I would like to preface this by requesting that Joan and Dennis minimize their participation in this particular thread unless they can contribute civilly; I do so terribly hate frothing at the mouth.

I think I've identified three major strains of responses to the abuse problem in the Catholic Church in America:

1.) Those who align themselves whole-heartedly with the media, and respond to the crisis with a demand for doctrinal change more suited to thier particular ideology.

2.) Those who defend the Church against accusations, hold the media in contempt, distrust the accounts of victims, and rally for "priests' rights."

3.) And finally, and most recently, people like Father Wilson, who wrote a compelling opinion piece, here:

http://www.nordog.com/FrWilsonLtr.html

I must say, there's something very frightening about his story. Suddenly, the issue is stripped naked of ideology and agenda... which I must say, makes it sound truer than almost anything else I've read so far. Input?

-- Jeffrey Zimmerman (jeffreyz@seminarianthoughts.com), May 07, 2002

Answers

Thanks Jeffrey.Im not sure what to say other than it seems reasonable to me, but then again I came onto Grenspun to post at "I love Music" so go figure.

-- kiwi (csisherwood@hotmail.com), May 07, 2002.

I hate being awake when everyone else is in bed, damn time zones...

-- kiwi (csisherwood@hotmail.com), May 07, 2002.

While reading Fr. Wilson's opinion I get this idea that media bashers would rather we didn't get to read people's stories about what happened to them and what happened in the aftermath of the assaults.
Let me ask you Jefferey, did it take the telling of this tale by a priest to have you come to realize that "there_is_ something very wrong"?

-- Chris Coose (ccoose@maine.rr.com), May 07, 2002.

kiwi,
Is it the difference in what our clocks say or our reference to the sun? This may be a media conspiracy.
I'm out of bed this AM because it is one of those glorious New England spring mornings. What a beautiful show we get to wake us out of the extremes of winter!
So judging from your name, I would assume that you would be about to go to bed on this day and you would be about to enter winter?

-- Chris Coose (ccoose@maine.rr.com), May 07, 2002.

Hi Chris,

Im living in Gisborne pop 40,000 on the East Coast of the North Island in NZ(the first place to see the sun in the world is its claim to fame!) With some of the best surf beaches in the country, weve had a lovely indian summer that has gone on for what seems like forever- and its still very mild. Glad to see you are posting here as you seem like a 'normal' voice to me amonst the 'madness'.Its late - nearly 11.00pm so Im off. God Bless, Im not used to saying it to others on the internet but I must admit it feels good to sign off with it, rather than the usual lol

-- Courtenay (csisherwood@hotmail.com), May 07, 2002.

Jeffrey, I would take Mr. Rose's book & Fr. Wilson's comments with a very large grain of salt. Mr Rose bases all of his conclusions on interviews with guys who were asked to leave the seminary. I attended seminary from 1976 thru 1985. I did not experience this gay sub-culture that Mr. Rose claims exists. Despite all of the media attention the numbers still don't add up to more than 1.6% of all Priests have abused minors. Fr. Doyle fails to see that the vast majority of the dioceses developed their policies as a result of the work his group did in the mid 80's. Take a look at the Bishops web site nccbuscc.com. Fr. Wilson wants to blame Vatican II and reform for the abuse. He needs to look at the ages of the perpetrators. The vast majority of them were educated in a pre-Vatican II seminary. Father Chris W. LaBarge

-- Father Chris LaBarge (marydelfr@starband.net), May 07, 2002.

Jeffrey

I am somewhat amused at this commentary by Fr Wilson. If true I would not be able to prove it but I am at this point somewhat apprehensive as to it's truth at best. I am sure some of the facts mentioned may be true, but the scale leaves me a bit confused. I would be interested to see the comments by the more experienced forumites on this.

I would say this, Keep up with your good work and don't let these things cloud you too much. It is more important for you to enter the priesthood with a clear mind and to let the proper persons deal with these sordid behaviors.

Blessed Mary, Mother of GOD, Keep Holy our Priests and Our Seminarians. Through Christ Our Lord and Savior, AMEN.

-- Fred Bishop (fcbishop@globaleyes.net), May 07, 2002.

Good Article. The diagnosis is reality based, but the healing perscription needs deeper thought.

-- Joan (godessss@mindspring.com), May 07, 2002.

