I don't claim that this adds anything new to the discussion of the Catholic abuse scandals or, more specifically, the apologies for and denial of such abuse. I just wanted to put up a post which might clear away some of the underbrush, so to speak, and deal with the general picture, rather than the case-by-case minutiae that we so often get bogged down in. And from a selfish point of view, I wanted summat I could link to in future and say "Go read that," instead of repeating the same old arguments over and over.
***
I seldom comment on anything as specific as individual religions. What fascinate me, often in a horrible way, tend to be the more basic attitudes that transcend sects and creeds, and seem to be common attitudes shared by all religions, though I do tend to concentrate somewhat on the more fundamentalist and/or conservative aspects. Those which are more, if I may put it that way, immediately dangerous to what I would consider a decent, civilised society. (Or, cynically, to the formation of a decent, civilised society, given the somewhat sparse evidence in support of the conjecture that we presently have such a thing.)
All of which makes this post a little unusual for me, as I'm talking of a particular sect—Catholics. A sect within a sect, actually; even if not in name. Those within the RCC who seem more worried about the "sniping," as they often term it, which follows stories of sexual abuses and the systematic cover-ups of same, than they are about those crimes. Who seem to care more about their church's reputation than having it earn a good reputation. Those, like Bill Donahue, who seem able to discount any harm done, blame any victim, barrel-scrape the most narrow definitions possible, of words like "rape" and "abuse," in order to portray these "vicious attacks" on their church as unfounded. Especially when these attacks come from atheists (The Enemy™) in particular, and from secularists and the like in general; but even devout members of their own church come under fire, who, admirably and often quite courageously, attempt to clean house in their own church, rather than stick their heads in the sand and pretend the problem doesn't exist.
While those "house-cleaning" Catholics no doubt have their own set of diatribes which are commonly aimed at them, though, I want to address those I see for myself. Those aimed at atheists who comment on such stories of clerical abuse.
So let's get some basic facts straight—Donahue's and others' personal, available-only-to-them, Dictionary Of Narrow Definitions notwithstanding. And, yes, to most (hopefully all!) of my regular readers, this is Morals 101 territory. At the risk of statin' the bleedin' obvious, though:
Rape is always wrong. Sexual abuse is always wrong. Full stop, no ifs nor buts nor extenuating circumstances. They are acts which cause completely avoidable and unnecessary harm.
Rape and sexual abuse are defined, at base, as involving a lack of informed consent from one or more parties involved.
As pertaining to sexual matters, the terms "child" and "minor" refer to people considered by their society to be too young to be able to give such consent. (And most countries' laws specify a clear-cut point; an age before which we are legally bound to consider a person to be a minor.) Which means that "consent" given by such people should be considered to be uninformed, and should be discounted, both by those it is given to and by the law. Both morally and legally, it should be cast aside as being, aptly enough, childish; not to be taken seriously; uninformed.
If informed consent, as opposed to childish, uninformed consent, from a person is absent, then engaging in sexual acts of any description with that person is rape or abuse, by legal and moral definition. If that person is a minor, it's an abuse in both senses. Abuse of the victim, and abuse of the power of an adult over a child.
All of which rather faux-legalese verbiage merely means that, no matter how much an adult may believe that a child "wants it" or is "flaunting it," the adult has a legal and moral duty to ignore any intimation of consent which they might read into that child's behaviour, even if they find it alluring or arousing. "Being tempted" to do something is neither reason nor excuse to actually do that thing. And it's worth noting that prepubescent children don't, by definition, have an "it" to flaunt, no matter how much a paedophile might imagine or want it to exist.
And, with that, we've cut a swathe through all the excuse-mongering. Accusations that children were actively "tempting" their rapists and abusers mean nothing, in the face of the words "informed consent." Pettifogging arguments about the difference between rape and "mere" abuse (which were odious, even by Donahue's usual low standards) become nothing more than subjects to be considered by a court, when deciding what sentence to hand down.
So let's quickly look at some of the specific snipes, other than victim-blaming and claims that priests are so hormone-driven that they can't ignore come-ons from children (you know, like the rest of us adults would), which these Catholics aim at atheists who dare (How could they, the disrespectful god-hating bastards!?) to criticise the RCC's handling of child-abuse. Obviously, I'm paraphrasing the accusations.
It's no worse than homosexuality!
Homosexual acts between consenting adults are not abusive. Neither partner is ignoring a lack of consent, and neither is abusing a position of power over the other. So even if you consider such acts to be sinful, any claim that they're on even the same portion of the scale as child-abuse is, frankly, morally repugnant—and "sinful," too, even by Biblical standards, given that it appears to me to be a blatant case of bearing false witness; misrepresenting the facts. And also, so what? If I commit a burglary, does that mean that a man down the road who mugs someone is somehow less guilty than he would have been if I hadn't? If not, then why would homosexuals committing sinful acts lessen the seriousness of the sins of those who abuse children?
You don't really care about the victims. You're just gleefully picking on… etc.
Which I always find rather, erm, "interesting," as the very same person will usually be trying to claim that the victims we "don't care about," aren't even victims at all. More seriously, I would despise anyone, atheist, Catholic, president or spanner-passer's assistant, who reacted "gleefully" to news of the sexual abuse of children. But then, what fundamentalists of every religious stripe, including Catholics, see as "gleefulness" at such things, is generally merely a showing of less respect and nicely-worded politeness than they believe they deserve by default (because it's religion, so it's rude to criticise), coupled with a willingness to talk about things in public which the fundy in question would much rather either talk about behind closed doors or, preferably, sweep under the nearest convenient rug.
