Posted on 01/09/2003 7:54:21 AM PST by arj
Recent revelations that at least 40 percent of Catholic nuns in the United States are victims of sexual abuse are just part of a growing sex scandal in the Church that goes far beyond the abuse of young boys by priests.
Capitol Hill Blue has learned that internal investigations by the Church have uncovered massive evidence of frequent sexual activity by both nuns and priests (often with each other), use of Church money to pay for abortions for pregnant nuns and a “casual and tolerant attitude towards sexual activity among Church leaders.”
Details of the investigations are a closely guarded secret of the Church hierarchy, but sources tell CHB that the results are being closely studied by Vatican officials who express “shock and outrage” at the high levels of sex involving priests and nuns.
“For God’s sake, this is the Church. It is not a bordello,” exclaimed one priest involved in the investigation. “This is a crime against God.”
In interviews with current nuns and priests, as well as with a number of clergy who have left the church, a disturbing portrait of immoral activity within Church walls emerges, including:
--Priests who regularly have sex with female parishioners. According to two sources, as many as 5,000 priests in the U.S. have been discovered to have had affairs with parishioners.
--At least 34,000 nuns who admit sexual abuse or activity.
--Frequent sexual contact between priests and nuns. The investigations are said to have found “dozens” of cases where nuns who became pregnant from these affairs had abortions paid for out of Church funds (even though the Church opposes abortions).
--Hundreds of confirmed reports of lesbian sexual encounters among nuns as well as homosexual contact between priests.
--Hundreds of cases where priests and nuns leave the Church and marry shortly afterwards, many having children conceived while they were still Church clergy.
“You are dealing with human beings with human failings,” admits Jonathan, an ex-priest who left the Church years ago and married a former nun. Their oldest child was conceived during an affair when both were still in the Church. Jonathan agreed to be interviewed only on condition that neither his last name nor his wife’s name be used for this article.
“Yes, we both took vows of chastity but we broke those vows,” he says. “We weren’t the only ones. I knew several priests in my diocese who broke their vows as well. My wife knew many nuns who violated their vows.”
Jonathan says stories about rampant sexual activity among priests and nuns circulated in the Church for years but that Catholic leaders looked the other way.
“There were two hypocrisies at work,” he says. “One because some of the Church leaders were, themselves, unfaithful to their vows and the other because everyone knew the damage to the church if this ever became public.”
Only when confronted with the revelations last year of widespread abuse of children and the subsequent cover up has the church taken a closer look at the sexual activity.
"The bishops appear to be only looking at the issue of child sexual abuse, but the problem is bigger than that," says St. Louis University researcher Ann Wolf, one of those who authored the study on widespread sexual abuse of nuns. "Catholic sisters are being violated, in their ministries, at work, in pastoral counseling."
St. Louis University conducted a national survey of nuns in 1996 but the Church-affiliated school never publicly released the results. The study, paid for by several of the nun orders, was turned over to the Church. Wolf and the other researchers found 34,000 nuns who had been either sexually abused or engaged in sexual activity.
“What they found were those who admitted it,” says Jonathan. “There were, and are, many others.”
Jonathan admits his wife was not his first sexual partner while he wore the robes of priesthood. He had affairs with female parishioners and other nuns.
“It was all done with a wink and a nod,” he says. “Just about everybody knew what was happening but nobody wanted to do anything about it.”
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops claims to know nothing of the studies and refuses to comment on the specifics of this article. Phone calls to various Catholic officials and Vatican offices were not returned.
Christ Himself said it: "There will be no marriage or giving in marriage."
I guess I'm just one of those crazy people that subscribes to the theory that if a normal human need/desire (pick your classification of sexuality) is frustrated, then it may lead to an unhealthy or illegal expression of that desire when the cork finally blows off. It's made people write novels during Cultural Revolutions, swim across rivers that constitute national borders, or develop tap codes on the walls of their prison cells, in my view.
I truly believe that the vast majority of Catholic clerical folks have been behaving themselves properly. I don't consider such a person involving themselves in self-stimulation to be part of the problem, and for the people who are part of the problem, it should have been available as an outlet.
No, it doesn't seem to be working. Neither does anything else these days because everybody wants and expects it all. There are times when you must deny your sexual needs, even if you aren't a Christian.
Let's keep mandatory clerical celibacy and general sexual morality separate for the purpose of this discussion. If every priest had a lover, it wouldn't change the original intent and message of Christianity. Sex outside of marriage was wrong. Now that we can easily prevent pregnancy, sex outside of marriage doesn't seem to be working very well for males or females.
It's a real grab bag, no pun intended, and fortunate are those who have a loving, loyal spouse.
That may be true, but consider the individuals who make that choice: They are often immature, insecure and inexperienced teens who for one reason or another believe that a life of celibacy is not only attainable but also desirable. Sooner or later temptation will arrive, and the only choice left to them then is to leave, cheat or resist temptation. The weaker ones will choose the path of least resistance.
I think the Church is asking too much of these religious orders. I'd rather see my children taught by a stable married person than a frustrated or perverted nun or priest. And I speak from a background of ten years in Catholic schools. Some of the best teachers I ever had were nuns or priests, but only one seemed happy. He was a priest who for some reason never said Mass...
Not the same thing at all. Cancer is a disease, sexuality is a normal part of human life. I'd not want to have a lifelong vegetarian cooking my steak, or a committed pedestrian teaching my kids how to drive. Having some experience with the effects of a healthy sexual relationship with another adult person can give a counselor an insight as to how the dynamics of a marital relationship work surrounding this category. The two most quarrelled-over subjects in marriage are money and sex. I wouldn't want someone who is a long term welfare recipient to be giving couples financial advice, either.
I'm in favor of optional celibacy for priests, or, rather, that married men ought to be called to the priesthood. But I'm not sure that even a married marriage counselor uses his own marriage as a benchmark when counselling other married people.
Experience always makes people richer, if they can learn from it. Even failure gives a person perspective. I'd rather learn business principles from a person who has tried and failed several businesses before hitting on what works, than from a person whose first idea succeeded right from the start.
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