Jeffrey

I would also like to mention that I did see in recent times an article of some sort that mentioned the Our Sunday Visitor puplication was being considered a questionable publication because of some of it's theological views were not keeping in sync with Church Teachings. So I would be wary of the Fr Wilson article as to it's true authenticity of truth. It is only an opinion of mine and I am suggesting that it be treated with respect in the view of is this real or not? I think John or Chris B can shed some more light on this later. BLESSINGS

-- Fred Bishop (fcbishop@globaleyes.net), May 07, 2002.

Hi Guys and Jeffrey:

Great article! The point really is this -- there MUST BE accountability. The bishops who allowed these things to happen MUST BE RECKONED WITH, PERIOD! My goodness, I can't believe anyone would think otherwise. I know that the percentages are small, but small or not, it is THE WORST SORT OF DIABOLICAL EVIL IMAGINABLE that even a FEW were sent back to the sheep fold over and over and over again! And worse yet is that the bishops continue to ride high on their horses! I'm sorry but it sends a message loud and clear -- some are above the laws they teach!

Jesus had some severe words for Pharisees that masquerade in their fancy robes, sitting in the best seats, allowing themselves great pomp and fanfare, all the while, inside they are ravenous wolves, full of dead mens bones!

In 1 Corin, Paul didn't even allow a fornicator to stay in the fold, but "turned him over to Satan for the destruction of his flesh," This guy wasn't even a leader. Are we to expect less of our leaders than we do of lay people?

The problem, as I see it, is lack of 'true believers' in high places, that are WREACKING HAVOC in the church!

Get them OUT!!!

Love you guys,

Gail

-- Gail (Rothfarms@socket.net), May 07, 2002.

Gail

I think the article by Fr Wilson is not to be taken that seriously. I would wait for more information from the other experienced forumites before I would toot my horn.

I believe Jeffrey was only trying to get some honest opinions on that letter before making a decision on it's validity.

Personally, I am a little hesitant to fully believe the scope of things that Fr Wilson has portrayed. I think a little slower pace to this letter is well advised til the real facts appear. Only one source does not make the story real. It needs more support before I would totally believe it's contents.

Blessing.

-- Fred Bishop (fcbishop@globaleyes.net), May 07, 2002.

I thought the letter was very thought-provoking.

We had our Bishop's Appeal Sermon this week, and the priest pointed out that, as bad as this scandal is, it does not compare to what the Church did (and failed to do) during WWII, and the Church survived that.

Something to think about, anyway.

-- GT (nospam@nospam.com), May 07, 2002.

GFT

The church did all it could under trying circumstances during the war. I have seen some of it. If you want to see some of just look at the archives of the letters by both Pius XI and Pius XII. They both comdemned the Hitler regime and also the others. Pius XII had several secret groups trying to buy the lives of many Jews from the Germans too. He sold some valuanles in the Vatican trying to save as many lives as possible. Ask the Jews. They still speak loudly of the efforts by the Popes of that era. BLESSINGS.

-- Fred Bishop (fcbishop@globaleyes.net), May 07, 2002.

GT

Sorry for the typo on your name.. I will add this the 1936 Encyclical by Pope Pius XI is available on line and it actually was written by Pope Pius XII before he became pope.

Did you know that the present Pope John Paul II actually assisted all of the Popes after Vatican II in writing their Encyclicals? It probably had a lot to do with the fact he was elected Pope after the death of Pope John Paul.

-- Fred Bishop (fcbishop@globaleyes.net), May 07, 2002.

Chris Coose and Joan,

Actually, it wasn't so much that Fr. Wilson was a priest, but rather that he (unlike many folks) proposes, not dissent and revolution, but rather greater emphasis on morality, formation, and doctrine in our seminaries, and accountability for renegade priests and bishops. He doesn't propose sweeping overhauls of Church structure (like Fr. Andrew Greeley) nor the overturn of celibacy (like Richard Sipe), but rather making sure our seminaries don't become factories for clerical sexual predators.

In other words, his credibility comes from the fact that he isn't throwing stones at the Pope, but rather seeking immediate causes. Rather than quoting questionable sociologists like Cozzens, and throwing in a bag of statistics to the already confused mess, he uses first hand experience to illustrate where the system is nowadays.

This is why I'm more inclined to to take him for his word, and suggest that seminary inspections need to be given real teeth.

I am a seminarian, and while I don't see the kind of shenanigans reported in Goodbye, Good Men, I don't have a doubt that they occur.

If Fr. Wilson is right, it would affirm that we do have a real problem on our hands, but it is our *seminaries*, not our doctrine, that are the root of the cancer.

