How close were you to the sex abuse scandals?

[4_Legs_Good]

I'm thinking that maybe I'm way closer than most people are, but since priests have such long legacies, who knows really.

I went to college in a town next to a town where a priest ended up being accused of a gawd awful number of molestations. I attended mass with him many times as well as some other events, and he seemed like a good priest and a nice guy. I believe he was ultimately convicted, but I moved away not too long after he was arrested.

I lived at a Newman Center with a priest and another college student. The priest was soon after the above (maybe 1 year later) accused of molestation by one person some 20-30 years previous. He was relocated by the church for a year to Belgium where he committed suicide. He was one of the best people I've ever met, and definitely the busiest.

I grew up with a Bishop in my docese whom everyone loved, very progressive, very personable. I went to college and in my later years there, he was transfered to the area, so we got to meet again. He was a truly great man, the holiest person I have ever met (hard to explain how I judge that, but just seemed very in tune with both people and God and had good, reasonable, common sense explanations for everything). Anyway, a few years after he moved to this diocese (I was gone by then) he got into a scandal with another priest which ended up with him leaving the priesthood and leaving the area in a horrible financial situation.

So! Am I closer to this stuff than most of you? The really weird part about it, and I know many people won't understand, is that the Bishop and the dead priest are still two of my favorite people in the world. I'd give just about anything to have the dead one still be alive. He was a good friend and ultra knowledgeable about things that I'm interested in (Eastern religions, church history, etc.). And the religious lessons I've learned from the two of them were some of the most important in my life.

It's amazing how good and how bad human beings can be.

david

[tjwmason]

1. I've been no where near them

They seem to be far less over here in England (though there is still a little bit of it around).

Whilst at university one of my (female) friends was effectively propositioned by the local Priest (who was also the University's Catholic Chaplain), he was drunk at the time. He had somewhat of a reputation for it, but would never have forced himself and we are talking about women over the age of 18 as well, so it's not quite as bad.

I do know what you mean about the Priests. I knew a man (totally unconnected with the Church) when I was around 16-20, he was pretty open in his like for young-men and directly propositioned me (I declined and the matter dropped). A few months ago, I discovered that in his former profession (teacher) he had had a number of 'relationships' with his pupils, and is now in prison for a number of years. I do not condone his actions in any way at all - but neither can I dismiss him totally as a person, we spent hours chatting about all manner of things over more pints of beer than I can remember.

[shrike]

8. If only they were all good or all bad

I recently read a book, A Bright Shining Lie, about the life and career of military guy John Paul Vann.

Vann's most important mentor was a Protestant minister who truly did heroic work. Fought for racial justice, justice for the poor, headed all kinds of worthy organizations -- one of us, really. He was also a pedophile. As the years went by the church could no longer ignore it and he was stripped of his parish, his appointments, his honors. His wife and family left him. He still couldn't keep his hands off children, though, and got in trouble with the police for propositioning young boys in his neighborhood. He eventually committed suicide.

[hedgehog]

2. I've had two close encounters

A high school friend (female) was involved with a young priest. I hadn't the foggiest notion at the time how to respond to that. Her mother knew about it and was livid with her daughter. Looking back, I think it was two very troubled people who had the misfortune to meet.

We had a priest here who baptized one of my children who moved on and was later removed from the ministry because of some problem with sexual abuse. I'm not sure what he was accused of, but he was severely depressed when he was here.From the outside, it looks like the diocese kept moving him around instead of addressing the situation. I wonder if the depression came before the abuse and I wonder if the abuse could have been prevented if the depression had been treated.

I'll probably get flamed for this, but I do wonder how many priests who are troubled get led into abuse by others who are troubled. I'm not talking about the pedophiles who insist that the kids were seductive. I'm just suggesting that some situations are more subtle. Consider the case of the priest who founded Covenant House. My impression is that someone struggling with his sexual identity had the misfortune to meet a kid who had learned to function by seducing older men. I'm not blaming the kid, and maybe there was more to it, but I can see how it might have happened.

[4_Legs_Good]

3. I don't know if I'd consider the HS student and the priest

as a scandal, at least in my sense of the word. If a priest has a consensual affair with another person, sure it's a violation of their priestly vows, but truth to tell it's none of my business. I guess she was probably under age, though, which does change matters, as well as him being in a position of "authority".

I may get flamed for THIS ( :) ), but I think that a lot of this stems from the church's juvenile (sorry, no pun intended) attitude towards sex. I think Paul and Augustine really screwed us up on the subject way back when - and this absurdity (IMO) isn't limited only to Christianity. I can understand celibacy from a logistical standpoint - the priests I've known have been way, way too busy dealing with all the issues they face to really have time for a family as well, but from a sexual standpoint, I think it's ridiculous.

