Posted on 04/18/2002 9:11:24 AM PDT by Liz
The recent pedophile problems in various U.S. Catholic dioceses, especially Boston, have led - predictably - to a new wave of questions about priestly celibacy. Let us be clear: There is no relation between the vow of priestly celibacy and the incidence of pedophilia among Catholic priests.
How do I know this? There is less likelihood that a Catholic priest will be a pedophile (0.3 %) than a married man.
This statistic comes from the best and most current study of this issue, Pedophiles and Priests by Philip Jenkins (Oxford University Press, 1996). Jenkins shows that true pedophilia, that is, sexual contact between an adult and pre-pubescent child, is very rare in the Catholic priesthood.
Jenkins also explains how the media artificially exaggerates these numbers in their reporting. One U.S. Cardinal told me recently that many of the reported incidents of "child abuse" are actually complaints going back many years about the forms of corporal punishments administered by clergy in days-gone-by. Data about actual sexual contact and routine spanking or paddling are being thrown together.
The whole argument against a celibate, male clergy based on the pedophilia problem is, at best, impressionistic and, at worse, totally disingenuous.
Catholic dissidents who advocate married clergy and women priests are trying to take full advantage of this present situation. Never once do they mention that if a priest is faithful to his vows sexual relations of any kind will simply never occur. Just how allowing clergy to marry, presumably members of the opposite sex, will reduce pedophilia, is never explained.
The media is scrutinizing the Catholic Church on this issue in a way they have never looked at other institutional leaders, such as public elementary schools teachers, for example. The mere fact that the statistical incidence of pedophilia is the less than married men with children should give the media pause, but it does not and will not.
I can't think of a single mainstream media outlet, with the possible exception of Fox News, that does not demonstrate a consistent bias against the Catholic Church. This is not to point a finger at every reporter and editor, but to underline the constant tone and drift of their reporting.
Why, for example, would MSNBC spend an evening inviting people to call in and vote on whether Catholic priests should be allowed to marry? Would MSNBC do a poll on whether Jews should be allowed to eat pork on their holy days?
As Bill Donohue of the Catholic League has shown for years, the media has no fear of offending Catholics because Catholics evidently don't care if their faith is put up for a vote.
A statistical defense of the Catholic clergy, however, is not enough to address the present crisis. There must be serious rethinking of how to identify potential pedophiles before they enter the priesthood, and how to deal with them once an incident occurs. It is clear such a priest can never again to be assigned to duties that put children at risk.
The Church will get its house in order without the help of those who want to knock it down and start again.
--- Deal W. Hudson is publisher and editor of CRISIS Magazine, a Catholic monthly published in Washington, DC. His articles and comments have been published in The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Washington Times, Los Angeles Times, National Review, Richmond Times-Dispatch, The Village Voice, Roll Call, National Journal, The Economist, and by the Associated Press.
He appears regularly on television shows such as NBC Nightly News, One-on One with John McLaughlin, C-Span's Washington Journal, News Talk, NET's Capitol Watch, The Beltway Boys, The Religion and Ethics Newsweekly on PBS, and radio programs such as "All Things Considered" on National Public Radio. He was associate professor of Philosophy at Fordham University from 1989 to 1995 and was a visiting professor at New York University for five years.
He taught for nine years at Mercer University in Atlanta, where he was chair of the philosophy department. He has published many reviews and articles as well as four books: Understanding Maritain: Philosopher and Friend (Mercer, 1988); The Future of Thomism (Notre Dame, 1992); Sigrid Undset On Saints and Sinners (Ignatius, 1994); and Happiness and the Limits of Satisfaction (Rowman & Littlefield, 1996).
Posted on 4/17/02 5:17 PM Eastern by Dr. Brian Kopp
CATHOLIC WATCHDOG GROUP CALLS ON U.S. CARDINALS TO AFFIRM CHURCH TEACHING WHILE IN ROME
An international group of faithful Roman Catholics has contacted Vatican prelates and all active U.S. cardinals and asked them to publicly affirm the Church's 1961 pronouncement against admitting homosexuals or pedophiles to the priesthood.
