At the recent vocations panel I attended at Hearts Aflame a question was put to the panel of priests and religious as to how they handle comments and harassment from the public over the sexual abuse scandals in the Church. The priest who answered said that in his experience it is actually us, every day normal parishioners, who cop the flack on this and no one has ever said anything to him about it. One of the beautiful Sisters of Life answered that all we can do is be polite and pray for the person.
It reminded me of a recent incident that happened to me and a fellow parishioner. We were selling raffle tickets, fundraising for an upcoming school event, at our local supermarket. We were approached by a man who asked us if we were a Catholic school. When we answered yes, he proceeded to give us his faith history. Apparently he’d been brought up Catholic and had even considered becoming a priest at one point.
The conversation was lively and entertaining until he suddenly said, “But I couldn’t be a priest because I don’t like little boys.” My friend and I were dumb-founded. I mean what do you say to that? The man left rather hurriedly when he realised we didn’t find his joke too funny. But I still look back on it and wonder what would have been the best response. Any advice?
The Church has done lot to get offending priests under control, or out. It has not yet done all it could, such as denying absolution to a priest or a member of a religious order who confessed child abuse before they had turned themselves in to the police.
It is not fair to satirise priests in the way the passer-by did, but if you think this is not the normal response in non-religious society when the words ‘Catholic priest’ are mentioned, you need to get out more.
The scandal has done terrible damage to the Church, and this reputation damage would be best managed by promoting, in the mainstream media, stories about priests doing good things. Try a Google search on “Catholic Priest” and see what pops up. Every molester story should be matched with a good story.
Explanations and excuses are not sensible strategies to restore reputation.
MaryandMartha,
Have been thinking about what response I would make had it been said to me … What I would like to have responded is maybe ” Fancy! God loves them … maybe God wants you to be one of the many good priests who spend their time working in God’s vinyard of souls and who pray , as we do ,for the souls of the comparitve few priests who you were aluding to … there are many more good priests than those who have offended or who maybe, still do … give it some thought anyway…. God Bless.”
Shalom,
Mrs Mac
Mary and Martha,
That is a hard one.
I would probably say, “We both know that’s not true” if the guy was making a joke, or a cynical comment, or a snide remark, – just for effect.
If I felt it was coming from some real wound, then I would probably remain silent…
I don’t know. It’s hard to know without being in the real situation; and often we don’t know what to say when something odd like that is said.
Sad times.
Werahiko, to my knowledge, the Church has no authority to impose a restriction on confession like that. She can’t do it. The reason is, that God doesn’t act like that in the dispensation of His mercy, and therefore the Church has no right to act like that when dispensing His mercy. God doesn’t make forgiveness of sins contingent on whether we make restitution. The desire to make restitution is part of true contrition, but God’s forgiveness being given to us does not depend upon it. God forgives us when we repent and are sorry for the sin committed, and then as a consequence of our sorrow and recognition of the wrong done, and in response to the gift God’s mercy, we may move to make some reparation towards others etc.
Confession is a special sacrament where we meet God in His infinite Mercy for our personal sins. The sacrament is not a political tool used (by the Church or the state) to bring about justice at the community/political level. A priest can suggest that a penitent make some reparation by admitting to something they have done which has caused great harm, and by going to the authorities; but the priest, the bishop, the pope, and the Church, has no authority to put such requirements and burdens upon penitents. That would make confession, no longer confession before infinite merciful love, but a type of mini court system when legal justice reigned.
JimmyG I would like to think that what you say is right. But Canon Law gives priests greater protection than abused children:
Can. 982 Whoever confesses to have denounced falsely an innocent confessor to ecclesiastical authority concerning the crime of solicitation to sin against the sixth commandment of the Decalogue is not to be absolved unless the person has first formally retracted the false denunciation and is prepared to repair damages if there are any.
I am just suggesting that children be protected in like fashion.
Werahiko,
Yes, interesting. I take your point.
Jimmy
Mrs Mac, I think your response is an excellent one. The offending priests are a small minority of the overall numbers of priests, most of whom work tirelessly in parishes and in the mission fields. I think that does need to be highlighted. Catholics should not be cowered by the offending of the few. That is the intention of the media of course to hobble the Church. To try and stop the Church from speaking out against immorality, etc. It is only now that we are starting to hear of the child abuse of many other people and groups not connected with the Church. A lot of this offending, can be put squarely at the door of the media and the entertainment industry who have overwhelmingly promoted free sex, free choice which has led to the sick society we have today, where now there are calls for sex between consenting children and adults to be lawful. Much the same argument that was put forward by the homosexual community to change the laws, and you can bet that many of the media who have carried out a witch hunt against the Church will promote this as a free rights issue.
