The Catholic scandal and the Church

[Walden]

27 minutes ago, Storm Rider said:

I disagree as I disagree with similar charges against any organization. You are conflating the actions of individuals with the action of an organization. What is absolutely clear is that the Catholic Church has specific teachings on sin - what it is and what it is not. Individual priests and their leaders worked together to keep these sins covered and to keep evil priests functioning as priests.  

When do the scales tip to enable the condemnation of an entire organization? In this instance, when the majority of priests and the leaders fall into sin, to propagating it, and hide it.  I don't think there is any evidence of such a thing in the Catholic Church. I am not stating there is not a huge problem and that a great many priests and leaders should not be laicized or some other similarly harsh punishment that prevents evil priests from harming others and leaders from making horrible decisions  - to the contrary, I think they should. 

Have you read the report generated by the grand jury in Pennsylvania? They identified credible allegations of sexual abuse by over 300 priests across six dioceses. This is not a few individuals as you seem to insinuate. They also identified a large number of bishops who had actively covered up the sexual misconduct that affected thousands of victims. Do you think that these reported activities and cover-ups by church leadership across these 6 dioceses were an anomaly contained only to the dioceses under investigation? This is a world-wide crisis. How can one not condemn the entire organizational leadership in the face of such a vast, global conspiracy in actively protecting child predators? 

I understand that religion and people's beliefs are considered sacred, but if the same rate of sexual abuse had been confirmed in the public education school districts contained within these same 6 dioceses, would you not consider the public education system as being  completely broken, and dare I say evil, if you knew that various principals and superintendents had conspired over many years to move predator teachers from classroom to classroom instead of seeking justice for tens of thousands of victims? Would you not think that the state secretary/board/office of education had any culpability over the years of condoning this behavior or being involved in the conspiracy to cover it up?  

I certainly feel bad for the truly devout lay members of the church who have been blind-sided by the evil actions of their leaders, but I have no sympathy for those who continue to defend the Church by insinuating that these cases of abuse were isolated events contained to some rogue individuals within the church.

[Storm Rider]

1 hour ago, Walden said:

Have you read the report generated by the grand jury in Pennsylvania? They identified credible allegations of sexual abuse by over 300 priests across six dioceses. This is not a few individuals as you seem to insinuate. They also identified a large number of bishops who had actively covered up the sexual misconduct that affected thousands of victims. Do you think that these reported activities and cover-ups by church leadership across these 6 dioceses were an anomaly contained only to the dioceses under investigation? This is a world-wide crisis. How can one not condemn the entire organizational leadership in the face of such a vast, global conspiracy in actively protecting child predators? 

I understand that religion and people's beliefs are considered sacred, but if the same rate of sexual abuse had been confirmed in the public education school districts contained within these same 6 dioceses, would you not consider the public education system as being  completely broken, and dare I say evil, if you knew that various principals and superintendents had conspired over many years to move predator teachers from classroom to classroom instead of seeking justice for tens of thousands of victims? Would you not think that the state secretary/board/office of education had any culpability over the years of condoning this behavior or being involved in the conspiracy to cover it up?  

I certainly feel bad for the truly devout lay members of the church who have been blind-sided by the evil actions of their leaders, but I have no sympathy for those who continue to defend the Church by insinuating that these cases of abuse were isolated events contained to some rogue individuals within the church.

Walden, I don't think we are disagreeing about the gravity of the situation. It seems our disagreement is about its size. There are over 414,000 priests - diocesan and religious order - in the world. Is 300 priests a huge number? Yes, but relative to the number of priests in the world it remains a small number. 

I believe it is a worldwide problem for the Catholic Church. One case of sexual abuse is too much and the vast majority of priests remain true to their vow of celibacy. Those priests who have been caught are serial offenders and have been allowed to repeatedly offend/abuse others. 

It seems impossible to condemn every priest for the actions of the small minority. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops released a national study in 2004-FEB. It concluded that about 4% of all U.S. priests since 1950 have been accused of sexual abuse of children. I would guess that this rate of offense is typical worldwide. Do you have any evidence to the contrary?

