Is the RCC trying to scapegoat gays for its priests' child molesting?

Great Debates
21

[QUOTE=Happy Scrappy Hero Pup]
Required?

Required by whom?
And what exactly IS the debate here?

The RCC is/is not trying to scapegoat gays?

Which side are you taking in this debate and what evidence do you offer one way or the other?

All you’ve got so far are unfounded rantings and leaps of logic.
[/QUOTE]

You are the one who brought up the irrelevant point that I am not obliged to be a Catholic. I probably should not have answered that one.

What is MY position on the RCC scapegoating gays? I believe there is an obvious attempt to shift blame from their priests to the “evil” of homosexuality. Whether it is an organized effort or a subconscious one is open to question.

22

[QUOTE=Valteron]
What the RCC is trying to do is subtly shift the “blame” from their priests onto the “evil” of homosexuality.
[/QUOTE]

If it turned out that [desire and willingness to have inappropriate contact with youths] were surfacing more often among homosexual individuals than among heterosexual individuals, would it then be okay to talk about whether their sexual preference bore any relation to their offense?

I am not saying it has been proven that such a disproportionate rate of offending has been shown (I don’t know that statistics are available to do so). I am not saying that such a correlation (if shown) would prove causation. I am not saying other non-homosexual priests don’t have and act on other aberrant urges (by aberrant for the moment I mean “molestation of children,” not “homosexuality in se”). I am saying that if all there is to go on is anecdote, which seems to be true for the moment, we have heard an awful lot of anecdotes about priests messing around with teenage boys. At least some of those men have been, in any definition of the word, homosexuals, as for instance this guy: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B06E0DB103CF936A25757C0A9649C8B63

He obviously had a desire for sexually mature adults, as well as for sexually mature teenagers. Not being inside his head, I can’t know if those were two separate desires or basically one and the same.

You may disagree with what you perceive as the RCC linkage between “homosexuality” and “child predation,” and may present arguments for why the two need to be disentangled, why factors such as propinquity, opportunity, etc., are more important in explaining priest-on-male-teen predation. But in doing so, I don’t think you have established (as I read your OP as suggesting) that the RCC is engaged in anything “subtle” or disingenuous or intentionally unfounded in entertaining the notion that the homosexuality of (at least some) priests like Shanley had something to do with their crimes. If they are just “wrong” in the linkage you think they are setting up (which “wrongness” is not yet established), then “scapegoating” is not what is going on.

23

[QUOTE= Valteron]
You are the one who brought up the irrelevant point that I am not obliged to be a Catholic.
[/QUOTE]

No, I wasn’t. You might want to check back on that and then admit as much.

And my own personal belief is that the RCC is not blaming, either consciously or unconsciously, just one thing- my belief is that the RCC is scrambling to cover up its lack of proper oversight, compounded by its refusal to hold its own members accountable, by throwing various permutations of the words “human weakness” at whoever asks them a question.

24

I was the one who pointed out you aren’t obligated to be Catholic. You still aren’t. Opposition to gay marriage (of which I am in favor BTW) is not limited to the Catholic Church. Several Xian denominations oppose it. You are resentful towards the RCC for several reasons, I’d guess. However, it doesn’t bolster your position to make misleading statements of your own.

25

Simulpost!

26

[QUOTE=Huerta88]

You may disagree with what you perceive as the RCC linkage between “homosexuality” and “child predation,” and may present arguments for why the two need to be disentangled, why factors such as propinquity, opportunity, etc., are more important in explaining priest-on-male-teen predation. But in doing so, I don’t think you have established (as I read your OP as suggesting) that the RCC is engaged in anything “subtle” or disingenuous or intentionally unfounded in entertaining the notion that the homosexuality of (at least some) priests like Shanley had something to do with their crimes. If they are just “wrong” in the linkage you think they are setting up (which “wrongness” is not yet established), then “scapegoating” is not what is going on.
[/QUOTE]

I repeat, have you ever heard of a school for young girls run by priests? Have yopu heard of a school for young boys run by priests?

No, I suppose a person who molests little boys would not do so unless he had an attraction to little boys, and boys and men are members of the same sex!!! WOW!!! What a revelation!!!

The priest I cited who raped an adult female would not have done so if he had not had some sexual attraction to women. And men and women are different sexes. WOW!!! How could I have missed that? :rolleyes:

27

[QUOTE=Huerta88]
If it turned out that [desire and willingness to have inappropriate contact with youths] were surfacing more often among homosexual individuals than among heterosexual individuals, would it then be okay to talk about whether their sexual preference bore any relation to their offense?
[/QUOTE]

Actually, the vast majority of admitted pedophiles are exclusively heterosexual in their adult sexual relationships. Their attraction to children is generally unaffected by the child’s gender, and their predation thereof limited chiefly by availability, which tends to skew them towards same-gendered children, as explained previously.

