# What is it about the Catholic Priesthood that attracts so many pedophiles? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 21, 2010, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-about-the-catholic-priesthood-that-attracts-so-many-pedophiles/533212 "2010-03-21T05:05:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-about-the-catholic-priesthood-that-attracts-so-many-pedophiles/533212/121 "2010-03-29T23:10:15Z")
So you know little about either the problem or (as you proudly admit) the letter but feel that is no hurdle to commenting anyway. Thanks for your contribution. The quality of your input is what makes these boards the intelligent, considered place they are. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-about-the-catholic-priesthood-that-attracts-so-many-pedophiles/533212/122 "2010-03-30T00:41:27Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > I doubt that there is any significantly larger incidence of pedophilia or ephebophilia or homosexuality or anything else among Catholic priests than there is in the general population. I have a vague memory of reading a story some time in the last few years that there is an ongoing problem with priests having affairs with adult women. The problem was that the priests’ superiors often counsel them to “get the sex out of their system” and then dedicate themselves to their work. What this essentially means is that they are advising them to abandon their (adult female) lovers along with any children they might have had. > > As has been said above, this is not a sex problem, it’s an institutional problem. No, it is a criminal problem. There is the abuse, and there is the conspiracy to cover up the abuse. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-about-the-catholic-priesthood-that-attracts-so-many-pedophiles/533212/123 "2010-03-30T02:34:17Z")
Your statement is an interesting amalgamation of tautology and meaninglessness. 1. Not all the things I have described are crimes. 2. You are aware, aren’t you, that an institutional problem can be an underlying cause of a crime? Crimes don’t always spring out of the ether. Failing to address an underlying problem can be a lost opportunity in preventing future crimes. 3. What the institution did might not have actually constituted a crime at all times and in all places. ---
**Author:** ![martu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@martu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/martu)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-about-the-catholic-priesthood-that-attracts-so-many-pedophiles/533212/124 "2010-03-30T13:43:26Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > So you know little about either the problem or (as you proudly admit) the letter but feel that is no hurdle to commenting anyway. Thanks for your contribution. The quality of your input is what makes these boards the intelligent, considered place they are. My pleasure. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-about-the-catholic-priesthood-that-attracts-so-many-pedophiles/533212/125 "2010-03-30T14:42:43Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > That’s a different question, though. The OP is assuming there’s something about Catholic priests that make them more likely to molest. Access to altar boys? Protestant churches don’t have altar boys. So for a pedophile looking for access to kids, becoming, say, a Baptist minister isn’t going to automatically get him that access. Becoming a Catholic priest _will_. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-about-the-catholic-priesthood-that-attracts-so-many-pedophiles/533212/126 "2010-03-30T14:52:17Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > Your statement is an interesting amalgamation of tautology and meaninglessness. > > 1. Not all the things I have described are crimes. > > 2. You are aware, aren’t you, that an institutional problem can be an underlying cause of a crime? Crimes don’t always spring out of the ether. Failing to address an underlying problem can be a lost opportunity in preventing future crimes. > > 3. What the institution did might not have actually constituted a crime at all times and in all places. If this reply was to me, the reason there is a 'situation" now, is that some individuals did abuse children. That is a crime. They apparently were serial offenders. Their superiors shuffled them from one place to another without getting rid of them, or calling the police. They kept silent. So, they are covering up, aiding and abetting. That is a crime. I don’t care about “institutional” problems. That is an excuse, and a weak one. Anyone at any time can pick up the phone, call the police, and report it. I have a real problem, a serious problem with the idea that this never seems to happen. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-about-the-catholic-priesthood-that-attracts-so-many-pedophiles/533212/127 "2010-03-30T16:24:27Z")
> [@SteveG1](#): > > If this reply was to me, the reason there is a 'situation" now, is that some individuals did abuse children. Actually, several sentences later you add other things that created the “situation.” Those things are institutional problems. So it doesn’t begin and end with this initial crime. > [@](#): > > They apparently were serial offenders. Some of them apparently were. Are you stating that you know for a fact that all of them were serial offenders? > [@](#): > > Their superiors shuffled them from one place to another without getting rid of them, or calling the police. They kept silent. So, they are covering up, aiding and abetting. That is a crime. Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t. Are you asserting definitive knowledge about the criminal law in all the jurisdictions that this occurred over a period of several decades? How do you know that? > [@](#): > > I don’t care about “institutional” problems. That is an excuse, and a weak one. What a bizarre assertion. Of course it’s not an excuse. It is in fact the topic of the thread. The reason that these offenses were covered up was because it was an _institutional policy_ to do so. The institutional problem is the _cause_ of the “situation.” If you don’t care about the institutional problem, then you also don’t care about preventing it from happening again in the future. Sitting around and being belligerent about it is apparently all you think that needs to be done. > [@](#): > > Anyone at any time can pick up the phone, call the police, and report it. I have a real problem, a serious problem with the idea that this never seems to happen. And why do you think it doesn’t happen? It’s because _there is an institution that has been implementing a policy that prevents it from happening_. Get it? Unless you address this _institutional problem_, you’ll never the the answer to your question. Furthermore, as I stated before, there also seems to be an ongoing problem with priests having illicit relationships with _adult women_ and then abandoning their children, which suggests that there is an institutional problem that is deeper than can be solved merely by putting sex offenders in prison. Go ahead and stick your head in the sand with “just throw the paedophiles in jail” but if that’s all you do, you’re failing to address an ongoing _institutional problem_ that will continue to have negative effects on individuals and society as a whole. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-about-the-catholic-priesthood-that-attracts-so-many-pedophiles/533212/128 "2010-03-30T17:19:55Z")
> [@spoke-](#): > > Access to altar boys? Protestant churches don’t have altar boys. Well… \*most \*of them don’t. – **Vinyl Turnip** , _Episcopal acolyte 1980-1982 (never raped)_ ---
**Author:** ![Caveat\_lector\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea5d25/32.png) [@Caveat\_lector\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caveat_lector_1)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-about-the-catholic-priesthood-that-attracts-so-many-pedophiles/533212/129 "2010-04-01T00:27:43Z")
> [@spoke-](#): > > Access to altar boys? Protestant churches don’t have altar boys. > > So for a pedophile looking for access to kids, becoming, say, a Baptist minister isn’t going to automatically get him that access. Becoming a Catholic priest _will_. The more people say this the more I’m convinced that people know nothing about priests. In my experience the contact a priest has with an alter server is: speaking to them before mass, serving mass with them, and _maybe_ training them in a group. In my experience priests actually spend most of their time around adult women. Their secretaries and assistants, their housekeepers (if they have one), and the people wanting to talk seem to be overwhelmingly women. ---
**Author:** ![Perciful](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b38774/32.png) [@Perciful](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Perciful)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-about-the-catholic-priesthood-that-attracts-so-many-pedophiles/533212/130 "2010-04-01T00:50:12Z")
I think people need to go to their state websites and look at how many pedophiles are in their own neighborhoods. It’s in the sex offender database. This is a huge problem and the priests are a small minority. Most priests are celibate. The problem with pedophiles is huge in the US and most of us live next to one, work with one and never even know it. ---
**Author:** ![Perciful](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b38774/32.png) [@Perciful](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Perciful)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-about-the-catholic-priesthood-that-attracts-so-many-pedophiles/533212/131 "2010-04-01T00:56:52Z")
> [@Caveat\_lector\_1](#): > > The more people say this the more I’m convinced that people know nothing about priests. In my experience the contact a priest has with an alter server is: speaking to them before mass, serving mass with them, and _maybe_ training them in a group. > > In my experience priests actually spend most of their time around adult women. Their secretaries and assistants, their housekeepers (if they have one), and the people wanting to talk seem to be overwhelmingly women. True! They are around women and usually have a live in housekeeper. Why would they bother going to years of seminary when they can just go to the nearest play ground or find a women with kids ? Seems like they would blow their cover long before they became a priest. Priests are called for a reason. It is not and easy job they do with long hours totally devoted to performing sacraments in hospitals and nursing homes. They also would be told about the new rules and how hard it would be to accomplish it with PTC in place in all US churches. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-about-the-catholic-priesthood-that-attracts-so-many-pedophiles/533212/132 "2010-04-01T01:04:45Z")
