Report: Catholic Sexual Abuse Caused by Secrecy and Mandatory Celibacy

I have followed the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal since it first exploded in Boston in 2002.  The expose broken by the Boston Globe coincidentally coincided with my coming out and my efforts to shake off the religious brainwashing of my upbringing as a Roman Catholic were all things sexual were viewed as evil and sinful except in the context of conceiving children - something that helped to increase the rolls of the Catholic Church. It goes without saying that the participants were not supposed to enjoy the conception process. Having been raised Catholic and exposed to the Church's obsession with all things sexual as well as the mandatory celibacy requirement (which historically arose because the Church leadership did not like losing revenues to the families of married priests), I always believed that much of the sexual abuse scandal traced back to the celibacy and the Church's bizarre view of sexuality not to mention the obsession with secrecy among high clergy.  Now, a new Royal Commission report out of Australia (where the scandal has been exploding for more than two years) seems to confirm that celibacy has played a significant role in the widespread sexual abuse  by priests.  The report also notes the dis-ingenuousness of Church efforts to blame the sexual abuse on gay clergy.   The Guardian looks at the report findings:

Mandatory celibacy and a culture of secrecy created by popes and bishops are major factors in why such high rates of child abuse have occurred in the Catholic church, a comprehensive study has found.

The report, which looked at the findings of 26 royal commissions and other inquiries from Australia, Ireland, the UK, Canada and the Netherlands since 1985, found that while the endangerment of children in institutions has been considerably lowered in Australia, children remained at risk in Catholic parishes and schools and Catholic residential institutions in other countries across the world, especially in the developing world where there are more than 9,000 Catholic-run orphanages, including 2,600 in India.

The patriarchal nature of Catholic institutions meant that abuse went unchallenged and, while a small number of nuns were abusers, the report found the risk of offending was much higher in institutions where priests and religious brothers had minimal contact with women. The report estimated about 7% of clergy had abused children between about 1950 and 2000.

“Their contact with women in teacher training institutions would have been carefully proscribed and then they were appointed to male-only schools where they were in charge of young boys and adolescents,” the report said.

“And they were living in all-male religious communities. They had to make do with a sacralised image of a sexless Virgin Mary. It was a recipe for a psycho-spiritual disaster.”

A Catholic priest who assisted the child sexual abuse royal commission, Prof Des Cahill, says discovering he had lived and worked with paedophile priests was part of the reason he has devoted the past five years to analysing why child abuse has plagued the church.

On Wednesday the findings from Cahill and his theologian co-author, Dr Peter Wilkinson, were released in a report, Child Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church: An Interpretive Review of the Literature and Public Inquiry Reports, published by the Centre for Global Research at RMIT University.

The findings explore why the Catholic church and its priests and religious brothers, more than any other religious denomination, have become synonymous with the historical sexual abuse of children.
 I began wondering: ‘Why did this happen?’,” Cahill told Guardian Australia. “I knew some of the priest perpetrators and I studied with them and I lived with one of them. And yet I was never aware while I was in the church. You have to understand, a priest offender is very secretive and doesn’t want to be found out.”

His and Wilkinson’s findings were made after examining reports from royal commissions, academic studies, police reports and church reports from around the world since 1985. Among the findings was that mandatory celibacy was and remains “the major precipitating risk factor for child sexual abuse” and that popes and bishops created a culture of secrecy, leading to a series of gross failures in transparency, accountability, openness and trust.

The issue of confession was also examined. Last month, Australia’s child sex abuse royal commission called for clergy who refused to report child sexual abuse to police because the information was received during a religious confession to face criminal charges.
 The recommendation prompted an angry response from the archbishop of the archdiocese of Melbourne, Denis Hart, who said he would risk going to jail rather than report allegations of child sexual abuse raised during confession, and that the sacredness of communication with God during confession should be above the law.
 The report states that “young and vulnerable Catholic children, especially boys, were in danger and at risk in the presence of psychosexually immature, psychosexually maldeveloped and sexually deprived and deeply frustrated male priests and male religious, particularly those who had not satisfactorily resolved their own sexual identity”.

