Priests, paedophilia and papal protection
Posted by John, April 2nd, 2010 - under Catholic church, Paedophilia, Pope.
Something is rotten in the State of Vatican City. The New York Times has made allegations that the present pope, Benedict XVI, protected known paedophile priests in Germany and the United States.
Benedict’s statement to Irish victims of the Church’s reign of terror against children and subsequent cover up was an apologia for the Church, not its victims. It recognised no culpability of the Church itself in the crimes of its hierarchy.
Ordinary citizens are required to report crimes. Apparently the higher ups in the Church, upon becoming aware of criminal abuse of children by their priests, are not normal citizens.
Covering up a crime is itself a crime. I wonder when or if civil authorities will begin the process of investigating these cover-ups and perhaps questioning the Church’s hierarchy, including the pope, for possible conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, being accessories after the fact and other crimes.
The Vatican has responded saying that as a head of state the pope is immune from such investigations. Really? Why does the so-called representative of God on earth have anything to fear from such secular searching?
New cases of Catholic priest paedophilia are surfacing almost daily. From Europe to North America to Australia the voices of the abused are rising from their prisons of silence to demand the Church address its abuse of children.
to an outsider like me it appears the priestly preying on children is systemic.
There are in fact two crises – the paedophilia and the cover-up. They both represent a singular religious or perhaps Catholic view that the Church is above mere earthly concerns.
It seems the Church wants to render to God the things its all too human representatives believe are God’s but not to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.
It is this sense of the other world, of the godliness of their functions and the earthly power that goes with it that creates the conditions for criminality and its cover up.
But why the rape of young children in particular? Why not tax evasion or some other white collar crime?
If you couple supreme deity worship, a sense of superiority and untouchability with the actual earthly experience of the Church and priesthood – the obeisance, the power, the misogyny, the anti-human idea of marriage to Christ and the failure of secular society to impose transparency and accountability on an important institution of capitalism – and the conditions are there for rampant sexual abuse.
Add to the mix the trust priests win by virtue of their position rather than their humanity and the access they have to children and the results are that some rape children.
The cover-ups reflect the sense of God-given power the Church has and the need to continue the facade of Catholic invincibility and to attract new adherents and priests.
The Church’s response to the New York Times article is instructive. They have gone on the offensive, attacking the authors, proclaiming how committed the Pope is and was to investigating claims of abuse against priests. Maybe, but that doesn’t address the real issues – the abuse of children and the cover-ups that appear endemic.
Some in the Church are now claiming that the devil has infiltrated sections of the hierarchy. Again this is to excuse the crimes in theological terms and divert attention away from the real structure of crime - the Church itself.
If the Church were serious about dealing with paedophile priests one first step would have been to refer all matters to the police for investigation. Why don’t they do that? Why are these horrific crimes still even today an in-house matter?
Because to have them investigated would bring into question every one of the Church’s claims – to be God’s representative on earth, for the pope to be able to speak infallibly and so on. It could destroy the very structures of power that the Church depends on for its viability and continued existence.
Feuerbach argued that it was not god who created man, but man who created god. If we recognise that then we can strip aside the cant and unreason and see that the agents of crime here are the individual priests and a Church which has nurtured and trained them, turned them into what they are and then protected them.
Many of the billion Catholics around the world are horrified by the actions of paedophile priests and the Church hierarchy in covering them up. Clearly they want to clean out the unweeded garden, to eradicate things rank and gross in nature.
A good start would be a movement of the laity to force the hierarchy to refer any suspicions of abuse by priests to the Police.
Yet most, steeped in traditions of unquestioning obeisance, will listen to and follow the very hierarchy that is part of the problem. A movement to democratise and modernise the Church, to reform it and sweep away the discredited hierarchy, would be a good first step.
In doing that the reform movement opens up the possibility of their own religious liberation. But that won’t in the long run address the key issue - the idea of a god and the power structures that flow from that anti-human irrationality - which is at the criminal heart of the Church.
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Comments
Comment from John
Time April 2, 2010 at 11:51 pm
That’s a good question Shane and one I don’t know the answer to. When I was writing this I wondered about that and then wondered if it is relevant. Other professionals or fathers’ groups don’t claim to speak for God and certainly don’t have the same amount of secular power. And given the level of cover-ups I suspect the figures aren’t going to be any good anyway.
I tried to avoid the celibacy equals abuse equation, since I think it has more to do with ideas about being above human law. I obviously did not do that very well.
Comment from Dave Bath
Time April 3, 2010 at 12:21 am
Whenever a divine mandate is assumed, either by monarchs or a priestly class, there will always be oppression of their subjects. The problem is that in the modern era, there is such a willingness to be oppressed by so many, so ready to accept the false assumptions of those in power.
It is no different from the con job of those who are the priests of the God of the Invisble Hand, the dollar, who have managed to make so many willing to accept oppression after being offered “salvation” by obesiance, in the hope of getting closer to wealth.
After all, those executives who blatantly rip off the multitudes to an extent far worse than petty theives, are protected by their class, move to a different company rather than a different parish, and continue being predators of the gullible.
In fact, the priests of the Invisible Hand are worse… for they oppress and damage even those who do not willingly accept their dogma.
