Response to 8 Victims of the Church Scandal Article

I am going to pick apart Patti Armstrong's column found here:  8 Victims of Sex Scandals in the Church.

I'm not saying I don't agree with some of what she has to say, but there is some victim blaming and there's a bit of dismissiveness that is not indicative of a true grasp on the horror of the situation.  It's a very defensive article.

“Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened round his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.” (Matthew 18:6)

“If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.” (1 Corinthians 12:22-26)

She begins with the above quotes from scripture which is great.

For faithful Catholics, our esteem for priests as in persona Christi pains us to hear of anyone betraying their sacred vows. But for the detractors, there is glee and cynicism over scandals that are then used as ammunition against the entire Church.

"Pains" is not a strong enough word here.  Scandals like pedophilia priests and the following cover up, the idea that a known active homosexual sex abuser like McCarrick got elevated to bishop, then archbishop then cardinal doesn't just pain us.  It's devastating. We have been betrayed at the deepest level.   And I don't care about the detractors' glee, frankly.  Serves the Church right.  You can't claim to be a moral voice in the world and want to lead that world while at the same time promoting and covering up serial mortal sin perpetuated by your own officers.  Cynicism is natural for both those outside the Church and inside, like me, because our trust has been violated in the extreme.  It's like the Church hands rotten eggs over to those who hate her and then gets upset when they lob them back at her.

What gets forgotten or willfully ignored is that a priest involved in scandal was in a position to represent the Church but did not represent her teachings. He betrayed Christ in favor of sin and that sin is not the Church.

I don't know if it gets forgotten or willfully ignored. Again, this seems to blame those who are suffering from evil done to them.  It is emotionally hard to separate the teachings from the people who teach.  It's quite natural, I think, when one is reeling from shock and betrayal to get angry and confuse the issue.  And while the sin is not the Church, the Church's organization; its hierarchy seems to be set up so that there is little in the way of oversight.  We love the teachings, but the keepers of the teachings seem to be more loyal to their own circle's power than to the faithful they are supposed to be serving.

The scandal most wounding the Church today are sex scandals. To put it in perspective and still love and defend our Church, consider that there are multiple victims and the Church is one of them.

I agree with this statement.  These clergy have shown that they care more about their own pleasures and ambitions than the Church they were supposedly divinely called to serve.  They seem to have little faith in the God they preach and teach about.  They seem to have no conscience, even as they try to be the world's conscience.  It's frightening and the thing they have damaged the most is Christ himself.  They are anti-evangelists for Christ.  They drive people away rather than drawing them in.

1. The physical victim. For the victims of the sin, their wound is deep. They were betrayed by someone that should have been trusted; someone who should have led them to God. Healing does not come easy. To forgive is divine, but for these victims, access to the divine was blocked and confused. They need our prayers for healing.

Now we get into the 8 victims.  This statement is fine but it is not enough.  Yes we should pray for the victims. Always.  But we should also try to cleanse our Church so that no one will be a victim again.  We have a duty to be pro-active about reform.

2. The Church. The Church teaches love and suffering for others, not causing others to suffer. The perpetrator who vowed to represent Jesus and the Church, abandoned them both.

Yep.  The Church allowed and even encouraged depraved sexual behavior.  It allowed sociopaths to gain power in her ranks.  The corruption seems to have gone to the very top.  This is a brutal betrayal of all that is good.  This is spitting in Jesus' face.  This is crucifying him all over again.  They are a brood of vipers!

3. Loyal Lay Catholics. For those that understand that for over 2,000 years, the one, holy, Catholic and apostolic Church has the fullness of faith and is “the pillar and foundation of the truth,” (1Timothy 3:15) scandal saddens but it does not cause us to reject Catholic truths.

I'm not just sad, I'm shocked and grieving.  It's like a death; someone is trying to murder my love for the Church Jesus Christ founded.  And that attempted murderer is the Church herself.  I want something done,  NOW.  I want someone to call out this injustice within the Church and it ain't going to be the clergy so it has to be the laity.  The ones the clergy have so dis-empowered.  The clergy are up to their eyeballs in this muck.  The laity need to come along and haul them out and hose them off.  And frankly this is the only thing that will keep the world from rejecting the Truth of her teachings.

