# Catholic Priests Molesting Children: Was This Always Known About? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 22, 2022, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-priests-molesting-children-was-this-always-known-about/975380 "2022-11-22T14:33:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2022, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-priests-molesting-children-was-this-always-known-about/975380/1 "2022-11-22T14:33:02Z")
I watched a TV series that took place, in part, c. 1928 in New Orleans. There’s a scene where two Catholic priests are murdered violently, and a witness says something to the effect that the townsfolk are just going to conclude they were kiddly diddlers and think nothing of it. Was this a thing even a century (or more ago)? That Catholic priests systemically abused children? But that it was only confirmed when the _Boston Globe_ did that explosive report c. 1991 or whenever? ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2022, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-priests-molesting-children-was-this-always-known-about/975380/2 "2022-11-22T15:19:04Z")
What, you think this is just something that started in the 1980s’?: > **[Catholic Church ‘systemic abuse’ dates back to the beginning](https://as.cornell.edu/news/catholic-church-systemic-abuse-dates-back-beginning)** > > Prof. Kim Haines-Eitzen comments on a new report that shows French clergy sexually abused more than 200,000 children over the past 70 years. > **[The global scale of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/10/5/awful-truth-child-sex-abuse-in-the-catholic-church)** > > A series of abuse scandals, often involving children, have rocked the Catholic Church in recent decades. > **[Child sexual abuse in the catholic church — CRIN](https://home.crin.org/issues/sexual-violence/child-sexual-abuse-catholic-church)** > **[A culture of cover-up in the Catholic Church - European Academy on Religion...](https://europeanacademyofreligionandsociety.com/news/a-culture-of-cover-up-in-the-catholic-church/)** > > From the clerical sexual abuse to the systematic cover-up: does the Catholic Church create a culture where abusers can hide? The scandal surrounding one of Germany's most prominent church leaders… > **[The Catholic Church and Sexual Abuse, Then and Now | Origins](https://origins.osu.edu/article/catholic-church-sexual-abuse-pope-confession-priests-nuns?language_content_entity=en)** > > The institution of the Catholic Church finds itself in a period of extraordinary crisis. An August 2018 grand jury report on clerical sex abuse in six Pennsylvania dioceses gave a detailed, often graphic account of decades of criminal offenses... > **[The Catholic Church's grim history of ignoring priestly pedophilia – and...](https://theconversation.com/the-catholic-churchs-grim-history-of-ignoring-priestly-pedophilia-and-silencing-would-be-whistleblowers-102387)** > > While the problem of priestly abuse might be centuries old, its modern paper trail began after World War II, when ‘treatment centers’ appeared for rehabilitating priests. Many were send to New Mexico. > **[Centuries-Old Knowledge of Church Sex Abuse | History News Network](https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/5755)** > > \From the Los Angeles Times (June 20 2004):\\ > > Facing an estimated 800 sexual-abuse lawsuits in California, Roman Catholic officials have argued that the church learned only in recent years that it had a widespread problem with priests... > **[The Roman Catholic Church: A Centuries Old History of Awareness of Clerical...](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10538712.2018.1491916?journalCode=wcsa20&)** > > Debates in international forums and in mainstream media on the role, responsibility, liability, and response of ecclesiastical authorities of the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) toward clerical child s... Et cetera, ad nauseam. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Si\_Amigo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/si_amigo/32/2877_2.png) [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2022, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-priests-molesting-children-was-this-always-known-about/975380/3 "2022-11-22T15:25:17Z")
The Dickens story A Christmas Carol alludes to this in the part where as a young boy Scrooge was left at a boarding school over Christmas break by his father so that he could receive free tuition. You are led to believe that he was being molested during this time and led to his unfeeling character and dislike of Christmas. It’s not really stated what religion Scrooge was (most likely Anglican like Dickens) , but it was common belief that certain authority figures in the early 1800’s England molested children. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2022, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-priests-molesting-children-was-this-always-known-about/975380/4 "2022-11-22T15:36:19Z")
> [@HeyHomie](#): > > Was this a thing even a century (or more ago)? That Catholic priests systemically abused children? But that it was only confirmed when the _Boston Globe_ did that explosive report c. 1991 or whenever? I think just about every community back then had at least one person that “Everyone knew” shouldn’t be left alone with your kids. The issue, at the time, was that no one knew just how many "that one guy"s there actually were. And no one knew that the Church, as an institution, was covering things up in order to protect the institution. So, everyone knew that Father Joe was a problem, but didn’t think much further than that. In my life, I saw that with one of the priests in our church who was an alcoholic. Lots of people knew about it (I discovered later, being too young at the time to figure this out), but very few people discussed it. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2022, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-priests-molesting-children-was-this-always-known-about/975380/5 "2022-11-22T15:41:37Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > What, you think this is just something that started in the 1980s’?: He didn’t ask if it existed, he asked if it was general knowledge like it is today? I sincerely doubt that it was for several reasons. First of all, many more people were devoutly Catholic than there are today, and they viewed their priest as an agent of God, as someone who could do no wrong. Secondly, communication back then was downright primitive. Pretty much everything was far less known in general because of that reason. ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2022, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-priests-molesting-children-was-this-always-known-about/975380/6 "2022-11-22T15:54:39Z")
