Sex runs rampant in the Catholic Church

Capitol Hill Blue ^ | January 9, 2003 | DOUG THOMPSON

[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.

[Chancellor Palpatine]

Why would you even expect them to behave like normal human beings under a man made set of draconian standards?

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?

[Steve_Seattle]

"you expect and demand it of your clergy"

Since the clergy take the vow, we expect it of them. No one needs to take the vow. I personally think priests should be allowed to marry, and even that the whole idea of a separate priesthood is unnecessary. And those who find they can't keep the vows should leave rather than live a lie.

[Chancellor Palpatine]

Because this way, he can pretend that you're being untruthful. It is a time honored RC debating technique - always claim that your opponent is lying, then, if evidence does pop up, claim that the opponent is a rabid anti-Catholic.

[hunter112]

But, if a 35 year old man is masturbating like an adolescent, he might very well view women as objects.

That's pretty serious stuff for an adult male.

From that statement, I guess you've never been in a bad marriage. If not, then I'm glad for you.

As far as I'm concerned, celibacy offers no benefits for clergy who are expected to interact with the general public, especially those who are expected to give counseling to married people. I consider the Catholic church's ban on clergical matrimony to be in the same category as its condemnation of masturbation. In my response, I was merely offering an explanation of why the numbers were so high for a survey of Catholic clerical "sexual activity". Engaging in self gratification once or twice over an adult lifetime is enough to produce decades of guilt in a Catholic-trained person, yet does not constitute "masterbating like an adolescent".

[Chancellor Palpatine]

Pretty decent answer, and i can respect that.

[sinkspur]

I certainly don't consider myself the equal of any priest, who has put aside marriage and family for the lifelong service of God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I was not worthy of the calling.

I consider myself the equal of any priest, especially if you knew the ones I do.

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.

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

[Bluntpoint]

How many parrishes would become unviable if the church really cleansed itself of these priests?

That is the problem. Intellectual honesty demands that those who demand celibacy, also, accept vastly fewer and larger parrishes.

[Dataman]

For the church's real leaders, Paul made it very clear that they ought to be single as he was, and Timothy also was, and was so urgent about this that both the Roman and Greek churches have felt that all clergy or those over a certain level, must be totally unmarried and thus [unless they are swearing falsely before God]...celibate.

Such logic! Peter, the rock, the patron of the RCC, the Bishop of Rome was (ahem) married.

[Antoninus]

Keep telling your self that. But be prepared to reap what you sow. Your parrishes remain viable today only because your church has so lowered its standards as to who can be a priest. Just for you can claim your moral superiorty in regards to celibacy. Arrogance before the fall.

You are so off-base, I don't quite know how to respond. Parishes in those areas (like that parish in Michigan that produced Jennifer Granholm) where the priests do not present the teachings of Christ on issues of sexual morality, will fall by the wayside. Dioceses that do likewise will produce no new priests and eventually waste away. This is already happening.

Meanwhile, those dioceses which present the true, unvarnished teachings of Christ on ALL issues and do not hedge on sexuality are producing new priests--lots of them. This is a trend across the country. Read Goodbye, Good Men by Michael Rose for some idea of what's going on.

Eventually, the priests and religious who bought into the 1960s nonsense and done so much damage will pass through the Church. Not surprisingly, they are having great difficulty attracting a new generation to follow them. The next generation of priests and nuns will be MUCH more conservative than what we've got today.

Like you said, you reap what you sow.

[babylonian]

I agree. But I was asking why everyone is suddenly so surprised at things we've known for eons! I wasn't comparing these two issues except for the denial of both, for so long.

[Aliska]

You can claim the moral highground by demanding such. But look what you have as a result.

I don't demand priests be celibate. Even if they weren't there would be other problems.

[matthew_the_brain]

Yes, such logic, open the priesthood up to the married....hmm, it has been tried in the Anglican Church,and guess what? there is still a shortage of pastors!!!

This is article is contrived, and poorly written, and is being paraded as a counter to the homosexual infiltration and ephebophilic problems with pederasts.

[Steve_Seattle]

"would you even expect them to behave like normal human beings"

The valuation of celibacy, if not the formal requirement, goes back to the early church; it is not a medieval invention. And the idea that Christians are expected to have a different attitude towards sex from "pagans" is right there in the New Testament, and can be found in the words of Jesus. As far as this survey of nuns is concerned, you could do a survey of people coming out of "Bible-based" churchs and ask how many have ever looked at pornography, or been drunk, or fornicated, and you could have headlines saying, "90% of born-again Christians have viewed pornography" or "70% of born-again Christians have had sex outside of marriage."

[Dataman]

If you advertize for applicants to a certain job, saying that the rquirements are 1) male 19-25 years old, 2)not interested in getting married. Guess who you are going to attract? Fags!

May I suggest a helpful book?

Understanding Stupidity for Dummies,
available at most department stores.

[ex-snook]

"Every church I have ever been to teaches that sex outside of marriage is wrong. It is pretty hard to get that wrong. "

Well some seem to be turning a blind eye to gay relationships and condemning shacking up.

[sinkspur]

As far as I'm concerned, celibacy offers no benefits for clergy who are expected to interact with the general public, especially those who are expected to give counseling to married people.

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.

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.

[stuartcr]

Your wording of #49 made it sound as if you knew there was no sex in the afterlife, sorry, my mistake.

[Antoninus]

But you expect and demand it of your clergy, demeaning those who can't cut it at some point in their career, correct?

Gee, that couldn't have anything to do with the Church has expected and demanded it of them for thousands of years, could it? I demean no one. Those who break their solemn vows demean themselves without me having to say or do anything. I pray for them.

[Dataman]

<This is article is contrived, and poorly written, and is being paraded as a counter to the homosexual infiltration and ephebophilic problems with pederasts.

Of this I have no doubt.

[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?