Catholic Leaders Downplaying Abuse, by Michael Rosch, Examiner, May 25, 2009

Catholic Leaders Downplaying Abuse

By Michael Rosch
Examiner
May 25, 2009

http://www.examiner.com/x-9090-NY-Atheism--Skepticism-Examiner~y2009m5d25-Catholic-leaders-downplaying-abuse

Damning evidence has been presented in the 9-year investigation into Catholic Church-run reform schools in Ireland that confirm decades of rapes, humiliation and beatings of castaway children. Among the crimes they found were:

a history of official cover-ups of pedophiles within the church since the 1930s.
a pattern of beatings, abuse, and molestation in church-run workhouses.
molestation and rape were "endemic" at the boys' workhouses.
ritualized beatings and personal abuse and denigration.
kids were falsely told that their parents or siblings were dead.
a continuing insistence on protecting the child molesters in their ranks.
whistleblowers were accused of being "money-seeking liars".
the Irish government cut a deal with the Catholic church to cap their losses to lawsuits at $175 million…which is only a tiny part of the full cost.

Now in light of the overwhelming evidence exposing this obscene amount of abuse, you'd think Catholic leaders would step up and bending over backwards to apologize for what went on in that school...but they're not.

For instance, Bill Donohue of the Catholic League is playing is making excuses for the rapists and abusers because they happen to belong to his gang. It's truly despicable and goes way beyond the pale, revealing what a horrible human being Bill Donohue really is. Instead of condemning decades of atrocities, he condemns the media for, as he claims, blowing this scandal out of proportion:

Reuters is reporting that "Irish Priests Beat, Raped Children," yet the report does not justify this wild and irresponsible claim. Four types of abuse are noted: physical, sexual, neglect and emotional. Physical abuse includes "being kicked"; neglect includes "inadequate heating"; and emotional abuse includes "lack of attachment and affection." Not nice, to be sure, but hardly draconian, especially given the time line: fully 82 percent of the incidents took place before 1970. As the New York Times noted, "many of them [are] now more than 70 years old." And quite frankly, corporal punishment was not exactly unknown in many homes during these times, and this is doubly true when dealing with miscreants.

Regarding sexual abuse, "kissing," and "non-contact including voyeurism" (e.g., what it labels as "inappropriate sexual talk") make the grade as constituting sexual abuse. Moreover, one-third of the cases involved "inappropriate fondling and contact." None of this is defensible, but none of it qualifies as rape. Rape, on the other hand, constituted 12 percent of the cases. As for the charge that "Irish Priests" were responsible, some of the abuse was carried out by lay persons, much of it was done by Brothers, and about 12 percent of the abusers were priests (most of whom were not rapists).

The Irish report suffers from conflating minor instances of abuse with serious ones, thus demeaning the latter. When most people hear of the term abuse, they do not think about being slapped, being chilly, being ignored or, for that matter, having someone stare at you in the shower. They think about rape.

By cheapening rape, the report demeans the big victims. But, of course, there is a huge market for such distortions, especially when the accused is the Catholic Church.

What's just completely disgraceful is how Donohue treats decades of covered up abuse as if these are just a few widely spaced, isolated incidents that could happen anywhere. Now given Donohue's Catholicism, I can certainly understand how he could think child abuse is a regular occurrance. But for those of us who aren't sexual deviants, this is not routine and is not exceptable. . .EVER! Believe it or not, Bill, there are actually reform schools that have no history of abusing children AT ALL!

Bill Donohue reveals his true character here by opting to condemn the messengers while making excuses for the abusers. And why does he make these excuses? Because they're Catholics like him. Somehow I doubt Donohue would be so quick to defend Muslim abusers. Any conpassionate, decent human being who happens to be Catholic would condemn the abusers as betraying everything Catholics are supposed to stand for. Bill, on the other hand, can't seem to muster his outrage in that direction.

Possibly the most absurd argument Donohue makes here is the one where he passionately declares how most of the rape that we now know was deliberately covered up took place way back before 1970. Ohhhh! That's different. As everyone knows, rape becomes more and more acceptable the further back in time you go. Give me a break! Who gives a sh*t when the rape occurred? What's important is that it happened and that it was covered up, which only ensured that it would happen again. And we now know for a fact that the rape did continue for many, many years.

Donohue even arguably blames the victims themselves when he drops the line:

More than 30,000 children, most of them delinquents, passed through one or more of Ireland's Catholic-run institutions from the 1920s through the 1980s.

I can't even fathom why he'd feel the need to even include the part that says "most of them delinquents" if not to suggest they somehow brought this on themselves or somehow deserved it. If anyone else can think of an alternative theory as to why he includes this, I'd really love to hear it.

And sadly, Donohue isn't the only Catholic nutcase who's response to these findings is disgraceful. The new head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, Archbishop Vincent Nichol had the audacity to praise the abusers' "courage" to "face these facts from their past, which instinctively and quite naturally they'd rather not look at." This sort of backwards thinking reminds me of Rabbi Avi Shafran, who in a single column criticized Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger for being not as heroic as the media hype while praising Bernard Madoff for his "courage" in owning up to his crimes.

And to further illustrate how misplaced Archbishop Vincent Nichol's priorities are when it comes to abuse, he along with his predecessor launched a "joint offensive yesterday against atheists and secular society," according to this aptly titled Times Online article, "Archbishops of Westminster attacks atheism but says nothing on child abuse." Nichols views myself and Richard Dawkins as worse sinners than than repeated child rapists. Huh?

Here's my favorite of the many quotes the article posted of people outraged by Nichol's cavalier position on the abuse:

Patrick Walsh said:

"Rubbish is too kind a word for what the Archbishop has said . . . It is the verbiage of unreason, and it leaves me cold. What the Archbishop really has to do is take a long hard look at the character and nature of the people he is talking about and ask himself if they are capable of being good."

Though to be fair, Nichols is better than many other Roman Catholic leaders in just one way:

Despite his controversial comments, Archbishop Nichols was one of the few Roman Catholic leaders to say that the perpetrators, who have been granted anonymity and may never be prosecuted, should be held to account.

The fact that the Catholic Church is still protecting these monsters instead of throwing them under the bus to prevent them from striking again even now is sobering news to say the least.