More and More U.S. Catholics Question Their Church Membership

As long time readers know, I left Catholicism even before I came out publicly.  One of the catalysts for me was the sex abuse scandal that exploded on Boston in 2002, which was the focus of the Academy Award winning movie, Spotlight.  That was 17 years ago and in the intervening years no part of the globe has been spared from Catholic clergy sex abuse scandals which as of this week culminated in the 6 year sentence handed down against Cardinal George Pell, the senior cleric in Australia and by some accounts the number three man at the Vatican until now.  Meanwhile, even as my other family members have abandoned the Catholic Church, countless American Catholics have kept their heads in the sand, refusing to admit that the institution they are supporting financially and attending is morally bankrupt and perhaps more akin to a criminal enterprise than a institution dedicated to God.   Now, a new Gallup survey suggest that 37% of American Catholics are belatedly questioning whether or not to remain members of the Catholic Church.  Here are highlight from from Gallup:

As the Catholic church responds to more allegations of sexual abuse of young people by priests, an increasing percentage of Catholics are re-examining their commitment to the religion. Thirty-seven percent of U.S. Catholics, up from 22% in 2002, say news of the abuse has led them to question whether they would remain in the church.

While the polling was being conducted, Pope Francis met with Catholic leaders from around the world at the Vatican to respond to a new wave of sex abuse allegations in numerous countries. The church dealt with a similar crisis in the U.S. in 2002, the last time Gallup polled about this. That polling came after The Boston Globe reported on widespread abuse by Catholic priests in the Boston area and church leaders' efforts to prevent the abuse from becoming public knowledge.

Gallup's latest findings show that the current scandal is affecting U.S. Catholics more than the one in 2002 did, in terms of their feelings about the church.

Substantial minorities of both practicing and nonpracticing Catholics say they are questioning their commitment to the church -- but, as might be expected, those less committed to their religion are more likely to be questioning it. Whereas 46% of Catholics who seldom or never attend church say they have questioned whether they would remain in the faith, 37% of those who attend church on a monthly basis and 22% who attend weekly say the same.

The same pattern existed in 2002, although both practicing and nonpracticing Catholics are more likely now than in 2002 to be questioning their place in the church. Seventeen years ago, only one in eight weekly churchgoers were re-examining their membership, as were 24% of semi-regular churchgoers and 29% of infrequent ones.

Catholics are less confident in priests in the U.S. more generally, and in U.S. bishops and other Catholic leaders. About one in four U.S. Catholics say they have very little or no confidence in those two groups. One in eight have little or no confidence in Pope Francis or their own priests.

While it is uncertain how many of the 37% of U.S. Catholics who say they're questioning remaining in the church will actually leave in response to the latest sex abuse scandal, any loss of adherents is certainly not welcome news -- especially when the church is dealing with larger societal trends moving away from formal religion. A decline in the number of Catholics would seem especially problematic if it were driven by practical matters such as how church leaders responded to a scandal rather than fundamental spiritual matters such as disagreement with church teachings or church members finding their faith to be unfulfilling.

Catholics shaken by the latest scandal could be affected in other ways besides leaving the church, including less frequent church attendance and being less willing to listen to church leaders' teachings on matters of faith.

In my view, the Catholic Church needs a major reformation that includes (i) removal of god knows how many bishops and cardinals involved in sex abuse themselves or in deliberate cover ups, and (ii) a rejection of the Church's idiotic 12th century views on sex and human sexuality and the role of women. If this doesn't happen, expect to see Church membership plummet in developed countries with the Church being destined to be an Africa based church relying on ignorant and uneducated populations to maintain its falling membership. 

The Vatican Put a Convicted Rapist Back in a Parish

One has to wonder how much it takes before the Vatican and subordinate bishops and cardinals will permanently throw a priest out of the Church and away from children and youths.  Apparently, raping two young girls isn't enough based on the shocking story of Father Joseph Jeyapaul.  Given the Church's virulent homophobia, would it have made a difference if he had raped young boys instead of girls?  The mindset that views children and youth as just disposable refuse is truly shocking and underscores the disingenuousness of apologies for sexual abuse made by Pope Francis and many other high clerics.  Their actions speak volumes even as they engage in crocodile tears.  A piece in The Daily Beast looks at this shocking story - which I suspect is the norm rather than the exception.  Here are highlights:

Just what is it that the Vatican does not get about predator priests? Apparently a lot.

Father Joseph Jeyapaul is a priest from India who admitted to raping two adolescent girls in Minnesota when he served the Crookston diocese from 2004 to 2005. 

After being charged with the abuse, which included rape and forcing at least one of the girls to perform fellatio on him, he fled home to India, where he was eventually arrested on an Interpol warrant. He was then extradited back to Minnesota, where he admitted his heinous crimes and entered a plea bargain in which, in exchange for a lighter sentence, he copped to molestation of one of the girls. 

Jeyapaul was suspended from the priesthood and served a year and a day in prison in Minnesota, then was deported back to India after his release last July. The Minnesota diocese where he worked also settled a civil lawsuit with the victims in which one accused him of systematic abuse in the confessional of the Blessed Sacrament Church in Greenbush, Minnesota, where he would then tell the girl it was her fault, that she had made him “impure.”

How much more proof would one need that the man cannot be trusted with minors? 

Apparently, Jeyapaul’s rap sheet is not enough to kick him out of the priesthood for good. In February, the Vatican approved lifting his suspension from the priesthood and agreed that he could be reassigned to a new parish in India. That parish even made him the diocesan head of its commission for education. 

“We are not only disgusted and alarmed, but we realize there is a serious danger,” Minnesota attorney Jeff Anderson said during a press conference last week. “Pope Francis has broken a pledge. This priest is a predator who needs to be stopped, and they have chosen not to stop him.”

Anderson, who has been at the forefront of the legal battle for victims of clerical sex abuse in Minnesota, is involved because he represents one of the victims Jeyapaul went to prison for abusing. Megan Peterson, now 26, has stepped forward to tell her story to protect children. She asked Anderson to file a public danger (nuisance) federal lawsuit against the Ootacamund diocese in Tamil Nadu, India. 

"This pope has said that bishops who cover up [sexual abuse] and the offending clerics have no place in the church. I feel like this is a slap in the face."

Peterson is not the only one calling foul. The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) says this is the last straw. “It may be the most irresponsible Vatican move we’ve ever seen: Catholic officials in Rome have lifted the suspension of a recently convicted predator priest,” SNAP’s outreach director Barbara Dorris said in a statement. “We are stunned and saddened by such blatant recklessness and callousness.”

[I]t gives one pause to think that the Vatican could turn such a blind eye to a case in which the priest admitted to abusing minors and was sentenced in a secular court. 

Interestingly, I recently learned that one of the few members of my family that had still been attending Catholic Church services has stopped going.  Meanwhile, another family member talked to me about perhaps trying out the Evangelical Lutheran Church.   Each remarked on having seen the movie "Spotlight" and its exposure of the criminality and callousness of the Church hierarchy.  I have long maintained that NOTHING will bring change to the Church until there is a massive exodus of  members and a drying up of the money spigot.  

Spotlight Wins Best Picture

The one thing that I hope to see at the Academy Awards last night happened: the movie Spotlight won best picture.  To me, this is a hugely important movie and I urge readers who have not seen it to make a point of doing so.  Not only is the movie an indictment of the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy, but it also shows the importance of investigative journalism - something in all too short supply nowadays when reporters, especially in the political realm simply repeat the talking points of politicians and never bother to verify the real facts.  Demagogues flourish when investigative reporting is diminished. Please see this movie!

