Report on Catholic Abuse = Cynicism Spreading?

[clarkgoble]

5 hours ago, jkwilliams said:

If there is such a correlation, it would suggest that the abuse of children by priests is a recent development. I have a hard time believing that. 

I doubt abuse is only recent. I'm sure it was always part of the tradition - remember in the medieval era sons not apt to be able to inherit because of older brothers were often sent to the priesthood whether they wanted to or not. There's a well known history book of the 14th century whose name escapes me at the moment  that suggests a big problem then was figuring out how to deal with excess males of elites. They typically entered the priesthood or were sent off on wars. Given that history it'd be pretty surprising if this wasn't a constant problem. Especially since our modern conceptions of accountability and the like are relatively recent. (Not that people all married young - that's a bit of a myth - but it was more common than today for 16-19 year olds)

There are definitely reasons to be skeptical of the fervor at First Things. And of course they have their own well known agenda. However I do think their point is that when this attitude of "chastity doesn't matter" returns that this is a relatively inevitable consequence - especially when they have power and people who don't want things known. It tends to create on law for elites and an other for everyone else. Something that sadly tends to make an appearance rather often when you have an elite with too much power, too little accountability, and remain too long. (And lest someone bring up the 12 - we're here talking hundreds if not thousands of people) Anyway, I think once there's no accountability for chastity given those power situations that abuse is almost inevitable. 

 

[jkwilliams]

14 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

I doubt abuse is only recent. I'm sure it was always part of the tradition - remember in the medieval era sons not apt to be able to inherit because of older brothers were often sent to the priesthood whether they wanted to or not. There's a well known history book of the 14th century whose name escapes me at the moment  that suggests a big problem then was figuring out how to deal with excess males of elites. They typically entered the priesthood or were sent off on wars. Given that history it'd be pretty surprising if this wasn't a constant problem. Especially since our modern conceptions of accountability and the like are relatively recent. (Not that people all married young - that's a bit of a myth - but it was more common than today for 16-19 year olds)

There are definitely reasons to be skeptical of the fervor at First Things. And of course they have their own well known agenda. However I do think their point is that when this attitude of "chastity doesn't matter" returns that this is a relatively inevitable consequence - especially when they have power and people who don't want things known. It tends to create on law for elites and an other for everyone else. Something that sadly tends to make an appearance rather often when you have an elite with too much power, too little accountability, and remain too long. (And lest someone bring up the 12 - we're here talking hundreds if not thousands of people) Anyway, I think once there's no accountability for chastity given those power situations that abuse is almost inevitable. 

 

That just sounds like too easy an explanation to me. It seems if chastity doesn’t matter, you’d see a lot of fornication, but why would this lead to child abuse rather than a lot of sex between adults? Yeah, too easy an explanation for me. 

[clarkgoble]

13 hours ago, jkwilliams said:

That just sounds like too easy an explanation to me. It seems if chastity doesn’t matter, you’d see a lot of fornication, but why would this lead to child abuse rather than a lot of sex between adults? Yeah, too easy an explanation for me. 

I think the argument is that most of the abuse was of teens. I don't know the details of the case enough to know what the typical ages were. More or less I think they're arguing that the idea nothing is wrong excuses these sorts of things, much as one sees in Hollywood.

[jkwilliams]

Just now, clarkgoble said:

I think the argument is that most of the abuse was of teens. I don't know the details of the case enough to know what the typical ages were. More or less I think they're arguing that the idea nothing is wrong excuses these sorts of things, much as one sees in Hollywood.

I understand what the argument is. It just seems too pat an answer.
 

 

[bluebell]

20 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

I think the argument is that most of the abuse was of teens. I don't know the details of the case enough to know what the typical ages were. More or less I think they're arguing that the idea nothing is wrong excuses these sorts of things, much as one sees in Hollywood.

They are right in that the majority of children abused were post-pubescent.  And most of the victims were male (by a large percentage).  When girls were abused, they were more likely to be abused at a younger age, but still, the majority were older.

Here's a great study that has all of the info and stats-

http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/child-and-youth-protection/upload/The-Nature-and-Scope-of-Sexual-Abuse-of-Minors-by-Catholic-Priests-and-Deacons-in-the-United-States-1950-2002.pdf

 

[clarkgoble]

41 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

I understand what the argument is. It just seems too pat an answer.

Ah. OK, my apologies. I'm not fully convinced myself. I am more interested in the debate within contemporary Catholicism as it relates to general conceptions of religion here and less whether it gets the causes right. And of course any simple explanation is likely wrong. It's almost certainly a wide variety of causes contributing to a perfect storm. I think though it worth asking what incentives were set up for who went into these groups and how that affects group beliefs of what is or isn't appropriate.