I'd love to see the church shift it's focus away from sex and pay as much attention to it as they do to - say - eating pork - but that's not likely to happen.

david

[hedgehog]

4. I agree that the Church's juvenile position is the source of

many of the problems. I would say that some of the offenders are true predators but that others are damaged goods who never had a chance to develop a healthy sexuality. Any priest over 50 probably started seminary in high school or at least by college. Back then they were isolated from contact with family and friends. It's generally a lot better now, but I know a kid about 20 now who was sent to a foreign preparatory seminary when he was about 10. When he came home for a visit, he instructed his female cousins to wear long sleeves - short sleeves are immodest! With that kind of brainwashing, it's a wonder that so many priests are normal functioning adults! It wasn't only priests who were affected. For the record, I knew girls who engaged in pre-marital sex but who wouldn't use birth control because that was against Church teaching!

[Rich Hunt]

5. a priest at my church

...was later imprisoned for molesting kids, or was it possession of child pornography?

I don't know whether to believe it or not, since he seemed fine when he was at our parish, and I don't know of any kids that were molested.

[hedgehog]

6. One of the characteristics of the predator type

is the he or she blends in so well that no one suspects and the victims have to overcome a lot of disbelief when they report the crime. This applies to scout leaders, relatives, teachers, coaches etc as well as priests. Care has to be taken to ensure the testimony is valid and not part of some witch hunt. I can remember some wild accusations back in the 70's involving satanism that were later shown to be absolutely false.

[shrike]

9. I read a story in Discover magazine

As to how the human brain tricks itself into believing a memory is real. The writer used the so-called daycare scandals -- satanism, witchcraft, abuse by childcare workers -- to illustrate how such false memories can harm so many.

He also referred to the priest sex abuse scandals. He gave them just a mention, but I got the feeling that in his mind, some of the thousands of accusations could involve false memory. And yet, the people who hold these memories sincerely believe they are real.

I have no doubt that predator/priests exist. I have read testimony by young priests thoroughly disgusted with a superior, whom they caught redhanded, so to speak, with young boys. But it will be interesting to see if this writer's premise bears out in a few cases.

And yes, I do agree: the church cleaning up its act regarding human sexuality would be a good start.

[Maeve]

7. One of the best preachers/confessors I ever knew was accused

The man was a great administrator, could preach like a Protestant (effective and emotionally touching) and a sensitive confessor, the only one I ever really trusted. He was accused of having an inappropriate relationship with one young man 20 years prior, an accusation he denied completely. But the bishop decided it was a "he said, she said" situation (that's what he said on tv, despite it being a he-HE situation!) and the priest was turned out of the church along with two admitted abusers, thus clearing the bishop's slate and making him look tough on the issue.

I've had a hard time forgiving the Church on this one. Combined with the right-wing slant that seems to be ramping up (and the increasingly bad music at my usual mass), I've lost interest in attendance.

[Princess Turandot]

10. Not at all..

In fact, as awful as this might sound, I had primarily an intellectual reaction to the scandals, not an emotional one, because it was outside the realm of my experience.

There were 2 priests in our parish who were involved in consensual relationships with adults, one hetero, one gay. It was common knowledge in the parish and despite it being primarily a Polish congregation, the parishioners didn't seem too excited by these circumstances. (The hetero was the monsignor & moved in with his GF when he retired.The gay priest eventually died of AIDS at a church nursing home in another state.) There was always a priest primarily involved with the kids at the grade school and I never heard anything abt them acting inappropriately or illegally. One is now the monsignor of a large and thriving parish near where I live.

Many of the priest scandals seemed to involve teenage boys, rather than 8 year olds, which I think is a very different sort of pathology, not pedophilia altho there were instances of that obviously. I think many priests never matured sexually due to entering religious training so early in life and were thus attracted to sexually immature youths. I don't know whether the Church did anything to help the seminarians in the past mature sexually and understand and accept being celibate under those circumstances. (I'm not suggesting that they should have had sexual experiences but rather psychological counseling abt what they were getting themselves into.)

I'm sorry that you lost people that you cared about.

PS I went to a fairly prestigious all- girls public junior high-high school in the city where I live, and there were several teachers involved in shenanigans with students. I could not say for a fact that laws were broken but clearly there were relationships going on that would have violated the law if sex was involved. In one case, a 40-something teacher married a senior the weekend after she graduated. My senior year, they instituted a rule that teachers could not meet with students with their office doors closed because a teacher walked in on another guy who was making out with an 8th grader in his office. I don't think he was fired altho they may have docked his salary. While the nature of the priesthood makes such abuses more troubling, I marvel at some people's ability to ignore that age related abuse of power occurs in every profession there is.

[demosincebirth]

11. One priest that was accused, baptized my youngest daughter.

We knew him when he was first was ordained and I thought he would make a helluva priest. We were sure wrong.