JUNE 2002
In a suburb outside of San Francisco there is a coven of witches who call themselves the Disciples of Sibyl. They offer spiritual comfort and counseling to their followers, showing them how to live in harmony amongst themselves in spite of the chaos and oppression surrounding them. They reject all "conventional" gods and claim tax-exempt status as a non-profit organization, dedicated to spiritual guidance. Their weekly ceremonies are elaborate, with richly ornate crucibles and icons, and include incense, chanting and other relaxation-inducing rituals. (They have hundreds of sister covens all across the country that have identical practices.) They believe in total sexual freedom; and once each week, on their "communion" Sabbath, they witness the rape of a child 12 years old or younger, taken from the community at large. They obtain the children by means of their "front"—the group also acts as Family Welfare Counselors, providing them with an unending supply of children to rape. When the parents of a six-year-old victim learned the truth, they went to the police. They were told that, as a religious order, the Disciples of Sibyl enjoyed the full protection of the freedom-of-religion clause of the First Amendment and that "secular intrusion" would encroach on their protected religious freedom. The witches continued to rape at will.
If this sounds unbelievable then check out recent news stories. The above fictional scenario represents the current shameful state of the Roman Catholic Church. However, a history of rape and other sexual assaults against children has haunted the so-called Holy Mother Church for centuries, not years. Only recently has this foul secret achieved major headlines; and that alone is outrageous. The media have always had a hands-off policy (unlike the priests themselves) when it comes to reporting the Sins of the Fathers. It's about time the public at large, and not just a few well-read atheists, became aware of these crimes. And crimes they are.
In the secular world (read: real world) people who sexually assault children are sentenced to prison, the length of the sentences varying from state to state and depending on "prior" convictions. (Let's hope your kid isn't the first! Those are apparently gimmes.) But in the Roman Catholic Church such pedophiles are quietly sent off to different diocese to prey on other young children. Why have we allowed this for so long? Simple. The Roman Catholic Church (RCC) wields incredible power. One of the wealthiest institutions on earth (hey! whatever happened to vows of poverty?) they are a mighty political force, they control untold numbers of broadcasting corporations, and are the only religion ever granted the status of a "non-member state" of the United Nations, meaning they have a voice in the United Nations' policies. Zip-codes be damned, they are not a state. They are a religion. But then money talks.
As the talking heads discuss and/or avoid discussing the key issues in this horrific Catholic pedophile scandal, they will often express, with stern conviction, the opinion that only Catholics should be addressing this problem of pedophile priests; outside opinions are not welcome, thank you very much. That makes as much sense as saying that only serial killers should discuss the problem of serial murders. Or that only Enron executives should investigate the problems at Enron. It's the inmates running the asylum except there is so much more at stake. The safety of our children is at stake.
On August 16, 1997, when I still had my Letting off Steam segment on this site, I wrote about a Dallas, Texas Monsignor Robert Rehkemper who was playing the Catholic CYA game regarding child-raping priests. He said that parents were "not taking enough responsibility when their children were raped by priests." The parents, you see, had "allowed" their children to spend weekends with priests who rape children. Ergo, the parents were negligent. He also said, "They [the victims] knew what was right and what was wrong. Anybody who reaches the age of reason shares responsibility for what they do. So that makes all of us responsible after we reach the age of six or seven." My outrage knew no bounds. I expressed my fury at the idea of demanding that six-year-olds take better care of their sex lives. However, that disingenuous, cruel, uncaring callousness is back with us and bigger than ever. It's all the rage in Catholic Diocese Doublespeak these days. Last year in Hawaii a RCC diocese charged a 41-year old single mother, in a countersuit, that it was she who was negligent for allowing her boys, then 7 and 10, to sleep over at a sacristan's apartment. (Sacristan: one who is in charge of the sacristy, the room that houses the "sacred" vessels and vestments belonging to the clergy.) Her "negligence" is why her boys were sexually assaulted, even though the sacristan pleaded guilty. Make sense to you?
