Vatican: U.S. Catholic Sex Scandal Was Overstated

Washington Post ^ | Friday, October 10, 2003; 4:16 PM | Reuters

[walrus954]

While I am a strong supporter of the Pope, I think that any time something like this happens and is covered up, it is not "overstated." The Vatican should be leading the charge to investigate this tragedy and punish those responsible.

[Conservative til I die]

He's equating horrific abuse with petty larcency. Disgusting.

Wow, you really missed the point.

He's not equating child abuse to theivery. He's saying that everywhere you go, in any institution, there are bad apples, but that doesn't mean the whole bunch is spoiled.

It's a really simple point, and I don't see how you could have missed it.

Substitute "drug abusers" or "wife beaters" or "muderers" for thieves and it's the same point.

[Domestic Church]

In our parish any Mom who wants to volunteer to help out with anything her kids are in now has to take some sort of sensitivity training (ie crime check etc)...the problem is with the priests and the bishops who covered up and now the Moms are targeted as being high risk. Oy Vey!

It's as if they are trying to implode parish life.

[sitetest]

Dear Domestic Church,

The Knights of Columbus has instituted a new policy that folks who help lead formal Council programs dealing with children must also have background checks.

Oh well.


sitetest

[WhistlingPastTheGraveyard]

They converged on this scandal like famished vultures, seeking to pick the bones of what they hoped was the dying Catholic Church. They didn't care a whit about the general problem of pederasty and homosexual rape of children in this country...

I'm still waiting for that expose on sex abuse in public schools and universities.

The media's anti-Christian agenda is evident, as always. But the Catholic Church sure made this one easy for them.

[tubavil]

The coverup continues. Sickening.

[grania]

Even one child being killed by firearms is too many.

It is. And you know what? If an organization that people trusted with the well-being of children was responsible and covered things up, I'd be outraged.

[Drango]

What I care about is the cover-up, obfuscation, payoffs and dismissive attitudes.

BINGO

Moving known sex perverts from church to church. Enabling repeat offenders to pry on new children. Shame on the Vatican. Shame.

[Fran B]

I have a victim of this type of abuse in my family, and I know of at least one other from the Catholic High School in West Palm Beach, Florida. It is much more common than I ever thought! To view a list of priests who are/were abusers, go to www.SurvivorsFirst.org.

[NYer]

Basically, the reason for celibacy is spiritual, not just for the sake of of doing it.

Conservative has provided an excellent response. The historical perspective on this comes from www.rpinet.com ....

Just some more info on celibacy.

By itself, a decision to remain single could mean very different things (great selfishness, great generosity or inability to choose a spouse). In Matthew 19:12, Jesus praises a celibacy practiced "for the sake of the Kingdon." Optional, lifelong celibacy for men became more common with Egypt's desert hermits in the third century. By the year 303, the Council of Elvira (southern Spain) had prohibited sexual intercourse between a married priest and his wife. By the mid-fourth century, marriage after ordination started to be prohibited.

There are various reasons - influence of cultic purity laws for Old Testament priests, possible conflict over inheriting Church property, the teaching of Jesus cited above and St.Paul's teaching on celibacy (1Corinthians 7:32-35). The Orthodox Churches and Eastern Catholic Churches ordain married men as priests but select bishops from monks who have already made a lifelong promise of celibacy. A married priest who becomes a widower may not remarry.

The Second Lateran Council (1139) made celibacy mandatory for future priests in the Western (Roman) Church.

In the last 40 years the Catholic Chruch has allowed some married, Protestant ministers to be ordained priests after they became Catholics. Most of these priests are not in fulltime parish ministry.

In 1967 through his encyclical On Priestly Celibacy, Pope Paul VI reaffirmed the Catholic Church's rule about this.Section 1579 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church says that "accepted with a joyous heart celibacy radianty proclains the Reign of God." A gospel-based celibacy does not devalue marriage; it is another way of serving the Lord. What matters most for both vowed celibates and married people is generous faithfulness.

[NYer]

To view a list of priests who are/were abusers, go to www.SurvivorsFirst.org.

I am sorry to hear of your family member. It is an incidiousness that is being addressed; unfortunately too late for the victim in your family.

The following web site track ALL reported abuses across the US. It is definitely worth a visit.

CLERGY ABUSE TRACKER

[Domestic Church]

That's crazy too. It's the Bishops and priests who caused this scandal and instead of cleaning house they are spinning words and saddling all the laity with clearance checks. They are pointing the finger at us! That is duplicitous.

[Destro]

So why is it ok for "Eastern Catholic" clergy to enter to ordain married men but not for a Western Catholic? Double standard. If it is allowable for one it should be allowable for all. Better to be a Ukranian than an Irishman in the Catholic clergy!

[SuziQ]

From personal knowlege, I've known more priests who were perverts and unfit to lead any church than those I .... hmm, was going to say respect but can't think of a single one.

