first

To get a sense of scale, do you know how many dioceses are in Pennsylvania and about how many priests there are (total, not the pedophile estimates) in a diocese?

5 🙁

We have a medieval scholar PhD student in our family and priests have been sexually abusing children for hundreds of years. Solomon was right, there is nothing new under the sun. This is not an indictment of all priests, but it was not uncommon.

Paedophilia
On 5th February 2014, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) published a report accusing the Vatican of putting the interests of the Roman Catholic Church above the interests of children who had been sexually abused by priests. The report demanded that the Vatican should “immediately remove” all clergy who are known or suspected child abusers and turn them over to civil authorities.

The UNCRC said it was gravely concerned that the Holy See had not acknowledged the extent of the crimes committed and expressed its “deepest concern about child sexual abuse committed by members of the Catholic churches who operate under the authority of the Holy See, with clerics having been involved in the sexual abuse of tens of thousands of children worldwide.”

The report stated that the Holy See should open its files on members of the clergy who had “concealed their crimes” so that they could be held accountable. It called on a Vatican commission created by Pope Francis in December to investigate all cases of child sexual abuse as well as the conduct of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in dealing with them.

The UNCRC also lambasted the “practice of offenders’ mobility” – the transfer of child abusers from parish to parish and sometimes abroad. It said that this practice placed “children in many countries at high risk of sexual abuse, as dozens of child sexual offenders are reported to be still in contact with children.

Roman Catholic Attitudes Towards Paedophilia.
The following are some examples of how leaders in the Roman Catholic Church regard the issue of paedophilia:

1) Preserving the Reputation of the Roman Catholic Church is Paramount
a)The Murphy Report states:
1.15 The Dublin Archdiocese’s pre-occupations in dealing with cases of child sexual abuse, at least until the mid 1990s, were the maintenance of secrecy, the avoidance of scandal, the protection of the reputation of the Church, and the preservation of its assets. All other considerations, including the welfare of children and justice for victims, were subordinated to these priorities. The Archdiocese did not implement its own canon law rules and did its best to avoid any application of the law of the State.

1.28 A similar ‘culture of secrecy’ was identified by the Attorney General for Massachusetts in his report on child sexual abuse in the Boston Archdiocese.5 In the case of that diocese, as in the case of Dublin, secrecy“protected the institution at the expense of children.”

Ampleforth and Downside
Ampleforth and Downside (English Benedictine Congregation case study) Investigation Report August 2018
Investigation Report
August 2018
Conclusions
5. On the few occasions where parents raised complaints about sexual abuse, or were
informed about it by either institution, some preferred not to have the matters treated
as a crime requiring police investigation, but to keep it quiet at all costs. Their interest
was to protect the school, the Benedictine Congregation and the Catholic Church. In
some instances, parents also wished to protect their children from the process of police
investigation

12. The Nolan Report, in 2001, was a turning point in Catholic Church safeguarding policy
and practice, but we heard no evidence that demonstrated Downside and Ampleforth
did any more than pay lip service to it. There was hostility to the Nolan Report in both
institutions for some years after its adoption. They seemed to take a view that its
impłementation was neither obligatory nor desirable. This view appeared to go unchallenged
by the wider Catholic Church.
https://www.iicsa.org.uk/news/inquiry-publishes-report-ampleforth-and-downside

b) The Guardian
Henry McDonald Ireland
Thu 25 Jun ‘15
Senior figures in Ireland’s Catholic church set up inquiries into historical sexual abuse by solely to protect the church from scandal, the former leader of Ireland’s Catholics has admitted.
Dr Seán Brady, the former primate of All Ireland, told an inquiry into historical abuse on Thursday that he and other Catholic clerics were sworn to secrecy about these tribunals so that the “good name” of the church could be protected.
Brady was giving evidence on Thursday at the historical abuse inquiry in Northern Ireland, a wideranging investigation into the abuse of children at state and church-run care homes and other institutions across the region.

2) Underplaying the Seriousness of Paedophilia
a) On January 8 1988 Alexander Quinn . Roman Catholic auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Cleveland wrote to the Papal nuncio Laghi : “The truth is, Doyle and Mouton want the Church in the United States to purchase their expensive and controvertible leadership in matters relating to pedophilia…The Church has weathered worse attacks…So too will the pedophile annoyance eventually abate

b)In an interview with the Boston Globe 17th April 2002, American Cardinal Avery Dulles [ son of former American Secretary of State .John Foster Dulles and a convert to Roman Catholicism ,] stated:
‘I don’t think there’s any great crisis in the U S .. It’s really practically no news. To the extent it’s a crisis, its created by the news media. I suppose every individual case is terrible but it is not something peculiar to the Catholic church.’

a) A Vatican Lawyer Says Bishops Should Not Reveal Abuse Claims
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
New York Times May 18, 2002
An influential canon lawyer at the Vatican has written an article to be published today in a Vatican-approved Jesuit journal saying that Roman Catholic bishops should not turn over allegations or records of sexual abuse by priests to the civil authorities.
The article in the magazine Civilta Cattolica by the Rev. Gianfranco Ghirlanda, dean of the canon law faculty at Gregorian University in Rome, is the second indication in recent weeks that inside the Vatican, influential church officials may disapprove of the response of American bishops to the abuse scandal. Last month, the head of a Vatican council, Archbishop Julián Herranz, also said that the bishops should not be required to turn over records on abusive priests to prosecutors…

The 12-page article by Father Ghirlanda carries weight because like everything published in La Civilta Cattolica, it was reviewed before publication by the secretariat of state at the Holy See.
The conclusions of Father Ghirlanda follow by a few weeks critical remarks by Archbishop Herranz, one of the Vatican’s top legal officials, who had participated in the recent emergency meeting in Rome between Pope John Paul II and the American cardinals on the sexual abuse scandal.
Days later, on April 29, the archbishop gave a scathing speech at the Catholic University of Milan that criticized the American news media and legal system as well as the reaction of the American bishops to the scandal.
Archbishop Herranz, who is the president of the Pontifical Council for the Interpretation of Legislative Texts, said that the American church’s large financial settlements with sexual abuse victims were ”unwarranted.” He criticized American news media outlets as seeking to ”sully the image of the church and the Catholic priesthood.” Echoing other Vatican officials who have linked sexual abuse with homosexuality, Archbishop Herranz referred to pedophilia as a ”concrete form of homosexuality.”
Archbishop Herranz said that requiring church leaders to report all abuse accusations to the civil authorities was unnecessary; he called the turning over of records on abusive priests by dozens of American bishops the result of ”an emotional wave of public clamor.”

b)In 2001 Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos , Prefect for the Congregation of the Clergy , with the personal approval of John Paul 11 and other senior cardinals, including the head of the C D F, Cardinal Ratzinger wrote to Bishop Pican of Bayeux who had refused to inform police about a paedophile priest and who gave him parish work despite his confession of guilt wrote: ‘I congratulate you for not denouncing a priest to the civil administration.’

c) ‘I (Thomas Winning Roman Catholic Archbishop of Glasgow speaking in November 1994 after it was announced that he was to become a cardinal 9th November 1994 ) would pursue him ( an abusive priest ) as we have done in the past until he agreed to look for help… Yes , it’s a criminal offence, yes , but I’m not going to inform the police about that man. Let someone else do it.’

Pope Francis’ Attitude to Paedophilia
Pope hits out at criticism of Church over sexual abuse – BBC.com
5 March 2014
Pope Francis has set up a commission to investigate sex crimes committed by priests and to care for victims, but so far he has made very few public comments about the scandals that have rocked the Church in recent years.
No ‘big changes’
The leader of an Italian group representing victims of clerical sex abuse claimed there had been little action from the Vatican and said there had been no “big changes” under Pope Francis.
Francesco Zanardi of Rete L’Abuso, told the BBC: “The cases of child abuse by priests continue to happen, all around Italy, and of the cases that we’ve denounced we have seen no results.”
“The Pope may make this statement, but then the Vatican doesn’t reply to the UN or impose the obligation that bishops should denounce accused priests in the courts and not deal with the cases internally.”
The founder of the US-based website, Bishop Accountability.org, Terence McKiernan, was more direct in his criticism, complaining that the Pope had not merely failed to apologise to the children who had been abused but had not even expressed sorrow.

The Vatican’s Attitude to Paedophilia

The Guardian
Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Rome
Wednesday 10 February 2016
Catholic bishops not obliged to report clerical child abuse, Vatican says
Vatican guide says ‘not necessarily’ bishop’s duty to report suspects to police despite Pope Francis’s vows to redress Catholic church’s legacy of child abuse
The Catholic church is telling newly appointed bishops that it is “not necessarily” their duty to report accusations of clerical child abuse and that only victims or their families should make the decision to report abuse to police.
A document that spells out how senior clergy members ought to deal with allegations of abuse, which was recently released by the Vatican, emphasised that, though they must be aware of local laws, bishops’ only duty was to address such allegations internally.
“According to the state of civil laws of each country where reporting is obligatory, it is not necessarily the duty of the bishop to report suspects to authorities, the police or state prosecutors in the moment when they are made aware of crimes or sinful deeds,” the training document states.