[Walden]

22 minutes ago, Storm Rider said:

Walden, I don't think we are disagreeing about the gravity of the situation. It seems our disagreement is about its size. There are over 414,000 priests - diocesan and religious order - in the world. Is 300 priests a huge number? Yes, but relative to the number of priests in the world it remains a small number. 

I believe it is a worldwide problem for the Catholic Church. One case of sexual abuse is too much and the vast majority of priests remain true to their vow of celibacy. Those priests who have been caught are serial offenders and have been allowed to repeatedly offend/abuse others. 

It seems impossible to condemn every priest for the actions of the small minority. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops released a national study in 2004-FEB. It concluded that about 4% of all U.S. priests since 1950 have been accused of sexual abuse of children. I would guess that this rate of offense is typical worldwide. Do you have any evidence to the contrary?

The 300 predator priests were what was reported in the Pennsylvania report, which only looked at 6 dioceses. There are approximately 2,236 dioceses located around the world. This issue is much larger than 300 priests. Extrapolating the percentage of predator priests you quoted across the 414,000 priests worldwide, you can see this issue potentially affects thousands of priests.

I do not condemn all priests, as it is my belief that most of them are diligent, honest servants of their church. 

What I do condemn is the leadership structure of the catholic church that orchestrated a worldwide campaign to bury the truth about this abuse and actively hide priests who were known child predators.

I condemn an organization who not only turned their back on tens of thousands of victims, but actively worked to ensure that thousands of priests who perpetrated these heinous acts of evil on innocent children would not get caught.

[Tacenda]

3 hours ago, smac97 said:

It sure would be nice if the Church could be credited for its efforts to improve in this regard.  

The bulk of the articles I have read

A) involve allegations only (not convictions),

B) sometimes refer to an abuser as being a former bishop (to sensationalize his post-bishop misconduct, I suppose), and

C) virtually never involve a bishop committing abuse while adhering to Church guidelines (see, e.g., here).  For example:

A bishop is never supposed to visit a woman or child at home unless the husband is at home (or, if there is no husband, the bishop should be accompanied by another adult priesthood holder).  Here, we have a bishop "wrestling" with little girls with their parents present, and also stopping by their home when the parents were away.

I looked up McCleve's 2007 charges (cited in the article above).  He pleaded guilty to the charges and was sentenced to 1-15 years.  He apparently was charged with similar offenses in 2011, and again pleaded guilty and sentenced to prison time.

What "stats" are you referencing here?

Thanks,

-Smac

It was this Mormonleaks that I saw it I believe, but now that I look it up again, it says alledged.

https://mormonleaks.io/wiki/documents/6/60/INSTANCES_OF_CHILD_SEXUAL_ABUSE_ALLEGEDLY_PERPETRATED_BY_MEMBERS_OF_THE_CHURCH_OF_JESUS_CHRIST_OF_LATTER-DAY_SAINTS-2017-06.pdf

[smac97]

2 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

It was this Mormonleaks that I saw it I believe, but now that I look it up again, it says alledged.

https://mormonleaks.io/wiki/documents/6/60/INSTANCES_OF_CHILD_SEXUAL_ABUSE_ALLEGEDLY_PERPETRATED_BY_MEMBERS_OF_THE_CHURCH_OF_JESUS_CHRIST_OF_LATTER-DAY_SAINTS-2017-06.pdf

There is quite a bit of meaning and significance in the word "alleged."

[Walden]

14 hours ago, Tacenda said:

It was this Mormonleaks that I saw it I believe, but now that I look it up again, it says alledged.

https://mormonleaks.io/wiki/documents/6/60/INSTANCES_OF_CHILD_SEXUAL_ABUSE_ALLEGEDLY_PERPETRATED_BY_MEMBERS_OF_THE_CHURCH_OF_JESUS_CHRIST_OF_LATTER-DAY_SAINTS-2017-06.pdf

The instances of abuse in the LDS church when compared to the current crisis within the Catholic church is comparing apples and oranges, or rather, apples and gorillas. What the Catholic church leadership has practiced over decades is a systematic, orchestrated, calculated global program of shifting child abusers from one parish to the next in a deliberate attempt to hide those abusers from the law and the consequences of their actions.

