# What about Catholicism lent itself, specifically, to the abuse of young boys? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 4, 2017, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-about-catholicism-lent-itself-specifically-to-the-abuse-of-young-boys/792782 "2017-08-04T16:22:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2017, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-about-catholicism-lent-itself-specifically-to-the-abuse-of-young-boys/792782/21 "2017-08-04T19:54:25Z")
There is [widespread](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/21/world/asia/us-soldiers-told-to-ignore-afghan-allies-abuse-of-boys.html) [sexual](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2017/07/18/afghan-soldiers-are-using-boys-as-sex-slaves-and-the-u-s-is-looking-the-other-way/?utm_term=.41a16a054d4d) [abuse](https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/08/02/afghanistans-child-sexual-abuse-complicity-problem) of young boys in the Afghan military. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2017, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-about-catholicism-lent-itself-specifically-to-the-abuse-of-young-boys/792782/22 "2017-08-04T20:10:41Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > The Catholic hierarchy treated it as a sin rather than simply crime for too long. mostly this …remember that until the last century or so if you were catholic and you had “impure thoughts/feelings” you joined the monastery/priesthood … ---
**Author:** ![filmstar-en](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/50afbb/32.png) [@filmstar-en](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmstar-en)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2017, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-about-catholicism-lent-itself-specifically-to-the-abuse-of-young-boys/792782/23 "2017-08-04T20:21:13Z")
What about Catholicism lent itself, specifically, to the abuse of young boys? Let us take a step back. The Catholic Church is an institution and it has a mission to teach the faith. There is a strong moral element to that teaching. There is also a duty of care and this is described as a pastoral mission - a shepherd looking after his flock. In some places the institution failed and allowed priests to be ordained that did not have the strength of character to live up to their vow of celibacy. The response to was also mistaken, the bishops put the interests of the church before those of vulnerable children in their care. They covered up scandals, moved exploiters to new locations and isolated the victims. All desperately wrong. The same thing has happened in many other kinds of institutions, not just religious, that have a teaching element where the teacher is given the authority to maintain discipline over pupils. It has happened in sports academies, schools, hospitals, the armed services, all kinds of places. Anywhere there is a power relationship and a management that is careless in its selection of teachers and prioritises medals, certificates, reputations and other signs of institutional success over their duty of care. This is the scandal of our age. I think it weighs very heavily on religious institutions because they are supposed to teach a moral framework, yet the moral integrity of the institution was itself weak and failed to protect those in their care. It is important to distinguish between the higher purpose of a religious doctrine and the failure of some of an institution. We don’t always get the best people leading organisations. Here an emerging scandal from the UK that illustrates the point. Nothing quite as emotive as child exploitation, everyone in this one is an adult, a paramedic. Those heroes who nobly serve the public each day and get us to the emergency room when we have a crisis. In this corner of England it all seems to have gone very wrong: > **[South East Coast Ambulance Service report shows bullying culture](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-40825748)** > > A "macho", managerial "boys club" created a toxic atmosphere and bullying culture, a report finds. I guess the next question is: how do you stop this from happening and how do you deal with it when it does happen? There are some very large institutions in many countries across the world struggling to find answers. 😕 ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2017, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-about-catholicism-lent-itself-specifically-to-the-abuse-of-young-boys/792782/24 "2017-08-04T23:43:57Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > Someone else made a claim that I doubted. Your claim “I have little doubt “coach” is on a couple of lists.”. Can you back this up or not? ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2017, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-about-catholicism-lent-itself-specifically-to-the-abuse-of-young-boys/792782/25 "2017-08-04T23:48:27Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Your claim “I have little doubt “coach” is on a couple of lists.”. Can you back this up or not? You’ll have to accept my word on how much doubt I have, I’m afraid, but I assure you it’s little. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2017, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-about-catholicism-lent-itself-specifically-to-the-abuse-of-young-boys/792782/26 "2017-08-05T02:23:37Z")
