Another price of clerical sexual abuse

Roman Catholic author Peter Steinfels reminds us at dotCommonWeal that in his book, A People Adrift:

I warned that the Catholic church in the U.S. faced “thoroughgoing transformation or irreversible decline.” Yes, the gates of hell will not prevail but that did not guarantee the church’s flourishing or even existence in any given time or place.

He feels The Atlantic's Ross Douthat has made the same point "even more bluntly."

Douthat does not say the Roman Catholic Church is finished. Instead he writes:

But if the Church isn’t finished, period, it can still be finished for certain people, in certain contexts, in certain times. And so it is in this case: for millions in Europe and America, Catholicism is probably permanently associated with sexual scandal, rather than the gospel of Jesus Christ. And as in many previous dark chapters in the Church’s history, the leaders entrusted with that gospel have nobody to blame but themselves.

Not that Roman Catholic clergy are alone amid the rising waters and scrabble of feet abandoning ship.

The Southern Baptist Convention, just for example, continues year after year to resist necessarily forceful action against clerical sexual abuse.

Pope seeks (somewhat like Southern Baptists) 'renewed evangelization'

The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) is not alone in its quest for a Great Commission Resurgence, or something somewhat similar:

Pope Benedict XVI announced he is establishing a pontifical council for new evangelization to find ways "to re-propose the perennial truth of the Gospel" in regions where secularism is smothering church practice.

. . .

"I have decided to create a new organism, in the form of a pontifical council, with the principal task of promoting a renewed evangelization in the countries where the first proclamation of faith has already resounded and where there are churches of ancient foundation present, but which are living through a progressive secularization of society and a kind of 'eclipse of the sense of God,'" he said.

No church planting required, reversing secularization is only in part of matter of reversing or at least slowing the decline in church membership and attendance in countries like Austria, Belgium and Germany. Yet as Philip Jenkins recently pointed out in The Christian Century, it is a battle with many fronts, including replenishing the depleting ranks of the priesthood:

Particularly in Western Europe, Catholic countries have been becoming steadily more secular for at least a generation, quite independent of any claims of priestly deviance. In no sense is European religion dying — just witness the continuing popularity of pilgrimage and other popular devotions — but loyalty to the institutional church has weakened disastrously. Rates of mass attendance have declined steeply, as have the numbers of those admitting even notional adherence to the church. Today, fewer than half of French people claim a Catholic identity. The number of priestly vocations has been in free fall since the 1960s, leaving many seminaries perhaps a quarter as full as they were in the time of Pope John XXIII.

Failure of atavistic movements like the SBC's GCR and the pope's pontifical council for new evangelization is probably foreordained by the degree to which the secularization they attack is embedded in the cultures to which they speak. Again, as Jenkins observes regarding secularization and the Roman Catholic Church:

One gauge of transformed Catholic attitudes has been the sharp drop in fertility rates and family size. Since the 1970s women increasingly pursued careers and higher education, and the use of contraception spread rapidly, despite stern church disapproval. Fertility rates plummeted, such that Spain and Italy today have among the lowest fertility rates in the world, far below the level needed for population replacement. Catholic Germany stands about the same level. German sociologist Ulrich Beck notes wryly that in Western Europe today, the closer a woman lives to the pope, the fewer children she has. Ireland's fertility rate today is less than half what it was in 1970.

There is no reason a couple with few or no children should not be fervently pious. But the trend away from large families reflects broader social changes. A society in which women have more economic autonomy is less likely to accept traditional church teachings on moral and sexual issues. The resulting conflicts have steadily pushed back the scope of church involvement in public life. Abortion became legal in Italy in 1978 and in Spain in 1985. The Irish church suffered a historic defeat in 1997 when a referendum narrowly allowed the possibility of divorce. Today, across Catholic Europe, same-sex marriage is the main moral battlefield—with Spain in the vanguard of radical secularism and sexual liberation. The Catholic Church struggles to present its views to a society suspicious of institutional and traditional authority of any kind and quite accustomed to ideas of gender equality, sexual freedom and sexual difference.

Austrians would ordain married men and women as Catholic priests

A telephone survey of 500 Austrian parish priests found 79 per cent support allowing married men to be ordained, and 51 per cent think women should be allowed to become priests.

Commissioned by ORF (Österreichischer Rundfunk: "Austrian Broadcasting"), 51 per cent said the Vatican does a poor job of handling sexual abuse cases.

A survey earlier this month of 406 Austrian Catholic priests by researchers from Kepler University in the Upper Austrian city of Linz found that more than half supported putting an end to celebacy.