There are predators within every population, be it Mormon, Catholic, Buddhist, atheist, etc. The difference in the Catholic church is that a system was implemented globally to hide these predators from legal prosecution and public scrutiny. This was not a lone decision of some rogue bishops in the Catholic church; the same stories and the same practices have been reported, and in many cases confirmed, around the world and on every continent, and throughout, the Catholic playbook is the same....move the predator priest, contain and bury the story/facts, and when he offends again, move him again or urge him into retirement. To deny that the highest positions of leadership in the Catholic church were not in on this, when considering the scope and depth of this conspiracy, is naive at best.

Sure, the LDS church has predators in it ranks, but I have never seen any evidence of a calculated and orchestrated program to shift predator leaders from one area to the next.

I feel badly for my devoutly Catholic friends and family and the majority of honest and diligent priests within the Catholic church, but I have no remorse for the church leadership that has perpetuated this evil around the world over may decades.

[Jeanne]

2 hours ago, Walden said:

The instances of abuse in the LDS church when compared to the current crisis within the Catholic church is comparing apples and oranges, or rather, apples and gorillas. What the Catholic church leadership has practiced over decades is a systematic, orchestrated, calculated global program of shifting child abusers from one parish to the next in a deliberate attempt to hide those abusers from the law and the consequences of their actions.

There are predators within every population, be it Mormon, Catholic, Buddhist, atheist, etc. The difference in the Catholic church is that a system was implemented globally to hide these predators from legal prosecution and public scrutiny. This was not a lone decision of some rogue bishops in the Catholic church; the same stories and the same practices have been reported, and in many cases confirmed, around the world and on every continent, and throughout, the Catholic playbook is the same....move the predator priest, contain and bury the story/facts, and when he offends again, move him again or urge him into retirement. To deny that the highest positions of leadership in the Catholic church were not in on this, when considering the scope and depth of this conspiracy, is naive at best.

Sure, the LDS church has predators in it ranks, but I have never seen any evidence of a calculated and orchestrated program to shift predator leaders from one area to the next.

I feel badly for my devoutly Catholic friends and family and the majority of honest and diligent priests within the Catholic church, but I have no remorse for the church leadership that has perpetuated this evil around the world over may decades.

😑🙄

[cinepro]

I think the problem is that these situations put people in the position of deciding how much child abuse they are willing to tolerate in their Church.  And apparently everyone has a different amount.  Some people have a very low tolerance, and others are able to excuse quite a bit.

Maybe it would help if Churches were more open about how much abuse is happening in their ranks, so members and prospective members could make an informed decision and not wait to be surprised by the media.

For example, the LDS Church could start a media campaign and take a note from Smac97:

 

Join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  We are the restored Church of Jesus Christ, and have the Priesthood authority to perform saving ordinances that will allow your family to be together, forever.

We can also promise it is highly unlikely your children will be molested while attending our Church.  Few of our molesters are ever convicted, and if the perpetrator is a Bishop, he's usually a former Bishop.  And if it is a Bishop, they're almost never following our guidelines (especially the one about not molesting children).  But it does happen, and using our patented and inspired "Close the Barn Door After the Horse Escapes" method, we promise to enact policies that would have prevented your child's abuse after the fact, so you can be confident other kids won't be similarly abused, as long as other abusers follow our policies.

We also ask that if you are a child molester, please DO NOT JOIN OUR CHURCH.  If you did join, and if you had a good personality and pretended you were living righteously, it's possible we would call you to a position of leadership where you would have exposure to possibly dozens of kids in the congregation. If we found out about your crimes after a long period of time had passed (and you were really old), we wouldn't be able to do anything about it and might have to give your victims a financial settlement.  Often times, it's just the victim's word, and that's not enough for us.  So you can see what kind of a situation that puts us in.  We also have very expensive attorneys that we pay a lot of money to defend the Church, so you would be costing us even more money.  So just do the right thing and don't join.

No personal insults

 

[rongo]

Some interesting thoughts in this article:

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/francis-wont-be-pope-forever/

1) According to this, most of of the horrifying details stem from decades old details, including the Pennsylvania report. I think we believing Mormons take a similar approach when leader transgressions surface: most pre-date the advent of prevention measures, and the prevention measures are working pretty well. I found it interesting that there would be this similarity between Mormons and Catholics on this issue. 

