Posted on 06/20/2004 7:05:20 PM PDT by Polycarp IV
Vatican Aware of Abuse for Centuries, Study Says
Authors use church's own documents to make their case. Critics say money is the motive.
By William Lobdell
Times Staff Writer
June 20, 2004
Facing an estimated 800 sexual-abuse lawsuits in California, Roman Catholic officials have argued that the church learned only in recent years that it had a widespread problem with priests molesting children.
A report in February by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, for example, said Cardinal Roger M. Mahony and other bishops didn't realize until 1985 that sexual abuse by clergy was "more than a matter of tragic but isolated incidents."
But a North Carolina priest and two former monks who live in Southern California say they have scoured ancient Vatican records and forgotten Latin texts to show just the opposite: that the church has recognized the problem of abuse by priests for at least 1,700 years and has failed to address it successfully.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
ping
In some book on medieval history there was a phrase which, I believe, is highly relevant:
"any old abuse became an inalienable right"
"the church has recognized the problem of abuse by priests for at least 1,700 years and has failed to address it successfully.
Notice they didn't qualify this sentence by saying the Church has failed to address it successfully but ONLY since the sexual revolution!
The article further states:
For example, in the 4th century, St. Basil of Caesarea set up a detailed system of punishment to deal with clerics at his monastery who molested boys. Perpetrators were to be flogged and put in chains for six months; they were never again allowed unsupervised interaction with minors.
In the 13th century, Pope Gregory IX added to church law a declaration that sexual abuse demanded expulsion from the priesthood and that perpetrators would be turned over to secular authorities.
Obviously, if Church discipline had not been relaxed over the last 5 decades, this current scandal would never have happened.
Ping. (As usual, if you would like to be added to or removed from my "conservative Catholics" ping list, please send me a FReepmail. Please note that this is occasionally a high volume ping list and some of my ping posts are long.)"
So much for the fairly dubious theory that this all magically started with priests educated in the 1960s or something, and there was no problem before that.
I know priests who do a harder day's work at age 80 than you or I could hope to accomplish. Diocesan priests often decide to live lives like you describe, but not all of them, and many monastic priests live very tough lives.
what kind of men are we going to attract?
Sinners and saints, many of whom are totally committed to Jesus Christ and spreading the Gospel, and a few who desire to infiltrate Christ's Church for their own nefarious purposes.
I had this discussion with my dad thity years ago. Following the party "line" he told me then it was only isolated incidents by people trying to make the church look bad. Some things just don't change.
Vatican II in the 1960s pretty much ruined the Catholic Church with its moral relevantism. I attended Catholic schools from 1st grade through college, and there was never even a hint of molestation by priests. This was just unheard of, but with the decline of the society since the 1960s sexual revolution, the Catholic church has also fallen regretably from grace. Until the Catholic Church returns to its roots and throws out all the crap that has corrupted its Institution, it shall continue to rot from within.
There were fags even in OT times...remember Sodom and Gomorrha?
Its no surprise that homosexuals infiltrate professions like public school teaching and the priesthood in order to engage in chickenhawking.
The difference is that prior to the late 1950's, homosexuals were aggressively weeded out of the seminaries, and if they were discovered in the priesthood, they were expelled. Seminarians' worst fear was to be seen as effiminate because they were expelled simply for acting effeminate. I know this for a fact. Ask any priest who went through seminary and was ordained prior to 1950.
Sinners and saints, many of whom are totally committed to Jesus Christ and spreading the Gospel, and a few who desire to infiltrate Christ's Church for their own nefarious purposes.
This Baptist believes that your assessment is on the money.
Leaving religion out of it - child abuse is an abomination.
Ping. Why people think that an organization is needed to help them worship is beyond me.
Agreed! Since the church and secular society has become "kinder, gentler" - along with the sexual revolution, there has been liscence for everything, and restraint for nothing. There is neither conscience, self, control, nor fear of just punishment by clerics for anything! Vatican II ruined everything, and made moral laxity not only worse, but acceptable!
Ask Black Elk, he might have been there with you!
Sexual abuse has been a problem in the priesthood for hundreds of years.
It didn't start with Vatican II, dimwit.
Yes they do! Nowhere does this article charge that fags were tolerated in the priesthood prior to the last several decades. Quite the opposite, they were mercilessly thrown out of seminary just for the mere appearance of effeminacy, they were expelled from the priesthood if they slipped through unnoticed, and turned over for prosecution if they were caught chickenhawking.
Only in the last 40 years have homos been tolerated en masse in seminaries and the priesthood and hierarchy, by liberal dissenters and fellow gays.
This last 40 years is a demonic anomoly in Catholicism, brought about by premeditated infiltration and subversion by dissenters and active gays!
this is like saying "US Authorities aware of murders for 200 years, attempts to stop it unscucessful"
That's the LA Slimes spin, NOT the reality! The wholesale acceptance of active gays into the priesthood only started in the latter half of the last century.
Sure, gays have always tried to infiltrate the teaching and ministerial professions, to engage in easier chickenhawking.
But the reality is that gays were weeded out of seminary and the priesthood prior to 1950's, but were accepted after.
That would certainly be news to St. Peter Damian, whose Book of Gomorrah documented this problem extensively in 1049 AD.
The last 50 years saw the end of weeding out homos, and the beginning of this current crisis. There will again come reform, and the Church will return to its sanity and discipline this time too.
