Why the Recent Spate of New Allegations?

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patrick1945

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The stories and allegations of sexual abuse have been around for over 20 years, or so. I’m curious as to why there’s been this recent upsurge. I would have thought that those who were abused would have come forward years ago, to collect their damages, if nothing else. Granted, some victims may have remained silent out of shame or embarassment.

Unless I’m missing something, this all makes me deeply suspicious of the popular press.
 
There are people who hate the Church because of our position on family and life issues (sex outside of marriage, one marriage only, marriage between man and woman only, no abortion, etc.). They also don’t like our position on celibate priests, male only priests, etc.

Hate is not too strong of a word here, BTW. They really hate us.

The attacks often come at Christmas, Easter and whenever we oppose their plans. Having opposed the abortion-friendly healthcare bill and the Lenten season was a double for them.
 
Thanks for the link, Ed. I still wonder why so many people are just now coming forward. Perhaps I’ve become cynical, but the fact that the media hammered this topic during Holy Week really upset me.

Luther…yes, I know that some (many?) people really do hate us…largely for the reasons that you noted. In a few cases, I’ve losr friends who simply wouldn’t let the topic drop. Whathas surprised me is the unreasoning hatred that some people have for the Church. Even when presented with facts, these people seem to have lost their capacity for clear-headed thinking.

Final note…I don’t like being hated, but, if I’m hated for being Catholic, then, I’m almost proud to be hated.
 
There is no linkage between people hating the Church and what priests did to abuse people under their care.

Well, maybe there is. But, to negate real abuse because the people reporting it have been so hurt that they hate the Church isn’t fair and isn’t Christian.

This is an absolute case of people trying to shoot the messenger. The abuse is not the fault of the people who were abused or the people reporting on it. It is the Church’s fault.
 
PaulinVA said:
There is no linkage between people hating the Church and what priests did to abuse people under their care.

Well, maybe there is. But, to negate real abuse because the people reporting it have been so hurt that they hate the Church isn’t fair and isn’t Christian.

This is an absolute case of people trying to shoot the messenger. The abuse is not the fault of the people who were abused or the people reporting on it. It is the Church’s fault.
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The link is definitely there. If anyone did a little research, they would find abuse by school teachers and members of other faiths. This happens elsewhere.

The media, in some cases knowingly, hates Christianity and because the Church is viewed, by them, as this one billion person political machine, it must be discredited at every opportunity.

The ‘messenger’ is corrupt.

God bless,
Ed
Choose Jesus.
 
Ed, you miss the point.

The abuse by priests occurred. People are reporting on it.

To say that Catholic Priests can’t be expected to be any better than school teachers or ministers is just plain sad.

It doesn’t matter what the motivation of the messenger is if the messenger is telling the truth. Why take it any further than, “You’re right, Priests and Church workers abused, physically, sexually or emotionally, hundreds if not thousands of children in their care in the last century. We are sorry.”?
 
PaulinVA said:
Ed, you miss the point.

The abuse by priests occurred. People are reporting on it.

To say that Catholic Priests can’t be expected to be any better than school teachers or ministers is just plain sad.

It doesn’t matter what the motivation of the messenger is if the messenger is telling the truth. Why take it any further than, “You’re right, Priests and Church workers abused, physically, sexually or emotionally, hundreds if not thousands of children in their care in the last century. We are sorry.”?
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I think this has been said, over and over, and shown to be the ‘norm’ here in the U.S. since 2002. I think that when the Pope came to visit in 2008 and apologized that it was shown to be the case, that apologies have been made, safeguards have been put into place, over and over.

Now, as for the ‘reporting’, there is a difference between reporting on actual events (such as Ireland and Germany) and between the kind of so-called ‘reporting’ such as the cases involving abuse here in the U.S. that were reported way back when (they were not ‘missed’ when the original scandal broke), but are NOW being brought up as a weapon to attack the Pope for supposedly, as Cardinal, "not handling it right.’

THAT is the kind of pseudo-reporting that is surfacing. Inaccuracies abound (check out Father Z’s and Jimmy Akin’s blogs where they point out the media’s misinterpretations which are so egregious that the whole ‘placing blame on then-Cardinal Ratzinger’ falls apart once the misinterpretations are corrected). But --and if you’re old enough to remember the case of the preschool ‘accusations of abuse’ in California about 25 years ago–while the screams of abuse are front-page news, if the accusations turn out to be mistaken, that is ‘buried’ in the back page **if a correction or retraction is even given at all by the media that was out for blood when they thought the original accusations were correct. **

People in California were put into PRISON because lawyers ‘planted’ false ‘memories’ of abuse into preschool children. And because the theory at the TIME by our ‘infallible’ medical profession was ‘children cannot be mistaken about these things’ these people had their jobs taken away, their homes broken up, their good names ruined forever. . .and none of the ‘accusations’ was true. . .
 
