More on the civil war brewing in the Catholic Church over alleged sexual abuse and its coverup
If this article by Paul A. Rahe is true, we’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg.
I would add, however, that although (as Rahe states) same-sex pederasty, not pedophilia, is the mechanism of a great deal of the alleged child abuse by priests, same-sex pedophilia as well as abuse of girls still accounts for a significant amount. It is difficult if not impossible to know the figures overall, but the most comprehensive data may appear in this lengthy 2004 report issued by John Jay College for Criminal Justice (also cited by Rahe). You can plow through it if you like; it is really very thorough, and describes US cases from 1950 to 2002 (very roughly the same time frame as dealt with by the Pennsylvania grand jury report).
Here are some excerpts from the John Jay report (which I have not read in its entirety; these are from the summary):
Approximately one-third of all allegations were reported in 2002-2003, and two-thirds have been made since 1993. Thus, prior to 1993, only one-third of cases were known to Church officials. The allegations made in 1993 and 2002-2003 include offenses that allegedly occurred within the full time period from 1950-1993 and 1950-2002…
The majority of priests with allegations of abuse were ordained between 1950 and 1979 (68%)…
The majority of priests (56%) were alleged to have abused one victim, nearly 27% were alleged to have abused two or three victims, nearly 14% were alleged to have abused four to nine victims and 3.4% were alleged to have abused more than ten victims. The 149 priests (3.5%) who had more than ten allegations of abuse were allegedly responsible for abusing 2,960 victims, thus accounting for 26% of allegations. Therefore, a very small percentage of accused priests are responsible for a substantial percentage of the allegations…
The largest group of alleged victims (50.9%) was between the ages of 11 and 14, 27.3% were 15-17, 16% were 8-10 and nearly 6% were under age 7. Overall, 81% of victims were male and 19% female. Male victims tended to be older than female victims. Over 40% of all victims were males between the ages of 11 and 14.
Quite a bit can be learned from that. The first point is that, although the offenses occurred much earlier, a large proportion of the victim reports came out many years later, after sexual abuse by priests had been heavily covered in the media. What does this mean? It can obviously mean that victims had kept silent all those years out of shame, and finally felt empowered to tell their stories. That is almost certainly true for a significant number of them, perhaps most or even all.
But it can also mean that there could have been a contagion effect and/or a false memory effect, at least for some. What’s more, with such old offenses, there was the problem of investigating when whatever evidence or witnesses existed were long gone (and many alleged perps were dead), and memories faded. That’s the exact reason that there’s a legal statute of limitations on many offenses. Another thing that emerges is that the alleged perps were of a somewhat older generation, not a younger one, having mostly been ordained between 1950 and 1979.
Rahe has written the following:
…[Based on the John Jay report] something like 81 percent of the victims were boys, and very few of them were, in the strictest sense, children. They were nearly all what we euphemistically call young adults.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Yes, 81% were boys, according to the report. But—as shown in the quotes from the report that I’ve offered here—“16% were 8-10 and nearly 6% were under age 7,” which means that roughly 1 in 5 were absolutely unequivocally children (also, about 1 in 5 were girls). However, we have no idea how many in that largest group, ages 11-14 (which constituted 50.9% of the whole), were 11 and how many 14. If the majority were boys, and many were 11 or 12, most of them would be per-adolescent or very early-adolescent boys right at the beginning of puberty and not “young adults” at all.
It may seem a technical point, but it’s relevant if you want to understand the picture. “Pedophilia” is defined as sexual activity with prepubescent children, usually 13 or younger.
Another thing we learn from the John Jay report is that most of the abuse was by multiple offenders, whose numbers were relatively small. Of course, it may be that single offenders were actually multiple offenders as well, and that their other victims have not come forward.
I would separate out the phenomenon of the sexual abuse of seminarians by priests. This seems to almost certainly involve pederasty—in other words, it is same-sex male activity, and it features an older priest and a younger, but post-pubescent and sometimes technically adult, seminarian. That is what the McCarrick scandal is about, the one that seems to directly involve a coverup by the present Pope.
The Rahe article seems to conflate the two phenomena. It’s an understandable type of confusion, but I think it helps conceptually to see them as two related but somewhat different problems within the Church.
[NOTE: Please see this article for a different point of view.]
Are we seeing something similar with NBC trying to spike Farrow’s reporting on Weinstein that some now allege was done to ultimately protect Lauer? Institutions protecting their own secrets?
Neo I appreciate your distinctions here. It does seem Rahe conflates pederasty and pedophilia under a big umbrella that might be termed “sexual predation.” Both are horrible, but one isn’t like the other.
The open questions in my mind…Where’s the bottom of this cesspit? Who’s got the stomach & the strength to drain it properly? I’m sure there are more…but that’s enough to keep me praying…
I was an altar boy and went to Catholic schools though high school. I can recall a priest who may well have been a pedophile but I never heard of any action by him. He wrote children’s books and was a bit of a prude. A favorite story passed around by the boys was about a girl classmate who was about 15 and went to confession to him. Everyone around the confessional heard him say, “You did what ?” in a loud voice. I wonder that she ever had the courage to come out of the confessional.
In high school, we had one Christian Brother who was obviously gay and we all knew. We knew not to get into a classroom with him alone after class. Not that he attacked anyone but he was just creepy. We all laughed about it. There might have been a boy who was a “sissy” who was intimidated or even interested but we never heard.
We did know of a few brothers who would go to the beach without clerical garb and fool around with girls.
A cousin who was a priest loved golf and never wore any clerical garb on the course. He could never figure out how people always knew he was a priest.
Two posts linked with different points of view — alternative facts, to borrow a phrase — and how are we to judge between them?