> [@martu](#): > > I’m not sure where the complexity is here can you help me out? Maybe I am being simplistic but to me abusing children is one of those areas that’s black and white, it’s bad lock them up. Agree. It’s a simple problem, with a simple solution. Step ONE would be to revoke all rules, laws, letters, and “instructions” that demand perpetual silence (total secrecy) on the part of the victim (chruch enforced secrecy under threat of excommunication). Step TWO is turn the offender over to the law. Not church law which has failed miserably and which simply shuffles abusers around so they can do it again, but to civil and criminal secular law. Get rid of the secrecy, the cover ups, and the veiled or not so veiled threats against the victims, A simple problem, with simple and direct solutions. Drop all the cover ups and secrecy, and start filing criminal charges. Simple. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-about-the-catholic-priesthood-that-attracts-so-many-pedophiles/533212/133 "2010-04-01T01:14:19Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > Some of them apparently were. Are you stating that you know for a fact that all of them were serial offenders? No I’m not, but some casual Googling should clear that up for you. Start with Ireland, then try Austria, then check out Ummm Wisconsin and Boston. > [@](#): > > What a bizarre assertion. Of course it’s not an excuse. It is in fact the topic of the thread. The reason that these offenses were covered up was because it was an _institutional policy_ to do so. The institutional problem is the _cause_ of the “situation.” If you don’t care about the institutional problem, then you also don’t care about preventing it from happening again in the future. Sitting around and being belligerent about it is apparently all you think that needs to be done. > > And why do you think it doesn’t happen? It’s because _there is an institution that has been implementing a policy that prevents it from happening_. Get it? Unless you address this _institutional problem_, you’ll never the the answer to your question. > > Furthermore, as I stated before, there also seems to be an ongoing problem with priests having illicit relationships with _adult women_ and then abandoning their children, which suggests that there is an institutional problem that is deeper than can be solved merely by putting sex offenders in prison. Go ahead and stick your head in the sand with “just throw the paedophiles in jail” but if that’s all you do, you’re failing to address an ongoing _institutional problem_ that will continue to have negative effects on individuals and society as a whole. Toss them in jail.. Why not? Isn’t that what we do with them? Toss out the various “requirements” for secrecy, and the latitude for simply relocating them to do it all over again. Why not? Get rid of the secrecy, the requirement of swearing the victims to “perpetual silence”, and start thinking about the victims rather than some undefined “good of the church”. Fix the institutional problems AND punish the guilty. Why not? Is it so hard to do the right thing? In the Pit, I linked some of the “church instructions” about keeping things so secret. There’s the institutional problem. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-about-the-catholic-priesthood-that-attracts-so-many-pedophiles/533212/134 "2010-04-01T01:17:22Z")
Molesters seek out jobs that will give them access to their targets. It’s not just the priesthood (though that gives additional cover for not having adult relationships), but other positions like scout leaders, little league coaches, etc. Anyjob or position which will give them access to and power over their sexual targets is going to be attractive to them. I’m sure that protestant clergy perpetrate just as often, but they don’t have a powerful and massive hierarchical system protecting them. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-about-the-catholic-priesthood-that-attracts-so-many-pedophiles/533212/135 "2010-04-01T01:24:00Z")
Christopher Hitchens: > [@](#): > > A school for children who can only use sign language. 200 of them have their childhoods completely wrecked by this priest, and entreaties are addressed to the man who is now Pope, Cardinal Ratzinger, the man who was saying at the time that the only problem with the scandal was there was a press campaign against the church. The abuse was not the problem, the torture the rape; only the revelation of it. Nothing happens except that he forgives the priest who asked for forgiveness before he dies. … > I wrote then and I believe now that the fatal taint went straight to the top at that point, and now we have as head of the church someone who’s personally as well institutionally responsible for knowing of this, covering it up and protecting, not the children, but the predators. … The breaking point just came, when it became obvious from reports from Munich, and reports from Wisconsin, and reports now from Verona, in Italy, that the man who is now calling himself the Pope was the person individually responsible for the coverup. > [@](#): > > This is what makes the scandal an institutional one and not a matter of delinquency here and there. The church needs and wants control of the very young and asks their parents to entrust their children to certain “confessors,” who until recently enjoyed enormous prestige and immunity. It cannot afford to admit that many of these confessors, and their superiors, are calcified sadists who cannot believe their luck. Nor can it afford to admit that the church regularly abandoned the children and did its best to protect and sometimes even promote their tormentors. So instead it is whiningly and falsely asserting that all charges against the pope—none of them surfacing except from within the Catholic community—are part of a plan to embarrass him. > This hasn’t been true so far, but it ought to be true from now on. This