Austrians in general support harsher reform, according to the Viennese public opinion agency Karmasin. They reported that "57 per cent of the 500-odd Austrians they interviewed were of the opinion Pope Benedict XVI should resign amid the wave of alleged sex abuse incidents across Europe were there a rule that enabled him to do so."

Their call for reform isn't toothless. Like Americans, Austrians have been leaving the Roman Catholic Church in droves:

Earlier this week, the head of the Vienna archdiocese's church tax office estimated that up to 80,000 of Austria's roughly 5.5 million Catholics could leave the church this year — a new record. Last year alone, 53,216 people formally had their names removed from church registries, a 31 percent increase compared to 40,654 in 2008.

Adding married men and women to the ranks of candidate priests could find doctrinal acceptance after the practical necessity has departed.

Re Belgium, the pope has lit some fires

Other fires were lit by incandescent papal response to Thursday's daylong Belgian police raids.

Mark Silk saw evidence that "the wheels are coming off the popemobile," while groups representing those abused by Catholic clergy were themselves outraged.

Neither was quite as blunt as Fr. Rik Deville, 65, interviewed by the Italian newspaper La Stampa interviewed Devillèon June 27. He was, for example, unimpressed by the Adriaenssens Commission, which resigned en masse to protest the Belgian police action:

The problem was its connection with the Archdiocese, and the absence of either a lay component internally or a connection with the civil authorities. I always hoped that a truly independent commission would be formed, an organism whose objective was to help justice take its course. That must be the way. It’s not up to the church to decide who violated the law and who should be punished.

As for whether "the plague of sexual abuse by clergy a common evil?"

It happens everywhere, believe me. Belgium believed itself to be an exception because no case ever came to light. Yet as early as 1994, I had collected 82 accusations. The victims wanted to be heard by the church, they wanted to break the curse. It’s been useless, at least up to now.

Perhaps the most shocking allegation came from the Belgian right, via Dr. Alexandra Colen, MP. She is a member of the Belgian House of Representatives and wrote in The Brussels Journal of a catechism textbook, Roeach. She alleges:

The editors of Roeach were Prof. Jef Bulckens of the Catholic University of Leuven and Prof. Frans Lefevre of the Seminary of Bruges. The textbook contained a drawing which showed a naked baby girl saying: “Stroking my pussy makes me feel groovy,” “I like to take my knickers off with friends,” “I want to be in the room when mum and dad have sex.” The drawing also shows a naked little boy and girl that are “playing doctor” and the little boy says: “Look, my willy is big.”

When the wheels come off, the vehicle may eventually be found deep in the weeds. The question was and remains, how deep?

Top British Catholic rejects Cardinal Bertone's homosexual/pedophilia claim

Father Marcus Stock, the general secretary of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, in a remarkable departure from church protocol, rebutted Cardinal Tarcisio Berton's claims, saying Thursday that research shows child sex abuse is "not a question" of sexual orientation.

Cardinal Bertone's homosexuality/pedophilia myth

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican's secretary of state, had it exactly wrong when he asserted Monday that psychologists have shown "that there is a relationship between homosexuality and paedophilia."

Joe Kort, a psychotherapist and gay and lesbian studies adjunct professor at Wayne State University wrote in Psychology Today:

One frequently quoted researchers on the topic of homosexuality and child molestation, Gregory Herek, a research psychologist at the University of California, defines pedophilia as "a psychosexual disorder characterized by a preference for prepubescent children as sexual partners, which may or may not be acted upon." He defines child sexual abuse as "actual sexual contact between an adult and someone who has not reached the legal age of consent." Not all pedophiles actually molest children, he points out. A pedophile may be attracted to children, but never actually engage in sexual contact with them. Quite often, pedophiles never develop a sexual orientation toward other adults.

Herek points out that child molestation and child sexual abuse refer to "actions," without implying any "particular psychological makeup or motive on the part of the perpetrator." In other words, not all incidents of child sexual abuse are perpetrated by pedophiles. Pedophilia can be viewed as a kind of sexual fetish, wherein the person requires the mental image of a child--not necessarily a flesh-and-blood child--to achieve sexual gratification. Rarely does a pedophile experience sexual desire for adults of either gender. They usually don't identify as homosexual - the majority identify as heterosexual, even those who abuse children of the same gender.