Hasn't he (the cleric in question) suffered enough? Leave him alone, you bullies!
Yes, I have indeed heard/seen it uttered. No, I really don't think I need to point out the moral decrepitude of anyone who thinks the perpetrator's suffering (i.e. embarrassment at getting caught and/or fear of punishment) is in any way comparable to the victim's suffering through being raped. But I just did point it out, didn't I? Ho hum.
***
And I note that I've let a certain amount of my usual sarcastic-bastard tone slip into the last couple of points. I'll have a coffee and a fag, and try to banish it before starting on the next, and final snipe. The biggy…
You're a bunch of hypocrites! You don't care about abuse in (names recent child-abuse scandal in a non-religious organisation). You just want to bash Catholics!
Well, not forgetting that this is usually dropped into the comments at sites dedicated to atheism, why would anyone expect discussion of such scandals to appear? In fact, if the site is promoted as an atheist discussion group, news site, or whatever, such subjects would actually be off topic. Atheist sites exist, in general, to talk about the promotion of atheism and associated subjects (humanism, secularism and the like), and, usually, as a means of pointing out the harm done (as we see it) by religion. For more general news—including news of sexual abuse scandals in non-religious contexts—one should I suggest, visit a general news site.
It's also noteworthy that such commenters are making the patently false assumption that the people commenting on that atheist board do absolutely nothing other than comment on that board, and are interested in no other subjects than the ongoing atheism/religion debate. And they make that assumption based on what? An initial post which took the writer maybe as much as half an hour to write, and a few comments, none more than a sentence or two long, representing nothing more than a few minutes of the individual commenters' time.
Yes, we despise child-abuse wherever it happens, and yes, we are concerned about it. If any individual atheist felt the need to discuss child abuse in more general terms than just where it pertains to religion, though, that atheist would, in all likelihood, find a site whose focus was child-abuse. Because that's what such sites are there for.
But, all that aside, there are actually a few things which make the RCC's abuse scandal stand head and shoulders above others. And no, I don't mean the sheer size of it, even though it's noteworthy that the discovery of a "normal" (as in not having to do with a very powerful religious sect) paedophile ring of that size, would have resulted in its sheltering-organisation being disbanded, its assets seized and its management team arrested.
The Catholic scandal stands out because the very church which claims to be the only conduit of God's instructions on how to live a good, morally upright life has been making that claim—continues to make that claim—whilst actively sheltering the rapists and abusers of children. Please note the emphasis. It's not just that a hell of a lot of unconnected individuals within the church have sadly and unfortunately turned out to be active paedophiles. It's that the church, placing its reputation ahead of the very stance of moral uprightness which it claims to champion, has, extremely immorally, gone on to shelter those paedophiles. Those criminals. Lest we forget, this is not just a discussion of morals and the moral failings of the Catholic church, it is the discussion of acts which are considered criminal in most (all?) countries on the planet. I should also point out that harbouring and/or aiding and abetting a criminal act is itself considered a criminal act, in most (all?) justice systems.
The Catholic church has vilified, and still does vilify, LGBT people, those who don't believe in its god, those who wish to have consensual sex with people they aren't married to… The list of people who the Catholic church dislikes, for no more reason than that they believe that the tribal god of a minor iron-age middle-eastern kingdom has expressed a dislike of them, goes on. And all the while that church has been withholding evidence of actual, non-mythical abuse from the police (to whom they should have presented that evidence without having to wait for anyone to ask for it or demand it); not even "merely" sheltering rapists from justice, but actively moving those rapists on to fresh pastures, where they might find new prey.
There's a phrase which springs to mind, if you'll excuse me a small, discrete and understated moment of (I think quite understandable) vulgarity:
"FUCKING
HYPOCRITES!"
And that, if you're an abuse-apologist, is why we consider you and your church to be especially blameworthy.
***
If you want to find advice on how to reform rapists, you don't ask an unreformed, unrepentant rapist.
On the other hand, and though it might be uncomfortable, the very best person to ask for such advice might well be a genuinely self-reformed and repentant rapist.
The Roman Catholic Church, at present, is most certainly unrepentant, and shows little to no sign of being reformed. It's not even in denial, except in its public policy of denying as much as it thinks it can get away with. It is the very last organisation to which anyone should be turning for moral guidance, and if it were at all honest, it would be keeping very quiet about trying to offer such guidance, let alone issuing proclamations—as if it still had any semblance of a moral high ground left to stand on and proclaim from—about how other people's morals are going to the dogs.
If—and it's a damned big if—the RCC manages to completely clean up its act, re child-abuse, then it might, indeed, be a very good place to look for guidance on how to deal with problems of systemic child abuse, and even, possibly, with other matters of abuse, both sexual and otherwise. Until that day, though, the RCC and its mouthpieces should, I not-so-humbly suggest, admit, both to the world and to themselves, that that moral high ground they think they're standing on is, in actual fact, a foetid, putrescent bog.
—Daz
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But as Donahue points out, there would be no scandal if the news media didn’t repeat and perpetrate all those scurrilous reports that so unfairly single out the RCC when everybody does it. I’m just glad I don’t live near everybody.