Tantum erg - yes, I remember.

Just my point - you include in your post a story about people who made accusations that later could be proven to be false. You are trying to cast doubt that the abuse by Priests and Church workers actually occurred.

Whether or not blame can or can not be placed on individual ordained men is beside the point. You can defend Cardinal this or Bishop that, but that obfuscates the truth that the Catholic hierarchy trained these men, ordained them, stationed them at parishes, and then moved them around when the laity started complaining about abhorrent criminal acts (at least in the US). They are all responsible.

I say that as a loyal Catholic who believes fully what the Church teaches - read my other posts. When you engage, as an institution, in the kind of things that occurred during the past century, you should expect to not be treated respectfully.
 
patrick1945 said:
The stories and allegations of sexual abuse have been around for over 20 years, or so. I’m curious as to why there’s been this recent upsurge. I would have thought that those who were abused would have come forward years ago, to collect their damages, if nothing else. Granted, some victims may have remained silent out of shame or embarassment.

Unless I’m missing something, this all makes me deeply suspicious of the popular press.
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The recent allegations are not only about situations of abuse; actually very little of it are about that. The new allegations are about the cover-up by Bishops and others, and the culture of silence that has permeated the Church for decades and is just now being broken, although not without some pain.

Some of the stories are about revelations that result from the lawsuits that are occurring, as old documents surface. They are also the result of reports about the situation in various countries, and the conclusion that truthfulness was not a common commodity among the Church heirarchy (or those with secular authority).

I had a recent discussion with someone “in the Church” who said that we haven’t yet heard from many places in the world. More revelations could still occur.

The reason it is news again is that recent disclosures reveal a pattern of behavior that stretches from the local churches, through the Bishops, up to the top of the Church heirarchy. What is so stunning and newsworthy is that along the way, over many, many years, few in the know took issue with the immoral behavior, and evidenced more concern for the reputation of the Church than for the welfare of its people.

Now it is too late, and perhaps God wants the Church to admit its errors, be penitent and to change its pattern of behavior. And perhaps what is happening today is something like what Ezekiel (Ch 7) prophesied:
I will unleash my anger against you and judge you according to your conduct and lay upon you the consequences of all your abominations.
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PaulinVA said:
Ed, you miss the point.

The abuse by priests occurred. People are reporting on it.

To say that Catholic Priests can’t be expected to be any better than school teachers or ministers is just plain sad.

It doesn’t matter what the motivation of the messenger is if the messenger is telling the truth. Why take it any further than, “You’re right, Priests and Church workers abused, physically, sexually or emotionally, hundreds if not thousands of children in their care in the last century. We are sorry.”?
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You are not following. The media is setting up a view of reality that is distorted and biased. You also don’t understand that sometimes the victims don’t want anything published.

You can read about how bad a job the media is doing here:

bishop-accountability.org/news5/2010_03_30_Donohue_GoingFor.htm

I am accusing the media of publishing propaganda.

Even former New York Mayor, Ed Koch, is saying enough.

catholickey.blogspot.com/2010/04/former-ny-mayor-ed-koch-says-enough.html

God bless,
Ed
Choose Jesus.
 
PaulinVA said:
Tantum erg - yes, I remember.

Just my point - you include in your post a story about people who made accusations that later could be proven to be false. You are trying to cast doubt that the abuse by Priests and Church workers actually occurred. Just saw this and wanted to make it perfectly clear that by my bringing up a case in which abuse did NOT occur, this by no means indicates that I am trying to say that the ABUSE by the priests and workers did not occur. I honestly was shocked that this was the ‘take’ you had on the post.

The point that I was making was directly about Pope Benedict and the reports that are being brought up specifically accusing him of being involved in ‘coverup’. NOT in any way am I saying that the priest accused was not guilty.

The point is, that the accusations AGAINST the Pope are front page news, but that when–yes when–they are proven false, THAT ain’t gonna be ‘front page news’ any more than the case of finding those California workers had NOT abused was ‘front page news’.

Whether or not blame can or can not be placed on individual ordained men is beside the point. You can defend Cardinal this or Bishop that, but that obfuscates the truth that the Catholic hierarchy trained these men, ordained them, stationed them at parishes, and then moved them around when the laity started complaining about abhorrent criminal acts (at least in the US). They are all responsible.