Thanks for your witness to the sanctity of the Church. My mother says that there was never anything bad in the Catholic School and Church when she was young. I believe her and you guys.
I was in the diocesan seminary back in the 70's - St. Pius X in Dalton, Pa.(did not get ordained) and could see evidence then of the "Lavender Mafia" at work inside the walls - an old sage priest spiritual director of mine said it best..."The Church has and will survive through the ages in spite of the clergy" - I always thought that was a very clever analysis of ups and downs the Church has experienced over time due to it's leadership - but he always reminded me that the Church is not about the priests, and the money, and the power - it is about THE PEOPLE - bad priests come and go - it's the faithful in the pews each week that will always keep the heart of the church healthy and strong.
what's with the dimwit? Ad hominem attacks reflect a lack of confidence and character. You sound like your lost, you belong on DU.
I was speaking from my own experience. There was no hint of sexual abuse when and where I attended school. If that doesn't agree with your experience, then tell me how it differs.
Please grace this dimwits with your experiences, Mr. Intelligent.
Sexual abuse has been a problem of all mankind for all recorded history. And priests are sinners just like the rest of us.
It didn't start with Vatican II, dimwit.
It started in the Garden of Eden, dimwit.
What started in the late 1950's was the ending of actively screening out homos from seminary. There was always a background level of men with Same Sex Attraction Disorder in the priesthood, from the earliest days of Christianity. Some were chaste, some were not.
But the last 50 years saw an explosion in the number of men with Same Sex Attraction Disorder allowed into seminaries and not removed from formation even after their disorder became abundantly clear. And the lax morals of the 1960's saw more priests with Same Sex Attraction Disorder decide to act out on their disorders.
Don't play into the LA Times slime game here, Sink. You know better.
I'm a prot, and I think that's out of line.
Just the lack of punishment and coverup. See #25
quick question... would you consider the Church ( catholic) to be Healthy and strong today?
The cover-up has been around for hundreds of years, and there has been no effective punishment. Priests were told to repent of their sin and moved to other parishes.
I'm sure there were the backgroiund level of buggerers among the priests and minsters even then, as there are among public school teachers then and now.
But your grandfather was simply wrong to say that all priests were buggerers, and would still be wrong even today.
Regardless, that your grandfather had never allowed him or his brother to ever be alone with any priest was prudent for then and even moreso for today. I do likewise with my own boys.
In fairness, you're both right. The problem has existed throughout history, but has been especially a problem in the Church as a place where men were celibate. And, indeed, the problem intensified with a decline in the number of vocations in the 1950's, resulting in less rigorous screening generally as well as for homosexuality, and really blossomed after Vatican II loosened discipline.
See my link there USED TO BE effective punishment.
Martin Luther complained about it, five hundred years ago.
I know it was wrong to say all priests were homosexuals, but I suspect he, or one of his brothers, had had some bad experiences as boys. I don't know that for a fact, neither he nor any of my great uncles would ever talk about it futher. But, they were all very, very wary of priests.
Look at the statistics. I have. There was a massive upward spike of this problem with priests ordained after Vatican II though the mid eighties. Fortunately, those perverts will soon be gone from our church.
This may or may not have been the case. I'm sure there was a background level of SSAD afflicted priests all along, but the average over the last 2 millenium is a fraction of the average over the last 4 decades.
I've talked to every older priest I've met over the last two years about this, and they all concur that effeminate men were mercilessly weeded out of the seminaries and, when suspected of active homosexual behavior after ordination, were either quietly removed from the priesthood, or sent away to a monastery where they had no contact with teenage boys.
That is the difference: the numbers are far greater now than they were then, homos have actively infiltrated the priesthood in the last 40 years, and their homo peers have aided and abbetted that infiltration, leading to far more homos in the priesthood now than probably at any time in the history of Christianity.
Coupled with the fact that all discipline has broken down, we have the crisis now that is simply unparalleled in scope in the entire history of the Church.
Well one of the popes said... " give me a child till the age of five and he'll be catholic for life"
And the Boy Scouts, especially. In my father's lifetime of working for them as a professional, he did a whole lot of ejecting those of the wrong sexual agenda.
And May God Bless his Soul.
They might be afraid at this point How many would go to Boston to be married......
Trading one problem for others like divorce, adultery, etc.
"Coupled with the fact that all discipline has broken down, we have the crisis now that is simply unparalleled in scope in the entire history of the Church."
It's only through discipline that the Church can return to its basic mission of Christianity. After all Christianity, as a religion in its most basic form, is a discipline founded on a belief.
I appreciate your posts on this matter.
Sorry Sink, but that point we all agree upon.
Maybe not to the extent we've seen in the last 30 years,
THAT is the point. The LA Times would like you to believe that it has ALWAYS been this bad. There may have been isolated areas in isolated periods of decay and laxity where it approached the levels now seen.
But this wholesale acceptance and promotion of homos among the priesthood, as well as wholesale abandonment of Church discipline, has ONLY occurred over the past 40 or 50 years.
Don't let the mainstream media use you in trying to pull off this current deceit. They WANT the world to believe "its always been this bad." It has not. The current crisis has NEVER been a worldwide systemic crisis as it has been the last 40 years.
Anyone who could attest to the perversity prior to the mid-1950s is over 70 or dead.
The height of the problem in the last 30 years does not mean that there was not some level, more or less, of the same problem throughout the recent history of the Church.
An all-male profession is going to attract those who would molest male children.
Interesting. Thanks for the post, history.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.