The Scale of the Problem
The Guardian
Sex abuse rife in other religions, says Vatican
Riazat Butt, religious affair correspondent
and Anushka Asthana
Mon 28 Sep ‘09
The statement, read out by Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican’s permanent observer to the UN, defended its record by claiming that “available research” showed that only 1.5%-5% of Catholic clergy were involved in child sex abuse.
Note https://www.theguardian.com › World › Catholicism

However, we would quote the following:
T Doyle; A Sipe ; P Wall pub. 2006 states :
Boston diocese admitted that 7.6 percent of its priests abused minors during the same time period covered by the John Jay lay study ( 1950-2002);New Hampshire reported that 8.2 percent of its priest were abusers; 24 percent of the priests serving in the diocese of Tucson Arizona in 1986 were sexual abusers; 56 of 710 priests in the Los Angeles diocese in 1991 were sexual abusers;( including two bishops);Los Angeles jurisdiction admitted records of allegations of abuse against 244 priests between 1930 and 2003.

b)The Report of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Australia states:

Of all Catholic priests included in the survey who ministered between 1950 and 2010, taking into account the duration of ministry, 7 per cent were alleged perpetrators.
The weighted proportion of alleged perpetrators in specific Catholic Church authorities included: the St John of God Brothers (40.4 per cent); the Christian Brothers (22.0 per cent); the Benedictine Community of New Norcia (21.5 per cent); the Salesians of Don Bosco (20.9 per cent); the Marist Brothers (20.4 per cent); the Diocese of Sale in Victoria (15.1 per cent); the De La Salle Brothers (13.8 per cent) and the Archdiocese of Adelaide in South Australia (2.4 per cent).
Vatican documents that link homosexuality to child sexual abuse are not in keeping with current psychological evidence or understanding about healthy human sexuality.
We conclude that the emphasis in canon law on the ‘pastoral approach’, which requires bishops and religious superiors to treat withdrawal from ministry and dismissal from the priesthood or religious life as a ‘last resort’, has been a significant obstacle for bishops and religious superiors who wanted to initiate a canonical disciplinary process. It has also contributed to the mistaken view that child sexual abuse was a forgivable moral failing rather than a crime that should be reported to police

c)Even in the absence of hard data, it seemed increasingly clear that, although clergy from every religious denomination have sexually violated children, no major denomination has had a problem of the scale that has plagued the Catholic church.” There are absolutely no Protestant equivalents, “ said Anson D. Shupe, a professor of sociology at Indiana University- Purdue University in Fort Wayne who researches clergy misconduct.” If I could find spectacular cases that would help my career, but I can’t. You don’t have rapacious serial predators, and the Protestant establishment doesn’t tolerate it the way the Catholic establishment has.”

I want to point out, too, that I don’t think abuse is caused by “sexual confusion”. Abuse is definitely about power, and an urge to dominate. But I do believe that if you combine those who have psychological issues and sexual confusion with those who are downright abusive and power hungry, you get a toxic mix.

Most homosexuals never abuse anyone. Most who are sexually confused never abuse anyone. But when you create a very toxic environment where abuse is rampant (the sexual abuse at many of the seminaries of the students themselves was terrible), then you’re just creating an awful, toxic mix. Most who are abused were abused themselves. Doesn’t mean all abuse victims will abuse (few do), but it is a contributing factor. Put those abuse victims who are confused in a seminary with power hungry downright abusers, and you’re going to make things so much worse. And I think that’s what happened. When you look at what was happening at some seminaries–well, it was just setting the stage for what happened. And the Church knew and did nothing.

I think it’s wrong to frame the Vigano Controversy as “conservatives against not-so-conservatives.” Rather, I would say that most Catholics inclined to believe Vigano see themselves as “Catholics who actually subscribe to 2000 years of Church Teaching.” IOW: simple, faithful Catholics.

And no, celibacy is not the issue. The priests and bishops committing these atrocities are not interested in marrying women. Trust me.

As you may imagine, I have many thoughts on this issue. To tell the truth, I’ve been thinking of little else (slight hyperbole, but let’s just say that we Catholic laypeople are rather fixated on this right now.)

More later. Thanks for introducing this. There is so much to say.

You’re way ahead of the curve, Dee. I’m inclined to doubt that the Evangelical movement will catch up with you (at least not as long as it is recognizably “Evangelical”)

The idea that there might be innate and irreversible tendencies toward specific evil behaviors is kind of incompatible with prevailing evangelical theological anthropology. I think that’s beneath the surface of the inadequate responses to these crimes.

God have mercy.

The best, and by far the most far reaching reporting on the RCC, and all of their sex abuse issues has been reported on by Rod Dreher at the American Conservative.

He left the RCC due in part after researching the abuse in Boston in the early 2000’s
He is. Rey careful, and passionate in his reporting…..

okrapod: And let us not forget that the sexual abuse of a child is not always motivated by sex. My son prosecuted a case of group sexual abuse of middle school girls and the motivation of the criminal mind behind it was money and drugs. There is a lot of money to be made by mixing sex and money and drugs including but not limited to children’s bodies. Our culture reeks with the concurrent overlapping areas of more than one criminal pursuit at the same time like that. File under ‘it is not that simple’.

IMO, this is the key to understanding why there is such a vast problem of sexual abuse within the church, pedophile and other. It is naive to think it is merely a bunch of perverts who can’t keep their pants on. Sexual abuse and pedophile rings involve power, drugs and money. And, in order to operate, they tend to hide where they will be least likely to be discovered. Certainly there are individual cases of sexual abuse, as TWW has disclosed, and these should be investigated and dealt with in order to protect others. But they are in an entirely different category from systemic, organized abuse, which is a branch of organized crime. And it would initially be difficult to tell which one is dealing with, which is why investigators need to be aware of the existence of actual pedophile rings and organized sex crime. It is more than likely present in the evangelical as well as the Roman church. Organized crime, which is rarely discussed anymore, did not simply disappear. It merely went deeper into hiding, and is often found, as always, intertwined with the pinnacles of power.

This is all nauseating to me. All of it going on for centuries most likely. And the CC more than any other religious organization untouchable for most of their existence.

I feel the worst for the many, many children and adults abused by this organization and the many good people and priests who thought they were part of something good.

Just wanting good to triumph over evil in the here and now . . .

I’m not sure ephebophilia as a mental disorder is involved in much of the sexual abuse in the CC but rather that older children are sexually mature but are more vulnerable than most legal adults to coercion by priests (or other trusted adults). They are sexually abused because they are available and boys are more available than girls so even those with heterosexual orientation will abuse boys or men such as seminarians though plenty of girls or women are also abused (but abuse of vulnerable adult men or women was outside, I think, the scope of the grand jury report). See for instance Marcial Maciel who both abused older boys and seminarians but also fathered multiple illegitimate children by at least three different women (at least one who says the relationship/abuse started when she was a minor).

Muslin, fka Dee Holmes,

Good comment.

Catholic Gate-Crasher: I think it’s wrong to frame the Vigano Controversy as “conservatives against not-so-conservatives.” Rather, I would say that most Catholics inclined to believe Vigano see themselves as “Catholics who actually subscribe to 2000 years of Church Teaching.” IOW: simple, faithful Catholics.

I’m just going to point out that it’s not 2,000 years of church history but 1,700 years of church teaching, from when Constantine captured the church, has not been generally healthy for anyone who wasn’t male and, for the most part, a priest. The Catholic church thought a lot of itself during this time, to the point where Boniface VIII issued “Unam Sanctam” in 1302, a document that asserted as a proposition that everyone had to belong to the Catholic church to be saved. All I can say is, what presumption, what piffle, what tosh, what kind of a man thinks that he knows what God wants in this matter? But it was all about power and authority, not ministering to the needs of the people.

The church didn’t come out against slavery, it had to be pushed into it by agitators on the fringes who argued that the ownership of some human beings by other human beings was simply wrong. I was taught as a girl in public school that Father Junipero Serra was beneficial to the Indians of the California missions. I wasn’t told that he *enslaved* them. And yeah, he’s now a saint, a saint who enslaved Indians. NOPE.

I could go on and talk about how the Catholic church sees women, but I’ll shut up now because I’ll say something that will terribly offend people. But I’ve done my reading about the Catholic church and I do not want to go back to a time when the church completely ran its own affairs separately from secular government, because that authority was absolute, authoritarian and didn’t care for the little people, only for power. NOPE.

And yeah, I’ll admit I’m angry right now. I read a tweet yesterday by a woman who talked about being questioned by her school’s vice principal for being harassed on the school bus. Then I remembered what happened to me in 8th grade, where a boy pulled down my skirt. I still remember the skirt because it was a purple corduroy culotte skirt, and barely legal at my Texas high school in 1973 because shorts were banned in school. It wasn’t the kid pulling down my skirt that traumatized me as much as the questioning by Mr. F, the vice principal. He wanted to know if I wanted it to happen, if I’d asked for it, if I’d led the kid on. Then he wanted a DESCRIPTION of how my skirt got yanked down. At 13 I didn’t know what was going on. I’m now 58, I hadn’t remembered this in decades but I can say strongly that Mr. F was a pervert.