“This was especially so if these priests and religious were confused or in denial about their homosexual orientation while training and operating in a profoundly homophobic Church environment,” the report found.

Courtin said that the evidence was “absolutely clear” that sexual crimes involving children and paedophilia “have nothing to do with homosexuality at all”.

And homosexuality is one of the reasons or excuses that the church has used for a long time and it’s wrong, inappropriate and inaccurate of them,” she said. “Paedophilia does not equate with homosexuality.” 

After several years of therapy, I finally resolved the psychological damage from my Catholic upbringing. I also left the Catholic Church and after a brief interlude as an Episcopalian, I remain technically a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America ("ELCA") which liturgically is like the Catholic Church liturgy prior to the break between Martin Luther and the Catholic Church and which does not have the self-perpetuating Church hierarchy of the Catholic Church ( ELCA bishops must be reviewed and reappointed and local pastors are not imposed by remote and out of touch bishops).

Meanwhile, The Atlantic is reporting on the child pornography charges against a member of the Vatican diplomatic corps in Washington, D.C. (note that the Vatican refused to waive diplomatic immunity which would have allowed prosecution):

The Holy See announced on Friday that a priest who is part of its diplomatic corps has been recalled to Rome following allegations that he violated child-pornography laws. The official had been accredited to serve in Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Department of State notified Catholic Church leaders about the alleged crime through diplomatic channels. The Vatican has opened an investigation and is keeping the name of the accused priest confidential. The AP reported that the U.S. government requested that the official’s diplomatic immunity be lifted. The request was denied.

The moral bankruptcy at the Vatican continues despite Pope Francis' improved PR efforts.

Archbishop Stored 100,000 Child Porn Videos on Computer;Top UK Bishop Resigns

If one listens to blowhards like William Donohue of the Catholic League - which is basically Donohue's personal cottage industry that allows him to derive a cushy six figure income by preying on simpletons - the Catholic Church's sex abuse scandal isn't about excessive numbers of pedophiles within the ranks of the Catholic clergy.  No, according to Donohue, it's all about a "homosexual problem" within the Church.  Now, reports coming out of the Dominican Republic are blowing Donohue's disingenuous anti-gay rhetoric to Hell.  It seems that Papal Envoy Jozef Wesolowski (pictured at left) who had been accused of having sex with children was found to have over 100,000 child porn videos on his computer at the Vatican diplomatic office.  Here are highlights from the International Business Times:

A former Vatican archbishop accused of paedophilia stored tens of thousands of child porn videos and photos on a computer in his office at the Holy See diplomatic compound in the Dominican Republic, it has emerged.

Details of Jozef Wesolowski's massive child porn stash have been revealed after the 66-year-old was arrested at the Vatican earlier this week.

He is the highest-ranking Vatican official ever to be investigated for sex abuse, and the first top papal representative to receive a defrocking sentence. He has been charged with sexually abusing minors and child porn possession and might face up to seven years in the Vatican's tiny jail.

Vatican detectives analysed the PC Wesolowski used in his office in Santo Domingo, where he served as Holy See envoy from 2008 to 2012 as part of an investigation into the alleged sexual abuse of underage boys.

The probe reportedly revealed a collection of horrors. The Polish native held more than 100,000 sexually-explicit files, Il Corriere della Sera newspaper reported.

[A] second stash of material was found on a laptop Wesolowski used during his trips abroad.

The former clergyman was placed under house arrest in a pre-trial detention at the Vatican earlier this week. He has been detained in a small room in the basement of the Collegio dei Penitenzieri, a convent located in the same building hosting the Vatican's court and military police in the famous Santa Marta square.

Investigators are also probing whether there was a network of people who helped him to set up sexual encounters and if he committed other abuse during his previous posts around the world.

He was recalled to Rome last year, after Dominican Republic media alleged he hired "rent boys" and was subsequently banished from the clergy, after a canonical court found him guilty of sex abuse.

