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16 July 2007 - 2 אב 5767 by Huw
Can anyone explain to me why the media is saying that the RC sexual scandal has lasted “five years” as if that’s all that we should be worried about? (I just heard it again on NPR.) I remember carrying books on the sexual abuse in the our bookstore in the 1980s.
Is this just another example of a short memory: are all the sex scandals beyond the news cycle?
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A notorious case broke in Lafayette, LA in the early 1980’s, and the priest involved admitted to molesting over 35 boys. I suppose, though, in this as in other situations, the media does think in terms of “the storm of the century and therefore the only one worth mentioning”.
Also, the scandal of the past five years has not been the sexual abuse — many of the instances reported date back decades — but the most recent five years of the reprehensible “response” of most bishops to the terrible things that had been happening on their watch.
I have friends whose lives were wrecked by the sexual abuse they experienced as children — most not by clergy, incidentally, but by family members. I have seen up close and personal the terrible results. I know whereof I speak, because I myself was sexually abused as a child by a family member.
I also have priest friends who have had their lives destroyed by bishops who were throwing any and every gay priest to the wolves in order to protect themselves and distract attention from their own failures to shepherd their flocks, even when there was no evidence whatsoever that the priest in question had been involved in sexual misconduct with minors, much less with children.
But enough about that…
I am pretty sure, as above, that they are speaking about the firestorm that broke out after it became clear how the bishops had transferred abusing priests around without regard to repeat offenses. I don’t think the media is ignorant of the fact that many of the stories date back up to 30 years. The scandal was not about pedophilia and ephebophilia in the priesthood, but about the perceived cover-up by the bishops.
It is important as well to differentiate between pedophilia and ephebophilia. While there seems to be strong evidence that the pedophiliac cannot truly control himself/herself, many ephebophiliacs can learn self-control. Unfortunately, current law does not differentiate between the two.
What Fr. Ernesto said.
My fear is that this problem won’t really be addressed until the current (and maybe the next) generation of bishops die out. The bishops we have now are still operating in an old school mode of dealing with scandal (not unique to Catholic hierarchy), which thankfully doesn’t fly anymore. It also wouldn’t hurt if conservatives would give up the canard that sexual abuse of children is related to homosexuality and liberals would give up the equally silly idea that sexual abuse occurs because of priestly celibacy.
Cool. I’m not the only one with a longer memory. I’m with you Tope on both parts of that last sentence.
I just want to be clear that I’m not excusing the way abusive priests were dealt with. Mahony makes me ill. I just meant that the current bishops operate on a ‘protect the company at all costs’ model of dealing with scandal which may not pass until their generation passes as well.