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Surely, anybody with any moral or ethical radar must squirm at reading this sort of spurious defence, and isn't sex with a cild paedophilia even when it is same sex abuse.

Why pick on us, everybody does it? I wonder if God will accept that excuse for sin on judgement day. Everybody is going to hell. There is no proof that even one human soul ever went to heaven. Since that's where you're headed anyway, you might just as well.....

NobleDee

It's not just semantics. Ephebophilia is the sexual attraction pubescent males or female, yet who are below the age of consent. It is not a diagnostic term. However it is much more common than attraction to pre-pubescent children. (But the nearer the child is to to puberty the greater the likelihood of a paedophile finding them attractive). It's my understanding that those attracted to pre-pubescents are much more likely to have serious mental health defects. It is a myth that their rehabilitation is impossible.
All sexual activity with individuals below the age of consent can be labelled 'paedophilia' - until the DSM decides otherwise.

This information may help parents who worry about the safety of their young children. I don't see how this helps the Catholic Church much. A kind of abuse that is more common than 'true' paedophilia took place more often in the Church than 'true' paedophilia. It's still abuse.

In any case the Protestant historian Philip Jenkins, who specialises in "moral panics" has looked at these issues in some depth. His web-site is worth consulting.

Now after posting about Satanism on "Polanski" and child abuse here, I feel like I need a shower and a drink. Ugh.

GV

On 22 September, speaking in the plenary of the UN Human Rights Council, the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU), representing more that 100 humanist, secular and free-thought organisations in over 40 countries, criticised the Holy See over its role in covering up the scale of child abuse by its priests and religious orders, and for failing to honour its obligations under international law. The statement was based on a longer written statement submitted to the Council in August and published by the UN on 8 September (.

The IHEU statement addressed specifically the role of the Holy See - which claims responsibility for the Catholic Church worldwide - in attempting to cover up the extent of child abuse perpetrated by its priests and religious orders. In exercising their right of reply to this criticism the representative of the Holy See ignored the main criticism contained in our statement.

The reply made on behalf of the Papal Nuncio Archbishop Thomasi argued that the Catholic Church was not unique in having clergy who sexually abused children and young people, but it made no mention of the physical and mental abuse meted out for generations to children under the care of its religious orders. No doubt there are abusers in all walks of life, but our point was not the abuse itself but the cover up in which some of the highest officials of the Church were implicated.

The Holy See is a sovereign state and its senior clergy, safely ensconced in the Vatican out of reach of civil law, are answerable to no earthly power other than themselves - and to the few international treaties to which they are party. One such is the International Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and, as shown in the IHEU report, the Holy See is in massive breach of its obligations under that convention.

Commenting on the Holy See鈥檚 response, IHEU Main Representative in Geneva, Roy Brown, said: 鈥淏y failing to address this issue while seeking to point the finger of blame elsewhere, the Holy See鈥� has scored a spectacular own goal. One senior UN official described their reply as 鈥榓 disgrace鈥�. We agree.鈥�

Philip Jenkins work is helpful:

"On 22 September, speaking in the plenary of the UN Human Rights Council, the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU), representing more that 100 humanist, secular and free-thought organisations in over 40 countries, criticised the Holy See over its role in covering up the scale of child abuse by its priests and religious orders, and for failing to honour its obligations under international law."

What took them so long? Had they acted sooner, perhaps some children would have been spared.

"...but it made no mention of the physical and mental abuse meted out for generations to children under the care of its religious orders."

This abuse has been widely known seemingly forever through countless anecdotal accounts but has also not received attention from those international organizations charged with responsibility for protecting child welfare.

This all goes to prove that there really is no such thing as international law, it's a complete fraud and a sham. They only trot out the issues they are interested in when they want to talk about them and ignore all the rest of the violations all the rest of the time.

BTW, just a reminder...you are all going to hell. No exceptions. Pray and repent all you want for all the good it will do you.

