The Pope Blames The 70s For The Sex Abuse Scandal
The Pope gave another speech around Christmas and mentioned the sex abuse scandals that have been dogging the church for the last decade. He’s got a new explanation – it was the 70s fault.
Benedict qualified his mea culpa by stating that the scandal (in which priests who sexually abused children were often ignored or protected by the Catholic Church) was partly justified by the broader social context. Benedict said that while the church accepted some responsibility, he could not be silent about ”the context of these times…. There is a market in child pornography that seems in some way to be considered more and more normal by society.” [History of Pornography No More Prudent Than Present]
Benedict claimed that as recently as the 1970s, “pedophilia was theorized as something fully in conformity with man and even with children.” In this climate, the Catholic Church’s actions were merely reflecting the moral relativism of the times: “It was maintained — even within the realm of Catholic theology — that there is no such thing as evil in itself or good in itself,” Benedict said. That is, church leaders weren’t sure if child sexual abuse was wrong, since secular society seemed to accept it.
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Pope Benedict is simply wrong when he claims that child sexual abuse and pornography were socially acceptable in the 1970s and 1980s, when the bulk of sexual abuse occurred. Even if it were true, there’s little reason to think that pedophile priests would be especially susceptible to perceived secular moral decay. The Pope’s acknowledgement, that Catholic priests do not have the wisdom nor the moral compass to realize that raping children is wrong or harmful, is a remarkable admission, and hardly comforting.
I see he didn’t offer an explanation as to why the 70s made bishops transfer abusive priests to other locations. Seriously though, how hard is it to admit they were wrong? If I were writing an apology for the pope I would simply say “it was a horrible crime that happened to these children and the families that trusted them. We were wrong to protect the church at the expense of the children. We didn’t realize it at the time because we thought that prayer could cure these urges, but we were clearly wrong. We are deeply sorry.”
Man, this guy’s been huffin’ too much Frankincense.
Him and the hierarchy ARE the problem.
They need to be GONE.
A lot happened in the EARY 60’s! This pope is nothing more than a gangster and he was consigliarie to the last pope who despite his saintly rep was just as much of a gangster.
Some happened in the 50s too. The Wilmington DeLuca case, when was that abuse happening?
His Holiness is correct. Liberal thought starting in the ’40’s considered it abnormal not evil. They taught that we could work it out. Criminals like that needed understanding and reintergration. The sentences were reduced to ridiculously low levels. There was a move to reduce age of consent. Even today, teen girls are publicly sexualized. It undeniable.
David, are you crazy? How do you reconcile this view with you’re okie-dokie view of teenage girls being forced to marry? Please try and be consistent.
Other people do it too is a piss-poor excuse and you know it David.
The Vai case was 67 I was a year ahead of him and the same class as the 2 Identified witnesses. I got out of St E’s when I graduated 8th grade in 65 lucky for me. David, “his holiness” is a criminal and to blame it on “liberal” thought is disgusting. You have zero clue about this issue.
It just happens to be true. The Church bought into trendy ideas about being soft on this type of criminal. Children paid for it. The Church should have stuck with eternal truths. Redemption can’t happen without repentence. You do not allow people to commit actions which should not even be mentioned let alone done as leaders with access to victims.
His Holiness is not making excuses. He is being a leader and discussing what went wrong so it can be corrected. The same thing happened in schools, clubs, and families. It happened in society as a whole including criminal law. As late as 2005 we were sentencing child sex offenders to 1 year in jail and probation. They reoffend and they are not back out offending a third time in 2009. How is that different? We had the ACLU fighting Megan’s law so we couldn’t even know to keep our children from these people. How is that different?
The problem can’t be fixed until we recognize the root cause. It was tolerance of their alternative lifestyle. It is perverted and needs to be sanctioned.
It is not a Catholic problem. The Church should not be singled out. It should take leadership in admitting its failures and doing pentence by compensating the victims not just financially, but developing spiritual and emotional support for the victims. It can become the go to institution for such relief in the world. As Sharon Angle might say, make lemonade out of it. Do something good. You can’t change the past. It was a disgrace and disgusting. It is not the first disgraceful and disgusting episode in the Church’s history. It won’t be the last. The Church is filled with creatures called human who make disgraceful decisions everyday. It makes them better. The question is will the Church take the challenge and minister to all victims of sexual abuse or not. I believe it will eventually emerge stronger and better.
It always has. The Inquisition, Indulgences, the 30 year’s war, the plunder of the Crusades the sacking of the Eastern Church were all disgraces, but it came through better and more pure. In the process it advanced humanity more than any single institution in history.
Pandora, I am okay with teen girls choosing to be married. We should not impose abstract American standards on the third world. If a culture says 14 is okay and ours says 16, what right do we have to say they are wrong when all human history said 14 was okay until modern times? I think our way is better, but let people see it. Lead by example not cultural imperalism. As I originally said then repeated, I oppose forcing teen girls or others to marry. We can address that issue without attacking an entire cultural understanding.
We have enough disagreements. You don’t need to make some up.
@ Republican David-His Holiness and the the hierarchy of the R.C.church,with their denials and head-in-the-sand attitudes until overwhelming evidence FORCED them to face up to the TRUTH in the child abuse scandals world-wide, is the reason I and so many others left the Catholic church where we once worshiped.
Radical changes must be made for my return:
1- Priests should be ALLOWED to marry.
2- WOMEN “priests”
3- and I wouldn’t care if an OPENLY homosexual person was a priest
@UI- deLuca was doing most of his abuse here in the 60’s.
I,myself,dodged a bullet with the deviant after serving 6:30 Mass for him one Summer morning at St.John’s.
An older altar boy had warned me to never catch yourself alone with him.
As I was about to unsnap my cassock, he was suddenly behind me and making a grab for me.I remembered the warning, spun out of his grasp, out of the sacristy and onto my bike for a high-speed rush home.
When I burst through the front door, my mom looked up,startled and asked what was wrong? I was in 5th grade. I didn’t even know about sex.Certainly not homosexual stuff. So I said, “Nothing,Mom”.
And she said, “Then why are you still wearing your cassock?”
The story came out.She CONFRONTED deLuca that morning.
It did no good. He ended up molesting at least 13 boys at St. John the Beloved.
“The Church bought into trendy ideas about being soft on this type of criminal.”
Except that the abuse itself isn’t the church’s sin. Covering it up is.