FACT SHEET: Sexual Abuse of Minors by U.S. Roman Catholic Bishops and Priests
The following 5.3.2010 fact sheet was reproduced from the website of Richard Sipe.
http://www.richardsipe.com/Forensic/2010-05-03-fact-check.htm
The numbers in the text refer to the 18 numbered footnotes at the end.
Thank you, Richard, for compiling and publishing these facts.
* * *
May 3, 2010
No one today has to be convinced that sexual abuse of minors is a deadly serious problem. It is a longstanding and widespread crime—it knows no cultural, ethnic, economic or religious boundaries. The Roman Catholic Church has come under a great deal of scrutiny and criticism in the public forum over the last ten years after the publicity given its pattern and practice of hiding abusive clergy and covering up their crimes. Even the Pope is currently embroiled in the crisis. Some considerations follow:
1. Pedophilia is a psychiatric diagnostic term that is limited to sexual preoccupation or involvement with a prepubertal child (usually under 13 years old) by a person five years older than the victim.1 It is often misused in the media.
2. Ephebophilia is a lay-term that describes sexual preoccupation or activity with an adolescent (usually 13 to 17 years old) by a person at least five years older than the victim.
• Sex with a minor can indicate either or both of the above terms. According to church records 71 percent of sexual abuse of minors by clergy in the U.S. occurred or began between 1960 and 1984.2 80 percent of abuse victims were boys.3 [Cf. Below: Incidence in U.S.] Figures from a study of Spanish priests also show a little larger abuse of boys than girls (14 to 12 %).4
3. Sexual activity of an adult with a minor (girl or boy under the age of 18 years) is criminal in most civil jurisdictions. This is true of Roman Catholic Church law.*
4. Documents and sources regarding the sexual abuse of minors exist from the early history of the Church until the present.5 Many of them involve clergy violation of young clerics or girls during confession. Notable is the declaration of the Council of Ancyra in 315 that prescribed modes of punishment that persisted into the Middle Ages.6
5. INCIDENTS of sexual abuse of minors in the U.S.
• Studies of the general population claim that one out of four girls and one out of nine boys is sexually abused prior to their eighteenth year.
• There are no accurate accounts of the number of abusers in the general population. It is the one behavior that Kinsey could not quantify partly due to its variety and frequency.
• A safe estimate is that 6 to 9 percent of active U.S. Roman Catholic clergy 1960 to 1985 became involved sexually with minors. The John-Jay College of Criminal Justice said that 6.5 percent of priests ordained between 1960 and 1984 were subsequently credibly alleged abusers of minors.7
• Other sources reinforce these figures: (6 percent nationally, Sipe 1990) (Los Angeles 11.5 percent of priests active in 1984) (Boston 7.6 to 10 percent) (New Hampshire 8.2 to 11 percent) (Tucson 23 percent in 1988)
• There are no solid comparative figures from the professional population or other ministerial groups.
• U.S. Church documents record reports of over 6,000 clergy who have abused minors.
6. Homosexuality is a sexual orientation and in its basic sense parallels heterosexuality; in themselves these terms say nothing about the age, style of behavior, frequency or strength of desire, preferential mode of interaction, or object of sexual excitation beyond a preference for a partner of the same or opposite gender.
• Homosexuality should not be confused with Pedophilia. (…any more than heterosexuality should be confused with rape. One is an orientation toward a gender preference the other a focus on a particular object of sexual excitation.)
• There is no causal connection between orientation—heterosexual or homosexual—and age of object of sexual excitation (i.e. pedophilia).
• Homosexual men are not more inclined to be sexually attracted to minors than heterosexuals.
• A 1961 Vatican document said that homosexually oriented men should not be allowed to enter seminary training nor be ordained.
• A 1975 Vatican document pronounced homosexual acts Intrinsically Disordered.9
• A 1986 document authored by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger declared that homosexual orientation although not sinful in itself, “it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder.” 10
• Despite church declarations there is general and widespread agreement that a larger proportion of men in the Roman Catholic priesthood have a homosexual orientation than the general population.11
• Between 30 and 50 percent of U.S. Catholic clergy are estimated to have a homosexual orientation.12
• Whatever the proportion of homosexual Catholic clergy half of them are estimated to be sexually active at least periodically.