Don't leave a child with a father !!!

The following is from an article in 'The Nation' magazine on 22 September 2003. The author JoAnn Wypijewski is a former senior editor at the magazine which is the American equivalent of 'The New Statesman' i.e. progressive, feminist, liberal, pro-gay etc. Ms. Wypijewski is referring to Philip Jenkins book 'Paedophiles and Priests' and The article is entitled 'Liberal Pieties'.
"Jenkins offers no brief for the church's sexual agenda or its errant priests, but he rightly suspects games of "gotcha." He notes that the soundest study of priestly sexual misconduct--involving 2,252 priests over forty years--indicates that 1.7 percent behaved badly, such behaviour ranging from inappropriate speech to rape, and in only one case involving a true paedophile: i.e., an adult sexually interested in prepubescent children. Obviously, some 1,500 priests accused of any sexual abuse between the 1960s and 2002 indicates trouble, but Jenkins argues that honesty demands a recognition that (a) incidents of paedophilia are rare, (b) priests hold no monopoly on such behaviour and (c) "there is strikingly little evidence that clergy of any kind are any more or less likely to abuse than non-clerical groups who have close contact with children." A 1998 study by Education Week, for instance, cited 244 incidents of teacher-student sex over a six-month period, ranging from unwelcome touching to consensual relations to serial rape, an average of nine cases a week. THE PRESS HAS NOT ELEVATED THIS TO "SOCIAL PROBLEM" STATUS." (my emphasis)

I should add that Jenkins is a Church Historian as well as an historian of 20th century American Culture, so he is ideally placed to investigate this episode. In this instance his interest is in Moral Panics in American culture, not Church scandals. He has produced similar work on serial killing and sexual predators.

G Veale

Correction - I think that JoAnn Wypijewski's article of September 2003 is commenting on Jenkins book 'The New Anti-Catholicism: The Last Acceptable Prejudice' published in that year. ('Paedophiles and Priests' was published in 1996). There is a Wikipedia article on 'The New Anti-Catholicism' and I quote:

"Jenkins describes how bigotry and hatred toward Catholics, for a time considered a thing of the past, is still thriving in the U.S. Jenkins observes that it is a form of bigotry that is ignored or even accepted or encouraged in quarters (mainly politically and culturally liberal ones) that would not tolerate most other forms of bigotry.

A statement that is seen as racist, misogynistic, anti-Semitic, or homophobic can haunt a speaker for years, writes Jenkins, but it is still possible to make hostile and vituperative public statements about Roman Catholicism without fear of serious repercussions."

I live in a culture which is anti-Catholic. We still havent ammended the act of union which is anti-catholic. You will still be prejudiced against in some areas when it is discovered that you are catholic.

However, I totally reject the argument that sexual abuse of children is somehow blown up by the media or was not a serious problem in the past for the catholic church.

And cover up of past sexual abuse by catholic clergy is now a major scandal in the catholic church.

If anyone wants to look at stats, try a study of the Diocese of Boston and ask yourself why Cardinal Law went to such lengths to hide the truth.

RJB

Jenkins interest is in "Moral Panics". He isn't arguing that Serial Killers are nice people, for example. Just that the media focuses on one type (sexually driven predators) and ignores the greater danger of serial killers in the medical system (Shipman etc) who are much less likely to be caught. They are not driven by sexual impulses or sadism, so we don't find them as interesting. But they may pose a greater danger.
He doesn't argue that there wasn't a problem with sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. But was the problem greater there than in Baptist Congregations, Synagogues or Public Schools? The evidence suggests otherwise - same coverups etc.
So why the focus on the RC Church? Post 7 goes some way towards an explanation. We can tidy sexual abuse into Roman Catholicism and pretend it never happened in English Private Schools.(CS Lewis comments on the casual sexual abuse that senior boys gave to juniors when he attended school.) Or that paedophiles would never operate in an evangelical church. It's reassuring to have a scapegoat. Can't we explain it all as Catholic or Victorian sexual repression?
Actually, we can't. And scapegoating is dangerous. The secular world is acting as if this problem is a Catholic and not a human problem.

