Let's talk about the church, pedophilia and the sexual abuse of children.

Iruka Naminori
atheist
Iruka Naminori's picture
Posts: 1955
Joined: 2006-11-21
User is offlineOffline
Let's talk about the church, pedophilia and the sexual abuse of children.

I almost posted this in KewK because I wanted a civil discussion. Yet I realize that feelings on this matter run high, so here goes nothing.

Lately I've been waking early, so I thought I'd use Netflix's "Watch Instantly" feature to take in a documentary: Deliver Us from Evil. This is about the sexual abuse the Catholic Church systematically hid (and condoned) right here in Northern California. At the time, I didn't pay much attention to the details (maybe it hit too close to home?), but I was shocked that the abuser, Father O'Grady, spent time in San Andreas, which is a lot like my home town. Like my home town, it sits on Highway 49, which follows the Sierra Nevada foothills. The towns are very much alike. If you've seen one goldrush town, you've seen them all. I'd also like to point out that I've heard folks refer to the foothills as the "bible belt" of California. It is also very, very white and very, very Republican. The valley is less saturated with fundamentalism and rednecks, but it's not exactly a bastion of culture and freethought, either. Most people outside the state base their perceptions of California on San Francisco and Los Angeles, but the truth is California is a huge, diverse place. We have tons of different kinds of ecosystems and many different kinds of towns and cities.

The events depicted in the documentary mainly occurred in Lodi, Turlock (both in the valley) and San Andreas (in the foothills)...well, at least so far. I haven't finished it yet. I was immediately inspired to come here and post because this issue greatly concerns me.

I have a suspicion that sexual child abuse is rampant not only in the Catholic Church, but in all churches that believe in strict hierarchical authority. I know of two cases in fundy Protestant churches I attended. I was caught up in one case myself when I was about 7 or 8 years old. Interestingly, the very next church we attended was pastored by a pedophile who also taught in my fundamentalist school. An older boy who was molested by this man ended up committing suicide.

Since most of the people who sexually abuse children were once abused themselves, there must be something more than biology that leads to pedophilia. Still, the recidivism rate is so high it speaks of something that is nearly innate. When my case occurred, people simply did not talk about sexual abuse. When the trial was going on, I was told never to speak of this to anyone. When the trial was over, my parents considered the issue closed and never spoke of it again.

Now hysteria surrounds pedophilia. Pedophiles may be more reviled than murderers in this society. In prisons, they are considered the lowest of the low and often must be kept away from the general population to ensure their protection. On some level I even feel sorry for them because it very well may be they cannot change...which is a huge incentive to keep them behind bars forever.

I've thought long and hard about the link between pedophilia and church leadership and have come up with some hypotheses. I start with the assumption that churches really do have more than their fair share of pedophiles, but I don't have hard data. I'm speculating to generate discourse. Feel free to challenge my speculations or give me hard data to support any position. All I have are my own experiences and stories like what happened in the Catholic Church.

  • Reasons pedophilia occurs so often in church settings:
    • Children and adults are both taught to respect and obey authority figures. Parents don't even consider the possibility that another Christian, especially a Christian authority figure, could do anything to their child
      • Kenneth Parnell, who abducted Steven Stayner in Merced, CA chose his victim because he knew the parents were strict Mormons who taught Steven to obey adults. Parnell posed as a pastor. (As an aside, Steven's family was as seriously fucked up as Parnell himself. Steven's brother, Cary, became a serial killer and his father, Del, was accused of sexual abuse by his daughters.)
      • My psychologist friend, Tim, says abusers seek out situations where people are vulnerable. He didn't mention churches, but he told me to stay away from sexual abuse recovery groups. Sexual predators actually seek out such groups! (An aside: A few years ago I was bitching about churches and how they foster abuse. Historically, Tim has always one of those folks who believe in belief: that they give people hope, help children develop morals, etc. While I was explaining the error of his ways, Tim got an emergency call from Stockton: a child had been molested by a priest. The timing was uncanny...maybe there is a god? Eye-wink )
    • Sexuality itself is treated as "dirty" by the three Abrahamic religions (I'm sure this had a profound effect on me):
      • Some pedophiles may not have a normal sexual life due to sexual repression engendered by the church.
      • Children are very hesitant to speak out about abuse because all they've been taught their whole lives is that sex is bad and nasty. (I can testify to this, myself.)
      • The effects of sexual abuse may be compounded by the idea that sex is bad. I'm wondering how much of the trauma victims undergo is due to societal mores and how much is due the actual "hurtfulness" of the act itself. Anorexia nervosa didn't make an appearance until young girls were subjected to intense social pressure to be thin. Religion tries to regulate sexuality, make it taboo except under very specific circumcisions, er, circumstances. Obviously, anything that can produce another human being is a huge deal, but still! The sexual obsession of the Abrahamic religions is beyond the pale. Most of a fundamentalist's "morals" revolve around sexuality.