I have no idea where you are from, but I've only known one priest in my whole life who was ever accused of improprieties, and it was of teenage boys. It came out last year, but had apparently happened in the 80's.

I have lived in 5 states, and have belonged to at least 7 parishes. In addition to the priests in those parishes, I've known many more having been introduced to them by my brother-in-law who is also a priest. So out of about 100 priests, only one of them has been allegedly a molester. That may not be the average, but I'm betting it's pretty close.

People may still be angry at the Church for 'covering up' the molestations and transferring priests from the 60's to the 80's, but as Crusader said, the parents of these children could have filed criminal charges AT ANY TIME! So it is not only the Church that has to answer for these cases being dragged out. The parents, law enforcement officers, psychological and counseling professionals and the justice system were also at fault. If these priests had been tried and put in jail when they were found to be not 'cured' by the counseling, there would have been many fewer molestations.

[RaceBannon]

That haters?

If the RCC didnt do this to themselves, there would be no reason to point it out.

It is the failure of Roman Catholics to take pitchforks and torches to the churches and Priests and Bishops that saddens me. These perverts were allowed to do this to your children, and the VATICAN says it is just a minor thing.

[my_pointy_head_is_sharp]

"Sodano...is second only to the Pope in the Vatican hierarchy"

"It is fair to condemn evil, but one must keep it in proportion," said Sodano

Asked if there might have been a plot to discredit the Church, he said: "We don't have evidence of this but I know that many people have thought this."

It seems to me that there might be evidence to discredit the Pope. Every time the "Vatican" speaks, it is not necessarily the Pope, but more likely his underlings, who, by their own short-sightedness [I'm being generous here], end up smearing the Pope. This is VERY unfortunate.

They have to know that, as representatives of the Vatican, what THEY say can be misinterpreted as having been said by the Pope.

[Truth666]

What would those numbers be if the likes of Cardinal Law and his ignominious predecessors had put a stop to it after the first offense?? Or even the second or third offense?? How many hundreds of children would have been saved if the cardinals, in these cases, had acted like Catholics instead of like satanists?
Law is still a cardinal, now serving at the Vatican. He will vote to elect the new Pope.
Who is worst : Law or the ones that handled the case this way ?

[codder too]

Add two more last week. One in Falmouth Mass (Woodshole) and one in Mount Union Pa.

[SuziQ]

VATICAN says it is just a minor thing.

The Vatican said no such thing. Sodano was simply stating that the media spent a lot of time on a relatively small number of molestation cases in order to make it seem like there were many more cases than there actually were. The media did this with access to all the facts, but declined to use them because the facts didn't comply with their desire to put the Church in the worst possible light. When they did this, they put EVERY SINGLE PRIEST under suspicion, and Sodano is saying that this was not fair, and I agree!

If a high school teacher is caught molesting a student and is sent to another school without the school knowing about it, but it is later found out, should we suspect ALL teachers? No! We should be rightly angry with the administration that let it slide, but again, I would ask, where was law enforcement, where was the justice system?

The most blatant evidence that the media beat the drums on this in order to harm the Church is that they CONTINUE to ignore the fact that most of these cases involved pre-teen and teenage boys, and was more homosexual in nature. They will do nothing to harm their favorite minorities; but they'll do what they can to reduce the credibility of anyone who DOES speak out against the homosexual lobby. The Boston Globe salivated at the chance to do as much harm as possible to the one institution which stands against most of what the editors stand FOR. The Boston Globe is massively hypocrital in this regard. While it excoriates the Church for the heinousness of these crimes against children and young men, it also supports NAMBLA, the National Man-Boy Love Association which seeks to lower the age of consent for sex between adults and children. NAMBLA believes that introducing children and young adults to homosexuality is a freeing experience. Now how can the Globe jive that attitude with their outrage at what these priests did?

DO NOT GET ME WRONG!! I believe any priest who has molested a child or teenager should be arrested, tried, and put in jail for a very long time!! I am just sick of the assumption that most priests must be doing this because there is so much press coverage about it.

[Desdemona]

While I am a strong supporter of the Pope, I think that any time something like this happens and is covered up, it is not "overstated."

Part of the problem here is a misunderstanding of exactly how much power the pope actually has in this case. The pope is really just one of the bishops. They all have the same powers. In the past, some popes have abused the office as far as papal bulls of excommunication are concerned, but JPII really hasn't. I agree that the rebuke and calling on the carpet should have been public, but that's not the way the church works. The truth is, the bishops submit resignations and the pope accepts them. It should be a matter of conscience. They just don't pull bishops out of office. We've had a continual problem of the bishops ignoring Rome on a variety of things, and the way this was handled was one of them. If a cover-up can be prosecuted, then it should be done, but I'm not sure that any bishops have been charged with it.

As far as excommunication goes, they've done it to themselves and they will have to answer to God and His Son in the end. In the secular world that seems to be small comfort, but truthfully, that is one of the basic tenets of the faith.