Female Victims of Church Abuse speak up.

December 13, 2002 6:23 AM

Female Victims of Church Scandals Speak. With all the news of Cardinal Law resigning, and the church trying to oust homosexuals from their ranks, I thought this article about the under-reporting of female victims of the scandal was timely.
posted by grimley (12 comments total)

It does seem like the 'pervert priest' thing stinks of homophobia.

My childhood priest came out as having had an 'affair' (that's the word we use for heterosexual illicit coupling, right?) with a young woman. Everyone ignored him.
posted by goneill at 7:26 AM on December 13, 2002

There was a recent Boston story about a area priest who, in the 60's, had at least two affairs going. One with, apparently, a junkey (maybe he was a junkey too?) and he ran away, abandoned her to die one day after she overdosed. What did the Church do about it?.....

Maybe the Catholic Church should be the first institutional client of "Tornado in a Can"! ...They sure have more smelly shit than the poultry industry. What a shame, too. Catholics are among many of the most truly christian, caring, humanitarian people I know...
posted by troutfishing at 7:58 AM on December 13, 2002

IMO the scandal is the church or the church is the scandal. Take your pick.
Any church, any religion, all the same to me. All trying to control people with afterlife insurance.
People should look to themselves more, stop trying to fill some void in your life with a big myth.
The bible is just a really old sci-fi/fantasy adventure book.

I hope they prosecute all the priests who are guilty, all the other priests and cardinals etc.., who kept enabling this crap to occur, and finally reveal religion for what it is, bunk.
posted by a3matrix at 8:16 AM on December 13, 2002

I hope they prosecute all the priests who are guilty

I'll go out on a limb and take it a step further: I hope they (we?) prosecute EVERYONE who is guilty, of any crime, regardless of religious affiliation.
posted by rushmc at 8:36 AM on December 13, 2002

The solution is to boot out all homosexuals and all heterosexuals, leaving only the chaste and celibate. That'll fix things.
posted by tolkhan at 8:37 AM on December 13, 2002

But what about The Ecstasy of Saint Theresa?
posted by the fire you left me at 9:19 AM on December 13, 2002

Too bad nobody has anything useful to say about this topic. Are there bad people in the world? Yes. Even in religious institutions!! Oooohhh... the horror.
posted by timbley at 9:19 AM on December 13, 2002

My main reason for posting - my first FPP by the way - was to bring up the scapegoating that is -has- been occuring in the catholic church. An ex-cath myself, long convinced that religion is the opiate of the masses, this is the first reports that seem to fall outside of the usual news channels. It is unfortuante that there isn't more interest in it.

troutfishing, your story is here.
posted by grimley at 9:24 AM on December 13, 2002

Betrayed Again is a Weblog set up to criticize the alleged way the Boston Globe has ignored female abuse victims in its (no doubt soon to be Pulitzer-winning) coverage of the scandal.
posted by agaffin at 9:36 AM on December 13, 2002

wait tilll the world wakes up to how priests in africa behave....

but that doesn't matter, does it? who cares about poor people with coloured skin?

i could go on for days about the stuff i've seen with my own eyes.
posted by quarsan at 12:28 PM on December 13, 2002

Well, gee, if only there was some way for you to communicate your experiences to us...
posted by NortonDC at 12:40 PM on December 13, 2002

grimley - thanks! I think this story tops even the child abuse...not that the crimes are comparable. But Foley's crime - abandoning a lover who has overdosed, for fear of public shame - is truly terrible. She's long dead now, so I feel bad for her kids, and for Foley also. he'll be reliving her death quite often now, I suspect
posted by troutfishing at 8:49 PM on December 13, 2002