2) I found his observation about retiring Pope Francis interesting. It seems that Pope Benedict's unexpected and abrupt retirement made it easier to envision/encourage such a thing again (like the next administration). I think it would be similar if the Church ever starting putting apostles or presidents on emeritus status. If you do it once, you have a runaway train. 

[sheilauk]

The Catholic Church is not the only organisation to systematically cover up abuse.   In the past,  pretty much all abuse was covered up, with either the abuser being moved on or the abused. Schools, care homes,  scouts, councils snd even families behaved like this. things are changing and protections are increasingly in place but historic cases will continue to come to light for many years yet as people are very slow to report abuse. And abusers will always find a way around all the protections.  not that I am arguing they shouldn't be there,  but we need to empower children to speak as well as try to prevent it. With all my experience,  if I had children,  it wouldn't be priests or LDS bishops I'd be keeping them from but their uncle or grandparent as the vast majority of abusers I've dealt with are family members.  The rest were care workers.   One person was in fact an ex Catholic priest whose abusive behaviour took place after he left the church and when he was a social worker. The Pennslyvania case is horrific, but it also requires perspective.   family and family friends remain the bigger risk.

Edited August 29, 2018 by sheilauk

[Avatar4321]

I've seen much outrage at the Pope for not addressing the allegation that he covered up by people I know are faithful Catholics. Many are demanding his resignation.

I've seen talk of schism among them over this. I honestly can't blame them.

makes me wonder if we should be prepared as the Church of Jesus Christ to reach out to Bring displaced Catholics into the restored Church. Or should we do anything?

Edited August 29, 2018 by Avatar4321

[Avatar4321]

Not sure why the don't size there changed

[Tacenda]

9 hours ago, Walden said:

The instances of abuse in the LDS church when compared to the current crisis within the Catholic church is comparing apples and oranges, or rather, apples and gorillas. What the Catholic church leadership has practiced over decades is a systematic, orchestrated, calculated global program of shifting child abusers from one parish to the next in a deliberate attempt to hide those abusers from the law and the consequences of their actions.

There are predators within every population, be it Mormon, Catholic, Buddhist, atheist, etc. The difference in the Catholic church is that a system was implemented globally to hide these predators from legal prosecution and public scrutiny. This was not a lone decision of some rogue bishops in the Catholic church; the same stories and the same practices have been reported, and in many cases confirmed, around the world and on every continent, and throughout, the Catholic playbook is the same....move the predator priest, contain and bury the story/facts, and when he offends again, move him again or urge him into retirement. To deny that the highest positions of leadership in the Catholic church were not in on this, when considering the scope and depth of this conspiracy, is naive at best.

Sure, the LDS church has predators in it ranks, but I have never seen any evidence of a calculated and orchestrated program to shift predator leaders from one area to the next.

I feel badly for my devoutly Catholic friends and family and the majority of honest and diligent priests within the Catholic church, but I have no remorse for the church leadership that has perpetuated this evil around the world over may decades.

Thanks for putting it in prospective like this. I did watch "Spotlight" back when it first came out, and now with more information that has come out, I believe the popes and the bishops have a lot to explain for. My niece was baptised into the Catholic faith because of her very devout grandmother, my brother-in-law's mother. I remember his mother would do "lent" and have that spot of burnt ash on her forehead. Which I think is great, but I can't imagine how she would take this news, luckily she has passed on. 

[Spammer]

2 hours ago, Avatar4321 said:

I've seen much outrage at the Pope for not addressing the allegation that he covered up by people I know are faithful Catholics. Many are demanding his resignation.

I've seen talk of schism among them over this. I honestly can't blame them.

makes me wonder if we should be prepared as the Church of Jesus Christ to reach out to Bring displaced Catholics into the restored Church. Or should we do anything?

The scandal directly impacts only the Latin wing of the Catholic tradition and its celibate clergy (aka the ancient Church of Rome). There are plenty of other Nicene Creedal, liturgical, bells and whistles, catholic places where disaffected Roman Catholics who know their tradition can go, where they can receive Christ Himself in the bread and wine and feel comfortable. No need to go anywhere else. E.g. they can go to Eastern Catholicism (Greek, Slavic or Syriac), Orthodoxy, the Copts, or the Church of the East (all of which comprise the ancient Catholic Churches of Antioch, Alexandria, Constantinople, Jerusalem, and Selucia-Ctesiphon). 