grisly little man is not above or outside the law. He is the titular head of a small state. We know more and more of the names of the children who were victims and of the pederasts who were his pets. This is a crime under any law (as well as a sin), and crime demands not sickly private ceremonies of “repentance,” or faux compensation by means of church-financed payoffs, but justice and punishment. > **[BBC NEWS | Americas | Excerpts: Vatican document](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3157859.stm)** > > Excerpts of a secret document show the Vatican told bishops to hide cases of sexual abuse. > [@](#): > > … They will also be able to transfer him to another [assignment], unless the Ordinary of the place has forbidden it because he has already accepted the denunciation and has begun the inquisition. … Because, however, what is treated in these cases has to have a greater degree of care and observance so that those same matters be pursued in a most secretive way, and, after they have been defined and given over to execution, they are to be restrained by a perpetual silence, each and everyone pertaining to the tribunal in any way or admitted to knowledge of the matters because of their office, is to observe the strictest secret… under the penalty of excommunication. > The oath of keeping the secret must be given in these cases also by the accusers of those denouncing [the priest] and the witnesses. … Before [the person making the denunciation] is dismissed, there should be presented to him, as above, an oath of observing the secret, threatening him, if there is a need, with an excommunication reserved to the Ordinary or to the Holy See. … All these official communications shall always be made under the secret of the Holy Office; and, since they concern the common good of the church to the greatest degree, the precept of doing these things obliges under serious sin [sub gravi]. … The formula for taking an oath to exercise one’s office faithfully and to observe the secret of the Holy Office > I promise sacredly, vow and swear, to observe inviolably the secret in all matters and details which will take place in exercising the aforesaid duty. [http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100313/...u\_church\_abuse](http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100313/...u_church_abuse) > [@](#): > > VATICAN CITY – The Vatican on Saturday denounced what it called aggressive attempts to drag Pope Benedict XVI into the spreading scandals of pedophile priests in his German homeland. It also insisted that church confidentiality doesn’t prevent bishops from reporting abuse to police. > The Vatican’s campaign to defend the pope’s reputation and resolve in combatting clergy abuse of minors followed acknowledgment by the Munich archdiocese that it had transferred a suspected pedophile priest to community work while Benedict was archbishop there. > Benedict is also under fire for a 2001 church directive he wrote while a Vatican cardinal, instructing bishops to keep abuse cases confidential. > Germany’s justice minister has blamed the directive for what she called a “wall of silence” preventing prosecution. … But Irish bishops have said the document was widely taken to mean they shouldn’t go to police. And victims’ lawyers in the U.S. say the document shows the church tried to obstruct justice. [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...032502363.html](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...032502363.html) > [@](#): > > The expression was more accurate than we knew. This month, Pope Benedict XVI wrote a pastoral letter of apology – of sorts – to Ireland to atone for decades of sexual abuse of minors by priests whom those children were supposed to trust. To many people in my homeland, the pope’s letter is an insult not only to our intelligence, but to our faith and to our country. To understand why, one must realize that we Irish endured a brutal brand of Catholicism that revolved around the humiliation of children. > I experienced this personally. … schools for troubled youth have been rife with barbaric corporal punishments, psychological abuse and sexual abuse. In October 2005, a report sponsored by the Irish government identified more than 100 allegations of sexual abuse by priests in Ferns, a small town 70 miles south of Dublin, between 1962 and 2002. Accused priests weren’t investigated by police; they were deemed to be suffering a “moral” problem. … Why was such criminal behavior tolerated? The “very prominent role which the Church has played in Irish life is the very reason why abuses by a minority of its members were allowed to go unchecked,” the 2009 report said. … But Benedict’s infamous 2001 letter to bishops around the world ordered them to keep sexual abuse allegations secret under threat of excommunication – updating a noxious church policy, expressed in a 1962 document, that both priests accused of sex crimes and their victims “observe the strictest secret” and be “restrained by a perpetual silence.” … Benedict’s apology states that his concern is “above all, to bring healing to the victims.” Yet he denies them the one thing that might bring them healing – a full confession from the Vatican that it has covered up abuse and is now trying to cover up the cover up. Astonishingly, he invites Catholics “to offer up your fasting, your prayer, your reading of Scripture and your works of mercy in order to obtain the grace of healing and renewal for the Church in Ireland.” Even more astonishing, he suggests that Ireland’s victims can find healing by getting closer to the church – the