• Homosexual men have always formed a large proportion of the clergy and many of them have not only been exemplary servants but even saints.13
• 30 percent of U.S. bishops have been estimated to have a homosexual orientation or been homosexually active at some point.14
7. Celibacy is the promise or vow required of a man prior to his ordination to the RC priesthood that he will not marry and will maintain perfect and perpetual continence.15
• The first church documentation that records mandated celibacy for priests is contained in the canons of the Council of Elvira in 309 CE.16
There were a number of priests, scholars and monks who embraced voluntary celibacy
• The Second Lateran Council in 1139 mandated the promise of celibacy for all men ordained to higher orders in the Latin rite. (The Council of Constantinople in 692 allowed married men to be ordained, but prohibited marriage after ordination. Bishops are required to remain celibate.)
• Pope John Paul II said that the rule of celibacy for priests is inviolable and the pope lacks the power to revoke it. The official interpretation is that the custom and rule has an apostolic origin.17
• The practice of clerical celibacy has always remained problematic. Church documents are rife with accounts and repeated prohibitions of concubinage.18
• Currently reports of celibate violations seem comparable to those recorded in former centuries.
* * *
1 DSM-IV, 1994.
2 I will generally accept this date range since it corresponds to my ethnological study.
3 CARA (Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate) Georgetown University.
4 Pepe Rodriguez. Sexual Life of Clergy, 1995. He states that 7% abuse minors.
5 Doyle, Sipe & Wall, Sex, Priests & Secret Codes. 2008.
6 “Any cleric or monk who seduces young men or boys, or who is apprehended in kissing or in any shameful situation, shall be publicly flogged and shall lose his clerical tonsure. Thus shorn, he shall be disgraced by spitting in his face, bound in iron chains, wasted by six months of close confinement, and for three days each week put on barley bread given him toward evening. Following this period, he shall spend a further six months living in a small segregated courtyard in custody of a spiritual elder, kept busy with manual labor and prayer, subjected to vigils and prayers, forced to walk at all times in the company of two spiritual brothers, never again allowed to associate with young men.”
7 Report. February 27, 2004. Pp. 30-7.
8 Directive from the Vatican to all Religious superiors and Seminary Rectors.
9 CDF. Cardinal Franjo Seper. Persona Humana-Declaration on Certain Questions Concerning Sexual Ethics, 11/7/75.
10 CDF Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. Letter to bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons. 10/1/86.
11 Cf. Fr. Donald Cozzens and Fr. Michael Crosby, O.F.M.
12 Estimates from within the clerical ranks vary between 20 and 70 percent. 40 percent homosexual orientation is a safe and conservative baseline.
13 Cf. John Boswell. Same-Sex Unions, 1994; Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, 1980;
14 This figure comes from a 2004 document compiled by a group of priests centered around Catholic University and Washington D.C.
15 Canon 277.
16 Cf. Laeuchli, Power and Sexuality. 1972.
17 Christian Cochini, The Apostolic Origins of Priestly Celibacy, 1990 trans.
18 Cf. Henry C. Lea, History of Sacerdotal Celibacy. 1867.
14 Responses to “FACT SHEET: Sexual Abuse of Minors by U.S. Roman Catholic Bishops and Priests”
May 10, 2010 at 7:15 pm
We are fortunate to have a Richard Sipe who has written on these issues to keep our critique grounded in good research.
Regarding point #3: When I was on the SF Review Board when Archbishop William Levada, now Cardinal, returned from 2002 consultations at the Inquisition in Rome regarding Vatican curial “concerns” (I always took this to mean “Ratzinger” since this is who Levada told us with whom he had met) for the now famous “Dallas Charter.”
One of the Vatican’s concerns was the use of the US standard in the Dallas Charter for determining the minority or majority age of survivors – which had implications for whether there had been sexual assaults by priests on minors or adults.
Levada explained to us that the Vatican preferred the canon law proscriptions for minority-majority age (which, according to the explanation given me, was different for males (16) than females (14)).