So yeah, I am so not in the mood to cut people slack right now.

Benn,

I followed Rod Dreher on Catholic abuse very closely this summer (until his distasteful dismissiveness towards the Kavanaugh allegation on Twitter a few days ago).

Nevertheless, at The American Conservative, Dreher does uncover a lot of the rot in Catholic seminaries. Male-on-male harassment is so common and so hard to escape that seminarians who attempt to resist are marginalized and told to “lighten up,” etc. Examples of this kind of sexual harassment in Catholic seminary culture seem to be legion.

Gay men are no more likely to molest teens and young adults than straight men are. Likewise, supposedly celibate men are no more likely to molest teens and young adults than married men are. (Pedophilia is, I gather, a different category of abuse.)

But the RCC hierarchy, requiring celibacy upfront, and (for whatever reason) seemingly attracting a disproportionate number of gay men to the priesthood, is a totally different, insular kind of culture than the normal population at large.

Evangelical & Catholic churches are giving the “green light” to abusers alike, but perhaps for slightly different cultural reasons. One thing both branches of Christianity sadly have in common: an instinct to protect powerful abusers.

Catholic conservatives are doing far more vigilant reporting on Pope Francis and the Viganò letter, because they have already felt harshly sidelined by Francis. (Ross Douthat’s recent book on Pope Francis is excellent at explaining all this.) Meanwhile, the more liberal wing of the church that hopefully views Francis as a valiant reformer is inclined to give “their” leader a pass.

Sad that politics often muddy the waters when we should be discerning the facts about abuse and abuse coverups. But that’s often the case.

dee,

“The only thing that protects us is the fact that we do not have religious communities in which a hot house atmosphere can grow.”
+++++++++++++++

well, i think the metaphorical church culture bubble is quite sealed off. and certainly full of warm, oxygen-poor air. sprinkle in some spores and…

dee,

Thank you, Dee, for taking the time to write this very thoughtful article. I can see that it represents a lot of time and effort and honest reflection.

Jack: It’s interesting that celibacy was not always practiced. It was enforced to prevent church property being passed on to the clergy’s heirs.

Even more interestingly, it didn’t necessarily work. See: the late Medieval and Renaissance popes. Priestly celibacy was supposed to prevent ecclesiastical dynasties, going into the second millennium of the Church. The widespread violation of celibacy vows was one of the things that shocked a young friar named Martin Luther during his pilgrimage to Rome.

Benn,

Benn, Dreher is obsessed with our scandals while sedulously ignoring the many identical cases in his own communion, which has a huge lavender Mafia and a horrible record of abuse and cover-up. He even attempted to smear and discredit the victim of an Orthodox priest-rapist. His indignation is highly selective, and his standards can best be described as double.

Samuel Conner: The idea that there might be innate and irreversible tendencies toward specific evil behaviors is kind of incompatible with prevailing evangelical theological anthropology. I think that’s beneath the surface of the inadequate responses to these crimes.

Dee said:

“Christians, both Catholic and Protestant, often believe that confession and repentance will lead to Jesus miraculously curing pedophiles.This is a dangerous assumption. The truly repentant pedophile will be forgiven but will struggle with their disorder for a life time.”

It isn’t just pedophilia. The kind of theological anthropology currently rampant among evangelicals will do this with any sin. It’s a type of magical thinking that is assumed to be Biblical. I don’t know its history or how it came to be predominant, but it needs to be challenged. With enough digging, one would probably find the twisting of certain Bible verses to support it.

Erp,

Thanks!

Why I agree with Bishop Morlino:

Yes, the John Jay Report claimed that homosexual predation was not the cause of the abuse crisis. But its own data belie this. According to the Report, more than 80% of the credible Catholic abuse cases (over a 40-year period) were male-on-male.

Eighty percent. If that’s not homosexual predation, then can someone please ‘splain to me what it is?

This is the elephant in the room. No one wants to talk about it, it seems, except some concerned, orthodox Catholic priests and laypeople.

Also, per the John Jay Report, most of the Catholic clerical abuse cases involved ephebophilia (sp?) (abuse of post-pubescent males), not pedophilia (abuse of pre-pubescent children of either gender). Again…can we not put 2 and 2 together here?

Certain seminaries have also become notorious as “pink palaces,” and they were hotbeds for abuse. There are so many stories coming out right now. And the problem is ongoing. Don’t get me started!

Disclaimer: I am not *by any stretch* saying that all or even most gay guys are sex abusers. Not even close. As an artsy-fartsy type, I’ve known a *lot* of gay guys over the years. I’m a 38-year veteran of the advertising business, and I spent more than 17 of those years in an in-house creative department at a huge apparel company. Trust me, I’ve known *many, many, many* gay guys, some extremely well. (My best friend when I was 19 was a gay guy.) I think I can confidently attest that none of the gay guys I’ve known at least fairly well have ever committed sex abuse against teenage boys (or anyone else). (There’s one possible exception, but that’s just speculation on my part.)

So, no, I’m not blaming homosexual guys or same-sex attraction per se. Not at all. Truly.

But I *am* saying that the Catholic sex-abuse crisis *does* seem to be largely connected with same-sex-attracted priests and bishops, and the evidence overwhelmingly bears this out. I don’t see how it can be gainsaid. It is what it is. Even the McCarrick case and the PA Grand Jury Report bear it out.

One more thing. The media give the impression that huge hordes of clerical sex abusers are overrunning the Catholic priesthood and episcopate. This, of course, is flat-out false. It still remains true that the incidence (percentage-wise) of clerical sex abuse is roughly the same for Catholic clergy as for clergy in all other churches and communions. Even one case is horrific, of course; I am by no means condoning or excusing, believe me. I just want to add some perspective here, in hopes of forestalling a free-for-all of Maria Monk-like Catholic-bashing.

Meanwhile, the vast majority of Catholic priests are good, faithful, and chaste. They are devastated by this scandal. (I’m not sure I can say the same for the vast majority of bishops, but that’s a whole ‘nuther story.)

Like many other Catholic laypeople, I fervently hope that this is the start of Christ’s purification of His people. The boil must be lanced, and it must be allowed to drain *completely.* Purification is a Good Thing, and the end result will be wonderful. But man, the process sure is painful. And it’s just going to get worse before it gets better. Ugh. Lord have mercy.

Erp:
I’m not sure ephebophilia as a mental disorder is involved in much of the sexual abuse in the CC but rather that older children are sexually mature but are more vulnerablethanmost legal adults to coercion by priests (or other trusted adults).They are sexually abused because they are available and boys are more available than girlsso even those with heterosexual orientation will abuse boys or men such as seminarians though plenty of girls or women are also abused (but abuse of vulnerable adult men or women was outside, I think, the scope of the grand jury report). See for instance Marcial Maciel who both abused older boys and seminarians but also fathered multiple illegitimate children by at least three different women (at least one who says the relationship/abuse started when she was a minor).

When 80% of the cases in the John Jay Report are male-on-male with post-pubescent victims, then yes, ephebophilia is the problem. These perps are gay. They are not simply going for the nearest victim at hand. (Most altar servers are pre-pubescent, BTW.)

Can we not heed the data? It is what it is.

Moreover, the Cover-Up Cabal at the Vatican is notoriously gay. Google the cocaine-fueled gay sex orgy that occurred (last year, I think) in one of the offices of the Vatican’s CDF. And google the cathedral mural commissioned by Archbishop Paglia, one of Pope Francis’s closest confidantes. Ugh!!!

There is so much more to this story. The Catholic blogosphere is teeming with stories, and many of them IMHO are credible, with documented substantiation.

Viva Vigano!

elastigirl,

to clarify, we all shared in caregiving. he refused boundaries, seeing that as an expression selfishness. it was drilled in to him his whole life not to compromise. not be a backslider.

Catholic Gate-Crasher:
Benn,

Benn, Dreher is obsessed with our scandals while sedulously ignoring the many identical cases in his own communion, which has a huge lavender Mafia and a horrible record of abuse and cover-up. He even attempted to smear and discredit the victim of an Orthodox priest-rapist. His indignation is highly selective, and his standards can best be described as double.

Not to be mean, but shouldn’t every catholic be obsessed with your scandal…..

To read the reports from Pennsylvania is hard to fathom!!

The people in the highest positions have known about this for a long time,

# I believe Vigano

I can’t understand why Catholic laity in the U.S. hasn’t taken up pitch forks already

Sheila,

“Celibacy is not a normal lifestyle. It requires an awful lot to give up heterosexual relationships. So an organization that requires you to do that is naturally going to attract those who don’t value those relationships very much in the first place. Combine that with the green light to abuse, and you have a very toxic situation. So I’m not saying celibacy causes the problems. I’m saying the celibacy rule makes it more likely to attract people who may be attracted to children/adolescents in the first place.”

I am sitting here purposefully not grinding my teeth. Celibacy is a choice that some make, usually spiritual (see Matt 19 and 1 Cor 7). It’s a very normal lifestyle, although maybe not in our current age when our society has chosen to reject almost everything the Bible says about sex (see Romans 1).