28

[QUOTE=Miller]
Actually, the vast majority of admitted pedophiles are exclusively heterosexual in their adult sexual relationships. Their attraction to children is generally unaffected by the child’s gender, and their predation thereof limited chiefly by availability, which tends to skew them towards same-gendered children, as explained previously.
[/QUOTE]

Don’t know if that’s true, but assume for the moment it is.

What about the “ephebophiles?” In many of these cases (Shanley, Bruce Ritter) the victims were well into their teens. Based on your earlier characterizations – were those incidents motivated by “homosexual desire?” Did Shanley or Ritter have an attraction to adult women?

29

Does anyone have any factual research on how many abuse cases there are by priests from the Church of England, that allows its clergy to marry, compared to the alledgedly celibate Catholic Priests?

It is ironic that in the netherlands, the few young men who go and study for Catholic prietshood, are mostly gay. They are the only ones who seem to embrace chastity, as sex with women seems unappealing and they are way too unsure to come out to themselves. Also ironically, the reason we have so very few priests sex-scandals here nowadays is that the churches are empty. Nothing left but lonely old ladies, who are flirting with their priest, who is statistically most likely to be a shy gay young man.

As for the OP; yes, given the denial of child abuse, and the homophobia prevalent in the Catholic Curch, they are likely to want to scapegoat homosexuality. And yes, that’s despicable. ::shrugs:: I’m an atheist, so you’re preaching to the choir here :slight_smile:

30

[QUOTE=Huerta88]
Don’t know if that’s true, but assume for the moment it is.

What about the “ephebophiles?” In many of these cases (Shanley, Bruce Ritter) the victims were well into their teens. Based on your earlier characterizations – were those incidents motivated by “homosexual desire?” Did Shanley or Ritter have an attraction to adult women?
[/QUOTE]

And I am the one who keeps getting reminded that “data” is not the plural of “anecdote”??? :confused:

31

[QUOTE=Maastricht]
Does anyone have any factual research on how many abuse cases there are by priests from the Church of England, that allows its clergy to marry, compared to the alledgedly celibate Catholic Priests?

It is ironic that in the netherlands, the few young men who go and study for Catholic prietshood, are mostly gay. They are the only ones who seem to embrace chastity, as sex with women seems unappealing and they are way too unsure to come out to themselves. Also ironically, the reason we have so very few priests sex-scandals here nowadays is that the churches are empty. Nothing left but lonely old ladies, who are flirting with their priest, who is statistically most likely to be a shy gay young man.

As for the OP; yes, given the denial of child abuse, and the homophobia prevalent in the Catholic Curch, they are likely to want to scapegoat homosexuality. And yes, that’s despicable. ::shrugs:: I’m an atheist, so you’re preaching to the choir here :slight_smile:
[/QUOTE]

Now you see, boys and girls, is actually **IS ** possible to debate this issue by expressing viewpoints instead of dumping on Valteron. She detects that the RCC may be trying to shift blame to homosexuality. Others believe they are not. That’s a debate. If Maastricht can do it, so can you. :slight_smile:

32

[QUOTE=Miller]
For most pedophiles, the gender of their victim isn’t really relevent. Most people are attracted primarily by a person’s secondary sexual characteristics: a straight man, for example, tends to like women with large breasts and shapely hips. Straight women tend to like men with broad shoulders and a strong jawline. A pedophile, on the other hand, is attracted to children specifically because they lack those secondary sexual characteristics. However, it’s a lot easier to get placed in a position of authority over children with whom you share a gender, then over children of the opposite gender, so a great many incidents of pedophilia involve same-gendered pairings. However, calling the perpetrator “homosexual” is misleading. In their adult sexual contacts, the overwhelming majority of pedophiles prefer people of the opposite gender, and have no attraction to adults of their own gender.

Ephebophilia is a different matter, and does usually correspond to normal hetero/homosexual labels.
[/QUOTE]

this is the best thing anyone here has posted on the subject.

Pedophiles have a sexual attraction to children, and since the overwhelming number of pedophiles are male and since its much easier to leave a male child unprotected in the company of a male adult I would think its pretty obvious that you are going to get a lot of male on male abuse.