[Sipe seems to indicate that the 18 year old standard is also in force for the church. This is not how it was explained to me - I just accepted it from Levada that the church had different standards.]
The implication being that if we used the church’s standard in the Charter it would limit the number of sexual allegations against priests that could be considered under the Charter to only those assaults on young adolescents.
The Review Board told Levada, and he agreed, that the American public would never accept the standards of church convention (i.e., 14 for girls; 16 for boys).
However, Levada did inform us that the Vatican insisted that the force of the Charter would only be applied to allegations against priests for assaults on children under the age of 18. The effect of this would be that all allegations of sexual assault and exploitation by priests on men or women over 18 would be outside the purview of any of the diocesan review boards.
Believe me, there are multiple flies in the SF chancellory which depict accounts of sexual assault and exploitation by priests on vulnerable adults, especially women. I’m sure this is the case in most diocese across the US.
From the Vatican point of view, they successfully dodged a bullet by not having to answer publicly allegations of sexual improprieties committed against adult men and women. Ratzinger’s Inquisition had scored a coup by being able to limit the purview and prerogatives of the review board’s investigation.
This limitation of the investigations is part of a constellation of limitations engineer by the Vatican and their suppliant bishops (especially Levada – which I have to believe is another reason that he is a cardinal today) that excluded hierarchs and religious communities from investigations by lay-dominated review boards. All of which is not generally known or understood by the public.
At the SF review board, we heard numerous reports that priests of the archdiocese were “angry and upset” that they had been cut loose by the Vatican and the bishops to face sexual assault allegations, while bishop hierarchs would be protected behind the circled wagons of the Vatican.
So when you hear Levada brag about how the US experience of the “Charter” is an example for the rest of the church to emulate, take it with a grain of salt.
I am convinced that Ratzinger and his minons like Levada purposefully sought to contain the influence of the review boards over clerics, especially because they were composed by men and, especially, women. And, they succeeded.
Jim Jenkins
May 11, 2010 at 3:17 am
Richard Sipe’s research is a great gift to our planet. And thank you, Jim Jenkins, for clarifying the age discrepancy. Your knowledgable voice is significant to confront the lies for which Cardinal William Levada is known.
AW
May 11, 2010 at 10:09 am
One stat that Sipe doesn’t quote here is that for every one report of rape, 9 more go unreported, so take all the victim statistics and multiply them by a factor of 10 for more accuracy. This is a standard estimate used by everyone in rape counseling in general, and there’s no reason why this shouldn’t apply to clergy sex abuse. In fact, with the added threats against victims not to tell (in addition to threat of bodily harm to victim and family that are standard with secular perpetrators, there’s the added threats of hell and other spiritual extortions), I wouldn’t be surprised if only one out of 15 or 1 out of 20 victims who are raped by clergy tell, so multiply accordingly. The reason that there are fewer female victims than male is not out of preference but out of availability and also because women know there’s no point in telling because even the youngest girl is a whore and a seducer and will not be believed to be a “legitimate” victim. Once women can report their childhood rapes without the “whore defense” being trotted out by one and all, you’ll see the percent of female victims rise – it’s just that those stats haven’t come out sufficiently to get an accurate assessment.
BTW, everyone seems to forget that rape perpetrated on adults is a *crime*, too!!!!! A crime against women mostly, but adult men can be and are raped. Oh, but I guess it’s not a sin now, to rape adults? It’s definitely a crime, but I guess the “whore defense” comes into play here – that all the adult female victims are seducers and “want it” and all the adult male victims are gay hustlers and “want it” as well.
