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.
Just a facade, and we can well imagine the Latin American preists.
Most of the men coming into the Church these days aren't "young." They're in their 30s and more mature than many of the boys who entered seminaries back when I was in.
There are fewer people marrying today, as a percentage of the population, than ever before. How do you explain this, in light of your above contention?
I don't see it that way any more for a number of reasons. Men need a powerful incentive to want to settle down. Look at all the horrible marriages, even the supposed "good" ones. It may be a need, but it goes unmet for so many no matter what they try. Promiscuity has clouded the issue further. When men are getting their sexual needs met, they don't seem to be much in a hurry to do otherwise.
A need to be whole. I don't see it as a weakness to ferret out unworthy priest candidates.
Being whole doesn't necessarily depend on marriage unless you are very fortunate and find someone just right for you. You sure get shattered in one heck of a hurry when you are having problems in your marriage, even little ones.
and upon this rockThe Greek is tauth, a contraction of th auth, meaning the same rock.
It is interesting that others do not.
Amen. And it has precedent:
Maria Monk
In January 1836 Maria Monk published a book titled Awful Disclosures in which she exposed various scandalous events that, according to her, had occurred at the Hotel Dieu convent in Montreal. Her central claim was that convent nuns were having sexual relations with priests from the neighboring seminary who supposedly entered the convent through a secret tunnel. All babies born of these illicit encounters, Monk claimed, were baptized before being killed and dumped in a lime pit in the basement of the convent. Maria Monk said that she had lived in the convent for a total of seven years before becoming pregnant by a priest. Being unable to bear the thought of having her child killed and dumped in the basement, she had finally fled.
The publication of Maria Monk's book caused an enormous public outcry that fed on the prevailing anti-Catholic sentiment of the era. Leading protestants in New York and Montreal demanded an investigation of the Montreal convent, and in response to this pressure, the Bishop of Montreal finally did authorize an investigation. It turned up no evidence to support Maria Monk's claims, but American Protestants refused to accept these results, claiming that the investigation was biased because it had supposedly been conducted by Jesuits disguised as Protestants.
A New York City newspaper editor, Col. William Leete Stone, asked the Bishop for permission to investigate with a team of protestants. The bishop granted his request, and in October 1836 Stone led a team around the convent. With Maria Monk's book in hand, he compared her description of the convent's interior with the convent itself. He found very little correspondence between the two, however he was not allowed to see the nun's rooms or the basement area and had to return to New York City, his investigation unfinished.
Col. Stone later obtained permission to see the entire convent and, on the basis of this fuller investigation, concluded that there was no evidence that Maria Monk "had ever been within the walls of the cloister."
Once her claims were discredited, Maria Monk fell from public view. A rumor emerged that she had actually been a prostitute in Montreal, and that the years she claimed to have spent in a convent were actually spent in the Magdalen Asylum for Wayward Girls. She was later arrested for picking the pocket of a man who had paid her for sex, and she died in prison on Welfare Island, New York City, in 1849. The Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk, despite having been shown to be false, remained in print until well into the twentieth century.
References: Billington, Ray Allen. The Protestant Crusade, 1800-1860: A Study of the Origins of American Nativism. New York, 1958: 98-117 Stein, Gordon. Encyclopedia of Hoaxes. Gale Research, Inc. 1993, 224-226.
That's an extremely un-Catholic attitude, Sinky.
For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. -- 1 Cor 4:15Humility and obedience are the hallmarks of the Catholic Christian. Pride and a sense of equality with God's authorities are the characteristics of the Other Side. For your own sake I urge you to reconsider your attitide, following the example of St. Timothy in Philippians 2:22: "But Timothy's worth you know, how as a son with a father he has served with me in the gospel."You are witnesses, and God also, how holy and righteous and blameless was our behavior to you believers; for you know how, like a father with his children, we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to lead a life worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory. -- 1 Thess 2:10-12
Thanks for your concern, but even John Paul refers to us as his "brothers and sisters."
I think that is a very healthy relationship for the Pope to have with us.
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