Ephebophilia Ephebophiles? er whatever, are attracted to the sexual attributes of their (for lack of a better word) victims. they go after teens who are obviously showing signs of puberty and tend to follow normal sexual lines.

the 2 have little in common other than being sexual attraction outside the norm.
(note I am not passing a judgment here, just the norm as in percentage wise)

the one thing I dont get on the subject is why people always condemn pedophiles as perverts when they are wired that way. I dont thing a pedophile is any more perverted than your average straight person, they just have the misfortune of being attracted to a group of people who will be traumatized by sexual contact.

hmm I dont think that came out clearly. look at it like this. I am straight, I have zero interest in sleeping with other men, but I do understand that if I found men attractive in the same sense that I find women attractive I would be out screwing men all over the place. you cant fight that attraction and more importantly you cant Choose it either.

feel bad for the guys, keep them away from kids. but realize that if you had the attraction to children that you have for the opposite (or same, or both) sex, that you would almost certainly end up molesting kids. does anyone really think there is this group of people who think “man I wanna screw up kids lives forever by having sex with them”?

33

[QUOTE=Valteron]
And I am the one who keeps getting reminded that “data” is not the plural of “anecdote”??? :confused:
[/QUOTE]

Your OP point was (as I understand it) that there could only be a disingenuous motive for the RCC to draw a link between homosexuality and abuse of children.

No one has stepped forward with “data” and it may not exist. (N.B. – in the limit, the plural of anecdote is indeed data, as each iteration of an “experiment” is recorded as, well, an anecdote. We also don’t have the option of constructing laboratory-grade protocols for collection of data on who will molest kids for what reasons).

Lacking data, what would the RCC form its hypotheses based on? Could it be anything other than anecdote? I pointed to two extremely notorious cases in which priests who were homosexuals abused teen boys as part and parcel of their homosexual sex life. I don’t think you’d argue that either of those two priests weren’t homosexual. I don’t think you’d argue that the abuse did not take place.

Since your OP called into question the motivations of the RCC in supposedly linking homosexuality to abuse (by the use of the pejorative “scapegoat” and imputing an intentional “subtle” attempt to suggest a link between the two where none existed), I submit merely that the fact that (at least) two of the most infamous cases of abuse involved homosexual guys exploiting their “ministries” for some hot twink action, could provide an alternate (and not facially ridiculous) explanation for why the RCC suggested (as you contend), and sincerely believed, that homosexuality was a causal rather than coincidental factor.

Again, they may be inaccurate to suggest causality, it may not be proven, there may be other factors they should have considered. But since it is “scapegoating” and intentional mendacity of which your OP seems to accuse the Church (as opposed to faulty armchair psycho-analysis), the existence of significant anecdotal linkages provides at least one alternative (and non-sinister) rationale on which the RCC may have (accurately or inaccurately) sincerely believed, and suggested, that homosexuality led to some of the abuse.

34

[QUOTE=John Mace]
Did you ever notice that there are no Catholic clergy posting on the SDMB? It must be because their world-view is incompatible with open and honest debate.
[/QUOTE]

Expand on this please.

35

[QUOTE=the raindog]
Expand on this please.
[/QUOTE]

Here ya go.

36

[QUOTE=Miller]
For most pedophiles, the gender of their victim isn’t really relevent. Most people are attracted primarily by a person’s secondary sexual characteristics: a straight man, for example, tends to like women with large breasts and shapely hips. Straight women tend to like men with broad shoulders and a strong jawline. A pedophile, on the other hand, is attracted to children specifically because they lack those secondary sexual characteristics. However, it’s a lot easier to get placed in a position of authority over children with whom you share a gender, then over children of the opposite gender, so a great many incidents of pedophilia involve same-gendered pairings. However, calling the perpetrator “homosexual” is misleading. In their adult sexual contacts, the overwhelming majority of pedophiles prefer people of the opposite gender, and have no attraction to adults of their own gender.

Ephebophilia is a different matter, and does usually correspond to normal hetero/homosexual labels.
[/QUOTE]

I haven’t seen any actual data, but it seems to me that most of the cases I read about are of priests abusing teenage boys. Does anyone have a breakdown of the victims by age and sex? If it is mostly teenage boys, then maybe the Church is correct in trying to get at the root of the problem*. It wouldn’t at all surprise me if many confused, young gay Catholic men decided the best place for them was in the priesthood-- especially if we’re looking at the ones who went into the priesthood 20 years ago or more.

*as they see the problem, that is.

