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Catholic Abuse Scandal was Primarily Homosexual

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Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
Now I see. :rolleyes: Clearly a homophobic slant. Nice try.
BTW, I'm not convinced that homosexuality was as
big a component as he thinks. It could very well be
that sex with boys wasn't about a homosexual
orientation, but just a way to have sex & human
contact of any kind. In such a case, it would be
a perversion, not homosexuality.
 

firedragon

Veteran Member
The National Review Board, recruiting a research team from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, released its initial report in 2004. The results were conclusive: This was not a "pedophile" scandal, but a homosexual scandal. Eighty percent of the alleged victims were male, and nearly 90 percent were post-pubescent, with "only a small percentage of priests receiving allegations of abusing young children."

I addition, almost all the abuse happened 20 years ago or more.

The Church has taken action to block actively gay men from becoming priests and instituted other safety measures which have virtually ended instances of abuse.

That's just correspondence data. To make this kind of assumption based on the data is either madness or just pure dishonesty.
 

KW

Well-Known Member
That's just correspondence data. To make this kind of assumption based on the data is either madness or just pure dishonesty.

That's the most thorough analysis of the abuse crisis available.

There is nothing dishonest about it.
 

Viker

Häxan
BTW, I'm not convinced that homosexuality was as
big a component as he thinks. It could very well be
that sex with boys wasn't about a homosexual
orientation, but just a way to have sex & human
contact of any kind. In such a case, it would be
a perversion, not homosexuality.
Prison sex. The Catholic hierarchy is male. The preferred acolytes are male. Authority=dominance. Throw in sexual repression and you have a creepy Tool video playing out in the real world.
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
Prison sex. The Catholic hierarchy is male. The preferred acolytes are male. Authority=dominance. Throw in sexual repression and you have a creepy Tool video playing out in the real world.
You have a way with words.
 

exchemist

Veteran Member
From this article:

The National Review Board, recruiting a research team from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, released its initial report in 2004. The results were conclusive: This was not a "pedophile" scandal, but a homosexual scandal. Eighty percent of the alleged victims were male, and nearly 90 percent were post-pubescent, with "only a small percentage of priests receiving allegations of abusing young children." An updated report, issued in 2011, revealed similar numbers: 81 percent of sex abuse victims were boys, and 78 percent were post-pubescent.

Priest Sex Abuse Is All About Homosexuality (churchmilitant.com)
Aha. This seems to be a far-right publicity organisation that the Catholic church has disavowed: Church Militant (website) - Wikipedia. I quote:

"St. Michael's Media is a conservative Catholic organization founded by Michael Voris which operates as a lay apostolate and news website in Michigan under the officially-registered assumed name of Church Militant[2] via the website ChurchMilitant.com. It is a Michigan 501(c)4 corporation.[3] It was known as Real Catholic TV until 2012, when the Archdiocese of Detroit notified Michael Voris and Real Catholic TV that "it does not regard them as being authorized to use the word 'Catholic' to identify or promote their public activities".[4] Voris responded by changing the name to Church Militant."

Regarding the claim you are reporting, I see that the Grand Jury report on abuse in Pennsylvania records some 1000 cases of child sexual abuse by Catholic priests, so if 80% were against boys - something that I cannot at this point corroborate - that leaves 200 cases against girls as well. Hardly a trivial number. All were clearly minors, or they would not be within the scope of the report.

It comes to something when an attempt is made to downplay this abuse on the grounds that the minors were mainly post-pubescent.

Regarding the reduction in abuse cases in the last 20 years I see that the first explosive revelations about abuse in the US church took place in 2002 in Boston, exactly 20 years ago. It is to be expected that moves to deal with this scourge would have been taken in the wake of the revelations. Certainly in our diocese in London, there has been for some years now a formal "safeguarding" system in place, at all the churches and church schools.

The issue here is not whether the sexual inclinations of the priests were technically homosexual, heterosexual or paedophile - that is a red herring, frankly. It is that they abused the position of trust and authority vested in them as priests, to carry out sex crimes on an industrial scale, and that this was then covered up, for decades, by the hierarchy.
 
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KW

Well-Known Member
Aha. This seems to be a far-right publicity organisation that the Catholic church has disavowed: Church Militant (website) - Wikipedia. I quote:

"St. Michael's Media is a conservative Catholic organization founded by Michael Voris which operates as a lay apostolate and news website in Michigan under the officially-registered assumed name of Church Militant[2] via the website ChurchMilitant.com. It is a Michigan 501(c)4 corporation.[3] It was known as Real Catholic TV until 2012, when the Archdiocese of Detroit notified Michael Voris and Real Catholic TV that "it does not regard them as being authorized to use the word 'Catholic' to identify or promote their public activities".[4] Voris responded by changing the name to Church Militant."

Regarding the claim you are reporting, I see that the Grand Jury report on abuse in Pennsylvania records some 1000 cases of child sexual abuse by Catholic priests, so if 80% were against boys - something that I cannot at this point corroborate - leaves 200 cases against girls as well. Hardly a trivial number. All were clearly minors, or they would not be within the scope of the report.

It comes to something when an attempt is made to downplay this abuse on the grounds that the minors were mainly post-pubescent.

Regarding the reduction in abuse cases in the last 20 years I see that the first explosive revelations about abuse in the US church took place in 2002 in Boston, exactly 20 years ago. It is to be expected that moves to deal with this scourge would have been taken in the wake of the revelations. Certainly in our diocese in London, there has been some some years now a formal "safeguarding" system in place, at all the churches and church schools.


Typical leftist technique.

Deal with the facts. You can dispute the conclusion(not rationally) but the facts are no disputed.
 

Fool

ALL in all
Premium Member
The National Review Board, recruiting a research team from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, released its initial report in 2004. The results were conclusive: This was not a "pedophile" scandal, but a homosexual scandal. Eighty percent of the alleged victims were male, and nearly 90 percent were post-pubescent, with "only a small percentage of priests receiving allegations of abusing young children."

I addition, almost all the abuse happened 20 years ago or more.

The Church has taken action to block actively gay men from becoming priests and instituted other safety measures which have virtually ended instances of abuse.
a relationship difference of 5+ years is considered grooming especially between what is considered a psychologically mature adult and an adolescent.

the relationship is considered unhealthy because the adult is grooming the uninformed adolescent, or psychologically/mentally immature person for something it doesn't quite understand.


i noticed you didn't mention the other abuses; which you probably call heterosexual. people in places of power and authority, shouldn't be having intimate relationships with subordinates of any kind.
 
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firedragon

Veteran Member
That's the most thorough analysis of the abuse crisis available.

There is nothing dishonest about it.

You misunderstand data, analysis and assumptions. If you read my post, I am speaking about the assumptions. It's the most absurd assumption in honest research I have ever seen.
 

Bathos Logos

Active Member
81 percent of sex abuse victims were boys, and 78 percent were post-pubescent
You do know what post-pubescent means, right? It just means "after puberty." As in - there are still plenty of years in there before the age of legal consent in many places. So you can't make the generalization that all these boys were of legal age to be fooling around with. And so, it still remains a problem of these clergy having targeted youth. Underage youth. So you take away the term "pedophile", lets say, assuming all the boys were 13. So what? That makes it less of a problem? Or that makes "homosexuality" as the root cause in your estimation? At the end of the day, these were men willing to break multiple laws to do what they did. Their being homosexual does not represent a law being broken. You get that, right? Please tell me you get that.
 

exchemist

Veteran Member
Typical leftist technique.

Deal with the facts. You can dispute the conclusion(not rationally) but the facts are no disputed.
You have presented no facts, though. I await a reference from a reputable source, which "Church Militant" is not, to substantiate the facts you are relying on. Provide such a source of fact, and I will be happy to deal with it.

You can't just present a page from the National Enquirer and then demand I "deal with the facts".
 
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Left Coast

This Is Water
Staff member
Premium Member
I wonder if young Catholic men wrestling with homosexual
feelings see the priesthood as a way of coping with their
orientation...one which must be denied. By swearing off
sex, perhaps they imagine a way of resisting temptation,
purging their sinful desires, & practicing penance.
But many later discover their feelings are not so easily
denied, & become expressed in heinous ways because
normal relationships are impossible. Children are vulnerable,
offering the secrecy that adults wouldn't.

Also bear in the mind that until recent years, altar servers were all boys, girls were not allowed. And they are most frequently in close proximity with priests, helping prep for Mass. So it's a question of availability of victims as well. But the far right will always ignore the full picture if it gives them an opportunity to bash gay people.
 

exchemist

Veteran Member
Full report includes child abuse across various religions and youth organizations, and how they manage it.
The-Causes-and-Context-of-Sexual-Abuse-of-Minors-by-Catholic-Priests-in-the-United-States-1950-2010.pdf (usccb.org)
In fact, interestingly, this report specifically contradicts the claim in the OP. I quote the relevant section of the summary:

Individual, Psychological Factors

• Less than 5 percent of the priests with allegations of abuse exhibited behavior consistent with a diagnosis of pedophilia (a psychiatric disorder that is character- ized by recurrent fantasies, urges, and behaviors about prepubescent children). Thus, it is inaccurate to refer to abusers as “pedophile priests.”

• Priests with allegations of sexually abusing minors are not significantly more likely than other priests to have personality or mood disorders.

• Sexual behavior in violation of the commitment to celibacy was reported by 80 percent of the priests who participated in residential psychological treatment, but most sexual behavior was with adults.

• The majority of priests who were given residential treatment following an allegation of sexual abuse of a minor also reported sexual behavior with adult partners.

• Those priests who had sexual relationships either before seminary or while in seminary were more likely to also have sexual relationships after ordination, but those relationships were most likely to be with adults. They were not significantly more likely to abuse minors.

  • Priests who had same-sex sexual experiences either before seminary or in seminary were more likely to have sexual behavior after ordination, but this behavior was most likely with adults. These men were not significantly more likely to abuse minors.
  • Priests who were sexually abused as minors themselves were more likely to abuse minors than those without a history of abuse.
  • Priests who lacked close social bonds, and those whose family spoke negatively or not at all about sex, were more likely to sexually abuse minors than those who had a history of close social bonds and positive discus- sions about sexual behavior. In general, priests from the ordination cohorts of the 1940s and 1950s showed evidence of difficulty with intimacy.

    So, as some of us suspected, this Church Militant claim seems to have been a piece of made up disinformation in furtherance of an anti-homosexual agenda - and to lay a few red herrings across the path.
 

KW

Well-Known Member
Also bear in the mind that until recent years, altar servers were all boys, girls were not allowed. And they are most frequently in close proximity with priests, helping prep for Mass. So it's a question of availability of victims as well. But the far right will always ignore the full picture if it gives them an opportunity to bash gay people.

This is not about bashing gay people. It's about homosexuals abusing others.
 
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