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Sex runs rampant in the Catholic Church
Capitol Hill Blue ^ | January 9, 2003 | DOUG THOMPSON

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.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: anticatholichatred; bs; catholicbashing; catholicchurch; catholiclist; priests; religion; scandal; sex
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To: Antoninus
What numbers do you have to back up your assertion that these dioceses are producing record number of priests. Straight, celibate priests?

Wishful thinking perhaps?

Then decades more of denial.
101 posted on 01/09/2003 11:02:40 AM PST by Bluntpoint
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To: stuartcr
The bible says there is no marriage or giving in marriage in the afterlife. That's what I based my comment upon.
102 posted on 01/09/2003 11:02:45 AM PST by Aliska
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To: stuartcr
Your wording of #49 made it sound as if you knew there was no sex in the afterlife, sorry, my mistake.

Christ Himself said it: "There will be no marriage or giving in marriage."

103 posted on 01/09/2003 11:02:52 AM PST by sinkspur
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To: Steve_Seattle
So, according to you, the thought process of these priests was, "I have sexual desire, but it's a sin to masturbate, so therefore I'll molest children and have sex with married women and nuns." That does not seem very credible.

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.

104 posted on 01/09/2003 11:03:05 AM PST by hunter112
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To: Aliska
OK, I don't know the bible, so I was just going on what you said.
105 posted on 01/09/2003 11:05:41 AM PST by stuartcr
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To: Chancellor Palpatine
Why would you even expect them to behave like normal human beings under a man made set of draconian standards?

Christ himself abided by this "man-made" set of "draconian standards." You are a child of the world and are incapable of understanding why anyone would put aside worldly desires to dedicate themselves to otherworldly work. Admitedly, I had trouble understanding this too when I was a child. But not anymore.

Have you failed to realize that a double standard would naturally arise when the psychologically unbalanced or utter liars were elevated to the clergy and placed in charge of the theology and treasure of the Church?

Certainly not. All men are sinners. But the doctrine of the Church is tended by the Holy Spirit. I don't worry about that. As for the treasure, it could all be stripped away, and the True Church would still stand just as it did in front of the jeering crowds in the arena.
106 posted on 01/09/2003 11:06:27 AM PST by Antoninus
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To: Bluntpoint
celibacy is not working

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.

107 posted on 01/09/2003 11:06:59 AM PST by Aliska
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To: sinkspur
I consider myself the equal of any priest, especially if you knew the ones I do.

Of course you do. That doesn't surprise me.

As to whether you were "worthy" of the calling, you were likely more worthy than Paul Shanley or any number of alcoholic or gambling-addicted priests I know or have read about.

Not all men who are priests were called, in my opinion.

Priests are men. God doesn't just call worthy men. He just calls men.

The men that God truly calls, He also gives the grace to answer the call and fulfill their duty.
108 posted on 01/09/2003 11:09:43 AM PST by Antoninus
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To: arj
Upon reading some postings in this thread, writings from a famous author come to mind... I think these 3 cover most of the posts....

**
We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men. -George Orwell

On the whole, human beings want to be good -- but not too good and not quite all the time. George Orwell

You have to be an intellectual to believe such nonsense. No ordinary man could be such a fool. George Orwell
109 posted on 01/09/2003 11:09:45 AM PST by hosepipe
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To: SMEDLEYBUTLER
a vow of celibacy is one that is made freely

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...

110 posted on 01/09/2003 11:11:19 AM PST by giotto
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To: Antoninus
"But the doctrine of the Church is tended by the Holy Spirit. I don't worry about that."

It is admirable to live by principle.

It is sad to see principle when it does not exist.

The facade of celibacy is just that, a facade.

Adherents have to make intellectual backflips to believe otherwise. Their heads ring with cognative dissonace.

111 posted on 01/09/2003 11:11:45 AM PST by Bluntpoint
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To: Chancellor Palpatine
So it doesn't bother you that a psychotic, man made set of rules evolved a double standard - a clergy which could do anything it wanted sexually, and a laity that lived under gross imposition?

No. What bothers me is that our modern clergy seem incapable of following the rules that have existed since the very begining. This isn't the first time in Church history that this has happened, and it likely won't be the last.

What also bothers me is uninformed non-Catholics imposing their jugdment upon what Catholics do. We're working on our problem. Doctor, heal thyself.
112 posted on 01/09/2003 11:14:18 AM PST by Antoninus
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To: Aliska
"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."

So true. However, unlike many pushing celibacy, we both know that acknowleging this fact does not hinder the search for an answer to this problem.

The demand of celibacy is creating many problems. Failure to acknowlege such problems just makes the cure more difficult.
113 posted on 01/09/2003 11:16:58 AM PST by Bluntpoint
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To: Bluntpoint
What numbers do you have to back up your assertion that these dioceses are producing record number of priests. Straight, celibate priests? Wishful thinking perhaps? Then decades more of denial.

The numbers are available for anyone to see. I saw them in a recent issue (last two years) of New Oxford Review which listed all the dioceses in the US and the numbers of seminarians they had. I even posted it on FR at the time.

One example is the seminary of the FSSP in Lincoln, Nebraska which is bursting at the seams. They've already built one new wing, and are in the process of building more. For the record, FSSP priests say the old Latin Mass, in case that tells you anything....
114 posted on 01/09/2003 11:19:46 AM PST by Antoninus
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To: sinkspur
Oh for heaven's sake! If I'm a doctor, I don't have to have cancer in order to treat it or to be empathic with my patients about it.

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.

115 posted on 01/09/2003 11:19:46 AM PST by hunter112
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To: Antoninus
"What also bothers me is uninformed non-Catholics imposing their jugdment upon what Catholics do. We're working on our problem. Doctor, heal thyself."

Intellectual observations, simply because you don't share them, don't automatically become biased judgments that you can toss asside because they they make your head hurt.

116 posted on 01/09/2003 11:21:50 AM PST by Bluntpoint
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To: Bluntpoint
It is funny, we act as if concupiscence is some new thing particular to us vain human beings in 2003........how silly, the Church has gone through this in the past, and there is a very sound reason for celibacy. Unfortunately, many on this board are unable to transcend their 'glands', and use their intellect.
117 posted on 01/09/2003 11:22:38 AM PST by matthew_the_brain
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To: babylonian
I can't say I'm surprised by the sexual behavior between consenting priests and nuns, but I am stunned by the allegations of abortion.
118 posted on 01/09/2003 11:23:35 AM PST by eastsider
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To: Bluntpoint
It is admirable to live by principle. It is sad to see principle when it does not exist. The facade of celibacy is just that, a facade. Adherents have to make intellectual backflips to believe otherwise. Their heads ring with cognative dissonace.

Your mocking advice to us Catholics is much appreciated. Faith is often not intellectual. That's why so many intellectuals are utterly flummoxed when they encounter it. If the Church was a purely worldly, intellectual institution, it would have been stomped out thousands of years ago. Keep trying.
119 posted on 01/09/2003 11:24:46 AM PST by Antoninus
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To: Antoninus
Are these american educated students or third world students?

Are they straight or gay?

Are you just putting off for a later time to address the problems that are already occurring?
120 posted on 01/09/2003 11:24:48 AM PST by Bluntpoint
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