Appetite for Deconstruction

“People need to know that there is no place in the priesthood and religious life for those who would harm the young.” (Pope John Paul II)

When I was in high school, I got in trouble for writing phony love letters to my English teacher – mostly anonymous, with one exception (sorry about that, PJT). The content ranged from the ridiculous to the über -ridiculous (“I will be Tarzan and you will be Jane… I will swoop down on my wine and take you to my jungle hut. Don’t worry about it being cold… because the warmth of our hearts will keep us toasty…” or some shit like that). Ok, so I was no ee cummings – but I thought it was funny. She? Not so much.

She spent the next period sifting through essays, doing her own little CSI-esque handwriting analysis and had me dead to rights.

I was sent home, where my Pop already had received a call from my school’s principal. He was surprisingly lenient – but he did dispense this valuable advice:

“Listen… never put anything in your own handwriting. That’s just stupid.”

Ah, if only Pope Benedict XVI knew my Pops.

Already racked with controversy, bad press and even badder public opinion, the Church faced news on April 8th that the Associated Press unearthed a 1985 letter – signed by the Holy See himself (then Cardinal Ratzinger) – resisting pleas from a Californian diocese to defrock a priest with a record of molesting children, citing “the good of the universal Church,” according to the 1985 letter.

That’s right… with a previous record of molesting children.

And people wonder why I stopped being a Catholic. Sure, some it had to do with my coming to grips with the fact I no longer believed in the hokey stories of winemaking, dead-raising and chosen people. Seriously, if I want that, I’ll watch LOST.

But one of the other contributing factors was the Church itself and the endless history of power abuse and its steadfast unwillingness to adapt for modern times (e.g., lack of women in the clergy, still referring to gays as an abomination, etc.). From the Spanish Inquisition to the Crusades to witch hunts to ties with the mafia… is there any low the Catholic Church won’t stoop to?

Apparently not.

Because the aforementioned is only the latest in a long line of recent accusations, including reports that when he was archbishop of Munich, Germany, Ratzinger approved the transfer of an abusive priest from another jurisdiction. Later, when he was assigned to the Vatican (in a role where he had oversight of a number of areas, including child abuse issues), Ratzinger failed to act against the Wisconsin priest, who was believed to have abused as many as 200 deaf boys from the 1950s to the 1970s.

“What are you, people? On dope?”

Distrurbing accusations aside, what unnerves me most about all of this are the reactions of Catholics.

For parishioners, I understand: you’ve heard it enough. Your Church has undergone endless attacks over this issue, and many of you have a knee-jerk reaction to circle the wagons. But ignoring it doesn’t make it go away.

Hell, when researching this article, I came across a blog that stated the following:

Lately, it’s been about the priest pedophilia/sex abuse scandal, an event that had its last hurrah 10 years ago, or more and started nearly 50 years ago. The fact is that the scandal of Catholic clergy coincides with the loosening of sexual mores in society since World War II. Sex outside of marriage became the norm, sexual promiscuity became tolerated, homosexuality, pornography, and so on. It affected everyone, especially here in the US, growing up during that time. Some of those young men were called to the priesthood, instilled with the idea that sex outside of marriage vows was ok, that marriage was no longer permanent, thus making vows breakable. The sexual revolution also covered up many forms of sexual deviance. At any rate, priests having sex with children, while never even close to the norm (probably less the 5% of Catholic priests were ever accused of committing these acts), had its heyday in the 60’s and 70’s, waning to nil in the 80’s. There have been few or no cases in the last 10-15 years.

Wow. First of all, the writer goes from delusional (as if pedophilia was some sort of inevitable virus that needed to work its way through society, and – shucks – the Church included) to nonchalant (5% of priests were ever accused? Y’know… that’s in the ballpark of 20,000 priests. And that sits well with you? And of those 20,000, y’think they’re one and done? In 2002, the church reached a $10m settlement with EIGHTY-SIX victims of John Geoghan, a Boston-area priest) to complete denial (few or no cases the past 10-15 years?? First of all, there were 400 new allegations of clergy sex abuse reported in the U.S. alone in 2009, 620 in 2008 and 889 in 2004. What fucking rock are you living under?).

I’m not saying you all respond this way, or that you undersell the grave importance and tragic effects that such actions have on abused children. The Catholics I know feel quite the contrary.

Unfortunately, the Church you belong to doesn’t share the same sentiment.

“We were supposed to fight for the people who couldn’t fight for themselves.”

