[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.