In any case, I'm studying and praying hard here. My first final exam is tomorrow--sociology of race and diversity. Pray for me, I might need it!

-- Jeffrey Zimmerman (jeffreyz@seminarianthoughts.com), May 07, 2002.

Hi All:

When a seminarian graduates or receives his ordination, will he likely stay in the diocese in which he was ordained?

Just curious since so many of the accusations seem to come from concentrated areas and not scattered throughout the whole USA. Notice there's almost nothing in the midwest and up north and practically nothing in the south -- so it just seems a logical question "Are these guys being turned out from bad seminaries"

I appreciate the comments above that there have been numerous changes already made in some 'bad seminaries', but we really don't know, do we, what percentage of the 177 are old, old cases, and what percentage are recent?

This is the first time the Church has ever confronted such a crisis with so many of its parishioners being on-line and able to get information and pass information so quickly! I think that will help speed-up the recovery, and help the body 'stay together' and heal.

As for the victims, may God help them!

Love,

Gail

-- Gail (Rothfarms@socket.net), May 07, 2002.

Jeffrey..You have all of our prayers that you will get great grades. Promise. Blessings.

-- Fred Bishop (fcbishop@globaleyes.net), May 07, 2002.

Dear Jeffrey:
You send me an e-mail if you want help with any racial diversity insights. I'm your man! Lol!

God be with you!

-- eugene c. chavez (chavezec@pacbell.net), May 07, 2002.

Jefferey,
I would agree with your latest writing on your original posting. I thank you for bringing it here. It is balance that this place could use. You get allowances that aren't afforded to others who bring in outside materials on this subject.
Something tells me that you are an excellent student. Easy on the coffee and rest well before the exam. Go in awake as possible. Asking God to team up with you is better than bringing a crib sheet!!

-- Chris Coose (ccoose@maine.rr.com), May 07, 2002.

That's a good one, Chris C. -- "[Jeffrey,] you get allowances that aren't afforded to others who bring in outside materials on this subject."

You must have missed the fact that Jeffrey always speaks as a respectful, orthodox Catholic here, and he simply left a URL for us to use at the top of this thread.
What a huge difference from people who come here having insufficient (if any) respect for the Magisterium, their language peppered with dissent/heresy/atheism/or rad-feminism -- to which insult they add the injury of pasting actual secular texts, rather than URLs!

A class act, Jeffrey deserves every allowance afforded to him.

Fred, I regret to have to say that I lack a reason to doubt the general truthfulness of what is stated in Fr. Wilson's article -- especially what Michael Rose has published. I don't for a minute doubt what Fr. LaBarge has told us, but I believe that he was a very fortunate man who attended a good seminary, unaware of what was happening elsewhere in the U.S.. Some of you know that, on this forum, I have been outspoken in defense of certain attacked people, and I have particularly decried the endless whining of the many anti-Catholic, ultra-liberal journalists, who will try to keep this crisis alive for months and years to come (like sharks in a feeding frenzy). Anyone who is honest, however, will know that I have not been trying to pull off a "cover-up." I have not been in "denial," pretending that there are few or no guilty parties. I am just as angry as all the rest of the betrayed Catholics. What I have been fighting for is merely reasonableness -- trying to keep this forum from becoming a gossip hole, an informal chatting forum, in which the same disgusting subject keeps being hashed and re-hashed day after day after day.

My willingness to defend the innocent priests (i.e., over 98% of all) and my insistence on the media treating the scandal as only part of the society-wide abuse and sexual crises will not prevent me from stating the following honest truths:
The recent exposure of abuse cases is absolutely no surprise to me. Even before the first abuse cases began to leak out into the public eye in the 1980s, I knew that MAJOR problems existed in the Catholic episcopacy and seminaries, at least in the U.S. and Europe. Beginning in 1984, I was a voracious reader and an observer of things with my own eyes -- making myself aware of the dissent in many "Western" chanceries (weak or heterodox bishops and especially their Vatican-hating lay and religious bureaucrats); the presence of various men and women with "Same-Sex Attraction Disorder" (aka homosexual orientation) in many seminaries, parishes, monasteries, and convents; the existence of witchcraft and lesbianism in twisted congregations of women religious; and the woefully inadequate (or absent) philosophical and theological formation of seminarians.

