The Pedophile Priest And The Confessor

[Shyone]

Below is a post that is based on some evidence, but partly on conjecture. The ideas contained could be established beyond reasonable doubt, but that would require an extensive review of court records, perhaps some interviews, and a bunch of Catholic Church Documents (which, perhaps ironically, are also now included in court records). I regret that I don’t have the time to do this work, but then presenting the results in book form would also require talents that I am not certain that I possess. If anyone should be inspired to research this, I promise not to take any “credit”. I’ll just stay anonymous, but I’ll be glad to help in any way I can.

 

On the other hand, the topic is perhaps beyond controversial, and likely to piss off everyone from the clergy who deny there is a problem to atheists who already don’t think much of priests and bishops.

 

The definition of Propitiation I am using is: The act of appeasing the wrath and conciliating the favor of an offended person; the act of making propitious.

 

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Common wisdom says that pedophile priests either joined the priesthood in order to bring themselves closer to boys under circumstances that would allow them to molest the boys, or that their celibacy and sex drive, together with opportunity for intimacy, led to inappropriate sexual urges which they then proceeded to fulfill. Common wisdom also says that the bishops of the Catholic Church acted solely to protect the church from scandal and preserve the reputation of the priesthood.

 

These are the only motives that the press and lawyers care about; perhaps the only motives that make any real sense. There is however, at least one more element that has been minimized, perhaps intentionally although maybe not. I believe a case can be made that religion, indeed faith itself, is as much to blame as the lust and greed that we expect of humans in other situations.

 

The confessions and testimony of the priests may show that some entered the priesthood for the opposite reasons than we may have thought. Some may have been fighting desires, but saw priesthood as a way to overcome those desires. They trusted in the promises of religion to transform them and make them righteous and holy. I even suspect that at least some serial pedophiles even believed in the redeeming power of prayer and confession after they had been caught; at least the first few times…

 

The bishops too were confident in the ability of Christ and confession to take away the unnatural desires of the pedophile priests and make them whole. I don’t mean to minimize the significance of their role in protecting the Church instead of the children, because that was a direct result of the strategy of moving the priests and paying off the children and their families. They clearly desired to avoid the legal repercussions of having a priest on trial, but their choice to move them to another parish rather than remove them from contact with children entirely was in no way intended to simply provide a new hunting ground for a pedophile. I believe that it can be shown that they actually had faith that the priests would not molest again, or again, or again. The forgiveness of sins is granted with the understanding that the priest would “go and sin no more.” The sins have been propitiated, not because the victims have been appeased, but because the “offended party” is the Church as the representative of Jesus Christ. If sins are offenses against the divine, and forgiveness is granted by the Church on behalf of the divine, then the actual victim is of no importance in the scheme of redemption.

 

The bishops exhibit a trust gone wild in their acceptance of the priests’ promises not to pursue sexual contact with children. Mere humans don’t usually get such consideration, but for someone who believes in redemption dealing with another who also believes in redemption, such trust crosses the line into unwarranted faith that the vows given in the confessional would be binding in heaven and on earth.

 

From: http://www.christianbiblereference.org/faq_forgiveness.htm

 

Nearly all Christians agree that repentance and forgiveness of others are key elements of forgiveness, and that forgiveness comes from God. However, there are some doctrinal differences about the process of forgiveness.

 

The Catholic doctrine. Jesus had the power to forgive sins (Matthew 9:2, Luke 5:20). Jesus granted that authority also to His apostles (Matthew 16:18-19, Matthew 18:18, John 20:22-23). In Catholic doctrine that authority is now vested in the Church through the bishops as successors of the apostles. The Church exercises that authority to forgive sins, through its bishops and priests, in the sacrament of Reconciliation (also known as confession or the sacrament of Penance). A sinner confesses his or her sins to the priest who assigns a penance (often some prayers to recite) and grants forgiveness and reconciliation with the Church "in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit."

 

 

The bishops had more faith in the power of the sacraments than understanding of human nature. I contend that if they had known that their rituals, prayers and faith were baseless and effectively powerless, they might have chosen differently. Or at least they would have made their decisions for better or worse on reason rather than faith.

 

It is Christians who say that they believe because they have seen what belief and prayer can do to a person. They believe in the healing powers and transformative nature of the Holy Spirit. I think that such faith makes them credulous enough to ignore human nature and gullible enough to believe the priests’ promises.

