The Homo’s Made Us Do It
I think I can honestly say I’ve never been rendered speechless with anger before. However thanks to a one page document recently released by Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, I am delighted to report that I am fully capable of being struck dumb by pure, unadulterated fury.
Archbishop Tomasi is the Holy See’s (the Pope’s) permanent observer to the United Nations in Geneva. He was responding to a submission made to the Human Rights Council by the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) who raised some grave concerns they had in relation to the Holy See’s apparent disregard for the UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). In particular the IHEU felt the Holy See, and by extension the Catholic Church as a whole, had contravened the CRC in numerous ways when it came to its reaction to the child abuse scandal which has been an unfortunate part of the church for years.
Due to the fact the whole document is a spectacular display of ignorance I shall begin at the beginning.
“In the upcoming report of the Holy See to the Committee on the Rights of the Child, which is finalized as we speak, a paragraph will be dedicated to the problem of child abuse by catholic clergy”.
A paragraph? In a document about the rights of the child, produced by the Catholic church which has spent the last two decades facing scandal after scandal on child abuse within its ranks, scandal which in the States alone has resulted in almost 3 billion dollars worth of compensation to be paid out, they are producing a paragraph? Concise.
“While many speak of child abuse, i.e. pedophilia, it would be more correct to speak of ephebophillia, being a homosexual attraction to adolescent males. Of all priests involved in the abuses, 80 to 90% belong to the sexual orientation minority which is sexually engaged with adolescent boys between the age of 11 and 17 years old”.
Ah, so it’s down to those damned homosexuals you’ve spent all these years trying to warn us about?! Well that explains everything. And thank you for reassuring us that most of the boys who have been abused are between the age of 11 and 17; because it would be worrying if they were younger…
“From available research we know that in the last fifty years somewhere between 1.5% and 5% of the catholic clergy has been involved in sexual abuse cases. The Christian Science Monitor reported on the results of a national survey by Christian Ministry Resources in 2002 and concluded: “Despite headlines focusing on the priest pedophile problem in the Roman Catholic Church, most American churches being hit with child sexual-abuse allegations are Protestant.. [1] Sexual abuses within the Jewish communities approximate that found among the Protestant clergy.[2]
Now I’ve struggled to find accurate numbers on exactly how many Catholic priests there are in the world. However this site suggests (and if anyone has better data please do get in touch) that there are approximately 400,000 priest world wide. So, while his wording is a tad ambiguous, the Archbishop seems to be happily admitting that there are approximately 6,000 to 20,000 pedophiles (sorry, ephebophiles) in the church. 6,000 is an absolutely terrifying number; to think it might be more than that simply boggles the mind.
And then the Archbishop has the gall to suggest that other religions are worse?! Who gives a shit what’s going on in the other churches, one child molester is one too many, and you have admitted you may have 20,000 on your hands.
He then goes on to drag up some facts relating to other aspects of abuse which seem to be a desperate bid to dilute the issue.
“About 85% of the offenders of child sexual abuse are family members, babysitters, neighbors, family friends or relatives. About one in six child molesters are other children, while most of the offenders are male[3].
According to a major 2004 study commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education, nearly 10% of U.S. public school students have been targeted with unwanted sexual attention by school employees. The author of the study concluded that the scope of the school-sex problem appears to far exceed the clergy abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church and concluded in an interview with Education Week “the physical abuse of students in schools is likely more than 100 times the abuse by priests”.[4].”
Again, just because it is happening somewhere else, no matter how much worse it is, it does not make it ok.
“The Church is very conscious of the seriousness of the problem. The Code of Canon Law stipulates that priests involved in sexual abuse cases must be “punished with just punishments, not excluding expulsion from clerical state”[5]. The American Bishops Conference issued in 2002 “essential norms for diocesan/eparchial policies dealing with allegations of sexual abuse of minors by priests or deacons”. The guidelines mention among others that “in case of sufficient evidence the bishop will withdraw the accused from exercising the ministry, impose or prohibit residence in a given place or territory … pending the outcome of the process.” Other national bishops’ conferences have taken similar measures.”