Downey: “What did we do wrong? We did nothing wrong!”
Dawson: “Yeah, we did. We were supposed to fight for the people who couldn’t fight for themselves.”

The importance of these recent scandals, to me, is the way they seem to demonstrate the Vatican’s sole purpose: to save face at all costs.

The Church – most especially the Vatican – refuses to get everything out in the open (haven’t they learned anything from Tiger?). You will never hear the words “we continue to be plagued by a problem… one that we continue to struggle with but are doing our best to address” by the Church. God forbid they ever show weakness.

Instead, the problems are everyone else’s but its own. In an act of true scumbaggery and denial, Recently, The Catholic League of Religious and Civil Rights ran an ad in The New York Times editorial page claiming that Times articles about the “pedophilia crisis” really concerns “a homosexual crisis”:

“The Times continues to editorialize about the pedophilia crisis, when all along it’s been a homosexual crisis. Eighty percent of the victims of priestly sexual abuse are male and most of them are post-pubescent. While homosexuality does not cause predatory behavior, and most gay priests are not molesters, most of the molesters have been gay.”

On top of that, during Easter weekend, the Vatican compared all of the current backlash with anti-Semitism, as if they are being selected and persecuted against for no real reason – just blind hatred. Poor little Catholic Church… always picked last for baseball, always given wedgies by the other religions in the locker room, always accused of not taking responsibility for the heinous crimes of its representatives against helpless children, covering it up and failing to protect those in the world who most need our help, guidance and protection. Sucks to be them.

Forget admissions of guilt. At the very least, it would be nice to hear the Pope or one of his minions stand behind a pulpit and said, “These allegations seriously disturb not me, but the entire Church. To violate a child… to rob them of any semblance of their innocence or their humanity or their dignity or their stability… is an incomprehensible sin against God and one’s fellow man. We have done our best to combat this both within the Church as well as provide assistance to the communities we serve. It is a never-ending fight, because even one abused child is far too many. Any evidence that exists is being explored in fine detail. But you have my every assurance that this is something we are addressing with the full weight of the Vatican behind us.”

Instead, all we hear is bullshit like “pure speculation” and “persecution” and this beauty from a bishop in Vienna the other day:

“I admit that I often feel a sense of injustice these days. Why is the church being excoriated? Isn’t there also abuse elsewhere? … And then I’m tempted to say: ‘Yes, the media just don’t like the church! Maybe there’s even a conspiracy against the church?’ But then I feel in my heart that no, that’s not it.”

[Sigh.]

“Yes, they deserved to die and I hope they burn in hell!!”

Admittedly, this is something that affects me deeply. I have two children, and if anyone ever touched them, I’d go all Samuel L. Jackson on ‘em like in A Time to Kill.

But more than that, as someone who experienced sexual abuse as a boy, I know the pure devastative power it can have on a young man’s psyche… hell, on an old man’s psyche. It wasn’t a member of the Church. Rather, it was someone else. Someone I knew. Someone that I doubt anyone would really suspect capable of doing something like that. And that’s one of the problems… because going back to the news item that started this story, then-Cardinal Ratzinger ignored an issue involving someone who already had a record.

Do you get it? You knew… you fucking bastards knew. And you let shit happen anyway (it should be noted that the priest in question – the one who Ratzinger refused to suspend/defrock – would go on to be arrested for several other molestation counts). You might as well have been standing there in the room and simply turned your back to it.

Live with that.

Postscript:

To date, I’ve only told a few very close people about what happened to me as a kid (but I feel close enough to you all that I can let my hair down and admit these things… I’m just an open book that way). In all seriousness, I’ve made my peace with it an moved on. I don’t really care anymore (about my own issue, that is).

For all of you people who cite stats* about this sort of thing, you should know that kids don’t, won’t and can’t talk about it. It won’t surface for years and years, and then they have to deal with it all over again.

But this isn’t about me. This is about some kid who is being abused by some priest as we speak, and the Church being so far up its own ass to actually own up to its problems and actually deal with it. And excuse me if I have doubts that the Guy in Charge with the Funny Hat might not be cut out to start the revolution required to fix it.

Ah, got that all out. Feel better now. Thanks and have a good weekend.

[*Reports indicate that over 30% of victims never disclose the experience to anyone. Young victims may not recognize their victimization as sexual abuse. Almost 80% initially deny abuse or are tentative in disclosing. Of those who do disclose, approximately 75% disclose accidentally. Additionally, of those who do disclose, more than 20% eventually recant even though the abuse occurred. Just sayin’]