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Sexual and other abuse
by clergy: A "perfect panic"
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Overview:
This section deals mainly with sexual abuse of youths and younger children by
Roman Catholic clergy. Little information is available on the frequency of abuse
among clergy in other Christian denominations and in other religions.
What little hard information that is available seems to indicate that:
Pedophilia (sexual abuse by adults of pre-pubertal children) is lower
among Catholic clergy than among the general male population.
Hebephilia, a.k.a. ephebophilia, (the sexual abuse by adults of post-pubertal children) is much
more common among Catholic clergy than in the general population; it is a major concern.
Sexual abuse of children could probably be almost halved if women were
allowed to be ordained in the church.
Whenever detailed studies are made, massive levels of physical and sexual
abuse in church-run residential schools is uncovered.
An episode of "The Vortex" discussed the problem in the Catholic church:
Michael Voris of RealCatholicTV.com discussed the abuse of children in the
Catholic church. His talk is an interesting blend of accurate terminology, and
hatred of gays, lesbians and
liberals. His video makes for interesting viewing:
He correctly identifies the abuse as being motivated by abusive hebephilia,
not pedophilia as much of the secular media stated.
He blamed the child sex abuse problem on liberals in the church. He describes their goal
as to use the Catholic Church to advance the "homosexual agenda." Apparently
he believes that their agenda involves high levels of child abuse. That is an
interesting conclusion, which he does not support with facts.
He commented: "One by one, these bishops and priests who [had] rained down
spiritual terror on the church for decades are finally exiting the scene. In
their place are good bishops and holy priests who love the Church and the
faith." However, he still believes that the terrorist bishops and priests
are still in the majority.
Quotations, accurate and inaccurate:
"While the moral panic of Salem's witches may be over, an equally
pernicious panic continues to grow -- that of the pedophile priest."
Anne Hendershott. 1
"Nothing much can shock us in today's world, but in the past weeks
we've seen things, heard things, and read things that we never would have
dreamed of." Father Raymond Mann, St. Anthony Shrine, Boston, MA, on
Palm Sunday,
2002-MAR-24. 2
"The far right will tell you the reason we have this problem goes back
to Vatican II. We made too many reforms. They blame everything on the reforms.
The far left says the problem we have today is we didn't make enough reforms.
... Both sides greet the bad
news about the Catholic Church, particularly regarding matters sexual, as
good news because they feel vindicated."William Donohue, president of the Catholic League. 3
"We would be naive and dishonest were we to
say this is a Roman Catholic problem and has nothing to do with us because
we have married and female priests in our church. Sin and abusive behavior
know no ecclesial or other boundaries." Rt. Rev. William Persell,
Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago, Good Friday Sermon,
2002. 4
Further Information about crimes and settlements Part 1 Victim data; destruction of data;
financial settlements. Part 2: Other impacts on the church; keeping
documents secret.
Anne Hendershott, "A perfect panic," San Diego Union-Tribune,
2002-MAR-20, Page B-7. Professor Hendershott is a sociologist at the
University of San Diego. She is the author of "The Politics of
Deviance."
Jennifer Peter, "Abuse scandal shrouds beginning of Holy Week:
Catholics asked to take solace from Easter message of victory over evil,"
Associated Press, 2002-MAR-24. Published in Toronto Star, 2002-MAR-25,
Page A2.
"Bishop of Chicago warns that no church is
immune from scandal of clergy misconduct," Episcopal News Service,
2003-APR-04, at:
http://www.dfms.org/
Scott Simmie, "Victim abused by priest: 'Floodgates will open',"
The Toronto Star, 2002-MAR-24, at:
http://www.thestar.com
Resources:
BishopAccountability.orgmaintains a database of publicly accused
Roman Catholic priests in the U.S., sorted by state and diocese. See:
http://app.bishop-accountability.org/
Pointer.org "is a
non-profit school for journalists, focused on helping journalists get
better at what they do." They maintain a Clergy Abuse
Tracker at
http://www.poynter.org/ It consists mainly of
articles on clergy abuse extracted from newspapers and news services from
around the world. An amazing resource.
Reformation.com
maintains a list of hundreds of instances of alleged sexual molestation
scandals among Protestant denominations. As of 2002-SEP-3, these included
147 by Baptist ministers, 251 by other Fundamentalist / Evangelical
leaders, 140 by Episcopal, 38 by Lutheran, 46 by Methodist, 19 by
Presbyterian, and 198 by other church leaders. See:
http://www.reformation.com
The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests(SNAP)
"is a self-help organization of men and women who were sexually abused by
spiritual elders (Catholic priests, brothers, nuns, ministers, teachers,
etc)....SNAP was founded by Barbara Blaine of Chicago in 1991." It has
"several local chapters in the United States and Canada." See:
http://www.survivorsnetwork.org