same church that has demanded oaths of silence from molested children, as occurred in 1975 in the case of Father Brendan Smyth, an Irish priest later jailed for repeated sexual offenses. … 1963 letter indicates former pope knew of abuse > [@](#): > > Fitzgerald opens the five-page letter by thanking the pope for an audience the day before and says he is summarizing his thoughts at the pope’s request on the “problem of the problem priest” after 20 years working in to treat them. > > He tells Paul VI that treatment for priests who have succumbed to “abnormal, homosexual tendencies” should include psychiatric, as well as spiritual, counseling — but goes on to warn about the dangers of leaving those individuals in ministry. > > “Personally, I am not sanguine of the return of priests to active duty who have been addicted to abnormal practices, especially sins with the young,” Fitzgerald wrote. It was all about the secrecy and covering it up. The Institution is rotten. It protected offenders. It enabled them. ---
**Author:** ![Perciful](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b38774/32.png) [@Perciful](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Perciful)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-about-the-catholic-priesthood-that-attracts-so-many-pedophiles/533212/136 "2010-04-01T01:26:59Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Molesters seek out jobs that will give them access to their targets. It’s not just the priesthood (though that gives additional cover for not having adult relationships), but other positions like scout leaders, little league coaches, etc. Anyjob or position which will give them access to and power over their sexual targets is going to be attractive to them. > > I’m sure that protestant clergy perpetrate just as often, but they don’t have a powerful and massive hierarchical system protecting them. I think they need to do what the Catholic church is doing. Flush them out, pay restitution and implement a strict program. I don’t think becoming a Protestant minister is anywhere near as difficult as it is to become a priest. We do it with the school systems. It can be done. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-about-the-catholic-priesthood-that-attracts-so-many-pedophiles/533212/137 "2010-04-01T01:27:21Z")
> [@SteveG1](#): > > No I’m not, but some casual Googling should clear that up for you. Start with Ireland, then try Austria, then check out Ummm Wisconsin and Boston. Are you aware that this is no way meaningfully supports your assertion that they were _all_ repeat offenders? > [@](#): > > Toss them in jail.. Why not? Isn’t that what we do with them? Toss whom in jail? The actual sex offenders? Well, they’re already being tossed in jail as they’re discovered. Isn’t the topic under discussion broader than that? Toss the entire Catholic hierarchy in jail? On what grounds? Do you see how you’re failing to meaningfully respond to the issues? > [@](#): > > Toss out the various “requirements” for secrecy, and the latitude for simply relocating them to do it all over again. Why not? Get rid of the secrecy, the requirement of swearing the victims to “perpetual silence”, and start thinking about the victims rather than some undefined “good of the church”. Who’s doing the tossing and ridding here and who’s going to make them do it? > [@](#): > > Fix the institutional problems AND punish the guilty. Oh, wait, now there are institutional problems? That’s funny. I thought that was just an excuse of some kind. > [@](#): > > Why not? Is it so hard to do the right thing? > > In the Pit, I linked some of the “church instructions” about keeping things so secret. There’s the institutional problem. Whom are you asking to do the right thing? The sex offenders? The public? The police? Low-level church employees? High-ranking church personnel? Lawmakers? Care to define exactly what the right thing is for each of them in addressing this issue? Hmm … Maybe you’re someone who holds some position of authority in the Catholic hierarchy who has the authority to just go around tossing and ridding. Maybe you’re the Pope himself? Well then, instead of carping on a message board, maybe you can get cracking and just do the right thing. Unfortunately the rest of us don’t have such direct influence and might have to engage in a discussion that’s more detailed than “What’s the problem! Just toss and rid, toss and rid! There’s your institution!” ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-about-the-catholic-priesthood-that-attracts-so-many-pedophiles/533212/138 "2010-04-01T01:40:21Z")
Wikipedia write up on Ireland’s Archbishop Martin, one of the first to actually stand up and speak up: > [@](#): > > On 25 May 2009, Martin stated in the Irish Times (partially quoting a correspondent), > “‘There is always a price to pay for not responding’. The church will have to pay that price in terms of its credibility. The first thing the church has to do is to move out of any mode of denial. Where the church is involved in social care it should be in the vanguard. That is different to a situation in which the church proclaims that it is in the vanguard… in a very short time another report on the sexual abuse of children will be published, this time about how such abuse was managed in the Archdiocese of Dublin of which I am archbishop”.[11] … > On 26 November 2009, the Murphy Report into abuse carried out by priests and covered up to varying degrees by the four preceding Archbishops of Dublin, namely, John Charles McQuaid, Dermot Ryan, Kevin McNamara, and Desmond Connell, was published. The report, which took three years to complete, said the archdiocese had an “obsessive concern with secrecy and the avoidance of scandal” and had “little or no concern for the welfare of the abused child”.