Here’s another stat about how many ordinary priests knew about their rapist brothers. In the 50s and 60s in particular, in larger cities, priests lived up to 3-5 per rectory. If we use the figure of 6% and two roommates and assume the roommates either walked in on rape acts or at least suspected, then at least 18 percent of all priests (including the perps themselves) knew and did nothing. If we use 10% as perps and 4 roommates, then at least 50% knew. I suspect these figures are actually larger, approaching 100% in some cases. Thing is, the pedopriests had the healthy heterosexual and gay priests by the short hairs, blackmailing them that their consensual relationships would be exposed if they talked. Now, if 50% of priests have consensual relationships with other adults and 10% were pedophiles, then it’s likely that everyone knew about everyone else’s “misbehavior”. Believe that these guys gossiped with one another but kept everything among themselves in their “brotherhood” of secrets, lies, and criminal behavior and obstruction of justice, ***even the “good” ones*** (and the good ones kept silent because the ones who talked got punished, so they knew they had to cover their backsides and protect their careers by shutting up). It’s likely that 100% of priests have engaged in some form of criminal behavior regarding sex at some point in their careers, at least not reporting to the cops, lying to the cops, or simply turning away when a brother priest had a child pinned to a bed or floor and was raping them.
Was it Sipe or Wall who worked as a “fixer” when a priest? Whichever one it was, as a fixer, he engaged in repeated and active obstruction of justice and failure to report, so he’s a criminal, too. How does he live with himself?
May 11, 2010 at 11:33 am
The last sentence in the above comment by “Clevelandgirl” is pure slander. The writer is entitled to her opinions whether they are grounded in reality or not, but she is not entitled to make destructive and untrue statements which is exactly what the last sentence is….accusing Dick Sipe or Pat Wall of criminal behavior. Both of these men have worked tirelessly to bring justice to victims of sexual abuse….child victims and adult victims, male and female victims. Both men have courageously spoken out in defense of victims and have paid dearly for it. To be attacked and vilified by members of the official church because they have fought for the official church’s victims is to be expected though it is hardly justified. But to be attacked and vilified by one or more victims is pathetic.
May 11, 2010 at 1:00 pm
To clarify – IMO, IMO, IMO, and IMO.
Tom, sorry to say, I don’t trust you, either, because you said in Sex, Priests, and Secret Codes that healing from clergy sex abuse can only come from Jesus Christ (chapter 10 or 11). I completely reject that and feel that you shill for some version of Christianity. Unless you have changed your viewpoint since you wrote that book, ***IMO***, your view is exclusionary and invalidating to those of us who have rejected Abramism as nothing but lies that are a foundation for organized criminal child rape and human trafficking activities by not just RCC Inc, but all sects of Abramism (the central myth of Christianity *begins* with the rape of a young girl by a pedogod, a young girl who was pimped by her parents to a temple as a “dove”/acolyte/child sexual sacrifice to “god”).
Sad to say, it is the truth that at one time Wall (sorry I wasn’t clear earlier – couldn’t remember which of the two did what, and my apologies to Sipe on this) was a “fixer” (not unlike the character in The Bishop’s Man) who worked to do “damage control” regarding pedopriests while he himself was a minion of RCC Inc. Did he report every pedopriest to the cops immediately? No, he obeyed his superiors and aided in getting the perps “treatment” and moving them around. The statute of limitations prevents him from being prosecuted for this, and *he doesn’t do this ***now*** * and is making reparations by siding with the abused after years of siding with the perps and RCC Inc, but he *did* at one time until he saw the light and got the heck out (and more power to him).
BTW, Wall *admits* to being a “fixer” (i.e., engaged in coverup) in his own biography: http://www.manlystewart.com/business/attorney/patrick-j-wall
“After working as a “fixer” in the church, dealing with the aftermath of sexually abusive priests in parishes and schools, Patrick left the priesthood, finding that the only way that abuse survivors would get the help and healing they needed was ***outside of the church hierarchy***.” (emphasis mine)
*THAT* is reality, coming straight from the horse’s mouth.
Note to all that the first tactic of a bully and abuser is to question a critic’s perception of reality. Way to go, Tom, you learned your lessons well. It’s OK to criticize RCC Inc, but it isn’t OK to make valid criticisms of you and your buddies).
(Oh, and just to be a fair and equal opportunity skeptic, I don’t trust Maureen Turlish either. And James Scahill has the skeleton in his closet of knowing a priest was abusing and not reporting it for *ten* years. Oh, and Hoatson (who is the only one of y’all who bothered to contact me) is good but Road to Recovery promotes christianity, which is its limitation, and Hoatson is still a priest.)
IMO, all of you *were* participants in a sick and criminal system. The degree to which you participated only you all can know. All I know is that you guys eventually saw the light and spoke out and, yes, you did pay for it in terms of lost wages, careers, reputations, etc., but at one time (and you cannot dispute this) you all *were* participants and enablers to *some degree*. I salute all of you for getting it early and for what you’ve done since, but that doesn’t alter the darker parts of your respective pasts.
And, Tom, I’m not wrong about the stats of male/female victims being skewed. The membership of SNAP is roughly 50/50, yet we keep hearing that 70-80% of victims were males. What’s up with that? At least One in Four acknowledges that the sex abuse figures are a (more realistic) 1 in 4 for males, 1 in 3 for females (across all segments of society regarding sexual violence). (And the reports from Ireland do show a roughly 50/50 split (or closer to) in genders of victims.) Women do sue, but they’re a very small minority because women know they will not be believed or get justice and can pretty much count on getting re-raped over and over by everyone in authority, secular and religious.
And in terms of the hierarchy of victims of clergy sex abuse, those that get the most sympathy are are most believed (to least believed) are
1. Men abused as boys.
2. Men abused as adults (they get accused of hustling, but are more often believed than not).
3. Women abused as girls (who are still accused of being whores and seductresses, were “secretly” in love with their perp, are vindictive and scorned, etc.). I was a five-year-old whore who seduced, raped, and defiled the holy male purity of a newly minted Alter Christus by presenting my tender little 40-lb body to him, physically overpowering him (with demonically bestowed super strength), restraining him, and put my hands all over him inside of his clothes. Of course, the opposite happened and is the *reality*, but RCC Inc promotes the first viewpoint that I was entirely responsible (and inspired by and controlled by the Devil). BTW, I didn’t even know or remember my perp was a priest until I described him to my aunt years later, and *she* identified him as a priest that their entire family slavishly worshipped as his personal groupies. That they had three developmentally disabled children (my cousins) makes me wonder if they weren’t victimized, too. Funny, but my aunt never questioned the truth of my memories of what happened in August 1964 when I told her in 1992, and she was a devout catholic who should have attacked me for saying “disrespectful” things about a priest.
4. Women abused as adults (women always “want it”, are whores and seductresses, fall in love with their perp, and are vindictive biyotches if they claim they were raped). Women abused as adults not only have RCC Inc biases to fight, but society as a whole doesn’t see women as rape victims. This is a sad fact and reality and why only 1 in 10 rapes of females ever gets reported by the victims.
Until that changes, the female victims will remain hidden and unacknowledged. This is a sad *fact* of life. Any support for female victims is an exception rather than a rule. I don’t expect that to change as long as Abramism is the predominant paradigm in western society.
BTW, I have observed that SNAP has its own pecking order: at the top are still-believing Stockholm Syndrome Catholics, next are victims who are Christian believers (who try to evangelize), and at the bottom are us non-believers. I have been attacked on the SNAP board repeatedly for being a non-believer. (BTW, a high-level SNAP member agreed with me that this pecking order does exist.)
I completely reject the sick system that made perpetrators and their enablers, right down to all of its god-concepts. I’m proud of being papally excommunicated at age five and defiling church after church with my unholy presence for all my years as a believer. Deal with that.
Again, IMO, IMO, IMO, IMO, and IMO (just so you can’t accuse me of slander anymore).
May 11, 2010 at 3:24 pm
Cleveland Girl Writes: “First tactic of a bully and abuser is to question a critic’s perception of reality. Way to go, Tom. It’s OK to criticize RCC Inc, but it isn’t OK to make valid criticisms of you and your buddies.”
Boy have I ever experienced that at City of Angels too. I think it’s weird that Tom Doyle was lurking there ready to shoot down Cleveland Girl for having the audacity to point out something that is wrong with the “survivor movement” when my perception is there are hardly any survivors left in the movement. Doesn’t anyone else think that’s revealing? Someone gave the handful of people at the top of this group sainthood, putting them all above criticism.
Ironically, even vocal survivors calling out, saying hey, something is very wrong here, get stymied and told to stop talking, like Tom Doyle just did here.