This is a massive problem with trial by media: no weighing of opposing evidence, no investigation of subjects unless someone has an axe to grind, suppression of past events (by multiple parties)…we are seeing it all, over and over.
Truth isn’t truth, as Rudy said.
Mike K on August 31, 2018 at 3:01 pm at 3:01 pm said:
In high school, we had one Christian Brother who was obviously gay and we all knew. We knew not to get into a classroom with him alone after class.
* * *
I am reminded of a story one of my college classmates related about her favorite teacher in HS, who was sympathetic to her dysfunctional family situation and her professional ambitions. Whenever she was talking to him, the door was open, and the sharp-eyed teacher across the hall was watching. She said they used to laugh about her being safer in the room with him than with any other teacher in school, because he was gay.
Again, there are grades of this sort of thing. I haven’t seen the cross-tabulations, but it wouldn’t surprise me to discover that there weren’t that many cases of actual sexual activity with those under 14, as opposed to fondling.
Also the John Jay report concerned credible accusations. The information base bishops had to make personnel decisions was often exceptionally thin. Around the time the report appeared, the New York Times did a profile of the Archdiocesan review board in New York. They were that day listening to testimony from a complainant and asked to determine whether or not Fr. So-and-So had fondled said complainant – 24 years earlier. Quite a number of bishops were some mixture of horrible and useless, but keep in mind honest bishops were being asked to make assessments 10, 20, 30 years after the fact with very little to go on other than an uncorroborated accusation. That an accusation is ‘credible’ (i.e. cannot be readily disproven) doesn’t remove doubt.
One of the things that’s often not realized by people saying ‘for decades the bishops etc’ is that there were very few accusations lodged prior to about 1982. In Chicago, to take a case in point, there was an abrupt 6-fold increase in the frequency of accusations around that time. The same pattern was noted elsewhere. When I last enumerated it, 85% of the complaints listed on Bishop Accountability had been lodged after 1980. In the Diocese of Syracuse, it was more like 95%. In one deposition, Cdl. Law was asked if he had had complaints lodged during his years as Bishop of Springfield and Cape Girardeau (1972-84). Yes, he said. There was one case. (And he’d done what his staff told him to do, send the guy to a treatment center for an interim period of time).
And then you had the legacy accusations. When it was all tallied up, about 130 people eventually lodged a complaint against John Geoghan. The Boston chancery had received about 6 complaints at the time he was put on ice in 1992. They’d been irresponsible with Geoghan. They had ample reason by 1980 to remove him from parish ministry and place him in supervised quarters, but they put him back in the parish four additional times over the next 12 years. They were irresponsible, but not on the brobingnagian scale the number 130 implies. Also, the worst decisions regarding Geoghan were made not by Cdl. Law but by Cdl. Madeiros and by the interim administrator intervening between them. (Geoghan was ordained in 1962. There were two complaints lodged against Geoghan prior to 1979. One never reached the chancery and one the chancery decided was false. Geoghan was grilled at the time of the third complaint at which time the chancery understood his pederastic and paedophilic tendencies).
One other thing. In Syracuse, nearly all accused priests were ordained between 1925 and 1985. During the period surveyed, you’d have had a considerable number of priests ordained earlier (all but a few retiring by 1975) and, of course, you had the full set who were ordained later. I’m not sure there’s been a scholarly effort to understand why the phenomenon came and went in the priest corps. The most troubled cohort nationally were supposedly the 1970 ordination class.
The open questions in my mind…Where’s the bottom of this cesspit?
Pre-Francis, I’d have suggested to you that the last of the priests from the damaged ordination cohorts were due to retire by about 2030 (with the offenders among them weeded out earlier). Now, no clue.
Why would nuns protest Trump rather than the priest?
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/nuns-on-the-bus-donald-trump-protest-mar-a-lago-tax-cuts-midterm-elections-2018-a8500276.html
“There have been two scandals related to the sexual abuse of minors in the Catholic Church. Scandal I involves the enabling bishops who covered it up. Scandal II involves the media cover-up of the role played by gay molesters.
Let me repeat what I have often said. Most gay priests are not molesters, but most of the molesters have been gay. Not to admit this—and this includes many bishops who are still living in a state of denial about it— means the problem will continue. Indeed, there are reports today about seminaries in Boston and Honduras that are disturbing.
How do I know that most of the problem is gay-driven? The data are indisputable.”–From the 2nd article.
I was on our parish financial counsel the years we were facing the scandal in Los Angeles. In the meetings with then Archbishop Mahoney, we were apprised of many things that were falsely reported or not reported at all by the Los Angeles Times. But never once did the Church acknowledge the issue that homosexuals going after boys (or young men, as you point out, Neo) was the majority issue. When my husband and I went through the “Virtus” training, something required by the Archdiocese if you had any participation in lay ministry, I publicly asked about this reality. Doesn’t solving a problem require that we face the truth unequivocably? Crickets. It seems now is the time. There is no excuse for any person in authority to have looked the other way, no matter what the age or sex of the victim. But as we are now discovering the cover-up was cooked into the book so to speak. See this:
http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2017/10/23/4754231.htm
As a Catholic I am also offended by any acceptance of consensual prohibited relationships as well. A vow is a vow. And for those that suggest that celibacy is the cause, perhaps they can explain why we encounter adultery and child sexual abuse by those that are married or outside of any faith altogether.
IIRC, the Catholic Church made an agreement with the Orthodox Church a number of years ago to transfer a group of priests from Orthodox Church to Catholic Church jurisdiction. As Orthodox priests, they could and did marry, and that right was retained by them. I don’t know the details, either historical or under canon law, but could the Pope declare that rule applies to all priests now?
