From today’s Times:
Roman Catholic and Orthodox Jewish officials in New York are mounting an intense lobbying effort to block a bill before the State Legislature that would temporarily lift the statute of limitations for lawsuits alleging the sexual abuse of children.
[….]“We believe this bill is designed to bankrupt the Catholic Church,” said Dennis Poust, spokesman for the New York State Catholic Conference, a group representing the bishops of the state’s eight dioceses. He said that Cardinal Egan and Bishop Nicholas A. DiMarzio of Brooklyn visited Albany this week to voice their opposition, and that a statewide network of Catholic parishioners had bombarded lawmakers via e-mail.
But while the Catholic Church is leading the opposition, in recent months a loose coalition of disparate groups has also joined the effort. They include leaders of the Hasidic and Sephardic Jewish institutions in Brooklyn, which could face equally costly abuse claims. The New York Civil Liberties Union and the criminal defense bar oppose lifting statutes of limitation as unfair to the accused, who must defend themselves against claims of transgressions decades old.
Seriously, what is it with religion and sexual abuse?
There are plenty of private groups out there that deal with children all the time — schools, the boy scouts, sports programs, summer camps: why is it that of these, the only groups with an overriding fear of this bill are religious groups?
This is not meant as a Hitch-style anti-religion slam (I think it’s completely unfair that Catholic priests, many of whom are the most decent people you would ever want to meet, are all seen as pedophiles by many). I’d just like to know an explanation.
aschup
He says it like it’s a bad thing.
Jrod
If enough priests raped little boys that their lawsuits would bankrupt the church, there would almost be justice.
Linda
I really think it is because Catholic priests are very powerful to the congregation as a whole. The idea that power corrupts is very valid. Add to that the fact that Catholicism has very skewed views on sex and you get sex scandals. I can’t speak to the Orthodox Jewish side, because I don’t know enough about the religious views or the scandals there.
Jay
A) Some minister/rabbi/priest predators think they can overcome their predilection by being more intensely religious, and there isn’t many as widespread and intense as Catholicism.
B) Some minister/rabbi/priest predators know they will end up with far more opportunities to be alone with their prey than they would by being teachers.
C) Catholicism’s rules on priests marrying also provide cover for bachelorhood.
It really is that simple. It’s not the religion, it’s what some people do with it. Or in other words, religion is like art in that one can only get from it what one is capable of bringing to it.
GRreynoldsCT00
And why does it always seem to come down to money with the Catholic church? I’d like to see them bankrupted and I say that as someone who was brought up Catholic. The worship has been destroyed for the power and money.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Because they’re the only fuckers dumb enough to say shit like this?
Seriously? "It’s not that we repeatedly protected the baby rapists in our ranks and shuffled them around so they could continue baby raping, people just want our money!"
You’d have to turn to … to … well, you’d have turn to the GOP to hear something that mind-blowingly idiotic.
Does that mean other groups that could be effected by this law don’t think the same? No, it just means they don’t have to say anything because the church is doing all the dirty work.
Incertus
When I saw this story last night I had a similar reaction to it, but I also thought, even if the Church’s motivations are reasonable–and that’s not a given–man, the optics on this are horrible. Not a good move.
Geoff Wittig
"Completely unfair"? No. It’s a stereotype, a generalization. But the number of priests guilty of sexually abusing minors nationwide is simply breathtaking. It’s not something you can dismiss with the wave of a hand.
A Mom Anon
People trust their kids with clergy and there’s opportunity for abuse where there’s trust. Organized religion favors and values men over women and children,giving them the vast majority of power in that relationship. Throw in hellfire,damnation,fear,intimidation and manipulation and you have the perfect climate for sexual abuse.
Our culture and the main religions don’t have healthy attitudes about sex and gender,this doesn’t help either.
mistermix
Here’s a guess: the religious groups have a longer history of covering up the behavior of wayward priests/rabbis/etc. The other institutions you mentioned (boy scouts, schools, etc.) have only been around for a fraction of the time that churches have, so they didn’t have a thousand years of institutional habit to cast aside when it came to reforming their stance on sexual abuse.
The problem is compounded by the lack of new blood in the church bureaucracy (everyone running the place is geriatric).
Ash Can
Like Linda, I have no familiarity with the Jewish participants in this issue, so I can’t comment on them. In the case of the Catholic Church, though, the celibacy of the priesthood makes it more vulnerable to infiltration by sexual deviancy (and I don’t mean homosexuality). Now, this deviancy is by no means the norm, of course. I can’t cite any figures, but I’m very confident that the percentage of abusive priests is extremely low. However, this is a case where the crime is so heinous that it just takes one bad apple to make everyone suspect.
What gets me is that the Catholic heirarchy in America isn’t dense. It knows that, in the Western industrialized world, its membership is slipping, its vocations are way, way down, and among the people who do show up for Sunday mass are many skeptics/"cafeteria Catholics" (such as me) who tolerate the goofy stuff because it’s relatively peripheral and not enough to offset the good inherent in the basic message. In short, the Church recognizes that it’s in a position of some fragility. Faced with the sex-abuse issue, however, rather than use it as an opportunity to strengthen its position with a skeptical laity and treat offenders with zero tolerance, it closes ranks around its own — which further alienates said skeptical laity. It’s the same thing as cops who rally to the defense of another cop who’s accused of brutality, regardless of how numbingly blatant the case may be; tribalism trumps other considerations such as the law and basic decency. In the case of pedophile priests, add to the mix the fact that parenthood is one of those things in life that, in general, must be experienced to be fully understood. As a result, on the one side of the gulf you have these celibate, childless men, and on the other side you have parents, who will in a heartbeat quite literally tear to pieces anyone who harms their kids.
All of this puts the Catholic Church in a difficult position. The fact that, instead of making more and better efforts to get itself out of its hole, it keeps digging makes a bad situation all the worse.
kay
I think the difference is complicity. That’s harsh, but there it is. The laypeople in these churches didn’t and don’t break ranks. Children rely on adults to step up and call out other adults, or adults who create trust , so the kids aren’t too scared to tell. Those two types of adults were missing. Just missing. Adults like that exist in every setting and organization and even within families. Where were they?
The laypeople knew. They did nothing. They chose to do nothing. The church lawyers certainly knew. They were negotiating settlements. Some of the parents knew. No help there.
These churches have a much bigger problem than a few renegade priests, in my opinion. They’re filled with members that chose protecting the church over protecting individual children. It’s systemic. I’d take a hard look at that if I were a church or lay leader. I’d want to know why the non-abusing adults failed so miserably and uniformly at protecting those children. What is it about these organizations that fostered that kind of wholesale abandonment of what is a fairly routine and unremarkable adult duty, the protection of children? If this had been a non-sexual physical health risk or harm that occured again and again, over years, that question would have been asked. Why wasn’t it asked?