I continue to blame the Church's neurotic obsession with sex and all things sexual and priestly celibacy for attracting pedophiles and psychologically and sexually disturbed individuals to the priesthood.   Meanwhile, Pope Francis has another problem:  Bishop Kieran Conry, the bishop of Arundel and Brighton and chairman of the Catholic Church’s evangelisation committee in England, has resigned for "being unfaithful to his vows."  Speculation is that Conry had some type of sexual affair although, if such is the case, the gender of the other individual involved it is as yet unknown.  Here are excerpts from The Telegraph:

A leading Catholic Bishop announced his resignation on Saturday after confessing to being “unfaithful” to his vows, leading to speculation he has had a sexual affair. 

The Rt Rev Kieran Conry, the bishop of Arundel and Brighton and chairman of the Church’s evangelisation committee in England and Wales, was to make the shock announcement in a letter read to congregations across the diocese at services over the weekend.

It immediately led to speculation that Bishop Conry had broken his vow of celibacy, central to the Catholic priesthood.

In the statement, being read to congregations on Saturday evening and Sunday morning the Bishop apologised for being "unfaithful to my promises as a Catholic priest".

He explained his actions were not illegal and did not involve minors, but apologised to "all to the individuals hurt by my actions" and "all of those inside and outside the diocese who will be shocked, hurt and saddened to hear this".

Bishop Conry said he would not be commenting further on the nature of his unfaithfulness.

Bishop Conry was criticised by conservative churchgoers last year for meeting a group of Catholic homosexuals.  He defended the meeting, stating at the time: “I am ... troubled that some people seem to regard sexual morality as a priority and ignore the more basic demands of the gospel. The gospel has little to say about sexual behaviour and a lot more to say about justice and charity.” 

Celibacy is not normal and for a Church that clings to a "natural law" conceived in the 12th century, the issue of celibacy again reflects the sick neurosis the aging, bitter old men in dresses in Rome when it comes to sex.     But for all the lives the Church has damaged and continues to damage, these exposes would almost be entertaining.  Instead, they underscore the hypocrisy and sickness that plagues the Church leadership.

Bishop Conry

Catholic Church Priests to Abuse Victim: "You never got to like it?'"

Having followed the worldwide Catholic Church sex abuse scandal since the lid first blew off of the Vatican orchestrated cover ups in Boston a decade ago, I thought I had heard just about every sick, outrageous claim possible from the lips of Catholic Church bureaucrats seeking to protect child rapists, but the Irish Independent has a story that takes the prize.  A sex abuse victim was interrogated by three priests - one of whom is now Cardinal Brady, the senior Catholic cleric in Ireland - after he reported being molested and had his inquisitors had the perverse audacity to ask the boy whether he come to the point of liking the sexual abuse.  The implication being, of course, that somehow the victim had either brought the abuse on himself or had enjoyed it.  Yes, it's pretty unbelievable, but in my estimation par for the course with the Church hierarchy which seems more morally bankrupt with each passing day.  Here are some story highlights:

'You never got to like it?" That was one of the remarkable questions put to Brendan Boland when he was interrogated by priests in 1975 after reporting to the Catholic Church his sexual abuse at the hands of Fr Brendan Smyth.

"You never got to like it?" The question itself is abusive. It serves no obvious good purpose. I sought an explanation for it last week, but was told only that the entire exercise was intended "to gather evidence against the criminal priest". 

A spokesperson for Cardinal Sean Brady, who was present as a priest at that investigation in 1975, told me that Brady "did not construct those questions or ask those questions". But he was there and he signed off on them (as plain "John" and not "Sean" Brady). 

"You never got to like it?" Being abused, that is. The answer that Boland gave to the three priests was an absolute "No". 

It was a question that might do-in the head of any victim of repeated violence, never mind the head of a teenager at puberty. What possible implication could there have been if he had answered "Yes"? That he shared the blame for his own rape? The undercurrent to this question, with its hint of erotic humiliation, raises a question about the institution that framed it, and about the nature of dominance and power within the organization itself. 