I’ve participated in discussions in Catholic groups on Facebook about this stuff, and invariably there’s someone (usually a woman) who gets all indignant (or at least seems that way) scolding everyone that pedophilia and homosexuality aren’t the same thing and how dare we conflate them.
I (and others) always point out that we know that, but that the vast majority of abuses by clergy is of postpubescent boys. I get the impression that the average Catholic in the pews doesn’t grasp the nature of this problem either, and Church (the bad guys anyway) and the media want it that way.
If this weren’t primarily a problem caused by homosexuals, I’m sure the media would have been pursuing this a lot more vigorously between the first explosion of reports in 2002 and now.
IIRC, the Catholic Church made an agreement with the Orthodox Church a number of years ago to transfer a group of priests from Orthodox Church to Catholic Church jurisdiction. As Orthodox priests, they could and did marry, and that right was retained by them. I don’t know the details, either historical or under canon law, but could the Pope declare that rule applies to all priests now?
No such agreement. Particular dioceses within the Orthodox and non-Chalcedonian bodies have re-affiliated with the Catholic Church over the centuries. Eastern-rite Catholic Churches have their own litugies, hierarchies and canon law. As a rule, they do ordain married men, but Eastern-rite dioceses located outside the home territories ordain only celibates. OTOH, some parishes in the West are staffed with priest shipped from the home territories, so you do see married Eastern-rite priests now and again. Eastern-rite bishops are always ceilbates (like the bishops in the Orthodox Church).
Every once in a while a married protestant clergyman will convert and be ordained a Catholic priest. These are not a function of agreements between corporate bodies, however. These men convert as individuals.
Over the past two years, .005 percent of the Catholic clergy have had a credible accusation made against him.
http://oregonfaithreport.com/2018/08/debunking-myths-lies-in-pennsylvania-abuse-case/
This sure sounds like whistling past the graveyard.
There were only four priests at my high school. Of my four good male school friends, two of them were hit upon by the same priest. My friends did not consent to sexual activity and neither reported the priest nor mentioned it until decades later.
Unless my school was terribly unlucky to get a gay priest preying on teen boys — or my friends were lying — I bet this is a common enough scenario, well beyond the 1 in 20,000 statistic quoted above.
Art Deco…you appear to have done some extensive research here & I thank you for that…Is it safe for me to assume you work at this from the perspective of a practicing Roman Catholic?
So can you elaborate on how you make this projection please?
“Pre-Francis, I’d have suggested to you that the last of the priests from the damaged ordination cohorts were due to retire by about 2030”
Is that based on Benedict having done more house cleaning before he retired? But…just to pose a “what if” – What if that cohort were recruiting & creating more damaged men along they way, wouldn’t the “disease” at the heart of all this be self-replicating? Or is that what you suggest by saying now that the Roman church has Francis, you have no clue?
That’s an extrapolation from the situation in Syracuse, which I believe replicated the situation nationwide. We had 49 priests who had accusations lodged against them. Nearly all were ordained prior to 1987 or thereabouts. Priests ordained at that time were generally in their early 30s, if I’m not mistaken. The standard retirement age nowadays is about 75 for priests, so departing active ministry by 2030.
Another thing to remember is Catholic adults usually didn’t believe kids, including their own, who spoke of abuse by those in Holy Orders. Even if they did believe, it hardly mattered.
At one school I couldn’t believe how vicious the principal, Mother C, was. Each year one of her nuns would have a breakdown and was sent home. She even abused the lay teachers. Word was, she had a brother who was an archbishop back in Ireland and she had the juice to get an inconvenient priest, like Fr. D who baptized me, moved out of the parish.
Ten years later the PTA finally forced her to step down. My godmother explained, “It was too bad Mother C turned out to be … mentally ill.”
Thanks AD…that’s certainly more trustworthy than any wild guess I would offer.
My limited experience with Roman Catholic seminarians was from the late ’80s. I’ve known a good number of priests in the 30 years since…but never as a parishioner so I know my insight is narrow…anecdotal proves nothing.
But the young guys I knew in the ’80s seemed to be either gay, emotionally inept or damaged & looking for someone to tell them what to do. The priests since have been a mixed bag. Some faithful hardworking guys. Some dictatorial. Some lazy as sin. Many served English-speaking parishes & did not have a complete command of the English language because they came from a non-English speaking background.
More than a few were not celibate…folks knew when/where the priest went for vacations & who always seemed to leave town when he did…and I assumed more than a few were gay because of the circumstances etc…again…nothing more than my experience.
But I do feel for the many faithful people who now rightly sense they have been betrayed.
@neo: Appreciate your dealing with the problem quantitatively. Most folks seem to have room in their heads only for a count or an average…
I was a therapist to adolescent boys who were sexual offenders. I have been out of the field for awhile, so I do not have any up to date numbers on the current state of offenders (recidivism numbers, etc). However I would like to reinforce some of what has already been shared. Offenders go to where there victims are; I know this because ALL my clients flat out said that is what they do (and they weren’t even adults themselves yet). So, the catholic church does not make offenders. The offenders tend to focus on places where they have the most access to children/victims. One last point that I think important is that people who victimize children, whether they are 11 or 14 do NOT do it because they are gay. Sexual offenders hide in the gay community on purpose and it is not fair to homosexuals. Sexual offending is about power. One of the reasons I left the field is the frustration I felt when other therapists tried to excuse offending behavior as simply being “gay”. I won’t give details, but lets just say that in a normal relationship (be it gay or straight) it is not normal to become aroused to tears, fear, pain, stated desire to leave (ie requests to stop/not consent), and disassociation. That is what differentiates an offender (regardless of victim age) from a non-offender. Please also keep in mind that most adolescents who are victimized are themselves at risk youth with low parental involvement who don’t have to ability to fight or outright fight the grooming process. I find that this is the most important distinction and concept to understand.