To cite just one example, Eastern Catholics in communion with Rome, who worship according to the the Byzantine (Greek) Rite, can separate from Rome and it’s predominant Latin Rite and enter into communion with the Eastern Orthodox. Their Sunday worship is identical. Both are Catholic, but not Roman Catholic.

Edited August 30, 2018 by Spammer

[poptart]

Other branches of Christianity pull this, thing is esp. here stateside they've enjoyed power so they've gotten away with it.  I still do not condone what Rome did, this is disgraceful.  Wonder what Rome would be like if they had a pope like this...

 

[Teancum]

On 8/28/2018 at 4:31 PM, USU78 said:

Because of the vagaries of litigation, innocent folks who've done nobody harm get to pay people harmed by others.

Scandal has nothing to do with it.

Keep telling yourself this. I am sure it gives you comfort.

[USU78]

57 minutes ago, Teancum said:

Keep telling yourself this. I am sure it gives you comfort.

Just lovely.

The predators inside the RCC support and cover for one another. The good folks inside the priesthood (which is almost all of em) are constantly having to play catch up and whack a mole as the problem morphs and changes and changes venue.

Yet your antipapist bigotry sneers at the impossibly hard job the RCC does by and large with kindness and tact.

Do you get I'm decidedly unimpressed? And not by them?

[Teancum]

1 hour ago, USU78 said:

Just lovely.

The predators inside the RCC support and cover for one another. The good folks inside the priesthood (which is almost all of em) are constantly having to play catch up and whack a mole as the problem morphs and changes and changes venue.

Yet your antipapist bigotry sneers at the impossibly hard job the RCC does by and large with kindness and tact.

Do you get I'm decidedly unimpressed? And not by them?

Bully for you. I would not expect anything different from you.  Carry on.....

[USU78]

3 hours ago, Teancum said:

Bully for you. I would not expect anything different from you.  Carry on.....

B'bye

[Scott Lloyd]

On 8/29/2018 at 11:34 AM, cinepro said:

I think the problem is that these situations put people in the position of deciding how much child abuse they are willing to tolerate in their Church.  And apparently everyone has a different amount.  Some people have a very low tolerance, and others are able to excuse quite a bit.

Maybe it would help if Churches were more open about how much abuse is happening in their ranks, so members and prospective members could make an informed decision and not wait to be surprised by the media.

For example, the LDS Church could start a media campaign and take a note from Smac97:

 

Join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  We are the restored Church of Jesus Christ, and have the Priesthood authority to perform saving ordinances that will allow your family to be together, forever.

We can also promise it is highly unlikely your children will be molested while attending our Church.  Few of our molesters are ever convicted, and if the perpetrator is a Bishop, he's usually a former Bishop.  And if it is a Bishop, they're almost never following our guidelines (especially the one about not molesting children).  But it does happen, and using our patented and inspired "Close the Barn Door After the Horse Escapes" method, we promise to enact policies that would have prevented your child's abuse after the fact, so you can be confident other kids won't be similarly abused, as long as other abusers follow our policies.

We also ask that if you are a child molester, please DO NOT JOIN OUR CHURCH.  If you did join, and if you had a good personality and pretended you were living righteously, it's possible we would call you to a position of leadership where you would have exposure to possibly dozens of kids in the congregation. If we found out about your crimes after a long period of time had passed (and you were really old), we wouldn't be able to do anything about it and might have to give your victims a financial settlement.  Often times, it's just the victim's word, and that's not enough for us.  So you can see what kind of a situation that puts us in.  We also have very expensive attorneys that we pay a lot of money to defend the Church, so you would be costing us even more money.  So just do the right thing and don't join.

I haven't been following this thread. But did Smac97 really say the above?

If not, doesn't falsely attributing a statement to him violate some board rule or another?

 

[clarkgoble]

On 8/28/2018 at 4:52 PM, Storm Rider said:

Walden, I don't think we are disagreeing about the gravity of the situation. It seems our disagreement is about its size. There are over 414,000 priests - diocesan and religious order - in the world. Is 300 priests a huge number? Yes, but relative to the number of priests in the world it remains a small number.

