I confess that, as a critic of religion, I have paid too little attention to the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church. Frankly, it always felt unsportsmanlike to shoot so large and languorous a fish in so tiny a barrel. This scandal was one of the most spectacular "own goals" in the history of religion, and there seemed to be no need to deride faith at its most vulnerable and self-abased. Even in retrospect, it is easy to understand the impulse to avert one's eyes: Just imagine a pious mother and father sending their beloved child to the Church of a Thousand Hands for spiritual instruction, only to have him raped and terrified into silence by threats of hell. And then imagine this occurring to tens of thousands of children in our own time -- and to children beyond reckoning for over a thousand years. The spectacle of faith so utterly misplaced, and so fully betrayed, is simply too depressing to think about.
But there was always more to this phenomenon that should have compelled my attention. Consider the ludicrous ideology that made it possible: The Catholic Church has spent two millennia demonizing human sexuality to a degree unmatched by any other institution, declaring the most basic, healthy, mature, and consensual behaviors taboo. Indeed, this organization still opposes the use of contraception, preferring, instead, that the poorest people on earth be blessed with the largest families and the shortest lives. As a consequence of this hallowed and incorrigible stupidity, the Church has condemned generations of decent people to shame and hypocrisy -- or to Neolithic fecundity, poverty, and death by AIDS. Add to this inhumanity the artifice of cloistered celibacy, and you now have an institution -- one of the wealthiest on earth -- that preferentially attracts pederasts, pedophiles, and sexual sadists into its ranks, promotes them to positions of authority, and grants them privileged access to children. Finally, consider that vast numbers of children will be born out of wedlock, and their unwed mothers vilified, wherever Church teaching holds sway -- leading boys and girls by the thousands to be abandoned to Church-run orphanages only to be raped and terrorized by the clergy. Here, in this ghoulish machinery set to whirling through the ages by the opposing winds of shame and sadism, we mortals can finally glimpse how strangely perfect are the ways of the Lord.
In 2009, The Irish Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (CICA) investigated such of these events as occurred on Irish soil. Their report runs to 2,600 pages. Having read only an oppressive fraction of this document, I can say that when thinking about the ecclesiastical abuse of children, it is best not to imagine shades of ancient Athens and the blandishments of a "love that dare not speak its name." Yes, there have surely been polite pederasts in the priesthood, expressing anguished affection for boys who would turn 18 the next morning. But behind these indiscretions there is a continuum of abuse that terminates in utter evil. The scandal in the Catholic Church -- one might now safely say the scandal that is the Catholic Church -- includes the systematic rape and torture of orphaned and disabled children. Its victims attest to being whipped with belts and sodomized until bloody -- sometimes by multiple attackers -- and then whipped again and threatened with death and hell fire if they breathed a word about their abuse. And yes, many of the children who were desperate or courageous enough to report these crimes were accused of lying and returned to their tormentors to be raped and tortured again.
The evidence suggests that the misery of these children was facilitated and concealed by the hierarchy of the Catholic Church at every level, up to and including the prefrontal cortex of the current Pope. In his former capacity as Cardinal Ratzinger, Pope Benedict personally oversaw the Vatican's response to reports of sexual abuse in the Church. What did this wise and compassionate man do upon learning that his employees were raping children by the thousands? Did he immediately alert the police and ensure that the victims would be protected from further torments? One still dares to imagine such an effulgence of basic human sanity might have been possible, even within the Church. On the contrary, repeated and increasingly desperate complaints of abuse were set aside, witnesses were pressured into silence, bishops were praised for their defiance of secular authority, and offending priests were relocated only to destroy fresh lives in unsuspecting parishes. It is no exaggeration to say that for decades (if not centuries) the Vatican has met the formal definition of a criminal organization, devoted not to gambling, prostitution, drugs, or any other venial sin, but to the sexual enslavement of children.
Consider the following passages from the CICA report:
7.129 In relation to one School, four witnesses gave detailed accounts of sexual abuse, including rape in all instances, by two or more Brothers and on one occasion along with an older resident. A witness from the second School, from which there were several reports, described being raped by three Brothers: 'I was brought to the infirmary...they held me over the bed, they were animals....They penetrated me, I was bleeding'. Another witness reported he was abused twice weekly on particular days by two Brothers in the toilets off the dormitory:
One Brother kept watch while the other abused me ...(sexually)... then they changed over. Every time it ended with a severe beating. When I told the priest in Confession, he called me a liar. I never spoke about it again.I would have to go into his ...(Br X's)... room every time he wanted. You'd get a hiding if you didn't, and he'd make me do it ...(masturbate)... to him. One night I didn't ...(masturbate him)... and there was another Brother there who held me down and they hit me with a hurley and they burst my fingers ...displayed scar....
...
7.232 Witnesses reported being particularly fearful at night as they listened to residents screaming in cloakrooms, dormitories or in a staff member's bedroom while they were being abused. Witnesses were conscious that co-residents whom they described as orphans had a particularly difficult time:
The orphan children, they had it bad. I knew ...(who they were)... by the size of them, I'd ask them and they'd say they come from ...named institution.... They were there from an early age. You'd hear the screams from the room where Br ...X... would be abusing them.
There was one night, I wasn't long there and I seen one of the Brothers on the bed with one of the young boys ... and I heard the young lad screaming crying and Br ...X... said to me "if you don't mind your own business you'll get the same". ... I heard kids screaming and you know they are getting abused and that's a nightmare in anybody's mind. You are going to try and break out. ... So there was no way I was going to let that happen to me.... I remember one boy and he was bleeding from the back passage and I made up my mind, there was no way it ...(anal rape)... was going to happen to me. ... That used to play on my mind.
This is the kind of abuse that the Church has practiced and concealed since time out of memory. Even the CICA report declined to name the offending priests due to pressure from the Vatican. The cover-up of these atrocities continues.
I have been awakened from my unconscionable slumber on this issue by recent press reports (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, & 6) and especially by the eloquence of my colleagues Christopher Hitchens (1, 2, 3, 4, & 5) and Richard Dawkins (1 & 2). Both have begun a public effort to make the Pope accountable for the Church's complicity in these crimes. Here, I would like to announce that Project Reason, the foundation that my wife and I started to spread scientific thinking and secular values, has joined Hitchens and Dawkins (both of whom sit on our advisory board) in an effort to end the "diplomatic immunity" which the Vatican claims protects the Pope from any responsibility. We would greatly appreciate your support in this cause. All donations are tax-deductible in the United States.
Follow Sam Harris on Twitter: www.twitter.com/SamHarrisOrg
Under 3% of child abuse cases in the US involve priests. The church has behaved no differently to most other institutions and families, they covered up abuse. 70% of abuse is happening far closer to home than any church. Incest victims, not just children who were sexually abused as priests, continue to have their justice denied by the actions of the church. Surely that's a sin?
http://stopabusecampaign.com/dear-vatican/
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/crimes-violence/201005/priest-abuse-male-compared-female-victimization-impact
1.2 billion catholics - 5% abused = 60,000,000
Abuses by nuns and other hierarchy would be in addition to this.
Steve Harris who is one of my favorite thinkers, is spot on here when he
describes them thus
"this ghoulish machinery set to whirling through the ages by the opposing winds of shame and sadism"
How folks still support this institution is beyond me.
Sam Harris is the shining light of utilitarian ethics.
Christianity, like the other Abrahamic traditions is a perverse archaic superstition of desert nomadic tribes of the middle east from 3000 years ago!!
But here, we are facing consumate evil in Rome and in Rome's tentacles, countless dioceses across the globe. Not only is Peter's Barque sinking, Catholics of good will are now left to man the life boats and try to save themselves. These arrogant and hopelessly outdated prelatical pervert protectors are heading for the rocks, but they are too clueless and imprisoned by an institutional mindset centuries in the making to know how to save the ship by addressing the problem directly, let alone coming up with solutions.
Waiting for Pope Benedict to act on anything, as we have seen when he was Cardinal Ratzinger the advisor to John Paul II, is comparable to waiting for Gadot. At 83, how much time and energy does this man have?
Actually, the AIDS rate is lower in predominantly Catholic and Muslim countries in Africa:
http://www.martinrothonline.com/MRCC11.htm
The following link provides a list of Catholic hierarchy who support the use of condoms to prevent poverty and AIDS:
http://www.catholicsforchoice.org/topics/hivaids/bishopssupportcondoms.asp
" Finally, consider that vast numbers of children will be born out of wedlock, and their unwed mothers vilified, wherever Church teaching holds sway -- leading boys and girls by the thousands to be abandoned to Church-run orphanages only to be raped and terrorized by the clergy."
That doesn't add up. The Church considers sex outside of marriage a sin. People who willfully commit this sin are unlikely to care about the Church's ban on condoms. I think the same is true for abortion. What difference would it make to unmarried pregant girls or women to commit one more sin? If they carry to term, it's far more likely they feel an obligation to the embryo or fetus.
