tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846189835239594160.post6806180640260205167..comments2024-03-28T20:30:10.681-04:00Comments on southern orders: THE HIGHEST NUMBER OF PRIESTS ACCUSED OF ABUSE HAPPENED IN THE EARLY TO MID 1970'S, WITH MID TO 1970'S CONFUSION OF BOTH CATHOLIC AND PRIESTLY IDENTITYFr. Allan J. McDonaldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16986575955114152639noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846189835239594160.post-61238791395493106822018-08-30T17:36:25.258-04:002018-08-30T17:36:25.258-04:00TJM – I like your aunt’s alternative suggestion. I...TJM – I like your aunt’s alternative suggestion. It would have helped prevent my mother feeling so alienated from the Church (although the Church’s then hard line on raising children as Catholics, creating a situation preventing my parents from originally marrying within the Church, was also a major contributing factor—their marriage was blessed in later years after my father became Catholic). It might also have provided a control group for the Vatican II liturgical experiment.<br /><br />Anonymous – I also like your alternative interpretation, at least as a plausible hypothesis.<br /><br />What is appealing about both alternatives is that they reflect suppleness and flexibility, as opposed to rigidity, of thought regarding non-absolute matters.<br /><br /><br />Anonymous 2noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846189835239594160.post-29747411028336752382018-08-30T14:46:52.144-04:002018-08-30T14:46:52.144-04:00Alternate interpretation: Vatican II created an at...Alternate interpretation: Vatican II created an atmosphere where people felt comfortable and "empowered" to come forward and make complaints & accusations against their parish priests. In years past, for better or worse, your local priest was a demigod, not to be questioned or challenged. At least not publicly. We'll never know how many young people were abused in years past, but when I was growing up, many parishes had the priest that, conventional wisdom said, you just stayed away from. Often, said priests shifted parishes suddenly, without notice. Nobody would think of going to the newspaper or the cops in the '50s, '60s, '70s, even '80s, because of course, you'd go to hell.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846189835239594160.post-24882850548683649132018-08-29T14:40:52.772-04:002018-08-29T14:40:52.772-04:00My Aunt was a religious superior of a teaching ord...My Aunt was a religious superior of a teaching order in the 1960s. In her view, the problem was that so many of her religious depended on the rules and the structure, so when the changes which brought the individual religious more personal freedom, they couldn't handle it in a mature way and some acted out badly. She said that in retrospect, they should have left the existing order as it was and then created a parallel structure to see how it would work. She often said, "you can't put old wine in new bottles." She was a very wise woman TJMnoreply@blogger.com