A great deal is being written and said concerning the sexual
abuse crisis in the Catholic Church, including my previous post here.
Here are a few additional resources that I have found
helpful.
First, listening to some reports, or even reading the grand
jury report quickly, you can get the impression that the sexual abuse of
children is still occurring at a high rate within the Church. While of course, no level of incidence of such actions can be considered acceptable,
most of the incidents we are hearing about now did occur years ago.
Two charts, published by America (the magazine of the
Jesuits in the U.S.) show this.
The first shows that, on average, offenders mentioned in the
grand jury report were born in 1933 and ordained in 1961.
The second shows that documented incidents of abuse peaked
in the 1970s and have decreased greatly since.
I do not underline these facts to minimize the horror of
what happened. It is important that we
remain vigilant in pursuing the policies that have protected our children better
since the adoption of The Charter for the
Protection of Children and Young People in 2002. But it is also important to recognize that
there is not a wave of new abuse occurring now.
What we are facing now is the scope of the failure of Church authorities
to protect children in the past, and particularly, how to deal with failures on
the part of bishops.
In spite of its too-flippant title, this piece by Michael
Cook of Mercator.net sounds some cautionary notes that—for all of our anger—are
good to hear.
Still, the situation does call for systemic reform. This piece by Russell Pollitt, SJ (director
of the Jesuit Institute of South Africa) is the best short analysis I have seen
of some of the systemic issues that we must deal with.
At the end of his piece, Fr. Pollitt cautions against
scapegoating gay priests. Some
commentators, including Bishop Robert Morlino of Madison, Wisconsin, indeed
focus here on what he refers to as a “homosexual subculture within the hierarchy of
the Catholic Church” and on a pattern of sin that he relates decisively to
homosexuality. On the other hand, James
Martin, SJ, a defender of the place of LGBT Catholics within the
Church, has written strongly here against any campaign to seek out and remove
gay priests.
Are there resources that you have found helpful in
understanding the mess we are in or pointing toward some ways forward? Please send them to me here, or include them
in a comment to this post. I moderate
the comments, so it will not appear immediately. Also, I welcome any other comments you may
have.