Is the Vatican Lying About Addressing Sex Abuse by Priests

With the Roman Catholic Church continuing to disseminate anti-gay lies and untruths, it seems only appropriate to continue to disseminate the truth about the Church and its continued refusal to act decisively to stop sexual abuse of children and youths and, more importantly, fire every bishop and cardinal who participated in cover ups.  True, the latter move would likely decimate the Church hierarchy, but absent such a severe move, don't expect anything to change the mindset of the bitter old men in dresses in Rome and bishoprics across the globe. Meanwhile, members of Pope Francis’s special Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors who are critical of the Commission's failure to act are being asked to take forced leaves of absence.  In short, nothing seems to be changing despite lip service to the contrary and the molestation of children and youths remains a form of droit du seigneur for Catholic priests.  The Daily Beast looks at the Vatican's refusal to take the steps that need to be done.  Here are article excerpts:

One might think that a commission designed to rid the Catholic Church of its predator priests and try to heal decades of suffering by sex abuse victims might actually be involved in, well, doing just that.

On the contrary, it would seem that Pope Francis’s special Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors that he created in 2014 is not exactly getting its hands dirty when it comes to actually teaching bishops how to deal with the problems it has been tasked to deal with.

It’s not clear whether there is just a lapse when it comes to integrating commissions and groups that actually do the work, or if it is because of a more intentional oversight. Before the commission started its meetings last week, they secretly gathered at the Santa Marta Domus, where Pope Francis lives, to watch the Academy Award-nominated movie Spotlight, about The Boston Globe’s stellar reporting on exposing the sex abuse scandal in the Boston diocese.

The news of the “unofficial screening” came out when Peter Saunders, one of two child sex abuse survivors on the commission, told the Los Angeles Times that he also wished Pope Francis might see it so he truly understood the full extent of the cover-up in dioceses like Boston.

“The film is extremely worrying about the cover-up of abuse in the Catholic Church, and I think it would be a good moment for the pope to see it,” Saunders said. The pope did not attend, and the next day, Saunders was asked to take a leave of absence from the commission. 

“It was decided” that Saunders would take a leave of absence to “consider how he might best support the commission’s work,” the Vatican said in announcing the move. Saunders held his own press conference and told reporters that he wouldn’t step down until and unless Francis himself asked him.

Saunders had been increasingly frustrated with the commission’s slow pace, telling the media that their work was futile. “The last meeting in October was a non-event,” he said. “I was told that Rome was not built in a day—but the problem is that it takes seconds to rape a child.”

Other survivors have expressed similar concerns. “The Pope’s abuse panel will issue recommendations. The Pope will adopt them. And nothing will improve. Why? Because there will be no enforcement,” says David Clohessy, director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused By Priests, called SNAP. “Why? Because the church hierarchy is an entitled, rigid, secretive, all-male monarchy. No new protocols or policies or procedures will radically undo a centuries-old self-serving structure that rewards clerics who keep a tight lid on child sex crimes and cover-ups.”

Clohessy says the clear answer to this crisis remains outside of the church hierarchy “with victims, witnesses, and whistleblowers speaking up and with police, prosecutors and secular authorities stepping up.”  

But if the Vatican’s own special commission can’t even get a word in to help solve the problem, it seems an impossible dream that anyone else might have better luck. 

The Vatican and the Church hierarchy remain one large criminal conspiracy when it comes to the sex abuse scandal.  Decent people should simply walk away from the Church if they do not want to be accessories to sex crimes against children.

Vatican: Catholic Bishops Not Obliged to Report Clerical Sex Abuse

Sometimes one has to wonder what planet top Vatican officials are from.  They surely seem utterly detached from reality and what most would consider basic morality and decency.   With the movie Spotlight garnering increased attention and set to get even more during the Academy Awards ceremony, the official Vatican training program for newly appointed Catholic bishops informs the new appointees that they have NO obligation to report sexual abuse of minors to local police authorities.  That's right, no obligations to report crimes against children.  The Church prefers to deal with the problem internally.  As Spotlight has so wonderfully demonstrated, the Church's track record on self-discipline and protecting children and youth  is nothing less than abysmal.  The Guardian looks at this shocking Vatican position.  Here are highlights:

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 training guidelines were written by a controversial French monsignor and psychotherapist, Tony Anatrella, who serves as a consultant to the Pontifical Council for the Family. . . . . Details of the Catholic church’s policy were first reported in a column by a veteran Vatican journalist, John Allen, associate editor of the Catholic news site, Cruxnow.com.