Stephen G. Brady, the president of Roman Catholic Faithful, Inc. (RCF) issued a statement on Wednesday that was directed to 8 active U.S. cardinals as well as a number of additional American and Vatican prelates. The American cardinals include Roger Mahony of Los Angeles, Francis George of Chicago, Theodore McCarrick of Washington, D.C., William Keeler of Baltimore, Anthony Bevilacqua of Philadelphia, Edward Egan of New York City, Adam Maida of Detroit, and the currently embattled Bernard Law of Boston. They will be traveling to Rome next week with National Conference of Catholic Bishops president Bishop Wilton Gregory and others at the summons of the Holy Father. They will be participating in closed-door meetings with Vatican representatives to address the scandal and damage the Church in America is undergoing due to an increasing number of sexual abuse cases coming to light. A number of prelates have been accused of protecting abusive priests and moving them to other areas, where they have repeated their predatory acts with new victims. An overwhelming number of offenses have involved homosexual acts.
"As a measure of their sincerity in addressing this horrible crisis inflicting so much damage on the souls of the innocent," Brady charged, "we challenge each and every one of these princes of the Church to sign a statement agreeing they will follow the direction of a letter issued by the Sacred Congregation for Religious in Rome." Brady is asking each prelate to affirm the following declaration: "I, ________ Cardinal ________, hereby agree to follow the direction of the letter issued by the Sacred Congregation for Religious in Rome in 1961, which states: 'Those affected by the perverse inclination to homosexuality or pederasty should be excluded from religious vows and ordination'". The Church directive has never been rescinded and is still officially in force.
"If a cardinal is not willing to sign this document," Brady stated, "then there is no point in his traveling to Rome. Moreover, if he travels to Rome and doesn't sign it, I wish he'd do us a favor and just stay there."
Roman Catholic Faithful, Inc. (RCF) is a not-for-profit lay organization, with many religious members, dedicated to promoting orthodox Catholic teaching and fighting heterodoxy and corruption within the Catholic hierarchy.
ROMAN CATHOLIC FAITHFUL, INC.
P.O. Box 109
Petersburg, IL 62675
Phone 217-632-5920
Fax 217-632-7054
Web www.rcf.org
Press Release
Contact: Stephen G. Brady
Phone: (217) 632-5920
BEST NEWS I'VE HEARD ALL DAY: [Rod Dreher] Michael Rose, author of Goodbye, Good Men, the blockbuster expose of homosexuality and heresy in American seminaries, e-mails to say he just filled an order from a Polish monsignor in the Vatican, who ordered four copies and promised to do his best to get a copy into the Holy Father's hands before the pontiff meets next week with the American cardinals. You go, Monsignor! If John Paul reads only chapter four, "The Gay Subculture," he will meet the cardinals with fire blazing in his eyes. In other good news, Regnery Publishing has bought rights to Goodbye, Good Men, which is now out only in paperback, and will be rushing a hardcover edition into stores next month. Regnery's involvement means this extremely important book will get huge distribution and exposure. Posted 1:50 PM | [Link]
1 posted on 4/17/02 5:17 PM Eastern by Dr. Brian Kopp
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To my mind, pedophilia is inextricably linked to homosexuality.
You're right, emphasizing the honmosexual connotation is critical.
Pedophilia: This disorder is characterized by either intense sexually arousing fantasies, urges, or behaviors involving sexual activity with a prepubescent child (typically age 13 or younger). To be considered for this diagnosis, the individual must be at least 16 years old and at least 5 years older than the child.
