My folks pointed out this article in The NZ Herald today and I thought it was a good time to post on it, what with a TV programme on the other night (which I didn't see) devoted to the wrongdoings of Catholic Priests.
I am Catholic; but of course I am just as disturbed as anyone else (Catholic and non-Catholic alike) by the abuse of children at the hands of priests or by anyone.
A visiting Cardinal, Theodore McCarrick from Washington DC who is here for a Eucharistic Convention, brings a little more perspective to the issue.
He raises some points: that it's not just the Catholic Church that this is happening in.
In one respect I can understand why; Christians are supposed to be 'better' than the rest of the world; we are supposed to represent Christ and to follow the things he taught, but we can slip up - sometimes horribly. We aren't perfect; we're just trying hard to be.
I do wonder though, as the Cardinal said, just how bad the Church is compared to the abuses of children in the rest of society that we never hear about in the media.
The Cardinal goes on to say -
A priest who abuses a child is not acting for God or his church.
I am Catholic; but of course I am just as disturbed as anyone else (Catholic and non-Catholic alike) by the abuse of children at the hands of priests or by anyone.
A visiting Cardinal, Theodore McCarrick from Washington DC who is here for a Eucharistic Convention, brings a little more perspective to the issue.
He raises some points: that it's not just the Catholic Church that this is happening in.
"Unfortunately it is existing in religious bodies that have married clergy to, at least, the same extent, from what we have been able to figure out"Of course, this does not in any way excuse the actions of those who have abused, but it did make me stop and think. This abuse is happening all through society but the media takes a certain perverse delight in taking aim at the Church or any other Christian society (there was a similar story regarding the Salvation Army a few years ago).
"When all is said and done, you are still talking about less than one out of 25 priests over a period of 60 years.
"When civil society finally accepts the challenge of making its own statistical survey as carefully and thoroughly as the Catholic Church has, I think we will find that the statistics of the Church are nowhere near as bad as the statistics of the rest of society."
In one respect I can understand why; Christians are supposed to be 'better' than the rest of the world; we are supposed to represent Christ and to follow the things he taught, but we can slip up - sometimes horribly. We aren't perfect; we're just trying hard to be.
I do wonder though, as the Cardinal said, just how bad the Church is compared to the abuses of children in the rest of society that we never hear about in the media.
The Cardinal goes on to say -
"Now, having become aware of it, we have tried to do the very best we can to ensure that it doesn't happen.I, for one, hope so. I'm not 'jumping ship' though, any more than would an All Blacks fan because of the behaviour of one of their teammates beating his wife.
The Church has accepted responsibility for what has happened and apologised from its very heart to all those people affected.
Sexual abuse was much less likely in the Church in future because all candidates for the priesthood now had to undergo psychological tests for potential abuse, a priest who abused a child would be instantly dismissed, and children were now educated to be alert for any improper behaviour by adults."
A priest who abuses a child is not acting for God or his church.
I'm glad we can just accept the statistics of a catholic cardinal without giving him any references. They come straight from God probably.
ReplyDelete1 in 25 priests is involved in sexual abuse. What would the uproar be if 1 in 25 teachers on public schools sexually abused kids?
Next time you see a picture of 100 priests you can assume there are 4 rapists among them. Nice thought.
Berend, the rate for abuse by school teachers has reportedly been found higher than Catholic Priests. And there's no uproar.
ReplyDeleteI'll see if I can find the references for this as I've read it in a number of places.
Here something I found that was written a couple of years ago comparing Catholic Priests to other professions. Apparently the paedophile rate in Protestant clergy is higher, too.
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ReplyDeleteSex Abuse by Teachers Said Worse Than Catholic Church
ReplyDelete- "the physical sexual abuse of students in schools is likely more than 100 times the abuse by priests."
That 1 in 25 is accusations not the number who have shown to be actually guilty.
ReplyDeleteAnd as we know in NZ there have been payouts by to Church to people who claimed abuse who were subsequently shown to be lying and successfully prosecuted for fraud.
Furthermore the Shakeshaft report (commissioned by the US Congress) strongly suggests a much higher rate of offending by staff at public schools in the USA than has ever been claimed for priests and in fact shows students at religious schools are less likely to be abused than at secular schools.
Andrei, that must be the same report that I've put up as a link above.
ReplyDeleteThe number of accusations would also involve sexual misconduct with adults - but the media prefers not to highlight that part of it.
ReplyDeleteI linked the actual report - what is curious is that the methodology described in your link differs from the methodology in the actual report as presented to congress
ReplyDeleteIt also examines false accusations - which is a significant thing to look into when discussing this topic
As a guy who had a Catholic upbringing, I find it embarrassing and disgusting that the Church failed miserably in dealing with paedophilic Priests - the head in the sand mentality.
ReplyDeleteI also earnestly believe that it's not a case of depraved Priests, it is more a case of dirty paedophiles becoming Priests in order to get their filthy hands on young kids - something the Catholic church didn't react to quick enough.
Shame on them.
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ReplyDeleteShout above the noise, if it makes you feel any better, most sexual abuse by priests of children was actually with teenage boys, making the encounters homosexual.
ReplyDelete"Paedophile Priests" is a term coined by liberal Catholics who sought to damage the Church in order to further their aims of the ordination of women, marriage of priests and contraception use. Unfortunately the term has been devastating, as very few of the sex abuse cases were of young children.
see: Church and State – The New Anti-Catholicism
The program was not actually about the abuse it was about how the catholic church deal with it.
ReplyDeleteThe systematic hiding of abuse and protection of offenders is highly unsettling especially when the Cardinal who was the author of the policy is now the Pope.