Geoghan was grilled at the time of the third complaint at which time the chancery understood his pederastic and paedophilic tendencies).I assume you know he was murdered in prison.
Many years ago, a cousin of my first wife had a long term affair with priest. She was a medical librarian and quite skilled She and her priest lover would go to Vegas and meet up with other similar couples. She died of breast cancer when about 35 and the priest lover conducted her funeral Mass which was considered a bit much by the family.
She had a home in the Hollywood Hills and he had cleaned out his clothes soon after she died. A priest I used to play golf with had a parishioner who was his lover. He was a pastor in Dana Point. It turned out she had had a couple of abortions, which became quite a scandal. He was an excellent golfer.
A lot of heterosexual hijinks was tolerated. After all, Pope Alexander VI had two kids. The molestation scandals really followed a take over of seminaries in the 60s by gays. They excluded men who were not gay.
@John
“Why would nuns protest Trump rather than the priest?”
Dear God, I just went through all this on FB. Damn The Independent! As I posted on someone’s wall after seeing the picture.
The Nuns on the Bus, do NOT wear habits. They are in their 60s and 70s, true dissenters, and dress in polyester pants suits. (They are even pro-choice!)
The inaccuracy/fakeness is in the stock photo.Here’s a more accurate photo:
https://www.arlnow.com/2012/11/02/nuns-launch-virginia-bus-tour-in-arlington/
~~
Someone was in shock about nuns being political. My reply:
These specific nuns have been political for decades. The faithful, devout and orthodox ones are not. The kindest info I could find as a primer (and I was sorely tempted to use some other sources, but stuck with the National Catholic Register – not to be confused with the dissenting, vile National Catholic Distorter(Reporter)):
https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/sr-simone-campbells-inconsistent-ethic-life
I think both types of the sexual behaviours have had directly involve a coverup due to the nature of them. This was not limited to the religious institutions or churches. It goes beyond that to the society in large
Whoa, whoa there:
Neo, you say, “I would add, however, that although (as Rahe states) same-sex pederasty, not pedophilia, is the ….”
Dangit, where can we get these terms defined? Reliably, I mean? And with explication of any related connotations, dog-whistles, etc.?
I ask, because in a previous thread I saw the term “pederasty” and looked it up, and found it defined as homosexual activity between a man and a boy (i.e., not and a younger man or simply and a man). As a result of that definition, and because I presumed that “boy” meant “pre-pubescent male” (i.e., not “young man”) I got the idea that “pederasty” meant specifically the intersection of male homosexuality and pedophilia, but excluded sexual activity between, say, a 27-year-old and a 17-year-old.
Saddled with that error (?), I proceeded to say, “Now, waitasecond, we’re mostly talking about ephebophilia rather than pedophilia” …and was told I was “medicalizing” the issue.
Now that I’ve seen you use “pederasty” to include ephebophilia, I guess I have a better understanding of that earlier objection (which at the time seemed inexplicable to me).
But look: Who or what is the go-to authority on all these highly-charged terms, anyway? Is there any source that doesn’t spin the definitions in a politically-charged way? And if there isn’t, then dammit, do we just have to define every related term before using it?
As I now understand it:
“pedophile” = adult who pursues sex with pre-pubescent person
“homosexual pedophile” = adult who pursues sex with pre-pubescent person of the same sex
“ephebophile” = adult who pursues sex with pre-pubescent younger person
“homosexual ephebophile” = adult who pursues sex with pre-pubescent younger person of the same sex
“pederast” = male homosexual pedophile or ephebophile
…all of which is horrifying, but is even that list correct?
A lot of heterosexual hijinks was tolerated. After all, Pope Alexander VI had two kids. The molestation scandals really followed a take over of seminaries in the 60s by gays. They excluded men who were not gay.
Rubbish. Over 60% of the accusations lodged against priests referring to incidents prior to 1960 were lodged by men. And, no, seminaries did not exclude non-homosexuals nor were they ‘taken over’ by homosexuals.
Pederast?
Ephebophile?
Let’s just call them what their molesters probably call them:
Twinks.
Gay slang based on Hostess “twinkies”.
And could those posters trying to find daylight between this behavior and the exploitative meat market that typifies the gay “community” please stop? The rest of us have eyeballs in our heads and brains behind ’em.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/35345/erickson-clerical-cowards-and-their-cover-erick-erickson
If the priests were having sex with teen girls instead of boys, do you think the media would be defending the pope?
I need to provide some important information here. I don’t know if any of you remember this from a few years back.
https://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2007/09_10/2007_10_12_Westen_ApologizingSan.htm
“Apologizing San Francisco Archbishop Has History of “Mistakes” Related to Homosexuality
By John-Henry Westen
Lifesite
October 12, 2007
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/oct/07101204.html
SAN FRANCISCO, October 12, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Nearly a week after being filmed giving communion to two gay activists dressed as ‘nuns’ Archbishop George H. Niederauer has apologized in a column for the diocesan Catholic San Francisco newspaper. In his column, the San Francisco Archbishop repeats statements previously given to LifeSiteNews.com about not being aware of any disruption, nor recognizing any “mock religious garb.” (see coverage: San Francisco Archbishop Responds after Caught on Video Giving Communion to Gay Men Dressed As Nuns )
However, the column adds that he was not aware during the Mass that those “strangely dressed persons” were members of the ‘Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence’ a group which the Archbishop says was denounced by his predecessor. “Although I had often seen photographs of members of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, I had never encountered them in person until October 7th. I did not recognize who these people were when they approached me,” he writes…”
As Catholic World News editor, Phil Lawler, wrote in a columnn at the time “no discerning Catholic could accept” Niederauer’s n0n-apology given the bishops knowledge of what has been going on at the homosexual activist parish prior to his visit. One of the things he must have been aware of is that the parish would provide LGBT groups with space for weekly BINGO games. And the prizes were sex toys. The priests at the Most Holy Redeemer parish would bless the parishioners marching in the annual gay pride parade as they kissed their same sex partners in front of the church’s steps. Since I can’t believe a word he said, I can only conclude he issued his incredible apology because he was videoed.