> [@Jasmine](#): > > He didn’t ask if it existed, he asked if it was general knowledge like it is today? Yes, this. I should have been more clear. Obviously it happened, I’m just asking if it was common knowledge that people even joked about in those days. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2022, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-priests-molesting-children-was-this-always-known-about/975380/7 "2022-11-22T16:37:20Z")
Catholics don’t believe that priests can do no wrong. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2022, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-priests-molesting-children-was-this-always-known-about/975380/8 "2022-11-22T16:43:39Z")
Ever since Rome converted to Christianity, people have been accusing their political opponents of sodomy. So it was always known that someone, somewhere, was doing it. Whether you wanted to believe that your own parish priest was doing it, was another matter. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2022, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-priests-molesting-children-was-this-always-known-about/975380/9 "2022-11-22T16:49:22Z")
> [@Jasmine](#): > > He didn’t ask if it existed, he asked if it was general knowledge like it is today? I sincerely doubt that it was for several reasons. Did you bother reading any of the citations? Here, I’ll help you out: > _Writing in the early 16th century, the Dutch scholar Erasmus already lamented that the faithful “often fall into the hands of priests who, under the pretense of confession, commit acts which are not fit to be mentioned.”_ Yes, the abuse by priests—Catholic and otherwise—was a well-known phenomenon long before the recent revelations, and according to many historians was one of the formative impulses beyond the Protestant Reformation. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2022, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-priests-molesting-children-was-this-always-known-about/975380/10 "2022-11-22T16:52:34Z")
Well, if the Dutch scholar Erasmus equates to general knowledge among the hoi polloi, I stand corrected. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2022, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-priests-molesting-children-was-this-always-known-about/975380/11 "2022-11-22T17:06:20Z")
No, not as an official teaching. But there was a certain type of Catholic in the past who wouldn’t have suspected anything unusual if say a priest invited a boy to a sleepover at the rectory or on a camping trip. . Although I suspect that this wasn’t limited to Catholics and priests. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2022, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-priests-molesting-children-was-this-always-known-about/975380/12 "2022-11-22T17:12:45Z")
If you have not already, I urge you to watch the film [Spotlight](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1895587/) Watch till the very end. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2022, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-priests-molesting-children-was-this-always-known-about/975380/13 "2022-11-22T17:14:55Z")
I know that this was explicit in a fairly recent TV version - but I don’t recall Dickens ever explaining why Scrooge was left at school over Christmas break. It’s not like trading molestation for free tuition was the only possible reason. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2022, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-priests-molesting-children-was-this-always-known-about/975380/14 "2022-11-22T17:29:15Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > Although I suspect that this wasn’t limited to Catholics and priests. For certain child abuse and pedophilia are not issues solely limited to the Catholic Church, and in fact can be assumed to be endemic in any organization where adults are given unfettered and unsupervised access to children with little transparency because predators look for those kinds of situations. What is different about the Catholic Church is the magnitude of the coverup, going to the highest levels of ecclesiastical management for decades as documented by the _Boston Globe_ investigation (as well as numerous others) and often involving moving serial offenders across national borders to protect them. However, while the recent investigations have focused on still-living offenders for obvious reasons, the culture of abuse and grooming children as victims—as well as the ‘resettlement’, ritual abuse, and forcible marriage/rape of ‘native’ peoples by formal Church doctrine—goes back centuries. Would the average person circa 1928 have been aware of this? To some greater or lesser extent it is unavoidable; even if newspapers didn’t publish on it and authorities didn’t prosecute it, it would be well-known that there are certain priests to be avoided, and if you talk to elderly Catholics nearly all of them have a story about avoiding “Father \_\_\_\_\_” because of his known predilection to corner vulnerable children. The systemic extent of concealment was probably not fully appreciated except by people associated with Church management because in the pre-WWII environment the Church was one of, if not the most, powerful supranational organization that influenced finances and governance of many nations, and the Church could use its influence to suppress investigation or publication of its efforts to protect pedophile priests. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Si\_Amigo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/si_amigo/32/2877_2.png) [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2022, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-priests-molesting-children-was-this-always-known-about/975380/15 "2022-11-22T17:32:20Z")