Krista
Wow. Um, you know, Dennis, spokesperson to spokesperson, I’m going to give you a little clue. Maybe if so many priests hadn’t been buggering little boys, this wouldn’t be an issue? So for you to strongly imply that there are SO many victims out there, that the subsequent lawsuits would bankrupt what is, AFAIK, the richest organized religion in the world — well, it might not be the message you wanted to send out. M’kay?
liberal
@kommrade reproductive vigor:
Yeah.
The priests part isn’t the most damning part. It’s what they did when they found out that priest X was a child molesterer.
Jay
But as far as the question "What is it about religion and sexual abuse?", we all understand that it’s that pedophiles bring pedophilia to religion, not that religion sometimes causes pedophilia, right?
Cerberus
It’s definitely the protection. A pedophile, sociopath, serial deliberate rapist will all look for opportunities to engage in their activities and seek areas where there is complicity or a conspiracy of silence to continue their actions. They look for an opportunity. The Catholic Church was initially vulnerable because the imbalance of power between priest and layperson as well as the chastity vow which would attract people who knew they would have no problem being attracted to consenting adults. It would stand to reason that pedophiles would infiltrate and need to be removed.
The reasons these religious groups are singled out and are crying about the money? They’re fucked. Instead of doing the proper thing (listening to all complaints the first time, creating new regulatory and reporting systems to catch offenders that escaped notice, turning over offenders to the law and using such actions as demonstrations of morality and good policy), they doubled down on infallibility and the holy separation of official and layperson and shuffled the books and playing wait out the clock. On top of other things, it changes the playing field to Person X did something, Person X must pay to Organization X did something, it’s in their culture and how much worse does it get, Organization X must doubly pay.
This is also why the schools don’t have this problem. When pedophilia happens, the teacher is expelled, hiring practices become stricter and new sex ed courses become available telling kids where to go if an official breaks trust. Thus the school becomes rather limited in its complicity and most of the ire is reserved for the offender itself. In fact, the times the schools do get in hot water and it makes the news is when they try and do the shuffle around and bury incidents to "protect their reputation."
It probably doesn’t at all help that Churches paint themselves as more moral and engaged in the Culture War to make morality legislatable.
DougJ
Me too. I’m not commenting on the bill per se.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Sounds familiar, don’t it?
One could almost imagine that a certain political organization studied how a certain religious organization was responding to what at the very least is a serious PR problem and (for some incomprehensible reason) decided that was the way to go.
And then a bunch of financial institutions followed suit.
Hypothesis: There is a negative correlation between an institution’s power and influence and its ability to respond to a crisis.
Popcorn?
DougJ
I have no idea, though I suspect the former.
Why is so sexual abuse carried out by religious leaders? That’s what I’d like know.
used to be disgusted
I’m certainly not going to claim that religion causes pedophilia; I respect the religious people I know.
But there’s a mind-boggling degree of hypocrisy from the Catholic Church on this topic, and on many others — the issue of birth control springs to mind. You’re seeing the result of a system of ethics that operates a priori, instead of checking to see what real-world consequences a rule may produce.
Priestly celibacy is the law, no matter what kind of people it attracts and shelters. Birth control, on the other hand, is always wrong — no matter what consequences the prohibition may produce. I have no tolerance for that approach to ethics; it needs to be wiped out, and the furrows need to be sown with salt.
MikeJ
No we don’t all understand that. Power relationships cause abuse of power. "Love me or burn in hell forever" is pretty much the ultimate abuse of a power relationship, so it’s no wonder that some of the people attracted to it are twisted too.
Cerberus
Doug:
Power. Both the power to commit it (the ability to shame victims with something powerful if they tell or fail to accept it, the ability to assert power over your victim to coerce "consent", the ability to have allies who’ll defend you if you get caught) as well as the power to want to (child rape and pedophilia are often not actual orientations, but rather crimes of power, a means by which one shows their dominance and strength over a figure that cannot possibly strike back).
There is a strong correlation between the types of people who view themselves as better than large swaths of people (other races, women, gays, their own parish) and those who don’t value personhood and consent. There is a further obvious correlation between those who don’t value personhood and consent and those who’d be comfortable abusing children.
Religious structures thus can provide a convenient means to express those aspects and could possibly lead to those who only commit socially acceptable sociopathies (voting Republican) to "branch out" with the heady dose of power. And the sad part is that last sentence is only half-snark.
kommrade reproductive vigor
You’re really just asking why do people with any form of authority do fucked up shit. And I mean any form of authority.
I’m sure if we could get accurate stats on this crime and totaled up the relationship between perp and victim … we’d wonder if people should drink a hemlock smoothie when they hit 16 or so. But we’d also see a pretty even spread instead of a spike around ordained members of religious orgs.
A Mom Anon
I’d like to know why it seems like we have an inordinate number of people who are so damaged that they abuse in the first place. It’s not just religion and that institution providing cover for sexual abusers that concerns me, I think the larger question is why is it that there seem to be so many preditors in the first place? What the hell is going on?
Cat Lady
Authoritarian orthodox institutions don’t seem to be able to self-correct. Doubling down is their only play. I would suggest it’s not just a religious phenomenon. Republicans did the same thing with Mark Foley.
gil mann
Yeah, I mean, when one of the cornerstones of your institution is the denial—nay, demonization—of all but the most LCD aspects of human sexuality (and even missionary-style spouse-fucking’s fraught with all sorts of cosmic nonsense), hard to believe you’d end up attracting more than your fair share of seriously damaged individuals.
Other things that similarly blow my mind: the over-representation of violent sociopaths in law enforcement and potheads behind the scenes of puppet-intensive children’s shows.
wilfred
History is the return of the repressed. Without accurate data on the incidence of the sexual abuse of children by clerics prior to recent decades it’s worth looking at the massive changes in (projected) culture in the last 40 years or so.
Prior to that it was simpler to simply use intermediate psycho-religous terms like ‘the devil’ or ‘evil incarnate’ (think about it) to materialize, or make real, powerful repressed desires and project them out onto culture. It’s relatively easy, in fact, to look at clerical activities with children in terms of sublimated sexual desires.
Easy, but unnecessary. Faced with the upheavals in society over the past 40 or 50 years, where many heretofore repressed desires have been first exhibited, condemned and finally accepted, is it really any wonder that the repressed desires of clerics no longer were sublimated but instead acted out?
No one talks about ‘devils’ anymore, even though they were a perfectly legitimate means of trying to explain the unexplained.
gypsy howell
The phrase "guilty as sin" comes to mind…
toujoursdan
I think you have to distinguish between authoritarian religions (Catholicism, Orthodox Judaism, fundamentalism) and non-authoritarian religions (Anglicanism, Reform Judaism, Unitarianism, Buddhism, etc.). Both have sexual preditors (as would any organization) but the latter seem to have much more open cultures and processes whereby they are rooted out much faster.
