Bring ‘Em Back! Part 12

This is the twelfth in a series of articles aimed at helping you to get your lapsed Catholic loved one going to Church again and once again becoming a practicing Catholic. 

Excuse #6

While excuses one through four are really bad, and Excuse #5 does not make much sense, Excuse #6 is irrational.

Excuse number six is “The sex abuse scandal was disgusting.  I don’t go to church now because every time I see a priest today I can’t help but wonder if he is just another a pedophile pretending to be holy.”

Excuse #6 is like saying:

• “I’m never going to allow my children to go outside because there are perverts out there,” or
• “I’ll never swim in the ocean because people are sometimes attacked by sharks,” or
• “I’ll never fly in an airplane because sometimes airplanes crash.”

These are all illogical, and highly emotional statements.  And it is difficult rationally discussing such statements with an emotionally charged individual, if in fact, the individual truly feels this way.

If you are on real good terms with the person that offers up this excuse, you could say something like, “Sam/Samantha listen to yourself.  You are saying because that guy might be a pedophile, I’m going to commit a mortal sin every week.  Does that make sense?”

Realize, however, this excuse may be just that – an excuse.  If you start digging deeper, you may get the zig zag.

But if the person insists that this is the reason he or she is not going to Mass, be empathetic.  Acknowledge that a sense of revulsion over the thought of someone sexually abusing a child is normal.  Such an action is truly revolting.

Fallacious = Illogical

But then explain that worrying that all priests are child molesters because a very small number of priests have been child molesters is fallacious reasoning.

It’s like saying:

• all politicians are crooks (because there have been instances of politicians being crooked);
• all police are corrupt (because some law enforcement personnel have, sadly, taken bribes);
• all husbands cheat on their wives (because some husbands have committed adultery).

Such thinking is not rationale, reasonable or logical.

Logic

In the discipline of logic and reason, such statements are “induction fallacies.” For instance, saying that because some politicians are crooks, all politicians are crooks is a ‘hasty generalization.’  It is giving the attributes of a small sample to the entire group.  It’s easy to see how ridiculous such thinking is when you stop and think about it and analyze it.

If the individual still insists this is the “real reason” he or she no longer goes to Mass, it’s possible that the media’s sensationalizing of the scandal overly influenced your friend or loved one.  Perhaps putting things into perspective for him or her will be helpful.

The Scandal in Perspective

There’s no question that the sexual abuse scandal was scandalous.  Popes St. John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis have all apologized to those who suffered such abuse, and to rest of the world as well.  At the same time, the media has been on a feeding frenzy over the scandal for the last 20+ years.

But what the media has not reported is that the real numbers are actually very small.  Only about 4% of all Catholic priests in the U.S. were accused of sexual misconduct.  And only about 2% were likely guilty of molesting minors.  Also, most of the abuse took place between 1965 and 1985, and a significant majority of the accused priests are now deceased.

While 2% is still unacceptable, the media would have everyone believing that the Church is chock full of active pedophile clergy.  And organizations like SNAP (the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) did not want to scandal to go away because they were making big money off it.

More Perspective

The John Jay Reports provide a lot of missing perspective.

The USCCB commissioned four different reports on the sexual abuse of minors by Catholic priests and deacons between 1950 and 2002 (two reports in 2004, one in 2011, one in 2015).  The Department of Criminal Justice at John Jay College compiled three of the reports.  A National Review Board team of prominent Catholic lawyers, judges, businesspeople, and other professionals put together the fourth report.

Wikipedia actually did a decent job of summing up the John Jay reports:

“In summary, over a 50-year period, out of more than 100,000 priests, deacons and religious order clergy, 4,392 (~4.4%) were accused of sexual abuse, 252 (<0.26%) were convicted and 100 (<0.1%) sentenced to prison.” [Emphasis added.]

So out of 100,000 priests, just 252 (less than .26%) were found guilty of sexual abuse.

Additionally, As Karen J. Terry, a professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at John Jay College, and the lead researcher on the 2011 report stated, “Few abusers were primarily sexually attracted to children; a very small percentage of priests were clinically diagnosed with pedophilia (by clinicians, using standard guidelines of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders).”  [Emphasis added.]

What’s more, the National Review Board report noted that more than 80 percent of the abuse was of a homosexual nature.  It speculates that the problem reflected an influx of homosexuals entering seminaries and becoming priests in the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s.   This speculation is based on figures noting the percentage of male victims rose from 64 percent in the 1950’s, to 76 percent in the 1960’s, to 86 percent in the 1980’s.

Since 2002 the Church has put in place stringent guidelines for protecting children, and Pope Francis has re-affirmed Church practice against admitting gay men to seminaries.

And More Perspective

Consider, too, a 2006 CBS News article “Has Media Ignored Sex Abuse in School?”  In 2002 the Department of Education carried out a nationwide study of sex abuse in the public school system.  The article reports:

“Hofstra University researcher Charol Shakeshaft looked into the problem, and the first thing that came to her mind when Education Week reported on the study were the daily headlines about the Catholic Church.

“[T]hink the Catholic Church has a problem?” she said. “The physical sexual abuse of students in [public] schools is likely more than 100 times the abuse by priests.”

The article goes on to ask why the media ignored this report while continuing to blast the Catholic Church.

None of this is meant to condone the abuse, excuse the cover ups by the Church hierarchy, or impugn the many good educators in public schools.  But it does provide perspective.  Any organization run by us very imperfect human beings is imperfect.  We are all sinners.

And sometimes leaders just make bad decisions. In hindsight, many bishops made bad decisions.

“To be sure, bishops in the past consistently received astonishingly bad advice on handling abuse cases from chancery officials, lawyers, psychiatrists and psychologists, and others on whom they relied” says Russell Shaw, author of the book “Nothing To Hide: Secrecy, Communication, and Communion in the Catholic Church.”

The Lavender Mafia

At the same time, as the McCarrick scandal has shown, some bishops and clerics were/are part of the ‘lavender mafia.’

As Anne Hendershot, professor of sociology and director of the Veritas Center for Ethics in Public Life at Franciscan University of Steubenville pointed out:

“In 2002, enamored with the alliterative phrase “pedophile priest,” some media outlets—like the Boston Globe—refused to acknowledge that that scandal, like the current scandal, was primarily a scandal surrounding homosexual predation. Those of us who tried to help people understand this scandal in 2002—by pointing out the demographics of the predation—were labeled homophobic.

“According to the John Jay Report, this was not a “pedophile priest” scandal, because the vast majority of cases involved post-pubescent males; it was a scandal of same-sex predation, though few wanted to acknowledge this.”

So, there is an active homosexual subculture in the Church that must be rooted out.

The Root Cause

An article, “The theological roots of the present crisis” by Fr. D. Vincent Twomey, SVD, drilled down to the root of the problem.  In the article Fr. Twomey explained that in the 70s some theologians began offering up new views on sexual morality that became firmly entrenched in some seminaries.

“[I]n 1974, the Dominican theologian Donald J. Goergen published The Sexual Celibate. In it, he asserts, among other things, that “being celibate does not mean being asexual”; “chastity is not intended to lead one into a ‘no-touch’ style of life”; “when affectionate and genital feelings enter homosexual friendship, one should recognize and accept their presence. This does not mean the relationship is unhealthy.” It became “the reference book” on sexuality in the seminaries in the 1970s.

“How mainstream such ideas had become can be gleaned from the book Human Sexuality: New Directions in Catholic Thought, edited by A. Kosnik and others. The theological views (and especially the “pastoral guidelines”) of the report became a standard approach to the teaching of moral theology and to pastoral practice. “The book made excuses for masturbation, cohabitation, swinging, adultery, homosexuality, and even bestiality.”

Pope St. John Paul II spent much of his pontificate trying to ‘right the ship.’ But the damage was a lot to overcome.

Thankfully the majority of clerics did not buy in to this liberal thinking on sexuality.  The vast majority of clerics are good, pious men, living celibate lives, and trying their best to be good shepherds.

Just an Excuse

The bottom line is that using ‘pedophile priests’ as an excuse to not go to Mass is not rationale.  It’s saying, “Because that guy might be a sinner, I’m going to be a sinner.”  That’s just dumb.

I’d be pretty surprised if your lapsed Catholic loved one or friend held on to this excuse and didn’t zig zag.  So be ready.

Next Monday, Part 13: Excuse #7.

Part 1 is here; Part 2 here; Part 3 here; Part 4 here; Part 5 here; Part 6 here; Part 7 here; Part 8 here; Part 9 here; Part 10 here; Part 11 here.