Well that’s just it, people didn’t talk openly about such things back then but they did allude to such things. Boarding schools, apprentice seaman and Catholics priest were generally alluded to being breeding grounds for homosexual (thus child molestation in their mind) behaviors without explicitly saying so due to the taboo nature of the subject. No one dared to publicly call them out for fear of reprisals from these politically strong institutions, which is why it was hush hush, word of mouth for so long. Of course people knew as victims would speak about the abuses until quieted down. A lot of victim blaming occurred and the perpetrators had support of the large institutions. victims were told not to speak about it and put it behind them or their lives could be ruined. It was a different world. When Dickens wrote that Scrooge was not allowed to go home for Christmas as part of his childhood trauma it brought to mind a conclusion in people minds as to why. It certainly wasn’t because he loved school so much, it was so traumatic the ghost of Christmas past brought it up and Scrooges reaction was telling. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2022, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-priests-molesting-children-was-this-always-known-about/975380/16 "2022-11-22T17:43:43Z")
I believe, too, that historically, children, much like animals, were seen as being available for any sort of use, by many. Sexual abuse of children, by adult males, was endemic in many cultures (frankly it still is). What is unusual about the Catholic Church is the vast network of hypocrisy due specifically to the official celibacy of the priesthood, and the interest of the hierarchy in being seen to be both pure in action and in sole possession of the power of the sacred. Homosexuality between priests, and the abuse of nuns are both intrinsic to this paradigm. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2022, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-priests-molesting-children-was-this-always-known-about/975380/17 "2022-11-22T17:50:31Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > For certain child abuse and pedophilia are not issues solely limited to the Catholic Church I didn’t mean that the abuse wasn’t limited to the Catholic Church - what I meant that it almost certainly wasn’t just Catholic priests who had unfettered and unsupervised access to children because people who might be suspicious if the childless neighbor down the street invited their eight year old to sleep over or offered to take their ten year old camping didn’t have those same suspicions when it was a priest or a minister or a Boy Scout leader ( another group that did a lot of covering up ) ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2022, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-priests-molesting-children-was-this-always-known-about/975380/18 "2022-11-22T18:05:31Z")
Abuse of power has always been common in every kind of institution. It doesn’t matter if it’s adults taking advantage of children when the children aren’t allowed to protest, men taking advantage of women when women aren’t allowed to protest, bosses taking advantage of their subordinates when they aren’t allowed to protest, children bullying other children when the bullied ones aren’t allowed to protest, people of one race taking advantage of those of another race when they aren’t allowed to protest, and so on for every situation. It happens in churches, schools, workplaces, homes, and so on. The only difference now is that there are many people pointing out the problems in many situations. Some people think that the fact that a particular kind of abuse appears in current news stories while it didn’t appear in older new stories must mean that it must not have occurred before. On the contrary, sometimes it means that this abuse was more common in older times. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2022, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-priests-molesting-children-was-this-always-known-about/975380/19 "2022-11-22T19:51:53Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > I don’t recall Dickens ever explaining why Scrooge was left at school over Christmas break. It’s not like trading molestation for free tuition was the only possible reason. Absolutely. While I don’t object to modern adaptations presenting revisionist interpretations of older texts, which often provides interesting and thought-provoking alternative versions, I think it’s completely unwarranted to suggest that Dickens himself was trying to suggest that the young Scrooge was sexually molested at his boarding school during the holidays. Everything [in the story](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/46/46-h/46-h.htm) AFAICT is simply emphasizing how dreary and lonely (and physically cold) it was for Scrooge to stay at the school, isolated from his family and fellow-pupils. > [@](#): > > “The school is not quite deserted,” said the Ghost. “A solitary child, neglected by his friends, is left there still.” > > Scrooge said he knew it. And he sobbed. > > They left the high-road, by a well-remembered lane, and soon approached a mansion of dull red brick, with a little weathercock-surmounted cupola, on the roof, and a bell hanging in it. It was a large house, but one of broken fortunes; for the spacious offices were little used, their walls were damp and mossy, their windows broken, and their gates decayed. Fowls clucked and strutted in the stables; and the coach-houses and sheds were over-run with grass. Nor was it more retentive of its ancient state, within; for entering the dreary hall, and glancing through the