NonyNony
I think you actually have two questions here. The first:
Is actually pretty easily answered. I would assume that all of these groups are actually very worried about such a bill from a financial level because it could potentially cost them money. There’s no way to screen for pedophiles at employment time if they haven’t been convicted of a criminal offense, so at any point they could have a pedophile in their ranks. BUT – since these are organizations whose primary mission is dealing with children, it’s actually in their best financial interest to stay out of the legislative process on this and just deal with the problem if it comes up. Because let’s face it – if you read in the newspaper that the summer camp that you were planning to send your kid to in July was part of a lobbying effort to block a bill extending the statute of limitations on sexual abuse of children, do you think you’d still be inclined to send your kid there? Same with the Boy Scouts or sports programs. And since schools are locally administered by school boards answerable to parents (not to mention that the boards usually have parents on them), well, supporting something like this is also a non-starter. Even if there are worries about lawsuits.
OTOH, religious groups don’t really think they have to worry about bad press. They have your Immortal Soul in their hands after all. If you’re a believer, well, what are you going to do? Hell the Roman Church right now is hewing to a line of "you don’t like it? Then leave, we don’t need you" with their congregants. Any objections from the congregation will be silent, and will involve them sleeping in on Sundays or possibly becoming Lutherans or Methodists. I suspect that the same is true of the Orthodox Jewish communities (though probably not the becoming Lutherans or Methodists part).
But the second question:
Religion gives a lot of power to the leader of a church community. And requires that you put a lot of trust in that leader. And because the leader has that level of trust and power of his congregation, it can be easily abused. Sexual abuse of children is about the lowest it can go, but I’ve seen it manifest in other ways. Sometimes it’s as minor (and obnoxious) as getting free stuff from the congregation (free meals, gifts of cars, stuff like that – even Catholics sometimes don’t realize that priests make good money and can afford to buy this stuff for themselves). Sometimes it’s major, like priests who coerce their adult parishoners into sex – something that happens but no one likes to talk about (and since it isn’t actually illegal, it doesn’t often make the news – just the gossip circles). But that trust is inherent in the whole idea of a religion, so people are born and raised to give the priest that kind of trust. And that trust relationship is what makes the position so easy for abusers to exploit.
kay
It’s Amish, too, by the way. Abused girls have been known to flag down sheriff’s deputies around here.
I don’t have much sympathy. Money damages are appropriate. When your organization leaves a trail of broken people you have to compensate them, and money seems to have gotten the church’s attention. The church can look at it like they breached a contract. They did absolutely nothing until the first lawsuit was filed. Seems to me they have some trouble self-policing.
I’m a little tired of the sentimentality around and special treatment of religious. I’m not asking that they be singled out. I’m asking that they play by the same rules as everyone else. These people were harmed. Compensation is standard.
gex
I might be convinced that there is a reasonable argument against removing the statute of limitations. If the ACLU is against it, I will certainly read up and try to have an informed opinion.
However, I start from the point of thinking that it might be a good idea. And the protestations of organizations who institutionally try to protect and hide pedophiles until the statute of limitations has passed isn’t going to convince me the idea is bad.
geg6
@Cerberus:
As a former Catholic, I couldn’t agree with you more. And also as a former Catholic, I feel quite confident in saying that the Catholic Church is uniquely (maybe not completely, but certainly the most visible one) an institution in which this sort of behavior can thrive.
And it’s not for the reason everyone may think. I totally disagree with the theory that the vow of celibacy has anything to do with the idea that so many priests are pedophiles (which, in reality, the majority are not at all). Nuns, too, take a vow of celibacy and we don’t hear these kinds of stories about them, do we?
I also think that religion, especially Catholicism, can most certainly encourage deviant and predatory behavior. The Catholic Church not only has twisted ideas about sexuality and an inordinately paternalistic power relationship with it’s adherents, it also places so much emphasis on the mysterious powers of the priests that they are almost supernatural beings themselves, sort of small "gods" on earth. If you believe in the mysterious powers of the priest to intervene for you with god, then they have full control over every aspect of your life and, even more frightening, your afterlife. And you don’t question, whether you are an adult or a child, someone who has complete control over you, body and soul. And that is an feature of Catholicism (and other fanatical, misogynist religions like Wahabbism), not a bug.
gex
On another note – I would guess that institutions that do their best to properly deal with pedophiles they discover in their midst (like maybe notifying law enforcement) probably don’t face the same kind of financial risk. This is as strong an indictment against the church that I’ve ever seen. They aren’t opposed for any reason other than it may bankrupt them. Gee, why is that? Is it because it is SOP to protect these MFers?
Balconesfault
Great comments Nony.
Also, the Catholic Church invests a lot more resources into developing a priest than the Boy Scouts, or School Boards, do into developing a scout leader/teacher. Also, it’s not that hard to get a dad to sign up to be a scoutmaster or soccer coach for a couple years, or while higher salaries would help us improve the quality of the teaching ranks it’s still a profession that holds a lot of appeal and doesn’t suffer for want of bodies simply because people don’t want to endure the terms of the employment.
Kinda different for the priesthood. There aren’t a lot of guys lining up to take a vow of celebacy.
So Scouts and youth sports and even schools can have a much quicker "trigger finger" on bouncing someone with any suspicion of a problem. The Catholic Church, being both applicant limited, and having invested a lot in the priest before he gets to a position where his inability to keep his hands to himself gets noticed (not to mention the possibility that people’s ability to suppress certain things changes over time – see how many marriages break up because a guy or lady finally has to admit after the 2nd or 3rd kid that they just don’t like sleeping touching someone of the opposite gender) has a strong institutional interest in trying to see if they can manage the situation rather than just cutting bait at the first hint of trouble.
Also, everyone involved in sponsored youth activities pretty much is in a "two deep" mode these days – you can’t be with a kid one-on-one in isolation. Whereas confession, etc, has traditionally made one-on-one isolation a part and parcel of the relationship between parishoner and pastor.
gex
@Jay: True, to a point. But religion also presents itself as a way to fix this kind of problem. Look at the ex-gay movement from religion’s viewpoint. To them, they are inviting in sexual perverts with the promise to fix them. Now, I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with being gay. As was mentioned by another poster, one aspect of the chruch’s problem that isn’t present with, say, the Boy Scouts is that some go to the church hoping to be cured. Instead they were enabled and protected.
Shygetz
gex is right–the Catholic Church would not be facing cupability in an untold number of lawsuits if it had not actively covered up and assisted known child molesters within its ranks. If the Church did a reasonable amount of screening before hiring, then promptly reported any accusations as soon as they found out and isolated the accused from children until they were resolved, the Church would be in no legal danger. But that’s not good enough–they have to be able to actively help priests molest kids and get away with it, or else you’re anti-Catholic. The fact that the Orthodox Jewish community is also coming out against this when, so far as I know, there hasn’t been a run on Orthodox sex scandals suggests to me that they had a bad seed a few decades back who let at least one predator roam freely.
kay
This is what Lily Ledbetter was about. The inability to recognize the harm within the period to file for damages. I don’t know why a state legislature can’t address that problem. Congress just did.