Herek has addressed the issue directly writing in Facts About Homosexuality and Child Molestation:

In recent years, antigay activists have routinely asserted that gay people are child molesters. This argument was often made in debates about the Boy Scouts of America's policy to exclude gay scouts and scoutmasters. More recently, in the wake of Rep. Mark Foley's resignation from the US House of Representatives in 2006, antigay activists and their supporters seized on the scandal to revive this canard.

It has also been raised in connection with scandals about the Catholic church's attempts to cover up the abuse of young males by priests. Indeed, the Vatican's early response to the 2002 revelations of widespread Church cover-ups of sexual abuse by priests was to declare that gay men should not be ordained.

Cardinal Bertone is not only wrong but also fostering an invidious myth which in testament to the wisdom of the average American, has fallen into disfavor in this countryl. As Herek explained:

The number of Americans who believe the myth that gay people are child molesters has declined substantially. In a 1970 national survey, more than 70% of respondents agreed with the assertions that "Homosexuals are dangerous as teachers or youth leaders because they try to get sexually involved with children" or that "Homosexuals try to play sexually with children if they cannot get an adult partner."

By contrast, in a 1999 national poll, the belief that most gay men are likely to molest or abuse children was endorsed by only 19% of heterosexual men and 10% of heterosexual women. Even fewer – 9% of men and 6% of women – regarded most lesbians as child molesters.

Consistent with these findings, Gallup polls have found that an increasing number of Americans would allow gay people to be elementary school teachers. For example, the proportion was 54% in 2005, compared to 27% in 1977.

The degree to which the church's problems and the victims' pain are made worse by celibacy is at worst unclear.

It is clear that by peddling an invidious myth in an attempt to somehow defuse the sexual scandal in which the Roman Catholic Church is awash, Cardinal Bertone has brought additional dishonor on all involved.

Arrest the pope? Not exactly

That Richard Dawkins/Christopher Hitchens arrest-the-pope campaign we referred to earler was, Dawkins suggestes, not altogether as advertised. Dawkins writes:

Needless to say, I did NOT say "I will arrest Pope Benedict XVI" or anything so personally grandiloquent. You have to remember that The Sunday Times is a Murdoch newspaper, and that all newspapers follow the odd custom of entrusting headlines to a sub-editor, not the author of the article itself.

What I DID say to Marc Horne when he telephoned me out of the blue, and I repeat it here, is that I am whole-heartedly behind the initiative by Geoffrey Robertson and Mark Stephens to mount a legal challenge to the Pope's proposed visit to Britain. Beyond that, I declined to comment to Marc Horme, other than to refer him to my 'Ratzinger is the Perfect Pope' article.

[H/T: Andrew Sullivan]

Statute of limitations on child sex abuse (the pain doesn't stop)?

Vatican guidelines of clerical sex abuse at last clearly require church-wide obedience to civil law, the New York Times reported today, while Connecticut bishops fight to limit the coverage of that civil law.

In Canada, there is no statute of limitations after which civil or criminal liability expires. As Child Abuse Effects explains:

When it comes to child abuse, there is no statute of limitations in Canada. Whether the child abuse occurred 5 minutes ago, 5 weeks ago, 5 or 50 years ago, an offender can still be charged. Nowhere is the latter more evident than with our Aboriginal people: more than 7,000 lawsuits have been filed against the Canadian Federal Government claiming sexual, physical and cultural abuse suffered at Residential Schools.

Connecticut bishops don't want their state to emulate Canada, out of concern for the church as a financial entity. As NBC Connecticut reported, "Church officials say it could have devastating financial effects and could result in claims that are more than 50-years old which would be impossible to defend in court. Currently, victims have until their 48th birthday to file lawsuits."

Impossible to defend? No. The burden of proof cuts both ways. So as Mark Silk observed with considerable irony, we're left with the money bishops still don't want to spend healing victims.

Hear one victim

Arthur Budzinski, one of the victims of the Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy, describes the pain of having been abused as a youth at a school for the deaf in Wisconsin:

Deist and cradle Catholic welcomes 'arrest the pope' campaign

Deist and cradle Catholic Libby Purves welcomes the Richard Dawkins/Christopher Hitchens arrest-the-pope campaign. "Not just because of what bad priests did and bad bishops hid," Purves writes:

What troubles me even more is that in doing this, church authorities repeatedly dragged other people into collusion and thus into what — in more convenient circumstances — they themselves would call sin. Young victims, particularly of sexual crimes, badly need to know that they are absolutely accepted as innocents betrayed: the crime is not their burden and does not define them. One of the ways in which societies achieve this is by openly punishing the perpetrator. Too often, that didn’t happen. In some of the most infamous Irish cases the children who suffered were sworn to secrecy, with all the dusty, incense-smelling, habit-rustling impressiveness of canonical process. They were made to collaborate in the shame, by men round whose necks hung the cross they had been taught to revere.

