How not to respond to sex abuse: Whining
Thursday, March 11, 2010
By Bryan Cones
Comments (21)
If there is one thing European bishops should have learned from U.S. sex abuse crisis, it's don't blame the messenger. It just makes you look whiny.
The Irish bishops, at least Bishop of Elphin Christopher Jones anyway, have clearly not learned that lesson, with Jones lamenting the "unfair and unjust" coverage the Irish scandal is getting.
Even worse is pointing out that everyone else is doing it: "Could I just say with all this emphasis on cover-up, the cover-up has gone on for centuries, not just in the church… It’s going on today in families, in communities, in societies. Why are you singling out the church?" So how does that make the church look better?
It doesn't; in fact it makes the hierarchy look like it's trying to get out of taking full responsibility for what has happened by passing the blame around. Far better would be to acknowledge guilt and highlight the steps we are taking to eliminate child sex abuse and make churches safe for children--and acknowledge that the hierarchy has made itself an easy target by promulgating a high and at time unforgiving sexual ethic while allowing these monstrosities to go on.
And just for the record, one thing the media coverage is doing is rectifying the immeasurable injustice and violence committed against children in Catholic institutions, which far outweighs the just comeuppance the church is getting in the media.
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Sexual abuse in the Catholic Church
By Helen We;ter (not verified) on Tuesday, March 16, 2010It is very discouraging to learn that bishops all over the world are still blaming, whinning and refusing to take responsibility for the abuse that occurred. The Vatican has not taken responsibility for its own men as bishops have not been held accountable for the cover-up. But then, why would Rome hold them accountable when even our present Pope may have "covered up" a child abuser and certainly encouraged the cover up of the abuse. When will the bishops who were involved in cover up be forced ?
1995 and after
By Anonymous (not verified) on Tuesday, March 16, 2010any case that occurred after 1995 that the church handled badly reflects the mismanagement by the hierarchy. Just before that time in Pgh there was a case reported in the newspaper. Bp Donald Wuerl suspended the priest. The priest appealed to the Vatican. Under the rules at the time, he got his collar back. Bp Wuerl took a plane to the Vatican, where he had worked for a decade and was well-known and respected. The priest was resuspended.
It is hard to believe that after that time any member of the Vatican administration or the American hierarchy could claim a lack of knowledge about sexual abuse and all the issues surrounding it.
Pedophilia crisis
By Robert H. Irwin, MD (not verified) on Tuesday, March 16, 2010We have a pedophilia crisis because the institution selects potential clergy from the wrong group within the Church. It ignores criteria from the New Testament, especially 1 Tim 3:1-10, and selects from the small sub-set of unmarried males. The "celibacy" requirement is really a requirement not to marry. Clergy can and do violate celibacy and continue to practice, but if they marry, they are immediately thrown out. The last I heard was that marriage was a sacrament. Why should someone leading a sacramental life be ineligible for sacramental ministry?
If we were to recruit to ministry those who have a genuine vocation, regardless of gender or marital status, we would have a much easier time identifying pedophiles and weeding them out.
Get rid of the homosexual
By Anonymous (not verified) on Friday, March 12, 2010Get rid of the homosexual priests, and you get rid of a good majority of the child abusers.
Pedophilia
By Robert H. Irwin, MD (not verified) on Tuesday, March 16, 2010I disagree. Pedophiles are as likely to be heterosexual as homosexual.
John Jay Report
By Jerry D (not verified) on Friday, March 12, 2010The John Jay report commissioned by the USCCB backs you up on this point. The vast majority of the cases involves abuse of teenage boys.
This is the kind of "fact" . . .
By Kevin Clarke on Monday, March 15, 2010that doesn't bear up too well to much scrutiny but manages to promote a peculiar reading of the crisis, that is, a scenario that depicts gay clerics cavorting with older teens, that for some reason some Catholics find reassuring. The actual fact is that the majority of abuse victims-51 percent-were children between the ages of 11 and 14, in other words, the altar boy zone. An additional 6 percent were under 7, and 16 percent were between 8 and 10. You do the math. The vast majority were under 14. See http://www.usccb.org/nrb/johnjaystudy/incident3.pdf.
BTW: if you want to see what a real priest crisis looks like, drive gay men out of the priesthood. They only comprise anywhere between 33 to 48 percent of the current clergy, depending on which survey you cite. That means that about 97 to 98 percent of them were not implicated in the 6,700 substantiated allegations of sexual abuse of children, you know, what pedophiles do. And while I'm on the subject, let me stamp down another widely circulated, perhaps disingenuous belief about the nature of the abusers: Almost 70 percent of the abusive priests were ordained before 1970, after attending pre-Vatican II seminaries or seminaries that had had little time to adapt to Vatican II reforms.
Good Points
By Anonymous (not verified) on Monday, April 5, 2010Good points, Kevin.
Again, its the drip sand drabs of revelations that reveals much of our leadership out of touch and clueless with regards to accountability, acknowledging all these past sinful acts and being guided by the Light to embark on responsible action taking and renewal. Our leadership has had years and years to 'get it' and still they appear are off the mark in this regard.
It appears the peace-filled Easter glow is already worn down -- they're back ... after a hiatus, it sadly appears that the same tired and erroneous arguments again continue to spew from the reactionary and crazy church ladies on this site ... they, too, just don't get it becuase it appears they prefer to be unreasonable.
Sell the crazy some place else - where all booked up here, again
By Anonymous (not verified) on Monday, April 5, 2010I'm sorry if the truth hits close to home!
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