Bill Donahue loves the Catholic Church. He loves it so much that he is willing to spread disinformation and repugnant ideas to defend it. As always, he insists that priests do not engage in paedophilia, it is the evil gayness that is to blame or a desire for money... or both. In the past he has chosen to blame society, the victims, and "teh gayz." He is still beating that tired drum and placing the blame everywhere but on priests, even though there is actual documentation of cover-ups, including records from Pope Ratzie wherein he declares that anyone who accuses a priest or turns a priest in to authorities is guilty of a mortal sin.
Every time a new wave of accusations surfaces in one diocese, not coincidentally we see a spike in accusations in other dioceses.What is not often reported is that the vast majority of new accusations extend back decades. For example, for the first quarter of this year, 80 percent of the cases of alleged abuse involve incidences that occurred before 2000.
This is true. It's too bad that such a well known concept is so hard for Donahue to figure out. Let me help: When people see others standing up to a controlling and domineering entity they feel as though they can also do the same, it is a form of empowerment. Many of these people spend their lives sure of only one thing: that they couldn't win against the monsters that abused them.
It is also no surprise that the majority of cases involve people who are now adults, the children currently suffering are under the power of their abusers and are not yet old enough to understand that the threats and punishments offered by the authority abusing them are often empty threats. It is the nature of an abuser to control and instill fear in the victim.
In March, an 80 year-old man came forward in St. Louis claiming he was abused 70 years ago by a priest who has been dead for a half century. This is not an anomaly: the same phenomenon has happened in other dioceses. Unfortunately, too often bishops have been quick to settle, thus inspiring more claims. When $225,000 is dished out to a Michigan man who claims he was abused in the 1950s by a priest who died in 1983—and the diocese admits the accusation is unsubstantiated—it encourages fraud.
Who cares how long ago the abuse happened or whether or not the priest is dead? The majority of the claims against the church are not due strictly because of abuse, it is the resulting cover-up that is the reason for a suit. Shifting around the abusers from diocese to diocese, not limiting their interaction with their preferred targets, and blocking attempts by law enforcement to investigate are horrendous crimes. The church is culpable for these crimes, therefore it doesn't matter whether or not the abuser is still breathing.
The refrain that child rape is a reality in the Church is twice wrong: let’s get it straight—they weren’t children and they weren’t raped. We know from the John Jay study that most of the victims have been adolescents, and that the most common abuse has been inappropriate touching (inexcusable though this is, it is not rape). The Boston Globe correctly said of the John Jay report that “more than three-quarters of the victims were post pubescent, meaning the abuse
did not meet the clinical definition of pedophilia.” In other words, the issue is homosexuality, not pedophilia.
Because Catholics like Donahue cannot accept that the holy church could be at fault, he tries yet again to spread this stupidity. “Inappropriate touching” is such a vague term that it allows creeps like Donahue to imagine it was just just a quick grope through clothes and the priest felt terrible after. This is and was rarely the case. Forcing the child to physically and/or orally service him, the priest is just as guilty of rape as if he had penetrated with his penis. It makes me sick to think what else those like Donahue do when these dishonest wordplays are such a part of their nature...
To further insist that these weren't children is to attempt a blurring of what does and does not constitute a child. Apparently, to Donahue, the very moment that a child notices their first pubic hair begin to sprout, they are no longer a child. Does that girl appear to have swelling below her nipples? Now she;'s a marriageable adult! I wonder if Donahue would have had this opinion if he had a twelve year old daughter who came to him and declared that she was moving out and starting a family with some middle-aged guy down the street. All she would have to do is show him his very own words on the matter of adulthood.
To further blame this on homosexuality, Donahue is again attacking those with the least blame. Healthy adult sexuality is not predicated on abusing the young. Whether the sexuality be gay, straight, pluralistic, etc., the healthy component is the desire for a partner or partners that comes willingly to the relationship and is capable of understanding and embracing the emotional and physical results. This is why claiming that puberty makes the adult is so wrong. This is also why blaming homosexuality is wrong. If it isn't child abuse but is instead a homosexual relationship. Why do you not see these priests keep a single “lover” until old age? Instead they discard the victim when the victim has passed an age barrier that makes the victim no longer attractive. For most of these man on boy paedophiles, the point where a boys voice deepens and body hair is sprouting in earnest is when the attraction ends.
When the National Review Board, a group of notable Catholics, issued its study in 2004, the team’s chief, attorney Robert S. Bennett, said that “any evaluation of the causes and context of the current crisis must be cognizant of the fact that more than 80 percent of the abuse at issue was of a homosexual nature.” One of the members, Dr. Paul McHugh, former psychiatrist-in-chief at Johns Hopkins, has said that “This behavior was homosexual predation on American Catholic youth, yet it’s not being discussed.” By the way, the figures after 2004 haven’t changed—eight in ten cases involve homosexuality. Worldwide, the Vatican estimates that 60 percent of the cases are same-sex, 30 percent are heterosexual and 10 percent involve pedophilia.
So because a Catholic group said so, and the Vatican said so, and a Catholic psychiatrist said so...
This selection deserves only an admonition about confirmation bias and source bias.
