Why they never took this public I do not know
April 2, 2009 7:19 PM   Subscribe

Voice of the Faithful ignored. The New York Times is reporting that from 1952 on, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops had been receiving recommendations to rid the priesthood of pedophilia from a religious order that conducted retreats for troubled priests.

As a religion journalist let me say I am really shocked and left speechless that a group that so stridently crusaded to rid the church of pedophiles for almost 60 years had not brought their work to light until now. Through lawsuits, settlements, and millions of lives affected everywhere, these priests and monks were silent. It is enough for me to now to say I am through with the Roman Catholic Church. I will no longer speak of my association.
posted by parmanparman (14 comments total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: half the post is editorializing of the GYOB territory, and do we need yet another religion post? -- mathowie



 
Bill Lobdell, is that you?
posted by micketymoc at 7:28 PM on April 2, 2009


I came to the conclusion while a student in a Catholic High School in the early 1970s that the priesthood was actively attracting men who considered their own sexuality "abhorrant in the eyes of God and the Church". (If you have to be celibate anyway in order to be a good Catholic, why not just be a priest?) And many of them were seeing their dedication to 'the good works' of the clergy (or just the fact that they qualified as members thereof) as a psychological counterbalance to their "deviancy", opening themselves up to being able to practice that "deviancy" without overwhelming guilt. So it was easier for some of them to be pedophiles as priests than as 'lay people' (one of my least favorite religious terms).

Also, the Catholic Church already has a great deal of trouble recruiting priests in many parts of the world, and they need the "if I have to be celibate I might as well be a priest" to provide minimal staffing levels.

It's a core problem the Catholic Church has not dealt with at all, and I can not imagine it ever dealing with, without destroying a large part of the institution itself.

Since that time, I have first-hand witnessed more than one Catholic "counselor" laying a guilt trip on a woman who had been molested by her own father because she was psychologically unable to "forgive him". She later did "forgive him", and the emotional damage that did to her was almost as bad as the molestation. So excuse me if I have a very low opinion of the Catholic Church's handling of human sexuality. When Pope Benedict made his infamous anti-condom statement, my reaction was "that's the way that church functions... pervertedly."
posted by wendell at 7:57 PM on April 2, 2009 [6 favorites]


I came to the conclusion while a student in a Catholic High School in the early 1970s that the priesthood was actively attracting men who considered their own sexuality "abhorrant in the eyes of God and the Church".

Really? It seems to me that it attracts perverts who are attracted to children and who want a) access to children, b) power over them and their parents, c) "respectability" to hide behind, and d) an organization that will move them to a new area where no one knows them - overflowing with "fresh meat," of course - when they get caught.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 8:07 PM on April 2, 2009 [2 favorites]


I came to the conclusion earlier, I felt no need to justify. Having succeeded, really remains unspoken.
posted by Mblue at 8:14 PM on April 2, 2009


Optimus Chyme, the priesthood has enough room for a) insecure homosexuals, and b) child predators.

It also has room for c) supercilious boss-types, d) jokey smartasses who wouldn't say no to a cold beer (see the Jesuits) and e) reflective, kind-hearted people (getting rarer by the year).
posted by micketymoc at 8:17 PM on April 2, 2009 [1 favorite]


I gave the Catholic Church up for Lent in about 1962 or so. Decided to make it a permanent sacrifice. These days, I'm a nonpracticing atheist.

This post does not surprise me. When I was an altar boy, there were several boys who seemed to be always doing things for the good fathers and spent quite a lot of time in the rectory. There was a good bit of muffled tittering about them.... they seemed never to be part of the 4th and 5th grade "in groups".... Now, I'm pretty sure what was afoot. I just hope ... I don't know what I hope. That they're OK today, that they didn't suffer permanent damage, that what I now think was happening really wasn't, all of that.
Religion. Humph.

posted by drhydro at 8:41 PM on April 2, 2009


News like this would upset me more but then I think that pedophile priests have been the subject of jokes for at least a century, that I wonder if even this is just the "tip of the iceberg."
posted by wobh at 8:44 PM on April 2, 2009


and d) an organization that will move them to a new area where no one knows them - overflowing with "fresh meat," of course - when they get caught.

And if you are a part of the organization, say archbishop of Boston, and are complicit in the cover up of the molestation of children, you get a promotion and are whisked away to the Vatican!

"Break more rules than the Catholic Church" indeed.
posted by mlis at 8:53 PM on April 2, 2009 [1 favorite]


The worry about pedophile priests is just one small aspect of a larger problem of Catholic history. There are many who grew up in the tradition (not just boys, here, women/young girls too) who underwent unspeakable things at the hands of those either annointed by the church, or claiming to have been so, and these things were dismissed by the church as similarily unspeakable.

I'm now going to read the article, but I don't think it will help any ideas I might have of how the church I was raised in has failed to address sexual abuse over the last century, not to mention how it may have failed to deal with it before that.
posted by localhuman at 9:08 PM on April 2, 2009


It isn't just your basic Catholic sexual repression, although that certainly adds to the fire. This sort of thing is terribly easy to justify, given the premises of the Catholic Church, or really most any church.

If you believe that life on Earth is this brief, temporary bit before the grand length of eternity, which is definitely a feature of many major religions, and you throw into the mix "doing God's work," almost any atrocity can be justified, as any suffering caused to mortals is an irrelevant pinprick compared to the vast and endless afterlife. Torture someone into a confession of witchcraft, and then repentance? Those earthly pains will soon be soothed and washed away at the touch of the hems of a host of angels. Put a village to the torch? The heresy will not spread, and thousands are saved. And once you appreciate this truth, it's quite easy to institutionalize, especially given the scarcity of those who are called to serve.

A few odd incidents of boy-buggery here and there simply mean nothing against the greater work of calling souls to God. Each priest keeps hundreds, if not thousands, in the flock; a spot of pederasty along the way to eternal salvation is a small price to pay. Just a few sore bungs and perhaps some psychiatric difficulties later, which, of course, can be most solved by following Christ's example and forgiving.

When one comes to an absurd conclusion, it may be helpful to question the premises; pity that the theologians so infrequently back up, and instead press ahead to justify the whims of religion, rather than consider earthly compassion.
posted by adipocere at 9:10 PM on April 2, 2009 [2 favorites]


d) jokey smartasses who wouldn't say no to a cold beer (see the Jesuits)

Well played.
posted by joe lisboa at 9:15 PM on April 2, 2009


It's OK guys. Obama won't be allowed to address graduates at Notre Dame University, and this will totally make up for the thousands and thousands of acts of child rape.
posted by bardic at 9:27 PM on April 2, 2009


"It is enough for me to now to say I am through with the Roman Catholic Church"

parman, is that something you're quoting? Because I thought you said you were a Lutheran?
posted by orthogonality at 9:28 PM on April 2, 2009


As a religion journalist let me say I am really shocked and left speechless that a group that so stridently crusaded to rid the church of pedophiles for almost 60 years had not brought their work to light until now. Through lawsuits, settlements, and millions of lives affected everywhere, these priests and monks were silent. It is enough for me to now to say I am through with the Roman Catholic Church. I will no longer speak of my association.

Story aside, this is exactly the sort of editorializing that the admins were just talking about over in Meta. This converts the post from being about the topic and instead making it about the poster and the topic.

Not very well played.
posted by unixrat at 9:35 PM on April 2, 2009


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