>>“..The commission dismissed as implausible a central defense of the religious orders — that, in bygone days, people did not recognize the sexual abuse of a child as a criminal offense, but rather as a sin that required repentance.<<
Well, I’ll handle this one. I worked Psych in the 90s. It was commonly thought that the sexual abuse of a child WAS a disorder that could be treated and cured.
Now we know that’s wrong.
Hindsight is 20/20. My Dad died in 1982 from Colon cancer. If he had contracted it today, there would be a good chance he would survive. Treatments change.
So, you expect a religious order to override the Psychs telling them that a person could be treated or cured? They are religious, not doctors.
I'll weigh in on this one. I would have expected a religious order to recognize that raping a child is fundamentally a sinful behavior, before they would believe it to be aberrational behavior. It should be a warning sign to everyone that if a religious order looks to "the Psychs" for expert advice on dealing with known sinful behavior, instead of looking in their Bibles for solutions, they prove themselves to be scripturally deficient if not illiterate. "Religious" order, indeed!
We should not expect "psychological treatment" will end sinful behavior. That's what many bishops have believed, however, and look at what fruit it has yielded - $3,000,000,000 awarded in damages and settlements by Catholic dioceses within the United States alone.
The only thing that ends sinful behavior is repentance. Check your Bible if you don't believe me.
It is not saying that in bygone days, sexual abuse was seen as a psychological item to be treated or cured. It is simply saying that it was seen as legal in to abuse children, although potentially immoral, and that when it because illegal to abuse children, that the Catholic church unilaterally decided to not only stay silent, but to continue to allow rapists to have contact with potential rapees.
Psychology is a new “soft science” that, I doubt, was around most of the last 2000 years, to be referred to as an authority on how to handle legal and Scriptural concerns.
Psychology is not considered an authority on such matters in Protestant churches.