Leelee for Obama
When the pedophile priest scandal hit a few years ago, my Mom (in her eighties and not really practicing) said, "they should have sent these people away somewhere." To which I said, "Yeah, jail!" It took her awhile to see I was right, and she was shocked that she hadn’t seen it all along. That’s what indoctrination can do, even to someone who didn’t like the church too much!
In another thread, I mentioned why I fell away from the church around 14. Even that young, I knew these people had no special power with God, or if they did, God wasn’t all that.
Nannergrrl
The opposition to the bill is based on two points: first lawsuits follow the money; and 2) lawsuits are leasier to win and provide larger payouts if it can be proven that the organization was complicit in either covering for or allowing the vicitimization to continue.
The difference between a school and a religious organization (specifically the Catholic Church) is that the latter has more money AND no rigorous policies in place to check criminal backgrounds of religious leaders. Furthermore, religious organizations, have much to lose if admitting that such behavior exists in leadership positions, particularly from those that preach on personal and community morality and so breeds an atmosphere of deceit and coverups.
Doing nothing to curb the potential for the crime to be committed is not seen as harshly by jurors as is the active covering up in the aftermath. And it’s THAT which leads to huge punitive damages awards. Of course religious organizations will fight that.
geg6
@Leelee for Obama:
Word. For me, it happened around age 10 or 11. I had a huge battle with my mom over getting confirmed. I didn’t want to do it and argued for well over a year to skip it since I had no belief in the Church, it’s priests, or any god they were referring to. It was all so obviously trumped up to make people not think for themselves. And, even at that tender age, I was a contrarian who had a reputation for never falling in line with the crowd, let alone idiot old creepy men railing at me about how I should act because some sky wizard said something. I had read the Bible (not always a common thing among Catholics; it’s not really encouraged). So the craziness I found in that book had already horrified me enough to know that I didn’t want anything to do with an organization that not only followed it’s tenets, but had a bunch of preening men interpreting it in even crazier ways.
BC
Big child sex scandal on Hasidic Judaism in NY – heard it on NPR last week. That’s why they are against it.
Catholic Church does not like to have their clergy answer to secular law enforcement – they want to take care of it themselves. But they don’t. Witness Cardinal Law (Massachusetts) – they whisked him out of the country to Vatican when it looked like he may face charges of abetting pedophile priests. So, if they can just keep law enforcement at bay until statute of limitations pass, then they won’t have to have priests in justice courts. And, if it can’t be criminally proven, then they have a better chance to win civil suits. Also, as others have stated, there is a kind of magic inferred on having someone the Church has ordained. Putting that ordained person in court as a criminal defendent tends to remove the magic from all other ordained persons.
marge
If you grow up in a totalitarian, oppressive culture you become perverted. I’ve seen this in friends of my kids. The stricter the parents the more the kids want to rebel. Either their spirits get broken or they become secretive. Then if the church is willing to protect them, their secretive little selves can get away with anything.
aimai
Any religious congregation, if it is very powerful and very cohesive, is both a "total social institution" like a jail or a school and also a kind of legal corporation. Like jails, schools, and mental hospitals the intense and incestuous power relations and the hierarchical nature of authority means that abuses by authority figures are rampant and unaddressed internally. Like a legal corporation the membership itself, however low, may find itself legally and financially exposed if the depredations of the leadership or people in temporary authority (Sunday school teachers etc…) turn out to have abused their authority. And, also, not to get all Palin, the organization’s need to reproduce itself by limiting the choices of its membership and educating or brainwashing women, children, and junior members basically requires it to abuse it membership on some level just to keep itself growing or at least not shrinking.
An organization with voluntary adult only membership can be pretty draconian in bringing in, isolating, and dominating new members–I’d put mormonism and scientology in that category at their inception but first you lure people in with goodies (gods love, unlimited sexual partners) and then you have to keep control of the children. You do that by putting them under the authority and control of teachers and religious leaders which would be fine except it turns out that sexual abuse of junior members of the church is actually one of the attractive perks of power.
aimai
aimai
A long and boring post that doesn’t even include any sex talk, the word so*c**i* thingy, or profanity is in moderation? why?
what have I done wrong? Is it because I don’t like ross douthat?
aimai
South of I-10
@geg6: I’m with both of you. Catholic school for 12 years, refused to get confirmed. I was not going to stand there and say I believed everything the church preaches when I didn’t (don’t).
Had the church not hidden pedophiles for years, perhaps claims could have been brought at an earlier time. I don’t know if any of you have been close to any of the suits brought against the church, but it will cause you to lose any sympathy for them. They have very expensive, brutal lawyers, who can drag out a civil suit for decades.
Little South is currently in Catholic school, as the schools here suck and thanks to Jindal, she has a better chance of learning solid science in Catholic school than in a public school. This is my favorite part – due to the scandals that have occurred involving children, PARENTS have to attend "Safe Environment Training" if they are going to step foot on campus or go on field trips. No word on whether the priests have to attend. At least the kids get training too on what would be considered inappropriate behavior.
Emma Anne
Without defending the Catholic church in any manner, I do see a possible argument against the legislation. Some of these cases are based on "recovered memories" which are extremely unreliable. People remember things that never happened – there have been a lot of cases where this was proved beyond a doubt. Also, this sort of thing is catching. People read about a case, and go to their therapist and say, I am messed up, help me remember why, and sometimes the therapist "helps" remember sexual abuse that didn’t happen (the therapist is reading the stories too).
However, I also believe that it is more appropriate to deal with this issue with standards of proof and not statutes of limitation.
Ricky Bobby
It’s sad to me that when you read through the scriptures, actually read Jesus’ words (I know, weird!) you don’t see him railing against sex. Yet, turn on ANY religious station and that’s nearly all you see!
"Give your life to Jesus!" (Whatever that is supposed to mean)
and
"Sex is bad!"
The modern obsession with other people’s sex lives is NOT healthy, just ask the Republicans.
liberal
@Balconesfault:
That’s too damn bad. There’s nothing preventing the church from doing away with that requirement. I’m not a Catholic, but my impression is that it falls under some classification which means it’s something that could actually be changed without the sky falling in.
liberal
@Emma Anne:
God, how I hate that "recovered memory" crap.
The Raven
"Seriously, what is it with religion and sexual abuse?"
Because the Catholic Church pressures a lot of people into celibacy who aren’t suited for it, tells they that they are already damned for their desires, and puts children in their charge. People who would otherwise not have become abusers do so in this situation, and the Church has been covering for them for centuries.
I take it that there are also problems in some of the radical "fundamentalist" Jewish groups, though I was not previously aware of them.