I’ve been celibate my entire life, and I will soon be a senior citizen. And, my life has been very normal. I pay my bills, I have a career I love, I am involved with friends and family, and I serve in my community and church. I kneww as a young, new Christian that God’s plan was no sex until married. For many reasons I don’t need to mention here, married never happened to me, but i chose to be obedient to God when it came to my sex life. By the way, I could give you the names of several other people I know who are also celibate, happy, and important contributors to both their church and community.

Pedophiles are mentally ill. They will look for any way to have access to children, and they may be single or married. I’ve worked with children as an education for 30+ years, and I’m always surprised when I find out who the accused pedophiles are-they almost always appear to be very “normal”, and you just can’t walk down the street and say “there goes a pedophile” (any more than you can do the same and say “there goes someone celibate.”).

I love God and His Word. That is why I have chosen to abstain from sex until marriage. If that wonderful gift were to happen to me, now that I am in my 60s, I would gladly welcome it. In the meantime, I will continue to be obedient to God’s Word, and enjoy the many blessings He has given me.

Benn,

Benn: Not to be mean, but shouldn’t every catholic be obsessed with your scandal…..

To read the reports from Pennsylvania is hard to fathom!!

The people in the highest positions have known about this for a long time,

# I believe Vigano

I can’t understand why Catholic laity in the U.S. hasn’t taken up pitch forks already

Every Catholic, sure. But professional anti-Catholics like Dreher? That’s a whole different question. Seriously. He is no longer Catholic. He is now a member of a church that has **just as much abuse, cover-up, and corruption** (percentage-wise) as the Catholic Church. Yet not only does he **refuse** to report on that…he even defends and covers for Orthodox perps. (Links upon request.)

Do you not see the problem here?

At least we Catholics admit we have a problem. Apparently other Christians don’t. This is concerning.

Samuel Conner: The idea that people could be permanently “stuck” in a bad place, as appears to be the case in paraphilias (and also in sociopathy) doesn’t fit well with Evangelical anthropology.

It definitely doesn’t fit well with the theology of sanctification one finds among the lordship salvation crowd. You’re supposed to be consistently getting better every day, with no major stumbles, never-ending temptations, besetting sins, dark nights of the soul, etc.

Linn, that is a wonderful testimony, and one I wish every youth group and college group in churches could hear. Celibacy should be considered a norm of Christianity, and yet it seems like something abnormal, even among orthodox believers. I mean, when was the last time you heard a sermon not just on the single state, or the so-called “gift of singleness”, but on celibacy and the Christian life?

BTW #Benn…and again, this is NOT to excuse or condone these horrific Catholic abuses…but if you think Protestants aren’t just as bad, then with all due respect, you’re in La La Land. Every other day, it seems, our local newspaper has a story about some Baptist or Pentecostal pastor abusing (even raping) kids and teens, while the denomination covers up. There was a notorious local case just the other day, involving a Baptist pastor in charge of both a church and a school.

These cases may not make front-page news, but they are numerous and seemingly continual. So @Benn, before you lecture us Catholics, maybe you should take your own advice. At least we Catholics admit we have a problem. Meanwhile, how about **you**? Do you admit that *your* communion has a problem? Or do you cover your eyes and ears and convince yourself that this is just a Catholic Thing? (Cue Parable of the Pharisee and the Publican.)

Do ALL victims matter? Or do they only matter if the perp was a Catholic priest?

Seriously…the Catholic laity is completely up in arms right now. Which is a heck of a lot more than I can say for certain Protestant laypeople I know. I have Reformed Baptist Facebook friends who swear up and down that this is “just a Catholic Problem” and it could **never** happen in **their** purist, perfect churches. Except that it DOES!!! Denial on steroids!

@Benn, if you really care about the victims, you will care about **all** the victims, including those victimized by Orthodox priests and Protestant pastors. As the daughter of an abuse victim, I can assure you that **every** victim is equally traumatized — whether the perp is a Catholic priest, an Orthodox monk, a Protestant minister, or a public school teacher.

We Catholic laypeople ***are*** facing up to our abuse crisis. Instead of hectoring, accusing, and blaming us, maybe you should start facing the equally egregious and widespread abuse problem in your own tradition. Facing the problem is essential to fixing it. Blaming Catholics while ignoring your own issues does **nothing** to fix the problem — and nothing to help other victims.

All. Victims. Matter. That’s the bottom line. If you are in denial about your own communion’s victims, then you are part of the problem, not part of the solution.

And if, like Dreher, you are even trying to actively **discredit** your own communion’s victims, then God help you!!

Last time I checked, sin was an equal-opportunity affliction. If you think differently, you may want to take it up with God.

LInn,

Thanks for sharing your story. I have a beautiful, smart, introverted daughter who is in law school. She loves being alone and doesn’t really think she will ever marry. She doesn’t date, but has a wonderful fulfilled life!

Samuel Conner,

i admire it, too. it was indeed selfless. but the lack of boundaries was unwise, and had consequences. however, it fit his belief system.

that belief system believes God will take care of everything (“all things work out for good”), when the reality is that God doesn’t “take care of everything” — and there are stiff consequences for some actions or lack of actions, consequences which are borne by other human beings because of the faith person’s choices.

i’m very big on personal responsibility. if it comes down to a choice between one’s faith journey and personal responsibility, my belief is to opt for the latter.

i think christians have an elevated view of themselves — it has to be me! it has to be pastor so & so. i have to go! i have to take the faith risk. pastor so & so has to be in his official position. if i don’t do it, if pastor is prevented from doing it, God’s hands will be tied.

it doesn’t have to be me (or you) or him or her. there are millions of people, many possible routes and strategies for God to do what God has planned. there are loads of things to do and be spiritually productive about wherever we find ourselves.

elastigirl: i admire it, too. it was indeed selfless. but the lack of boundaries was unwise, and had consequences. however, it fit his belief system.

I’ve seen this. Many families believed that birth control was against God’s will. Can’t tell you the amount of meals, child care, and cleaning went on because women had to go on bed rest for most of the pregnancy at the six, seventh, eighth child. Sometimes it consumed a great amount of energy of a church. But God said to . . .?

NJ,

i haven’t portrayed my dad correctly. my feelings are complicated.

there is no finer human being than my dad. he is the humblest, kindest, most honest human being. he has been amongst stellar believers. he is one.

he knows God deeply.

but i don’t think scrutiny entered into the mind of his generation — i don’t think they thought through things the way we are in the habit of doing here.

it wasn’t necessary. things were simpler. life was simpler.

(i think a post-WW2 relative peace time brought people relief, people were perhaps a bit giddy with a return to simpler times, where they could relax and pursue the good life — but this is my own personal conjecture)

things weren’t openly discussed like they are now. sexual abuse, incest, pedophilia never discussed. that it happened in church? impossible.

the autism spectrum? there wasn’t general understanding. so in christianland, a person’s behavior was spiritualized, in the absence of any other explanation.

and theology was simpler. like the wordless book:

BLACK – Sin Romans 3:23 | All have sinned
RED – Blood I John 1:7 | Jesus’ blood covers all sin
WHITE – Pure Psalm 51:7 | Jesus washes away confessed sin
GOLD – Heaven John 14:2 | Believe on Jesus and receive Eternal Life

it is still very simple for him.

and he connects with God deeply, every day. God connects back with him.

when i have filled in some missing pieces for him, like explaining that so&so acts the way they do because of a mental disorder, that they can’t help it, he is filled with compassion.

when i have explained to him that the person he observes with alternative sexuality is devastatedly lonely, he is filled with compassion.

these things were not openly talked about in his day. he hasn’t had the benefit of needing to think through these things.

What never fails to amaze me is how much of the secrecy was allegedly done to ‘protect the good name of the church’, when it is precisely this secrecy, & the ignoring the pain & violation of thousands of children, that has damaged the reputation of the Catholic Church like nothing else.
If you remember I come from an Irish Catholic family, my Gran was a Laundress in a Convent & then a Priest’s housekeeper until she was 86, Mum went to a Convent School. The last time I went to Ireland, about 12 yrs ago, I was astonished at how far the Church had fallen, in terms of how the average person & especially my cousins, spoke of it. They were, rightly, disgusted & dismissive. It had always asked so much of the Irish population, in terms of sexual morals, & then this… So very different from how my Gran spoke of the way the Priests were thought of ‘like Gods’, when she was a child (I taped her talking about her life, she was born in Dublin in 1922).
Until all these religious institutions who claim to love God (& spend a lot of time going on about sexual purity) actually show care for young victims of abuse (who lose their innocence, only weirdly in this context somehow that doesn’t seen to matter), are transparent about the problem & deal with offenders properly, the name of Christ will never be seen to be good news. Never. The hypocrisy is enough to kill off the effect of any good they do (& they do).
And I could get right behind a modern version of this:
Any cleric or monk who seduces young men (adolescentium) or boys (parvulorum), or who is apprehended in kissing or in any shameful situation, shall be publicly flogged and shall lose his clerical tonsure. Thus shorn, he shall be disgraced by spitting into his face, bound in iron chains, wasted by six months of close confinement, and for three days each week put on barley bread given him toward evening. Following this period, he shall spend a further six months living in a small segregated courtyard in the custody of a spiritual elder, kept busy with manual labor and prayer, subjected to vigils and prayers, forced to walk at all times in the company of two spiritual brothers, never again allowed to associate with young men for purposes of improper conversation or advice.