There has been a joke flying around the Internet lately: A woman walks into a confessional and says to the priest, "You go first." Funny but not funny. When you seriously consider what the issues are then humor flies out the window. These are children. And I will repeat that as often as necessary to remind us all of what's going on, since the RCC is busily engaged in misdirection plays as well as being accessories before and after the fact.
THE PROBLEM
Human beings have human needs and urges. It matters not what words you say or what clothes you wear. If you are human you will experience hunger, thirst, pain, fatigue, sleepiness and so on. The and so on includes sexual urges, the very force that keeps our species going. Without it we would not be here. So for the RCC to pretend that priests and nuns can just say the magic words and then ignore those urges is the height of naivete and/or stupidity. In the first ten to twelve centuries of the Church's history the male clergy just ignored the call for celibacy and had wives and kids like everyone else. Then in the 16th century the RCC's Council of Trent, determined to set themselves apart from the heathenish Lutherans, decided to enforce the celibacy strictures. There has been nothing but suffering since. And many of the victims of these thwarted sex drives have been children.
The sex drive is no "dirtier" than a hunger pang. It's part of being human. It is also as difficult to ignore as regular hunger. In many of us it is more difficult to ignore. Either way, if natural human urges were so easy to ignore, there would be no overweight people anywhere, would there? To demand this lonely, sexless life of healthy young men and women is asinine and impossible. It cannot be done. Result? The ever-diminishing number of men interested in becoming priests are mostly those who are homosexual, which hurts no one if they keep their hands to themselves, although the priests themselves suffer terribly in trying to contain their sexuality; or pedophiles, who by definition should be part of no "church" on earth.
(Point to ponder: As I've said many times elsewhere, why are child sexual abuse and rape in general not even mentioned in the so-called Ten Commandments? Nothing even remotely related is mentioned. Why not? It seems as important as exhorting the flock not to tell a lie. Or covet someone's property. And these commandments are supposed to epitomize morality? Not even close.)
If a sizable portion of the men the RCC attracts to its seminaries are deviants who want to have sex with children, then it's time to shut down the seminaries. This is not a matter of separation of church and state. This is a matter of putting a stop to criminal behavior of the most deplorable kind. Our children are the most innocent, vulnerable members of our society and if we will not take care of them we may not call ourselves civilized. Think again of the opening example of a witch's coven. What if they decided to engage in human sacrifice? Would society condone it in the interest of "religious freedom?" Rhetorical question; but the same should apply to sexual assault against children.
WEASEL WORDS AND WEASEL LAWYERS
Rape is rape. Oral sex is oral sex. Hand-facilitated masturbation, mutual or not, is masturbation. And none of it should ever involve children. When it does it is called sexual assault. I am sick to death of hearing about "sex offenders" and "child molesters." (The word "offender" appears 21 times on only one page at http://www.prevent-abuse-now.com/law2.htm) "Offender" sounds like these disgusting priests have body odor. They may well have, but just as it is disgracefully misleading to refer to non-clerical pedophiles as "offenders" it is even more revolting to hear the word used when referring to a so-called Man of God, a priest. But the use of the word "offender" may well have something to do with the dismal record of law enforcement agencies to pursue child sexual assault with the vigor it deserves. (http://sobb.com/states/newyork/statistics.html) The RCC of course hasn't a moral leg to stand on. Forget what words are used for the moment. Whatever it is called, the Church is supposed to represent morality. Ugly joke.
Cardinal Law of Boston said he thought "molesting [sexually assaulting] children" was "an illness" with a "moral component." Say again? Sounds like he's talking about a kleptomaniac stealing a bottle of communion wine. It is difficult to believe that the RCC would choose to turn on the victims of these pedophile priests, but they have so chosen. Hell, it might save them some money! Rather than pay settlements for the (unimaginable) damages done to the children involved, they have decided to play hardball and treat these tragic cases as if it were a tax battle between Microsoft and the IRS. They have hired high-power attorneys to investigate and countersue, whenever it is deemed appropriate, the victims in these cases. This will of course have the effect of deterring others from coming forward with their own pathetic stories.