Krawk!
kay
@Emma Anne:
What you’re saying is true. There was misuse and overly zealous prosecution based on recovered memory, all through the 1990’s. Children’s advocates did themselves and their cause no favors. They discredited themselves. It was a huge problem. Daycare workers and others were given long prison terms based on "evidence" gathered by coaching children in interviews, and the prosecutors involved would not admit the errors.
Good point.
flounder
There was a story on NPR’s "All Things Considered" about a month ago about sexual abuse by Rabbis in the hardcore Sephardic community. Widespread and rampant. Plus much of the rest of the community’s power structure appears guilty of the cover up. If this goes through they are going bankrupt.
Andrew
The former is really bad, but the latter is totally awesome.
jenniebee
@DougJ:
I’m not sure that it’s more in the clergy, Catholic or Protestant, than occurs in the population in general. But the order of "makes a great story" goes something like this:
1. A Catholic priest with regional name recognition
2. A Protestant pastor with national name recognition
3. A Catholic priest you’ve never heard of
4. A prominent social or political figure
5. Anybody complicit with the child’s young, female babysitter or au pair
6. A Protestant pastor you’ve never heard of
7. A member of the child’s extended family.
We love stories that confirm our prejudices that "Catholic priests are very powerful to the congregation as a whole" (they aren’t) and "Catholicism has very skewed views on sex" (that’s a pretty tall order in a country that brought you the Heaven’s Gate cult, Col. Thieme, Fred Phelps and the Quiverfull movement). But the truth is that the most kids who are sexually abused are abused by somebody very close to their family.
Agreed that it’s bad PR for the RCC to be fighting this publicly. On the other hand, at least it does move the story about the Vatican excommunicating a 9 year old victim of incestuous rape for getting an abortion off the front page. So that’s something.
Jay
@Ricky Bobby:
Exactly, although the televangelists more represent Madoff than Christianity. But as far as organized religion’s perverting the Bible’s teachings (except for Lot nailing his daughters) and intent – and I’m not using "perverting" ironically – that’s why I consider myself a "Red Letter Christian".
I jumped in here because the title of post sounds like there might be causation problems with mainstream religions. There isn’t. The whole idea of religion is that one brings their foibles to a higher power and to belittle someone for looking for a better way is wrong, IMO.
Now what the org. religion does with one’s foibles is a whole ‘nother bag of worms as is cults like New Vrindiban or Branch Davidians.
Rainy
And?
Lihtox
Accusations of sexual abuse are open to…well, abuse, as it were. Anyone could accuse a priest of sexual abuse that happened 30 years ago, and it becomes word-against-word– and of course who will believe the priest after what’s happened? That’s not to say I oppose easing the statute of limitations per se, but I’d say that the burden of proof must be higher as the cases get older. If someone accused YOU of touching their butt a decade ago, and you were innocent (i.e. you didn’t do it for sexual reasons) how would you defend yourself? The way children’s memories work, that sort of thing might stick in a kid’s head as being greatly significant, while an adult would completely forget about it. And if you think being fondled ruins your life, how about being falsely accused of sexual abuse, when your job requires trust on the part of a congregation?
Pardon me if others have said this but I can’t stand to read through all the "Let’s kill the Catholic Church and all religions and live happily in a field with bunnies!" responses which are sure to be present. Sanctimony is not limited to the religious.
Deborah
I agree with Incertus that the actual argument is pretty reasonable–remember the recovered memories of sex abuse that put people in jail in the 80s? And then the whole recovered memory thing, especially for children repeatedly prompted to remember something, turned out to be almost wholly hogwash.
If it’s hard to prove a negative, how much harder 20 or 30 years later? I live in Boston, and while I was as horrified as anyone, there were both appalling revelations in the church records (if Father X molested children at his last 6 parishes, all you can do is send him to a 7th and put him in charge of the youth group) but also individual priests who were facing a single charge from many decades earlier. It could have been true, it could have been me-tooism from someone either disturbed or hoping to get in on the free money. How could Father Y possibly show that he didn’t do it? The statute of limitations is a good thing.
If you want to be appalled at the Catholic church and its feelings about the sexual abuse of children, just check out this story, where a 9-year old child in Brazil was given an abortion of the twins she was carrying after allegedly being repeatedly raped by her step-father. She was under Brazil’s "only to save the life of the mother" clause–a small-boned thing that doctors said wouldn’t survive the full pregnancy and birth. The Bishop excommunicated the mother and doctors, the Vatican backed him up. They’re cool with the child’s rapist, though–he stays in the church.
Jay
All of this reminds of a few years ago when I was dating a woman with a 9 yr old girl and a 5 yr old boy. I was never alone with those kids because as bad and seemingly widespread as the crime is, it can also be used as a powerful, permanently life-damaging cudgel of retribution.
jake 4 that 1
@Lihtox: In a civil case, the burden of proof is on the plaintiff. Who will also have to pay for an attorney, put up with the publicity and most likely death threats. Saying accusations of X are open to abuse is one of the weakest arguments out there. (Closely trailing false repressed memory.)
bloodstar
The response is a classic case of a bad law being created in response to an outcry. I’m probably in the minority, but I think statute of limitations are already too long. And the idea of a lawsuit, where the plaintiff only needs a preponderance of the evidence to win his or her case, then having something happen 10 years ago, 20 years ago, when the only evidence left is someone saying one thing and another person saying another and the memories of a few other people who may or may not remember the details correctly. Very very dangerous precedent.
And of course they say temporary, but we all know that’s rarely the case with Laws and Governments.
The Crimes are outrageous, but outrage does not make good law
gex
@Deborah: The big kicker, I think, is the fact that the Church is a compulsive, and meticulous record-keeper. They practically invented bureaucracy. But the government is unable to get their hands on those. Recovered memories are indeed to be scrutinized very severely. I wonder, however, how much they fear any of their documents coming out and corroborating some of the claims?
Andrew
Look at all of those opportunistic sex abuse victims! Stop picking on the poor defenseless church.
Geez. Some of you people sound like Ross Douthat.
Persia
Even Buddhism isn’t exempt from this, or not wholly so– Ösel Tendzin comes to mind. Though Tibetan Buddhism can be interpreted as authoritarian, I suppose, in that it relies on a guru figure…
Andy
Shorter Dennis Poust: "We don’t want to have to pay for what we did."
I happen to agree with bloodstar, that this is an ill-considered law. But I have no sympathy, none, with the churches’ objection to it, either.
Betsy
Ah, it’s so nice to see Jewish and Catholic leaders rallying together around a shared cause. Hooray for ecumenism!
/sarcasm
Don
Because most of those other organizations are entirely contained in one location and don’t have an over-arching organization with a lot of money that could be hurt by bad actions in one place. Be sure, if there was a company that owned 100 summer camps across multiple states they’d be worried about this too.