GV

GV

I understand the point he's making and I am saying that, although not an exclusive problem for the Catholic Church, it certainly is a particular problem for them.

Prospective catholic priests were only really vetted from the 80's onwards. 80% of them came through junior seminary systems where sexual development was thwarted, where questions of sexuality were ignored or frowned upon, etc.. etc..

We were, in effect, producing walking time bombs.

Other churches did not produce their future clergymen in the same way.

Of course there are paedophiles from all walks of life, but the Catholic Church definitely attracted and produced more than most. I worry that claims of it being scapegoated will further help it to avoid cleaning up its act.

RJB

Of course this doesn't apply to every individual case. But the "hydraulic" model of sexuality, invoking repression and such, doesn't seem to help much in explaining perversions or abuse. (Or so I'm told.)
The brutality that you have testified to seems more pertinent. If you've witnessed young people being treated as less than human, you start to believe that they are less than human. You can entertain whatever feelings you like about them. You can treat them like animals.If you've been treated as inhuman yourself...yes, I can see why you felt surrounded by time bombs.
Take My Lai, the Rwandan Genocide, the war in the east in WWII. Sexual abuse and rape go with power and a dehumanised object.

I'm also not sure that paedophiles (targetting pre-pubescents) *are* more common in the RC Church. That would take cross cultural studies, apart from anything else. I don't know of any. And this perception is what Jenkins is challenging in the States. He's not a Catholic apologist,(in fact he's Protestant) and it's not helpful that his work is often cited by Catholic apologists. He's just taking a look at the evidence.

Of course his work only applies to the USA in the C20th. Ireland may be a different story.

Of course Christians would expect *less* abuse in a Church. The fact that it occured is a scandal. Cover-ups took place. Even the conservative Catholic magazine "Crisis" was unable to get scandals investigated.
And of course "everyone else was doing it" is not much of a defence. And bureaucratic solutions won't help.

Have to go. Daughter pulling me off chair in library - continue tomorrow

GV

gveale "Jenkins work only applies to the USA ...Ireland may be a different story"

I don't know if a comparable study has been done in Ireland but I offer the following observations:

In Ireland between 1996 and 2004 we had a large number of allegations that children had been killed in industrial schools run by the Christian Brothers and the Sisters of Mercy. These included accusations in a major Sunday Newspaper of mass killing ('a Holocaust') at Letterfrack in Co. Galway. Not a single claim has proved to be correct. This is not surprising as several relate to periods when NO child died of ANY cause. (I coined the phrases 'Murder of the Undead' or "Victimless Murder" allegations to describe the latter - try Googling these).

One body was exhumed and proved to be a death from natural causes but the resulting publicity resulted in dozens of child abuse claims within a couple of weeks against the institution.

The child killing allegations were not made by isolated nutcases but by major newspapers including the Religious Affairs correspondent of our "newspaper of record" The Irish Times. They were also made by leading members of child abuse organisations. They have now ceased but the people responsible have not been called to account - either journalists or leaders of "Victims" organisations. The reason why the LATTER have not been dismissed is presumably because they represent the views of their members who have no objections to false allegations.

The logical conclusion is that most allegations of child abuse directed at the Catholic Church are false.

Killbarry1

The opposite side of the coin is that hundreds, if not thousands, of children (now adults) did not have the strength to come forward with their allegations. Many now have families of their own and refuse to put their families through the trauma. Many are too frightened. Many others took their own lives and we will now never know the truth.

The logical conclusion is that most allegations of child abuse directed at the Catholic Church are true - and many, many more besides!

romejellybean
I don't see any logical structure to your argument. There is no logic in the ASSUMPTION that there are hundreds or thousands of victims who never declared themselves.