Teresina, the reason why priests offending is more newsworthy than others’ is that the others did not take vows of celibacy and say they represented Christ. In congruity is one of the elements of news, and gossip. There is not intention by the media to ‘hobble’ the Church. Is there any evidence of the link you claim between promotion of freedom and priests’ offending?
Werahiko, the canon you refer to is in respect of a confessor and the confessor if found guilty (even if he has been falsely accused which is possible) is subject to:
Can. 1378 §2. The following incur a latae sententiae penalty of interdict or, if a cleric, a latae sententiae penalty of suspension:
…
Can. 1387 A priest who in the act, on the occasion, or under the pretext of confession solicits a penitent to sin against the sixth commandment of the Decalogue is to be punished, according to the gravity of the delict, by suspension, prohibitions, and privations; in graver cases he is to be dismissed from the clerical state.
According to Wikipedia:
Those under interdict or excommunication of any kind are forbidden to receive the sacraments, including the Eucharist,[2
Therefore, the canon you are referring to (982) is dealing with a situation where a penitent may have brought about the excommunication of an innocent confessor. Heinous crime though child abuse is, excommunication is a grave penalty.
On this topic, I wonder how many innocent priests have been unjustly accused by those seeking monetary gain, and how could an unjustly accused priest ever lose that stigma?
The canon you refer to is in respect of confession only and so I think JimmyG’s comments on “the dispensation of mercy” are correct. If the Church were to act in the way you suggest, by putting conditions on absolution, then probably none of us would receive absolution and few would go to confession at all.
Werahiko, any sexual abuse of children, whether by a Catholic priest or by their own father or relative is noteworthy. The abuse by a father of his own child is equally disgusting to society as that of a priest who breaks his vows.
Yes, common sense and logic should tell you that the rise in child sexual abuse, rape and often murder as a result, is due to an increasingly permissive society which has chucked out the 10 Commandments in favour of porn and sexually explicit material, lewd behaviour and low morals generally. Even the way young girls are dressed, adverts featuring naked children are an abuse of that child and an encouragement to the deviant in society, priest or otherwise. The media should be highlighting child abuse in all sections of society if it has a genuine desire to prevent it from happening.
Below is just a sample of the reporting of child sexual abuse that can be found on the net, and the figures are shocking, especially as it is acknowledged they are under-reported.
http://www.victimsofcrime.org/news-center/reporter-resources/child-sexual-abuse/child-sexual-abuse-statistics
Child Sexual Abuse Statistics
The prevalence of child sexual abuse is difficult to determine because it is often not reported; experts agree that the incidence is far greater than what is reported to authorities. CSA is also not uniformly defined, so statistics may vary. Statistics below represent some of the research done on child sexual abuse.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Children’s Bureau report Child Maltreatment 2010 found that 9.2% of victimized children were sexually assaulted (page 24).
Studies by David Finkelhor, Director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center, show that:
1 in 5 girls and 1 in 20 boys is a victim of child sexual abuse;
Self-report studies show that 20% of adult females and 5-10% of adult males recall a childhood sexual assault or sexual abuse incident;
During a one-year period in the U.S., 16% of youth ages 14 to 17 had been sexually victimized;
Over the course of their lifetime, 28% of U.S. youth ages 14 to 17 had been sexually victimized;
Children are most vulnerable to CSA between the ages of 7 and 13.
Werahiko,
We agree that there is a greater scandal with the abusing priest. He is supposed to represent Christ (as you say), and has made celibate choices and promises, and he uses that spiritual privilege and gift, for great evil against an innocent child. This is a great betrayal and a perversion of something holy. Perverting something sacred and using it for the diabolic, is worse than perverting something mundane and secular. It is worse than, say, a secular teacher doing it. I agree with you here. The perversion is worse, therefore the scandal is greater, for those who can be scandalized by such things.
For those who know wounded human nature, and know human weakness, and know about human darkness, when humans turn away from Christ and towards the flesh, pride, vanity, and sin, then it is not surprising that we end up with such perversions. Turning towards the flesh and allowing it to reign, will end in the most heinous of perversions, and sicknesses. The Bible is full of such examples.