Now, they probably wouldn’t be AS worried, because a business that’s spread out in that way will usually behave with the recognition that they’re vulnerable from the mistakes of their locations. So they set up policies and procedures, require training, buy insurance, and monitor the situation. The Catholic Church, on the other hand, has ignored or transferred problems and generally tried to just avoid culpability.
grendelkhan
They’re all seen as pedophiles by many because they work for the Catholic Church, which has apparently been to child molesters what a "Free Whiskey!" wagon would be to drunks. Don’t blame the "many" you’re referring to; blame the damned Church. If they didn’t want to be seen as a haven for child molesters, they shouldn’t have been a haven for child molestors.
This reeks of the "how dare you point out some great evil!" outrage we saw in response to torture performed by and on behalf of Americans. Rather than deal with the matter at hand, the discussion is shifted to how the perpetrators are really the aggrieved party here, because of being told about the horrors they’re responsible for makes them feel bad. In this analysis, the actual victims–tortured or molested–are conveniently forgotten, and we all come together to shed tears on behalf of the United States or the Catholic Church, two enormously powerful institutions.
It’s profoundly disgusting, and it’s a symptom of how deep this pathology goes that someone can actually make the above-quoted statement.
jcricket
So here’s the deal. Reform and conservative Jews, which make up like 90% of the Jewish population in America, do not have any widespread sexual abuse problem. And, generally speaking, when someone in a position of power (a rabbi or cantor) is found out, he’s usually out on his ass.
It’s basically like any other position of power, they can "abuse it" (both senses) for a while, but there’s no organized system to protect the abuser, shuffle the abuser around to other synagogues, etc. – because reform and conservative jews don’t have antediluvian attitudes about sex (imho).
Reform and Conservative Jews leaders are also mostly married, and both sects can have women rabbis, gay rabbis and cantors, and even preside over gay marriages (in synagogue). I think this is a huge part of having fewer sex scandals.
Orthodox Jews, OTOH, are more like Catholics. Ancient attitudes about sex (although no celibacy), combined with an insular attitude amongst the rabbinate. Chasidic Jews are even more like Catholics, with the pedestal they put their "rebbes" on top of. I think this and the general attitude about the learned rabbis have fostered more "coddling" of sexual abusers amongst the ranks ("our precious leaders can’t have human failings, no"). I bet it’s on a order of magnitude smaller than the Catholic Church (owing to the small size of the community, and that Orthodox rabbis are also not required to be celibate), but this is my thinking behind the issue.
BTW – there was a rabbi in my community (not my Temple) growing up who turned out to be a child abuser. It was found out after he left the Temple and started working as some kind of youth counselor/leader. Couple of my friends and their parents were really freaked out, even though nothing had happened. The difference was, the guy was caught, punished, and no one protected him (least of all the Temple he used to work at) – even though I’m sure there were some that refused to believe it.
Cheryl from Maryland
There was an article in the New Yorker several years ago about a group of Australian Catholic seminarians who realized while in training that they were gay. During high school, since they weren’t interested in girls, they interpreted this lack of desire as a calling to be priests. Only later did they realize why they were not interested in women. I wonder if a lack of understanding of one’s sexuality, confused and warped even more by church teachings and training, has lead to a high degree of problems in the priesthood. Add in the idea of the priest as sacred and the declining numbers of priests, and you get the problems the Church has today.
geg6
@grendelkhan:
I couldn’t agree more. As someone who has personal knowledge of a pedophile priest (actually, the principal of a Catholic high school) and his victims, I’m finding all this talk about priests getting a bad rap and "beware the recovered memory liars!" sounds exactly like the torture apologists. I haven’t heard of any cases (and the ones I’m familiar with definitely aren’t) that have been adjudicated that hinge on so-called recovered memory. The ones I’ve read about are pretty damning, in that there are numerous victims who were often teenagers or pre-adolescents, multiple witnesses, and vast swaths of documentation over many years and often occurring in multiple locations due the whole shuffling around of the perverts lest anyone get suspicious. This is an institutional conspiracy that may start with the actions of one individual within the institution, but ends up as a giant, international child abuse ring bent on nothing but protecting its power, money, and ability to keep abusing the powerless.
Anne
Not quite true. I know a psychologist, now retired, who was hired by the Catholic church in a certain state (not New York) to screen for fucked up characters (not just pedophiles) trying to join the priesthood.
itsbenj
its a little hard not to lump priests together in the Catholic church’s whole pedophilia problem, and yes, the entire church has a ‘pedophilia problem’. why? because people at the top were and still are trying to cover up the sexual abuse of children in NOT INSIGNIFICANT numbers. yes, most priests are not pedophiles, but we really wouldn’t know one way or the other would we, because any who were would be protected by the CHURCH at all costs!
so if these clowns want to get mad at others for generalizing about them – they know who to thank. and really, if you can stand by an organization, whether you were raised into it or not, that stands by this kind of behavior – there is something, somewhere, a little bit wrong with you (at least).
The Other Steve
Legal opinion here… How does ex post facto come to play in this? Does eliminating the statute of limitations not apply in that regard?
Would this just not extend the statute for cases which have not already expired the limitations?
Anyway, if the religious groups are fighting this, then they must know of crimes… which justifies the passage of the bill all the more.
itsbenj
but its not just pedophilia. its celibacy, which everyone knows is either a crock (in that the priest in question is getting some and just breaking the rules) or leads to psychosis (which is what really happens to human beings who deny their sexuality). I am literally frightened of anyone voluntarily practicing celibacy. to me it indicates someone worried that what they have on their mind in the first place is soooo sick & twisted, that no one would ever understand & want to be with them anyway, so why not take this job where celibacy is the main focus? it’s just not human.
itsbenj
@grendelkhan: word – exactly right.
there are some things you just don’t defend. ever. for one single second.
itsbenj
ahhh, as I read through this thread, I realize that there are a lot of sweaty, greasy men pretending to be women pretending to be really worried about "recovered memory".
hehe, nice try, but we can smell y’all from here!
JenJen
The Church needs to be bankrupted. No matter how many good deeds they contribute to, or canned food drives they sponsor, their net contribution to the world has been suffering and evil. Period.
Sorry, but this kind of story just really, really makes me angry. Very touchy subject with me.
The Devil Wears Prada, right?
Susan
Because they are virtuous. Adam Smith said it best: "Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience."
Roq
Most religions demonize or restrict sexuality in various ways and to varying degrees. These people can’t have an open and healthy sex life, but that doesn’t mean they can do without ANY sex life. They have to prey on the weak – those least likely to fight back or tell on them – OR, that means self-destructive behavior. So, women, kids or crazy fetishes.
Jason
@GRreynoldsCT00: The Catholic church has *always* been about power…this isn’t something new. Start with the fact that the Catholic church has the position that priests are your intermediary with God….that is all about power.
DougJ’s question should have been "Seriously, what is it with religion?" and left off the part about sexual abuse.
Persia
The ‘what about recovered memories’ line would also be a bit more believable if the accusers had a ton of ‘recovered memories.’ Which as far as I can tell, they don’t.