And Niederauer doesn’t know what a nun’s habit looks like, and couldn’t tell these drag queens in heavy make-up were making a mockery of it? Here’s something even worse:
“In 1986, Niederauer wrote a letter to an Orange County judge asking that a priest convicted of 26 counts of felony child sexual abuse be spared prison time – the priest received no jail time for the offences. Niederauer wrote that the boys involved might have mistaken “horsing around” for molestation. Niederauer later admitted that the letter had been a “mistake.” (a copy of the letter is available here: http://www.bishop-accountability.org/docs/orange/andersen/or… )”
So, Niederauer wrote a letter to an Orange County judge saying in no uncertain terms that despite the fact the priest had been convicted on 26 felony counts of child sexual abuse, the boys should not have been believed.
That’s some mistake. I’m not buying it for a second.
A few final odds and ends:
“In 2004, Archbishop Niederauer publicly opposed a Utah ballot initiative that constitutionally banned same-sex marriage because it included a ban on civil unions.
In 1996, as bishop of Salt Lake City, he helped form a coalition of religious leaders opposing the ban on high-school “gay-straight alliances” proposed by the Utah legislature.
In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle last year the then-incoming Archbishop praised the film Brokeback Mountain which had been condemned by pro-family groups as a dangerous homosexual propaganda film. Niederauer admitted to seeing the film and called it “very powerful”. He added that “one of the lessons (of the film) is the destructiveness of not being honest with yourself and not honest with other people and not being faithful, trying to live a double life.” (see coverage New San Francisco Archbishop Thinks Gay Propaganda Film Brokeback Mountain Is “Very Powerful” )”
This last one is particularly egregious as Jesus and his apostles preached the exact opposite. That people must change if you want to demonstrate that you accept Christ’s gift of salvation. Both Christ and his Apostles spoke forcefully against sexual immorality. “If you love me” Christ said, “keep my commandments. And here is an Archbishop saying it’s OK to wallow in your sin.
Niederauer was a seminarian at St. John’s Seminary in the late 1950s and later the rector from 1987 to 1982. After he resigned as archbishop he returned to that seminary if I recall correctly.
What do they teach there? What do seminarians learn there? I can tell you one thing they learn; according to former seminarians who decided not to become priests, they are told that they only break their priestly vow of chastity if they get married. Other than that, anything goes.
http://articles.latimes.com/2005/nov/17/local/me-stjohns17
“Trail of Abuse Leads to Seminary
St. John’s in Camarillo fielded a disproportionate number of alleged molesters, records show, in some cases up to a third of the graduating class.
…The 66-year-old institution has trained hundreds of clerics for the archdiocese and smaller jurisdictions across Southern California and beyond. It is the alma mater of Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, Diocese of Orange Bishop Tod Brown and other prominent prelates. Former San Francisco Archbishop William Levada, now the Vatican’s chief enforcer of doctrine, taught at the school.
But St. John’s, the only seminary operated by the archdiocese, also has produced a disproportionate number of alleged sexual abusers as it prepared men for a life of ministry and celibacy, records show.
About 10% of St. John’s graduates reported to have been ordained in the Los Angeles Archdiocese since 1950 — 65 of roughly 625 — have been accused of molesting minors, according to a review of ordination announcements, lawsuits, published reports and the archdiocese’s 2004 list of alleged abusers. In two classes — 1966 and 1972 — a third of the graduates were later accused of molestation…”
This is infuriating. About 5% of all Catholic priests in the US have been accused of abusing children and teenagers, the vast majority molesting boys and teenage boys. This is not to discount the harm the the some priests have done to the girls and young women they molested. This is slightly higher than the 4.5% of Protestant pastors who have been credibly accused of molesting children and teenagers. But the priests produced at St. John’s molest at twice the national average. Why?
I have some inkling. It appears that Archbishops like Niederauer don’t expect priests to be faithful to their vows. How else can you explain the letter that he wrote to the OC judge asking him to give a serial child molester no jail time? And it appears that Archbishops like McCarrick set the example.
After he retired as Archbishop of Washington D.C. he lived first at Redemptoris Mater Seminary in the D.C. diocese, then lived at Institute of the Incarnate Word in Chillum, Maryland, in a separate house on a complex that included a seminary. He demanded special privileges. The order was austere. They took their vows of obedience, poverty, and chastity seriously but McCarrick did not. He expected to live in luxury, demanding a special VIP menu as what the priests and seminarians had to eat was beneath him. He also demanded a secretary, which the order provided. And, oh by the way, the priest had to live with McCarrick. What do you think he wanted? I’ll give you a hint; when McCarrick was Archbishop of Newark he had a beach house (?!?!). He’d invite priests to come stay the weekend, six at a time. One problem; there were only five single beds, then the double bed in his master bedroom.
If anyone thinks that the RCC doesn’t have a huge problem with a powerful gay sub-culture (and I can’t say it’s actually a subculture) they’re kidding themselves. This is NOT to say that all homosexuals are child molesters, but the ones who are have/had powerful protectors in prelates like McCarrick and Niederauer who apparently never intended to keep their vows. And it’s one of the worst kept secrets in Rome that the Curia is rife with homosexuality. I’d have the exact same problem if, as in the past, the RCC looked the other way as bishops took female concubines. Who, BTW, would be seriously underage by today’s standards.
