We’ve all seen that for weeks now, and especially during Holy Week, Catholics have been subjected by the secular and liberal catholic media to yet another onslaught of old stories about the Catholic Church and clerical sexual abuse.
Once again, op-ed pieces such as this, this and this have argued that
- mandatory celibacy and an
- all-male hierarchy
are responsible for the high numbers of Catholic priest child sexual abusers.
Television and print media outlets incessantly advance the image of the Catholic priesthood as an exclusively male club of pedophiles presided over by bishops and a Pope eager to protect their dirty secrets.
We’ve heard critics complain that
- if priests could marry and
- if the Catholic priesthood were open to women,
this crisis would never have happened.
But celibacy and an all-male priesthood are not responsible for clerical sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. Period.
The proof is easily available for all to see.
The people behind the mainstream media (MSM) attacks on the Church have certain goals, short-term and long-term. Among their immediate objectives is to distort the view of the average person about the Church to the point where the Church will be forced to ordain women and, for the Latin Church, eliminate mandatory celibacy.
They want to twist the Church way from being faithful to her conviction that a male ordained priesthood is of divine origin and away from the counter-cultural sign of clerical celibacy. If the Church caves in to save its image in a secular sense, it’s game over.
Clerical sexual abuse of children is simply the convenient club which which they hope to beat this message into the heads of the people in the street.
Therefore, they are hammering into you that both ordination for men only and celibacy produce a pederast priesthood. That is fallacious. Period.
I think that there are members of the Catholic hierarchy who are going to be affected by this onslaught. They need to straighten their backs and get some facts.
During the past week I have done an internet search about child sexual abuse among Protestant ministers in the USA, most of whom are married.
I was, I think you will be, stunned by the results, though we wouldn’t be shocked had the MSM reported fairly about clerical sexual abuse of children across the denominational spectrum!
Try this out for yourselves. It’s not hard and doesn’t take a lot of time.
On your own computers, right now, do a Google search using this string: “Protestant ministers child sex abuse”. Or vary the string with “Anglican ministers child sex abuse”, “Baptist ministers child sex abuse”, “Presbyterian ministers child sex abuse.”
Don’t take my word for it.
See for yourselves what the media have been hiding from you for years!
You can easily find out on the web about married Protestant ministers, Eastern Orthodox priests and Jewish rabbis who have sexually abused children, and about their denominational cover-ups.
Sound like a familiar story line? But this time it’s not about everyone’s favorite punching-bag, the Catholic Church and its all-male, celibate priesthood.
This is the story you won’t hear about from the mainstream media. Nor will you hear about it in the NCR, America, US Catholic and other liberal, Pope-hating, so-called Catholic journals that want you to think that celibacy is responsible for this crisis.
I want to state here and now my profound respect for some very fine Protestant publications that have led the battle in their own denominations to report the story about Protestant ministers and pedophilia that the mainstream media has played down. They deserve everyone’s gratitude.
In writing about this, I am not attacking other religious communities. I am not excusing abuse by Catholics. I am not engaging in Schadenfreude (“delight at another’s misfortune”).
I am not writing about this so that Catholics can feel relieved in the knowledge that clerical sexual abuse of minors happens in all the other churches.
I have only one reason for writing about this. We must debunk the premise being pushed by the MSM and their Catholic allies in the Church.
The MSM, for reasons all too clear, has focused on celibacy and on the male priesthood as the causes of this crisis. The only way to debunk this argument is to show how widespread this crisis is among married clergy in denominations where women are ordained and where they take part in church government.
But don’t take my word on this. Check for yourselves. Google it.
In the meantime, consider the following.
- Writing a comment following a blog posting here, on April 3, 2010 at 11:32 am, Bob said, “I was molested and raped by my Lutheran minister, who also is my father. He molested and raped all of his sons, and at least 30 children in his flock. People above him were aware of the allegations, and did nothing! I’m not alone, I just wish the media would cover all victims of abuse, and how all institutions handled it in the 20th century.”
- Time Magazine ranked the Southern Baptist Convention’s refusal to establish a database of clergy sex offenders one of the most under-reported news stories in 2008. The story was also reported here by Bob Allen, writing on December 17, 2008, for the Associated Baptist Press website, one of the most forthright sources of news about Protestant clergy pedophilia.
- Incidentally, there is some evidence on the Internet that child sexual abuse committed by women has also been under-reported. In a story I found here dated November 9, 2009, a British charity agency claimed that reports of women carrying out sex attacks on children have soared in the last five years. ChildLine said there had been a 132 percent rise in reports of female sex abuse made to its telephone helpline, compared to a 27 percent rise in abuse by men in the same five-year period. “Most sex abuse calls to ChildLine come from girls saying they were assaulted by a male,” Sue Minto, head of the helpline, said. “But a growing number of callers now say they were sexually abused by a female. Many would find it shocking that any woman – let alone a mother – can sexually assault a child. But they do.” This reports concerns women in general, not women ministers, but the article suggests that there is a time lag in people reporting child sexual abuse committed by women, and that these reports are only now beginning to escalate in number. So clerical sexual abuse of minors may not turn out to be an exclusively male crime after all.
- On June 18, 2007 the Insurance Journal (here) reproduced a report stating that the three companies which insure the majority of Protestant churches in America say they typically receive upward of 260 reports each year of young people under 18 being sexually abused by Protestant clergy, church staff, volunteers or congregation members. The report went on to comment, “the Catholic Church has revealed that there have been 13,000 credible accusations against Catholic clerics since 1950.” This report prompted one blogger here to comment, “Responding to heavy media scrutiny, the Catholic Church has reported that since 1950, 13,000 ‘credible accusations’ have been brought against Catholic clerics (about 228 per year.) The fact that this number includes all credible accusations, not just those that have involved insurance companies, and still is less than the number of cases in Protestant churches reported by just three insurance companies, should be making front page of The New York Times and the network evening news. It’s not.”
This is the kind of media bias I am concerned about, the kind that makes it look like, among ordained ministers, pedophilia is found predominantly within the secretive, closed ranks of the all-male, celibate Catholic clergy.
This bias is unfair and it works to undermine confidence in clerical celibacy.
And these instances of bias are just the tip of the iceberg.
WDTPRS will continue to drill at this in time to come (or you can just check out the Internet yourselves).
It’s time we stand up and begin to form something like another Tea Party Movement, this one aimed at anti-Catholic media bias as represented in the under-reporting of Protestant clerical pedophilia.
I know that others before me, like the courageous Bill Donohue of the Catholic League, have been out in front on this issue. I want all of us to join their ranks. “We’re mad and we’re not going to take it anymore!”
We need action.
Get your friends and Catholic organizations involved! Let me suggest for starters that the next time you see a report about Catholic priest pedophilia that is not coupled with a report about Protestant clergy pedophilia, contact the media in question and tell them that each time they do this you will change the TV channel or not read their paper, and that you will contact their commercial sponsors about this anti-Catholic media coverage. And tell them that if their journalists are too stupid or too lazy to find instances of Protestant clergy pedophilia, all they need to do is to look for it on the Internet!
Let the media oppose cover-ups involving all clergy, not just Catholic clergy!