Lies at the top, covering up the truth, that is what created an atmosphere in the Church that ended up with thousands of children being raped, yet our “leaders” operate in the same exact manner. Won’t answer questions, won’t entertain ideas from the ground up. It’s so weird it makes a lot of survivors suspicious and doubly angry.
When we try to express our feelings about it, we get shouted down by the likes of Tom Doyle.
Go, Cleveland Girl, express yourself. No one is above criticism, no one.
May 11, 2010 at 3:25 pm
One thing I see here is Cleveland Girl has Valid points as well . And I agree with much of what she said . Myself and Others have had the same experience with snap about the whole GOD thing . The issue here is Everyone is doing thier own best to address the issue’s that have so deeply affected us and our families an friends. Cleveland Girl is nothing short of a Great example of How many of us feel weather anyone else agrees or not is not of Consequence . The important thing here is we all continue to Fight the Fight of Sick distructive criminal CHID RAPPERS and Do What we all can to change the laws so there is no longer a STATUE OF LIMITATIONS FOR CHILD SEX ABUSE . no matter weather we agree on other paticulars of this matter or not. If we all band together and strive to make that change it Will Happen so Stop attacking Cleveland Girl and Start Helping the Change Happen.
May 11, 2010 at 3:55 pm
Child Rappers with in the Catholic Church need to be accountable and No amount of flowery words will change that so long as Justice is not applied. Who is Tom Doyle anyway ? I would like to meet him and hear what he has to say as I look into his eyes. Than I will be able to tell you Just what he is about . Cleveland Girl You have a Valid Point . Kay Ebling so do you . Tom Doyle you can e mail me or call me anytime Richard Sipes has my number and Knows how to get a hold of me. Lets see How God Minded you are …………… Unless of course your too afraid to meet up with me and Hear the Truth of about Child Rape with in the Church. Or your too much of a coward
May 11, 2010 at 4:45 pm
I feel compelled to say something about this unfortunate turn in the tone of this blog’s discussion tree. It’s sad when heroes like Cleveland Girl, Tom Doyle, Richard Sipe and Pat Wall get tarred with epithets they don’t deserve from their friends and supporters.
No one need feel patronized or discounted for their passion, or for their sacrifice in the service of survivors. But these kind of recriminations only serve the purposes of the real criminals: the corporate hierarchy.
Spies for the hierarchs are watching everything we say and do. They are very vigilant (that is why they have maintained control for so long). I’m sure they are monitoring our discussions on these blogs. Let’s try not to give them cause for celebration.
I hope that I don’t offend anyone’s sensibilities when I quote one of our ancient Christian voices, Augustine from the third century: “The twin daughters of HOPE are ANGER and COURAGE.
In modern speak, I would take that to mean that HOPE is only possible when we allow our ANGER and outrage at injustices to fire our COURAGE to speak out and take action to make change.
Friends, let’s keep our eye on the ball. And remember that we’re all on the same team. Remember who we are up against. Take one pitch at a time, one out at a time, always advancing the winning base runner. And go down swinging!
Jim Jenkins
May 11, 2010 at 8:12 pm
BRAVO! Mr. Jim Jenkins: This is a great website. Thank you particularly, and thank you all. Your comments become my answered prayers. Fred Farren
May 11, 2010 at 8:22 pm
My goodness. We all must remember that each of us, raised roman catholic, was brainwashed about the holiness of catholic clerics. But there are heroes in our midst, and IMHO, to criticize the courageous Tom Doyle, Patrick Wall, Richard Sipe and SNAP is simply missing the boat, and giving joy to evil RC hierarchs and their minions.
It is a great sadness to realize that men do not, in general, have visceral responses to harm done to children, but when men come into goodness and put their very lives on the line to stand up to evil, they are deserving of praise. And there are none more evil than men calling themselves priests who rape or enable the raping of children and do so around the notion of sacraments.
Tom Doyle’s courage has restored my family’s faith in humanity and we are all survivors, each of us.
AW
May 12, 2010 at 10:34 am
So, Augusta, you think everyone is above criticism?
