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I've been on a secret personal mission the last 12 months. I have tried my best to research the widespread clergy scandal abusing young boys across decades in the American Catholic church.
I have concluded the blame lies specifically on three factors:
1. Vatican II
2. Rome's inaction in the face of continuing complaints
3. A conservative Christian population which systemically drove homosexuals to seek convenient refuge in Catholic seminaries with "like minded" individuals
I went over several books I paid to download on the Amazon app. Then archives of disgruntled ex-seminarians, anonymous insider accounts and literary works of estranged and disillusioned laity who were directly involved in laity-clergy relations.
Today, the lack of men for the clergy is attributed to the world's materialism and erosion of moral values from atop every pulpit, which is another misstatement from Rome all the way down to your closest catholic church. The actual truth is the systematic identification of individuals who are not open to homosexuality, or supportive of authoritative nuns bordering on feminism and their continued eradication by way of harassment and suppression in terms of theological growth, thereby making it hard for otherwise normal catholic individuals to function in one such environment. It's also somewhat true that materialism may have contributed a bit, but it does not look like a major influencing factor.
But what puzzles me is the two-facedness of the church machinery, putting up one front with Rome, externally, acting like going in unison with age-old catholic theology and values with respect to homosexuality for example, while actively encouraging it from within and in the meantime, preaching against it during Sunday sermon amongst the masses.
And when Rome is faced with a cancerous problem that is eating up the entire church in America, they resort to their best skills they inherited from the middle ages, sweeping it all under the rug or going into self-denial or both.
And at the bottom of this, a very conservative population outside the church, which taboos homosexuality, with a ton of individuals unable to come out of the closet and taking flight to seminaries across the country where homosexuality thrived. Some of the clergymen were even in open relationships. And the closest victims that were available to these individuals were innocent altar boys. There's no way an adult man in the laity, even if he is gay is going to participate in this act with a member of the clergy, which leaves the altar boys and in a few cases girls open to abuse, and it's also the easiest to coerce and sweep under the rug.
At some point, I was asking myself if this is leading me to some sinister theory which might wrongfully link homosexuality to pederasty, but the majority of the abused victims happen to be young teen males, compared to the number of abused young girls. Actually, the former far outstrips the latter. Besides, the offenders also happened to be practicing homosexuals years and years in the seminaries which conveniently provided a thriving ground for closeted individuals on the run from a disapproving society.
At the end of the day, the stigma falls on the entire catholic church and its billion members. That is the unfortunate consequence.
I hope that the church discovers what led to the disgusting abuse scandal, but suspect that this is the calibre of talent that is working the issue. Did it occur to you that girls had no role in the liturgy until very recently?
Ted actually has a point. Many of even the modern incidents predate Vatican II. In my historical work on other topics I also see incidents of this in nineteenth century, and in Australia's case modern I believe, Anglicanism. So to me it might be best to look at some commonalities between Victorian Anglicanism and Catholicism. Vatican II and celibacy would obviously not be it.
I admit I've not researched the matter thoroughly, but I think possibly the main issue is that you have a fraternal organization that gives/gave adult men relatively unfettered access to juveniles. Particularly juvenile boys as "altar girls" I think did not occur in Victorian Anglicanism or in Catholicism until recent times. So that makes it attractive to preferential offender, generally male specific, pedophiles. (Catholic schools may have gotten some who had no preference or preferred girls) The fraternal element likely encourages the kind of loyalty and in-groupishness you see in police or school-teachers. Also Victorian England and Catholicism, I hate to say, might both be squeamish in dealing with or asking about the psycho-sexual element of seminarians personalities.
Although I'm not saying this is ideal, but a part of me has considered things like the following.
Raise the age of altar servers: Make it where they can't be altar servers until sixteen. This will make the job less appealing to people who prey on the young and boys, maybe even girls, over sixteen can probably "take" most priests in a fight. Raising the age might also get college kids more involved in church as a side-benefit.
Better screening in seminaries: Going back to the eighteenth c. there are encyclicals about assuring priest-candidates are mentally sound and not sexual predators. So even if it's awkward they probably should have looked more into the mental health or sexual-issues of candidates.
Bring back the Inquisition, sort-of: Unlike the police the priesthood I don't think has anything like an "Internal Affairs Bureau." I'm not sure theologically how to justify it, but I could see a value in an independent body able to tell the Pope who should be sent to the cloister.
On homosexuality I don't think that was really the problem on the priest level, but I have seen evidence it was on the bishop level. Closeted gay bishops were somewhat easy to blackmail, I don't know if this happened with Bishop Weakland but maybe, so an errant priest could maybe do a "you ruin me, I ruin you Mutually Assured Destruction" type gambit. So although I still don't like the idea of banning chaste homosexuals from the priesthood I kind-of think maybe it makes sense to ban them from being bishops or higher. Orthodoxy has differing disciplines for priests and bishops, bishops are chosen from the monks in Orthodoxy so are celibate, so there's some traditional Christian type thing there.
Ted actually has a point. Many of even the modern incidents predate Vatican II. In my historical work on other topics I also see incidents of this in nineteenth century, and in Australia's case modern I believe, Anglicanism. So to me it might be best to look at some commonalities between Victorian Anglicanism and Catholicism. Vatican II and celibacy would obviously not be it.
I admit I've not researched the matter thoroughly, but I think possibly the main issue is that you have a fraternal organization that gives/gave adult men relatively unfettered access to juveniles. Particularly juvenile boys as "altar girls" I think did not occur in Victorian Anglicanism or in Catholicism until recent times. So that makes it attractive to preferential offender, generally male specific, pedophiles. (Catholic schools may have gotten some who had no preference or preferred girls) The fraternal element likely encourages the kind of loyalty and in-groupishness you see in police or school-teachers. Also Victorian England and Catholicism, I hate to say, might both be squeamish in dealing with or asking about the psycho-sexual element of seminarians personalities.
Although I'm not saying this is ideal, but a part of me has considered things like the following.
Raise the age of altar servers: Make it where they can't be altar servers until sixteen. This will make the job less appealing to people who prey on the young and boys, maybe even girls, over sixteen can probably "take" most priests in a fight. Raising the age might also get college kids more involved in church as a side-benefit.
Better screening in seminaries: Going back to the eighteenth c. there are encyclicals about assuring priest-candidates are mentally sound and not sexual predators. So even if it's awkward they probably should have looked more into the mental health or sexual-issues of candidates.
Bring back the Inquisition, sort-of: Unlike the police the priesthood I don't think has anything like an "Internal Affairs Bureau." I'm not sure theologically how to justify it, but I could see a value in an independent body able to tell the Pope who should be sent to the cloister.
On homosexuality I don't think that was really the problem on the priest level, but I have seen evidence it was on the bishop level. Closeted gay bishops were somewhat easy to blackmail, I don't know if this happened with Bishop Weakland but maybe, so an errant priest could maybe do a "you ruin me, I ruin you Mutually Assured Destruction" type gambit. So although I still don't like the idea of banning chaste homosexuals from the priesthood I kind-of think maybe it makes sense to ban them from being bishops or higher. Orthodoxy has differing disciplines for priests and bishops, bishops are chosen from the monks in Orthodoxy so are celibate, so there's some traditional Christian type thing there.
I've been on a secret personal mission the last 12 months. I have tried my best to research the widespread clergy scandal abusing young boys across decades in the American Catholic church.
I have concluded the blame lies specifically on three factors:
1. Vatican II
2. Rome's inaction in the face of continuing complaints
3. A conservative Christian population which systemically drove homosexuals to seek convenient refuge in Catholic seminaries with "like minded" individuals
I went over several books I paid to download on the Amazon app. Then archives of disgruntled ex-seminarians, anonymous insider accounts and literary works of estranged and disillusioned laity who were directly involved in laity-clergy relations.
Today, the lack of men for the clergy is attributed to the world's materialism and erosion of moral values from atop every pulpit, which is another misstatement from Rome all the way down to your closest catholic church. The actual truth is the systematic identification of individuals who are not open to homosexuality, or supportive of authoritative nuns bordering on feminism and their continued eradication by way of harassment and suppression in terms of theological growth, thereby making it hard for otherwise normal catholic individuals to function in one such environment. It's also somewhat true that materialism may have contributed a bit, but it does not look like a major influencing factor.
But what puzzles me is the two-facedness of the church machinery, putting up one front with Rome, externally, acting like going in unison with age-old catholic theology and values with respect to homosexuality for example, while actively encouraging it from within and in the meantime, preaching against it during Sunday sermon amongst the masses.
And when Rome is faced with a cancerous problem that is eating up the entire church in America, they resort to their best skills they inherited from the middle ages, sweeping it all under the rug or going into self-denial or both.
And at the bottom of this, a very conservative population outside the church, which taboos homosexuality, with a ton of individuals unable to come out of the closet and taking flight to seminaries across the country where homosexuality thrived. Some of the clergymen were even in open relationships. And the closest victims that were available to these individuals were innocent altar boys. There's no way an adult man in the laity, even if he is gay is going to participate in this act with a member of the clergy, which leaves the altar boys and in a few cases girls open to abuse, and it's also the easiest to coerce and sweep under the rug.
At some point, I was asking myself if this is leading me to some sinister theory which might wrongfully link homosexuality to pederasty, but the majority of the abused victims happen to be young teen males, compared to the number of abused young girls. Actually, the former far outstrips the latter. Besides, the offenders also happened to be practicing homosexuals years and years in the seminaries which conveniently provided a thriving ground for closeted individuals on the run from a disapproving society.
At the end of the day, the stigma falls on the entire catholic church and its billion members. That is the unfortunate consequence.
I think you're pretty much on target here. I'm gay and used to be Catholic, and at one point in college was friends with a few gay priests. My guess all along was that the Catholic Church has created a hiding place for sexual dysfunction. Most of the gay priests I knew appeared to be celibate, but two had mentioned to me that they just couldn't "come out" doe to family pressure. It was as if becoming a priest was the only "honorable thing" for them to do. My other theory was that Catholic men who know they're attracted to children became priests to try and completely avoid the issue of sex, and that avoiding the issue doesn't actually work and they end up going after altar boys.
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