Here are a couple of aspects of the pedophile issue that I feel have not been addressed. The first is brought up by Michael Kelly of the Washington Post Writer’s Group. It was published yesterday in our local newspaper, the Eugene (Oregon) Register Guard.
The full article can be found here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61046-2002Jun4.html
After mentioning the changes in policy that the church is making and posing some questions about them, he goes on to say this:
. . . that this is, ultimately and still, a shameful refusal to fully admit the horror of the church's moral implosion. It is -- again -- an attempt at ducking blame and limiting fallout for what is, in the end, a matter of institutional, not individual, corruption.
The most immediately obvious evasion of responsibility may be found in the directive pertaining to priests who have in the past committed sexual abuse of minors, what might be called the two-rapes-and-you're-out provision -- "if the cleric is a pedophile, or if he has committed more than one act of sexual abuse of a minor." This provision would allow priests who have not been diagnosed as pedophiles to remain in the clerisy. And, of course, this provision would protect from defrocking any cleric determined to have committed one (merely one!) act of sexual abuse of a child.
"But it was just that one time, your honor," is a defense seldom successfully employed in criminal sexual assault cases. It is not immediately clear to a layman why an institution devoted to the teaching of a higher order of morality should adopt a threshold for the punishment of immorality (not to mention criminality) that would be laughed out of, say, the Suffolk County courthouse. Perhaps it is a mystery of the faith.
But the real failing is not what is in the proposal but what is not. Not the slightest mention is made of any intention to investigate or punish the high church officials -- bishops, archbishops and assorted superiors and ecclesiastical bureaucrats -- who, it has been redundantly shown, have systematically aided, protected, hidden and promoted known predator-priests. They are the missing guilty, still.
This pretends, as is the institutional position, that the problem with the church is merely a plague of predator priests. Of course, this is not true. There are about 47,000 Catholic priests in America; the number accused of sexual abuse over the past four decades runs, by the most liberal estimates, only to a few thousand. The church's real problem is that its superior officers deliberately allowed these relatively few priests to remain -- in the face of powerful and mounting evidence of criminal wrongdoing -- in positions where they could exploit their priestly privileges and continue to prey on the young and the vulnerable.
We are speaking of men such as Boston's Cardinal Bernard F. Law, who stands naked before God for his years of protecting and hiding and promoting priests believed to be guilty of chronic, monstrous crimes of sexual depravity against children entrusted to the church's care. And of men such as Law's former top deputy, John B. McCormack, now bishop of Manchester, N.H., who reportedly admitted, under civil oath Monday, to years of effort in covering up credible allegations of clergy sexual crimes, in order to avoid "a scandal." And many more.
Certainly, the men who raped boys need to be defrocked, not to mention tried, convicted and jailed. But what about the men who let the men rape boys? Why do they still hold high office? Why indeed do they still wear clerical collars? If two rapes is enough to get a priest defrocked, shouldn't looking the other way from a few decades' worth of rapes be enough to defrock a bishop?
© 2002 The Washington Post Company
This entire train of thought applies equally to the Society. We need to know why these principles are not applied right now. Of course, many of us already know, but it’s high time that they be skewered with these questions and driven from any position of respectability.
And that brings up the other.
Both the pedophiles and their protectors are in my opinion utter failures not merely as spiritual leaders, but even as men. According to scripture, men are supposed to take the lead and to be the heads of families. In that role, they are to set the tone of the relationship with women, not the other way around.
For a young man to “try out” a young woman to see whether or not she is “trustworthy” and therefore suitable for courtship is an abandoning of any claim he may wish to profess of any headship. He is unworthy of both that role and of the young woman in question.
For an elder to be given only a slap on the wrist on the excuse that the woman was dressed “provocatively” again gets the cart before the horse. None of them live up to nor deserve any role of headship, for they have denied it by their conduct. Instead, they have demanded that the woman assume the role.
I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of this crap.
LoneWolf