Delia
@itsbenj:
Mind you, I have never been a Catholic, but I think this is an underlying problem. A good friend of mine who was raised Catholic and became a Unitarian in her forties sees this as a major problem behind the pedophilia scandal. Actually during the early Middle Ages most parish priests kept a mistress and their congregations didn’t care two hoots. Then during periods of , um, reform they were held to a higher standard and that stopped. You read literature of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and authors are always making fun of the sexual habits of monks, priests, and bishops. And don’t forget the Renaissance Popes. So this isn’t exactly a new thing. I think in the modern era they’ve tried harder for full enforcement so it’s gone deeper underground and emerged in some nastier directions.
jake 4 that 1
@Cheryl from Maryland: Here’s the thing (and also my problem with the celibacy arguement). There’s no line you can draw from being gay (but not knowing it) or not being allowed to have sex to screwing around with kids. It just isn’t there (see for example all of the non-celibate, 100% str8 people who also molest kids).
The problems the RCC is having today stem (in part) from things that went on when they didn’t have a decline in people taking orders. It’s not like they would have had to shut down operations in the 50s if they’d handed the creeps over to the cops.
Charity
You could have almost bought the "It was the ’50s, we didn’t know how to treat these people" argument. But pure logic dictates, if Father McFeely goes to three different parishes, and three different kids complain about funny touches, you don’t put him in another environment with children!
The law may need some refinement, but the Church’s argument — "Take pity on us because we’ll be paying so much out in compensation to victims" — sucks. Particularly these days when people are losing their jobs and houses.
Finally I wanted to point out: I can’t look up the data right now, but gay != child molester. Actually most molesters are straight, and often married, if I remember my psych classes correctly. I do believe that power issues and warped attitudes toward sexuality foster an environment where this can happen. It’s not necessarily the fault of teh ghey.
RueM
Not to sound bitter, but who cares if church’s that protect child abusers go bankrupt. As a woman who’s had male and female friends struggle with the issues that child sexual abuse brings, I say bankruptcy should be the least of their problems. Pillory and shunning would be a nice start.
And it’s not celibacy. Paedophiles will go for the kid over an adult. They can be married and their partner will believe that their sex life is fine, meanwhile, Dad is buggering his son or his daughter or their friends. Quit hanging it on celibacy. Celibacy is boring, but it doesn’t make an adult look at a 5 year old and think the knee socks are come hither. I’m all for this law and the minute we cut off sex tourism so fat guys with viagra can’t hit the Dominican Republic anymore, I’m with that law too.
K
Ever watch MSNBC’s "To Catch a Predator" series? I’m addicted to it like crack. Maybe it’s a guilty pleasure, but I am filled with happiness and satisfaction when a child abuser gets what’s coming to them.
I’m Catholic, and I’ll even admit I work for the Church as a musician. I can’t monolithically defend my Church, as some of the abuses of power they’ve committed are blatant. But I also can’t stand around having my Church be permanently tagged with the pedophile-enabler label. I’m going to tell you some stuff that I know to be true.
I’ve met and worked with approximately 150 priests in my lifetime and career. 2 of them were accused of pedophilia.
The first one was likely a pedophile. He was smarmy, kids were afraid of him, parents didn’t like him too much, and yet he led the parish youth group. At a youth retreat, he was caught alone with a 12 year old boy in a group shower, and though he didn’t touch him, news spread like wildfire. That priest was investigated by police, and the rest of the priests of the parish denounced his actions publicly and privately. The rub is that in this religion, forgiveness is a virtue. The entire parish, rightly afraid and angry, was encouraged "to forgive, but not forget" (actual words used by the pastor in a homily following the investigation). We made sure we didn’t forget. We insisted that he leave the parish, be encouraged to leave the priesthood (which I have insider info that he was encouraged strongly to, but with the lack of physical evidence couldn’t be forced, so he didn’t), and we demanded to know where he was to be sent by the Church for his next assignment, which was never to be in contact with children. Our parish community is taking it upon ourselves to eliminate the chance of this guy doing something to some other kid, but we understand that the Church can’t throw out someone on suspicion only. Which brings me to the next priest…
The second one was not only a priest in the parish, but a teacher in a local Catholic high school. Both of my brothers had him for a teacher, and he was well-liked. Out of the blue, it was all over the local media that he was being investigated for sexually abusing a student after he provided alcohol to them. Everybody was shocked, but gave the benefit of the doubt to the accuser, as we’ve all heard that it’s usually the well-liked ones who figure they can get away with it. In the minds of the public, he was guilty, just another Catholic priest who liked to bugger boys and get away with it. After months of investigation, absolutely no evidence was found to prove the allegations. Then the accuser stepped up and admitted that he had concocted the allegations, and apologized to the priest for all the trouble he had caused. It turns out that this boy was emotionally disturbed, and the boy’s father decided he was going to make a little money. This priest has been exiled anyway, for fear he might be targeted by a anti-Catholic zealot (after multiple death threats of that nature).
These are just the two examples from my life of the delicate subject of priest pedophilia. I’m not saying that any other priests accused of this are in any way identical to these two priests. But I want you all to know that in the Catholic Church as I have experienced it, we consider our priests to be human, not vessels of God’s unquestionable power on Earth. We don’t bow to them when they are wrong, and we can’t ignore accusations against them, no matter how liked they are. I understand that your opinions on Catholicism are painted by the media depictions, as are your opinions on anything of a global scope. Just realize that in real life on the ground, we aren’t sheep, but shepherds ourselves.
canuckistani
Your anecdotes are nice, but there’s too much evidence that abuses occurred, and more to the point were covered up by church hierarchy. That’s the part that really pisses people off. People can understand sickness or weakness in individuals, it’s the cover-up from above that got your church tagged as pedophile-enablers. And rightly so.
K
#89
So that means because I’m a Catholic, I’m a pedophile-enabler, even though my entire worship community took action opposite that label? Are you a torture-promoter because you call yourself an American, even if you disagree with torture? Your assumptions trump your logic.
I never said abuses didn’t occur, or weren’t covered up. I’m just saying no Catholics I know personally (including clergy) approve of, or even avert their eyes to abuse. The only way we can influence the top to change is to change what we see in our community, and I did.
If you understand weakness of individuals, doesn’t that also mean weakness of individuals at the top of a hierarchy? Yeah, mistakes were made, BIG mistakes in some cases. Understand that I’m not defending them, I’m showing you what the real Catholic experience is, which is different than what you hear in the news.
geg6
@K:
Perhaps you should read the whole thread.
You are making some damn big sweeping generalizations about who is criticizing the Catholic Church and why.
The Catholic Church is a vipers nest…of pedophiles, misogynists, and homophobes who thrive on power and money and nothing else. I know. I grew up in it and know it very, very, very well. I still have relatives and friends who are priests, nuns, and even one rather high up in the hierarchy. So I think I know of what I speak.