Does not answer the OP but a relevant and recent data point: > [@](#): > > \*\*Shattered faith: Nearly 100 sex abuse suits against Catholic priests rock island of Guam > \*\* > HAGÅTÑA, Guam — It started off innocently: a 15-year-old boy helping out at San Miguel, a local church named for Archangel Michael, the leader of all angels. > There was yardwork and cleaning, followed by invitations to the rectory to eat and watch TV. Soon, there were offers to drink sacramental wine and watch X-rated movies. Then sexual assault. > > More than 50 times over three years. > > By the parish priest. > > Those jarring allegations come from a recent lawsuit claiming assault from 1985 to 1988. It is one of nearly 100 lawsuits that describe rampant child sexual abuse by some of Guam’s most revered men: the Catholic clergy. > > SOURCE: [Nearly 100 sex abuse suits against Catholic priests test Guam's faith](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/08/04/guam-priest-child-sex-abuse-scandal/503680001/) How has the Catholic church NOT learned its lesson on this yet? How can they keep abiding this stuff? ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2017, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-about-catholicism-lent-itself-specifically-to-the-abuse-of-young-boys/792782/27 "2017-08-05T03:18:20Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > Does not answer the OP but a relevant and recent data point: > > How has the Catholic church NOT learned its lesson on this yet? How can they keep abiding this stuff? Recent? Yet? This happened 30 years ago. I’m not letting them off the hook but I don’t expect them to time travel. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2017, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-about-catholicism-lent-itself-specifically-to-the-abuse-of-young-boys/792782/28 "2017-08-05T03:30:24Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > Recent? Yet? This happened 30 years ago. I’m not letting them off the hook but I don’t expect them to time travel. Did I miss the church coming clean about this and making amends? Did they remove all these priests in the last 30 years? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2017, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-about-catholicism-lent-itself-specifically-to-the-abuse-of-young-boys/792782/29 "2017-08-05T04:11:38Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > You’ll have to accept my word on how much doubt I have, I’m afraid, but I assure you it’s little. So, you got nothing, then. No cites. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2017, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-about-catholicism-lent-itself-specifically-to-the-abuse-of-young-boys/792782/30 "2017-08-05T04:21:57Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > But Catholic priests have the triple whammy of enforced celibacy, unfettered access to young boys, and the appearance of moral authority backed up by the Church leadership in many cases to give them impunity. Were altar girls more common in the days when all this was hushed up, many of them would have been molested too. The priest who tried to molest several kids in my coed class got an equal ratio of male and female targets. Emphasis on “tried”\*. Two parts of the issue are that the Catholic church is so large (if 5% of people in a church have a problem, the problem is a lot bigger when it’s a 1B-people church than if it’s 50 people) and, linked to that, that cases all over the world were treated individually but have ended up coming to light at different points in time and then getting put together. Many individual scandals have coalesced into a huge collective one. - The target on which he was closest to succesful was myself, and that’s got to do with my mother being wrong in the head and with nobody thinking that she could be wrong in the head. She hid from my father that I was one of the complainers. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2017, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-about-catholicism-lent-itself-specifically-to-the-abuse-of-young-boys/792782/31 "2017-08-05T04:31:20Z")
Another part is that in many places and until much more recently than people in this thread appear to realize, the social reaction was more likely to be against the victim than against any kind of powerful attacker. This background issue is the same as for marital rape or sexual abuse within the family: if your uncle grabbed your ass, it was your fault for having one, not his for being a dick. If your husband forced you to have sex and threatened with going after your common daughters if you didn’t put out, well, what you had to do was put out and stop complaining, isn’t it nice to have such a virile husband? ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2017, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-about-catholicism-lent-itself-specifically-to-the-abuse-of-young-boys/792782/32 "2017-08-05T07:26:11Z")
Availability. Everyone “knew” that a priest’s proximity to females was potentially sinful, and the church and its authorities were permanently on their guard for the sins they were most aware of: but homosexual and pederastic attractions were so abhorrent as to be unthinkable (and therefore not to be spoken of when incontrovertibly discovered), so no-one thought there was any risk in surrounding older priests and church officials with young boys. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2017, 11:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-about-catholicism-lent-itself-specifically-to-the-abuse-of-young-boys/792782/33 "2017-08-05T11:12:19Z")
