Leon J. Podles :: DIALOGUE

The Bishops will no doubt take comfort in the Canadian belief that punishment is not the proper response to sexual abuse. The National Post reports:

As North America’s top experts on sex abuse gather in Toronto this week, a philosophical debate about how to treat some of society’s most reviled criminals is coming into stark [...]

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Rod Dreher is back in the blogosphere, and has two very good blogs (here and here) on the situation in Kansas City, where Bishop Finn has just been indicted.
Dreher makes most of the important points. I have only a few words to add.
Bishops cannot be trusted implicitly. Some consider it their duty to lie to [...]

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Years ago, before I started investigating the sexual abuse crisis, I had a series of dreams in which I encountered the souls of boys who had died and did not know that they were dead. They had to make the final step into death but they were afraid. I tried to comfort them as best [...]

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As a board member of BishopAccountability.org, I agree with Chaput, the new archbishop of Philadelphia. John Allen interviewed him:
What about the issue of the accountability of bishops inside the church itself? Critics often argue that recovery from the crisis can’t happen until bishops who covered up the abuse are punished as severely as the priests [...]

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I will comment on the John Jay Report more after I get back from a therapeutic river trip down the San Juan.
 
The report in correct that the cases of reported abuse following a bell curve. The unknown questions is whether there are unreported cases, especially form the 1950s. Victims may have died  and files should [...]

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Plato’s Republic and the Christian Church face the same problem in integrating the thumos, the firry spirit, of young men into the community. The political community cannot ignore it. The explosion of the Arab world in 2011 was set off  because one young man felt that his masculinity had been dishonored. He immolated himself, and [...]

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No one knows with any certainty the percentages of homosexually-inclined or abusive men in the various churches. On the surface it would seem that celibacy would be a cover for someone who does not want to admit his homosexual inclinations to himself or to others. But the Anglicans have had big problem with homosexual molestation [...]

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The Vatican has publicly stated that the Rev. Fernando Karadima was a sexual abuser. In Chile he was a combination Maciel and Fulton Sheen. He apparently was an extraordinarily effective preacher and giver of retreats, although now some suspect he was not simply an abuser, but an atheist.
 
In such a dreadful situation it is hard [...]

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Juan Carlos Cruz, victim of the Rev. Fernando Karadima in Santiago, Chile, gave an interview about  his experiences with the  Church. The Vatican has recently found Karadima guilty. Cruz said 

I understand that, if accusations are made, the innocence of the accused is presumed until the contrary of proven.  With Karadima it should have been so [...]

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In case it slipped by you. According to Donohue:

Penn State professor Philip Jenkins has studied this problem for years. After looking at the John Jay data, which studied priestly sexual abuse from 1950-2002, he found that “of the 4,392 accused priests, almost 56 percent faced only one misconduct allegation, and at least some of these [...]

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I simply do not know what has happened in the Church, and I don’t know how we ever know.
 
About 5 % of priests in the U.S. have been sexually involved with minors; that is certain.
 
But what about other countries and times?
 
The German bishops have not released the number of accused priests, but there have been [...]

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The pedophile bishop may have read the New York Times ad, or perhaps the Vatican has put out talking points:

Vangheluwe complained in the hour-long VT4 interview that the church was targeted in abuse probes, and that other sectors like sports organisations were let off too easily.

“Why is it different for priests than for other situations. [...]

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A friend of mine many years ago knew a priest who was accused of sexual abuse. The priest   denied it with tears, saying it was all a fabrication. My friend believed him and hired the best defense lawyer in town and got the priest off.
 
Then the priest was accused again.
 
My friend asked him, “What gives?”
 
The [...]

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My dear friend Bill Donohue has found the money to take out a full page ad in the New York Times in an attempt to minimize the charges of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.
 
Donohue summarizes Philip Jenkin’s analysis:

Penn State professor Philip Jenkins has studied this problem for years. After looking at the John Jay [...]

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As the years pass by, I try to guard against the less attractive aspects of aging. On one hiking trip I heard my (female) guides discussing the problems that LOMP caused among male hikers. I asked what that was, and they explained it was Late Onset Male Pregnancy. That was the last straw – I [...]

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