All very good in theory, despite the fact it fails to explicitly mention any kind of legal consequences. More importantly it neatly ignores the fact that the church has consistently closed ranks to protect its own when it comes to scandal from within.
“As the Catholic Church has been busy cleaning its own house, it would be good if other institutions and authorities, where the major part of abuses are reported, could do the same and inform the media about it.”
And so we finish with a bitchy comment aimed at other religions and institutions. Nice. “Why do people keep focusing on us, when those guys over there have been doing it as well?!” How the Archbishop feels he is in a position to tell off other people for their behaviour in this matter is truly mind blowing, though does give some insight into the Catholic Church’s views on this whole matter: They are above it all. They have God on their side and hence can do no wrong. They have proven that they can murder, and people will still love them for it. They have proven they can preach hate, and people will still love them for it. They have even proven they can rape little children, and people will still love them.
Any business operating under such a history would be bust in a week. So why has the church survived? They are a business like any other- they’ve managed to turn worship into a huge money-making venture. My severely limited understanding of Jesus’ teachings does not lead me to believe you have to worship him through the hierarchy of the church. Yet people return, scandal after scandal, horror after horror, to file into their church every Sunday like the obedient Catholics they are. And with every attendance, they are expressing their support for the pedophiles and those that protect them.
The Pope and the Archbishop are beyond my contempt; they are so deeply involved they probably can no longer see that what they are doing is so fundamentally wrong it beggars belief. But for those who continue to support the church, well to you I say shame, for it is you who can make the difference. For without its customers, the church is nothing. And if you are worried that your god will punish you for not worshipping him via abusers and pedophiles, well then I think you have bigger problems than the fate of your eternal soul.
1 Mark Clayton, “Sex Abuse Spans Spectrum of Churches”, Christian Science Monitor, April 5, 2002, p.1.
2 Rabbi Arthur Gross Schaefer, “Rabbi Sexual Misconduct: Crying Out for a Communal Response”, http://www.rrc.edu/journal, November 24, 2003.
3 Dr. Grath A. Rattray, “Child Month and Paedophilia”, The Gleaner, May 14, 2002
4 Caroline Hendrie, “Sexual Abuse by Educators Scrutinized”, in: Education Week, March 10, 2004
5 CIC C. 1395 § 2.
Tags: angry and opinionated, Catholic Church, child abuse
Skeptic News | 
Paul | Friday, 16 October, 2009
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The Catholic Church stumbles in the valley of the shadow of death « Brother Nex — Monday, 29 March, 2010 @ 11:44
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By Wordwizard, Friday, 16 October, 2009 @ 23:59
Were you actually expecting anything different? (Although the bitchy clean-up-your-own-houses remark WAS a little over the top….)
By Boy31, Friday, 23 October, 2009 @ 14:45
Hold a spelling bee and crown the winner. ,
By Tjebbe van Tijen, Friday, 26 March, 2010 @ 22:49
I have never had any interest or affiliation with any church… this as a starter to display my possible bias… I came across the same speech and watched it today (only) and my reactions were on the contrary… I think you may underestimate the occurrence of child abuse in whatever circumstances and by whatever perpetrators, so it does mater whether or not the Catholic Church and its personnel are ranking very high, low or in the middle when it comes to sexual abuse of children and adolescents. I also did check on my own the scale of the number of Catholics, priests and the percentages mentioned. From the 1,5 tot 5% of priest-offenders I derive 6 to 20 thousand of them. Now a bit of patience… and when you say to be "a skeptic", think it over, this is a world scale number! How many times such a bad priest misbehaves, how many victims she/he has made is guessing as my guess is that there is no institutionalised administration other than in what people may like to imagine to be the database of God. I make a wild guess of say thirty victims pro priest. That makes up a total over a few decades of half a million to a million misused children. This is a huge crowd when imagining them altogether in one place and time. This is just one promille when expressing it in a distancing percentage (as there are something of one billion (milliard) Catholics.