Personally, I don’t know if Doyle’s “courage” is genuinely that or dumb bad luck (not knowing he’d be shafted by his employers) that he turned into something good. I’ve read his document that the bishops ignored from 1985, and it was more about preserving RCC Inc by exposing abusers and getting them prosecuted than it was about the consequences to the victims. In it, he sounds more like a “good company man” fighting against bright-siding than someone fighting for *our* rights as victims/survivors. Since then, he has learned about victim impact (and his paper on religious coercion should be required reading for us all) and I think genuinely cares, but he still doesn’t know what it’s *really* like for us except intellectually.
Doyle is trying to be a knight in shining armor trying to save us poor, oppressed victims. Kind of like a white guy who wants to run the NAACP because he thinks the poor, oppressed black folk can’t do it for themselves. Well, despite his good work and genuine wish to do the right thing, he is NOT the boss of us, he is not the pope, and he is not above criticism (nor is any other leader in the “survivor” movement – and if we don’t criticize our own, we’d be just like RCC Inc, wouldn’t we?).
I have called Tom out here several times to explain his position that healing can only come through Jesus Christ and his implicit rejection of any of us here who reject belief, gave Frank permission to share my email with him, but Tom hasn’t had the yarbles to respond to me.
BTW, I found his response above to be condescending and patronizing. A true hero would not patronize anyone, but “rescuers” implicitly patronize everyone they’re trying to rescue because they think they’ve got something the “rescued” doesn’t have that puts them up and the rescued down (evangelizers see themselves as implicitly superior to the evangelized for just this reason). Yes, I misspoke in my last sentence above, but it was only because I couldn’t remember at the time I wrote it which of the guys was employed by RCC Inc as a fixer (and the implicit meaning that an RCC fixer engaged in coverup that was likely criminal – not just Wall but *all* fixers, not attacking Wall personally).
And if Patrick Wall spent time working as a fixer, then I’m gonna call a spade a freakin’ shovel and point that out.
And on trusting people in the “survivor” community, well I don’t trust Ms. Frawley-O’Dea either because she’s all about leading the “lost sheep” back to catholicism.
I think we all must examine this “lost sheep” metaphor more carefully. The true relationship of the shepherd to the sheep is one of a manager of a commodity – fleece ‘em, screw ‘em, kill ‘em, eat ‘em. And lamb tastes better than mutton (i.e., children are for exploitation). Sheep are bought and sold, used for the resources they provide. If catholics are all sheep, then they are all property to be trafficked and used by RCC Inc.
The bible says humans are livestock, slaves, plants, and dirt. I am none of these, and you all aren’t those things either. I reject any and all attempts to turn me into any of these. The RCC is the Borg Collective, and anyone who still sees it as of any value is a slightly less machinelike agent of the Borg Collective, out to assimilate us through stealth rather than through more overt means.
Augusta, I have a right to criticize SNAP, too. I’ve emailed SNAP about some concerns and received no response whatsoever. I have also emailed Bishop Accountability with info on a couple of priests and received no response from them either (Ross Frey is teaching at a university in Lebanon, but I guess it doesn’t matter if Lebanese kids get abused because they are less than English-speaking kids in the eyes of the “survivor” community). They also have not updated Ross Frey’s info with the info I provided. I guess I’m not “big” enough or “important” enough in the “survivor” community to rate a response.
In the last two years, I have been suffering a new bout of PTSD, triggered by the pope’s visit to America and to World Jailbait Day in Australia (for me, PTSD comes in bouts rather than being a constant thing, bouts that come more frequently and hit harder as I get older – unlike some of our “heroes”, I never turned to alcohol or other drugs). I really wanted to find *someone* to talk to who would not abuse me further or evangelize to me, and I knew SNAP was pretty much out because of their previous abuse of me. Fortunately, I did find some folks I know I can talk with, *despite* SNAP. However, I’ve mostly had to work through it all *alone* because the people I should be able to trust can’t be trusted much more than the abusers and their foul institution. Fortunately, recent events that have enabled me to watch RCC Inc crash and burn further have helped facilitate my healing process.
I think the funniest thing I read that really helped me feel better was the quote from one of the pedopriests in Austria who got canned recently: “I didn’t mean to be sadistic!”
