Right now I'm reading the "Philadelphia Grand Jury Report on Abusive Priests and the Cardinals who Enabled Them."
I have many reasons to be glad I am no longer Catholic. But the sexually abusive priests and the church officials who cared nothing about the victims makes me jump for joy over not having to deal with religious doubts. If it hadn't already happened, I think this would have done it. I agree that you can't blame a whole religion on some "bad apples." But I do wonder how it is that the people who protected the "bad apples," are somehow ignored. Perhaps they're not. Perhaps people really are outraged and they're really trying to do something about it (Though I haven't actually seen any sadness for the victims from the Catholics I know)- I don't know how you can get rid of a cardinal who knew that a priest was sexually abusing children - it's not like a democracy; the people can't vote him out, can they? Basically I'm outraged and I'm not even Catholic. I can't imagine how they are feeling. No on seems to talk about it, but I might be missing things. I sometimes wonder if protecting the good name of the church is what most Catholics are interested in and so the outrage is more that the media reported it? I hope that's not true. I'm sure that's not true. Even I'm not that cynical.
There's a list in the report about what the priests did to the children. I thought it might be interesting to share what the Catholic Church's representatives were (and I looked up what the church considers a priest, from the Youngstown Archdiocese - www.youngstownvocations.org/priest-role.htm) before diving into the list. According to this site, which is a Roman Catholic site, not just something I picked up off of one of my liberal web pages, a priest is "a man who is chosen by god to act as a living bridge between heaven and earth..." "Priests are living instruments of Christ the eternal priest." (I know that a lot of these kids were Catholic, so they probably knew this. I wonder what it did to their psyches and their faith to imagine that it was Jesus, as a priest, who was hurting them.) "By means of the Sacrament of Holy Orders, priests bear the presence of Jesus Christ."
If there are Catholic readers out there, please tell me if I'm in possession of wrong information.
They're all bad, but for some reason, this one made me cry the most:
- A boy who told his father about the abuse his younger brother was suffering (because you have to protect your siblings!) was BEATEN to the point of unconsciousness. And the kicker that made me cry. "Priests don't do that!" said the father as he punished his son for what he thought was a vicious lie against the clergy.
Also, it's only a partial list and I didn't include what the officials did to protect the priests.
- a girl, 11, was raped by her priest and became pregnant. The Father took her in for an abortion.
- A 5th grader was molested by a priest inside the confessional.
- A teenage girl was groped by her priest while immobilized in traction in hospital bed; he stopped only when the girl rang for a nurse
- A boy repeatedly molested in school auditorium, where priest/teacher bent boy over and rubbed his genitals against the boy until the priest ejaculated
- A priest regularly began forcing sex on two boys at once in his bed
- A boy woke up intoxicated in a priest's bed to find the Father sucking on his penis while three other priests watched and masturbated themselves
- Sorry, can't print this one, it's just too wrong. I'll let you find out on your own.
-Priest told 12 year old boy that his mother knew of and had agreed to the priest's repeated rape of her son.
I hesitated a bit to post this, but I got some good advice from a friend and I realized that this is fact - this actually happened, and you can't really whitewash it. You shouldn't whitewash it. And now that I think about it, I know of a few Catholics who I am sure were and are outraged - they're close friends of mine actually. But is there any place that talks about this issue, from a lay Catholic's point of view, about why people haven't been leaving the church in droves or demanding something to address the issue, or anything really, that might indicate that the people of the church are just as horrified and outraged as I am and NOT because their precious church, who apparently needs protection from people's opinions (though it is the "true" church of god and you'd think god could protect it), needs to be kept out of the media so that people's opinions about the church don't go downhill. Do Catholics care about the victims? I mean, I'm sure they must, but why does it seem that I only hear about the church protecting the priests and not these poor kids?
10 comments:
Of course Catholics care about the victims. And of course the Church is doing something to help insure that these atrocities don't happen again. I can't speak for all dioceses, but the Diocese of Wichita requires ALL diocesane employees and volunteers that have any contact with children and teens to take a course called "Virtus". Virtus teaches people how to recognize the signs of sexual abuse before it happens. It helps you identify potential threats to children and requires organizations to do EXTENSIVE background checks on any parent, friend, church member, or worker who will have any contact with children.
And for employees and some volunteers, it's not a one-time course. We have to complete monthly bulletins that keep us up-to-date with the latest information and teachings on how to be aware of your surroundings and the surroundings of all of the kids in the Church.
It's an excellent program that keeps the abuse scandal at the forefront of our minds so that it doesn't happen again.
I think there are many dioceses who have adopted the program but I'm not positive if it's Church-wide yet.
In addition, our Bishop has mandated that any one, including our priests, who do not keep up-to-date on their Virtus training will be extensively reprimanded, potentially to the point of losing our jobs.
