Errors in the media's reports on sexualabuse abound. by Kevin Roeten
(conservative)
Thursday, July 14, 2011
The media with an incorrect story? A crisis of pedophilia in the Catholic Church? We were misled by the media again. But in this instance, the Catholic Church seems to get most of the blame, the media gets the attention for a ‘crisis’ they allegedly uncovered, and a scandal is born.
USCCB - The Nature and Scope of the Problem of Sexual Abuse of ...minors by Catholic priests in the US, is the study released by by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. This recent report (2011) reiterates Phillip Jenkins/Penn State/”Pedophiles and Priests'”, reported 9 years ago.
What the media reported was vastly different. Corrections are as follows:
1) “Catholic priests were almost always the sexual deviant” was incorrect. Clergy, in general, are no more likely to be involved with sexual misconduct than any other citizen. Because of accurate records kept by the Catholic Church, few have any idea if a Catholic cleric has a higher or lower rate for teachers/abusers, residential counselors, social workers, or scout masters. From Jenkins we hear: “Literally every denomination and faith tradition has its share of abuse cases, and some of the worst involve non-Catholics”. Every mainline Protestant denomination has had scandals aplenty, as had Pentecostals, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Jews, Buddhists, HareKrishnah’s—and the list goes on.”
2) “Being celibate leads more to sexual indiscretions” is commonly quoted, and quite incorrect. Catholic priests have no monopoly on sexual misconduct with minors. Even though news media typically see sexual abuse as crises of celibacy, priests actually have a lower rate of offense that their non-celibate counterparts. As stated in Our Sunday Visitor (2/25/96) “…the problem is bigger among Protestant clergy.” In other words, clerical sexual misconduct is by no means just a Catholic problem. [Catholic Matters: PEDOPHILE PRIESTS ?]
3) The “AP” reported on 8/09 that sex abuse claims by Protestant clergy reported by Church Mutual, GuideOne, and Brotherhood Mutual amounted to almost 260 reports each year. The annual average of complaints by Catholic clergy revealed an average of 228 “credible accusations”. Bottom line, there’s no denominational boundaries with sexual abuse. As Jenkins writes, “The story of clerical abuse is bad enough without turning it into an unjustifiable of religious bigotry against the Catholic Church.”
4) A “pedophilia” crisis (sexual attraction of adult towards those below puberty) was incorrect. The correct terminology was “ephebophilia” (homosexual attracted to very young men). Homosexuality has always been the actual problem. About 40 priests, or about 1.8% of the whole, were likely guilty of some misconduct with minors. Any offending perpetrators were simply members of the Catholic Church—not representative of the Faith.
In Priests, Abuse, and the Meltdown of a Culture - George Weigel...comments on the John Jay report mentioned above. This College reveals most sexual abuse takes place within families. They conclude the sexual abuse of the young is a widespread and horrific societal problem, not principally a Catholic priest problem.
Between 1950 and 2002, the John Jay study revealed about five young people in 100,000 may have been abused by a priest, but the average in the US general population was 134 per 100,000. A sexual problem exists alright, but it’s not at its worst with any church.
In the John Jay study, the Catholic bishops (and society as a whole) had no idea the magnitude of the abuse problem. Bishops thought these perpetrators could be cured and returned to active ministry. But with stringent checks routinely done by the Catholic Church (background checks, specific numbers of chaperones/students, windows in all doors, etc…), it’s said to be the safest environment for young people today.
It seems the Catholic Church is much safer than public schools, and especially the family in general. Will the mainstream media change their tune about who the major perpetrator of child sexual abuse is? Not likely. The Catholic Church is a favorite target.
No doubt the heinous nature of some Catholic priests has been totally unacceptable. But even more sexual abuse from other religions, the public school system, and familial abuses is rarely discussed. But the Catholic Church still gets pelted from “rock-throwers”. The Church also knows worse atrocities have always been accused.
