America Magazine (PRESS HERE) has a very good analytical essay on the abuse crisis and the John Jay Report.
The only glaring omission in all of this is that there are no comparisons with clergy of other Christian denominations or even other religions.
Until that happens, most people in the world, including Catholics, will think this is only a Catholic, male,celibate priesthood problem.
It is not. This skews the data and gives a scandalous wrong impression.
What is unique to the Catholic Church is the following and accounts for the reporting on this is:
1. Our record keeping on offending clergy
2. Bishops who mismanaged, misunderstood or were oblivious to their responsibilities to sack guilty priests rather than reassigning them time and again. However, the Methodist Church has a similar system of assigning ministers--I doubt any study has been done on Methodist ministers who abuse and their bishops who assigned them over a 60 year period.
3. The Catholic Church has a very strict sexual ethic. Sex is for marriage only, between one man and one woman. Only natural sex is allowed that has the possibility of procreation because of the "natural order of things."
4. Masturbation and sodomy, either oral or anal, is forbidden in marriage. Outside of marriage these (as well as natural sex for heterosexuals) are forbidden for both heterosexual and homosexual people. The marriage act must be completed in the normal way with the husband's ejaculate within the vagina and no artificial contraception can be morally justifiable.
5. Because of these teachings, many Catholics hate the Church's ethic on sexuality; those who are not Catholic and have strong political agendas toward artificial birth control, pre-marital sex, abortion, same sex, sex, same sex marriage and polygamy hate the Church even more because the Catholic Church is the only institution standing in the way of these political aspirations. Strike the shepherds and the sheep will disperse and not be a political problem.
6. There are mega bucks to be made by lawyers and those who were abused in suing the Catholic Church. This is not the case with smaller denominations or congregations. It would be a waste of time and money to sue them and lawyers would get a pittance.
In other words, this crisis is not just a Catholic priesthood problem it is much grander in scale. But you won't know that by any studies that have been done, because only the Catholic priesthood has been studied in this regard. It's a beginning, but the others must be studied too.
4 comments:
Yes,it puzzles me, too, that the John Jay report did not provide a clear comparison with other religious and child-care groups. It puzzles me because I thought that was a major purpose of the study.
And what about the very strange claim that most victims were boys only because altar servers were boys? Do these professional researchers really believe priests say Mass all day, and that we are only ever around altar servers?
All that being said, while I read the report, I will not read America Magazine, so thank you for keeping us informed!
It is important to educate Catholics and others that the Church is doing a lot to address the crisis. Comparing to other groups or churches is counter productive and creates a situation where they can claim it is not necessary and the only answer would be an veiled accusation. A very real danger is the vulnerability to legal actions that endlessly siphon funds away from the Church. Intentionally or otherwise it could eventually make the Church unable to exist as it does today. I think we are closer than we would like to think to having Government intervention in our practices. I foresee a legal case that could end up forcing us to perform same sex marriages and ordain women.
rcg
Firstly, Church officials should worship Truth rather than worshiping, or appearing to worship, the idol of political correctness. Gay activists are very effectively transforming our culture into one that accepts not only the homosexual but also accepts and rationalizes deviant, disordered homosexual acts. Church officials should not sacrifice Truth to propaganda or use the John Jay propaganda for short term advantage. Even though all are sinners, heterosexuality is normal and normative while homosexuality is deviant. Illness or not, it is not prudent to admit homosexual men to seminaries.
Kleptomania is an illness. Would prudent merchants hire them? Should we expect them to? Priests, who are called “Father,” should have a healthy appreciation of and dedication to genuine fatherhood for their spiritual children, regardless of age or gender.
Dr. Richard Fitzgibbons, as a psychiatrist, is more qualified than the criminologists at John Jay to interpret the data in their report. To see some comments by this qualified professional, go to: http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/utiles/myprint/print.php
Among other things, he said: “One can conclude that these priests have strong same-sex attraction,” he said. “When an adult is involved with homosexual behavior with an adolescent male, he clearly has a major problem in the area of homosexuality.” “analysis of the research demonstrates clearly that the major cause of the crisis was the homosexual abuse of males.”
“If the (U.S. bishops) conference wanted an analysis of the causes of complex sexual behavior with adolescents,” he said, “don't turn to criminologists.”
“They are not trained to understand those causes – that training is given to mental health professionals.”
“They can report on the statistical analysis of the behavior but in terms of causes, they've crossed a line, in my view.”
Has the USCCB officially adopted the John Jay Report and its conclusions? If so, they are in danger of perpetuating the scandalous behavior. They need to adopt the conclusions of competent Catholic medical professionals.
Every seminary applicant and student should be required to take HIV-aids tests at least annually, and Priests should be required to do the same.
Anonymous, you should have added that for those who fail the HIV-aids testing, there should be zero tolerance. Better then than after they vicimize someone.
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