To be fair, your post was a little one sided. You only mentioned abuse happening in the Catholic Church and failed to take into account other religions, which leads me to suspect that your post was more about enciting arguments surrounding Catholics than religion in general:) Or than about getting awareness of abuse out there...I deal with issues of abuse every day, which I suppose makes me a little callous toward it. Not that I don't care and don't support attempts to stop it wherever it may be but I also don't think about it any more than I have to, for my own sanity. Kay
Well, I'm really only talking about the Catholic church because that's where I've been hearing the most about abuse. I certainly don't think it's only a Catholic phenomenon, if that even makes sense. Just that it's in the news and I was reading that particular report. I also read a lot about child abuse in general, like A Boy Called It, just as one example. I think it's an important topic to know about. So many people avoid it.
And Kristi, thanks, I had no idea about Virtus. That sounds awesome. I know when I had to work at the school in Iowa I had to go through a background check and in one of my seminars we talked about signs of abuse. I didn't mean to imply that Catholics DON'T care about the victims, maybe I did imply it though? I guess the media just reports the bad stuff, which I should be aware of by now. But I think that's an important story too, how the church is preventing it and all.
Oh, and as for the other religions and abuse: some of what made the abuse in the Catholic Church seem so much worse (if that's the right term) than in other churches is that the Catholic Church is very hierarchical and organized. There aren't a lot of religions organized quite like it; protestant churches by denomination, but it's not like there's a central body so much, do you know what I mean? I'm not getting it out correctly...can someone help me out here?
Oh, and Kristi, this question just occurred to me: how does Virtus prevent abuse? A lot of people KNEW about the abuse but were ignored when they reported it (that's the part of the Grand Jury Report I didn't print) for example, in the report they mentioned that one nun reported it and was fired from her job as Director of Religious Education. And if priests took it, and were abusive, wouldn't Virtus help them protect themselves?
It's helpful for people who are employed or volunteer to know that stuff, but what happens if they find out abuse it happening?
Also, what happens to priests who ARE abusers? I know that one thing in the Philadelphia diocese they did was send them to counseling, but it didn't help, and even when the counselors said they shouldn't be allowed near kids again, they were sent to another church anyway.
Kay, if you want, to be equal, I can look up abuse in other churches. I know when Jerry was talking about Indian boarding schools, there was rampant abuse and it wasn't just Catholic boarding schools. But that was when the whole boarding school policy was in place - I can't remember the exact year they stopped, but I can find out. It was quite awhile ago.
Well I know there is a lot of abuse in Scientology, though I don't really consider that a church...
I think the big push in Virtus is to have as many eyes watching as possible. No one wants a kid to get abused, but very few people know how to spot the signs of abuse or even before that, to spot the signs of an abuser.
And, no, I don't think that a priest who takes Virtus and still chooses to abuse would be better off in protecting himself by taking the course.
In fact, and this is actually one of the sadder effects of the abuse that happened, is that there a LOT of really awesome well-meaning wonderful men who are priests and who are GREAT with kids, but now they have to be diligent about not hugging the kids that attend their Catholic schools... or being "too" friendly almost to a fault for the kiddos.
Obviously, it's a good thing that everyone is more aware. But it's also sad that the well-intentioned good fatherly priests, can't be as loving of fathers as they once were because sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between a friendly-don't cry when you fall down in the playground-hug and a creepy-i like kiddos-hug.
But you have to remember, the reason the media talks so much about the Catholic Church and the priestly abuse is because priests are called to something higher. Abusers should never be people who we put in such high levels of trust. But unfortunately, abuse is pretty rampant in our society. It happens within lots of organizations and families. That's why the Church implemented Virtus. It isn't designed to just protect from sick priests. It's designed to help heal the culture and protect all children.
I think society in general is more over-protective about the whole good hugging vs. bad hugging thing. It's sad, but necessary sometimes.
But even with the whole Virtus type program, what about the situations where people didn't report the abuse even though they knew it happened, or ignored the reports and just kept the abusive priests. It's not just the abuse that really freaks me out, it's the idea that people in power who could have stopped it didn't, because they were trying to protect the church instead of the kids. And even with Virtus, people are still going to want to protect the church. Not all of them, of course. But some. And I haven't really heard anything about that.
Priests are human too, and as such are prone to evil as anyone else. Free Will doesn't stop once the Roman collar is put on.
The Church as an organization has made a laundry list of mistakes in its 2 millenia, and may or may not have done the right thing to rectify it.
I'm also with you on the scandal, the horror, and the cover up. That puts the church in a very bad light, one that will take generations to repair, if at all.
However, and here's my however, I separate the Faith of the Church from this as it has nothing to do with the admisitrators of the faith. This may label me as a Cafeteria Catholic, well so be it. So it saddens me that one group (albeit a large and Unchristian group) would have you so happy to walk away from the faith.
I haven't heard much on what has been done to repair the damage this evil has caused, and I will assume as you that it has not been enough. They should be defrocked, and removed from church... actions have consequences, and even if absolved of this sin, they still have to pay the piper. But again, Free Will has its own piece to play in this
Anyway i'm beginning a rambling homily so I'll sop here.
People also seem to make a bigger deal out of the Catholic problems b/c of the celebacy issue, I think. Because you hear about other pastors or whatever, but it's never such a horrendous thing to the media as it is with Catholics. What's up with all the Catholic hating, ya'll?
Sara
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