Priest Is Charged With Child Abuse

The Roman Catholic Church would like church members and the public to believe that all of the sexual abuse of minors by priests occurred many years ago when the Church hierarchy calims to have known less about such abuse. As this Washington Post story demonstrates, the problem is still going on and does not just involve incidents from the 1950's and 1960's. In my opinion, the underlying reasons for the problem - in addition to the conscious cover up by bishops and cardinals - are (i) the Church's demonization of/obsession with all things sexual, and (ii) the priestly celibacy requirement which makes the priesthood attractive to those with sexual maturity/identity disorders. Stated differently, if priests could marry and the Church treated sexuality as a normal part of being human, the priesthood would draw individauls who were far less screwed up emotionally/sexually. Normal individuals, gay or straight, are not attracted to children and youths in puberty. Here are highlighs from the WP:

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A priest accused of abusing an altar boy in 2001 has been charged with child abuse after turning himself in to police Tuesday. The Rev. Aaron Joseph Cote, 56, who was an associate pastor in 2001 and 2002 at Mother Seton parish in Germantown, had been accused of sexual abuse by the former altar boy, Brandon Rains, who filed a lawsuit against him in 2005. Cote, who has been living in New York City, surrendered after learning that police would seek a warrant for his arrest.

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According to Montgomery County police, Cote had been counseling the boy while serving part time as youth minister at Mother Seton. In summer 2001, when the boy was 14 years old, police said, Cote took Rains to an apartment in Germantown and "engaged in inappropriate personal sexual activity in the victim's presence and inappropriate touching of the victim." The abuse allegedly continued for about one year.

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Last year, the Catholic religious order of which Cote is a member, the Dominican Friars, Province of St. Joseph, agreed to pay $1.2 million to Rains to settle the lawsuit he filed against the order and Cote. In it, Rains accused Cote of "harmful sexual conduct and contact" with him that caused him "severe and permanent emotional distress."

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Cote also served in another area church, St. Jane Frances de Chantal Parish in Bethesda. In April, a family in Springfield, Mass., filed a lawsuit against Cote and the Dominicans, alleging that he abused their preschool-age sons after he left Mother Seton.