To say that a gay-subculture has put a great many people willing to protect pedophiles/pederasts in positions of power is not quit the same thing as saying homosexuals have taken over the Catholic church. What I am saying is that it’s very hard to be a Catholic when the Catholic clergy doesn’t believe it’s own damn self in what it is selling.
Matthew 18:
“5And whoever welcomes a little child like this in My name welcomes Me. 6But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. “
I have no sympathy for a child molester. I don’t care if he’s wearing priest’s vestments.
My bad. McCarrick was a Cardinal.
I’ve read reviews of Michael Rose’s “Goodbye, Good Men” which I find more than suggestive that there is a strong gay lobby in seminaries pushing for a gay agenda.
Which isn’t to say gays control everything, but they are putting their queer shoulders to the wheel, to borrow a line from poet, Allen Ginsberg.
____________________________________________________________
Liberals who blame celibacy for the Catholic Church’s pedophilia scandals are missing the real cause: seminaries that actively encourage homosexuality, moral laxity, and theological dissent all in the name of post-Vatican II “renewal.” In “Goodbye, Good Men,” Michael S. Rose demonstrates that such seminaries are by no means rare. All over the country, gay priests and liberal nuns energetically recruit for the priesthood gay men and others of questionable moral character – while turning away heterosexual orthodox men.
Rose fearlessly names names to tell the whole shocking story and the “Pink Palaces” of gay debauchery that many seminaries have become is just the beginning! Rose introduces you to the lesbian witch who attended classes with Catholic seminarians – in deference to whom the faculty carefully avoided mentioning the Church’s teachings on sexual morality; the seminarian who was scolded for owning a cassock and refusing to read Playboy; and the seminary administrators and novice masters who took no action against gay sexual harassment of non-gay seminarians.
Each more appalling than the last, the stories document much more than just a few isolated cases of laxity: they betray a deeply rooted agenda by gays and dissenters to do nothing less than take over the Church. To do so, they’ve created the Church’s “priest shortage” by running serious Catholics out of the seminaries – leaving only deviants.
https://www.conservativebookclub.com/book/goodbye-good-men
I’ve read reviews of Michael Rose’s “Goodbye, Good Men” which I find more than suggestive that there is a strong gay lobby in seminaries pushing for a gay agenda.
Read the reviews by Fr. Rob Johansen and Amy Welborn. Read also the article on the book by Brian St. Paul, which sent Rose and Dale Vree into a fury. The gist of what they had to say was that the general charge was not false, but that the specific examples Rose made use of were often dated or a bum rap. This was in particular per those authors true of his account of the American College in Louvain.
To say ‘seminaries commonly tolerate homosexuality’ is one sort of factual statement. To say, ‘homosexuals took over seminaries and excluded heterosexuals’ is quite another. Vocations recruitment and seminary formation can be deeply problematic and not be the things Rose asserted or others have asserted here. Rose’s book was published in 2002, IIRC, and was making use of incidents which occurred a decade earlier.
No clue where John Guilfoyle is meeting all these dysfunctional young (now middle aged) priests. Nationally, the cohorts still in service least likely to be accused of some sort of sexual misconduct with youth were those ordained after 1985.
To do so, they’ve created the Church’s “priest shortage” by running serious Catholics out of the seminaries – leaving only deviants.
Again, the notion the vocation shortage is ‘artificial and contrived’ is a nonsense meme. The number of lay Catholics appearing for Mass drops by 1/3 during a period of time when the population of the United States increases by 40% and Michael Rose fancies that’s not going to be reflected in the number of young men who present themselves as candidates for the priesthood. Usually, you move the median of a distribution a tad to the left, the number in the tails (and candidates for the priesthood and religious are in the tails) will change quite dramatically. Bad bishops, bad superiors, bad vocations promoters, and bad seminary rectors can make a bad situation a worse situation a worse situation, of course.
Take a look at this analysis at http://thefederalist.com/2018/08/30/pederasty-cover-will-make-civil-war-within-catholic-church/
Art Deco wrote:
“Again, the notion the vocation shortage is ‘artificial and contrived’ is a nonsense meme. The number of lay Catholics appearing for Mass drops by 1/3 during a period of time when the population of the United States increases by 40% and Michael Rose fancies that’s not going to be reflected in the number of young men who present themselves as candidates for the priesthood.”
The two phenomena are related, whether you want to acknowledge the facts or not. First, the RCC has a huge problem with a gay subculture.
http://www.wlrn.org/post/popes-reference-gay-lobby-broaches-taboo-topic
“Representatives of the Latin American and Caribbean Confederation of Religious Men and Women had a question-and-answer session last week with Pope Francis.
In their summary of his remarks, the pope said that in the Curia, “there are holy people, but there is also a stream of corruption … the gay lobby is mentioned, and it is true, it is there. We need to see what we can do.” ”
The Pope later played down his remarks, although he did famously say that if a gay person is sincerely seeking God, who is he to judge. A Vatican spokesman refused to comment, saying the meeting had been closed. No recording devices were allowed, but attendees were openly taking notes. And later they released their transcript of the session to the extremely liberal Chilean website “Reflexion y Liberacion” so I can only conclude that the Pope was sending an oblique message to the Curia.
I highly suggest you read Father Donald Cozzens’, at the time of publication the president-rector of Saint Mary Seminary and Graduate School of Theology in Cleveland, book “The Changing Face of the Priesthood.” Unlike Neo I can’t separate the widely tolerated homosexual sub-culture in the priesthood (It’s not in the book but when asked to comment for various news articles he estimates between 20-60% of priests are homosexual) from the pedophilia crisis. What the Pope referred to as the “gay lobby” is simply Vatican shorthand for the homosexual sub-culture. The don’t work in unison. It’s simply that there are senior prelates who are homosexual, and a great many lower ranking priests who are homosexual. It is the worst kept secret in Rome. Some gay priests keep their sexual orientation entirely secret and maintain their vows of celibacy so now one knows who they are. Some let close friends or associates know their orientation, and either keep or break their vows. But a large percentage choose to lead a double life, actively hooking up for gay sex on the down-low while in public maintaining La Bella Figura, the correct appearance.