This happens around the world in all religions the main concern is when someone is misusing their power to cover it up and silence the victims. any one thought about what will be going through the minds of these kids?

I used to own an edition of the NASB that had “devotional commentaries” at the bottom of each page. One of them dealt with the subject of miracles, and in it, the writer affirmed his commitment to believing that all of the miracles recorded in the bible happened as described, and added his own caveat: the greatest miracle of all is that we can read the bible. Well… that’s harmless enough, I suppose, so long as we remember that it’s only a theory.

That theory, however, has often been used by the leaders of evangelical groups to support their claims to authority. There’s a risk involved with claiming a miracle, and the more tangible the miracle [generic] you claim, the greater the risk of exposure if someone looks too closely. If someone comes to me with, let’s say, a broken leg, and I claim to have healed them, then it’s easy enough to check up on me. An x-ray should show healed bone, the leg should be able to carry normal loads without pain, and so on. To put it another way: the “symptoms” of a healed bone-break are easily verified one way or the other.

Now, since I don’t have any magical healing powers, I’d be a bit of a bampot to claim to have healed people with broken limbs. I’d quickly be found out. I’d be much better off claiming to have performed healings or miracles that are much harder to prove or disprove. For instance, I could claim that someone’s “life has been transformed” by my preaching of “the word of God”. Anyone who knows how to sound remorseful can help me fake a miracle – and if they know how to cry a bit, fantastic.

By and large, evangelical preachers and para-church groups don’t have magical healing powers any more than I do. But what if they still want to sell some amazing product about which they can make fantastical claims? Well, I suppose one way of doing this would be to focus on miracles that are not easily verified; like “forgiveness”.

According to the gospel accounts, at least, Jesus of Nazareth could say BOTH “your sins are forgiven” AND ‘rise up and walk”. And immediately afterwards, the latter actually happened, precisely in order to show to those present that Jesus had authority to do the former. I’m not convinced that modern-day churches can do either.

elastigirl,

Your dad sounds like a neat guy. Your description reminded me of more than one of my older relatives. Sometimes I find myself envying those who appear to go through life with a simple faith, and don’t trouble themselves with any theological debates.

Bridget,

What you describe is infuriating. Of course they’ll always chalk it up to “the Lord provided”, and not just in terms of energy, but money. I don’t know if they just haven’t thought things through, or if they actually expect to survive on the charity of others, since they’re going to all that trouble of raising large families. One thing I’ve noticed in certain quarters is a belief that the Church is grown primarily by couples having lots of “covenant children” , instead of evangelism. I think that’s driving much of the behavior within the quiverfull movement.

Too many traditional Reformed and other churches haven’t done too well with evangelizing the lost, and this is how they compensate. On the backs of mothers whose health is ruined, of families in desperate financial straits, occasionally of lives lost due to inadequate health care. But if anything happens, it obviously was God’s will, and doing anything differently is sin and indicates a lack of faith.

NJ,

“But if anything happens, it obviously was God’s will”
++++++++++++++++++

or, whatever happens to me is God’s will and God was *intentional* about making or allowing it to happen.

the way i see it, we have a God-given decision-maker in our brains, God-given capacity for acquiring knowledge & understanding & moxy and decisiveness when needed.

i simply cannot believe that God does not favor us forging our own todays and tomorrows using all our faculties and resources. to both pursue, rule out, and at times eliminate possibilities.

a metaphor:

like tending a garden. one can let it all grow wild, whatever happens is supposed to happen. that’s not a garden. the gardener makes decisions — adds things, takes away things, grows things, nurtures things, severely cuts things, manicures things.

any number of possibilities — all can be made beautiful and productive (& responsible — like, in pesticide and fertilizer choices which can harm self & others). the gardener decides.

we are the gardener of our lives. with counsel and advice from trusted sources (including God).

i mean, we have 1 life. i’m not leaving it to chance. i don’t believe God’s modus operandi is to control chance.

Beakerj,

“…shall be publicly flogged …shorn, …spitting into his face, bound in iron chains, wasted by six months of close confinement, and for three days each week put on barley bread given him toward evening. …six months living in a small segregated courtyard…manual labor…forced to walk at all times …never again allowed to associate with young men for purposes of improper conversation or advice.”
————-

no tar and feathering?

Catholic Gate-Crasher,

My main point was what you said, that Rod Dreher was obsessed with all of the abuse in your church,
As if he was over obsessing, which seemed to me to be very odd.

All abuse is beyond the pale, sickening, and hard to grasp, how one person made in the image of God, could do something like this to another person that also was made in God’s image.

I am not catholic ( I believe in grace alone, plus nothing else), so all I know is what I read, so to me people that are dismissive of Vagano’s letter, due to catholic politics ( conservative vs. liberal) are conflating issues, IMHO anyway.

I pray for all the victims and their families regardless of their religious faith.

But from what I have read I believe the last three popes have known of all this at some level.

Yes, there is abuse in Protestant churches and denominations, but I don’t believe a leader in the SBC could ever survive any lengthy period of time, knowing of abuse and the eventual cover ups.

I wish all Catholics God’s speed in booting any and all of these men that did these unconscionable acts, or were complicit in just moving perv’s from one perish to another.

Catholic Gate-Crasher: Please read the very earliest Church Fathers

Yes, but also that can be a two edged sword so to speak. Some of the early writings were attempts to refute some stuff that other people were saying, along with from time to time some very ugly attitude toward those who were being refuted. Sad to say,though the writings of those who disagreed were frequently destroyed (intentionally so some say)-or missing-or never were written down. None the less the evidence is there that not everybody, not every group, agreed. Which, of course, was a major reason for the council in the first place.

And there is evidence that even after the council there was for a very long time the continuation of people who disagreed with this or that.

IMO both things are true: that many beliefs currently deemed orthodox can be traced back to the earliest days of the church, and also that there was not a uniformity of agreement in the every earliest times hence the reasons for the refutations in the first place. This is one of the basic areas of current disagreement, whether the dissidents of both then and now were/are heretics or heroes. Or both.

The way I was taught re Constantine back in the day was that it was church and state making common cause, an idea which led to tons of problems in the ensuing centuries.

Ken F (aka Tweed),

I am talking about the upper tiers of SBC, once all this became fully known about Patterson, look how quick he has been removed, my larger point is I am talking past or above the pastoral level, in SBC.

Try to imagine if PP, CJM, or PP was put forward for president of SBC this coming year.

I truly believe the last three popes have known about this ( at some level, including the rotate/ relocate the perv to some unknowing parish). I don’t think they the three amigos you mentioned could survive, when the truth came out could hold on to power in the Ex cathedral chair of the SBC

Benn: I don’t think they the three amigos you mentioned could survive, when the truth came out could hold on to power in the Ex cathedra chair of the SBC

You must be talking about Al Mohler, who, of course, knows nothing about any allegations of abuse…

Lisa:
It saddens me to see commenters here beginning to make this a theological fight and some quite angry spirits are evident. I so hope and pray that Protestants and Catholics can come together in a combined effort to fight sexual abuse. We need discourse not discord right about now. Perhaps there is another forum or blog to debate theology and church history.

Thank you!! Amen. I am taking your message to heart. We are all in this together! God bless you!!

Catholic Gate-Crasher: We Catholic laypeople ***are*** facing up to our abuse crisis. Instead of hectoring, accusing, and blaming us, maybe you should start facing the equally egregious and widespread abuse problem in your own tradition. Facing the problem is essential to fixing it.

Great!

What are lay RC’s doing about it?

@Benn, sorry I know too much about what goes on in Protestantism.

One of my friends grew up in a Methodist orphanage. A minister there repeatedly abused her when she was 11. She was *not* his only victim.

She and the other victims were intimidated into silence — their very continuance at the orphanage depended on it. The perp got off scot-free and rose to prominence in the local UMC.

Then there was the respected local physician, a pillar of the Free Presbyterians, who was trying to force his wife into sick, unnatural acts because of his pornography addiction. He ended up physically abusing his kids. He got off scot-free, too. (I knew his wife, now deceased {cancer}.)

This is just the tip of the iceberg. If you seriously think that Catholics have cornered the market on horrific sin, then you are in dangerous denial.

Ken F (aka Tweed): Everything I read points to the early church looking very different from what I had hoped. Now I am trying to pick up the pieces of what I once thought was a solid foundation. I now mostly wish I had never looked, because ignorance is bliss. On the bright side, I have a much greater appreciation for church history.

I am unconvinced the Church structures adopted by the initial followers are more correct nor why they should be. I also now despair that any current design is foolproof but I am informed on a whole number of ways it should not be done. Elevation of a small group of men over the rest of believers is at the top of the list on how to get it wrong.

srs:
To get a sense of scale, do you know how many dioceses are in Pennsylvania and about how many priests there are (total, not the pedophile estimates) in a diocese?