Read the entire piece here.

Pope Paul VI Knew Five Decades Ago

The correct and authoritative recommendation was made in an Aug. 27, 1963 letter to then-Pope Paul VI from the head of the New Mexico-based Servants of the Holy Paraclete, which was founded to treat priests dealing with challenges such as alcoholism, substance abuse and sexuality. The Rev. Gerald M.C. Fitzgerald recommended to the pope that pedophile priests be removed from the ministry.

Forever.

Indeed, he later developed a plan for isolating such priests on an island, where they could live out their lives in some dignity without harming others.

Anthony DeMarco, a plaintiff attorney in Los Angeles, released the letter Wednesday. It was obtained by plaintiffs in Kentucky who are attempting to sue the Vatican for negligence in allegedly failing to alert police or the public about priests who molested children.

Even if Tod Tamberg, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, is correct in arguing that the pope probably never saw the letter, it is clear that the letter gives written form to ideas that Pope Paul VI and Fitzgerald had discussed when they met. At the time Fitzgerald had two decades' experience working with problem priests and warned against leaving sexually abusive priests in the ministry.

The letter to Pope Paul VI was not the only one Fitzgerald wrote to church officials. In 1957, Fitzgerald wrote to Archbishop Edwin V. Byrne of Santa Fe, his ecclesiastical sponsor and co-founder of the Paracletes:

“May I beg your Excellency to concur and approve of what I consider a very vital decision on our part - that we will not offer hospitality to men who have seduced or attempted to seduce little boys or girls. These men Your Excellency are devils and the wrath of God is upon them and if I were a bishops I would tremble when I failed to report them to Rome for involuntary laicization. ... It is for this class of rattlesnake I have always wished the island retreat - but even an island is too good for these vipers of whom the Gentle master said - it were better they had not been born - this is an indirect way of saying damned, is it not? When I see the Holy Father I am going to speak of this class to his Holiness.”

DeMarco said, "It [the letter to Pope Paul VI] shows without a shadow of a doubt that ... how pervasive the problem was was communicated to the pope. He was able to share with him their knowledge of how pervasive this problems was, how destructive this problem was."

Whether plaintiffs in this case are successful in their effort to bring action directly against the Pope or not, the days of persuasive basic denial are over.

The letter tells us that the well-documented recommendations of the Roman Catholic Church's expert on such matters were communicated directly to then-Pope Paul VI almost five decades ago

Had those recommendations been heeded, so much of the devastation brought to the lives of the young by serial clerical abusers would never have occurred at all. Victims known and unknown, counted and uncounted, would have had real childhoods and would have grown up whole.

One priest speaking 'the truth to power'

The Rev. Kenneth Lasch, JCD is a retired Catholic Priest, trained in canonical law. Ruminating on what happened to Jeremiah when "spoke to the religious and political leaders of his age without equivocation," Lasch wrote on March 26:

It’s curious to me that our Church hierarchy that has taken such a prophetic stand for life is so reluctant to listen to the prophets that have been addressing another life issue – the abuse of minors and vulnerable adults by priests and even bishops. I am referring not only to sexual abuse but to physical and psychological abuse. As clear and explicit as the Holy Father has been on the rights of the unborn, why does he allow himself to be protected behind a wall of silence or prevarication and equivocation by those who surround him. Knowing what I know about how the Vatican system works, there is an inconsistency between the moral edicts of every kind it issues and its inability to hold itself accountable to the same moral standards and principles as they pertain to the inner workings of the Church. It is very disheartening indeed. The Pope’s credibility has not been enhanced and it will continue to decline until the full truth is exposed.

. . .

The Pope’s apology during his visit to the United States rang hallow and his latest apology is no better.

Jeremiah was beaten, put in stocks, thrown into a cistern and imprisoned because he continued to "speak the truth to power."

Jeremiah was still among Lasch's concerns on March 27 when he wrote:

There is an ancient axiom that predates the reformation and is as poignant now as it was when it was first spoken: “Ecclesia semper reformanda est!” – The church is always in need of reform – from the top to the bottom. And if it doesn’t change from the top down, it will change from the bottom up. In the words of my dear mom, “Mark my words!”