Example: In Illinois church lawyers grilled a victim about the details of his abuse and asked if he enjoyed it. Example: In Ohio a grilling became so unbearable a suit was dropped when the teenage boy left a deposition in tears. Example: A Church lawyer argued that it was inappropriate for secular authorities to inquire into the "internal working of the church." (Is that what they call it?) Example: In Boston a diocesan lawyer countersued a 6-year-old-boy and his parents, accusing them of negligence for trusting a Catholic priest. It makes you want to vomit; but I agree fully with the idea that it is wrong to trust a Catholic priest. Not as far as I could throw one. Example: In Boston the Archdiocese backed out of a multimillion $ settlement involving eighty-six victims of a former priest, John Geoghan, who was convicted of child molestation. [Sexual assault.] Cardinal Law was involved but conveniently "forgot" about it in a deposition.
In 1995 John Geoghan, convicted child rapist, attempted to excuse his inexcusable behavior by blaming "western moral decay" and the influence of hippies and the sexual revolution. He actually blamed his "pedophile misconduct" [can we stop with these damn euphemisms? he sexually assaulted young boys] in the 1960s "summer of love" in the USA. The Vatican refers to the same "western" decadence as reasons for "straying" [criminal!] priests. Oh, really? The Borgia popes were performing their filth with prostitutes and engaging in incest long before Spanish conquerors came to the "west" to find gold and whip a little religion on the natives-which included mass slaughter and death by disease and inquisition, ending in genocide. But let's not quibble. The point is, no 1960s American cultural shock waves caused RCC priests to rape and assault. The RCC alone is to blame.
We have only seen the tip of the iceberg in these pedophile cases. I wonder how many previously assaulted altar boys have no desire to be further savaged by heartless lawyers? While the RCC is worried about its financial solvency, who is worrying about the children? Certainly not the RCC powers that be. We, as taxpayers, have it bad enough to know that we're helping to subsidize these money-grubbing bastards by allowing Catholic churches to enjoy all the benefits of our tax dollars without paying any taxes. But imagine how awful it must be for the Catholic parishioners who (1) have to pay the salaries of the pedophile priests who rape or assault their sons and then (2) have to pay the salaries of the lawyers who represent and defend the pedophile priests who rape and/or assault their sons. What a nightmare.
Never again will you, the Roman Catholic Church, have any right to claim the moral high ground. You, with all your abominable legal maneuvering to protect rapist-priests, deserve nothing but our eternal contempt. As Cervantes said in Don Quixote, "Our greatest foes, and whom we must chiefly combat, are within." Indeed. And you, a nest of vipers, the ancient citadel of avarice and debauchery from the times even before the Borgia popes and ever since, should disband and try, somehow, to make amends for the unimaginable suffering you have caused the human race. "And they brought young children to him, that he should touch them: and his disciples rebuked those that brought them. But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God." (Mark 10:13-14) What a horrible double-meaning that has now taken on. But there is no more room (as if there ever was) for making excuses or burying our heads in the sand. Our children are being violated and no two-bit white collar can shield those responsible. It is time to put an end to these obscenities and the priest/deviants must be held accountable for their horrifying actions.
May all those who as children suffered at the hands of evil priests, someday find healing.
© 2002 Judith Hayes
SOURCES:
"Ex-monsignor: Parents, Victims Must Shoulder Blame,"
Houston Chronicle News Services [online], www.excite.com/news/
[August 8, 1997].
THE WASHINGTON POST
"Church adopts hardball legal strategy—Aggressive litigation replaces quiet settlements " by Michael Powell and Lois Romano May 13, 2002
The Washington Post Company
http://www.msnbc.com/news/751317.asp?cp1=1
http://www.msnbc.com/news/751317.asp?cp1=1#BODY
"The cardinal and sin," The New York Times Company
[online, May 10, 2002].
"Vatican's great divide," by NBC's Stephen Weeke
[online, April 28, 2002].
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