I think the arch-bishop made some sort of a point after all and you may like to delve deeper in the question whether or not it is celibacy as such which makes this happen and what to think about the big majority of priests that fulfil from their practical needs, or faith or some odd combination of the two a livelong marriage with their idea of God. There are many forms of abstinence from many forms that primary pleasure seeking humans choose to try or are able to apply. One must also bear in mind the economic and state management aspects that have led to the celibacy institution in those far away days of downfall of the Roman empire and the need of some form of institutional power that would not be totally corrupted by family and clan interests… That's were the nascent Catholic church structures came in handy. In a way that church has evolved in the mix of religious nation and economic multinational as we know it now, still playing a role in unstable societies, delivering services that are as essential to human well being, as being exempted for sexual harassments.
Sexual abuse is much more widespread than you apparently seem to be able to acknowledge bringing yourself in a state of rage, as a person claiming or wanting to be "someone who habitually doubts accepted beliefs"you may next time try to sober up first…
By domenico, Thursday, 22 April, 2010 @ 8:18
well,
article inaccurate in many parts…but the error more evident is this.
tomasi says: "“From available research we know that in the last fifty years somewhere between 1.5% and 5% of the catholic clergy has been involved in sexual abuse cases. "
and you says: " there are approximately 400,000 priest world wide".
yes there are approximately 400,000 (indead 450000) priests world wide BUT NOW.
you must tell us how many priests were world wide in 50 years!
By domenico, Thursday, 22 April, 2010 @ 8:20
again.. "involved in sexual abuses" does not mean "guilty"…
By Paul, Thursday, 22 April, 2010 @ 9:51
Hi domenico, many thanks for taking the time to comment. Indeed you are right, my 6,000 to 20,000 number was based on the number of priest today. Are you suggesting that if we extended that back to cover all clergy over the last 50 years the number of clergy the Archbishop happily admits are involved in paedophile activities would be…less?
And as for you second comment, I think it's very clear that the context the Archbishop uses the term "involved in sexual abuse" refers to priests actively engaged in sexual abuse, or would you disagree?
I'd be very interested to hear of the other inaccuracies you spotted.
Paul
By domenico, Tuesday, 27 April, 2010 @ 8:45
I think that the statistics must be done with the right numbers .. I'm not afraid about numbers if they are correct.
Tomasi indeed is not speaking about the priests around the world but only about the priests who were analyzed in those studies and nations; or do you really think that, by exemple, in Angola and in the United States there is the same percentage?
Obviously you are angry with the Catholic clergy if you write: "Any business operating under such a history would be bust in a week"…
but you don't ask why the public school still survives even if there the sexual abuse of children is a hundred times worse than by priests!
“All those reporters, columnists, talking heads, attorneys general, D.A.’s, psychologists and victims groups who were so quick on the draw to get priests have a moral obligation to pursue this issue to the max. If they don’t, they’re a fraud.”
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/apr/10040101.html
By Paul, Tuesday, 27 April, 2010 @ 10:33
Well lacking the exact numbers, would you agree that based on what the Archbishop said it must be an absolute minimum of 6000 to 20000 priests?
And to quote Tomasi “From available research we know that in the last fifty years somewhere between 1.5% and 5% of the catholic clergy has been involved in sexual abuse cases." It's clear he is talking about the clergy as a whole, not on a country by country basis. Thus, as you suggest, any differences which might exist between Angola and the US are irrelavant.
Unfortunately your final point just highlights the reason I'm so bloody angry with the church! To be brutally honest with you, for the purposes of this discussion I don't give a crap about abuse in other instititions. You can't (although the Church keeps trying) justify the abuse going on in your own organisation by saying "Well it's much worse over there". Any abuse, by any person, whether religious or otherwise, is unacceptable. But we're talking about the Catholic Church at the moment, so don't try and straw man some other institution where abuse is going on.
By domenico, Tuesday, 27 April, 2010 @ 11:57
well, I'll wait your posts about others institutions..