These are just musings on my part.

Discuss. Smiling

(On edit, this might be a good program to show in the Stickam room. God, I haven't been there in ages! Sorry, folks. I've been sick.)

Books on atheism, purchases on Amazon support the Rational Response Squad server.


LosingStreak06
Theist
LosingStreak06's picture
Posts: 768
Joined: 2007-05-22
User is offlineOffline
Suggested Reading Material:

Suggested Reading Material: Pedophiles and Priests: Anatomy of a Contemporary Crisis by Phillip Jenkins, Professor of something-or-other at Penn State University.


totus_tuus
Theist
totus_tuus's picture
Posts: 516
Joined: 2007-04-23
User is offlineOffline
While I lack some hard data

While I lack some hard data for my views here, I would propose that one would find the rates of child sexual abuse to be higher in any hierarchical organiztion in which children are involved, whether it be the Church, Boy Scouts, public school or day care systems because of the availability of prey for such deviants and the authority wielded over children by adults in such settings.

According to information I've gleaned from polls conducted by the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago and Philadelphia, the Associated Press and from the research conducted by Dr Jennings, pedophilia among the general population may be as high as 4% (although it's an area hugely understudied) while among priests, the rate seems to be about .58%.  The Archdiocesesan studies cited above indicate rates between 1.6% and 2.2 % over the past 40 years.

I'm currently trying to locate statistics for non-religious education systems for a comparison to Church statistics.  I'll keep you posted. 

Let me say further, that sexual abuse of children is the vilest assault on the most innocent members of society.  It is demeaning and damaging use of human being by the use of power.

As a Catholic, I must say that I am mightily underimpressed by the way in which some bishops have handled the cases reported within their jurisdictions.

 

"With its enduring appeal to the search for truth, philosophy has the great responsibility of forming thought and culture; and now it must strive resolutely to recover its original vocation." Pope John Paul II


Iruka Naminori
atheist
Iruka Naminori's picture
Posts: 1955
Joined: 2006-11-21
User is offlineOffline
LosingStreak06

LosingStreak06 wrote:
Suggested Reading Material: Pedophiles and Priests: Anatomy of a Contemporary Crisis by Phillip Jenkins, Professor of something-or-other at Penn State University.

Here's part of a review I found on Amazon:

Quote:
Jenkins argues convincingly not only that clergy sex abuse is far less widespread than the headlines suggest, but that there is nothing at all particularly Roman Catholic about the problem. What then led to the media's portrayal of a church in crisis? Jenkins begins by noting a number of factors--increased concern over the sexual abuse of children, changes in media attitudes towards the churches, the explosion in litigation in general--which combined to generate more accusations involving ministers of every denomination, with more publicity and more serious repercussions than ever before. He goes on to explore why clergy abuse came to be seen as a peculiarly Roman Catholic problem, underscoring a number of contributory factors. There is a long-standing anti-Catholic stereotype of priests as lascivious predators. The Catholic Church is a more attractive target for lawsuits than other denominations; one can sue not only the local congregation but also the archdiocese and even the national church. Perhaps most important, however, dissidents within the Roman Catholic Church itself--both liberals and traditionalists--seized upon the issue as a rhetorical weapon. Some argued that priestly celibacy led to homosexuality and disordered behavior such as pedophilia. Others alleged that the problem arose from the toleration of gay clergy. If Pedophiles and Priests reassures us about our local clergy, it also delivers a disturbing message about how vulnerable we are to the news media, and how easily the media can be manipulated by special interests. Meticulously documented and dispassionately argued, this volume marks a watershed in the discussion of an issue of enormous current interest, one that will not disappear from the headlines any time soon.

