Child sɛҳuąƖ Abuse Within The Catholic Church, In Perspective

M Fishwick

Woe to the World because of Scandal
Child sɛҳuąƖ Abuse Within The Catholic Church: In Perspective
Monsignor Says Harm of Abuse Wasn't Recognized reads the headline of a quite incredible article published in the Boston Globe, of 23rd February, 2004. Monsignor Richard Sniezyk reportedly told the newspaper "that as a seminarian and then a young priest... he heard of priests who had sex with young men, but 'no one thought much about it' because priests didn't recognise how mentally and emotionally damaging their behaviour was... 'It was that era of the 60's - most of it took place from the mid-'60's to the early '80's - and the whole atmosphere out there was, it was OK, it was OK to do'."
Perhaps the most astonishing thing that is apparent from the testimony of Monsignor Sniezyk is the total lack of recognition of sin that he implies was widespread in seminaries and amongst those in charge of forming future priests during the Conciliar and post-Conciliar period.

This lack of the Faith was also admitted by the pope whilst reflecting upon the causes of the scandal in his Pastoral Letter to the Catholics of Ireland in March of this year. His Holiness wrote that:
"All too often, the sacramental and devotional practices that sustain faith and enable it to grow, such as frequent confession, daily prayer and annual retreats, were neglected. Significant too was the tendency during this period, also on the part of priests and religious, to adopt ways of thinking and assessing secular realities without sufficient reference to the Gospel... Certainly, among the contributing factors we can include: inadequate procedures for determining the suitability of candidates for the priesthood and the religious life; insufficient human, moral, intellectual and spiritual formation in seminaries and novitiates; a tendency in society to favour the clergy and other authority figures; and a misplaced concern for the reputation of the Church and the avoidance of scandal, resulting in failure to apply existing canonical penalties..."
To the faithful of Ireland he wrote that “I can only share in the dismay and the sense of betrayal that so many of you have experienced on learning of these sinful and criminal acts and the way Church authorities in Ireland dealth with them.”
To the Irish bishops he wrote that “It cannot be denied that some of you and your predecessors failed, at times grievously, to apply the long-established norms of canon law to the crime of child abuse”


Even though the enabling of such an enormous scandal is very easily traced back to the Liberal poison given sanction within the Catholic world by various docuмents of the Second Vatican Council, the pope makes an attempt to excuse the Liberal Council, to excuse the Liberal prelates and periti who are clearly responsible for the ambiguous docuмents that seek to level the Church to the ideas and mentality of a fallen world, and to excuse the Liberal prelates consequently formed by its poisoned teaching.
The attempt by Pope Benedict XVI to insulate and protect the Council from its fundamental connection to the scandal falls flat. For in the same Letter he writes that: "... the Second Vatican Council was sometimes misinterpreted..." Yet, in the same breath whilst trying to excuse, he inadvertently admits to the built-in ambiguity, and therefore extremely pernicious fault, of the Council by adding that "it was far from easy to know how best to implement it."
The confusion, ambiguity and liberalising mentality launched upon the Catholic world by the Second Vatican Council has clearly facilitated and enabled clerical child sɛҳuąƖ abuse, the scandal of which has rocked the Church, and provided Her enemies with the opportunity to produce an avalanche of lies and slanders against Her.

ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ Infiltration of the Clergy
At a press conference held in Santiago, Chile, on 12th April, 2010, Cardinal Bertone, the Vatican Secretary of State, confirmed that the clerical child sɛҳuąƖ abuse scandal is one of "a relationship between paedophilia and ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖity." He further noted that "there is much docuмentation" that proves the truth of the statement.

That the problem of sɛҳuąƖ abuse within the Catholic Church is largely and essentially a problem of ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖs targeting the priesthood and religious life appears to have been recognised by the Vatican for many years. In 2005 the Congregation for Catholic Education issued instructions, with the pope's sanction, that forbade admittance to the seminary or to Holy Orders to "those who practise ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖity, present deep-seated ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ tendencies or support the so-called 'gαy culture'."
It was not the first such instruction. As far back as 2nd February, 1961, The Sacred Congregation for Religious issued an official docuмent entitled Careful Selection and Training of Candidates for the States of Perfection and Sacred Orders. In it we read that: "Advancement to religious vows and ordination should be barred to those who are afflicted with evil tendencies to ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖity or pederasty, since for them the common life and the priestly ministry would constitute serious dangers."
After queries concerning the authority and scope of the 2005 docuмent, Instruction Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocation with Regard to Persons with ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ Tendencies in View of their Admission to the Seminary and to Holy Orders, had been received by the Vatican, Cardinal Bertone issued in May, 2008, a written response, Rescriptum ex audientia, wherein the Vatican Secretary of State confirmed that the norms established in the 2005 docuмent were of universal nature and applied to all houses of formation within the Catholic Church.