The three priests who interviewed Brendan Boland knew full well that child sexual abuse was happening in Ireland. If others were not speaking about it because of fear or ignorance, what was the excuse of church authorities who knew of actual abuse? 

Were Brady and his colleagues not dismayed when, one month after their own interview with victims of abuse, the Irish bishops published a highly significant and lengthy pastoral letter entitled Human Life Is Sacred? 

For nowhere throughout its 72 pages is sexual abuse mentioned. Nowhere are the clergy, religious or faithful to whom it is addressed alerted to the blasphemy and danger of child sex abuse that bishops knew was damaging some children's lives. 

Many other subjects were set out in that major pastoral, which some saw as a political intervention aimed against reform of the civil law. The bishops warned about abortion, "the contraceptive mentality" and sex outside marriage. They spoke earnestly of love, "certain kinds of sex education", the evils of drink in family life, celibacy, social justice and even euthanasia.  But the hierarchy made no specific reference in their 1975 pastoral to one phenomenon of which they, at least as much as anyone else, were aware. Child sexual abuse. Why?

[S]ex abuse is fundamentally about the abuse of power, and not just about sex. The exercise of power within their church remains a problem for Catholics. Already this year we have seen a Catholic headmistress closing her door in the face of a pregnant teenager and the Vatican censoring priests for their mildly dissenting views.  Last week's BBC documentary hit home partly because the reporter involved is the nephew of a priest, and most of those who appeared in it are ordinary Catholics or ex-Catholics living on both sides of the Border. If some media are engaged in a witch hunt, the BBC was not. Most media are merely reflecting the concern of the majority of Irish Catholics, who in theory are as much a part of the church as is any cardinal. 

Meanwhile,  Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin, one of the few voices of decency within the Church hierarchy has called for an independent investigation of clerical sex abuse.  No doubt, Martin is not winning any brownie points in Rome.  But he seems to be one of the few members of the hierarchy that "gets it" in terms of the evil that has been done and the guilt of senior members of the Church hierarchy who not only allowed the abuse to happen but who went to great lengths to cover it up. Here are highlights from the Irish Independent:

One of the highest ranking members of the Catholic Church in Ireland has called for an independent investigation into past allegations of clerical sex abuse.  Archbishop Martin said a commission should be set up to examine all accusations against paedophile priest Brendan Smyth.

"I know it's not fashionable to talk about commissions, but I believe an independent commission to investigate the activities of Brendan Smyth, as to how he was allowed to abuse for so many years - north and south, church and state," Archbishop Martin told RTE.  "I believe that would be in the public interest."  He said it was the least Fr Smyth's victims deserve.

As I have said many times before, I do not understand how any decent moral person remains a member of the Catholic Church.  Whether members of the laity want to admit it to themselves, a portion of every single dollar given at the parish level makes its way to support the bishops and ultimately the Vatican.  That's right, a part of every single dollar.  Those who give to their local parish are supporting the filth that makes up so much of the Church hierarchy.