I've never thought it was a Catholic problem.  I've always suspected the problem is just as common in Protestant churches and the only reason the media picked up on the story is that the Catholic Church is hierarchical and structured.  It's easier to apply blame to the Catholic church than it is to any single Protestant denomination or Protestants as a whole...or any other kind of organization for that matter.

Obviously I only read the review, but Jenkins is right about the climate of concern over sexual abuse.  When I was a child, no one talked about it.  When the abuse came to light, the church members took the side of the accused!  No, the little girls involved weren't lying.  If anything, we were baffled by what had happened to us and felt bad that we got someone in trouble.

Nowadays, as I mentioned in my original post, there is a near hysteria concerning the issue.  As a result, lots of innocent people have been accused and probably convicted of sexually abusing children.

I do, however, think that churches may be especially dangerous places for children for the following reasons:

  • Children are taught to obey adults without question.
  • Children are taught that pastors are second-in-line to god as an authority figure.  In the eyes of a child, pastors are infallible.
  • Children are taught that anyone who is of their faith can be trusted; whereas, outsiders cannot.

Children are set up to be victims under these conditions.  When they are abused, there is (perhaps) an even greater sense of betrayal than if the abuser was just some bloke off the street.  Not only did the pastor / church member do something wrong, but it happened (in a lot of cases) in a church building.  A child may feel betrayed by the abuser, by the religion and by god.

totus_tuus wrote:
While I lack some hard data for my views here, I would propose that one would find the rates of child sexual abuse to be higher in any hierarchical organiztion in which children are involved, whether it be the Church, Boy Scouts, public school or day care systems because of the availability of prey for such deviants and the authority wielded over children by adults in such settings.

I suspect that pedophiles are attracted to jobs where they will be given power over children; however, I wonder if the effect of being abused by one's pastor, priest or fellow church member is even more traumatic and confusing for a child.  A boyscout leader is in a position of trust, yes, but a clergyman stands in for god himself. 

Books on atheism, purchases on Amazon support the Rational Response Squad server.


lester ballard
Posts: 63
Joined: 2007-02-20
User is offlineOffline
It was an unsettling

It was an unsettling film.  The priest accepted responsibility far too glibly, and he ends up with an annuity (!)

My take:  lifelong celibacy is an unreasonable expectation.  The Catholic church, especially those at the vatican, are responsible.

I attended a Catholic University for grad school.  I encountered some clerics who, I believe, were totally uninformed about sex in general, and had no grasp of their own desires.  And these individuals were teaching social sciences!

Protestant fundamentalist pedophilia I suspect is related to their general craziness and the social milieu from which many come.  As has been said, they go on about sex way out of proportion to other issues.  A slight twist on Hamlet goes to the point: [Fundamentalists] doth protest too much, methinks.

Also, pedophiles end up in church youth groups due to the absence of screening and critical thinking in general.


KSMB
Scientist
KSMB's picture
Posts: 702
Joined: 2006-08-03
User is offlineOffline


iranu
Posts: 59
Joined: 2007-07-27
User is offlineOffline
I've always wondered about

I've always wondered about "the churche's" view towards sex.  The more and more I think about it and look at other cultures around the world the more and more I come to the conclusion that the non-emancipation (if that's the right term) of women is the aim.  Yet I am confused as to why male "preachers" are not allowed to have sexual relations with women.  This has obviously changed over time and is continuing to be debated and challenged amongst Christian churches of all denomination.

 The question with regard to paedophilia is not born out by, or  increased by this attitude, because paedophiles mainly see children as asexual.  What may increase the ratio is the underlying, driving factor, that this type of sexual predator sees with regard to access to children, whereby they can carry out their activities with the minimum amount of suspicion and chance of being caught.

 Well respected, pillars of community get caught.  The difference with the Catholic church in some of the better known cases is that the bastards who knew chose to put the reputation of the church first by trying to keep everything under wraps and NOT take action against the perpetrator.

 How can god allow a man who preaches in his name to abuse a child who does not know any better?  Yep, god works in mysterious ways.  The abuser was controlled by the devil or is not a true Christian/Muslim /insert the appropriate. 


ofgreatherheights
Theist
Posts: 4
Joined: 2007-08-15
User is offlineOffline
Though you posed a great

Though you posed a great question and credible arguments, I think it's wise not to generalize the link between pedophilia and the Catholic church.

 

http://www.jerusalemexport.com is a great resource for handcrafted nativity and manger sets, and rosaries.