[jkwilliams]

3 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

Ah. OK, my apologies. I'm not fully convinced myself. I am more interested in the debate within contemporary Catholicism as it relates to general conceptions of religion here and less whether it gets the causes right. And of course any simple explanation is likely wrong. It's almost certainly a wide variety of causes contributing to a perfect storm. I think though it worth asking what incentives were set up for who went into these groups and how that affects group beliefs of what is or isn't appropriate.

That I don't know. To me, when you combine sexual self-repression and a position of authority, there are bound to be problems. I have often wondered if some people choose the priesthood because they have sexual desires that they feel aren't compatible with heterosexual marriage. Realizing they probably won't function well in a marriage, they chose a life of celibacy, believing that giving their lives to God would make things all right, only to learn later on that it's much more difficult than they imagined.  I don't know, just thinking aloud.

[bluebell]

2 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

That I don't know. To me, when you combine sexual self-repression and a position of authority, there are bound to be problems. I have often wondered if some people choose the priesthood because they have sexual desires that they feel aren't compatible with heterosexual marriage. Realizing they probably won't function well in a marriage, they chose a life of celibacy, believing that giving their lives to God would make things all right, only to learn later on that it's much more difficult than they imagined.  I don't know, just thinking aloud.

The rate of priests in the Catholic church who sexually molest kids is the same as the rate of people in society who molest kids (6%), so it doesn't seem like there is any correlation between becoming a priest and the tendency to molest children.

[jkwilliams]

Just now, bluebell said:

The rate of priests in the Catholic church who sexually molest kids is the same as the rate of people in society who molest kids (6%), so it doesn't seem like there is any correlation between becoming a priest and the tendency to molest children.

Thanks. The bigger issue, of course, is why the church covered these things up for so long. Abuse happens, but covering it up is pretty unforgivable.

[bluebell]

19 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

Thanks. The bigger issue, of course, is why the church covered these things up for so long. Abuse happens, but covering it up is pretty unforgivable.

Yes, the cover-up is horrible.  But I think the biggest issue is that they kept the priests around, reassigned them to different parishes, and did not tell others that the priests were dangerous.

It doesn't make any sense why they would continuously move these guys around when they repeatedly hurt kids.  I could see a warped and erroneous idea of the Atonement and forgiveness coming into play, where there was a belief that if a priest had gone through the Catholic steps of repentance, and God remembered the sin no more, that that meant that the church should remember the sin no more either and proceed as if it had never happened, except that doesn't really work as an explanation either because reasonable people would have throw that idea out the window after the first few priests reoffended.  

Something else was/is at work, but I have no idea what.  Even a desire to protect the Catholic church would not have to include keeping the abusive priests around or letting them serve around kids again.  They could have kept the secrecy around the abuse (if protecting the catholic church for accusations had been the whole goal) but not keep the priests in service. 

Edited August 23, 2018 by bluebell

[jkwilliams]

1 minute ago, bluebell said:

Yes, the cover-up is horrible.  But I think the biggest issue is that they kept the priests around, reassigned them to different parishes, and did not tell others that the priests were dangerous.

It doesn't make any sense why they would continuously move these guys around when they repeatedly hurt kids.  I could see a warped and erroneous idea of the Atonement and forgiveness coming into play, where there was a belief that if a priest had gone through the Catholic steps of repentance, and God remembered the sin no more, that that meant that the church should remember the sin no more either and proceed as if it had never happened, except that doesn't really work as an explanation either because reasonable people would have throw that idea out the window after the first few priests reoffended.  

Something else was/is at work, but I have no idea what.  Even a desire to protect the Catholic church would not have to include keeping the abusive priests around or letting them serve around kids again.  They could have kept the secrecy around the abuse (if protecting the catholic church for accusations had been the whole goal) but not keep the priests in service. 

I have no idea. Maybe they thought they were both protecting the institution and being compassionate and forgiving to the abusive priests. Why not just put them out to pasture, so to speak? The LDS church did that when the church patriarch was discovered to have engaged in same-sex behavior. For health reasons, he was released and moved to Hawaii, where he was prohibited from holding a church calling or speaking in church. At the very least, the Catholic church should have removed these priests from positions where they would come into contact with children. I don't understand why this wasn't done.

[pogi]

39 minutes ago, bluebell said:

The rate of priests in the Catholic church who sexually molest kids is the same as the rate of people in society who molest kids (6%), so it doesn't seem like there is any correlation between becoming a priest and the tendency to molest children.

Maybe I missed it, but can you share where you are getting this 6% figure from, both for Catholic priests and society in general?  Thanks.

[bluebell]

7 minutes ago, pogi said:

Maybe I missed it, but can you share where you are getting this 6% figure from, both for Catholic priests and society in general?  Thanks.

It's in one of the sources I linked to earlier.  I believe it's in the one from John Jay's College's study but i don't have time today to go back and check.  Here's another article that talks about the issue (and mentions the John Jay study) but the numbers percentages are slightly different.

https://www.newsweek.com/priests-commit-no-more-abuse-other-males-70625