Catholic Clergy Abuse Case in New Mexico Goes Forward


The Catholic Church in New Mexico continues its efforts to derail the case but it is moving forward. It involves the usual, a victim who was sexually abused by a priest.

There was a bit of a break from new cases of Catholic clergy abuse for some months. Now new cases are coming up all the time. I'm studying an article about Catholic priests and child sexual abuse in other countries. It is even more appalling than what we read about here in the U.S. As other countries come to grips with this sick behavior it might unleash a wave of new cases bigger than anything we have seen so far.

The lawyer for the victim asked a reasonable question. He wonders why our legal system says mobs like that of Al Capone engaged in "racketeering" because they were organized in a way that facilitated crime while the Catholic Church, doing the same thing, treats the crimes as events it blames on individuals. The Catholic church has rules it requires adherence to which have protected child abusing priests. Surely no one can deny this. 

Bishops in the past, and perhaps some in the present, feel their first obligation is to protect the guilty clergy. Moving the criminal from perish to perish was a way to reduce allegations and protest his livelihood and retirement. 

The same was true of treatment. A priest known to be a criminal child abuser was sent to one of the Catholic treatment facilities. The "rehabilitation" there included "spiritual" therapy. I'm not aware of any science that finds spiritual therapy is effective in treating child molestation. In Catholic theology, the priest is a clergy for life. This allows a priest with a criminal past to be around children in his next assignment. There were so many child sex abusers the Catholic facilities I am familiar with were filled to capacity almost from the day they opened. This is how bad the problem was and I assume remains. 

The Catholic Church is not set up to deal with the problem of child or adult sexual abuse. Anyone who entered the clergy carrying a sexual attraction to children had opportunities other abusers did not have.  

Comments

  1. Ardy BMarch 11, 2022 at 5:02 AM

    If the Catholic Church put as much energy into stopping the sexual abuse of children by priests as they do trying to protect a human zygote and take control of the reproductive life of women they would make more headway suppressing the perverse sexual behavior of some of their clergy. That imbalance reeks of some intrinsic disorder at play.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jon LindgrenMarch 11, 2022 at 6:47 AM

    Ardy B--"That imbalance reeks of some intrinsic disorder at play."

    So true, Ardy B. Those who comment here defending the Catholic Church display that "intrinsic disorder." When Representative Barney Frank said, "Right wing religion is interested in the welfare of children up until the moment they are born" he was describing Bishops that transferred pedophile priests to parishes where there were children.

    ReplyDelete

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