This makes me so angry I barely have the words; so sad I can’t stay silent.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009Posted in: Azteclady Speaks, Paedophilia, rant
After nine years and tons of bitterness and accusations flying every which way, the final report on Catholic schools for children in Ireland has been published. Apparently it details decades of abuse of thousands of children by the very people who should have cared for them, protected them, eased their (already heavy) burdens.
What is truly sad is that I am not surprised, not the teensiest bit surprised.
I’m sure a number of people are going to get up in arms over this post, so let me explain a couple of things:
I was raised Catholic in a mainly Catholic country by a rather devout family. Up until it was physically impossible for the parental units to do so, all the siblings were dragged to mass every. single. Sunday (and every church holiday to boot). Despite personal hardship, my stepfather remained a devout Catholic until his death, and my mother still is. I entertained the idea of becoming a nun (Stop laughing, it’s true. Of course, I was like nine, but still!) and I sang in my local church’s choir for a couple of years.
I grew apart from the church because many of its mandates didn’t make a lick of sense to me, celibacy for the clergy being a biggie. As far as I could tell, keeping people from the other sex through such artificial means created more problems that it was worth (and I’m not sure it ever was worth jack, for the record).
I studied in a nun-run Catholic school for six years, and out of all the nuns I came across during that time (a truck load, as the convent was a door away), only two seemed to me to be genuinely happy people. Mind, I’m sure many if not most among them were devoted to the church and faithful to their vows, but happy? Not so much.
And then there’s the abuse.
Because of Mexico’s political makeup (separation of church and state has been something of a mania for politicians there pretty much since shortly after the war of Independence), abuse at the hands of an all-powerful clergy was never possible there. And yet, I was still in high school when scandal after scandal broke in the press, about this or that Catholic, priest-run school, where sexual abuse of students had been going–sometimes for decades. (See a pattern here?)
So, back to the beginning, I’m not surprised that abuse–physical, emotional, sexual–was the norm in a system where a group of people were given absolute authority over another. The fact that the people on top were (metaphorically or literally) wearing habits/robes does not change the effect that unfettered power has on human beings.
Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.
No shit.
Louise van Hine
May 20
7:55 pm
another horrible church scandal. I wonder how many of those victims are going to hold out against the settlement amounts and sue the church?
Aymless
May 20
8:52 pm
Ack! I’ve given up on organized religion! Bunch a hypocrites if you ask me. I say it comes down to one rule:
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you!
Karen Scott
May 20
11:43 pm
Not surprised one bit. Permanent sexual abstinence is unnatural, and I think these cases prove that. The catholic church is totally outdated, and irrelevant in my opinion. The bishops that protected the pedophiles should be lined up against a wall and shot.
Las
May 21
12:19 am
I hate, and I do mean HATE, even slightly defending the Catholic Church on anything, but I don’t think sexual abstinence is the reason for the pedophilia. (I agree it’s unnatural, and an incredibly stupid policy for a whole bunch of reason, but that’s a whole other discussion.) I’m pretty sure that the rate of pedophilia in the church is about the same as that of the general population. What really infuriates me other than the blatant hypocrisy is the secrecy–no matter how small a minority of priests are pedophiles, I’m convinced that the vast majority of clergy and others who work for the church are aware of who the pedophiles are and chose to keep quiet for fear of pissing off god, probably. That the church not only keeps quiet but actually moves these priests to other parishes instead of getting rid of them…a gunshot is too merciful for those bishops. (And Pope John Fucking Paul II makes me wish there was a hell so I could take comfort that the bastard is roasting there for eternity.)
Cathy in AK
May 21
12:54 am
Any time an authority figure (priest, nun, coach, teacher, hell, any grown-up when you’re a kid!) takes such brutal advantage of the innocents under their care I want to break something. How dare they? How DARE they? They violate laws of man and their god, relying on fear and power over their victims to maintain the horror, then get quietly removed to start over. What about those kids? When and how do THEY get to start over, wipe their mental, emotional, and physcial slates clean so they can have normal lives? Short answer: they don’t. My heart aches for all the victims and their families.
Shooting is too merciful. Rabid dogs and meat-scented undergarments come to mind.
AztecLady
May 21
1:17 am
Las, I do not believe that celibacy makes anyone into a pedophile.
I do believe that forced abstinence can warp a person’s mind. I also believe that giving people in that position so much authority over helpless children cand (as, as we see, often does) result in abuse of that authority.
Quite a bit of the abuse of those children was from nuns beating girls, after all, and presumably very few of those adult nuns had paedophilic tendencies.
As you say, after all, the percentage of paedophiles should be more or less evenly distributed across any given population, right?
Las
May 21
1:57 am
I guess I don’t see how the abstinence is forced. They know the rules when they decide to become priests and nuns, it’s not a secret, and they aren’t cloistered by any means, especially not the priests. And frankly, I’m too much of a cynic and I’ve spent way too much time “behind the scenes” to believe that most of them abstain from adult consensual sex anyway, heh.
I also don’t see how abstinence, even “forced” can cause pedophilia. That’s just way too easy. I think some people are just fucked up, and some of those people look to the church as an easy place to hide and get away with their crimes. Basically, it makes more sense to me that the church might attract pedophiles, rather than create them. I agree that giving people so much control will result in abuses, but that’s a separate issue from abstinence. The problem is the absolute trust that people give to virtual strangers just because they’re part of the church, as if history hasn’t given us countless stories of corrupt religious leaders. Hell, my grandmother has stories of the priests in her time, how everyone in her village new which one got which nun pregnant, and which ones all the kids new to stay away from. This isn’t new.