I do not know how many priests are in a diocese, it likely depends on the number of practicing Catholics.

Per Wikipedia, in PA there is one archdiocese (Philadelphia) which has oversight over seven dioceses in the state (Allentown, Altoona-Johnstown, Erie, Greensburg, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, and Scranton).

Benn,

“but I don’t believe a leader in the SBC could ever survive any lengthy period of time, knowing of abuse and the eventual cover ups.”
+++++++++

what is lengthy?

Thersites,

However, 60-70% of victims never report the abuse\assault so how does one determine who is a victim? It can become very subjective if there was is no trial or conviction.

Who\what gets to decide “victim” status? Maybe we just ignore the 60-70% when they come forward years later? Glad I didn’t do that with the victim that falls in that category in my life, otherwise they’d likely be dead now.

Benn: Does it not boggle your mind, that a pope could survive all this,

I think it’s too early to say that he has survived it. The stink of this only recently landed on him, so I don’t think we can say yet that he survived it.

IMO, Catholic priests and Evangelical pastors who sexually abuse children do not know the Lord … they are not Christians, regardless of their confession. Any “repentance” they offer falls on deaf ears. Jesus is not in the business of handing out forgiveness and restoration to those who do not know Him.

“Behold, the Lord’s hand is not so short
That it cannot save,
Nor His ear so impaired
That it cannot hear.

But your wickedness has separated you from your God,
And your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear.” (Isaiah 59:1-2)

Bridget: Maybe we just ignore the 60-70% when they come forward years later?

This seems a straw-man argument, certainly not one made here. An organization or this site can certainly have a victim focus but if all of society adopted victims as the primary focus I would expect other forms of evil to result. We may just have different definitions for the terms, my concern is justice for the individual. Unfortunately this can be a very messy business of discerning between belated reports of abuse and false allegations. The reason to value the individual over that of the collective is so that we strive to judge each case on its merits rather how it benefits our own group.

Max:
IMO, Catholic priests and Evangelical pastors who sexually abuse children do not know the Lord … they are not Christians, regardless of their confession.Any “repentance” they offer falls on deaf ears.Jesus is not in the business of handing out forgiveness and restoration to those who do not know Him.

“Behold, the Lord’s hand is not so short
That it cannot save,
Nor His ear so impaired
That it cannot hear.

But your wickedness has separated you from your God,
And your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear.”(Isaiah 59:1-2)

I agree. They do not have supernatural faith. It is the mystery of iniquity, and it boggles the mind.

Thersites: This seems a straw-man argument, certainly not one made here.

That was not an argument. It was a real question.

Since most allegations seen to come late, or never, it seems we should entertain them. As we have heard there is only a small percentage that are actually false. And I do think that people who make “proven false” allegations of rape should be prosecuted.

I am thinking that accusations need to be taken seriously and investigated where possible. Denials need to be taken seriously and investigated where possible. Justice is important. Compassion is important. Healing is important. We must not let ourselves become hardened to human suffering.

A concern of mine now that ‘me too’ has become political is that this nation not see develop what we have seen in other places and at other times where an unsubstantiated ‘denunciation’ is enough to put someone into the hands of the inquisition or into the hands of ‘the people’s party’ or into the cart en route to the guillotine–literally as we have seen the power of ‘denunciation’ to be able to become. At one point in the history of the communist revolution in China, or so I have read, everybody who wore glasses became suspect and endangered based on the conclusion that glasses were for reading and reading meant an enemy of the people. We must not let that that sort of thing happen.

elastigirl,

When the full light of his actions became known for ALL to see, PP, didn’t make it very long.

Understand, I am not talking about the throughly informed bloggers, and people that do serious research.

I am talking about the average pew sitter, to give a first hand example, I attend an SBC church, in full disclosure we are SBC mostly in name only, we give very little the CP, we send no one to the convention, but we are a member of SBC. IMHO, no one even knows who PP is, I am not 100% sure my pastor could give a full account of what happened over the summer with PP, I predicted the JD Greear would win the election in a land slide, and they ( most every member of my church that I talked to, couldn’t/ didn’t believe me),

J D received 69 % of the vote, sadly now that the SBC has been totally taken over by Cals, my fellow members have forgotten, they are so uninformed it is scary, ignorance truly is bliss…

Long way around the barn, but I believe truly informed SBC members wouldn’t allow their pope to get away with what seemingly the RCC has/will. Although there is a different dynamic going on in catholism, actually believe he is the vicar of Christ….

okrapod,

Some will disagree with you, some won’t

Jesus did allude to owners manual

In Mathew, Have you not read, what God spoke……….

Benn: now that the SBC has been totally taken over by Cals, my fellow members have forgotten, they are so uninformed it is scary, ignorance truly is bliss…

It’s one thing for the average Southern Baptist (most are still non-Calvinist) to be uninformed or misinformed, but to be willingly ignorant of the Calvinization of SBC is a shame before God. They have proven they don’t really give a big whoop about “theology” and the loss of the whosoever-will-may-come message that has characterized the denomination for the last 150 years … but you try to take away their potluck dinners and you will have a war on your hands!

Benn,

You are making the catholic argument that the church is the foundation and not the NT. There is a verse for that you know, but I have not looked it up right now. So how is that different from what I said? I said that the NT is not a DIY manual, a detailed description of how to for everything. So now you have said the same thing.

You have said it is the principles and by inference not the details. That is exactly what I have said.

I don’t see that we are at cross purposes here.

I think that at the time of the reformation when the issue of sola scriptura was adopted it was a way to separate from the idea of any residual religious authority in the church. For authority, then, if not the church what, in other words. Over time sola scriptura has morphed into what we now see in some circles that scripture seems to have usurped God himself, or more specifically some persons approach to scripture which is to often twisting of scriptures, manipulation of people, usurpation of authority and attempts to micromanage people in areas in which the scripture is not remotely specific (aka not a procedure manual).

It seems to me that the forces of evil might indeed have found a way to get people to limit God himself to only what He has already done or said and disallow any idea that God is alive and well, Jesus is risen, and the Spirit dwells within people as well as elsewhere. How? Well, if we disallow the OT (forget what Jesus may or may not have said about it) and if ‘scripture’ is limited to the NT which its own authors call incomplete, and if we say that is the limitation of God on earth, ta da, we limit God.

In other words, I think that the worship of either church or scripture is dead wrong, and some people do seem to be doing just that.

Bridget: I think many religious groups have gotten exactly to this point. Most of them don’t seem to realize that they are at this point and possibly usurping God in the process.

Christianity Today says there are 30,000+ Christian denominations and para-church organizations in the world. Most of them came to be by usurping God with their own teachings and traditions, IMO. It’s darn near impossible to find an active God of the Bible in their midst, a living Christ who is calling them to follow Him.

okrapod:
Benn,

You are making the catholic argument that the church is the foundation and not the NT.There is a verse for that you know, but I have not looked it up right now.So how is that different from what I said?I said that the NT is not a DIY manual, a detailed description of how to for everything.So now you have said the same thing.

You have said it is the principles and by inference not the details.That is exactly what I have said.

I don’t see that we are at cross purposes here.

I think that at the time of the reformation when the issue of sola scriptura was adopted it was a way to separate from the idea of any residual religious authority in the church.For authority, then,if not the church what, in other words.Over time sola scriptura has morphed into what we now see in some circles that scripture seems to have usurped God himself, or more specifically some persons approach to scripture which is to often twisting of scriptures, manipulation of people, usurpation of authority and attempts to micromanage people in areas in which the scripture is not remotely specific (aka not a procedure manual).

It seems to me that the forces of evil might indeed have found a way to get people to limit God himself to only what He has already done or said and disallow any idea that God is alive and well, Jesus is risen, and the Spirit dwells within people as well as elsewhere.How?Well, if we disallow the OT (forget what Jesus may or may not have said about it) and if ‘scripture’ is limited to the NT which its own authors call incomplete, and if we say that is the limitation of God on earth, ta da, we limit God.

In other words, I think that the worship of either church or scripture is dead wrong, and some people do seem to be doing just that.

Okrapod, I think the verse you are looking for is in I Timothy: “the church, the pillar and ground of the Truth.”

I can’t tell you chapter and verse because…well, I’m Catholic. 😉

okrapod: In other words, I think that the worship of either church or scripture is dead wrong, and some people do seem to be doing just that.

Problem is, these days it’s a choice between worship of Church or worship of Scripture in a two-party system. Anything else puts you in the bullseye of both One True Ways like the Anabaptists during the Reformation Wars.

Headless Unicorn Guy: Problem is, these days it’s a choice between worship of Church or worship of Scripture in a two-party system. Anything else puts you in the bullseye of both One True Ways like the Anabaptists during the Reformation Wars

It certainly looks that way.

Catholic Gate-Crasher: This is just the tip of the iceberg. If you seriously think that Catholics have cornered the market on horrific sin, then you are in dangerous denial.

But then how can you Count Coup in Righteousness over those Filthy Romanists?

I’ve come to refer to “The Corruption of Righteousness”, and it’s everywhere.