In his complex Palm Sunday message about denial, Lasch wrote:

Even the Church can slip into denial about it’s own need for reform from the top to the bottom. Years ago when the news of the sexual scandal broke in this county, blame was assigned to messengers rather than face the truth of mismanagement and cover-ups.

We were led to Lasch after encountering Catholic League President Bill Donohue's use of false comparisons and red herrings to argue that the real problem is, somehow, criticism of the church.

Is it not cautionary that failures of church self-criticism seem to please Richard Dawkins? While simultaneously recognized by decidedly Christian Rod Dreher as "discrediting the authority of the church"?

[H/T: Andrew Sullivan]

Irish plan sweeping action against Catholic clergy sex abuse

Child's shoe held aloft as a symbol of protest when more than 10,000 people took to the streets in Dublin in May to protest the Catholic Church child-abuse scandal.

The four bishops named in the Murphy report have been given an ultimatum by Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin, says Irish Central: Resign or be fired by the Vatican in the New Year. The four are Bishop Raymond Field, Bishop Eamon Walsh, Bishop Martin Drennan and Bishop Jim Moriarty. Bishop Donal Murray of Limerick has already been forced out.

In response to public anger over the revelations of massive, systematically concealed Catholic clerical sexual abuse, the Government plans to order a nationwide investigation [earlier post] into child sex abuse in the Irish Catholic Church, The Irish Independent reports:

A massive investigation into clerical child abuse in all 26 Catholic dioceses is to begin shortly after every bishop in the State last week received an ultimatum to provide the Health Service Executive (HSE) with a complete list of hundreds of new complaints.

Pope downplays importance of interfaith dialogue, maybe

"Batholics in Bohemia, or when your pastor enquires of you" is a Czeck cartoon which was inspired by Tony Cartledge's May 20, 2005, blog "Baptists or Batholics?"

I am informed that the caption translates, "Did you vote for Christian democratic party, Civic democratic party or social democrats? According to the new SBC instruction no. 214/09 we cannot accept liberal voters."

A few days after a Baptist minister called the Roman Catholic Church a cult comes word that the pope himself is sending mixed signals about the worth of interfaith dialogue.

Pope Benedict XVI wrote in a letter to an author that “an interreligious dialogue in the strict sense of the word is not possible” according to a report in the New York Times. In theological terms, the pope said, “a true dialogue is not possible without putting one’s faith in parentheses.”

The news comes after Jim Smyrl, the executive pastor of education at the First Baptist Church of Jacksonville, called the Catholic Church a "cult" in one of his church’s official blogs.

But it’s important to note that the pope also said “intercultural dialogue which deepens the cultural consequences of basic religious ideas” is important and called for confronting “in a public forum the cultural consequences of basic religious decisions.” A Vatican spokesman seemed to walk back the pope’s comments even further, saying the comments were not meant to cast doubt on the Vatican’s many continuing interreligious dialogues.

We expect some good would result if Jim Smyrl had an audience with the pope.

Pastor Smyrl is, after all, a Batholic, is he not?

The Roman Catholic Cult?

Southern Baptists are seldom shy about calling other religious groups cults. The Southern Baptist Convention’s North American Mission Board even has an apologetics and interfaith web site with a section devoted to “New Religions and Cults.”

A minister at a prominent Southern Baptist church in Florida has taken the label to a new height, or perhaps we should say a new low in declaring the Catholic Church to be a cult. Jim Smyrl, the executive pastor of education at the First Baptist Church of Jacksonville, made the accusation on one the church’s official blogs.

Smyrl says he expects to be questioned about his stance, but that the Bible and history are on his side. He compares his position to strong stands made by John Wycliffe, Martin Luther and others.

Smyrl goes on to say he wants to “ultimately see a reformation of the Catholic Church that is not just a schism but a harvest of Catholics coming to Christ alone for salvation.”

In a way, Smyrl’s position might be seen as the next logical step for Southern Baptists.

For years, some Southern Baptists have given out tracts stressing the need for Catholics to be saved. And in a Baptist Press article about the similarities and differences between the two groups, a Southern Baptist “interfaith coordinator” tells how Baptists can “share the Gospel – as they know it” with Catholics.

Smyrl’s blog can also be seen as a departure from a Baptist willingness to dialogue with Catholics.

The Southern Baptist Convention and the Roman Catholic Church had 30 years of official doctrinal talks until the SBC broke them off in 2001. The Baptist World Alliance has continued discussions with the latest talks being in December of last year when a group of Baptists met the Pope.

It's our view that such civil discussions are more productive than name calling.