Lions like to hunt at watering holes, because the animals are there, and they’re vulnerable there. It makes sense to me that pedophiles would be drawn to situations where they have access to children on a one-on-one basis. It’d be strange if pedophilia were overrepresented in careers like, say, truck driving, where there’s no such access; it’s not at all strange that pedophilia is overrepresented in careers like clergy and coaching, where there is such access. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2017, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-about-catholicism-lent-itself-specifically-to-the-abuse-of-young-boys/792782/34 "2017-08-05T11:57:44Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Two parts of the issue are that the Catholic church is so large (if 5% of people in a church have a problem, the problem is a lot bigger when it’s a 1B-people church than if it’s 50 people) and, linked to that, that cases all over the world were treated individually but have ended up coming to light at different points in time and then getting put together. Many individual scandals have coalesced into a huge collective one. But the cases weren’t as individual or separate as one might suppose. These crimes were abetted at the highest levels of the church. > [@](#): > > Hitchens tore into the Vatican for its refusal to hand over Cardinal Bernard Law, the former Archbishop of Boston, to Massachusetts police for questioning about his role in the child abuse scandals. “Here is a man wanted for the promotion, protection, covering up and defence of people whose crimes against children are too revolting to specify,” he fumed. “Yet he is acting as vicar of the American Catholic Church in Rome, personally appointed by the Pope and in 2005, even joining the Conclave, to decide who the next pope should be.” \*\* > > SOURCE: [Catholicism on trial: Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry attack church's record on gay rights | PinkNews](http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2009/10/21/catholicism-on-trial-christopher-hitchens-and-stephen-fry-attack-churchs-record-on-gay-rights/) > > \*\*You can see Hitchens saying the above (more forcefully…that quote is not quite right) here: [https://youtu.be/rk5\_Uxe5bZY?t=505](https://youtu.be/rk5_Uxe5bZY?t=505) ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2017, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-about-catholicism-lent-itself-specifically-to-the-abuse-of-young-boys/792782/35 "2017-08-05T13:18:07Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > You can do your own pedophile research, thanks. Yeah, who’d fall for that one? That’s what they told Pete Townshend, and we all know how that turned out. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2017, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-about-catholicism-lent-itself-specifically-to-the-abuse-of-young-boys/792782/36 "2017-08-05T14:36:30Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > Here’s an article that discusses various studies that mostly refute that: > > [http://www.patheos.com/blogs/tippling/2017/06/30/catholic-clergy-likely-paedophiles-general-public/](http://www.patheos.com/blogs/tippling/2017/06/30/catholic-clergy-likely-paedophiles-general-public/) > > I think the big things would be: the Church’s way of handling the problem “in house” (i.e. just shuffling people around), the vastness of its school/orphanages/church network and the fact that the priesthood is such an attractive “cover story” for a pedophile (moral authority, celibacy). I am more than willing to believe that Catholic priests are more likely to be sexual abusers than the general public ( because we aren’t really only concerned about pedophiles\*) - but the general public is not the proper comparison. If you want to know if there is something peculiar to Catholicism, then the rate has to be compared with others who have similar access to children. Ministers of other denominations, teachers, Scout leaders , coaches, etc. I’m not so sure the those groups have a lower rate than Catholic priests. - Pedophiles are those who are sexually attracted to children - but a fair amount of the cases involving Catholic priests did not involve children but rather adolescents. ---
**Author:** ![Kron](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kron/32/12444_2.png) [@Kron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kron)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2017, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-about-catholicism-lent-itself-specifically-to-the-abuse-of-young-boys/792782/37 "2017-08-05T15:37:46Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Your claim “I have little doubt “coach” is on a couple of lists.”. Can you back this up or not? Since when does somebody have to provide a cite for a clearly-stated opinion? ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2017, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-about-catholicism-lent-itself-specifically-to-the-abuse-of-young-boys/792782/38 "2017-08-05T15:58:38Z")
And I was expressing doubt about someone else’s claim. Don’t know why DrDeth is on my case instead of Algher’s. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2017, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-about-catholicism-lent-itself-specifically-to-the-abuse-of-young-boys/792782/39 "2017-08-05T16:45:25Z")
I’ve talked to some Catholics on this issue who have told me “They weren’t priest. They were homosexuals masquerading as priests.” ---
**Author:** ![zoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zoid/32/336_2.png) [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2017, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-about-catholicism-lent-itself-specifically-to-the-abuse-of-young-boys/792782/40 "2017-08-05T20:30:18Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > I forget where I read it but IIRC the percentage of pedophile Catholic priests is in line with the percentage of pedophiles in the population at large. > > As you said the real issue is the church seemed content to let these priests continue even after there was very good evidence that they were molesting kids. When I bought a house and moved we joined the local parish. I swear to God I am not making this up - the very first service we went to the priest gave a sermon about how we should forgive priests who molest and not look to prosecute them. My kids go to public school now. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-about-catholicism-lent-itself-specifically-to-the-abuse-of-young-boys/792782.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-about-catholicism-lent-itself-specifically-to-the-abuse-of-young-boys/792782.md?page=3)