open doors of many rooms, they found them poorly furnished, cold, and vast. There was an earthy savour in the air, a chilly bareness in the place, which associated itself somehow with too much getting up by candle-light, and not too much to eat. > > They went, the Ghost and Scrooge, across the hall, to a door at the back of the house. It opened before them, and disclosed a long, bare, melancholy room, made barer still by lines of plain deal forms and desks. At one of these a lonely boy was reading near a feeble fire; and Scrooge sat down upon a form, and wept to see his poor forgotten self as he used to be. > > Not a latent echo in the house, not a squeak and scuffle from the mice behind the panelling, not a drip from the half-thawed water-spout in the dull yard behind, not a sigh among the leafless boughs of one despondent poplar, not the idle swinging of an empty store-house door, no, not a clicking in the fire, but fell upon the heart of Scrooge with a softening influence, and gave a freer passage to his tears. > > The Spirit touched him on the arm, and pointed to his younger self, intent upon his reading. Dickens was not a particularly subtle author in his depiction of character and emotional state. When he writes that the young Scrooge was miserable at school during the holidays because he was lonely and neglected and dull, I don’t think there’s any reason to infer that there was anything deeper or more sinister going on than that Scrooge was indeed lonely and neglected and dull. Moreover, his father’s motives in neglecting him seem to have been simply general indifference and unkindness, which apparently were mitigated later. There’s no suggestion whatsoever that the father saved money on tuition by letting Scrooge be used as the schoolmaster’s bum-boy. In a more realistic and less lurid view, leaving Scrooge at school during the holidays would have cost more money for additional board fees than just letting him come home. > [@](#): > > The Ghost smiled thoughtfully, and waved its hand: saying as it did so, “Let us see another Christmas!” > > Scrooge’s former self grew larger at the words, and the room became a little darker and more dirty. The panels shrunk, the windows cracked; fragments of plaster fell out of the ceiling, and the naked laths were shown instead; but how all this was brought about, Scrooge knew no more than you do. He only knew that it was quite correct; that everything had happened so; that there he was, alone again, when all the other boys had gone home for the jolly holidays. > > He was not reading now, but walking up and down despairingly. Scrooge looked at the Ghost, and with a mournful shaking of his head, glanced anxiously towards the door. > > It opened; and a little girl, much younger than the boy, came darting in, and putting her arms about his neck, and often kissing him, addressed him as her “Dear, dear brother.” > > “I have come to bring you home, dear brother!” said the child, clapping her tiny hands, and bending down to laugh. “To bring you home, home, home!” > > “Home, little Fan?” returned the boy. > > “Yes!” said the child, brimful of glee. “Home, for good and all. Home, for ever and ever. Father is so much kinder than he used to be, that home’s like Heaven! He spoke so gently to me one dear night when I was going to bed, that I was not afraid to ask him once more if you might come home; and he said Yes, you should; and sent me in a coach to bring you." […] > > A terrible voice in the hall cried, “Bring down Master Scrooge’s box, there!” and in the hall appeared the schoolmaster himself, who glared on Master Scrooge with a ferocious condescension, and threw him into a dreadful state of mind by shaking hands with him. He then conveyed him and his sister into the veriest old well of a shivering best-parlour that ever was seen, where the maps upon the wall, and the celestial and terrestrial globes in the windows, were waxy with cold. Here he produced a decanter of curiously light wine, and a block of curiously heavy cake, and administered instalments of those dainties to the young people: at the same time, sending out a meagre servant to offer a glass of “something” to the postboy, who answered that he thanked the gentleman, but if it was the same tap as he had tasted before, he had rather not. Again, I don’t have an issue with modern TV adapters thinking up scandalous revised variations on the original theme, but I don’t buy any of the claims that these revised versions are what Dickens really meant all along. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2022, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-priests-molesting-children-was-this-always-known-about/975380/20 "2022-11-22T20:17:05Z")
> [@Horatius](#): > > I think just about every community back then had at least one person that “Everyone knew” shouldn’t be left alone with your kids. The issue, at the time, was that no one knew just how many "that one guy"s there actually were. Yes, and remember- the Catholic church has no monopoly on either molestation or cover ups. Girls swim coach, weird Uncle Joe, Protestant reverend- pretty much any male (and sometimes female) who are in a position of trust and authority. Schools covered this up, families covered it up, and so forth. > [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > For certain child abuse and pedophilia are not issues solely limited to the Catholic Church, and in fact can be assumed to be endemic in any organization where adults are given unfettered and unsupervised access to children with little transparency because predators look for those kinds of situations. Exactly. > [@Kimstu](#): > > Again, I don’t have an issue with modern TV adapters thinking up scandalous revised variations on the original theme, but I don’t buy any of the claims that these revised versions are what Dickens really meant all along. Well, even if sexual abuse by the teachers wasn’t implied, bullying by older students was a way of life. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-priests-molesting-children-was-this-always-known-about/975380.md?page=2)