The problem is not one of corrupt doctrine, but of abusers not being true to their duty, promises, or faith. It sounds as if the mainstream media is doing the same thing.
The views expressed
in this article are those of Kevin Roeten only and
do not represent the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates.
Kevin Roeten is solely responsible for the contents
of this article and is not an employee or otherwise affiliated
with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.
Posted By: Interested Catholic
Date: July 15, 2011 02:43:57 PM
Thank you for bringing up this emotional topic. I am certain that you will get pelted with Catholic-hating rants in response so if you are not ready now, be prepared; however, these points are very valid and thought-provoking and I do hope that people will read this article with a truly open mind and understand that, no type of sexual abuse, be it with a minor (of any age), wives, girlfriends, boyfriends, and basically anyone should be acceptable among any group (especially the clergy) and should be investigated thoroughly and reprimanded appropriately. However, the media's persistent campaign blitz to ruin the Catholic Church by its continual twisting of reality about this crisis, and the non-equity of process when it comes to clergy abuse cases and all other secular institutions would be laughable if it were not so tragic.
I especially like the following from the report link that you included:
"The vast majority of clergy-misconduct cases are nothing like this. They involve instead priests who have been sexually active with a person below the age of sexual consent, often 16 or 17 years old, or even older. An act of this sort is wrong on multiple counts: It is probably criminal, and by common consent it is immoral and sinful; yet it does not have the utterly ruthless, exploitative character of child molestation. In almost all cases, too, with older teenagers, there is an element of consent.
Also, the definition of "childhood" varies enormously among societies. If an act of this sort occurred in most European countries, it would probably be legal, since the age of consent for boys is usually around 15.
To take a specific example, when newspapers review recent cases of "pedophile priests," they commonly cite a case that occurred in California's Orange County, when a priest was charged with having consensual sex with a 17-year-old boy. Whatever the moral quality of such an act, many would not apply the term "child abuse" or "pedophilia." For this reason alone, we need to be cautious when we read about scores of priests being "accused of child abuse."
As the report points out, these acts are immoral, sinful, criminal, etc., but are also frequently distorted by the media. The vast majority of abuse among priests is with teenaged boys (again, not a good thing), not little children. I think many Catholics resent NOT the fact that attention is brought to a disturbing situation (even if it is only 1 percent or so of the entire population of priests committing these acts--way less than in public schools, btw), but that the facts are so severely distorted and propagandized. And the blatant and complete avoidance by the media to state that the problem is a homosexual one is another issue. The reasons for this are obvious; nobody wants to point out that almost all of the cases of abuse by far are committed by homosexual priests, because to do so would be to somehow link homosexuality to pedophilia. Again, this would be inaccurate but the average reader may wonder, which is something the media definitely do NOT want. Better to make the public believe instead that it's because these men are Catholic priests that they molest "children." Homosexuality couldn't possibly have anything to do with it!
And finally, I would like to address this ridiculous notion that somehow it is because of celibacy that these priests cannot seem to stop molesting boys. Think about this notion for a minute, especially the men reading this comment. If you are a heterosexual man, would being celibate suddenly make you decide that you just had to molest young boys? If celibacy were taken out of the equation and you were allowed by the church to have sexual relations with another person, would you then be fine and take up having conjugal relations with adult women? And the same could be said for homosexual men. Would celibacy suddenly make you a pedophile? I think not.
Posted By: Kevin Roeten
Date: July 16, 2011 08:55:46 AM
Interested Catholic,
Yes, I've been pelted by those that believe that the Catholic Church is always responsible for sexual abuse. They seem to be hardwired into believing that. What you say seems to be very accurate. But I noticed even though the story was posted by me, the 'posters' had to get in their two cents worth and discuss sexual abuse by Catholic priests by posting that info all around.
No problem. It seems as though many couldn't take the truth, and hate the Catholic Church no matter what. God will know how to deal with them.