My own argument is
1. The leaders of several "victims" organisations have made allegations of child killing that are obviously false and have finally been discarded (after several years)
2. The members of those organisatons did not even object - still less get rid of these leaders and spokespersons.
3. The logical conclusion is that the majority of the members have no objection to false allegations because they are making similar (i.e. false) claims themselves. The minority of truth-tellers is too small to have any influence.

If this seems callous then take a look at UK historian Richard Webster's essay "The Christmas Spirit in Ireland" regarding the almost 15,000 applications to the Residential Institutions Redress Board:


"Unless Ireland proves to be a country whose citizens are entirely immune to the laws of human nature, it is almost certainly the case that a significant number of those now claiming money from the government are quite genuine victims of abuse who suffered in the manner they have claimed.

"But it is also likely to be the case that a very large number of the claims received, perhaps as many as 90%, would prove, if it were possible to investigate them fully, entirely false."

I think that Richard Webster is an atheist. However he has noted the similarity between Ireland's anti-clerical Witch-hunt and the hysteria directed at (mainly lay) childcare workers in the UK. (In fact Ireland's child-killing hysteria may have been the Celtic Tiger's response to Satanic Ritual Abuse and Recovered Memory in the UK!).

Kilbarry1

I have absolutely no doubt false claims were made.
I have absolutely no doubt the Press exaggerate all the time.

I also have absolutely no doubt that the church covered up and continues to do so and that they are only too delighted when someone like you comes along and 'rubbishes' the abused.

My first junior seminary - 11 priests on the staff over two and a half year period. 4 sexual abusers. 1 eventually imprisoned on 23 charges. He pleaded guilty after plea bargaining the charges down the way. Other three died before charges could be brought.

Second junior seminary (different order) - three priests on the staff, two sexual abusers. Both dead before charges could be brought.

Obviously my personal experience differs remarkably from your studies and stats.

At least five priests charged in my diocese. One admitted to over 120 cases of abuse. Only six of his victims came forward. A history of these guys being moved from parish to parish when complaints were made.

This continual argument that the abused were gold diggers or jumping on the band wagon, and the minimalising of what priests actually did to children sickens me.

Had I not come forward (naievely thinking that the church would back me since I was after all, a priest), none of this would have come to light.
I never asked for, nor received a brass farthing.


"90% would be proved to be entirely false" ?!!
The moderator stops me from expressing what I think of that.

Let me assure you, there are hundreds of victims out there who did not come forward. Do you have any idea how it feels to sit in a court room thirty years after the abuse and face the people who did this to you? It takes remarkable strength. Many simply dont have it.

Do you have any idea what its like to spend your whole life having to continually defend what you KNOW happened because certain people are still living in denial and cant accept that priests, and many of them, behaved in an evil way?

This is the third time on this site alone I have had to trawl through all this stuff again because a blogger has come on here and argued that these things have been exaggerated.

If you have a problem with journalists who mis-report these matters, take it up with them. But please dont argue in defence of the Vatican. The Roman Curia care not a jot about the abused, only about the 'image' of the church.

Is that logical enough?

Kilbarry1, about anti-Catholicism in the US you wrote

"A statement that is seen as racist, misogynistic, anti-Semitic, or homophobic can haunt a speaker for years, writes Jenkins, but it is still possible to make hostile and vituperative public statements about Roman Catholicism without fear of serious repercussions."

That may well be right, and if so it is not unique to anti-Catholicism, I think. I think people can get away with anti-Islamic and anti-atheist statements in public too. In fact, they do. No need to elaborate on anti-Islamic statements over the last 8 years I think. And going back a bit further in time, president Bush sr stated something to the tune that atheists should not be considered Americans at all.

My concern is not to defend the RC Church. I'm concerned with the media's
treatment of crime, and the resulting public mis-perception.

This really shouldn't be an issue for apologetics. And it's unfortunate that Jenkin's book was given such a sensational title.