The “gay lobby” simply means that the actively homosexual members of the Curia know who the other ones are, and they practice a form of double blackmail. They won’t stick their necks out (every man for himself) but the won’t out each other as long as nobody outs them. And this culture is not limited to the Vatican but pervades the clergy. And it does make every priest who is in on the lie, even the straight ones who have lied or otherwise covered up for their gay brethren (this is particularly common among Jesuits), subject to blackmail.
This is why I can’t separate the homosexual sub-culture from the pedophilia crisis. As one gay monk told a Vanity Fair author, living in a monastery is like living in “Big Brother House.” Everybody knows everything. So when a pedophile priest is reported to his superiors, if the superiors have the slightest bit of dirt on them they try to hush it up lest their crimes be revealed. So they hush it up, and transfer the priest out of the diocese.
Pope Benedict tried to clean up the “gay lobby.” But he did it the RCC way, and the RCC is a past master at protecting itself. Rumors are OK, but not public scandal. So he ordered that those priests leading double lives be transferred out or retired. Not even Pope Benedict could avoid the rumors. People couldn’t fail to notice his long time relationship with his ruggedly handsome personal secretary nicknamed “Bel Giorgio” or Handsome George in English. Pope Benedict received his own nickname in Rome, La Maladetta. It was a play on words; in Italian the Pope’s name is Benedetto meaning “blessed.” La Maladetta means “cursed,” and notice the Pope also got a sex change in the renaming.
I don’t know the truth of the rumors, but I do find Benedict’s resignation curious and I wonder if the Pope’s remarks about the gay lobby at the Vatican, given to people openly taking notes, wasn’t his way of giving them a warning.
The two phenomena are related, whether you want to acknowledge the facts or not.
I think you mean ‘mutually re-inforcing’.
I highly suggest you read Father Donald Cozzens’, at the time of publication the
Read the reviews when it came out. The reviewer wasn’t impressed with his argument and Cozzens himself was pushing a program of accommodation with the culture rather than purification of the Church.
1. Declines in Sunday attendance are to be found pretty much in every denomination, though the severity varies. I think it’s possible Mormons and Pentacostalists have escaped, but that’s about it.
2. No doubt flamers in the priesthood alienate people. If my own experience is representative, there aren’t that many. The two I’ve met were ordained in 1966 and 2012 respectively. The former died in 2008 the latter’s effeminacy is quite mild.
3. No doubt heresy and heterodoxy driven by latent homosexuality and it’s resentments and apologias has an entropic effect on any denomination and more on the Catholic Church than on any other. The thing is, a priest corps shot through with ‘Jungians, Unitarians, and goofies’ (in the words of Fr. Joseph Wilson) has an entropic effect no matter what the motor of this trash is. It is, of course, worse, when it is accompanied by gossipy cliques (some of whom are fellating each other).
4. Again, the Holy See hasn’t the manpower to police your diocese or anyone else’s. They can articulate standards, but implementation will inevitably be decentralized. One thing the Holy See might do is organize a consolidation of diocesan seminaries and regular houses of formation. About 15 English-speaking seminaries and 1 Francophone seminary would do for North America. A couple of houses of Jesuits, a couple of Franciscans, &c. The problems would be easier for the Holy See and interested bishops to track and police.
5. One sociologist of religion (on Mars Hill Audio Journal) offered that in his research, one of the most organizationally destructive things a denomination can do is fiddle with the order of worship. The Novus Ordo, the cheap modern architecture of most parishes constructed in the last 50 years, and the elimination or dissipation of mundane piety (manifest in the Rosary, Friday abstinence, novenas, and frequent confession) have with scant doubt taken a horrible toll. It’s not unusual to encounter a priest who takes steps to discourage confession. It’s been a while since I’ve seen discussion of survey research on the question, but the last time it was being bruited about that perhaps 1 in 10 baptized Catholics were making a confession even once a year.
6. And who is thinking o’er the horizon? A hardline Franciscan of my acquaintance once said he’d been instructed that you give a sermon and you don’t mention one of the four last things, you’ve wasted your time. Cannot recall the last time I heard a priest mention any of them.
7. Again, the laity squawk horribly when you propose merging parishes. Mergers there must be. We haven’t the priests or the pewsitters to justify the cost of all this real estate.
8. You effectively exclude homosexuals, I’d wager you don’t get more vocations, but you do get better vocations. The thing is, one of the most severe wounds the Church has suffered in the occident in the last 60 years has been the collapse of orders of women religious. Male homosexuality is not why the number taking their final vows each year has declined by 97% in that time.
Again, the external observation indicates that the post-1985 ordination cohorts were much less troublesome in re sexual misconduct than was the 1970 cohort.
Art Deco:
1. When I recommended you read Cozzens’ book, that didn’t mean I agreed with all his conclusions. Are you merely relying on the reviews?
2. Mormonism hasn’t escaped the decline.
http://religiondispatches.org/mormon-numbers-not-adding-up/
Essentially when young Mormon men reach 18 they were traditionally expected to become missionaries. In the past the social stigma assigned to young Mormon men who didn’t go was enough to force the marginally committed to go. No longer, and they are leaving and not looking back.