ZechZav: Although false reports are only a small percentage, it still happens. False reports do permanent damage to the accused but innocent person and we should have some compassion here too.

And when something like #metoo Trends and Goes Viral, it starts attracting false accusations jumping on the bandwagon — whether for private revenge, actual delusions, or 15 minutes of “Me Too!” fame — thus discrediting the real ones.

NJ: One thing I’ve noticed in certain quarters is a belief that the Church is grown primarily by couples having lots of “covenant children” , instead of evangelism. I think that’s driving much of the behavior within the quiverfull movement.

“Bedroom Evangelism”, i.e. “Outbreed the Heathen”.
Quite Darwinist, actually.
Darwin’s phrase “survival of the fittest” actually refers to relative reproductive success over time. A pop culture example is the background situation of the movie “Idiocracy” (or its dead-serious inspiration, Cyril Kornbluth’s nasty 1947 novelette “The Marching Morons”).

Catholic Gate-Crasher: No need to lecture us. Save it for your own church, whatever that may be. At least we Papists admit we have a problem — which makes us a heck of a lot more attuned to the victims than people like Dreher who point fingers at us while ignoring, denying, and even aiding and abetting their own churches’ egregious scandals.

i.e. “I THANK THEE, LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORD, THAT I AM NOTHING LIKE THOSE FILTHY ROMISH PAPIST PRIESTS OVER THERE….”

Bridget: ZechZav,

Yes. Did you see my comment about “proven false” allegations of rape?

Yes I did and I agree with you – it must be proven false.

Benn:

Benn, you seem determined to pick a fight with us Catholics over our belief system. May I respectfully suggest that that is not the purpose of the OP? (At least as far as I can see.)

Moreover, if you want to get into the theological weeds…well, Catholics have been doing apologetics for a long, long time, and (arguably) we’ve become pretty good at it. Not I, personally. But lots and lots of Pretty Famous People like Aquinas, Bellarmine, Francis de Sales, John Henry Newman, et al. (As I’ve often noted, if the case against Catholic claims was such a simple slam-dunk, we would not have lasted two years, let alone 2,000.)

So please, please, can we stick to the subject at hand — clerical sex abuse — and stop trying to lob spitballs at each other’s belief systems?

Maybe we can lob a few spitballs at Cardinal Cupich instead. I would gladly join you in that enterprise!

Thersites,

I hear you, but as long as the catholics are dealing with clergy issues which are different from the clergy issues of the protestants then some of the aspects do not overlap.

And as long as people disagree on what is or is not sin (abuse or not) and disagree on what is or is not pathology (abuse or not) then I don’t see even catholics agreeing with other catholics and protestants agreeing with other protestants to any overwhelming extent.

Headless Unicorn Guy,

My personal Christian experience is not open to another man’s argument.

Max: My personal Christian experience is not open to another man’s argument.

I respect that fact, which is why I believe Christian faith is an appropriate and rational way for some people to live their lives. My person Christian experience isn’t open to anyone else’s argument either, and it’s why I am an agnostic.

Bridget,

Lydia, I think you are wrong about this as a ‘general’ statement.

Max: My personal Christian experience is not open to another man’s argument.

Nor is mine. I have views which will horrify my liberal-progressive brethren as well as sentiments that will draw the flak of the most ardent fundagelical.

It comes from being a semi-Voltaireian free-thinker when it involves religion and religious conviction; in a word, I’m all over the map on many issues.

Catholic Gate-Crasher,

Excellent! More power to you.

Ken P.,

Ken, I’m Catholic and haven’t tithed in a couple years. I have donated to needy individuals instead. I’m writing letters and even planning on protesting at the Bishop’s conference. I’m making monetary donations to Catholic podcasters who are exposing this mess as well.

dee,

Thanks, Dee. I’ve been in both camps and, at times, feel I have a foot planted in Catholicism and a foot in Protestantism. It is my sincere hope that we can aid each other in the fight against abuse.

Lisa: Ken, I’m Catholic and haven’t tithed in a couple years. I have donated to needy individuals instead. I’m writing letters and even planning on protesting at the Bishop’s conference. I’m making monetary donations to Catholic podcasters who are exposing this mess as well.

It’s good to see actions being taken, but I’m starting to believe that the only way to make significant, lasting change to religious organizations is to cut off the money. RCC, SBC or ASPCA, money is the only language everyone understands.

Celibacy in the Roman Catholic Priesthood

a) Women Priests? Rome Would Sooner End Celibacy – Reformation ..
In the 1971 Roman Catholic synod, under a different pope, bold statements were less rare. Franjo Cardinal Seper of Zagreb could then say, “I am not at all optimistic that celibacy is in fact being observed.” At that synod, nearly half the bishops voted in favor of a married priesthood.
http://www.nytimes.com/…/l-women-priests-rome-would-sooner-end-celibacy-reformation-ne

b) Gordon Thomas wrote:
‘Worldwide, of the 404,000 priests in active ministry in October 1996, at least one third had been , or were still engaged in , breaking their vow of compulsory celibacy, claimed Vocatio,
Trespass into Temptation 1997 edition p. 384

c) David Rice wrote:
‘Missionaries in Peru estimate that 80 percent of local priests live with women.’..
‘In Brazil a group of native priests estimate that between 60 and 70 percent of native Brazilian priests have some sort of liaisons with women.’
Shattered Vows p ub. 1990 p. 120

d) Roderic Ai. Camp wrote:
‘ For example, Archbishop Bartolome Carrasco Briseno of Oaxaca was not able to enforce celibacy among a large number of priests in his poor, southern diocese .’
Crossing Swords: Politics and Religion in Mexico’ pub 1997 .p. 262

e) Oct 21 ‘ National Catholic Reporter”:
Issue Date: October 21, 2005
Sexual hypocrisy from the Vatican
By ANGELA BONAVOGLIA
Most recently, Regina Soares Jurkewicz, eight years a professor at the Theological Institute of the Catholic diocese of São Paulo, Brazil, was fired, this right after she published the results of her doctoral research on sexual violence against women by Catholic clergy in Brazil. Her findings were in keeping with the findings of internal church reports from the 1990s, which documented the sexual exploitation and abuse of nuns and other adult women by Catholic priests in 23 countries on five continents.
Oct 21 ‘ National Catholic Reporter”:

f) African Catholic Church tested by scandals
2011-11-17
Jean-Louis De La Vaissiere
Rome – When he arrives in Africa on Friday, Pope Benedict XVI will be welcomed by a fast-growing Church struggling with sex and corruption scandals and rivalry from evangelical Christians and Voodooism…
But the African Church is also riddled with scandals, from child abuse to extramarital relations, collusion with those in power, and ill-gotten fortunes…
African priests have also been known on occasion to be involved with practices that do not sit happily with the Catholic Church – from exorcism or animal sacrifices to Freemasonry.

g) In an article in the Daily Telegraph dated February 24th, 2013 entitled The next Pope must think seriously about married priests – because the celibacy rule isn’t working Damian Thompson (a Roman Catholic) wrote:
‘Unofficial marriages among African Catholic priests are the norm in some regions’.

h) A report in Time magazine May 12, 1980
stated:
‘In Africa, birth control is no issue. The people barely practice it at all. Quite the contrary: in the words of one missionary, many an African’s esteem is measured by how many children he has rather than by how many books he writes. But what is John Paul to do about a country like Zaïre, where many priests are living with concubines? In some dioceses it is difficult to find a truly celibate priest to become bishop. Polygamy is also widely practiced, and there has been discussion about the possibility of admitting polygamous men to full membership in the church. But John Paul does not feel free to follow local customs on celibacy. During a chat with reporters on the flight to Kinshasa the Pope told TIME’S Wilton Wynn, “The situation is the same everywhere. The difficulties are as great for men everywhere. What counts is not the situation, but the dedication of the heart.” Repeating the theme shortly after landing, he informed a group of priests that celibacy is the sign of their “total consecration” to God’

i) David Rice wrote:
‘ A missionary, returned from working in Zaire, Africa, tells me that all local priests in the diocese where he worked have fathered children. All have their women.” I would not say a woman, but women,” the missionary says.’p.121

j)Vatican investigation rebukes Central African Republic’s priests over celibacy violations; archbishop resigns
May 27, 2009
The investigation, conducted by Archbishop Robert Sarah, the Guinea-born secretary of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, concluded that many local priests have homes and children. A local newspaper reported that in most dioceses and the majority of parishes, priests live with women and have children.
https://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=3037

k) 2001 March 23 Vatican Views from the Hill
( S B U ) In a rare statement acknowledging fault , Vatican spokesman Jaoquin Navarro- Valls said March 20 that there was a problem of sexual abuse of nuns by priests in some missionary territories. He said the Vatican was working to correct the situation. The statement was in response to a March 16article in the U.S. Catholic Weekly, National Catholic Reporter that cited four reports by senior members of women’s religious orders asserting that sexual abuse of nuns by priests , including rape, was a serious problem, especially in Africa. One of the authors told a Vatican City News Agency that she was very pleased the Vatican had issued its acknowledgement.( Comment: The Vatican has become increasingly sensitized to incidents of sexual abuse by clergy, particularly in countries like the U S, Australia, and England. We expect the reports of sexual abuse by priests in missionary terrirories to be taken seriously and dealt with professionally. End comment) Merante
https://wikileaks.org