Except there are reasons to believe that those 300 priests just in PA are fairly representative of trends in many states and perhaps across the world. So the question isn't 300 in 414,000 but 300 out of however number were in PA. Worse, the issue isn't just the 300 but the many, many more who covered up for them.

Now I don't want to put the "well at least it wasn't us" hat on. Clearly we've had our own problems with apostasy in the past with leadership. But this is quite bad and will probably continue to push people against all organized religion. Similar sorts of things in Evangelical circles are also causing commotion. It's not that Mormonism has escaped, given that horrific MTC MP. But we've escaped more than I'd have expected. Of course there have been horrific Bishopric abuse even in Mormonism. There was just last year that guy in Spanish Fork who was drugging and raping young priests in his ward. However I do think there's renewed concern whatever tendencies there were to disbelieve that such things happened in the past. We can do better, but at least I think we're trying. I think the concern by Catholics is that there not even any real concern to clean things up by Catholic leadership.

[Spammer]

7 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

So the question isn't 300 in 414,000 but 300 out of however number were in PA. 

It’s 300 (or maybe 600, if we double to account for likely underreporting), out of the total number of all priests who served  in the six Pennsylvania dioceses noted in the grand jury report, serving between 1947 and the year of the latest instance of abuse cited in the report. That’s our denominator, if we’re interested in measuring the scope of the problem accurately and fairly.

Edited August 31, 2018 by Spammer

[MiserereNobis]

I've thought for awhile about responding to this thread. Originally I thought I would just let it be but as the only active Catholic poster (I sure miss 3DOP) I didn't want my silence to be misconstrued.

The abuse scandal in the Church is horrifying and fills me with disgust and anger. The actions of the priests and bishops are reprehensible, inexcusable, and indefensible. I cried reading the grand jury report. The Church has much to answer for and I pray that the safeguards in place now work (there are a lot in my diocese but there is no need to go into details here).

For those who have expressed disgust at the Catholic Church, I certainly understand. For those who have expressed sympathy for devout Catholics, thank you.

I pray for the victims and their families that God may help them find healing and peace.

[3DOP]

On 9/1/2018 at 2:49 PM, MiserereNobis said:

I've thought for awhile about responding to this thread. Originally I thought I would just let it be but as the only active Catholic poster (I sure miss 3DOP) I didn't want my silence to be misconstrued.

The abuse scandal in the Church is horrifying and fills me with disgust and anger. The actions of the priests and bishops are reprehensible, inexcusable, and indefensible. I cried reading the grand jury report. The Church has much to answer for and I pray that the safeguards in place now work (there are a lot in my diocese but there is no need to go into details here).

For those who have expressed disgust at the Catholic Church, I certainly understand. For those who have expressed sympathy for devout Catholics, thank you.

I pray for the victims and their families that God may help them find healing and peace.

Silence can certainly be misconstrued. But not so badly as by word making. I am moved by your kind words...and those of Storm Rider a few months ago.  But for now anyway, I would rather by silence be misconstrued than by word making. I remain your Catholic brother, Jesse...and I appreciate your participation here. I hope you keep being a good example for our faith to our LDS friends. God bless. St. Pius X, pray for us. (feast day tomorrow)

Rory

[MiserereNobis]

3 minutes ago, 3DOP said:

Silence can certainly be misconstrued. But not so badly as by word making. I am moved by your kind words...and those of Storm Rider a few months ago.  But for now anyway, I would rather by silence be misconstrued than by word making. I remain your Catholic brother, Jesse...and I appreciate your participation here. I hope you keep being a good example for our faith to our LDS friends. God bless. St. Pius X, pray for us. (feast day tomorrow)

Rory

Rory,

So good to hear from you. I joined the board on the feast day of Pope St. Pius X. My original name was that: Pope St. Pius X. I remember you were one of the first to comment about me, saying that you were praying to this saint and then he appeared on the board, ha. And then Mark commented on the SSPX. The moderators asked me to change my name to conform to board rules, which I did, to the current one.

I'm glad that you are lurking. It is nice to know that you are around. God bless you, my Catholic brother, you and your family. I know we both pray that this sin and scourge is purged from the priesthood, and that traditional formation is the way to do it.

+ PAX +

Jesse