Catholic Church Sex Scandal

[ratcharmer]

*sigh*

So this is quite literally the last topic I wanted to have to comment on, but some recent off color comments have lead me to believe we sort of need to take a rational look at this.

Statistics on sex abuse

Let me lead off by saying this: it is impossible to find reputable sources for the actual numbers on this. I've been searching and I cannot find any two sources that agree on the numbers, unless one is citing the other.

It's no wonder either--some sources are using the total number of alleged incidents, some are using the number of confirmed incidents, and a great many are kludging together numbers from other sources without paying attention to where those came from. There's also a huge amount of variation in how far back different sources are counting. A great many news sources are still counting cases so old that everyone involved in them has died of old age. Most don't list where they're getting their numbers from.

There is one thing the numbers agree on though--almost none of them vary significantly from what you would expect from a random sample of the population.

That's right, after 20 years of digging through church records with a fine tooth comb for cases of sex abuse the media has discovered the shocking truth that priests aren't any more likely to be sexual deviants than anyone else.

Again the reliability of the numbers is hard to establish. There have been two detailed studies (that I know of):
-In the early 90's the Catholic Church launched a survey of 2200 priests in the Chicago area. In about 1.8% they were able to uncover any evidence at all of sexual misconduct, usually not enough to go to court with. There was only 1 case of alleged pedophilia.
-An independent study (commissioned and paid for by the Catholic Church, but performed by a 3rd party) covering the years 1950 to 2002 found somewhat higher numbers, since it was looking back farther. 11,000 total allegations worldwide were found, about 4450 were confirmed-about 4% of priests. Of the allegations 1,000 were shown to be false, and 3,300 could not be investigated  because the allegation was made after the accused had died. It is notable that this study showed a lower incidence of pedophilia among priests than is seen in the general population of US males.

In these studies the most common age range for the victims was 16 to 17, not young children. In many countries legal action could not be pursued simply because the victim was over the age of consent in that country, and the church had no legal recourse.

Underreporting

Many have accused the church and the two studies above of underreporting the number of incidents. To some extent they probably have.

Underreporting is always a problem in crimes involving sexual abuse, regardless of who is involved and where it happened. Victims of such crimes are usually uncomfortable coming forward, especially if they think there's likely to be media attention.

If something as horrible as being raped as a child happened to you, would you want it plastered on the front page of the newspaper? I wouldn't.

Church Response

Even before the scandal came to media attention in 2002 the Vatican was taking action. There have been mixed reviews of how effective the official church response has been,and more than a few accusations of cover ups. Some sources indicate

The cover-up theories are mostly based around a single church document titled "Crimen sollicitationis". Most dioceses were completely aware this obscure document ever existed, and it expired (was no longer considered church policy) 19 years before the scandal broke. The document was written explicitly to deal with sexual misconduct that was revealed to a church official during the act of confession, wherein church officials are sworn to secrecy so that the confessor can freely reveal their sins. The document stated that such cases should be referred to the Vatican.

In many cases cited by the media and other sources priests found guilty of sexual misconduct were simply moved from one church to another rather than being properly punished. I agree, this is a huge problem. The church has began to revisit this problem, alas to late for most of the current cases. Unfortunately this is also the method used by the US public school system, most places of business, and who knows where else that I haven't thought to check yet. To my knowledge none of these institutions have begun to revise their policies on sex abuse.

The case linking the Pope to the scandal

A popularly cited case that many of you were probably wondering if I would cover. Here's what I know about the case:

In 2010 a story broke that in 1985 Cardinal Ratzinger (now the Pope) had been one of the church officials dealing with a case of sex abuse. and he was accused of mishandling the case. These accusations were based off of a translation of church documents published in the New York Times. It has been pointed out, however, that this translation does not match the original document, as entire sections had been modified or were missing entirely.

Although the story was reported by literally hundreds of new organizations, not one of them ever actually tried to contact the church officials involved for a statement.

As far as the actual case goes: a priest in the area overseen by Cardinal Ratzinger was accused of sexual misconduct. The priest in question did not deny the accusations and had requested to be removed from the priesthood. During the investigation the priest was removed from duty, so he would not have contact with parishioners. Cardinal Ratzinger signed off on a letter saying that the priest should be defrocked. Criminal investigation had already been pursued before Cardinal Ratzinger even heard of the case. The priest had already served his criminal sentence before he requested to leave the priesthood.

It should be noted that defrocking a priest is not used as a form of punishment, and is usually done at the priests request.

Summary

Sexual abuse of minors is a huge problem in the church, it's a huge problem everywhere. The Catholic Church has begun to address some aspects of the problem, but in other areas than the church it's been largely ignored.

References:

First the wikipedia article, it's a decent starting point but be aware that since this issue is controversial the neutrality of wikipedia is debated, and that the article is undergoing frequent changes (i.e. it may undergo a complete reversal from one day to the next). I used it mostly to locate other sources.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_church_sex_scandal#cite_note-FactsMythsQuestions-11

Now a more general article on child sex abuse:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_sexual_abusehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_sexual_abuse

These look at the numbers of abusive priests:
http://www.post-gazette.com/forum/comm/20020303edjenk03p6.asp
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/04/07/mean-men.html

This is a CNN article. Be warned, the tone used by the author in this one is rather scathing, and he sort rants a little. I included it because there are a couple of good points in there.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/03/19/donohue.catholic.church/index.html

A detailed look at a Vatican response:
http://www.zenit.org/article-9560?l=english

A comparison of sex abuse in the Catholic Church to sex abuse in the US public school system. This one is sort of terrifying:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/08/24/opinion/main1933687.shtml

[Boingo]

This is from the CBS article:

As the National Catholic Register’s reporter Wayne Laugesen points out, the federal report said 422,000 California public-school students would be victims before graduation — a number that dwarfs the state’s entire Catholic-school enrollment of 143,000.

