From America
Big Money vs Big Ideas
Republicans have to make a choice between Romney’s moderate politics and Gingrich’s extravagant idea
The Republicans: Veer Right and Right Again
The electoral process and the Tea Party risk jeopardising the Republican bid for the White House
The Silly Season
This must be a confusing time for those in Europe and around the world to try to figure out what America is up to.
Meat or Veg?
Main Content
From America: Pathology & Power
I recall Catholic priests as older men, often jowly and red-faced, who paid much more attention to adults than to us kids.
They drove black cars and always seemed to be alone.
With the exception of hearing our confessions, we seldom crossed their path. It was the nuns who taught and disciplined us, who spent each day in the trenches with us. The priests came into the school, like distant uncles, to hand out report cards. Then, they left. On Sundays, they did run the show - saying the masses, standing outside the church as we filed out, greeting and thanking the laity for their support. They also handled the weddings, funerals, baptisms and confirmations. To me, their behavior, and purpose, seemed perfectly normal.
Yet, the horrible tales of priests - in this country and abroad - who preyed on and molested the most vulnerable of their congregations won’t go away. Nor will the tales of superiors who knowingly shuffled them from one parish to another only to continue their crimes. That’s the part impossible to comprehend; the hierarchical indifference. What should one conclude? That these were the actions of an imperious and unconscionable hierarchy which deliberately ruined lives in the name of saving face? Were they the actions of those who also had molested children? Had they once been molested?
Several of those high-profile superiors have now tendered their resignations. New sexual abuse reporting guidelines have been established - along with a panel appointed by Pope Benedict XVI to investigate abuses in Ireland. Some priests have been defrocked and jailed for their offenses. The sexual histories and preferences of those wishing to enter seminaries are being scrutinized. All of this appears to be substantive proof that the Church, this time, is intent on preventing their priests from systematically molesting children. For too long, the core of the hierarchy’s response had seemed inaccessible, and platitudinal - stressing forgiveness, repentance, and penitence. And, indifference. Cash settlements by Catholic dioceses terminate lawsuits. Where does the damage go?
Devoted Catholics have done, and continue to do, enormous good for others. That selfless devotion travels and tends to some of the most ravaged individuals and locations on this earth. It is inspiring. They work to ease the suffering of others. But their hierarchy failed them. Dr. Leslie Lothstein, Director of Clinical Psychology at the Institute of Living in Hartford, Connecticut, has treated hundreds of priests - some for sexual offences against children (pedophiles), others for sexual offenses against adolescents (ephebophilia). In an interview on National Public Radio, he said "In my experience, there were some people who were sent right back to work in youth ministries, and they often offended. There was also a subgroup of people that I saw in my private practice where they were sent back by their religious order to a foreign country, and within that country continued to molest children. And it was just horrible."
Why would grown men protect other grown men who molest children? Most adults inherently move to protect children when they are being harmed. It’s instinctual, reflexive. Why wouldn’t a Monsignor, a Bishop, or a Cardinal do the same? There are websites that tell us, the public, exactly where convicted sex offenders live in our neighborhoods. They exist because concerned, knowing, and responsible adults do their best to protect children and the community from those who pose a certain threat.
Some Catholic supporters have argued that a very small percentage of priests are actually pedophiles; that most of the victims of abuse are teenagers who have been the targets of homosexual or bisexual priests. Does that information make anyone, in any way, feel better about this? Who does that console? One wishes that Catholic leaders, who have been immersed in the scandal’s litigation, will devote equal time to a very public analysis of the pathology of the issue - along with a thorough review of the genesis of its cover-up. Maybe that is forthcoming. Without such analysis, people will make their own conclusions.