Posted on 11/11/2007 7:19:28 AM PST by shrinkermd
In 2004, Bishop Wilton Gregory, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, proclaimed that after two years of relentless investigations into priests who sexually abused children and the bishops who protected them, "the scandal is history."
For reporters weary of the scandal's emotionally draining subject matter, Gregory's sound bite invited a retreat. The bishops pointed to the "youth protection charter" they had developed, laying out guidelines for removing predator priests and for treating victims responsibly. They released data showing that they had identified about 4,400 abusive U.S. priests. They had a reform agenda, it seemed, and promised new vigilance in protecting children rather than clerics. In the months that followed, the sexual abuse crisis receded as national news, though civil litigation and criminal prosecutions continued to make occasional headlines.
But did the church really learn its lesson? Cardinal Francis George, the archbishop of Chicago, is currently preparing to assume the presidency of the Conference of Catholic Bishops, whose annual meeting begins Monday in Baltimore. His new position would make George highly visible when Pope Benedict XVI arrives on his first trip to the U.S. next spring, which is fitting because George was a valuable ally of then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger when the cardinals' conclave chose him to be pope in 2005.
The problem is that George shows little indication of having internalized the lessons of the scandal. He displays a stunning insensitivity to the church's failures. And twice since the 2002 conference in Dallas that adopted the youth protection charter, George has flouted the church's supposed zero-tolerance attitude in his handling of abusive priests
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
My point is that molestation of a child whether male or female is the result of attraction to an inappropriate partner who cannot legally give consent. It is not a “classic sense” homosexual problem either. It is pedophilia. Again, why is it so easy to dismiss the alleged 40% of these cases involving girls and make this into a homosexual issue?
Well, use your own figures. If 60% are homosexual crimes, amd 2-4% of the populaton is homosexual there is an overwhelming disparity in numbers not explained by anything other than sexual orientation.
I would think a young man would either have to be very dedicated or very “unusual” to venture into a lifetime profession that requires celebacy. The probability of “unusual” has to be much higher.
“homosexual men have boys, especially thin and good looking boys, as their idealized love object.”
I guess that means that priests who molest little girls only pick the chubby, ugly ones. You have no concept of pedophilia. It is vastly different from homosexuality. It is a predator/prey relationship which, like rape, is not so much a sexual act as it is a power trip.
” You have no concept of pedophilia. It is vastly different from homosexuality.”
True. However, homosexuals love to bone boys right down to the onset of puberty without being pedophiles. That’s just one of the symptoms of same-sex attraction disorder.
No, that's not the reason. It's because the Church in the 50's, 60's and 70's were a refuge for the latent homosexual.
The closet was still pretty much shut and homosexuality was considered shameful and a grievous sin, becoming a priest was a way to suppress those feelings, though the structure and authority of the Church.
There are also theories that the Church was purposely infiltrated by radical homosexuals to redefine and undermine the church, but that is for another discussion
As a side note the church should allow men to marry as a priest, simply because the original church had no requirement of it's leadership
You’re absolutely spot on.
I have been a Catholic for seven years. Prior to becoming a Catholic I had no experience with Catholic Priests. I became a Catholic because after studying Roman Catholic theology, I concluded that if one is going to be a Christian, one must be Roman Catholic (or, perhaps, Orthodox) — but that’s a discussion for a different thread.
The point that I want to make here is that since becoming a Catholic, I have observed that on the whole Catholic Priests are the biggest group of weirdos and oddballs I have every encountered. In school, they were the guys who were picked last when choosing sides. They tend to display feminine characteristics and other unusual behaviors. They were the guys who no girl would date. You get the idea.
Protestant ministers on the other hand tend to be normal, regular guys. They typically have lovely wives who make positive contributions to their ministry.
Celibacy is a major sacrifice for a normal, regular guy. However, if you are an oddball who can’t get a date anyway or a homosexual, celibacy is not such a big deal. In fact, if you are looking for a way to hide your homosexuality or to try to contain your homosexuality, celibacy might look like an attractive solution to your problems.
It’s time Catholics recognize that celibacy is filtering the set of Priest candidates to the social misfits and homosexuals. I’ve seen Priests on TV who appear to be normal guys, but I’ve yet to come across one Priest in my diocese who does not display some personality trait that would be considered odd by most people.
Perhaps, cradle Catholics have become so use to the kind of men who become Priests that they just don’t see what a weird group these men are. Maybe it’s much easier for someone like me who dealt with Protestant ministers most of my life to see what a strange group Catholic Priests are in comparison. I think my wife, who is a cradle Catholic, falls into that category. She seemed to expect Catholic Priests to be oddballs until I pointed it out.