 

And that is how faith can be harmful. There have been over 4,000 priests in the US who have had abuse allegations, perhaps many more that have not come to light. Their victims are literally countless. The bishops believe that their own actions were” justified by faith”, but faith is the root of the problem.

 

The fruit of the hierarchy of the Catholic Church has proven poisonous, but if you kill the root, you destroy the fruit.

[J.W.]

Below is a post that is based on some evidence, but partly on conjecture. The ideas contained could be established beyond reasonable doubt, but that would require an extensive review of court records, perhaps some interviews, and a bunch of Catholic Church Documents (which, perhaps ironically, are also now included in court records). I regret that I don’t have the time to do this work, but then presenting the results in book form would also require talents that I am not certain that I possess. If anyone should be inspired to research this, I promise not to take any “credit”. I’ll just stay anonymous, but I’ll be glad to help in any way I can.

 

On the other hand, the topic is perhaps beyond controversial, and likely to piss off everyone from the clergy who deny there is a problem to atheists who already don’t think much of priests and bishops.

 

The definition of Propitiation I am using is: The act of appeasing the wrath and conciliating the favor of an offended person; the act of making propitious.

 

==========================================================================

 

Common wisdom says that pedophile priests either joined the priesthood in order to bring themselves closer to boys under circumstances that would allow them to molest the boys, or that their celibacy and sex drive, together with opportunity for intimacy, led to inappropriate sexual urges which they then proceeded to fulfill. Common wisdom also says that the bishops of the Catholic Church acted solely to protect the church from scandal and preserve the reputation of the priesthood.

 

These are the only motives that the press and lawyers care about; perhaps the only motives that make any real sense. There is however, at least one more element that has been minimized, perhaps intentionally although maybe not. I believe a case can be made that religion, indeed faith itself, is as much to blame as the lust and greed that we expect of humans in other situations.

 

The confessions and testimony of the priests may show that some entered the priesthood for the opposite reasons than we may have thought. Some may have been fighting desires, but saw priesthood as a way to overcome those desires. They trusted in the promises of religion to transform them and make them righteous and holy. I even suspect that at least some serial pedophiles even believed in the redeeming power of prayer and confession after they had been caught; at least the first few times…

 

The bishops too were confident in the ability of Christ and confession to take away the unnatural desires of the pedophile priests and make them whole. I don’t mean to minimize the significance of their role in protecting the Church instead of the children, because that was a direct result of the strategy of moving the priests and paying off the children and their families. They clearly desired to avoid the legal repercussions of having a priest on trial, but their choice to move them to another parish rather than remove them from contact with children entirely was in no way intended to simply provide a new hunting ground for a pedophile. I believe that it can be shown that they actually had faith that the priests would not molest again, or again, or again. The forgiveness of sins is granted with the understanding that the priest would “go and sin no more.” The sins have been propitiated, not because the victims have been appeased, but because the “offended party” is the Church as the representative of Jesus Christ. If sins are offenses against the divine, and forgiveness is granted by the Church on behalf of the divine, then the actual victim is of no importance in the scheme of redemption.

 

The bishops exhibit a trust gone wild in their acceptance of the priests’ promises not to pursue sexual contact with children. Mere humans don’t usually get such consideration, but for someone who believes in redemption dealing with another who also believes in redemption, such trust crosses the line into unwarranted faith that the vows given in the confessional would be binding in heaven and on earth.

 

From: http://www.christianbiblereference.org/faq_forgiveness.htm

 

Nearly all Christians agree that repentance and forgiveness of others are key elements of forgiveness, and that forgiveness comes from God. However, there are some doctrinal differences about the process of forgiveness.

 

The Catholic doctrine. Jesus had the power to forgive sins (Matthew 9:2, Luke 5:20). Jesus granted that authority also to His apostles (Matthew 16:18-19, Matthew 18:18, John 20:22-23). In Catholic doctrine that authority is now vested in the Church through the bishops as successors of the apostles. The Church exercises that authority to forgive sins, through its bishops and priests, in the sacrament of Reconciliation (also known as confession or the sacrament of Penance). A sinner confesses his or her sins to the priest who assigns a penance (often some prayers to recite) and grants forgiveness and reconciliation with the Church "in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit."

