Sometimes you would think everyday is opposite day in regards to the media.
The one public leader who did the most covertly to help the Jewish people during WWII is of course vilified by the media as being anti-Semitic and not doing anything.
Now we have the case of one Cardinal who as he became aware of individual cases of priestly abuse and later the scope of the abuse scandal reacted to the problem. As Pope he is now of course vilified as not only not doing enough, but through his actions contributing to the problem.
The media’s opposite day though does not just effect reporting in regards to the Pope. Mostly all reporting on the Catholic Church is backwards as if every story is run through a simple inverter.
Now apparently the media is under the impression that laicization confers an ontological change in regards to a sexual abuser. That somehow once a priest involved in the depravity of sexual abuse when laicized all problems will subsequently go away. I guess Stephen Kiesle didn’t get the message since after he was laicized he got married and then went on to abuse others after this. For the media it does not matter that the priest in this case was already removed from ministry by his Bishop.
You have to wonder why it is that the ire is directed to then-Cardinal Ratzinger and not the California courts who gave Stephen Kiesle a light sentence and then destroyed the evidence after a two year probation.
The media does an excellent service when it exposes how abuse was mishandled, hidden, or the problem shuffled off to another parish/diocese. Great evil has been done by those who contributed to the problem instead of protecting their flock. It is hard to come up with a good reason why bishops would shuffle abusive priests in the first place. It is safe to say there motives were not to inflict abuse on more victims. Perhaps some thought that treatment programs would actually work or that a change of scenery would be just the thing — An almost criminal naiveté. Or simply as so many do they justified the act to hide scandal or to make a problem seem to just go away. Sin always twists reason until so many vapid justification might seem actually defensible. Add to this a denial of exactly what they had done and the efforts to hide this we came to the current situation that first broke out here, then places in Europe, and sadly we will find the same in other countries as time goes on. I have wondered why so many Irish bishops have resigned and yet only one American Cardinal did. It is not as if we didn’t have plenty of protectors of abusers here. Maybe the Irish bishops had more shame for their actions, I just don’t know. We have had plenty of diocese pay out millions to those abused, yet the enablers of abuse are pretty much left in place. I wish that famous Catholic guilt would have been more effective for those destined to wear millstones if they do not repent.
These cases also go to the problem of what you do with sexual abusers generally? Priestly abusers must of course be removed from ministry, but I wonder if just washing your hands of them and releasing them to the general public is the best process? Those involved with sexual abuse are rarely cured of this and as history has shown will go on and abuse others even if they had spent a term in prison. Societies answer of having a list of sexual abusers where people can find if they are living in their neighborhoods hasn’t prevented abuse in some cases. The Church just can’t send abusers off to a remote monastery to live out the rest of their lives. Abusers often see themselves as the victim and are unlikely to remain there. The Church also can not run a prison for such individuals, that is the role of society which unfortunately is prone to releasing abusers pack into society. Considering the recidivism rates for sexual abuse should the sentences become lifetime sentences? There is the case of Alessandro Serenelli who attempted to rape Saint Maria Goretti and who did repent of his act and later lived a life of penance. Cases like this are rare and most abusers are not helped via the world of psychiatry. These are the questions we should be grasping with instead of the stupdity of trying to link Pope Benedict XVI as a problem in regards to priest abuse.
7 comments
Mr. Miller:
CONGRATULATIONS!, for ” I have wondered why so many Irish bishops have resigned and yet only one American Cardinal did. It is not as if we didn’t have plenty of protectors of abusers here. Maybe the Irish bishops had more shame for their actions, I just don’t know. We have had plenty of diocese pay out millions to those abused, yet the enablers of abuse are pretty much left in place”.
It mujst be stressed: those ENABLERS still in place, should be called by the laity to have some bood in their face, and follow the Irish example. The time for a MAJOR INQUISITORIAL (oh, my Spanish blood!) PURGE is now!, to further discredit the USA multimedia.
Good post. You might want to amend the part about St. Maria Goretti and Alessandro Serenelli to include the fact that he stabbed her multiple times and she died of her wounds. I believe that it was only after years in prison that he truly repented, living out the remainder of his life in penance
I know of at least one particular diocese which tried to show that therapists and psychologists had told them that it was imperative for the success of the treatment of pedofiles that they were kept in ministry and given trust. The problem was that the hospitals and therapists involved lawyered up and succeeded in escaping liability by claiming “patient confidentiality” issues.
Mr. Jester:
I can’t remember ever reading that laicizing a pedophile priest will change him ontologically. Instead, the argument goes, it will absolve the Church of any responsibility for his future actions. Since, as you observe yourself, pedophilia is very difficult to cure, and the Church’s coercive powers limited (quite reasonably so, if you ask me), that may be the best she can hope to do.
Let’s face it, it’s not like she hasn’t tried to do better. In an article titled “Priest Treatment Unfolds in Costly, Secretive World,” Boston Globe writer Eileen Barry describes the various means by which the Church, over the course of several decades, has used to rehabilitate her priests. They included everything from prayer and adoration to a form of chemical castration. All of them showed a distressingly low rate of success.
One of the pioneers in treating priestly predators — Fr. Gerald Fitzgerald, founder of the religious order Servants of the Paraclete — actually suggested exiling them to a desert island. In fact, more than simply suggesting it, he put a 10% down payment on a small island near Barbados, where he planned to build a permanent retreat. When his superiors declined to back the scheme, it collapsed.
Now, if the Church wants to do society a favor, she’ll turn likely offenders over to the cops. I know canon procedures are subject to the pontifical secret, but — at least as I understand these things — there’s nothing to prevent civil authorities from conducting their own parallel investigations. That’s my gut response, anyway. If there are canonical or practical concerns that would tend to militate against the practice, I’ll be happy to hear them, but boy, had they better be good.
I don’t know if the Irish bishops had the benefit of a society that could countenance attempts to legitimize pedophilia and other “paraphilias,” and experts, advising them that it’s really no big deal.
After all, American doctors, experts, doncha know, could write and say with a straight (ooops!) face, “different societies stigmatize different sexual behaviors;
existing research cannot distinguish people with the paraphilias from “normophilics” so there is no reason to diagnose paraphilics as either a distinct group, or psychologically unhealthy;
psychiatry has no baseline, theoretical model of what constitutes normal and healthy sexuality to which it could compare people whose sexual interests draw them to children or sadism/masochism;
there is little or no proof that sex with adults is harmful to minors;
society should not discriminate against adults who are attracted to children;
many beloved authors and public figures throughout history have been high-functioning individuals who could actually be classified as pedophiles;
any sexual interestcan be healthy and life-enhancing.”
http://www.narth.com/docs/symposium.html
As a person who has known several sex abuse victims, I believe in only one cre for these perverts, hang ’em high!
You bring up a great point about the media’s response to the current “scandal.” However, I think it goes even further than that. Religion itself is a very emotional thing, and as such, the responses by the followers (and media) could potentially be dictated by biased thinking. Being Jewish, I see a huge similarity between the Jewish religion and Catholicism. Though, I have never come across “sexual abuse” in my Jewish experience, abuse still did occur. When I was a child, the teachers at my local Hebrew School would scream and yell at us and verbally abuse us constantly. Although, this pales in comparison to the “abuse” that occurred in Catholic Church, problems are still rampant in Traditional Religion.
Until the current structure of the Catholic Church is changed, the likelihood of redemption occurring (or even evolution towards a new entity) is unlikely.
Dave.