
 
Wow. This is a bit of an over-statement. If a priest divorces in the Anglican Church, he/she alone pays for child support/alimony not the diocese. I wouldn’t worry too much of the pk thing. Seems like you are looking for problems that aren’t there.
 
Might seem that way but we have had PKs (in the Protestant branch of the family) and it was extremely rough on everyone.
 
When 81% of the sexual abuse of children was with teenagers and when 90% of that was with boys, homosexuality most definitely was the problem. It may not have been the only problem, but it was the largest issue in the abuse.

And lacking information similar to the John Jay report, it is not possible to make any sort of comparison.
 
JimG said:
This writer believes that homosexuality is the elephant in the sacristy.
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Quite frankly, when I attended seminary in the late 80’s the place did harbour a significant homosexual subculture. Ironically we had a rule that women (other than family) were not permitted in our rooms. Of course there was no barrier to other men in those rooms. The article mentions an interesting and valid point, most of the men who leave seminary end up marrying and having families. This is my experience as well. The gay guys stayed behind and good ordained, but most of the straight guys moved on. It didn’t help that the rector was himself gay.
 
To an extent, let’s not forget the timeline, I thought things were getting better on a timely basis. This is all some pain alright.
 
That’s what I have been saying. It’s the all-male, celibate, closed environment that frequently attracts men with serious problems with their sexuality. It is a place for them to hide, and never have to explain to anyone why they aren’t married. Those men make bad priests.

Opening the priesthood to mature, married men would greatly expand the pool of applicants and dilute the weirdos in the seminaries. So then if there are a lot more seminarians in the pipeline, bishops might be more inclined to quickly deep-six the misfits and perverts.
 
I find it a bit laughable that a man is somehow automatically more mature or more balanced or not a “weirdo” or is somehow less likely to be a sexual abuser just because he is married. Marriage or a steady relationship is just as good of a way for these types to “hide” as the priesthood. Perhaps better because in a marriage or steady relationship, they may have access to children, stepchildren, nieces, nephews, friends of the family’s children, etc. to abuse.

There are married sexual abusers all over the place, as well as many unmarried ones who have steady partners and still go out and abuse on the side. Being married is not any guarantee of a man not being an abuser, and if we ever have married priests, we’ll probably discover that the hard way.
 
someone said:
One suspicion I have (although this hasn’t yet been substantiated) is that many good intentioned men recognized that they had unnatural and immoral sexual desires, and thus couldn’t enter into married life. Wanting to do something positive with their life, they chose the priesthood.

As a result, a sizable percentage of the priesthood was/is full of men who have unnatural desires but were trying to do the right thing. When temptation presented itself, many of them unfortunately ended up giving in and thus destroying the lives of other individuals.
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It seems much more likely that these men entered the priesthood to take advantage of that position in order to perpetrate these crimes. The Bishops at the time made the wrong call and tried to cover it up. This ended up magnifying the scandal in the end.
 
It’s likely that some predators chose the priesthood because they felt it was a good environment to carry out their predatory activities.

I have, however, read in the past that there were a significant number of pedophiles and ephebophiles who opted for the priesthood, believing that the Church forcing them to be celibate would ensure that they didn’t act on their desire. But when they actually got in the priesthood and found themselves around minors, they succumbed to temptation.
 
I find that hard to believe to be honest. I certainly don’t think the majority were of that mindset. In my experience these people were master manipulators and were often charismatic “pillar of the community” types, which meant that people trusted them even more.
 
I am sure there are different kinds of people committing sexual abuse, just like there are different kinds of people committing homicide. I’m aware of one accused priest who was an alcoholic and not exactly a big “pillar of the community”, and another who self-reported an incident from the past and had himself removed even though the victim had apparently never come forward.
 
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