Yet, during the first half of 2002, the 61 largest newspapers in California ran nearly 2,000 stories about sexual abuse in Catholic institutions, mostly concerning past allegations. During the same period, those newspapers ran four stories about the federal government’s discovery of the much larger — and ongoing — abuse scandal in public schools.

Anyone still doubt whether anti-Catholicism is the last chic prejudice in America?

[johannhowitzer]

It's the scandal principle.  Those in public/religious office are always more likely to get noticed if they do something bad.

Also true of cases of slight verbal racism, pronunciation errors, drunk driving, hunting accidents, conspiracy with alien cults, and dabbling in superpowers.

[Boingo]

It's the scandal principle.  Those in public/religious office are always more likely to get noticed if they do something bad.

It's even easier to notice when it's in the newspaper day after day.

[ratcharmer]

I think what bothers me the most is that a US government official publicly announced that the statistics on childhood sexual abuse were even higher among school teachers, and it was largely ignored. Why would you ignore something putting millions of children at risk? That's disgusting.

That and the jokes, why would you make a joke out of someone being raped?

[Xelax]

Even if priests *are* just as likely to abuse children as any one else (might not be an exact paraphrase but that's what I understood from your first paragraph), that's not the point. Priests are put in a position of power, of holding a moral high point and a control over their people. They're supposedly trusted- and therefore it's more shocking when they do it. Just as it would be if it was a kindergarten teacher, or someone working at an adoption centre. They're abusing their position in one of the worst ways possible.

[ratcharmer]

Even if priests *are* just as likely to abuse children as any one else (might not be an exact paraphrase but that's what I understood from your first paragraph), that's not the point. Priests are put in a position of power, of holding a moral high point and a control over their people. They're supposedly trusted- and therefore it's more shocking when they do it. Just as it would be if it was a kindergarten teacher, or someone working at an adoption centre. They're abusing their position in one of the worst ways possible.

I know the first post is long but please try to read the whole thing, not just the first paragraph.

Yes, abuse of power used to take sexual advantage of others is a terrible problem in the Catholic church, but it is not limited to the church. Parents, stepparents schoolteachers and childcare professionals are all also placed in a position of power over children, and according to the data available all of these groups have a higher incidence of  pedophilia then priests do.

The statistics on teachers are particularly scary.

[johannhowitzer]

That and the jokes, why would you make a joke out of someone being raped?

Seth MacFarlane gets away with this sort of thing on a weekly basis and he is lauded as a comedic genius.

[ratcharmer]

That and the jokes, why would you make a joke out of someone being raped?

Seth MacFarlane gets away with this sort of thing on a weekly basis and he is lauded as a comedic genius.

I'm certainly not the one lauding him.

[Xelax]

Even if priests *are* just as likely to abuse children as any one else (might not be an exact paraphrase but that's what I understood from your first paragraph), that's not the point. Priests are put in a position of power, of holding a moral high point and a control over their people. They're supposedly trusted- and therefore it's more shocking when they do it. Just as it would be if it was a kindergarten teacher, or someone working at an adoption centre. They're abusing their position in one of the worst ways possible.

I know the first post is long but please try to read the whole thing, not just the first paragraph.

Yes, abuse of power used to take sexual advantage of others is a terrible problem in the Catholic church, but it is not limited to the church. Parents, stepparents schoolteachers and childcare professionals are all also placed in a position of power over children, and according to the data available all of these groups have a higher incidence of  pedophilia then priests do.

The statistics on teachers are particularly scary.

I did read all of it, it's just that I wanted to make a point about the first paragraph.
Also, Priests are supposed to be indicative of the absolute moral right. They're the closest thing the Christians have to God telling them what to do. If you're torn by dilemmas and trials, you go there.  They want to be viewed as linked to a higher power than any other authoritive figure, as the unquestionable right. That's what makes it worse, in my opinion

[johannhowitzer]

Also, Priests are supposed to be indicative of the absolute moral right. They're the closest thing the Christians have to God telling them what to do. If you're torn by dilemmas and trials, you go there.  They want to be viewed as linked to a higher power than any other authoritive figure, as the unquestionable right. That's what makes it worse, in my opinion

While this is true of Catholicism, it is not universal in Christianity as a whole.  Protestant denominations usually place far more importance on the Bible itself than on what the pastor says.

[ratcharmer]

I did read all of it, it's just that I wanted to make a point about the first paragraph.
Also, Priests are supposed to be indicative of the absolute moral right. They're the closest thing the Christians have to God telling them what to do. If you're torn by dilemmas and trials, you go there.  They want to be viewed as linked to a higher power than any other authoritive figure, as the unquestionable right. That's what makes it worse, in my opinion

To my knowledge no major world religion has claimed their priests/pastors/rabbis are anything other than fallible human beings in quite some time. This includes Catholics.

I would also point out that, as far as people you're supposed to go to for moral advice, the same can be said of teachers, parents etc . . . all of whom the rates of sexual abuse of children have been largely ignored for.

At the middle school I attended alone their were two separate instances of sexual predation on a student by a teacher. One case I know for certain was brought to the principal's attention, I'm not sure about the other. In neither case was legal action pursued and to my knowledge the teachers in question weren't even reprimanded.

One of the teachers was our health class teacher, who taught sex education. Talk about abusing your position.