Catholic Bishops Blame Everyone But Themselves for Abuse Scandal

A new self-serving report commissioned by the U. S. Council of Catholic Bishops again tries to shift blame for the world wide sex abuse scandal on society and factors other than (a) their own malfeasance, (b) the equivalent of a droit du seigneur that the priesthood continues to maintain in terms of doing whatever it pleases with children and youths, and (c) the Church's bizarre approach to all things sexual. The only good news is that the report finds that homosexuality was NOT a cause of the abuse. The other positive is that the report finds the problems stemmed largely from priests ordained in the 1940's and 1950's thus undercutting the claims of the far right that the liberalizing influence of Vatican II on seminaries was a cause. The New York Times has coverage on this attempt to yet again shift responsibility from the hierarchy which turned a blind eye to abuse for many decades, including on the watch of the less than saintly John Paul II. The cover ups and attempts to deflect responsibility clearly continue to go on. My advice to moral Catholic? Vote with your feet and try out the ELCA or the Episcopal Church. Here are some article highlights:
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A five-year study commissioned by the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops to provide a definitive answer to what caused the church’s sexual abuse crisis has concluded that neither the all-male celibate priesthood nor homosexuality were to blame.
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Instead, the report says, the abuse occurred because priests who were poorly prepared and monitored, and were under stress, landed amid the social and sexual turmoil of the 1960s and ’70s. Known occurrences of sexual abuse of minors by priests rose sharply during those decades, the report found, and the problem grew worse when the church’s hierarchy responded by showing more care for the perpetrators than the victims.
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The “blame Woodstock” explanation has been floated by bishops since the church was engulfed by scandal in the United States in 2002 and by Pope Benedict XVI after it erupted in Europe in 2010.
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The report notes that homosexual men began entering the seminaries “in noticeable numbers” from the late 1970s through the 1980s. By the time this cohort entered the priesthood, in the mid-1980s, the reports of sexual abuse of minors by priests began to drop and then to level off. If anything, the report says, the abuse decreased as more gay priests began serving the church.
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Many more boys than girls were victimized, the report says, not because the perpetrators were gay, but simply because the priests had more access to boys than to girls, in parishes, schools and extracurricular activities.
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The American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders classifies a prepubescent child as generally age 13 or younger. If the John Jay researchers had used that cutoff, a vast majority of the abusers’ victims would have been considered prepubescent.
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Even before seeing it, victims advocates attacked the report as suspect because it relies on data provided by the church’s dioceses and religious orders. Anne Barrett Doyle, the co-director of BishopAccountability.org, a Web site that compiles reports on abuse cases, said, “There aren’t many dioceses where prosecutors have gotten involved, but in every single instance there’s a vast gap — a multiplier of two, three or four times — between the numbers of perpetrators that the prosecutors find and what the bishops released.”
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An essay in the Catholic magazine Commonweal last week by Ana Maria Catanzaro, who heads the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s sexual-abuse review board, which is supposed to advise the archdiocese on how to handle abuse cases, said that the board was shocked to learn about the dozens of cases uncovered by the grand jury. Her essay raised questions about whether bishops provide accurate data even to their own, in-house review boards.

Vatican Legal Scheme to Dodge Liability to Victims

It is revealing to watch the Roman Catholic Church - which sheds crocodile tears for victims of sexual abuse - try to utilize every legal maneuver available to dodge the consequences of the sins and malfeasance of the Church hierarchy from Popes on down the line. Claim remorse, but do all possible to protect the Church's one true God: money and its riches. It is too bad that as much effort did not go into protecting children and youth from known sexual predators. Part of true remorse is accepting the consequences of one's wrong doing and the Church still has not taken this step - and likely never will. Certainly not under the current leadership. Here are highlights from Google News on the latest strategy of the Vatican to yet again abuse the victims of predator priests:
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The Vatican on Monday will make its most detailed argument yet for why it is not liable for bishops who allowed priests to molest children in the U.S., in a motion that could affect other efforts to sue the Holy See in American courts, The Associated Press has learned.
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In a motion to dismiss a lawsuit on jurisdictional grounds, the Holy See is expected to argue that a key Vatican document calling for secrecy in church trials for sex abuse cases was not, as victims' lawyers say, proof of a Vatican-orchestrated cover up. The Vatican's U.S. attorney, Jeffrey Lena, said Sunday there was no evidence the document was even known to the archdiocese in question — much less used.
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In addition, the Holy See is expected to assert that bishops aren't Vatican employees because they aren't paid by Rome, don't act on Rome's behalf and aren't controlled day-to-day by the pope — factors courts use to determine whether employers are liable for the actions of their workers, Lena told the AP.
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The Holy See is trying to fend off the first U.S. case to reach the stage of determining whether victims actually have a claim against the Vatican itself for negligence for the failure of bishops to alert police or the public about Roman Catholic priests who molested children.
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The case was filed in 2004 in district court in Louisville, Kentucky, by three men who claim they were abused by priests decades ago and claim negligence by the Vatican. Their attorney, William McMurry, is seeking class-action status for the case, saying there are thousands of victims across the country.
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The Vatican's motion is being closely watched as the clerical abuse scandal swirls around the Holy See, since the court's eventual decision could have implications for a new lawsuit naming top Vatican officials that was recently filed in Wisconsin and another one in Oregon is pending before the Supreme Court.
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In my view, the argument that bishops are not employees of the Vatican is beyond disingenuous. Bishops can only be appointed and can only be removed by the Pope. Moreover, every diocese pays an assessment to the Vatican just as every parish pays an assessment to the diocese in which it is located. It is a feudal style system with all power vested ultimately in Rome. In justice, the Vatican needs to get nailed on this. If the Church will not reform itself for the right reason, then perhaps huge monetary losses will force it to change.

