We’ve All Accepted That Catholic Priests Molest Children
June 1, 2012 by William K. Wolfrum
Today’s Sermon,
Say you’re a big fan of the Los Angeles Dodgers. They put a decent team on the field most years. You get a lot of enjoyment from them. But, occasionally, a couple of their players go out and molest kids. And then the team messily covers it up. Sure, that’s bad and all, but no reason to hate the Dodgers for that. You’d still be a big fan, right?
This, essentially, is how people deal with Catholic priests molesting children. Actually, however, it’s worse. People run to defend the Catholic Church for producing a never-ending stream of pedophiles in positions of power while they cover it up.
The fact that an inordinate number of Catholic priests molest children has been known for years now, and been openly debated for almost a half-century. It has literally become a running joke in popular culture.
And in the time we’ve discussed, researched and reviewed the “why” of the situation, we have apparently come up with an answer: It just happens. And we all accept it.
Yes, my friends, the Catholic Church is the epitome of “Too Big to Fail.” They send their men into the world into positions of power, and at very least one in 20 of them molest a child.
By the way, let’s make sure the thesis here is not overlooked: Catholic priests sexually molest children. Pedophiles are considered the worst of all offenders. In every prison around the globe, pedophiles are the bottom of the barrel. They are universally scorned.
Unless they’re Catholic priests. Then we just move on. Hell, we even allow the Vatican to be involved in the political process.
It’s really just mind-blowing if you were to think of it. If there were a chance that your babysitter would molest your child, would you hire that babysitter? Yet Catholics will gladly defy those odds if that babysitter was a Catholic priest.
Yes, there are court cases and the Vatican has had to grudgingly admit that there some problems, as it doles out millions of dollars to victims. But really, imagine of cops were molesting children at the same rate as Catholic priests? There would rightfully be anarchy.
So it bears repeating: Society has accepted that Catholic priests molest children.
To people who feel I’m generalizing, or have any other argument to make about my thesis, here is my reply: I am finished debating this issue. The crimes overwhelm the excuses. Catholic priests molest children. The issue has been given more than enough thought, and it now comes down to just one thing – it must stop.
Sadly, it won’t. More children will be molested and abused by Catholic priests. Because the societies of the world have just accepted it.
–WKW
Having just finished historian Charles Freeman’s excellent book on early Christianity, “AD 381″, I have a new perspective on the behavior of the RCC. The Greeks had a well developed debate philosophy 2,000 years ago and clearly understood the difference between facts and theology. In fact, they had different rules of debate for those two kinds of issues.
The growth of the church and its authority required redefining the rules to enforce orthodoxy and punish heresy. So Greek rationalism was defined as heresy, with this approach central to the writings of the demented, self-hating Augustine.
This led to a 1,000+ year period we rightly call the Dark Ages, where anyone who dared to think was burned at the stake for challenging the church’s power and authority.
So, with the RCC having a 1,500 history of cheerfully killing people to support its power, and a belief system that classes rational thinking as heresy, why would anyone expect that a little child abuse would bother them? And with the current Pope the former head of the Office of the Inquisition, I guess we’re supposed to be glad that we don’t get burned at the stake for objecting to it.
In NY Orthodox Jews cover up for their molesters as well.
interesting point
This post is exactly right. When you support/enable pedophiles you are a cancer and should be excised from the community. There should have been an immediate purge of anyone engaging in, covering for or having knowledge of these activities. Had that been done then a healthy religious community could have emerged. Instead the body will rot from the untreated sickness.
We don’t have to accept that, just like we don’t have to accept their constant efforts to attack reproductive rights and gay rights. We need to stop playing defense and start playing offense. Take away the tax break on religion. Ban any government funds from going to religious colleges or religious-run “faith-based organizations”. And change the law to allow sexual abuse victims from decades ago to be able to sue the church today (some states have already done this) instead of saying that the cases are expired and there’s nothing that can be done.
The only good thing about the Church’s extremism is that they are alienating Catholic young people, most of whom stop being religious as adults.
“In NY Orthodox Jews cover up for their molesters as well.”
Fundamentalists of all religions are very similar in their core beliefs.