Allen noted that a special commission created by Pope Francis, the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, had appeared to play no role in the training programme, even though it is supposed to be developing “best practices” to prevent and deal with clerical abuse.

Indeed, a church official familiar with the commission on abuse said it was the committee’s position that reporting abuse to civil authorities was a “moral obligation, whether the civil law requires it or not”. The official said the committee would be involved in future training efforts.

The current guidelines written by Anatrella make only passing references to prevention policies. The French monsignor is best known for championing views on “gender theory”, the controversial belief that increasing acceptance of homosexuality in western countries is creating “serious problems” for children who are being exposed to “radical notions of sexual orientation”. He did not return a request for comment.

The guidelines reflect Anatrella’s views on homosexuality. They also downplay the seriousness of the Catholic church’s legacy of systemic child abuse, which some victims’ right groups say continues to be a problem today. . . . . the training guide emphasises statistics that show the vast majority of sexual assaults against children are committed within the family and by friends and neighbours, not other authority figures.

Pope Francis has called for the church to exhibit “zero tolerance” of sexual abuse of minors  . . . .  . He said in a 2012 interview – when he was still a cardinal – that he was once called by a bishop asking him for advice on how to deal with an allegation of sex abuse. Cardinal Bergoglio – as he was then known – allegedly told the bishop to take away the priests’ licences and begin a canonical trial that would deal with the matter internally.

SNAP, a US-based advocacy group for abuse victims that has been very critical of Pope Francis on the issue, said the news outlined in John Allen’s Crux article proved that the church had not substantially changed.

“It’s infuriating, and dangerous, that so many believe the myth that bishops are changing how they deal with abuse and that so little attention is paid when evidence to the contrary – like this disclosure by Allen – emerges,” the group said in a statement.

The news comes just days after the abuse commission forced one of two abuse survivors who had personally been appointed by Pope Francis to leave the committee following a vote of no confidence.  Peter Saunders, a British abuse survivor and vocal critic of the church’s alleged lack of action on abuse, said he was blind-sided by the vote.
The Vatican declined to comment.

I continue to baffled as to how good and moral individuals can continue to remain in the Church, must less continue to finance such a morally bankrupt institution.

New Catholic Church Scandal Brewing Over Abuse Cover Up

Cardinal Gerhard Muller - guilty of systematic sexual abuse cover up?

With the Academy Awards in less than three weeks and the movie Spotlight up for best picture (if you have not seen the movie, it is a MUST see), the last thing the Roman Catholic Church needs is yet more high profile sex abuse cover up news stories.  But that seems to be what may be about to burst loose with Cardinal Gerhard Müller (pictured above), the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a/k/a, the Inquisition, implicated in the systematic cover up of sexual abuse of children and youths while he was bishop of Regensburg.  Pope Francis gives mealy mouthed apologies yet this will be another cardinal who has faced no discipline for his misdeeds and suffered no consequences.  Religion Dispatches looks at this brewing bombshell.  Here are excerpts:

Fast on the heels of the news that a Bavarian boys choir directed by Pope Benedict’s brother was a hotbed of physical and sexual abuse for decades, comes the allegation that Cardinal Gerhard Müller covered up the abuse when he was the bishop of Regensburg.

According to the National Catholic Reporter, the allegation is being made by the former head of the lay diocesan council in Regensburg, Germany, who said that Müller and a deputy “systematically” covered up the abuse, disbanded the diocesan council to thwart outside investigation, and installed at least one known abuser priest in a parish who then committed more acts of abuse.

Müller has served as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the second most powerful position in the Vatican, since 2012 and has emerged as one of the most outspoken opponents of Pope Francis’ efforts to modernize church practices around marriage and divorce and the treatment of gay Catholics.

He also oversaw the disciplining of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) for its supposed disobedience to the Vatican and was widely criticized for the public dressing down he gave the nuns in 2014.

If the allegations hold up, Müller will be the third prefect of the CDF to be accused of turning a blind eye to reports of sexual abuse. Benedict has been accused of allowing serial abuser Father Marcial Maciel to hold an exalted position in the church for decades while he was prefect of the CDF despite credible charges of abuse.