Since 1984, when I began to become aware of these things, I have been praying for God to help our nation and its dioceses. Help has been coming, thanks to Pope John Paul II the Great, but he has been able to do only so much (especially the appointment of many good new bishops since then). There is much more that the cardinals and their brother bishops must now do to complete the reform started in 1978 by this pope. Meanwhile, the wind was sown (beginning after Vatican II), and the whirlwind is now being reaped. [Yes, many of the guilty men were trained before Vatican II, but they dared to get bizarre only when societal decay set in after the Council (but not because of the Council).] Now we must just hang in there with faith and trust, praying for continued improvement.

God bless you.
John

-- (jfgecik@hotmail.com), May 08, 2002.

Hi John--I'm happy you could chime in. Thank you for the kind words.

I do have a question, however. You did say that 98% of priests are innocent. Am I correct in thinking that the 98% figure is taken from the inverse of Jenkin's statistic that approximately 2% of priests are pedophiles?

I distrust numbers general, but you can get a sense of the generally accepted statistics here:

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x /tribune-review/regional/previous/s_63969.html

Keep in mind though: Sipe reports pedophilia at 2%, general abuse at 6% (which I presume from the article title), but he's also famous for citing that about half of the American priesthood is likely to be actively homosexual.

Huh?!

Of course, Sipe might have his own stones to throw. His book received an unflattering review, here.

In all honesty, though, I believe Jenkins might be a bit overly generous. He might not be a Catholic, but this is not proof against bias. Perhaps he came into the game with a bone to pick with the media.

In any case, the more I learn and read, the less statistics appear to have any real practical application. If pressed, I'll tell people that they can trust at least 95% of their priests--but this says nothing about the kind episcopal misconduct and coverup reported in "Goodbye, Good Men" and in the news media. Which is why I'd follow up my first statement with, "If you have a problem, take it to the police, first."

I hope that doesn't sound harsh, but it just seems like good practice. When you're hit by a drunk driver, do you complain to the driver, or his family? When a pharmacist gives you a bad prescription, do you fight a guerilla war against Walgreens? Heck no! Most of the stories I've heard about church officials bludgeoning victims with the judicial system involved the families going first to the chancery office, which now seems to me to be a phenomenal mistake.

On top of that, some innocent priests are feeling the pinch because they were irresponsible about the way they were perceived with children. I'll say this: I could be the healthiest and most sexually mature priest on the planet, but I would never be caught alone with children. Chaperones, chaperones, chaperones! Priests just need to understand that a chaperone isn't protecting children from them; they're protecting them from everyone else!

In this world today, a priest should never be caught without an allibi.

-- Jeffrey Zimmerman (jeffreyz@seminarianthoughts.com), May 09, 2002.

Yes, Jeffrey, the 98% was based on Jenkins, but I am willing to concede that it may be a bit inaccurate. We'll probably know better a few years from now. JFG

-- (jfgecik@hotmail.com), May 09, 2002.

John

I guess I was a bit too strong on the comment of Fr Wilson's letter. I was only trying to say that I would have to wait and see if in due time further evidence would prove that these things Fr Wilson would indeed play out as fact.

With all of the half truths that we have been bombarded with lately, I am hestitant now as a result to really believe any publicationthat exists. I really should have clarified myself in respect to Jeffrey. I was merely concerned that this abuse situation may be having a undisreable effect on Jeffrey as he is in my mind a fine gentleman and will become a good priest too. I just want him to realize that I do pray everyday for his safety from the stains previous seminarians have endured and that is all I was concerned about.

John

I do hope you do understand my concern. The article was quite a shocker and I was in question of it merely due to the severity of its claims. It as you say must be quite true and obviously is a bit to really worry about. For I now wonder just how many of these men are still out there. BTW I did actually know a GAY priest in my former parish. I have many worries now as to if he actually molested anyone during his years in the diocese. Our rally in 1994 against him for improper finance management and other things revealed to me who he really was and the Gay relationship he had for many years with another man. Time will tell if he is clean or not. He hired two other men to minister the music and religious posistions as well. They left immediately too. A young lad, whom I know, had the misfortune of catching these men in a gay embrace in the chior loft after Christmas Vigil Mass. He was shocked to see this behavior (He was 12 years old then and did not really know what GAY was yet) and when he revealed the actions of the men to his parents, the Pastor denied them that their son saw an improper behavior and did absolutely nothing.

I do have one question: Did the Our Sunday Visitor ever publish this information and if not why did they not? I am a bit curious of this. THANKS.

Blessings

-- Fred Bishop (fcbishop@globaleyes.net), May 09, 2002.

Sorry, Fred. I don't know what OSV has published on this topic. JFG

-- (jfgecik@hotmail.com), May 09, 2002.