[William A. Baurle]

st-louis-archbishop-didnt-know-sex-children-was-crime-n127291

Well, the link worked at the BB I discovered this at.

The article is about a St. Louis archbishop who claims that he didn't know that having sex with children was a crime.

My vote is for liar. No way a grown man can be so ignorant. But that's beside the point. Even if it were not illegal for a grown man to have sex with a child, common sense and simple common decency would inform anyone that sticking your schwanz in a child requires a heart with no moral compass and a mind with no high degree of intelligence whatsoever.

[Michael Cantor]

I don't think you provided the entire link. This one seems to work.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/religion...-crime-n127291

[William A. Baurle]

Thanks, Michael.

[Julie Steiner]

I've written several angry poetic screeds on this subject.

Sadly, I find it entirely plausible that this bishop didn't know or care that the sexual abuse of minors was a crime. Crimes are determined by civil authorities, and what is earthly authority next to religious authority, if you're a true believer?

To someone in the repentance business, it was a sin. Its status as a crime was irrelevant.

TRIGGER WARNING if you haven't already figured it out yet. Discussion of rape follows.

I also strongly suspect that the harm done to the victims wasn't taken seriously because this particular offense was sexual, and sexual victimization is traditionally thought of as somehow invited or deserved by the victims. Yes, I know, it's not official Church policy or anything, but culturally look at all the saints given the honorific "virgin and martyr"; the message is that God protects truly good people from that foul indignity, even if He lets their living eyes be gouged out (St. Lucy, virgin and martyr), or their breasts severed (St. Agatha, virgin and martyr), or various other sadistic tortures to be visited upon their nude bodies (my namesake, St. Juliana, virgin and martyr). I think it's very telling that the patron saint of rape victims, St. Maria Goretti, was the victim of an attempted rape, and bears the title "virgin and martyr" because her frustrated attacker killed her. If he'd succeeded in raping her, I imagine that that would have been regarded as evidence that she was no saint. And for such things to happen to a boy, well, surely he'll bounce back, because it's not as if he's lost his hymen the way a girl would have. And if he doesn't bounce back, or shows homosexual tendencies, well, there must have been something rotten about him anyway, because rape isn't something that happens to good people, right?

But I digress.

There is a long history of religious authority trumping civil authority. If a person confesses to murder or theft or other sins that are also civil crimes, the seal of the confessional prevents the priest from reporting those to anyone. A priest may assign penitents to turn themselves in to the police as their penance--and if penances aren't completed, the absolution is void--but the priest can't report anything, even anonymously, without incurring automatic excommunication. It's a big, big deal. That's the most obvious example of Church trumping State.

And at the time, religious authority had said, via the Crimen sollicitationis document, that anyone who went public with accusations of sexual predation by a priest--be it the victim, the victim's family, other witnesses, or Church staff appointed to investigate--would automatically be excommunicated. Automatically. I.e., regardless of whether or not anyone in the Church heirarchy ever identified the leak. Tell, go to hell. You were supposed to suffer in silence, and expect others to suffer in silence, rather than commit the sin of scandal.

Regardless of whether or not a bishop was aware of the existence of statutory rape laws, he should have been able to figure out that lasting harm was being done to children. Instead, the Church hierarchy as a whole seemed entirely focused on protecting the Church's reputation, and on salvaging priests who were useful to them. (One predatory priest who got moved around from parish to parish in San Diego was a talented fundraiser. What price a bunch of kids' physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing?)

The arrogance that comes with great power makes it difficult for some bishops to recognize and admit when they're in over their heads in a sticky situation, until their incompetence just can't be hidden anymore. See former Archbishop of Los Angeles Roger Mahoney, among others.

I think that all levels of the Church hierarchy--including, ahem, two recently-canonized Popes, who were perhaps intentionally kept in a bubble about it--should have known and cared about the lasting harm being done to kids, and to the Church itself. It beggars belief that even those two could have had no inkling that the Crimen sollicitationis document had been created to address a real problem. (Even then, the problem it was addressing was the possibility of scandal, NOT the possibility of more harm being done to more kids. But could anyone be aware of the first problem without being somehow aware of the second?)

If certain people didn't know things, it was because they didn't want to know them.

[William A. Baurle]

I've written several angry poetic screeds on this subject.

Sadly, I find it entirely plausible that this bishop didn't know or care that the sexual abuse of minors was a crime. Crimes are determined by civil authorities, and what is earthly authority next to religious authority, if you're a true believer?

To someone in the repentance business, it was a sin. Its status as a crime was irrelevant.

While this is all no doubt true, I have to respectfully disagree that the bishop didn't know that having sex with children was a crime. If this was the middle ages, your argument would be iron clad, but as this is the modern day, and priests aren't shut up the way they were in centuries past, I have to conclude that there is simply no way the man could not have known what the civil law was, regardless of whatever he may have thought about how much of a truer or more legitimate authority he believed the church held over him.

He's a liar, and perhaps a bit of an ignoramus to boot, but not that ignorant. It's apparent to me that someone higher up caused him to play the idiot in these interviews, in the time-honored tradition of saving face for a corrupt church riddled with perverts and criminals.

I was baptised Catholic but at this point I'm glad I never became an active member of the church. If things get worse, I would recommend the church be treated as a giant criminal organization which ought to be legally dismantled, or at least publicly shamed by as many people as possible, until they begin to clean up their act with genuine contrition and not just a lot of empty words and idiotic priests doing interviews.

I'm also glad I never sent any of my poems to First Things, which a Spherian once suggested to me. I would be embarrassed to have any of my work printed there.

Here's an even better way for the church to clean up their act and behave like Christians: give all of their wealth away, and live in poverty, according to their vows. WWJD?

Anyone see the film Shoes of the Fisherman? Now that was an awe-inspiring flick.

[Eileen Cleary]

Not qualified really to expound on this but I am sure it would be no consolation to any child or family that the archbishop didn't realize sex with children is a crime. Did it occur to him that it was heinous?

It's disgusting. But, I don't believe that the Catholic Church should be dismantled. I have seen so many good works and good people there. Not perfect people, but good, kind and generous people (including priests and nuns.) They do charitable work all over the globe. The abusive members should be imprisoned and excommunicated, they bring a stigma to the rest.

[William A. Baurle]

Yes, I was being extreme, no doubt. How would such a giant entity be dismantled, anyway?

Naturally, there are far more good Catholics (including priests) than lying, hypocritical ones.

[Eileen Cleary]

You're right Bill. It's true.

[Julie Steiner]

Originally Posted by Williamb

While this is all no doubt true, I have to respectfully disagree that the bishop didn't know that having sex with children was a crime. If this was the middle ages, your argument would be iron clad, but as this is the modern day, and priests aren't shut up the way they were in centuries past, I have to conclude that there is simply no way the man could not have known what the civil law was, regardless of whatever he may have thought about how much of a truer or more legitimate authority he believed the church held over him.

I respect your opinion, and the reasoning behind it, based on your experience.

However, based on my experience, I still think it's entirely plausible for an asexual man of a certain age to have spent his upbringing in the protective bubble of Catholic schools and seminary, never dating and never engaging in crude discussions in which terms like "jailbait" for underage girls might have been bandied about, and never having paid much attention to certain sordid aspects of the local news. And thus I also think it's plausible for an asexual man--with nary a firsthand sexual thought or urge ever, and thus without even the slightest personal interest in sexual activity--to never have paid any attention to the civil laws relating to such activity. The Church teachings on sexual sins, yes. Civil laws, no.

I don't know that this particular bishop is asexual; but one would expect a fair percentage of men attracted to the celibate priesthood to be asexual, no? Of course, in the Church's view, innate sexual orientations--including asexuality--don't exist; same-sex attraction is a disorder; and lack of sexual attraction is simply self-control, virtue, purity, etc., and attainable by all if you pray hard enough.

I have tremendous respect for the priests affiliated with my current parish, who are smart and good-hearted and down-to-earth and have a good grounding in modern psychology and are actually interested in helping real people with real problems. But I've been a choir member, cantor, and catechist for three decades, and have had the displeasure of dealing with a number of shockingly--even appallingly--unworldly and naive and ivory-towerish priests. So I know that priests with this kind of cluelessness do exist, and are sometimes promoted.

Not that I'm in any way excusing this guy, or buying into the idea that ignorance is equivalent to innocence. Far from it.

[William A. Baurle]

Sorry, Julie, I had no idea of your involvement with the church. I suppose I could be wrong. But this kind of thing tends to make me more emotional than reasonable.

I should also remember that these kind of stories surface in the news all the time, and that this tends to make the issue of sexually deviant priests seem far more common than it is in reality. After all, there are how many thousands, or tens of thousands, of Catholic priests, and you only hear bad news about a handful of them.

One must maintain proper perspective.

Nonetheless, I strongly believe that priests found to be guilty of sexual misconduct with children (nevermind their behavior with one another - who cares -) ought to be charged and imprisoned, not protected. That's something I don't think any rational person should be willing to bend on. Forgiveness is a wonderful thing, but do we extend it to grown men who abuse children? My own Christian desire to forgive and forget is not that strong. I'll have to leave that measure of forgiveness to God and Christ. And even then I wouldn't dare claim to be happy about it, because They'd know I was lying anyway.