 

 

The bishops had more faith in the power of the sacraments than understanding of human nature. I contend that if they had known that their rituals, prayers and faith were baseless and effectively powerless, they might have chosen differently. Or at least they would have made their decisions for better or worse on reason rather than faith.

 

It is Christians who say that they believe because they have seen what belief and prayer can do to a person. They believe in the healing powers and transformative nature of the Holy Spirit. I think that such faith makes them credulous enough to ignore human nature and gullible enough to believe the priests’ promises.

 

And that is how faith can be harmful. There have been over 4,000 priests in the US who have had abuse allegations, perhaps many more that have not come to light. Their victims are literally countless. The bishops believe that their own actions were” justified by faith”, but faith is the root of the problem.

 

The fruit of the hierarchy of the Catholic Church has proven poisonous, but if you kill the root, you destroy the fruit.

 

You are to forgive your brother not 7 times but 7 times 70. That is a lot of kids

[Shyone]

You are to forgive your brother not 7 times but 7 times 70. That is a lot of kids

Bingo. In two sentences, you have summarized what I was trying to say. And better.

[Casey]

You are to forgive your brother not 7 times but 7 times 70. That is a lot of kids

Bingo. In two sentences, you have summarized what I was trying to say. And better.

 

Actually, it's a sight more kids than even that would imply, because one interpretation of the phrase "Seven times seventy" has it that that means "seven multiplied by itself seventy times", or seven raised to the seventieth power, which, as it happens, is a number that ends in 59 zeroes.

Casey

[Casey]

They clearly desired to avoid the legal repercussions of having a priest on trial, but their choice to move them to another parish rather than remove them from contact with children entirely was in no way intended to simply provide a new hunting ground for a pedophile. I believe that it can be shown that they actually had faith that the priests would not molest again, or again, or again. The forgiveness of sins is granted with the understanding that the priest would “go and sin no more.” The sins have been propitiated, not because the victims have been appeased, but because the “offended party” is the Church as the representative of Jesus Christ. If sins are offenses against the divine, and forgiveness is granted by the Church on behalf of the divine, then the actual victim is of no importance in the scheme of redemption.

(Shyone)

 

There was also another factor at work here, one which may be familiar to those who have military service, and that is what the US military would have called "Shunting the crud" or whatever slang they use nowadays. That is to say, if you post a troublemaker somewhere else he is no longer your problem. That is understandable when (and, I should suppose, it does happen) a man and a particular unit are simply not compatible. If that should be the case there is usually no problem, yet if a man is posted because he is a thief or an habitual drunkard, then there is a problem because the fellow will most likely take up his undesirable habit elsewhere.

 

In the case of the catholic clergy and bishops it was (and still is, for all I know) even worse. I like to make this analogy. If you should be walking around your backyard one fine morning and find therein an unexploded hand grenade, you would, if you were a responsible person, call the appropriate authorities and let them deal with it.

 

However if you are a shifty individual who is no better than he should be, have some knowledge of armaments, and you can see that somehow the spoon (arming lever) hasn't flown off the grenade, you might get a suitably sized piece of wire, carefully pick the thing up and insert the wire. Now you can drop the thing in your pocket, find someone else's backyard, and throw it over his fence.

 

If later there should be a Godalmighty bang, well at least that isn't your problem, is it? There are all kinds of reasons why you might decide on that reprehensible course of action, and they usually don't have so much to do with faith as they do with reputation, yours or some institution's. In this context I might add it sometimes happens to a card player that he finds he has one too many losers in his hand. In that case, he may well, in the course of a round, throw one losing card upon another, thereby making his contract, or, at least, not going down as badly as he otherwise might have done. Of course, at cards this is a perfectly legitimate way of dealing with such problems. Unfortunately it would seem that religious orders and politicians often take the same view of other problems.

 

I mention this because this is exactly what happened in my own case. I won't go into details but I will say I went to a catholic boarding school which had, shall we say, and still has, a high reputation and it was that reputation which they were seeking to preserve at all costs. As to anyone or anything else, they did not give a damn. Thus it was that the offender concerned went his merry way and years later, was targeted by a police Task Force assigned to deal with serial paedophiles. When he knew his chickens had come home to roost, he committed suicide. I can't say that I felt any sorrow at the loss. Indeed, I seem to remember buying a decent bottle and proposing a toast which sounded very much like, "Greetings to the Devil!" Ah well, it was a long time ago ...

Casey