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.
I don't think they lied. I wasn't there when the questions were asked and I don't know how they got nuns to cooperate anyway. My personal opinion in spite of the mean ole bad ole church is that 40% sounds a little high. We don't know what the questions were, etc., etc.
I'm more concerned with the motives of those who dreamed up the study.
Mt 6:15-17:" He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?-(16) Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.-(17)And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou Simon-Bar Jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven."
I know you're going to dispute this, but, despite the word-play on Peter's name, the Rock upon which the Church is built is not the man, but his confession, or more specifically the content thereof.
I guess you and I just won't agree, and the statement above is a big part of the reason why.
I figure that people who voluntarily enter Catholic religious orders know the rules when they go in, its the rest of the people I feel sorry for, who are made to feel guilty over an act that harms no one. I can't be sure just why the Catholic church has the lawsuit problem, that's the problem for it, if it causes that religion to cease to exist in a few generations.
And,I responded,using consequences as a measure of the gravity of a sin,that I thought you were pretty cavalier in your rankings.With regards malice,it comes into play in suicide because many times it is an attempt to punish the "other" for the rejection.
I guess I was trying to get you to look deeper than the usual superficial gloss over of sins of "lust" to see how extensive and deep the effects can be.
You made some snippy remark and asked if I had turned into some kind of a bible thumper,or some such thing. May be you and Marajade would like to give it a try?Doubt that you will want to since I suspect it can't be found.
The nominative and dative cases of petra do indeed have different endings (-a and -h, respectively); however, petros is masculine, and petra is feminine.Erratum: the nominative and dative cases of petra are spelled identically, but the dative case alpha has an iota-subscript, which I haven't figured out how to post with HTML codes.
LOL! So this is where the tunnel thing originated. Jack Chick® is big on this too.
What qualifies you to manufacture your own historical "facts?" I believe that domain belongs to the far left. Are the Gnostic heresies being revived?
Evidence for which is: when Christ healed Peter's mother-in-law, she got up & waited on the apostles. Surely if Peter's wife had still been alive, SHE would have been the one waiting on them. (Unless she was a really rotten daughter.)
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