Comment from John
Time April 3, 2010 at 12:06 pm
Interesting point Dave about the priests of the God of the invisible hand (and I would add the keynesian schism, the priests of the god of the invisible hand slightly restrained very occasionally). I’ll mull on this appealing analytical transposition you have suggested. It might prompt an article. Thanks.
Comment from David E
Time April 3, 2010 at 1:56 pm
“supreme deity worship, a sense of superiority and untouchability with the actual earthly experience of the Church and priesthood – the obeisance, the power, the misogyny, the anti-human idea of marriage to Christ and the failure of secular society to impose transparency and accountability on an important institution of capitalism – and the conditions are there for rampant sexual abuse.” – I completely agree with this.
However, although i come from an atheist philosophical background, the more I read about the less ‘organised’ religious traditions (particularly the mystical traditions – e.g.// the Deists, the gnostics in Christianity, the Sufis in Islam, the ‘magicians’ in neo-paganism), the less convinced i am of the one of the last assertions you make: “the idea of a god and the power structures that flow from that anti-human irrationality…”.
I don’t think that the Church’s heirarchy is the material result of an ideology that includes a god, i actually think its more the other way around: The material conditions that produce heirarchies of people interested in sustaining their own dominance over their fellow human beings leads to the creation of versions of God that support the existing power structures.
There is much in religious thought that is just as liberating as the best parts of atheist/freethinking thought.
And, conversely, there is much in atheist tradition that is capable of being just as constraining and power-serving as the worst parts of religious thought. (For example, Hernstein & Murray’s “The Bell Curve”, the general thrust of the Dawkinsian tradition, and the way it gels so neatly with “evolutionary psychologists” such as Steven Pinker, who then relate their evolutionary psychology to right-wing politics.)
One of the reaons i find historical materialism compelling from my perspective as a science student is the way it accords so strongly with the observation that powerful people, whether the Catholic Pope or “libertarian” Rupert Murdoch, clearly put their material power – the system that supports them – first, and then, secondarily, twist that ideology (using any existing ideology available to them – whether it be the atheism of many free marketeers or the christianity of welll-robed pontiffs) to magically arrive at the conclusion that “Oh look – here i am, a powerful person, and here is this doctrine that coincidentally supports that power”.
To bring it back to your actual words – God *can* be used to support existing power structures, sure, but we have only observed this in a context where those power structures exist, and it’s mostly the people within those power structures who TEL us that this is what the existence of “God” implies. What of the mystics who tell us that “We are all god”, or the deists who claim “everything is alive”? What of Quakers and unitarians? The Chilean “Christians for Socialism” (who were largely Catholics)?
Comment from John
Time April 3, 2010 at 2:16 pm
Shane, the religious tolerance site says:
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops released a national study in 2004-FEB which concluded that about 4% of all U.S. priests since 1950 have been accused of sexual abuse of children. However: There are probably many victims who have remained silent and not come forward to accuse their abuser(s).
There are probably many adults who have come forward to accuse priests, who have false recovered memories of abuse that never happened.
There may be some adults who knowingly falsely accuse innocent priests of abuse in order to collect compensation.
Comment from John
Time April 3, 2010 at 7:34 pm
Thanks David E. I may have overplayed the significance of ideas as opposed to material interests. But those ideas both come from a material reality (the profound alienation of humanity from itself in class society) and are a material force. And I could have drawn a clearer distinction between the Church as a structure and an institution of capitalism and the mainly working people who are its believers.
I like your comment:
‘I don’t think that the Church’s hierarchy is the material result of an ideology that includes a god, i actually think its more the other way around: The material conditions that produce hierarchies of people interested in sustaining their own dominance over their fellow human beings leads to the creation of versions of God that support the existing power structures.’
I think that is true but doesn’t itself explain the appeal of such structures to working people and the survival of such institutions through such support.
Comment from Arjay
Time April 3, 2010 at 7:42 pm
I was brought up in the Catholic system.There were really good priests and nuns and those who were social misfits.The only teacher at my school to my knowledge who molested boys was actually a lay teacher who committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning in his own vehicle.
I suspect that many who did enter the priesthood back then,were homosexually inclined, since socially it was unacceptible.When you totally repress sexual expression ,expect deviant behaviour.
The Catholic Church for centuries has used sexual repression as a means of control.They have reaped what they have sewn.
Comment from Shane H
Time April 3, 2010 at 8:55 pm
Hi. That was my impression. That while I am happy to criticise the Church and its response to the issue has been appalling – but the rates are no higher than any large institution so we don’t want to contribute to the moral panic aspects of it.
Since we take it that material interests shape ideas then its no surprise that all institutions have currents of resistance. So liberation theology is a attempt to mobilise the Christian ideas to help the poor.
Comment from John
Time April 3, 2010 at 9:54 pm
Shane, I think the 4% is untested but you might be right – no higher than other institutions. The interesting point for me is the protection the Church affords to such abusers and its protect the Church attitude to such an extent it victimises the victims. Interestingly according to some reports the Church refuses to co-operate with studies that might tell the extent of abuse for fear it would undermine the legitimacy of the Church.
Not sure what you mean by moral panic.
Comment from Shane H
Time April 2, 2010 at 11:41 pm
So is the rate of child sexual exploitation higher in the Catholic Church than in any other group of professionals? The Church’s response has been appalling but is celibacy the cause? How many priests are there and how many abused children in their care? Is it higher than for fathers who commit most of these assaults on their daughers?