The Catholic Church's delusions of persecution over sex abuse are to blame for a wave of anti-Catholicism.
The Catholic Church's delusions of persecution over sex abuse are to blame for a wave of anti-Catholicism.
It seems that no matter how many times it is revealed that a Catholic priest has sexually abused a child, the Catholic Church still doesn’t get how serious the issue is. Take, for example, a story that the Archbishop of New York told last week, recounting an encounter – though probably apocryphal – with an angry, ex-Catholic man at an airport.
According to Archbishop Timothy Dolan, the ex-Catholic said that he could no longer look at a Catholic priest without thinking “sexual predator.” The archbishop’s response is telling: He thinks only of the “shame and damage of the wound” that those words inflicted on him, rather than of the far worse damage that the actions of Catholic priests have inflicted upon countless children.
Archbishop Dolan says he considered yelling and swearing at the guy, but instead proceeded to excuse the Church from all misconduct — taking the common line that sexual abuse is everywhere, so the Catholic Church should not be singled out for its role in such crimes. But Dolan is missing the point.
The Catholic Church is still treating the sexual abuse of children as just another sin – on par with consensual homosexuality – rather than as a crime. It is also ignoring its own records, which suggest that a Catholic priest is more than 100 times more likely than an average member of society to be a child sex offender. The sexual abuse of children is a serious problem within the Catholic Church, and it cannot be eradicated until the Church accepts that the problem is within Catholicism itself, and not just a society-wide problem that has reached into the Church.
Also telling are the archbishop’s musings on the reasons the Catholic Church is attacked over issues of child sexual abuse:
I have to say: I think the archbishop has a point here. Not about “a tiny minority” – the Church’s own figures suggest that approximately nine per cent of Catholic priests ordained in 1970 were child sex offenders – but about the crime being more horrific when the same monster who is abusing children is also telling homosexual adults who are in a loving, consensual relationship that their act is a crime against God. The solution, however, is simple: Until the Church achieves some semblance of morality itself, it should stop condemning others.
Ah yes, the Church is the victim of a witch-hunt (a term that originates, incidentally, from the Catholic Church’s practice of persecuting innocent women and executing them without evidence). The U.S. does have a history of Protestants discriminating against Catholics, but the child sex-abuse scandal is not limited to the U.S. There has been scandal and outcry in staunchly Catholic European countries, such as Belgium and Ireland. The rise of anti-Catholicism in these countries is not due to historical prejudice, but is rather developing now – in direct response to the actions of the Church. The archbishop is mixing up cause and effect; child sexual abuse is driving anti-Catholic sentiment, not the other way around.
This is contemptible: The archbishop is making the outright accusation that cases of child sexual abuse are being invented for profit. Once again, the Church is considering itself to be the victim rather than the culprit. Not only is this a slap in the face to all those children who have been abused by Catholic priests, it is also certifiably wrong.
The John Jay Study, commissioned by the Catholic Church, detailed that Church investigations into allegations of sexual abuse found that 80 per cent were “substantiated” and only 1.5 per cent were “false.” So even when the Church investigates itself, using a canon law process that is judged by local bishops and does not allow for forensic evidence, the bishops agree that only a tiny minority of sexual abuse cases are made up.
The Church needs to stop assuming that the outrage against child sexual abuse is confected for political or monetary gain. It is, in fact, a genuine outrage at the horrific nature of the crime itself.
I have suggested before that there are five steps that the Church needs to take in response to these crimes:
1) Admit that child sexual abuse is a widespread crime being perpetrated within the Catholic Church by a substantial proportion of priests, reaching across continents and as far back as records exist.
2) Admit that child sexual abuse at the hands of Catholic priests is not about homosexuality or secularism, and is instead a larger problem within Catholicism.
3) Admit that the Church knew for a long time that this was a problem but chose to cover it up, and that Church doctrine is still preventing cases from being reported directly to secular authorities.
4) Admit that the Church has devoted, and still devotes, far more time to petty concerns like preventing the use of contraception than it has to preventing its own members from sexually abusing children.
5) Fix the damn problem. Sell a few pieces of art and pay restitution to the victims. Make it official Church policy to report every incident of abuse to the police. Investigate priests who are suspected of sexual abuse. Shut up about other people's "sins" until the Church is clean. Change those aspects of doctrine or theology that drive child sexual abuse. Show some humility.
Unfortunately, decades into the scandal, the Church is still failing to grasp Step #1.
This article originally appeared at Pharyngula and at the author’s blog.
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