[13] > The report also noted how Church authorities used the concept of “mental reservation”, which allowed clergy to mislead people without being guilty, in the church’s eyes, of lying. The report also stated that there were some courageous priests who brought complaints to the attention of their superiors. But in general there was a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. > The investigating commission identified 320 abused people between 1975 and 2004, and 120 from May 2004. Cardinal Connell, the only living archbishop of the four mentioned in the report, expressed his “bitter regret that failures on my part contributed to the suffering of victims in any form”. … > At a press conference held on the day the report was released, Martin said: “As Archbishop of a Diocese for which I have pastoral responsibility, of my own native diocese, of the diocese for which I was ordained a priest, of a Diocese which I love and hope to serve to the best of my ability, what can I say when I have to share with you the revolting story of the sexual assault and rape of so many young children and teenagers by priests of the Archdiocese or who ministered in the diocese? No words of apology will ever be sufficient.” [http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/world/6938634.html](http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/world/6938634.html) > [@](#): > > Swiss bishops urged victims to consider filing criminal complaints. German bishops opened a hot line for victims. Danish bishops launched an inquiry into decades-old claims. And Austria’s senior cleric, Cardinal Christophe Schoenborn, admitted church guilt as he presided over a service for victims billed as a sign of repentance. > “Thank you for breaking your silence,” Schoenborn told the victims. “A lot has been broken open. There is less looking away. But there is still a lot to do.” > A week after Pope Benedict XVI excoriated Irish bishops for gross errors of judgment in handling cases of priests who rape children, European bishops one after another admitted to mistakes, reached out to victims and promised to act when they learn about abuse. > Their mea culpas and pledges to be more open and cooperative with police echoed American bishops’ initial responses when the U.S. priest-abuse scandal emerged in 2002. They come amid mounting public outrage over a new wave of abuse claims across Europe and what victims say has been a pattern of cover-up by bishops and the Vatican itself. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-about-the-catholic-priesthood-that-attracts-so-many-pedophiles/533212/139 "2010-04-01T01:41:27Z")
> [@SteveG1](#): > > The Institution is rotten. It protected offenders. It enabled them. And … now … what? If you’re trying to say that we should just get rid of the Catholic church, then just come out and say it and propose how that might be accomplished. Otherwise, I have no idea what you’re doing in this thread except spewing outrage. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-about-the-catholic-priesthood-that-attracts-so-many-pedophiles/533212/140 "2010-04-01T01:49:42Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > Are you aware that this is no way meaningfully supports your assertion that they were _all_ repeat offenders? Does it matter if they were all repeaters or if only some were? Is there some minimum allowable limit? Is there a quota? > [@](#): > > Toss whom in jail? The actual sex offenders? Well, they’re already being tossed in jail as they’re discovered. Isn’t the topic under discussion broader than that? Toss the entire Catholic hierarchy in jail? On what grounds? Do you see how you’re failing to meaningfully respond to the issues? Toss the offenders in jail. The problem obviously, is that it was not happening to enough of them, they were simply being reassigned. > [@](#): > > Who’s doing the tossing and ridding here and who’s going to make them do it? The police and the courts of course. The law is already in place - enforce it. No one is above the law. Must be a novel concept in some quarters. The victim presses charges. Police investigate and collect evidence. A trial is held. If guilty, a conviction follows. > [@](#): > > Whom are you asking to do the right thing? The sex offenders? The public? The police? Low-level church employees? High-ranking church personnel? Lawmakers? Care to define exactly what the right thing is for each of them in addressing this issue? Stop sheltering offenders? > [@](#): > > Hmm … Maybe you’re someone who holds some position of authority in the Catholic hierarchy who has the authority to just go around tossing and ridding. Maybe you’re the Pope himself? Well then, instead of carping on a message board, maybe you can get cracking and just do the right thing. Unfortunately the rest of us don’t have such direct influence and might have to engage in a discussion that’s more detailed than “What’s the problem! Just toss and rid, toss and rid! There’s your institution!” It’s a hell of a lot better than the NOTHING that was done before, isn’t it? In fact, as I linked, bishops are starting to say the same thing, as in “tell the cops”. Is that so hard to grasp? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-about-the-catholic-priesthood-that-attracts-so-many-pedophiles/533212.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-about-the-catholic-priesthood-that-attracts-so-many-pedophiles/533212.md?page=8)