If I were to respond to Bishop Tomasi -

1) A small percentage of a really big number can mean a lot of people.
2) The RC church abuse a "low risk crime". There was a low 'cost' for the abuser to weigh against the 'benefits' of abuse (relocation & therapy). There was little 'risk' of paying the 'cost' (poor inestigative techniques). The access to young people allowed the abusers to follow a '鈥渟uccessful鈥� victim choice strategy' (no-one was likely to believe the victim).
In such circumstances it is inevitable that abuse flourishes.
3) Targetting pre-pubescents is rare. But the targetting of pubescents does seem to have been more common than we should expect in the Priesthood in the US. The targetting of pubescent males is much more common than we should expect. Post 13 goes some way to explaining why - to my mind at least.
4) It isn't just the secular or liberal catholic press that experienced and expressed frustration with Church hierarchies. In 2001 Crisis Magazine complained of the Church Hierarchy -

"Sex-abuse scandals have ingrained a litigation mind-set into the culture of Church administrations. No other organization, save maybe the tobacco companies, has seen liability lawsuits become such an integral part of its business. It is a transformation that is alienating priests who are guiltless of abuse and also many of their parishioners..."

"After a brief surge of openness following the Kos case, the U.S. has returned to handling sex abuse quietly and quickly, lawyers and victims say - although it is now the rule to suspend accused priests instead of simply moving them to a new parish...

The standard operating procedure now is for dioceses to offer victims and their families cash up front, with their silence on the matter as a condition of the settlement. In addition, victims' groups with which the Church used to consult, such as Linkup and Survivors Network for Those Abused by Priests, say that the hierarchy has now cut off contact with them.

"Things have gotten better, and things have gotten worse," says Tom Economus, head of linkup. "It's handled with a more caring hand now, but really, all they've figured out is how to manage the situation better."

This of course describes 2001, not 2009. But this was a *conservative* Catholic magazine (which has published e-articles like "10 Myths about Priestly Paedophilia") complaining about the Church hierarchies response.

So this is not a secular or liberal plot or exaggeration. Roman Catholic apologists are frustrated by their Churches response.

G Veale

90% of abuse claims being false is at best journalistic rhetoric. I think RJB could describe it more accurately.

We should be able to learn from catholic abuse scandals, and apply those lessons to other organisations and sub-cultures to prevent abuse occurring there. To commit a crime you need a supply of victims. Cut the supply - ie. protect the vulnerable - and you cut the crime.

But if the Churches' standard operating procedure was "for dioceses to offer victims and their families cash up front, with their silence on the matter as a condition of the settlement" and if legal documents related to such matters are more often than not sealed, then no lessons will have been learned and no lessons will be applied.

Apologetics are as harmful as 'moral panics' in these situations. Neither helps the vulnerable.

GV

It is entirely logical to assume that there are unreported cases of abuse. That's the common experience (and frustration) of investigators and prosecutors. We shouldn't put numbers on it - but given the circumstances I've described they won't be small.

One more ultra-conservative (practically 'red-neck')response to the scandal. "Where's the rage, Catholic men?" By ROD DREHER. Some quotes -

'If John Paul had pitilessly shot down the careers of molester-shuffling American bishops early on, the church would be a better place today.'

'Father M~~~~~~ B@@@@@@, a Grand Prairie priest, was picked up on child pornography charges last week. Days later, Bishop C* G^^^^^turned up in the parish pulpit, weeping and telling the flock to "welcome him back," as Jesus supposedly would have. Once again, a bishop counsels cheap grace to thwart justice, corrupting the concept of Christian mercy as part of an excuse-making strategy for the clerical class.'


The article is available on-line. A quick scan will show that Dreher is WAYYY to the right of Dick Cheney. He's so right wing they'll need a
whole new geometry to describe him.

GV

GV

On this particular subject, I often find it difficult to articulate lucidly. Thank you for putting down clearly and logically what I was trying to get across.