[...] true.”The cardinal lied. Is this shocking?No, it is not. As William K. Wolfrum says, “It just happens. And we all accept it.”This is what comes from having thrones.Now I try hard not to become hysterical But I’m [...]
Actually, all men molest. Men molest at an alarmingly high rate. Priests molest at the same rate as other men. Do a little research: there have been numerous articles written about this, and the National Centers for Missing and Exploited Children has stated this repeatedly.
Of course Catholic priests molest children! So do Baptist preachers, male schoolteacher, boy scout leaders, and – in the vast majority of cases, dwarfing anything in any institution – male relatives. To single out the Catholic is to misunderstand, and thus minimize, the problem of molestation. Even if there were evidence that the rate is higher, getting rid of the Catholic Church wouldn’t do a thing to make life safer for children.
What the Catholic Church did/does is cover it up. Other institutions, including the Boy Scouts and public schools all around the country, have covered up molestation, but the Catholic Church is unusually secretive, self-righteous, and powerful.
Not all of us have accepted that the Catholic church role in this.
I have left the church after 56 years of being Catholic.
I tried to stay but, i could not reconcile what the church has become and the mission of Jesus Christ.
I woke up one morning and thought I am in a religion whose moral authority comes from people who either molested people or who enabled them.
I watch how the church treats women, how they control and manipulate their rights.
I thought that I could change things from within, but I could not stand the thought of by my continued attendance showed support of a damaged institution.
So I left. I don’t know if it will make a difference in the church, but I feel a sense of freedom and calmness not being a ‘Catholic” anymore.
Pedophiles will seek out ways in which to have access to the children they victimize—priest, teacher, coach, minister, scout leaders—it’s no accident they gravitate to these positions. They are predatory and predators will adopt whatever means they have to reach their goal and they are very good at first making certain that the adults around them will like and respect them because it gives them even more cover to molest.
@ Donna:
“Actually, all men molest.”
The hell they do. Don’t project your problems onto all men.
Donna, really? All men molest? Something tells me NCMEC hasn’t supported that position. Could you provide citations for your statements? (No, I’m not going to google that for you).
My husband takes offense at your position as he’s never touched a child. He’s never even thought about it. It’s NOT possible that all men molest .
There are ~ 100,000,000 voting age men in the USA. By your thesis, in this country every single child (~ 75,000,000) must be molested in multiple incidents by multiple men.
You speak like a radical ball-cutting feminist. You give real feminists a bad name. If you hate men, that’s fine but that doesn’t reflect reality.
I think what Donna is trying to say is that molesters occur within every population of men, and at the same rate, not that every single male in the world is a molester. I think, however that it has been amply proven that they occur at a significantly higher percentage among Catholic priests for a variety of common-sense reasons, all going back to celibacy. Indeed, with recent events around the molestation issue and contraception, it is hard to argue that the Catholic Church is anything these days other than a child molestation organization, and, no, it is not exactly unique in this regard, as similar problems have appeared among Jews, Mormons, and college football organizations, but the celibacy requirement and the pathological hatred of sex among the Catholic priests have given them the edge in the race to hell.
I’ve never understood Catholicism. I just can’t imagine what the allure is to subjecting yourself to that hierarchy.
I’m just wondering if priests could be responsible for missing children. In 1990 at Hamburg Rehab,Pa., an aproximately 8 year old boy with aids was turned loose in the facility. The people who worked there were threatened as well as their families were threatened. He was raping the bedridden children. The doctors knew about it and it’s a state run institution so a politician had to know about it. No one who worked there would go near this boy, because he had aids and they said he was an animal. Just like 5 boys got taken from McKinley playground in Allentown,Pa in broad daylight by a Dr. Whynot who yelled across to 133 N. Poplar St.to a guy named Carlton related to a pastor Dunkin. Someone posing as a police officer drove them around the block to the abandoned house. Children were sitting on the bench on the playground and saw this. Yet and still my neighbor who is a bus driver sticks up for this Carlton and if I say too much she will call what she says is straight ice, a counseling service at 610-782-3127. Dr. Whynot is Mathew McIntosh. There was another guy with him who works in the emergency room at Lehigh Valley Hospital Center.