Cardinal William Joseph Levada, who held the position after Benedict, came under fire for how he handled charges of abuse when he was the bishop of Portland and San Francisco. Like Benedict, who was given a report on Maciel that he disregarded, Levada reportedly received a brief in the mid-1980s from a three-priest panel on the brewing U.S. abuse scandal that he ignored.

And like Müller, who said in 2012 that responsibility for sexual abuse lay only with the perpetrators, Levada denied that bishops had “aided and abetted” abuse by failing to remove abusers or moving them from parish to parish. Eventually, the diocese of Portland that Levada headed for nearly a decade was the first to declare bankruptcy because of the magnitude of abuse suits it had to settle.

What does it mean for the church that the last three heads of the CDF have been implicated in covering up sexual abuse at a time when Pope Francis has promised transparency on the issue? 


And what does it mean for the sex-related doctrine guarded so ferociously by the CDF, doctrine on everything from birth control to women priests to marriage, that  has been overseen for the past 35 years by a succession of men whose vigorous defense of doctrinal orthodoxy may be directly proportionate to their need to deny the reality of sexual deviance within the church?

Spotlight: A Must See Movie

As long time readers know, I was raised Roman Catholic and once was a member of the Knights of Columbus and achieved the 4th Degree.  After the Boston Globe blew open the systemic, worldwide sex abuse scandal in 2002, I decided that I could be longer in good conscience be a part of such a corrupt and morally bankrupt institution.  In February 2002 I did a guest editorial in the Virginian Pilot in response a letter to the editor by then Bishop Richmond, Walter Sullivan's January 30, 2012, decrying a January 21 2002, editorial cartoon and claiming that the stories about the Church were "pure bigotry against the Catholic Church.''  The cartoon in question focused on the Catholic Church's track record in respect to pedophile clergy. Subsequently, I was attacked in letters to the editor, including a letter from a subordinate of Bishop Sullivan.  Time has proven the accuracy of the Globe story and sex abuse cover ups have been exposed virtually worldwide.  The ultimate hypocrisy is that subsequently Sullivan himself was implicated in the cover up of sexual abuse by a diocesan priest in the Diocese of Richmond that was among Sullivan's favorites.   The tenaciousness of a friend of mine and other victims of the priest in question finally resulted in a criminal prosecution against the priest and a plea deal.  

For me, the timing of the Globe bomb shell was especially unique because it occurred when I was coming out and trying to purge myself of the psychological poison that had been inculcated into me as a Catholic child and youth.   Seeing the hypocrisy and moral bankruptcy of an institution that preached anti-gay bigotry and which had fueled so much of my self-hatred was a huge part of my ability to finally find self-acceptance and comfort with my sexual orientation. 

Today, the husband and I went to see Spotlight, the movie that tells the story of how the Spotlight team at the Boston Globe exposed the truth and the opposition that they had to counter to tells story that desperately needed to be told.  The one of the big take away from the film is that no institution deserves unquestioning deference and that bad things happen when good people lack the courage to speak out.  Without the contrivance of attorneys, police officials, district attorneys, school heads and others, the Church would never have been able to so effectively cover up the sexual abuse of literally thousands and thousands of children and youth.  

What is also distressing is the reality that NONE of the bishops and cardinals who conspired in the cover ups of abuse has been removed from office and tossed out by the Vatican.  Even today Cardinal Law who figured in the movie holds a plum position at the Vatican where he is safe from extradition for criminal prosecution. 

This is a MUST see movie and those who most need to see it are the Catholics in the pews who (i) continue to bow and scrape to a Church hierarchy that deserves to respect or deference, and (ii) continue to support the criminal conspiracy orchestrated from the Vatican.  Pope Francis can shed crocodile tears and feign contrition, but until he removes ALL of the bishops and cardinals from office and who have participated in cover ups, his words will be meaningless.

For locals an added benefit is that Mark Ruffalo, a First Colonial High School (in Virginia Beach) grad has a major role.