Since becoming a Catholic, I have concluded that the biggest weakness of the Roman Catholic church is its clergy — especially, the Bishops, who appear to be the Priests who are best at hiding or dealing with their social inadequacies. But then, one would expect the human component of any organization to be its weak point.
In any event, the fact that Catholic Priests tend to be weirdos will not discourage me from continuing as a Catholic. However, I would never allow one of my children to be alone with any one of them.
The author's main point seems to be the "callous" bishops who continue to accept child sex abusers socially and to transfer them to other parishes, in defiance of the guidelines, instead of forcing abusers out.
The author is particularly incensed that the devil is blamed for the problem, as if only the accusers are enabling demonic action, while it is some of the bishops who in fact continue to avoid accepting responsibility for enabling the problem.
The problem was not pedophilia but ephebophilia. Again, the press does not want to admit this!
The issue IS homosexuality.
Where does anyone think those homosexuals who ‘hid’ in the Church in such huge numbers in the 50’s-60’s are now?
How many are Bishops, Archbishops, Cardinals?
Does anyone seriously think that a gay Bishop is going to put a parish priest’s head on the chopping block when his own belongs there as well? ‘Cleaning house’ can’t just happen on the parish level, and I can’t see high ranking prelates chancing their own heads.
If you know the Bishop prosecuting you is a homosexual himself, would you not implicate him as well?
And as horrible as pedophilia is- would getting the priests who abuse children out of the Church be good enough? Is the idea of homosexual priests doing each other- or other adult men- ok? I don’t want homosexual priests PERIOD!
How infected is the Church? This denial/protection would indicate that a REAL ‘cleansing’ would result in a severely damaged Church-and that the hierarchy knows it!
I’m a ‘cradle Catholic’, but I would rather there be ONE priest per continent than hundreds of thousands that are-or that protect- homosexuals in the Church.
I used to live in a huge diocese (I am evangelical, former Protestant) and also had the opportunity to view many priests "objectively." I cannot agree that they were all social zeros. A large percentage did seem to be affected with homosexual tendencies, but not all; we also have to take into account the pressures of society since the 60s in shaming all people who believe.
I was greatly, greatly helped by talking with a priest who was a very masculine Italian guy and a true priest. I also met several big, burly Irish priests whom you would easily mistake for former linebackers.
One thing that all people need to stop doing is judging books by their covers. If children were not called "gay", etc in school because they had various characteristics, some boys could grow up to be artists and musicians and also marry women and not be hounded into homosexual identification by harassment from classmates. I had a very "lesbian"-seeming classmate in high school who was a strict Mormon, got married and had four children and has now been married almost 50 years. The belief system and social support of her community combined with the Christian belief, "Be transformed by the renewing of your mind" appears to have tided her over the harassment that could have sent her on the wrong path.
The problem is that the Latin church in the US post-Vatican II turned the primary responsibility for screening candidates for the priesthood for ‘stability’ over to secular psychologists, for whom the immorality of sodomy was not a meaningful category, and the Latin church as a whole cut back on the intensity of daily prayer life required of priests.
I am sure that from the middle ages when the Latin west imposed a requirement of celibacy on all priests down to the present day, pious Latin Christian men who are beset by homoerotic temptations have seen the celibacy of the priesthood as a way of putting a check on their sinful urges and have gravitated to the priesthood, the moreso with the waning of men’s monasticism in the West.
So long as spiritually sensitive bishops, priests or monastics were vetting candidates, and the Latin Rite priesthood required the sort of intense prayer life that is the only context in which celibacy is really feasible (cf. the experience of the Church East and West and of Buddhism), there wasn’t a problem. Once the gate-keeping was turned over to psychologists who had imbibed the surrounding secular culture’s normalization of homoeroticism, and the Divine Office required of priests was reduced by the abolition of Prime, reductions to Matins, and the requirement that only one or more of Terce, Sext, and None be said, rather than all three at their proper times, the sad results followed.
Ignorance is bliss. 21 of the 22 Churches sui juris that comprise the Catholic Church ordain married men.
If the Church would allow Priests to marry, more men who are not homosexual would go into the Priesthood.
A specious, at best, argument. You need to spend some time reading the following:
That’s ephebophilia, not pedophilia.
How many dioceses across the country have you observed Catholic Priests in?
The major crimes committed by what you call “pedophile priests” are sodomizing prepubescent and pubescent boys. There is no way around that. This is not pedophilia.
I know the homosexual community is doing everything possible to make sodomizing boys equivalent to heterosexual crimes but the prevalence in the Church and the difference in actual means of sexual penetration cannot be dismissed by sophistry.
I’m not arguing your points. Your points just don’t align with the main points in the article, which is the hypocrisy of the enabling bishops, that’s all. I think most of us share your disgust with the entire spectrum of related issues, including language migration and “double-speak.”
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