Most of this sexual abuse happened in the 1960s and '70s, right? How unusual was the Catholic Church’s response to sexual abuse at the time? It’s my understanding, and I could be wrong, but the whole “the molester is obviously psychologically disturbed. Lets not turn him in, lets send him for counseling and fix him” attitude wasn’t really all that uncommon at the time throughout society. Am I wrong in that?
It’s a religion, everything is forgiven. Otherwise they wouldn’t be able to keep such a large membership and continue to recruit others.
Why do you think that? I’m sure there are kids getting raped by a priest right now as I type this. If there has been a decrease in incidents I’d bet it’s because most parents now know not to leave their kid alone with a priest. Catholic Church sexual abuse cases - Wikipedia
No, you’re right.
There was a documentary made about this called Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God. Look it up.
It was and still is a HUGE problem. The Catholic Church is still doing damage control. They are hoping this problem just goes away and that people will forget.
That documentary is chilling. Very good. But chilling. It’s hard to watch.
But there are happily married people with regular sexual outlets who molest children anyway. Do you mean that a certain number of people willing to enter a celibate lifestyle can more easily see doing so because they aren’t interested in sex with adults? (similar to md2000’s point)
AFAIK the rate of molesters among priests isn’t any higher than it is among teachers, and teachers aren’t required to be celibate.
I’m sure it still happens, but your own cite says -
So it’s not like they’re doing nothing.
Regards,
Shodan
Yes, my point was that in the absence of sex ed and absence of discussions about alternate lifestyles, as was common until the last few decades; and in highly religious communities like Italian or Irish immigrants or French Canadians - perhaps young men who did not feel the same urges and fascination with locker-room level talk about girls may have interpreted this as a sign that they were called to be priests; particularly with being bombarded at home and school with the suggestion that god did call some men to be priests. (Of course there were plenty of other motivations - sincere religious belief, the prestige of the job until the last few decades, it was like the army a lifestyle where everything was decided and taken care of for you, and so on…)
As for 'happily married people molest children" - if a person has alternative urges and a need to hide them, they are most likely to pretend to be normal. Some men may be excited by different things, but most I assume have no difficulty rising to the occasion in a basic heterosexual setting, even if they are maybe not as enthusiastic as those who like adult women.
Again, I doubt anyone joined the priesthood thinking it was a good way to get close to children. There were (are) far better opportunities that don’t involve the constrictive lifestyle imposed by the clergy. It’s just that some who found themselves in there with urges took advantage of them. The major benefit was that until recently, like many other organizations - boy scouts, Penn State, etc. - the problem was swept under the rug instead of being prosecuted.