Is There a Link Between Homosexuality and Catholic Church Sex Abuse?

The enemies of gay rights both in the Catholic Church hierarchy and Sycophant organizations like the Catholic League - not to mention our enemies in the "family values organizations - have tried to repeatedly blame the Catholic Church's massive sex abuse scandal on gays in the priesthood. Too often, the media does not challenge them on this lie. Now CNN has a story by Dr. James Cantor, a professor at the Universit y of Toronto Faculty of Medicine, who has been conducting research on the causes of pedophilia for the past 10 years. His answer is a resounding NO, THERE IS NO LINK. Not that legitimate medical and mental health facts make a difference to those who seek to wrongfully denigrate gays at every opportunity. While Cantor likewise says there is no direct connection between celibacy and pedophilia, the Church environment does seem to attrack a disproportionate number of men who have psycho-sexual issues. Here are some highlights:
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Scientists use the word pedophilia to refer to the sexual preference for children before puberty (usually, before age 11), and the word hebephilia, to refer to the sexual preference for children at puberty (usually, ages 11 to 14).
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Although there have been claims that child molestation is a result of homosexuality (or of celibacy), there is absolutely no basis in science for either conclusion. The scientific evidence instead suggests that pedophilia and hebephilia are caused by atypical brain development occurring near or before birth.*
MRI research has found very large differences in brain structure between men who have a sexual preference for children and those who have a sexual preference for adults. These differences were detected as regions of low density in brain tissue called white matter. White matter is what connects the various parts of the brain, enabling it to function as a whole. The white matter that is affected in pedophilia and hebephilia is the white matter that connects the parts of the brain that respond to sexual images. (Specifically, these regions were the superior occipitofrontal fasciculus and the arcuate fasciculus.)
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There does not exist any evidence that gay men share this feature of decreased white matter. In fact, there is some evidence that gay men have areas of more white matter than straight men, in at least some parts of the brain (called the corpus callosum).
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Also demonstrating that gay men have no more of a sexual interest in children than do straight men are studies that have measured sexual responses directly: There exists a test, called a phallometric test, in which a man is shown images of adults and children, both male and female, while he wears a device on his penis to detect even very small changes in blood volume. . . .
When regular gay men and regular straight men (not offenders) are tested, gay men respond to images of children in exactly the same way that straight men do: very little.
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Although it is reasonable to question why the Catholic priesthood appears to include so many pedophilic or hebephilic men, there is no scientific evidence that homosexuality is the answer, nor that fostering discrimination against gay men could be a solution.

The Real Betrayers of Catholicism

As the Roman Catholic Church's sex abuse scandal continues to widen across Europe - a former bishop in Norway has now confessed to abusing an altar boy - the Vatican continues to blaming the media and "anti-Catholic bigotry" for the Church's horrific problem that is continuing to dismay members of the Catholic laity. Some of the laity and pundits try to defend their faith by stating that "the hierarchy is not the Church" or that "the Church is comprised of its members who adhere to their faith." While there is some truth to these statements, they ignore the fact that the Church's leadership structure is based on a feudal monarchy where the Pope is the monarch and the bishops and cardinals are the feudal lords appointed by the monarch. The laity has ZERO power to challenge the hierarchy. While the Pope has disingenuously claimed that bishops "do not work for him" the truth is that the Pope appoints and removes bishops and cardinals who in turn appoint priests to parishes and other positions. Again, the laity has NO POWER to stop this system other than to leave the Church and take their financial support with them. As a Catholic for nearly 50 years myself, I know all too well the realities of the Church's governance.