4. Those who Built Their House on Sand. Some Catholics without a firm base, leave due to scandal. They don’t understand the teachings or appreciate that the Eucharist is the True Presence of Jesus which we have only through the priesthood.

I find this one really reprehensible.   This is blaming the victim.  Think of a marriage.  Suppose one spouse commits adultery and the other finds they can no longer stay married.  Their trust is broken and they can not live intimately with someone who has pierced them to the core.  Some people can forgive and stay.  But do we blame those who say they can't?  In one case it could be that marriage was strained anyway, the spouse got drunk and had a stupid fling he or she regretted immediately, confessed and vowed to recommit to the marriage.  It is a rough and dark time but they can persevere.   But what if the betrayal is one of a serial bigamist?  What if one finds out that the spouse has been methodically manipulating your life so that they may indulge in real sociopathic behavior?  To my mind the second scenario is more akin to the Church's present scandal.

They leave the Church perhaps for another denomination without considering that sex abuse of children is epidemic throughout society. For instance, it has been reported that sexual abuse by teachers in public schools is "more than 100 times" that by Catholic priests.

Pedophilia among priests is extremely rare, only 0.3 percent of the entire clergy (Yes, still too much but it's not the impression the public has.) This figure was cited in the book Pedophiles and Priests: Anatomy of a Contemporary Crisis by non-Catholic scholar, Philip Jenkins.

The findings in the John Jay report released on May 18, 2011, examined the clergy sexual abuse crisis in the U.S. Catholic Church in-depth. It is the most comprehensive study on child sexual abuse ever conducted and covered the time period 1950-2010. During that time, 5 percent of the total number of priests were accused of sexually inappropriate behavior and less than 4 percent of those accused could be considered pedophiles.

Findings included the observation that the Church has addressed this aggressively and “the decrease in incidence of sexual abuse cases by clergy was more rapid than the overall societal patterns.” 

I find this sort of defense, which became the major talking point after the pedophilia scandal broke, no longer really works in the wake of Cardinal McCarrick.  McCarrick's abuse of seminarians and priests was a well know secret that people tried to warn the Vatican about, to no avail.  He was promoted to Cardinal in spite of the fact that people knew and that settlements had been shelled out to protect him.  It's not just the rate of pedophiles, it's the unconscionable dishonesty and manipulation to keep depraved people in power.

About the pedophilia.  There are millions of public school teachers.  A quick google search says that as of 2012 there are 414,313 priests in the U.S.A.  If .3 are pedophiles that's 1,240. (if I did the math right, which is always questionable with me!)  That does not bring me comfort!  How the hell did these men make it through the seminary?  Weren't they screened?  Didn't someone notice that they didn't have a true calling?  Where's the discernment?  Unless, seminaries were fertile ground for growing depraved sexual behavior.  Unless those in charge were not helping these men develop the ascetic spirituality that would give them strength to live a celibate life.  I believe the stories about how bad seminaries were (are?) because I had a first hand account.  I attended Mount St. Mary's College (now university) and befriended a seminarian who left the seminary because of all the gay sexual activity going on.  He told me horrifying stories.  Homosexual behavior was openly encouraged.  Now maybe this did peak for some reason during the seventies and eighties.  (I graduated from college in 1982).  I pray things are better now.  But it takes a long time to purge the system if you are waiting for those who perpetuate it to grow old and die out.  Meanwhile, they are doing untold damage.  They really are the devil's henchmen.

About the Church addressing scandal 'aggressively.'  I think it has been addressed in a very uneven way.  It is not addressing it aggressively to promote a known sexual abuser to Cardinal.  However, Pope Francis did just accept the resignation of three bishops from Chile.  Almost every day there is some kind of report of some kind of abuse or criminal behavior from somewhere in the world.  But I often think the aggressiveness of say implementing the Virtus requirement, while good, also tended to deflect away from clergy.  I remember when I had to take the Virtus training to be a volunteer religious education teacher for my parish.  I remember sitting there through that sickening movie thinking:  "Wait, aren't most of the abusers priests?  There may have been a CYA coach or Catholic scout leader or two involved in abuse, but the vast majority was by priests.  Virtus though was aimed at the lay parishioners.  It was made to seem that they were the problem that needed to be dealt with right away.  I'm not saying that people shouldn't be trained to recognize when abuse happens, but there obviously needed to be more.  And I've noticed that bishops always turn the conversation to protecting children.  Which is good!  But how about all the other corruption in your own ranks, Bishop?  It's become a talking point used to deflect from other serious matters.