l) David Rice writes:
A journalist ,Tim Unsworth ,who writes in the ` National Catholic Reporter ` tells me that Cardinal Sin is closing his eyes to50 percent of his priests living with women .I met with a group of Filipino priests who thought it a conservative estimate.
“In my deanery “ one of them told me, “ practically every priest is involved deaply with women.”p. 120

m)David France wrote :
‘In Spain 60 percent of priests were sexually active’
‘ Our Fathers: The Secret Life of the Catholic Church in an Age of Scandal’ pub.2004 p. 89

n) Abusive priests unmasked 20 May 2009
When the statistics were widened to take in practising homosexuals, Bishop Buckley said up to 40 per cent of the Catholic clergy in Ireland were sexually active…
He claimed the church’s hierarchy was prepared to turn a blind eye to sexual indiscretion because it was so widespread. “Bishops are caught between Rome and the priests and, of course, some of the bishops are in the same position (i.e. having relationships),” he said…
“From the top down it is hypocritical. We are preaching compulsory celibacy, but very few are living it.”
The Roman Catholic Church in Ireland declined to comment on Bishop Buckley’s claims.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk › News › World News › Europe › Ireland

Catholic Gate-Crasher on Sat Sep 22, 2018 at 05:09 PM wrote:

Please read the very earliest Church Fathers — Ignatius of Antioch, Clement of Rome, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus of Lyons, and others. They *all* predate Constantine by centuries, yet they all testify to Catholic (and Orthodox) distinctives, such as the literal, substantial Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist; the hierarchical structure of the Church; apostolic succession; etc.

If you can find evangelical Protestantism (much less liberal what-have-you) in any of them, I’ll eat my Missalette

I would quote the following:

a)The Supreme Authority of The Bible

Irenaeus Against Heresies Book 3 chap.1 :
1. WE have learned from none others the plan of our salvation, than from those through whom the Gospel has come down to us, which they did at one time proclaim in public, and, at a later period, by the will of God, handed down to us in the Scriptures, to be the ground and pillar of our faith

Irenaeus Against Heresies Chap 5
1. Since, therefore, the tradition from the apostles does thus exist in the Church, and is permanent among us, let us revert to the Scriptural proof furnished by those apostles who did also write the Gospel, in which they recorded the doctrine regarding God, pointing out that our Lord Jesus Christ is the truth,(7) and that no lie is in Him

Irenaeus Against Heresies Chap 22
Now, in the first place, it is loss to wander from the truth, and to imagine that as being the case which is not; then again, as there shall be no light punishment [inflicted] upon him who either adds or subtracts anything from the Scripture,(1) under that such a person must necessarily fall

Tertullian De Prescriptione Haereticorum Chap. 36
One Lord God does she acknowledge, the Creator of the universe, and Christ Jesus (born) of the Virgin Mary, the Son of God the Creator; and the Resurrection of the flesh; the law and the prophets she unites in one volume with the writings of evangelists and apostles, from which she drinks in her faith

Tertullian Adversus Hermogenes. Chap 22
Where such a statement is written, Hermogenes’ shop must tell us. If it is nowhere written, then let it fear the woe which impends on all who add to or take away from the written word.

Tertullian Against Praxeas 11
All the Scriptures attest the clear existence of, and distinction in, (the Persons of) the Trinity, and indeed furnish us with our Rule of faith

b) Interpretation of the Bible
Private Judgement
Iraneous Heresies Chap. 27 1.
A sound mind, and one which does not expose its possessor to danger, and is devoted to piety and the love of truth, will eagerly meditate upon those things which God has placed within the power of mankind, and has subjected to our knowledge, and will make advancement in [acquaintance with] them, rendering the knowledge of them easy to him by means of daily study. These things are such as fall [plainly] under our observation, and are clearly and unambiguously in express terms set forth in the Sacred Scriptures.
Since, therefore, the entire Scriptures, the prophets, and the Gospels, can be clearly, unambiguously, and harmoniously understood by all, although all do not believe them

..and all Scripture, which has been given to us by God, shall be found by us perfectly consistent; and the parables shall harmonize with those passages which are perfectly plain; and those statements the meaning of which is clear, shall serve to explain the parables; and through the many diversified utterances [of Scripture] there shall be heard231 one harmonious melody in us, praising in hymns that God who created all things.

c) Salvation by Grace Through Faith
1Clem 32:4 And so we, having been called through His will in Christ Jesus, are not justified through ourselves or through our own wisdom or understanding or piety or works which we wrought in holiness of heart, but through faith, whereby the Almighty God justified all men that have been from the beginning; to whom be the glory for ever and ever. Amen.

1Clem 50:5 For it is written; Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall impute no sin, neither is guile in his mouth. 1Clem 50:6 This declaration of blessedness was pronounced upon them that have been elected by God through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom be the glory for ever and ever. Amen

Epistle to Diognetus Chap 9.V
For what else but His righteousness would have covered our sins? 9:4 In whom was it possible for us lawless and ungodly men to have been justified, save only in the Son of God?

d) Church Authority
Augustine of Hippo [ 354-430 ], wrote:
In a passage in this book, I said about the Apostle Peter: ‘On him as on a rock the Church was built’…But I know that very frequently at a later time, I so explained what the Lord said: ‘Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church,’ that it be understood as built upon Him whom Peter confessed saying: ‘Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God,’ and so Peter, called after this rock, represented the person of the Church which is built upon this rock, and has received ‘the keys of the kingdom of heaven.’ For, ‘Thou art Peter’ and not ‘Thou art the rock’ was said to him. But ‘the rock was Christ,’ in confessing whom, as also the whole Church confesses, Simon was called Peter. But let the reader decide which of these two opinions is the more probable
The Fathers of the Church (Washington D.C., Catholic University, 1968), Saint Augustine The Retractations Chapter 20.1).
Augustine’s statement makes it clear that as late as the fifth century there was no unanimity in the Church regarding Peter being the rock upon which the Christian Church was founded.

e)Transubstantiation

Tertullian De Resurrectione Carnis Chap. 37
So again, if he says the flesh profiteth nothing,1 the meaning must take direction from the context of that remark. For seeing that they regarded his speech as hard and unbearable,2 as though he had really prescribed his flesh for them to eat, since his purpose was to assign the establishment of salvation to the Spirit, he first said, It is the Spirit that quickeneth,3 and only then added, The flesh profiteth nothing—-towards quickening, of course. He also proceeds to state how he wishes ‘the Spirit’ to be understood: The words
which I have spoken unto you are spirit and are life:4

Augustine De Doctrina Christiana
16. Rule for interpreting commands and prohibitions
If the sentence is one of command, either forbidding a crime or vice, or enjoining an act of prudence or benevolence, it is not figurative. If, however, it seems to enjoin a crime or vice, or to forbid an act of prudence or benevolence, it is figurative. “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man,” says Christ, “and drink His blood, ye have no life in you.” This seems to enjoin a crime or a vice; it is therefore a figure, enjoining that we should have a share in the sufferings of our Lord, and that we should retain a sweet and profitable memory of the fact that His flesh was wounded and crucified for us
The Fathers of the Church (Washington D.C., Catholic University, 1968), Saint Augustine The Retractations Chapter 20.1).

f)Purgatory
2Clem 8:3 For after that we have departed out of the world, we can no more make confession there, or repent any more

g) Images
Minucius Felix Chap. 10:
Why have they no altars, no temples, no acknowledged images?

.

Malcolm,

Malcolm, I’m super impressed that you have the time and knowledge to compose such lengthy comments. As a Catholic, I invite you to join our fight against the ones who are abusing and those who are covering it up. We need all the smart people we can get.
A protest is planned at the US Bishop’s Conference. More info to come.

Malcolm,

Now *that’s* a highly selective reading of the Fathers!! If you really wanna go there, I will be happy to supply some other passages.

Of course the Scriptures are authoritative. But NO Church Father subscribed to Scripture ALONE. Heck, that’s not even in the Bible.

Nice try, though.

okrapod: My position remains this: there have always been differences of opinion about understandings; unanimity has been a myth. And, scripture requires ‘understandings’ and does not stand alone in that aspect. I also think that there are minor contradictions in scriptural details in how some stories are told, but since that might precipitate acute cardiac standstill for some folks that can be for a later time.

Pretty much my position too, but let me say this in expansion.
I take a Jewish view of Scripture in which discussion and disagreement are welcomed and not squelched.

In the Western (Christian) tradition, absolute linearization and correctness is valued above all else. Which is why, as you’ve pointed out, folks get heartburn and cardiac standstill for harboring dissenting views of say the Eucharist, and even Trinitarian doctrine.

Lisa wrote:
I invite you to join our fight against the ones who are abusing and those who are covering it up.

I’m afraid that I would have to decline Lisa’s invitation, not least because it would entail crossing and recrossing the Atlantic. Regards

A clue from church history.John Knox was born and spent most of his life here.

You know your church history