LOLOLOLOLOL! Of course, he did! That’s why he became a priest (and why nuns become nuns), so he’d have access to thousands of kids to do sadistic violence and abuse to (with impunity)! Duh! How obtuse! A friend wants to make that into a t-shirt or bumper sticker! Too funny!
The people who say they want to “help” often have an agenda – either they want to evangelize or pull you back into RCC Inc as a slave again (if you’re abused once, you’re seen as easier to exploit for more abuse than someone who hasn’t been), or they want you around only if you can potentially litigate your case. Well, SNAP, I would love to litigate my case, but it was a single incident in 1964, and how am I gonna prove it if there’s no supporting documentation (my case is generally verifiable as to some facts about the CYO camp and the priest’s involvement, but the perp died in 1991). Besides, most of the abuse I experienced was mental, emotional, spiritual, and social rape with a dash of physical violence via catholic elementary school. I’ve only recently learned to see bodily-function abuse as a form of sexual abuse (cf. urinary “accidents” I’ve discussed here previously), but that biyotch is dead, too (and nuns all go by fake names so they can abuse with impunity because you can’t prosecute someone if you don’t know their real name). We all know that no one gives a damn about nonsexual abuse no matter how damaging it was, and nonphysical, nonsexual abuse is not against the law (which is why it’s not against the law for kids to text other kids into committing suicide even though the verbal violence is as heinous as anything physical).
The fact is, I wasn’t abused “enough” to count. I get that now, loud and clear. I get that I’m near the bottom of the survivor food chain. I get that I’m at the bottom of SNAP’s faith-based pecking order. I get that I’m at the bottom of the potential-litigation barrel. I get that I must see our “white knights” as heroes above reproach and criticism (if they’re all so great, how come so many of them are alcoholics like Eric MacLeish? I’m not an alcoholic (barely drink any alcohol at all), so I must be superior to them because I’m not weak and stupid.). I get that I must bow down to every other survivor who was raped more than I was.
I get that anyone who believes I will bow down to them because of their “importance” is a fool to say the least. I will not kiss their backsides, but they’re welcome to kiss mine.
Frank, thank you for letting me air my grievances without censorship or reprisals. You are a *real* hero!
And in a salute to one of our “heroes”, I thank Bob Hoatson for taking info from me a few months ago to investigate a pedopriest who resides in Manhattan. I know the proverbial other shoe has dropped on the international level since then and that has kept him busy, but I know he’s got the info to check out once the opportunity arises.
I give credit where it’s due, and I also give criticism where it’s due. Count on me to speak the truth and speak truth to power. Some people in the “survivor” community have come to think of themselves as more powerful and important than they actually are. In the sci-fi fan community, we refer to BNF’s (and BNP’s in the Pagan community (Hi Joey! I’m one of your kind!)). BNF and BNP are *not* compliments, but are ironic and sarcastic references to people who get high up enough in those groups to think they’re more important than the rest of us. I guess there are BNS’s too, now, dontcha think?
May 12, 2010 at 10:38 am
And now that I’ve got all that off of my chest, I’d like to thank Kay, Rucker Survivor, and Jim Jenkins for doing me a solid here! I am seriously grateful to all of you! It’s nice to see that I’m not the only one who feels as I do about BNS’s! Keep fighting the good fight, all of you!
Hugs,
ClevelandGirl
May 13, 2010 at 12:36 am
“Keep fighting the good fight, all of you!”.. ClevelandGirl… you are an amazing woman… we are all fighting the fight for victims who have already been sexually used and abused by catholic clergy and their leaders…
we all need to stick together… keep in mind who we are up against..? the most powerful institution in the world.. and we ALL are fighting to protect kids… Doyle, Sipes, SNAP, Me, and YOU…. ( and we are all getting used to being criticized)… that goes with the territory and is good, because it means that we are being heard and we are making a difference.
We are nothing alone… we have no power as only ‘one’… our power is our truth and our numbers..
OK?… we are all on the same side… caring and helping victims the best way we know how….and therefore protecting kids from future evil abuse..
Judy Jones, SNAP Midwest Associate Director, 636-433-2511