However, I totally agree with Teresina that the media has targeted the Church because of her moral authority, which they don’t like, because they disagree with the Church’s moral positions.
They disagree with them because of their view on life. They think that any sexual orientation, or choice, or desire, should be allowed, and further, they should be approved of (except pedophilia and incest – at this stage), as long as one doesn’t harm others. It is a form of hedonism born from individualism, atheism (no spirit, only body and only chemicals), a lack of realism (not recognizing a nature to things), and libertarian approaches to life.
If they can give the impression that the Church’s most trusted ministers don’t live it, by highlighting the evils of a tiny minority (only a few of them) then they can “show” that it seems to be a sham, a trick, a thing used for manipulation and seduction, an office tended towards abuse and power. If that is true, then the celibate thing is just an “external show”, is un-liveable, requires some other outlet of sexuality, and tends to end up in inhuman behaviour such as child-abuse.
There is not an organised universal campaign, where the media has some internal agreement across the world and across its tentacles, controlled by some “one world government” group, to discredit the Church and cause it harm.
The people who control the media, at many levels, all stand within a similar philosophy on life (as already mentioned), which is opposed to what the Church stands for; and they like to use their medium to discredit the other side.
There is also the shock factor that the media love. It’s entertainment now to show everybody else’s sins. They can’t stand the Church mentioning sin and implying the consequences of sin, but they love to highlight everybody else’s falls and failings, even their own people. The media is a parasite, which will thrive on the life of some positive news story of the host (while it can), then suck the life of the host who gave them the story in the first place, when it discovers something negative in the host’s life. They will build up a hero through news coverage, then destroy the same hero a week later by highlighting their weakness. In that sense, the media employs tactics which are satanic. Satan works that way towards men and women in order to cause despair and abandonment of God.
The media likes to make the other side look ridiculous (whatever side that is), which for us, includes attacking our priests, and giving the impression that all our priests as abusers. By this the media “controls” a certain amount of public opinion on the Church.
Behind this is the devil of course, who at a spiritual level uses certain material tools to attack the Church because she represents Christ. The media is one such tool used by the devil to attack the spiritual authority of the Church, who is Christ Himself. By undermining her moral authority, the devil, by using the media, undermines reception in the world, of her spiritual authority, who is Christ. They undermine people’s openness to Jesus, by showing the weakness of the Church’s members.
In the long run, Jesus will use all this for greater good.
You probably won’t find scientific evidence of a “link” between the media and bad Church coverage; although somebody might have done some research somewhere. However, you will find ample examples of bad media coverage of the Church, irresponsible reporting, one-sidedness, and unbalanced reporting. You will find ample examples of opinion pieces written against the Church which demonstrate a lack of research and integrity.
Teresina: news-worthy, not note-worthy is what I was saying.
JimmyG: I think you over-state the media’s mis-reporting of the Church. Can you find opinion pieces of the type you describe on nzherald.co.nz, or stuff.co.nz? There church is largely ignored by news media because it does little that is new, and newsmedia is about new things. And the fact that the Church has no one (as far as I know) actively looking engaged in promotion in mainstream media may have something to do with the absence of good news stories.
Werahiko, any sexual abuse of children is NEWSWORTHY: there is always a victim who suffers regardless of who the perpetrator is. 1 in 5 girls and 1 in 20 boys victims of sexual abuse in the US is newsworthy to me but the news media and some people in society are only interested if it is a priest involved, which suggests to me they couldn’t care a toss about the victims at all. Their main aim is against the Catholic Church.
Werahiko, there are indeed links to a permissive behaviour in society and pedophilia. There is an interesting article in the Telegraph pointing to the radical left-wing who promoted, and still promotes, sexual freedom. And while pointing the finger at the Catholic Church the BBC was sitting on its own scandal (and how many more, I wonder) in the form of Jimmy Saville. Quite a number of entertainers, apart from Savile, have had charges laid against them for sexual activity with minors.
“Harriet Harman, the Opposition deputy leader, said the allegations that the late TV and radio presenter abused dozens of young boys and girls had “cast a stain” on the BBC and other trusted institutions.
But at the time Savile was at the height of his fame, Miss Harman was calling for the relaxation of the law on child pornography.