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So what is one to do? If you leave the Church and take your faith with you as I did to the ELCA or if you speak out and condemn the Church leadership, you are accused of "betraying" or "attacking" the Church. Blowhards like William Donohue of the Catholic League purport to be protecting the Church when in fact all they are doing is protecting the corrupt system that created the problem in the first place. So who are the true betrayers of the Church? The Pope - and a number of his predecessors -and the majority of the cardinals and bishops in the hierarchy who closed their eyes, enabled and covered up for predator priests and, of course, the predator priests themselves. Even where members of the hierarchy recognize that the problem was not caused by critics of the Church - Archbishop Martin of Dublin and recently the Archbishop of Johannesburg are two examples - they fail to go to the root of the problem: the Vatican.

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How will it all end? Frankly, I do not know. I do know, however, until the laity raises up and DEMANDS change, nothing will really change. There will be insincere apologies and efforts to punish individual priests, but the enablers and obstructors of justice will remain in their exalted positions. True defenders of Catholicism are those who refuse to relent in their criticism and who may vote with their feet and refuse to support the evil amidst the hierarchy from the current Pope on down. In her recent column Maureen Dowd quotes some of her brother's views. I found some to be most on point others not. Here are some highlights of what I agree with:
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In pedophilia, the church has unleashed upon itself a plague that threatens its very future, and yet it remains in a curious state of denial. The church I grew up in was black and white, no grays.
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A boy in my class told me much later that the same priest climbed into bed with him in 1958 at a rectory sleepover, but my friend threw him to the floor. The priest protested he was sleepwalking. Three days later, the archbishop sent the priest to a rehab place in New Mexico; he ended up as a Notre Dame professor.
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Vatican II liberalized rules but left the most outdated one: celibacy. That vow was put in place originally because the church did not want heirs making claims on money and land. But it ended up shrinking the priest pool and producing the wrong kind of candidates — drawing men confused about their sexuality who put our children in harm’s way.
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The church is dying from a thousand cuts. Its cover-up has cost a fortune and been a betrayal worthy of Judas. The money spent came from social programs, Catholic schools and the poor. This should be a sin that cries to heaven for vengeance. I asked a friend of mine recently what he would do if his child was molested after the church knew. ‘I would probably kill someone,’ he replied.
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We must reassess. Married priests and laypeople giving the sacraments are not going to destroy the church. Based on what we have seen the last 10 years, they would be a bargain.
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Sadly, the Vatican and hierarchy just continue to complain about an anti-Catholic media and people listening to "gossip." They need to look in the mirror and admit that it is they themselves who are destroying the Catholic Church.

Benedict XVI Says He Is "Deeply Ashamed" of Sex Scandal

The old maxim that actions speak louder than words is a good standard by which to evaluate the truthfulness of Benedict XVI's claim that he is “deeply ashamed” of the Roman Catholic Church's sex abuse scandal in the USA. Since no bishop or cardinal involved in the shuffling of sexual predators from parish to parish or who was involved in threatening and brow beating victims and parents during the cover ups has been removed from office or thrown out of the priesthood, I hate to say it, but I believe what Benedict XVI is really ashamed of is the fact that the truth got out and the moral bankruptcy of the Church's clerical leaders was exposed. True shame and sorrow for the sins against children in any other institution would have lead to forced resignation, demotions, and all types of consequences. But not in the Roman Catholic Church. Cardinal Law and others deeply implicated in the cover ups get to live out very comfortable retirements - or like Cardinal Eagan of New York remain in office - at Church expense. Would that I could be so punished. Here are highlights from the New York Times' account of Benedict XVI's crocodile tears (note how he blames all betrayal on the individual priests and not the hierarchy):

Pope Benedict XVI landed at Andrews Air Force Base on Tuesday afternoon, beginning a six-day visit after a flight in which he told reporters aboard his aircraft that he was “deeply ashamed” of the Roman Catholic Church’s child sexual-abuse scandal in the United States.