Why are priests being singled out when the sexual abuse of minors among other segments of the population is on-going today? According to Virginia Commonwealth University professor Charol Shakeshaft, the nation’s leading education expert on this issue, “the physical sexual abuse of students in schools is likely more than 100 times the abuse by priests.” We know from the work of Jenkins, and others, that there is no reason to believe that the rate of abuse is higher among Catholic priests than among the clergy of other religions. Moreover, there has been a slew of stories over the past few years detailing the extent of this problem in the Orthodox Jewish community; some rabbis still insist that sexual abuse cases should be handled internally.
I'd like to see the citation for the “100 times” figure. Because schools are so much more open than religious organisations, the possibility of reporting is higher. So I could imagine that even slight offences could be reported on a much more frequent basis. I think someone is just pulling this number from thin air, however. Notice the word usage; “ ...is likely more than 100 times...”. This means that the person made a statement based not on data or figures, but instead used what I call presto-digitation (I need a number and so Presto! I make one up).
To cast doubt on the Jewish community is good, to investigate better. But not when you are using it as a defence. All this sentence says to rational people is: “See, it's not just us. Other groups are bad too!”
Federal District Court Judge Jack B. Weinstein took a “compassionate” view toward a man found guilty of collecting thousands of explicit pictures of children, as young as three, that he downloaded from a child porn website. Weinstein slammed existing legal penalties for the crime, saying, “We’re destroying lives unnecessarily. At the most, they should be receiving treatment and supervision.”
Yes, that is wrong of a judge to do or say that. There was another, in Vermont I believe, that likened child sexual abuse to alcoholism. This was equally repugnant. It also has nothing to do with the church hiding and moving around sexual predators.
How often has the Church been ripped for following the advice of psychiatrists who thought they could “fix” molesters? To be sure, that was the zeitgeist several decades ago, as virtually every institution and profession can testify. Indeed, the punitive approach so favored today would have been cause for condemnation at that time had it been followed. Interestingly, a report on this situation in Ireland correctly concluded that had more bishops followed canon law, instead of seeking a more “compassionate” strategy, much of the problem could have been avoided.
What report? Was it written by Catholics?
The real damage done by the therapeutic approach is that it fostered the phenomenon of reassigning priests after they were treated. The exact same thing happened in the teaching profession. Indeed, moving treated teachers to new school districts is so common that it is called “passing the trash.” While moving treated priests to new parishes is no longer tolerated, the New York Times found that the practice of moving abusers around who work in New York’s state-run homes is commonplace.
Teachers that sexually abuse, or are accused of doing so, go on suspension until an investigation finishes. If the investigation results in innocence, then yes they are moved to somewhere where the allegation may be quietly marked but the teacher has a chance of not being lynched by angry parents. This is nothing like the Catholic method of reassignment, wherein no investigation is permitted and abusers were moved around to protect the abuser.
Mandatory reporting of sexual crimes is not uniform in law or practice. In New York State, several attempts to blanket the clergy and other professionals have been met with resistance. Not by the bishops—but by Family Planning Advocates (the lobbying arm of Planned Parenthood) and the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU). Planned Parenthood counselors routinely learn about cases of statutory rape; mandatory reporting would obviously work against their clients’ interests. Even where mandatory reporting is law, such as in the state-run homes, it is seldom followed (more than 95 percent of the time the authorities are not contacted).
So first the claim is that reporting isn't uniform. Fair enough. But to claim that the clergy had no problem with accepting the rules and laws but the evil abortionists and criminal liberties people stopped it... that's just ridiculous. There is a reason that very few people take Donahue seriously.
Yet again I find myself wanting a citation. 95% of the time? Seriously? What study found what numbers to justify this statement?
Calls for suspending the statute of limitations have regularly been made. But even if one sets aside the fundamental due process reasons why such laws exist, what is most disturbing about this issue is that they almost never apply to public employees. Unless explicitly stated, laws that revise the statute of limitations leave untouched those in education: they are protected by “sovereign immunity,” making transparent what the real goal is—“getting the priests.” And when proposed changes apply to teachers, in every state where this has happened, teachers’ unions and school superintendents have organized to register their objections. Why, then, should bishops who protest these revisions be criticized for doing so?
If there were a contest for misunderstanding reality, Donahue would come in just behind Ken Ham and Ray Comfort. There is no effort to protect teachers while targeting priests. Attempting to assassinate the character of an entire profession is just what Donahue has been complaining about. Yet here he is, yet again, claiming that teachers are the bad guys and the priests are just innocent victims of society.
Here's one reason why immediate firings and criminal activity against teachers faces a roadblock. If Sally gets a C from Mr. Wilson, but knows that the sub in this subject is a friend of moms, she can make an accusation against Mr. Wilson and have a teacher more likely to grant an A. Sound far-fetched? It isn't. Even parents are attacking teachers that don't simply automatically give good grades. Every strict teacher that cares about the quality of education that a child receives has been subject to this at least once. Two investigations do occur for these circumstances though. One internally and one by a state investigator. If and when the accusation is found to be false, the teacher resumes work.
The difference between teachers and bishops is that bishops hold themselves apart from the law; only internal investigations are desired, only church law cited, only punishments or disciplines from within the church required. Had the church not held to this for so long, had the church willingly involved law enforcement when allegations were made, this would all be a moot point and more people would trust the church.
The rest of Donahue's article is primarily the same “poor us” rubbish and can be found here:
