Abuse Settlement: Justice Or Revenge?
Posted by: tony on 07/25/2007 08:05 PM
Updated by: tony on 07/25/2007 08:08 PM
Expires: 08/25/2007 12:00 AM
There have been a number of articles written in the wake of the $600M abuse settlement in the diocese of Los Angeles. Some believe that this is simply a mugging, and it's not doing anything for the sake of justice at all.
Radical Mom seems to believe that the Catholic Church is getting just what she deserves. I take issue with her points and I tried entering into a discussion with her in the comment boxes on her site. When she didn't like the way the discussion was going, she deleted the whole thread. That's her right, it's her place. This is my place, and I'm going to take the opportunity to respond.
1) I find comparisons that the Church has equal amounts of rapists to school districts, little leagues, and other churches to be absolutely absurd! In one breath, Vox Nova is constantly saying "Bishop X says this or Bishop Y says that and we must follow and respect our bishops." In the next breath, Vox Nova tries to say that these same bishops are like everyone else in the general population. Which is it?
It's both. God ordains men as his Bishops, men are sometimes deeply flawed, sinful and in some cases evil. Jesus showed us this Himself when he chose a Bishop who denied him (Peter) and a Bishop who betrayed him (Judas Iscariot). We are still required to follow our Bishops when they teach us regarding faith and morals (even if they don't rise to the moral excellence to which they encourage us).
If as Catholics we DO agree that our Bishops hold a unique position than the rest of the population, should we not hold them to a higher moral standard? I think we should.
Of course we should. We should also forgive them when they slip and fall, much like Jesus forgave Peter with his question "do you love me?" three times, corresponding to his three-fold denial.
Furthermore, the Church, unlike any school district or little league team, and some independent Protestant church is larger and has more access to people.
I don't believe a single district is being discussed. The claim is all school districts. I don't know about how things are in Radical Mom's state, but in New York, all children are required to attend school. The vast majority of them attend public school. No children in New York are required to be Catholic.
So I disagree with Radical Mom on this point. School districts have much more access to our children, and they are immune from lawsuits if they fail to protect those same children.
So, if there is indeed a rapist in some school district, the rapist will commit limited damage because the school district is not national. If a child molester preacher at an independent Protestant church rapes children, he will only have access to a small population. The Catholic Church on the other hand is universal. As we have seen in LA, when Rapist Priest A abused in one parish, his corrupt bishop shipped him south to Mexico or north to Upstate CA to abuse more people. So, yes, numbers are significant because the damage is more widespread.
This is the argument technique I ran into on Radical Mom's blog (don't bother looking for my arguments, Radical Mom became "offended" and deleted them). She is comparing the universal Catholic church not to the federal public school system, but is comparing the universal Church to a single school district. If Radical Mom wanted to be more accurate, she would compare a single school district with those Catholic parishes which reside in said area. The comparison would go forward with all Protestant churches in that same area, all little leagues, boy scouts, etc. in that same area. You would have comparable access to children (maybe more access for the public schools and Protestant churches because there are more of them). But then that comparison, though true and accurate wouldn't bolster Radical Mom's chosen thesis, would it?
2) The ONLY reason that the media, anti-Catholics, and civil government are now having a field day with this information is because our Catholic bishops FAILED to protect the laity, and in the case of Cardinal Mahony, some of the Bishops ACTIVELY protected and supported rapists and not the potential innocent victims. If our Bishops had conducted themselves to even a minimum moral standard, anti-Catholics would only be able to criticize our beliefs and not the behavior. My argument, if you can't take the heat, stay out of the fire.
No, that is not the ONLY reason. Another reason is that the Catholic Church is being held to a different standard than any other organization in the US. We have SNAP trying to change statutes of limitations in multiple states allowing the statute of limitations to be eliminated for Catholic priests only. This means that the state, where there is supposed to be freedom of religion, is targeting a single religion for attack. Not only that, they are trying to get the statute of limitations changed retroactively so that the lawyers can throw their nets deeper and wider hooking more lucrative cases which, because of their age will be impossible to defend against.
3) For me, the most disturbing argument made is Morning's Minion's first point.
First, ephebophilia is not pedophilia. While an inappropriate relationship between a priest and an older (sexually mature) teenager is sinful and a betrayal of trust, it is not the monstrous crime that is pedophilia. In the witch hunt, not only are these distinction blurred, but we even hear of cases of sexually activity between priests and adults -- all passed off as one and the same "Catholic church sex scandal". Let's get some perspective here, and let's focus on the real crimes (and I'm not downplaying them by any means).
I am not going to address priests who have relationships with adults.
The interesting thing is that the definition for "adult" with regards to consenting to sex has a pretty wide range. For 38 of the 50 states, it's under 18, and for So. Carolina it's 14 for girls, 16 for boys. So the first thing we have to identify is who is an adult.
That is a whole other post. Instead I am going to address Morning's Minion's belief that there is a difference between raping a teenager and raping a child. He doesn't even call it rape of a teen. He calls it "an inappropriate relationship."
That's right. For the same child, depending on the state, the act can be either criminal or not. The act can be either consensual or not. In the case of a priest, it's always inapproriate and sinful.
But lumping consensual sex between a priest and a boy one day before his 18th birthday and violent, forcible rape is not fair to those who have been raped.
I would have thought that in this day an age we are past the point of blaming the victim, and it is blame when such words as "rape" are not used but instead "relationship." Relationship implies some sort of desire on the part of victim, as if the teen desired to be raped by his parish priest.
Look at the way the words are used... "victim", "rape", "raped". These are emotion laden words designed to derail the discussion, and cow the person looking for the truth. In many cases older teenagers were taken advantage of. They were seduced by someone in a position of authority who used their status to take advantage of an older teen. This is bad, but not as bad as the molestation of a 6 year old, or the forcible rape of anybody.
Morning's Minion does not provide any sources for this outrageous distinction. It is almost as if he believes that because a child is older therefore the child can say "no" or leave the situation and, therefore, since the child did not leave the situation he is guilty of wanting to be abused by his priest. According to a rape crisis center, "Victims are not responsible for the actions of the rapist. Nothing a person says or does justifies rape." To read up on other myths about sexual assault, please go here.
I submit that Radical Mom has a glass house situation there and shouldn't be throwing stones. She also has not provided any sources making the distinction between forcible rape, pedophilia, and sexual abuse against an older teen. These three things are entirely different, and to lump them all into the worst category (rape) is to obscure the truth and bring the unjustified rage of society to bear. But Radical Mom doesn't seem to be interested in these distinctions.
Morning's Minion states "let's focus on the real crimes." If the rape of our children by our trusted priests, and the protection of those rapists by our bishops is not a "real crime" I don't know what is. Let's keep our focus. Those victims that will receive 1 Million Dollars are victims. Let's attack and criticize our Church that made this hundreds of millions of dollars payout possible, not the people who have been victimized by our leaders. Shame on us!
Victimized is the only word Radical Mom uses that is accurate. Even an adult who is seduced by a priest is a victim. The impetus for the billion dollar payout of the Catholic Church is the lawyers looking at a target-rich envirionment and a "victim" who is being stomped by the press while she is down.
The victims of priestly abuse should be compensated. The only Christian thing to do is to endeavor to make them whole. Will $600,000 each make them whole? And where is the justification for the $400,000 the lawyers are skimming from each one which should go to help the victims?
In conclusion, it is not the media's fault. It is not the civil Government's fault. It is not the defense attorney's fault. It is not some conspiracy by a group of anti-Catholic's fault. It is not as one combox commenter said, "sexually confused teenager's" fault. No. Let us place blame where the blame needs to be placed. And I hope to God that other lay people will take this serious and protest not only the abuse of our children, but the abuse of all of us who attend Mass every Sunday. No human being deserves to be raped by a man of God.
Those who attend Mass every Sunday are still being abused. SNAP is advocating that they be abused more. What Radical Mom is advocating for is the picking of the pocket of the people sitting with her in the pews. That's where this money is coming from. It's not coming from abusive priests, it's not coming from conniving Bishops, it's coming from the Social Security check of the little old lady sitting next to Radical Mom in the pew.
All of the money the diocese has, that the Vatican has is given to them by the faithful. So when a billion dollars is diverted from the Catholic Church (well, some of it from insurance companies) these are dollars which cannot run soup kitchens, adoption agencies, literacy programs, etc.
What I'm curious about is the motivation of those who advocating hurting the faithful of a Church that they profess to be a member of and whose tenets they profess to believe. It can't be simply to help those who have been abused. This would entail individual outreach and evaluation on a case by case basis, not a lump sum settlement divided equally regardless of the individual damage in question.
I guess I just don't get it. Maybe I do, maybe it isn't a sense of any kind of "justice" but it is indeed revenge, or just a robbery attempt by greedy lawyers aided and abbetted by the state.