The pope began his visit by addressing an issue that has wounded the Catholic Church in the United States, telling reporters on his aircraft that the sexual abuse of children has caused “great suffering” for the church and “me personally.” The scandal has produced thousands of sexual abuse victims and about 5,000 accused priests since it erupted in 2002 and has cost the church more than $2 billion in settlements. He said “As I read the histories of those victims, it is difficult for me to understand how it was possible that priests betrayed in this way. Their mission was to give healing, to give the love of God to these children. We are deeply ashamed and we will do what is possible that this cannot happen in the future.”

But as pope, Benedict has done or said or done little publicly about the abuse issue until now. Advocates for victims have criticized the church for failing to call to account bishops who allowed abusive priests to remain in the ministry. Peter Isely, a national board member of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said in a telephone interview on Tuesday that he was glad to hear the pope acknowledge the sexual abuse problem more clearly than before, but that words alone are not enough. “If you don’t reprimand, discipline and sanction bishops that know about sex crimes against children, then no matter else what you do, you are not getting at where the real problem is,” Mr. Isely said.

Police Charge Priest with Sex Abuse-Response to a Comment

I want to respond to an anonymous comment on my post about the upstate New York priest in the Diocese of Syracuse who was recent arrested for molesting children. The individual posting the comment obviosuly can be critical of my views but sadly lacks the guts and/or balls to reveal his/her name. As such, I will not approve the comment for posting on this blog. As I have often said, if you do not have the courage to attach your name to your comment, do NOT expect to automatically have the comment posted for this blog's general readership. Nonetheless, I do want to clarify a few things about my comments on why I believe ending the celibacy requirement for priests would be a good thing for the Roamn Catholic Church.

First, I do recognize that there are plenty of married pedophiles out there - in fact, most pedophiles are married HETEROSEXUALS not withstanding the Vatican's and the Christian Rights efforts to blame the problem on gays. My point was not to support something that would merely drive mentally disturbed priests - and I do view pedophilia as a form of mental illness - to marry and then harm their own children and their innocent spouses. I strongly oppose anyone who is not straight and sexually mature from marrying a woman. This is one of the reasons I look forward to the day that when are fully accepted and no longer feel compelled to marry. I do not want to see women hurt by any means, particularly as the father to two bright, intelligent and wonderful daughters.

Rather, my point was that for too long, the Church's celibacy requirement has allowed men with serious psycho-sexual issues (and by this I do NOT mean gays) to hide their illness from view by hiding in the priesthood. The Church's obsession with sex being unnatural and dirty, women being sexual temptresses, as well as the past practice of taking boys into high school seminaries so that they were never allowed to mature sexually before moving on to full blown seminary training only served to compound the problem, which I believe continues to exist.

Given these realities, with married priests, the Chuch could be much more selective in who was approved for seminary and ultimately the priesthood. Instead, the Church faces a situation now where it is scraping the bottom of the barrel - if not digging throught it - simply trying to find warm bodies to fill the ever dwindling ranks of priests. I personally am aware of some men who were admitted to the seminary and later who were ordained that I believe would NEVER had been accepted but for the severe shortage of priets. The witch hunt against gays in seminaries will only make this situation even worse.

I also stand by my comment that married priests would be much better equipped to counsel married couples. I recall speaking to one priest myself while married who was utterly clueless about the realities of being married, having children and budget worries. He lived in a parish owned condo on the water, had a daily housekeeper, and more disposable money to spend on himself than most married men after all their bills and family expenses were paid. Worse yet, he grew up in a male chauvanist family of all boys, with women being practically an alien species to him. Suffice it to say that his marital advice was a bit lacking.