In a recent docuмent produced for Human Life International, ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖity and the Church Crisis, the author, Brian Clowes, draws upon the published academic literature to prove conclusively that the problem of child sɛҳuąƖ abuse within the Catholic Church is essentially a problem of ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖs being admitted to the clerical or religious state.
Citing official statistics published in the USA Clowes shows that "In the population of priests who sɛҳuąƖly abuse minors, six in seven molest boys". This figure, which equates to 86% of clerical sɛҳuąƖ abuse being ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ, compares starkly to the much smaller prevalence of ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ abuse within American society as whole. He writes that: "... in the general population of males who sɛҳuąƖly abuse minors, only one in seven molest boys".


Clowes then continues to prove from a number of sources that the Church has been specifically targeted for infiltration by predatory ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖs.
"One of the 'articles of faith' of the 'gαy rights' movement is that ten percent of any population is ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ. In fact, the numbers are much smaller. There have been a number of major studies gauging the percentage of ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖs in the general population. The aggregated results of these studies surveyed more than 218,000 men in several countries and show that only 2.6 percent of the male population has ever had a ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ experience in their lives [for a list of these studies, see Brian W. Clowes and David L. Sonnier. "Child Molestation by ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖs and HetrosɛҳuąƖs", Homiletic and Pastoral Review, May 2005, pp. 44-54]...


... Many experts have claimed that there is a much higher percentage of ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖs in the priesthood than there is in the general population. Let us assume for a moment that the concentration of male ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖs in the priesthood is four times greater than it is in the general population - about ten percent.
If we assume this number is correct... we find that a ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ priest is... 52 times more likely to molest a child than a heterosɛҳuąƖ priest.
If we use the more reasonable assumption that five percent of all priests are ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ (still about twice the average in the general population), we see that a ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ priest is... 110 times more likely to molest a child than a heterosɛҳuąƖ priest".
That the Church has been specifically targeted for infiltration by practising sodomites should come as no surprise. She is not alone in having to face and deal with this daunting problem. It is well enough known that ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ paedophiles will attempt to target any vocation or institution that will bring them into contact with minors, especially if the vocation or institution provides them with nominal respectability and position of authority over children.

Clowes cites J. Dressler, gαy Teachers: a Disesteemed Minority in an Overly Esteemed Profession, Ruthers/Camden Law Journal, 1978, 9(3), pp. 399-445, to prove the point. Commenting upon the data recorded in this paper that was published in the academic literature Clowes writes that:
"... ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ teachers have been involved in a hugely disproportionate number of all recorded cases of teacher/pupil sex. A nationwide survey of school principals showed that they received 13 times as many complaints about ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖs sɛҳuąƖly molesting students than they did about heterosɛҳuąƖs molesting students.
Other studies have shown that ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ teachers are from 90 to 100 times more likely to molest students than hetrosɛҳuąƖ teachers".


To prove the point beyond any doubt Clowes then quotes from several leading ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ organisations and activists who appear happy to hang themselves. Citing No Place for Homo-Homophobia, San Francisco Sentinel, 26th March 1992, he writes, for example that:
"In an editorial in the San Francisco Sentinel, a member of the National Lesbian and gαy Journalists' Association claimed that:
'The love between men and boys is at the foundation of ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖity. For the gαy community to imply that boy-love is not ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ love is ridiculous. We must not be seduced into believing misinformation from the press and the government. Child molesting does occur, but there are also positive sɛҳuąƖ relations. And we need to support the men and the boys in those relationships'."
Sick and perverted as the statement above is it nevertheless shows very clearly that sɛҳuąƖ predation of ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ men upon boys is recognised by ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖs themselves.

The Traditional Attitude of the Church
The problem of ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ activity and child sɛҳuąƖ abuse is not new, not even within the Church, but is a consequence of man's fallen nature and his all-too commonplace co-operation with temptations encouraged by devils. Such has always been recognised by the Church. And, as every Catholic knows full well the Church has always supplied the spiritual remedies with which to successfully combat any temptation to sin. She has also always supplied appropriate ecclesiastical penalties to discourage such acts and help resist temptations from Hell.
A profound difference is to be found by comparing the traditional attitude of the Church and Her enforcement of ecclesiastical penalties to that of Her pale, sickly, and virtually unrecogniseable modern reflection that is reluctant to abide by or enforce the instructions of Canon Law.

At the beginning of the fourth century the Council of Elvira established that stupratores puerorum, corrupters of boys, should be excluded from Holy Communion even at the moment of death.
In the twelfth century we find Lateran Council III decreeing that "Anyone caught in the practice of the sin against nature, on account of which the wrath of God was unleashed upon the children of disobedience (Eph. 5:6), if he is a cleric, let him be demoted from his state and kept in reclusion in a monastery to do penance; if he is a layman, let him be excommunicated and kept rigorously distant from the communion of the faithful.”


Moving further through time towards the present we find that Pope Saint Pius V in the sixteenth century ordered that clerical sodomites were to be stripped of their ecclesiastical dignity and handed over to the Secular Arm of the Two Swords to be burnt at the stake. "If someone commits that nefarious crime against nature that caused divine wrath to be unleashed against the children of iniquity, he will be given over to the secular arm for punishment; and if he is a cleric, he will be subject to analogous punishment after having been stripped of all his degrees" (cuм Primum, 1566).

And also the Fifth Lateran Council decreed that "Therefore, wishing to pursue with the greatest rigor that which We have decreed since the beginning of Our Pontificate, We establish that any priest or member of the clergy, either secular or regular, who commits such an execrable crime, by force of the present law be deprived of every clerical privilege, of every post, dignity and ecclesiastical benefit, and having been degraded by an ecclesiastical judge, be immediately delivered to the secular authority to be executed as mandated by law, according to the appropriate punishment for laymen plunged in this abyss.”


Arriving at the twentieth century we find that the 1917 Code of Canon Law stated that "So far as laymen are concerned, the sin of sodomy is punished ipso facto with the pain of infamy and other sanctions to be applied according to the prudent judgment of the bishop depending on the gravity of each case (Can. 2357). As for ecclesiastics and religious, if they are clerici minoris [of a degree lower than deacon], let them be punished with various measures, proportional to the gravity of the fault, that can even include dismissal from the clerical state (Can. 2358); if they are clerici maiores [deacons, priests or bishops], let them ‘be declared infamous and suspended from every post, benefit, dignity, deprived of their eventual stipend and, in the gravest cases, let them be deposed’." (Can. 2359).

The 1983 Code of Canon Law that is currently in force along with the motu proprio of 30th April, 2001, Sacramentorum sanctitatis tutela, also makes clear, according to the recent Vatican Guide to Understanding Basic CDF Procedures Concerning sɛҳuąƖ Abuse Allegations, that "civil law concerning reporting of crimes to the appropriate authorities should always be followed" and that "should the cleric be judged guilty" in ecclesiastical trial "both judicial and administrative penal processes can condemn a cleric to a number of canonical penalties, the most serious of which is dismissal from the clerical state."
Clearly the problem is not that provisions do not exist within the Law of the Church to deal with such vile crimes, even if those modern provisions within Church and State are not as strident and effective as in times before, but that liberal churchmen follow liberal society in their contempt for Moral Law and their love for modern liberal pseudo-science such as psychoanalysis and psychotherapy.

The Actual Statistics
Contrary to the wild and malicious propaganda regularly disseminated by the mass media, academic research that has been conducted into the prevalence of child sɛҳuąƖ abuse within the Church paints a very different picture.
The available data shows that even with the widespread and destructive process of liberalisation that has wrought havoc and brought the Church Militant to its knees, child sɛҳuąƖ abuse within diocesan and religious structures is still a rare phenomenon compared to its prevalence within secular society. Data gathered from different countries appears to show a remarkably similar pattern.

USA
The John Jay College of Criminal Justice was commissioned by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to investigate and produce an independent report which was published in 2004. Entitled The Nature and Scope of the Problem of sɛҳuąƖ Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests and Deacons in the United States the report recorded that over a 42 year period 10,667 allegations of child sɛҳuąƖ abuse in US diocesan structures were made. 81% of this sɛҳuąƖ abuse was ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ abuse.


Approximately one quarter of the population of the USA is Catholic; that is seventy million people. If the reasonable assumption is made that half of the Catholic population passed through childhood during this 42 year period then the prevalence of child abuse suffered by Catholic children within diocesan structures in the USA is 0.03%. In other words of every ten thousand Catholic children in the USA only three suffer sɛҳuąƖ abuse within the environment of the Catholic Church.


By contrast, Rind et al, 1998, A Meta-Analytic Examination of Assumed Properties of Child sɛҳuąƖ Abuse Using College Samples, published in Psychological Bulletin 124: pp. 22-53, collated data published in 23 previous academic studies and found an average prevalence of child sɛҳuąƖ abuse throughout the USA of nearly 23%. In other words of every ten thousand children in the USA an incredible two thousand and three hundred suffer sɛҳuąƖ abuse within a non-Catholic environment.


Charol Shakeshaft, Educator sɛҳuąƖ Misconduct: A Synthesis of the Literature, published by the US Department of Education in 2004, recorded that 9.6% of American children suffer from sɛҳuąƖ abuse in secular schools. In other words of every ten thousand American children nine hundred and sixty suffer sɛҳuąƖ abuse within the environment of school.


In 2003 The Report of The Attorney General of Massachusetts into child sɛҳuąƖ abuse within the Archdiocese of Boston recorded that since 1940, a 63 year period, allegations were made against 250 priests and lay diocesan staff concerning a total of 789 children. The Archdiocese of Boston has a Catholic population of more than two million souls. If the assumption is made that 80% of these two million Catholic souls passed through their childhood years during this 63 year period we arrive at a 0.05% prevalence rate of sɛҳuąƖ abuse. In other words of every ten thousand Catholic children just five suffer sɛҳuąƖ abuse within the environment of the Archdiocese of Boston.


The reader should bear such official statistics in mind whilst reflecting upon the insanely vicious, and entirely typical, anti-Catholic commentary supplied in the Introduction to his report by the Attorney General of Massachusetts, Thomas F. Reilly. He writes of "The widespread sɛҳuąƖ abuse of children within the Archdiocese", of "this widespread assault on children", and of "the massive and prolonged mistreatment of children by priests assigned to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston".
And the sheeple, in their mass-media-induced stupefaction, believe it!

IRELAND


Many readers will be far more familiar with the furious and vicious wall-to-wall coverage of allegedly widespread clerical and religious child abuse in Ireland.
The data contained in the 2009 final report of the government-directed The Commission to Enquire Into Child Abuse records that over a 34 year period more than 170,000 children passed through Industrial and Reformatory Schools operated by the Catholic Church. Of this number a total of 369 people, 242 males and 127 females, made complaint to the Irish Child Abuse Commission during its nine-year investigation that they had suffered sɛҳuąƖ abuse whilst at one of these institutions. The rate of prevalence is 0.2%. In other words of every ten thousand children that lived in an Industrial or Reformatory School just twenty allege having suffered sɛҳuąƖ abuse.


Furthermore, of the accused less than half of the alleged perpetrators were actually Catholic priests or religious. 55% of those accused of having carried out sɛҳuąƖ abuse were visiting professionals, hired staff, visiting family members or even other pupils. 91% of the sɛҳuąƖ abuse carried out by clerics or religious was ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ abuse.


Other official Irish investigations show similar data. The government-directed Dublin Archdiocese Commission of Investigation Report, published in 2009, records that 320 people complained of suffering abuse between 1975 and 2004. A further 130 complaints were received after the Commission's remit had ended giving a total of 450 allegations against 102 priests over a 29 year period. According to the Archdiocese of Dublin more than one million Catholics fall under its jurisdiction. If the assumption is made that over this 29 year period one-quarter of these million souls passed through their childhood years then the prevalence rate of abuse is 0.18%. If the assumption is made that a greater number, one-third, of these million souls passed through their childhood years during that period the rate of prevalence falls to 0.13%. In other words even the less reasonable assumption shows that of every ten thousand children that pass through structures belonging to the Archdiocese of Dublin just eighteen suffer sɛҳuąƖ abuse.


The Ferns Report, 2005, another government-directed enquiry, records that between 1966 and 2005, a 39 year period, 100 allegations of child abuse were made against 21 priests in Diocese of Ferns. According to the Diocese of Ferns the Catholic population of the Diocese stood at 102,000 souls in 2006. If the assumption is made that half the Catholic population of Ferns passed through their childhood years during this 39 year period the rate of prevalence is 0.19. In other words of every ten thousand children in the Diocese of Ferns just nineteen allege that they suffer sɛҳuąƖ abuse within the diocesan structure.


Twenty children in every ten thousand being abused by priests or religious is, needless to say, a score too many. But when these figures are compared to the prevalence of child sex abuse in Liberal secular Irish society the horrifying truth becomes clear once again.

A study conducted by McGee et al, 2003, The SAVI Report: sɛҳuąƖ Abuse and Violence in Ireland, published by the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, reports that the prevalence of child sɛҳuąƖ abuse in Ireland is recorded as 30.4% for girls and 23.6% for boys. In other words McGee et al claim that of every ten thousand Irish children an average of two-thousand and seven-hundred (27%) suffer sɛҳuąƖ abuse in secular society.
Cawson et al, 2000, Child Maltreatment in the United Kingdom: A Study of the Prevalence of Child Abuse and Neglect, London, NSPCC, record on page 85 that in Great Britain and the north-east of Ireland 16% of children suffer sɛҳuąƖ abuse; in other words of every ten thousand children in the United Kingdom one thousand and six hundred suffer sɛҳuąƖ abuse.


Clearly, studies conducted and published in the academic literature prove beyond any doubt that child sɛҳuąƖ abuse in the Catholic Church is extremely rare in comparison to its prevalence within liberal secular society; a society whose propagandists attempt to turn black into white and falsely accuse the Church of being guilty of the very crimes that truly are widespread, and several orders of magnitude more common, within the sick and dying nightmare of a world that they advocate.

sacrifice children on the altar of their perverted priests' lusts