I don't think things can be truly addressed until we realize that the clergy, capable of sin, like all humans, needs some kind of real check on their power network.  We have the idea in Catholic teaching, of the 'near occasion of sin.'  To be truly virtuous you must avoid those near occasions as well.  The structure of the hierarchy in the Catholic church does not provide for avoiding the near occasion of sin.  In fact, it perpetuates, it seems, a culture of complicity and deception.

5. Those Influenced by the second-hand smoke. These are the people that never were Catholics to begin with who have a false impression of the Church by taking priest bashing at face value.

This is what I mean by being anti-evangelists for Church.  Those who might have been drawn to the truth are repulsed by the evil and hypocrisy exhibited.   And not all who have a false impression are 'priest-bashers.'  They are operating on what they know which has been perpetuated by the members of the clergy!

6. News Media that Sensationalizes. Calling them a victim, I suppose, is like calling criminals caught in sting operations victims. News reporters love to report on scandals, yet, they are selective. They report as if sex scandals are dominated by priests.

In the Boston scandal, the media reported that 80 priests were pedophiles, but ultimately, only four were actually guilty of molesting children. The Media Report.com has reported that Catholic priests abuse at a rate far lower than that of other males in the general population. Most of the cases were an historical anomaly, occurring during a period from the Sixties to the early Eighties that reflected the era. Experts at the time, believed offenders could be successfully rehabilitated. Offenders were sent for treatment, rather than reported to police, which resulted in a spike in recidivism. 

Without the news media we would never know about these horrible crimes.  Thank God for the news media!  They have done us a good turn, even as those we were suppose to trust have betrayed and used us!  This #6 statement reflects a protectionist mentality that has nothing to do with wanting to be holy and do God's Will.  Apparently, we are supposed to be very discerning about parsing the actual Church herself from those depraved clergy, but we can lump all the news media in one group and compare them to criminals.  Also, the argument that psychiatrists once believed pedophiles could be rehabilitated no longer works in wake of the McCarrick fiasco. 

7. Innocent Priests. When priests wear Roman collars in public places, they risk verbal attacks from strangers despite being dedicated and innocent themselves.

Yes.  This is the whole reason for the St. Theobald Society.  Even as these priests are being betrayed and mistreated by the very institution to which they have pledged their lives, we lowly laity must support and encourage the good ones.  We must be faithful to them.  I do not want to throw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater.  I know many will throw up their hands in disgust and abandon all hope.  But I refuse to cooperate with that.  I know there are good and holy priests out there.  I want to be part of the reform that brings the Church back to pursuing holiness, even if it is at the expense of its worldly power and infrastructure.  And it is more than being attacked by strangers!  They are intimidated by their own higher ups.  They are abused and thwarted and cowed by those in authority above them.  They are trapped.  We need to free them.

[I skipped a paragraph about Father Johnathan Morris' response to questions about the sex scandal.  He refers to the Dallas Charter]

Finally, I can say I agree with #8 below.  I will just leave it as it is to end this post with the lovely prayer by St. Therese of Lisieux.

8. Jesus. We are the body of Christ. He is the victim of all sins. “And the King will say, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me,’” (Matthew 25:40).

Prayer for Priests
by St. Thérèse of Lisieux

O Jesus, eternal Priest,
keep your priests within the shelter of Your Sacred Heart,
where none may touch them.
Keep unstained their anointed hands,
which daily touch Your Sacred Body.
Keep unsullied their lips,
daily purpled with your Precious Blood.
Keep pure and unearthly their hearts,
sealed with the sublime mark of the priesthood.
Let Your holy love surround them and
shield them from the world's contagion.
Bless their labors with abundant fruit
and may the souls to whom they minister be their joy and
consolation here and in heaven
their beautiful and everlasting crown. Amen.