I consider pedophilia a completely separate issue from physical beatings. Not even close. Not that beating kids up isn’t horrific, but it wasn’t that long ago that corporeal punishment was considered perfectly acceptable in public schools. It’s still considered fine in many cultures. Pedophilia is just a whole other level of fucked up.
And I’m going to assume that the percentage of pedophiles among nuns is about the same as that of any group of women.
ETA: I just realized that my “behind the scenes” comment might sounds like I had sex with priests, and I most definitely never did! Also, it drives me nuts that I’m kind of defending abstinence, when I think that even waiting for marriage is…not a good idea.
AztecLady
May 21
2:12 am
Las, I repeat, I do not believe that abstinence or celibacy “causes” paedophilia.
When I say that I believe that forced abstinence can warp a person’s mind, I don’t mean that they suddenly become a paedophile, or homosexual. However, knowing the rules before is not the same as living them for years on end after, IMO.
I believe that they may come to resent the environment, the people around them, and take it out on those who are more vulnerable. Some would take it out through sexual abuse–rape is not about sex as much as it is about power–and others through violence, beatings, and such. Yet others through emotional abuse. (Or, as can be seen, sometimes combinations of all three.)
I am talking about abuse in general. And I apologize, but a beating is rather different than a physical punishment.
There are several stories–documentaries, not made for tv movies–about girls who were beaten daily by the nuns in homes for “wayward” young women. A couple of years ago I saw one of them, and the two women interviewed were sure that more than one girl who suddenly would vanish had died as a consequence of some of the more brutal ‘punishments’ inflicted on them by the nuns.
Louise van Hine
May 21
2:26 am
@AztecLady: no, abstinence and celibacy don”t produce pedophilia. What it does, though, is provides an attractive fantasy solution for pedophiles who think that they can “cure” themselves of their urges if they take vows, put on robes, and make a promise to God that they won’t be “bad.” Which we know doesn’t work. Another thing to bear in mind is that institutions that involve the care of children DO attract pedophiles – of both sexes. We have seen an increasing number of disclosures recently in the US of female schoolteachers having “relationships” with underaged boys, and in one case with a girl. I can’t help but think there is far more opportunity in full-time residential settings than in typical schools, however.
Another thing we know about pedophiles is that they are often acting out abuse that they suffered themselves as children, in a compulsive cyclical manner, and so if they were abused by priests in childhood, they are more likely to a) become priests and b) abuse children in turn.
Las
May 21
2:30 am
Only by degree.
And
I agree with all of this. I think the bitterness caused by that lifestyle can result in the beating and emotional abuse, and even rape. But specifically pedophilia–as in, having a sexual preference for prepubescent children–is, again, a whole different issue.
AztecLady
May 21
2:37 am
Las
Yes. Which is why I am referring to the abuse in general and not to the paedophilia when mentioning the abuse of children in these religious schools in Ireland.
And a beating differs from physical punishment in much more than degree–I doubt that physical punishment can cost a child his or her life, while a beating can, and does, kill.
Further, the difference is also an emotional one. For example, I spanked my children (physical punishment) but I never beat them. If and when they got a swat or three in their behind it was never unexpected nor disproportionate to the offense they were being punished for. The word “beating” clearly indicates the lack of such correlation.
Tuscan Capo
May 21
4:17 am
Not that I’m saying it is in all cases, but sometimes you have to wonder if abstinence isn’t sometimes a symptom of an unbalanced mental state. Just a thought, anyway.
Amarinda Jones
May 21
7:53 am
Some people are sick bastards who should be made to leave the planet immediately.
SarahT
May 21
10:25 am
I’m embarrassed to be Irish today. So many injustices have been committed in the name of God, and the name of God has been invoked to justify the unjustifiable. It sickens me.
Anon76
May 21
3:53 pm
I, too, find none of this surprising.
My major problem with the concept of organized religion (of any sort) is the idea of impurity. And that thought is fleshed out differently by each different grouping.
Not baptized? Impure. Show more than your nose and eyes in public? Impure. Haven’t gone through all the rituals to take communion? Impure. Won’t share your women and children with the elders of the community? Impure.
And that’s on top of the basics most hold that you must aggresively pursue your religion through church and church events. Oh, and holy heck, don’t you dare get pregnant, don’t you dare question an authority figure, and don’t you dare mess up in any human way that is against the church doctrine. IMPURE forever!!!!!!
All of this is the corruption of God’s name through the human quest for power. Taste a little bit of power for long enough, and it will warp you. You end up wanting more, and your moral fiber slips because you crave more of that power drug. Not every person is like that, many can check themselves when things get out of hand. Others can’t. And it’s the people that can’t that band together like a pack of wolves and take down the weak, be it through mental, physical, or emotional abuse. That, “you are either with us, or against us,” mentality, and “we get to choose which.”
Now, this comment may really tick the good guys out there off, but thinking on what I just wrote, I’m having a hard time differentiating the actions of some church members from street gangs selling drugs. My territory, my rules, my price. Cross us, and you are going down.
Paul G. Bens, Jr.
May 22
2:45 am
What’s fascinating to me is what isn’t in that report. There is so very much info that the Church holds back…ever hear of the Canon 489 files which are very difficult for authorities and lawyers to get. If the contents of every Diocese’ Canon 489 files was revealed, it would make what is know look minor in comparison.
Karen Scott
May 22
3:34 pm
I’m pretty sure that this institutional paedophilia extends far further than people imagine.
Jenns
May 23
4:04 pm
What Cathy in AK said.
My heart hurts for these kids.