I say that as a loyal Catholic who believes fully what the Church teaches - read my other posts. When you engage, as an institution, in the kind of things that occurred during the past century, you should expect to not be treated respectfully.
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We may have to agree to disagree on this. I totally agree that any ‘moving around’ after mandated reporting and knowledge etc. (which did not happen until about 10-15 years ago at best) was wrong. But in the vast majority of the cases where it was done not just in "the Church’ but by every other ‘institution’ worldwide, at the behest of health care professionals and legal professionals, I am not going to suddenly come out and say the Church was the ONLY one that handled it ‘wrongly’ or that it did so ‘knowing it was wrong.’ If the bishops ‘should have known better’, why didn’t the DOCTORS, the LAWYERS, and every other person in the world know better at that time too?
 
Tantum_ergo said:
But in the vast majority of the cases where it was done not just in "the Church’ but by every other ‘institution’ worldwide, at the behest of health care professionals and legal professionals, I am not going to suddenly come out and say the Church was the ONLY one that handled it ‘wrongly’ or that it did so ‘knowing it was wrong.’ If the bishops ‘should have known better’, why didn’t the DOCTORS, the LAWYERS, and every other person in the world know better at that time too?
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Oh, come on! I don’t buy it one little bit!. My wife and I knew, as teenagers in the seventies, that priests were being moved around for 'indiscretions" . The minute the second priest molested the second time, the Church in America should have done something, no matter what the lawyers and doctors were telling them. What happened in other institutions doesn’t matter - we are talking about the Church. They had evidence on the ground that molesters couldn’t be cured. And they knew in the seventies, at least.

The fact that the Bishops weren’t talking to each other or were turning a blind eye to the molestation is on them.

So, since they are guilty in all of this, to argue that they are being unjustly accused of things they specifically aren’t guilty of, or some media outlet is doing a hatchet job on a specific person, too bad. It might be unfair, but these men, and solely these men, are responsible what happens in the Church.

I feel for them, and I am also hurt by all of the bad press. But, when I read about the Jesuits dumping their molesters in Alaska, where some men molested every child in a town for a generation, I have no sympathy. Or, beatings in orphanages, or whatever.

As I said, you can defend this priest or that bishop, but there is so much blame to go around, I think the ordained should just take their lumps and move on.
 
patrick1945 said:
The stories and allegations of sexual abuse have been around for over 20 years, or so. I’m curious as to why there’s been this recent upsurge. I would have thought that those who were abused would have come forward years ago, to collect their damages, if nothing else. Granted, some victims may have remained silent out of shame or embarassment.

Unless I’m missing something, this all makes me deeply suspicious of the popular press.
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The report of the sexual abuse in Ireland was just released. The pope made a statement to Ireland the week before Holy week. The story in Germany and other European countries was just coming to the fore. I don’t think it was planned by “the liberal media” for Holy Week since the pope chose the time to release the encyclical letter to Ireland. Ireland was not too happy with the letter…and then the fertilizer hit the windmill.
 
PaulinVA said:
Oh, come on! I don’t buy it one little bit!. My wife and I knew, as teenagers in the seventies, that priests were being moved around for 'indiscretions" . The minute the second priest molested the second time, the Church in America should have done something, no matter what the lawyers and doctors were telling them. What happened in other institutions doesn’t matter - we are talking about the Church. They had evidence on the ground that molesters couldn’t be cured. And they knew in the seventies, at least.

The fact that the Bishops weren’t talking to each other or were turning a blind eye to the molestation is on them.

So, since they are guilty in all of this, to argue that they are being unjustly accused of things they specifically aren’t guilty of, or some media outlet is doing a hatchet job on a specific person, too bad. It might be unfair, but these men, and solely these men, are responsible what happens in the Church.

I feel for them, and I am also hurt by all of the bad press. But, when I read about the Jesuits dumping their molesters in Alaska, where some men molested every child in a town for a generation, I have no sympathy. Or, beatings in orphanages, or whatever.

As I said, you can defend this priest or that bishop, but there is so much blame to go around, I think the ordained should just take their lumps and move on.
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I could not agree more.
 
patrick1945 said:
I’m curious as to why there’s been this recent upsurge.
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For the same reason there is a lawsuit against Belmont Abby College for not providing for contraception and abortion benefits in their health insurance package. The political climate is perfect.
Unless I’m missing something, this all makes me deeply suspicious of the popular press.
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I’m amazed that the folks who won’t accept any political news from the popular media will accept everything the popular media has to say about the Catholic Church.

It’s astounding.
 
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