She was a leading light in the pressure group now known as Liberty, which advocated the lowering of the age of consent to 14.
The organisation, then run by the Health Secretary under Tony Blair, Patricia Hewitt, even counted among its affiliates a number of extreme pro-paedophilia groups whose leaders were later jailed.
It means that any independent public inquiry into the culture that allowed Savile to abuse children for so long with impunity, could end up looking into the radical left-wing demands for the liberalisation of child sex laws that were made in the 1970s.
…
Tim Loughton, the former children’s minister, said “It is rather eyebrow-raising to see Harriet Harman’s newfound zeal for clamping down on sexual exploitation of children, given that she was decidedly dodgy on the subject when she was part of an organisation calling for the relaxation of these laws.
“What we are seeing now is the result of a culture of complacency which has allowed celebrities and others to cover up their crimes, and Harriet Harman must share some of the blame for not taking these matters much more seriously.
As The Daily Telegraph first disclosed in 2009, in the 1970s the extreme end of the sexual liberation movement included groups who openly campaigned for the abolition of the age of consent. The Paedophile Information Exchange and Paedophile Action for Liberation affiliated themselves to the National Council for Civil Liberties, now known as Liberty.
NCCL complained to the press watchdog about their treatment by tabloid newspapers and in one article admitted it had “plenty of contact” with PIE, and argued that children are harmed by having to go to police and courts after a “mutual relationship with an adult”.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/jimmy-savile/9614516/Jimmy-Savile-Labour-faces-embarrassment-over-former-child-sex-claims.htm
Teresina,
There is only one thing that I wonder about in one of your comments above … the rest I agree with . Your staistics of one in four girls being sexualy abused in America.
Some years back there were similar figures quoted here for NZ. The figures were the resulrt of a surveydone by one Miriam Suffira ( apologies to Miriam if I got the spelling of her name wrong) … Miriam based her said research on a quesstionair that she had put in the NZ Woman’s Weekly at the time . there was reportedly a small response to it but she based her statistics of the 1 in 4 on the proportion of that small number … from what I learnt there were some 60 to 80 respondants … what guarantee of the veracity of any of them anyway… always that rather threadbare statement about only being the tipf the iceberg
These findings were published in the media… soon after the figures were stated as verified fact and generally quoted .. even by the police. … that is why I questioned , in my mind, the stats you quoted for child sex abuse in USA.
Shalom,
Mrs Mac
Mrs Mac, I looked at some of the studies papers by David Finkelhor, Director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center and the paper on child maltreatment, including child sexual abuse, gave the following sample survey:
Teresina,
Thank you for your trouble in looking up the research … I wonder though, what proportion of the whole number of children of the ages surveyed, is of all the children of similar age liviving in the whole of America?… it is a vast country isn’t it . Were all the children and families thus interviewed from just one state? How were the children selected for the interview? From what you stated in your opening statement , not all of these children were sexualy abused .. not that maltreatment should be looked on kindly either.
My questioning of the veracity of the statistics in no way means that I don’t look upon sexual abuse either blindly or kindly …. two such experiences in my own childood both of which have taught me the seriousness of such happenings I can assure you … both times for me it was a stranger .. both men have been in my prayers so often over the years since.
Shalom,
Mrs Mac
Mrs Mac, I’m very sorry to learn you had that experience and you show great charity in praying for these abusers.
In reading about the offending by priests, which is a great suffering for the Church, it seems from what I’ve read that child sexual abuse is much more prevalent in the community than many realise. David Finkelhor whose statistics were quoted in post 9 seems to be one of the leading researchers in this area. I’m unsure how the figures were arrived at, but I think it may well be a compilation of all the reported and verified cases in the US, which are set out in a fact sheet on the Crimes Against Children website. There are several different surveys.
While not in any way excusing what priests have done, I find a bias in the media who report cases of abuse by priests but ignore the plight of children in our society who are victims of abuse, sometimes over many years. This evening we have a situation on this new current affairs programme Seven having a laugh about some man wanting to mow lawns and run around naked in front of children, the offended parent trying to protect his children is cast in the role of somehow being the offender for complaining. It’s high time the media cleaned up their act. You can imagine their outcry if it was a priest who wanted to mow lawns naked – they wouldn’t be laughing then. The media need to get the message that in every case it is a child being molested, regardless of who the perpetrator is, and they need to highlight this evil for the sake of the children.