And from The Merck Manual: Pedophiles prefer opposite-sex to same-sex children (by a ratio of) 2:1. Heterosexually oriented males tend to prefer girls aged 8 to 10 yr; in most cases, the adult is known to the child. Looking or touching seems more prevalent than genital contact. Homosexually oriented males prefer boys aged 10 to 13 yr, and their acquaintanceship with the child is more casual than that of heterosexually oriented males.
There is a term for these priests (and others like them), something like epiliophilia (starts with an e, Andrew Sullivan once referred to it), and it describes a person attracted to adolescents (14-17). Also, you will note that the media describes the victim as a "victim", "child", "minor", or some other age and gender neutral term, although (I've read) 98% of the victims are teenage boys. Again, the media has its reasons.
I now know of all the priests that I had contact with, two of them were pedophiles(not involving me thank God). Is this above average for the number of priests I had contact with, given I was active in the youth groups and an alter boy? I don't know, but I can tell you that I had contact with less than 30 priests. So in my experience, the percentage is much greater than 0.3%. Secondly, in both cases, the local diocese covered up the actions and placed those priests in other parishes. One of these incidences just came to light this past week. The other involved a male student, one grade ahead of me. I knew this student and he was one of the most messed up people I have ever met. The scandal didn't become public until my senior year in high school. Being a small town, it was widely known what happened. The diocese found out about the incident years before it became public and never informed the kids parents. The diocese did nothing to help the kid and simply moved the priest to another parish. The kid ended up getting very involved in drugs and in one rehab session, he finally told of the abuse. The family confronted the diocese, and the diocese took our donations and payed the family millions of dollars to shut up. They took the money and then told a few people of the story, knowing that the diocese would not take the money back. From my experience, it appears to be more of a problem than the church is admitting.
What I see as the fundamental problem is that the priesthood is attractive to the abnormal of society because of the celibacy restriction. These people see priests being able to control their sexual desires and believe that they in turn will be able to control them. Being in the Catholic school system for so many years, I knew two people who became priests and one who tried but was not accepted. The two that did become priests were very much on the fringe of normal. In high school, they never had a girlfriend and totaled about 2 dates between them(86 people in my graduating class, so infromation like this can be known). Yes, very normal people can and do experience the same dating record in high school, but these people were not simply too busy for dating, they had issues. This is pop psycology in my part I admit, but I'd bet that everyone here can pick out some people that fit this profile. The third person who tried to become a priest and was rejected was obviously someone who had deep emotional and psychological problems. I commend the church for requiring this person to seek help before they would even think about admitting him.
All I know, is that removal of the celibacy requirement would have made me seriously consider joining the priesthood. Lets face it, at age 17-18, who is going to ignore their hormones and persue celibacy? I'll stress this again, FROM MY EXPERIENCE, of those that I have personal knowledge, the people presently going into or attempting to go into the priesthood have some form of psychological or sexual issues. Let me end this with saying that the majority of the priests that I knew were fantastic people who were obviously very comfortable with themselves and were fantastic representatives for Christ. But as we are seeing now, there are quite a few evil people hidding within the priesthood. And it only takes a few to soil the good name of the rest, especially when the leadership hides and protects the offenders.
We need to make the connection between pedophilia and homosexuality.
Should be emphasized that these are predominantly homosexual priests.
Your contribution to the thread is very important. However on the comments I excerpted, I hope we will be very careful about judging motives. Looking around, we see many men who choose not to marry (or become priests) maybe because they enjoy life without the encumbrance of marriage. Women with demanding careers also decide not to marry. I don't think this makes them homosexuals, or even disturbed. They choose a life some of us may question, one that is outside the mainstream. That's their choice. And when you look at the huge numbers of marriages that break-up, and the associated problems this engenders, the single life looks attractive to some.
Who is "we"?
Catholics in America support allowing married men to become priests, and have for years, by nearly 70%.
Most husbands and wives in the ministry are in agreement on issues like abortion. This is a non-issue.
What's more damaging are the numbers of effeminate, ineffectual priests who have no control over the feminazis running much of the parish.
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