37

You know, it’s actually not that hard to understand this whole situation from a pedopriest’s POV. I’m straight and not a pedophile – that is, I don’t find prepubescent girls attractive – but high-school girls are a different matter, and if junior-high-school girls were the only kind to which I had regular access, I can well imagine even they might eventually start to look good to me. (See ephebophilia.) You know, like how even a straight guy might be tempted to swing the other way if he’s stuck in an all-male environment, e.g., on a ship or in a prison, a barracks or a remote work camp.

Now, suppose you are a nice Catholic boy whom God happens to have gifted with an innate same-sex orientation. Pedophily is not your natural preference and neither is ephebophily. However. You have no interest in getting married to a woman, but your family and community rather expect it of you. But there is a way out, a profession you can pursue and get honor and respect without being expected to marry: The priesthood. But if you follow that path, you work with all these pretty altar boys every week . . . who look on you as an exalted authority figure . . .

That doesn’t excuse such behavior by any means, but it does go a long way towards explaining it.

38

[QUOTE=John Mace]
I haven’t seen any actual data, but it seems to me that most of the cases I read about are of priests abusing teenage boys..
[/QUOTE]

I was wrong. Data do exist. John Jay Univ. gathered them pretty systematically. 80.9% of reported abuse victims were male. The majority were 12 or older.

http://www.usccb.org/nrb/johnjaystudy/incident3.pdf

39

[QUOTE=saoirse]
In answer to the OP’s question, this theory was put forward by the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith when John Paul II was pope. I’m pretty sure JP was the first pope to assert that homosexuality itself was not sinful, only actions were. Doesn’t sound too progressive, but at the time it was pretty surprising.

Anyway, that Prefect is now Pope Benedict XVI, so yeah, you could say that it is.
[/QUOTE]
Are you sure of this? I recall Alvarez making a big deal of his perceived connection between homosexuality and pedophilia, but I do not recall Cardinal Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI making any similar connection.

Along with the (decidely dumb) pronouncement by Alvarez, there has been a small but vocal band of Right Wing Catholics who have made a big deal about “cleaning up” the seminaries and returning them to their “correct” policies from the days prior to Vatican II. (As I have noted previously, the overwhelming majority of priests who have been identified as predators were ordained sufficiently long ago that they actually studied in pre-Vatican II seminaries, but the explicit homophobes calling for “that” sort of reform tend to not hear contrary evidence.)

At any rate, there is a small band of Catholics scattered among the laity and the hierarchy who would like to cast the pedophile tragedy as a homosexual problem, but no official statement or rule emanating from the Catholic churh (and no psychologists working for the Catholic church) have made any such connection.

40

[QUOTE=Huerta88]
Your OP point was (as I understand it) that there could only be a disingenuous motive for the RCC to draw a link between homosexuality and abuse of children.

No one has stepped forward with “data” and it may not exist. (N.B. – in the limit, the plural of anecdote is indeed data, as each iteration of an “experiment” is recorded as, well, an anecdote. We also don’t have the option of constructing laboratory-grade protocols for collection of data on who will molest kids for what reasons).

Lacking data, what would the RCC form its hypotheses based on? Could it be anything other than anecdote? I pointed to two extremely notorious cases in which priests who were homosexuals abused teen boys as part and parcel of their homosexual sex life. I don’t think you’d argue that either of those two priests weren’t homosexual. I don’t think you’d argue that the abuse did not take place.

Since your OP called into question the motivations of the RCC in supposedly linking homosexuality to abuse (by the use of the pejorative “scapegoat” and imputing an intentional “subtle” attempt to suggest a link between the two where none existed), I submit merely that the fact that (at least) two of the most infamous cases of abuse involved homosexual guys exploiting their “ministries” for some hot twink action, could provide an alternate (and not facially ridiculous) explanation for why the RCC suggested (as you contend), and sincerely believed, that homosexuality was a causal rather than coincidental factor.

Again, they may be inaccurate to suggest causality, it may not be proven, there may be other factors they should have considered. But since it is “scapegoating” and intentional mendacity of which your OP seems to accuse the Church (as opposed to faulty armchair psycho-analysis), the existence of significant anecdotal linkages provides at least one alternative (and non-sinister) rationale on which the RCC may have (accurately or inaccurately) sincerely believed, and suggested, that homosexuality led to some of the abuse.
[/QUOTE]

So based on those two cases the RCC very conveniently shifts the blame for scores of its clergy molesting children to the “intrinsic evil” (the RCC’s words not mine) that is homosexuality.

Gosh gee, I wonder why they would want to do that? People are suing some of their dioceses into bankruptcy, but there is NOOOOOO reason to think they would like to shift the blame off the Mother Church and onto homosexuality?