Years ago, unwed mothers were scorned by most people, not just Catholics, but it's not like that anymore. Catholic Charities has a long history of adoption services so that children don't need to be in orphanages.
FACT:
Religions in Swaziland:
Zionist 40% (a blend of Christianity and indigenous ancestral worship), Roman Catholic 20%, Muslim 10%, other (includes Anglican, Bahai, Methodist, Mormon, Jewish) 30%
In case you haven't noticed, I'm agnostic. I'm not defending my belief --- only the innocent.
--------------------------------
"FACT:
Religions in Swaziland:
Zionist 40% (a blend of Christianity and indigenous ancestral worship)....
Since when are Zionists Christian?
There is a difference between the idea that "child molesters prefer work which involves dealing with children" and the idea that "schools preferentially attract child molesters."
A reasonable person would say that schools primarily attract people who want to educate children.
In the same way is certainly worth considering that the Church primarily attracts people who believe in God and want to help people.
Some people seem determined that there be no acceptance of a decent person in the Church and all its members be portrayed as sexual deviants and predators and enablers and conspirators - that there can be no decent Priest or Nun in all the Church - they must all be evil.
That certainly isn't right.
I don't believe that the church attracts child molesters. In some cases maybe. I believe it is the church's inhumane system that pushes people over the edge.
People grow up in a catholic environment and chose to become priests at a young age. At that time they think it is the right thing to do. They believe they eventually will be able to deal with celibacy. As they grow older they enter a constant struggle between their perfectly normal sexual desires and their vows. The church tells them that their desires are "satanic" and forces them to suppress them, which often isn't possible. They have to keep it secret and eventually end up preying on the weakest, i.e. children. Suppressed sexuality leads to psychopathic sexual behavior and aggression.
Another problem is that the church basically enslaves people. You can't really leave. What if a 45 year old priest or monk decides to quit? You are out on the street, no insurance, no money, no possessions, no usable education, no retirement, no family, no friends. You don't even own the clothes on your body. So how are you supposed to quit if you see after 20 years that you can't cope with celibacy?
That's my position too. It seems especially important that anyone who has been involved in obstruction of justice or corruption of a minor needs to be prosecuted.
As well the Church needs to be disabused of any possible delusion that it has the authority to carry out redemption and grant forgiveness and absolution of crimes.
The other problems you describe need to be addressed as well.
= catholic church
From my father who spent 4 years in catholic seminary. The family are now all agnostic or atheist. The more one learns about the practices and true history of the RCC (I wouldn't exclude a number of other religions), the more one realizes the truth in Harris's words.
Lawyers, police, medical professionals, politicians, bankers and group large enough to be called a group will be sure to "take care of our own". It permits turning collective backs and condoning behavior considered unconscionable when committed by other(s). History documents even religious institutions are made of fallible humans and prone to much evil.
Many could not believe something that monstrous could take place on such a scale of the Holocaust. It defies the experience of most in Western society who never encounter anything that horrible to themselves and anyone they know.
Can the mind conceptualize the generational abuse of children condoned within the institution of the Church? Then we remember Rwanda, Cambodia, the Turks against Armenians and Stalin starving the Ukraine to submission in the recent century. The 21st allows for Darfur and still children are molested by pedophiles within a religion advancing the loving teachings of Jesus.
But that the institution routinely shuffled child molesters from parish to parish for generations? As a retired career Prosecutor, a carload of Grand Jury subpoenas will help clear the criminal element from the institution of the Church.
The trouble with self righteous polemic is that 1) it must back up by facts 2) introspective evaluation is recommended before casting stones. In both case, Sam fails completely, particularly as he leans so heavily on Chris Hitchens and other Jewish Christian haters.
While the church looks down on sex outside marriage, it has always supported loving marital relations. It’s also true that the church has tried to sweep issues of child sexual abuse and gay relations under the rug, so do Jews. People of good will condemn such actions, including Catholics.
But, let’s put it all in perspective. Today, there are roughly 400K priests, of which about 4K are accused of child sexual abuse in some form. But the church has also educated hundreds of millions of children, of which a fraction of a fraction of one percent has been assaulted. One is too many, we all agree. So, should the church be accused of crimes on par with those tried on the Nuremberg courts?
On the other hand, let’s look at what your people are doing: 1) Israel continues to commit crimes against humanity that are denounced by all human right institutions. Killing children and women wantonly is not good. Appropriating land in Palestine is criminal. Stealing from US tax payers for self benefit is criminal, that have left homeless children. The impact is also being felt in Europe; neither case bodes well.