Now are all priests and nuns horrible people? No, definitely not. But the hierarchy is so filled with hubris and lust for control and they have conspired over the course of decades to cover up the most horrific crimes against the most helpless of their flock. Enough that, IMHO, the whole kit and kaboodle should be labelled a criminal organization much like the Cosa Nostra or the Medellin Cartel.
Do you even listen to what Herr Ratzinger says or pay attention to what he does? Anyone who can stay Catholic with that thug in charge, let alone defend them, is someone who simply isn’t paying attention or is incapable of critical reasoning skills.
K
Obviously as a practicing Catholic, I’m not going to change any opinions of people who have decided that the Catholic Church is a monolith of evil. Anyone who has grown up in a religion that they don’t feel comfortable as a part of isn’t going to be very kind to anything good coming out of that religion. Human nature.
But don’t tell me what I do and don’t believe, or how I should follow my religious leaders. You don’t know me. If you’re going to be bigoted towards me as a Catholic, at least have the decency to concede I lead my own life.
canuckistani
If I were an American, and if my sole response to torture was to request that my local torturer not be allowed to work with children at his next posting, then yes, I would consider myself a torture-enabler, for effectively staying silent in the face of crimes done in my name. I don’t care what kind of lynch mob you put together against your local priest. I care what you do to protest the cover-up done in your name. You want my respect? Don’t show up Sunday morning and sing for your criminal overlords. Tell your bishop you’re withholding tithes and not allowing your children to get baptized until the church takes action, not just against pedophile priests, but more importantly, against the church officials who covered up for them.
steve s
Most people in their 20s are not going to sign up for a career that requires celibacy. So if you have a job with that requirement, statistically you’re going to attract more people who have mixed or negative feelings about their own sexuality and want to suppress it.
K
#93
So I’m still a pedophile-enabler for helping to prevent an instance of pedophilia. That is unsound, as is the rest of your comment. By your logic, you ARE a torture-enabler because you haven’t gone to Donald Rumsfeld in person to condemn his actions or beat him up and make him cry. Or you could just not pay your taxes in protest and have the IRS at your ass. If that’s your method of fixing what ails the world, you’re not going to have much success.
Sorry, but I don’t need your respect, especially when you’ve shown you’ve decided I don’t get any anyway because of my chosen faith. Even if I for some lame reason would ever follow your advice, your method wouldn’t stop the problem of priest pedophilia or its coverups, no matter how much you believe with your logic they would. Give up my personal faith so that I can tell a bishop where to stick it? You’re ridiculous.
Nothing I say will change your closed mind. And nothing you say will convince me that I’m personally responsible for the actions of a few men in my religion, especially when I and others I know have personally taken action against what we know in our hearts is wrong. Spiritual faith does not bow to bigotry of any kind, yours included.
Cpl. Cam
@Jay:
So then religion doesn’t "cause" anything? I could just as easily say "compassionate people bring compassion to religion, religion doesn’t cause compassion."
Wolfdaughter
I was intrigued to read that the leaders of the Orthodox and Hasidic communities had joined with the leaders of the Catholics to oppose extending the statute of limitations. I had not known before reading this thread that these conservative Jewish communities were reportedly having problems with pedophilia.
I’m a cradle Episcopalian and continue to be one, while recognizing that my denomination is far from perfect. We also have had priests accused of pedophilia, but at least in the diocese where I live, any priest accused of this is immediately suspended from duty and the charges are investigated. If the charges are substantiated, the priest is removed from the priesthood and turned over to civil authorities.
Episcopalians in some ways seem like Catholic lite, since we shared a liturgy and an episcopate (bishops) and to some extent, a heirarchical organization, with the Archbishop of Canterbury at the very top, followed by the archbishops of the various countries, then bishops of dioceses then priests then deacons, finally laity. However, our A of C does not have the authority that the Pope has, nor have we ever had a doctrine of infallibility in religious matters for the A of C or for anyone else for that matter. We are encouraged to question and to explore our own spirituality.
We all know about the well-publicized difficulties some of the fundamentalist Protestants have had with various leaders and sexuality issues. The Catholics and pedophilia have been linked for a number of years. Now the fundamentalist Jewish leaders seem to be having problems, and someone upthread reported that this is the case with Wahabbism also. The link here is the fundamentalism and the authoritarian rigidity, IMHO. This is a problem with the current Republican party as well.
I believe that people with highly authoritarian and/or fundamentalist worldviews have a real problem with seeing other people, in particularly those who differ from them by virtue of age, sex, ethnicity, national origin, etc., as truly human. And with regard to children (and to some degree, wives) these people tend to see children as extensions of themselves rather than having separate and precious identities. So in their minds, they aren’t really abusing, since the human beings they are abusing are less than human.
If I’m right, we need to recognize this in certain people, and to do our best to see to it that they are not afforded to the opportunities to abuse. I don’t know exactly how you do this. But we do need to be careful not to apply too broad a brush to ALL religious people.
uncomfortable truths
"I’m not sure that it’s more in the clergy, Catholic or Protestant, than occurs in the population in general."
Thank you! You have hit upon a very important point. People saw a lot of column-inches and video clips devoted to the cases of clergy who had sexually abused minors, and they automatically assumed because the coverage was so persistent, it meant that clergy committed such abuse at a higher rate than the general population. It turns out that this is true, clergy commit such abuse at a higher rate than the general population —
–but at exactly the same rate as the subset of the population whose profession or vocation involves contact with minors, whose rate is uniformly higher than the general population.
Which means that there is no "it", as in "What is it about religion and sexual abuse?" If there was, then clergy would have a higher rate of sexual abuse than others who work with minors. Sadly, so many people have their inaccurate ideas so permanently fixed at this point that they will probably never realize how little of what they think they know about "religion and sexual abuse" actually matches the facts.
roger
*****K
#93
So I’m still a pedophile-enabler for helping to prevent an instance of pedophilia. That is unsound, as is the rest of your comment. By your logic, you ARE a torture-enabler because you haven’t gone to Donald Rumsfeld in person to condemn his actions or beat him up and make him cry. Or you could just not pay your taxes in protest and have the IRS at your ass. If that’s your method of fixing what ails the world, you’re not going to have much success.
Sorry, but I don’t need your respect, especially when you’ve shown you’ve decided I don’t get any anyway because of my chosen faith. Even if I for some lame reason would ever follow your advice, your method wouldn’t stop the problem of priest pedophilia or its coverups, no matter how much you believe with your logic they would. Give up my personal faith so that I can tell a bishop where to stick it? You’re ridiculous.
Nothing I say will change your closed mind. And nothing you say will convince me that I’m personally responsible for the actions of a few men in my religion, especially when I and others I know have personally taken action against what we know in our hearts is wrong. Spiritual faith does not bow to bigotry of any kind, yours included.****
He made perfectly reasonable points. He never attacked your right to believe anything. Enough of the victimhood. Already.