No amount of finger pointing to teachers, politicians, policemen or bus drivers is going to address THAT issue.
I'd also say that the effort to minimize offending with the "but he did it too" method is the sort of thing a labour party supporter would do.
If even half of what was presented is true then something is very very rotten in the catholic church.
The damage to church is not helped by simply NOT dealing with it.
Lucyna...ephebophiles actually, not that it matters. The Catholic church should've dealt with these dirties as soon as the problems were apparent. They didn't, and as an official Catholic I feel it is shameful.
ReplyDeleteGee, where has Berend gone. One flamebaiting comment and he returns to reading the Da Vinci Code.
ReplyDeleteIsn't it easy to lack any responsibility, any shame, connection, compassion for a matter and just lob dirt from a safe distance.
Life is sweet for you.
If the abuse on USA public schools is 100 times higher, it means 1 in 2.5 teachers sexually abuses kids. A number I find hard to believe...
ReplyDeleteThe outcry against the Catholic Church in the US has been about how they dealt with the problem.
ReplyDeleteThis involved everything from blaming the accuser to merely moving the priest to a new parish without preventing him access to new victims.
McCarrick's comment "and that we have become aware of it just recently. Now, having become aware of it.." implies that the Catholic leadership didn't know it was going on. That has been proven in court time and again to be not the case. Most of the lawsuits were over the way the Catholic Church dealt with the abusers, not with the abusers themselves.
Skyman, if that is the case, it will be interesting to see when or if there is an outcry against the public school system where there is apparently the same problem of a much greater magnitude - whatever that magnitude is. For, if you read my first link, you'll see that the way schools handle the problem is exactly the same as how the Church used to handle it:
ReplyDeleteIn 1994, Shakeshaft and Audrey Cohan did a study of 225 cases of educator sexual abuse in New York City. Their findings are astounding.
All of the accused admitted sexual abuse of a student, but none of the abusers was reported to the authorities, and only 1 percent lost their license to teach. Only 35 percent suffered negative consequences of any kind, and 39 percent chose to leave their school district, most with positive recommendations. Some were even given an early retirement package.
Moving molesting teachers from school district to school district is a common phenomenon. And in only 1 percent of the cases do superintendents notify the new school district. According to Diana Jean Schemo, the term “passing the trash” is the preferred jargon among educators.
I'm not excusing what the Church did, it just seems everyone loves to hope on the hate-the-church bandwagon at every opportunity, not allowing for the fact that every large organisation most likely has the same problem with some employees abusing children. And, here is a clear example of the school system having a worse problem, yet who among us thinks "child abuser" when they see a school-teacher the way they do when they look at a Catholic Priest?
Catholic priests who abuse children cannot be tolerated. Why the secrecy then? In the early 2000's the USCCB sub-committee investigating all this found that >80% of the offending in the US by Catholic priests was done towards young boys, ie. it was homosexual in nature. This was duely reported back to the Bishops and it was promptly ignored. Why?
ReplyDeleteBecause the same Bishops who enlisted the sub-committee were the ones who had the most to fear. They hid abusive priests, and in the case of Cardinal Joseph Bernadin in Chicago, he was an abuser himself. This situation still exists. For example, Roger Mahony in LA may not be an abuser himself, but he sure has a lot to hide. Generally speaking, the is a very high correlation between those who want the Catholic Church to change its mind on things like homosexuality and abortion, and yet these same people are the ones who hide abusers and work for dissendent Bishops and priests. All of this is outlined in Randy Engels recent book The Rite of Sodomy, which can be found at www. riteofsodomy.com.
Scary stuff, no wonder Pope Leo XIII composed his prayer to Michael the Archangel..
Yup, bad people are everywhere. I only take exception to McCarrick talking like the Catholic church didn't know about it.
ReplyDeleteI would think things have changed a lot since the 1994 study. Now days it's standard practice for any organization to require a background check for empolyees and volunteers. If they don't get the background check and someone does something bad they'll be sued for not taking the proper precautions.
The whole thing is very sad though, as regards male figures in teaching roles and priests etc.
ReplyDeleteNot enough positive male role models in schools now. It's swung entirely the opposite way.
I was present when a priest gave a talk about how he is one of the priests who visits schools regularly. He recounts one occasion of visiting a school (of which he was very beloved of the children) and walking in the school gate. The kids saw him and ran to greet him, but because he was late he made to run for the teachers lounge. The kids thought it was a game and all ran after him to try and catch him.
He ended up on the netball court with his arms and legs akimbo (so as to show the he wasn't touching any kids inappropriately) with kids hanging off him everywhere until some teachers came and 'rescued' him.
Nope, you're not allowed to show kids affection these days because it could be taken the wrong way, especially if you're male.
Very sad..
1 in 2.5 school teachers? I too find that a long stretch.
ReplyDeleteThat's means most politicians, rugby coaches, real-estate agents and sports talk-back hosts are guilty as many of them are ex-school teachers!!
I don't know where people get the idea +McCarrack is a denier or party to cover-up just becasue he mentions balance and a counterfactual.
Also, the NZ Herald would have only published the most curious bites of his interview. These are obvious points!
The conspiracy component is peculiar to certain nitwits in the CC but not abuse itself. Liberal, conservative, red or blue, are any more of less worse?
Parthian shots.
1. What's Grahame Capill doing nowadays?
2. Three weeks ago an aussie female teacher was convicted of sex with a male minor. Not a priest, not a celibate, not male, not catholic, but she was a teacher... hmmm...