The science of morality expects you to take an inward look first.
These are the known cases, brought to daylight in western countries. But even here mental and physical abuses, which were pretty much common (according to the Pope's own brother), aren't even included.
Justice is not about summing up. If someone saves a life, but commits a murder too, he is still needs to be tried. He can't claim that the good deed washed the bad one. Hence the church should not be accused of crimes on par with Nazis, they should be tried for the crimes they actually committed, which is conspiring to enable sexual, mental, and physical abuse of children.
If this requires an international tribunal, because the stone walls can't be torn down with local laws, be it. After all Nuremberg was about the prosecution of prominent members who enabled atrocities, or knew about them, but never committed them themselves. There is the perspective.
There's more to the John Jay study: Of 4,392 accused priests 3,300 were already dead, leaving 1,092. The police investigated 1,021, of which 384 priests were charged with a criminal offense, and 252 priests were convicted. That's a more accurate perspective of the numbers you quoted.
Defense-lines like "children get abused by others too", "the victim is a gold digger who only wants money", "by canon law it wasn't really a crime", or "we need to get past this" are not used in the Polanski case.
Fact is the abuse within the Catholic church was and is vast, and the cover-up was systematic. The abuse in church institutions, especially in third world countries or in Canada (google Canadian Holocaust) was often so gruesome that it reminds of the atrocities in WWII-Germany.
A couple of months ago the Pope's brother admitted to physically abusing children. He also admitted that he was aware of "extreme punishment" at Catholic schools, where pre-teen children were stripped naked and were often "penetrated" but saw no reason to report it.*
By covering it up and subjecting abuse cases to a mafia-like code of silence, the church willingly enabled further abuses. These crimes have to be prosecuted under US criminal code, and the laws of all civilized countries alike. There is no questions about this, because the abuse will not end if the enablers get away.
We had Nuremberg trials for responsible people in WWII-Germany. We should also consider similar trials for those responsible in Rome.
* http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/gesellschaft/0,1518,683368,00.html (in German)
Chronology of Events.
http://canadiangenocide.nativeweb.org/intro2.html
The Chronology includes crimes committed or allegedly committed by Catholic clergy, the Canadian government, and clergy of other religious groups.
And some information in the Chronology is incomplete. The following is listed next to a link, so it caught my eye:
"December 15, 2001 - The Roman Catholic Church discloses that it hired a known and convicted sex offender and murderer, Martin Saxey, to work as a dormitory supervisor at its Christie Indian Residential School in Tofino, British Columbia, during the 1960's. Saxey subsequently raped and terrorized children at this school without ever being reprimanded or prosecuted."
When I checked that, I found:
http://www.cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=6021
"The lower-court judge had ruled that the order was responsible for the abuse of a child at the Christie Residential School on Meares Island. The victim was repeatedly abused over several years by Martin Saxey, whom the order had hired as a baker and handyman.
The order did not know of the assaults, and Mr Saxey, who died in 1986, was not assigned to work with children. The British Columbia Court of Appeal overturned the lower court ruling, and in an 8-1 decision, the Supreme Court sided with the appeal court ruling."
Also, Martin Saxey was convicted of manslaughter, not murder as the Chronology reports.
http://csc.lexum.umontreal.ca/en/2005/2005scc60/2005scc60.html
It is wrong to assert, without examination, the claim that the Catholic Church is "an institution -- one of the wealthiest on earth -- that preferentially attracts pederasts, pedophiles, and sexual sadists into its ranks, promotes them to positions of authority, and grants them privileged access to children."
I am sure that there was rampant and unrestrained abuse and that the arrogance of the Church in claiming that it was above civil law and that it could deliver forgiveness and absolution and reformation was a contributing factor.
My problem with the article is that the quote I cited is so damning that it requires documentation of instances and exceptions - which the author did not do.
I wonder about the phrase "preferentially attracts ....."
You know there seems to be a problem in some people that they do not place boundaries on the claims they accept about miscreants. Once a person or organization is shown to have committed criminal acts they are willing to accept anything that anyone says about them without question.
Perhaps their anger shuts down their brain.
It seems to me that the Church might "preferentially attract" people who believe in God and want to help others - at least compared to what banks attract.
Catch the News last night? There was a report on children in public school who've suffered severe physical abuse, and the school tried to hide it.
the international fascist corporatist system will NEVER allow anyone to bring Vatican or any other parasitic entity to justice, obviously against its own interest.
For me, that's worse