3. I never argued that the homosexual sub-culture was the only theological or moral ill afflicting the Catholic Church. The Pope mentioned Gnosticism, which keeps rearing its ugly head. Also the Vatican has a huge problem with plain old financial corruption (and personal ambition, but I’ll leave that for another day). The Institute for the Works of Religion, popularly known as the Vatican Bank, absolutely refuses to work with Italian or other foreign regulators. Search on “Monsignor 500,” the Vatican accountant who was so nicknamed in Vatican and Roman circles for the wad of 500 Euro ($650) bills he used to carry under his cassock and flash around. Italian police grew suspicious of Monsignor Nunzio Scarano when in January 2013 he reported that someone had stolen the fine art collection from the apartment he maintained in his hometown of Salerno. Art appraisers estimated the stolen art was worth nearly $7M, and when police visited the “crime scene” they discovered the Monsignor lived in a luxury 17 room, 7500 square foot apartment that he had purchased for $1.7M dollars. They conducted electronic surveillance on him and later that same year arrested him for corruption when he and then Italian secret-service agent Giovanni Maria Zito arrived in a private jet from Switzerland in Rome on suspicion of attempting to smuggle $26M+ into the country. The money belonged to an Italian shipping magnate who wanted to repatriate the money without paying taxes. “Monsignor 500” was acquitted on the corruption charge by an Italian judge who ruled that because the plan fell through, a last minute problem with the Swiss Bank meant the men returned without the money, meant it didn’t meet the elements of corruption. “Monsignor 500” was convicted of making false accusations against his co-defendant, claiming that Zito had stolen $217K from him, but the prosecution was able to prove that Scarano willingly paid him the money as his cut for taking part in the scheme. He remained under indictment for withdrawing $650K (or $560K, take your pick as I’ve seen both figures reported though not in dollar amounts) from his Vatican Bank accounts which he used for personal expenses. He told donors the money was for a home for the terminally ill, not his multi-million dollar lifestyle. When he was arrested his Vatican accounts, all ten containing $2M, were frozen. I have not been able to find out anything further about the case since the early reporting, so it appears the Vatican has made it go away.
All else aside, isn’t bearing false witness a sin?
4. I don’t expect the Holy See to police my diocese. I would like to police it myself, but I don’t have the time to monitor the shell game that the Vatican and the USCCB are playing with corrupt priests.
I’m basically worn out, so I’m done responding.
Have a happy Labor Day, what’s left of it.
Are you merely relying on the reviews?
Of course. That gives men an idea if the book is worth the purchase price and the investment of time to undertake a quick-and-dirty or inspectional reading. The latter tells me if it’s worth a line-by-line reading.
Art Deco,
It seems you are somewhat dismissive of a gay lobby. Are you aware of all the scandals regarding pro-homosexual events in the Church over the last couple of years? Same-sex people are more than welcome, but it’s a problem when people who are openly homosexual are focused on and ‘approved’. And there are problems in our seminaries with it as well.
I read Goodbye Good Men, and believe it to be true, although perhaps quite more limited in time and place than the book would lead one to believe. And I also think many things have changed.
“Cannot recall the last time I heard a priest mention any of them. ”
Thanks be to God, our new pastor has talked about that specifically. Now to get the confession times to be more than 20 minutes a week.
“is organize a consolidation of diocesan seminaries and regular houses of formation.”
EEK! Both the cardinal at the archdiocese near me, and the bishop of my diocese have a tendency to kneel at the donkey, and not at the cross. The only reason that we have some great seminaries is that they are influenced by orthodox, faithful bishops. If the PTB near me had their way, these seminaries would be teaching a watered down, liberal/dem perspective on, well, everything.
“not that many flamers’
Perhaps – my gaydar is completely out of tune. But effeminate men abound, and that can turn people off. Add in the Church of Nice, then why bother setting aside Sunday mornings?
Straight talk is rare, as you said above. And now we have no straight talk from Rome. I’ve been drafting a letter in my head for several days now.
My Diocese has some special recognition for donors to the annual appeal over a certain amount. There’s a special Mass and reception with the Bishop next month. I’m thinking of going with a shirt imprinted ‘I stand with Vigano’, but I doubt I have the guts for it.
I asked Art Deco if he is merely relying on the reviews. He responded:
“Of course. That gives men an idea if the book is worth the purchase price and the investment of time to undertake a quick-and-dirty or inspectional reading. The latter tells me if it’s worth a line-by-line reading.”
Wednesday or Thursday I’ll visit my public library. We still have those here in TX. To see if there’s any way Art Deco can avoid buying the book.
Trying to help out.
I wasn’t trying to be sarcastic, Art Deco. I found I could access three of Donald Cozzens titles online at the Plano library.
@R.C. Who or what is the go-to authority on all these highly-charged terms, anyway?
The powers that be. The people who write the dictionaries, the people who write the diagnostic and statistical manuals, the people who educate the young and train aspiring professionals and experts–the people who genuflect to every shibboleth from every special interest group that opposes you on this issue.
Remember the purpose of the Newspeak project: “The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible.” That can’t really happen, language does not really restrict thought though it was fashionable to believe so in Orwell’s time. But restricting language does make communication of non-approved ideas much more difficult.
Is there any source that doesn’t spin the definitions in a politically-charged way?
No. Observe “racism”. Racism against white has been defined away by the academy. Observe “white supremacy”–it’s been redefined to include any system that has a disparate impact on protected classes, such as that of depriving felons of the vote or requiring them to disclose felonies on job applications.
And if there isn’t, then dammit, do we just have to define every related term before using it?
Not if you agree with the premises that are being smuggled in to the definition. If you disagree, then yes you’ll need to explain or be misunderstood by those who don’t know that the smuggled-in assumptions aren’t shared by everyone. You will be talking literal nonsense to those people.