A worthless and dangerous report. Catholic shurch blames everyone but the priests for abuse.

A worthless and dangerous report
May 24, 2011
tags: Catholicism, religion
by mirandaceleste

Last week, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) released a report called “The Causes and Context of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests in the United States, 1950-2010”
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Before I read the newly-released report, I tried to be as charitable and optimistic about it as possible, with the thought that “well, this is better than nothing”.

After finishing the report, though, I can say with certainty that both my charity and my optimism were unwarranted. I was wrong. Very wrong. This report isn’t better than nothing. It’s a major setback in the movement towards Church accountability.

In the hope of counteracting some of the report’s detrimental effects, I want to offer some summary and analysis of its methodology, data, and conclusions. The report itself is very long (143 pages), but you can get an overview of its findings by reading its brief “Executive Summary” and/or The New York Times‘s recent article on the report.

--Snip--

Time and time again we have seen that the Church will do whatever it takes to downplay and/or cover up their failings and crimes. They have shown their willingness to fight dirty, and one of the most useful and effective tools in their arsenal is their dominance of the discourse and conversation (both in the media and elsewhere) about these issues. The Causes and Context study is a textbook example of this: when the media reports its “takeaways” without providing context, they are, in effect, doing the Church’s face-saving dirty work for them.

http://mirandaceleste.net/2011/05/24/a-worthless-and-dangerous-report/

----------------------------

Get this: the blamed the hippies. THE HIPPIES!!!!!!


Color me not surprised.

K/R

Does it blame the choirboys for being flirtatious?

lie to the lay people, and threaten the accusers??

I bet all those hippies didn't know they could control a church........

I just saw it go from +4 to +1.

I guess some people just can't bring themselves to openly support rapists.

Unrec this thread if you support child rape!

The Catholic Church knew its priests were raping young, innocent children. They
looked the other way, and often transferred predator priests into new, unsuspecting
parishes, where these priests raped more children. When victims came forward for
decades, they were called liars and told to sit down and shut up.

We have seen memos from the Pope, detailing the code of silence and protecting the
church--which the Pope deemed more important than the safety, mental-health and
futures of innocent children.

I know of no other organization or group--besides NAMBLA--that has practiced
such disturbing sex crimes and behaviors against children.

Now these sick freaks write a report on *themselves* and blame society and other
factors for their pathological, evil behavior, crimes and cover up.

No remorse. No shame.

This institution worsens by the day. Every time the catholic church issues a statement or a bizarre
report like this--they reveal how evil, sick and revolting their institution is.

Why in the hell ANYONE would sit in those pews is beyond me. You'd have to be
incredibly skilled at suspending reality and denial to even walk in those doors.

Anyone sitting in those pews sanctions unrepentant, defensive and evil child rapists and predators.

No other organization on earth--besides NAMBLA--has molested children, covered up the crimes, made
children so vulnerable to rape--and then openly shirked responsibility and accountability for the
crimes.

It's disgusting beyond belief and I weep for our entire planet that such a horrid institution exists.

:sarcasm:

quick skim of the report, the problem peaks between the late 60s and early 80s: incidents around 1955 or 1990, for example, are only about 20% or 25% of what is reported for 1975-1980. Abusers were most commonly ordained in the 1940s and 1950s; those ordained after 1975 are much less likely to be abusers than those ordained earlier. &c&c

I can't summarize a 140p report in a few paragraphs, but I think "Miranda Celeste" has an oddball reading of the report

Rather, it was the culture of the times during this alleged "peak" that led to an increase in child rape. You also must have missed the part that tries to reclassify the rapists by assigning an arbitrary cut-off for child rape to be considered pedophillia. Maybe you skimmed past the part where it also says that priests weren't 'properly trained' to not rape children as though that's something requiring special training.

Since you seem to take issue with the source of the OP, maybe you'd prefer the New York Times' article on the report. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/18/us/18bishops.html?_r=1

Those poor child-raping priests! They're the real victims here. If only the 60's and 70's hadn't happened and special training had been in place to teach seminary students how to avoid raping children, these poor child-raping priests wouldn't have been unable to avoid raping children. Just think of those poor rapists!

A great place to start is the section titled: "Causes for the Crisis: Why was there a sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church.

(I'll be using page numbers based on the PDF version of the report.)

On page 32, it states that "no single "cause" of abuse by priests is evident." Insisting that priests raping children is a "complex phenomenon." Page 111 identifies drug and alcohol use as a cause, implying that without those substances, nothing would have happened. A ten-page description of different types of excuses for child rape then follow (interspersed with charts from other sections) in a "some give this excuse, others give this" type of reporting that avoids every opportunity to explain why the given excuses are invalid. This gives tacit acceptance to, at best, the excuse that no one knew it was wrong, and at worst, the excuse that it wasn't wrong.

In the conclusions, page 126 cites an "overall pattern of social change" as a significant factor, and following sections deny the problem as systemic, owing to pedophilia, or cover-up in the Church.

One factor that is consistent with nearly all sexual abusers is the adoption of “techniques of neutralization,” which alleviate feelings of guilt and shame, thus enabling offend- ers to commit the acts of abuse. Sykes and Matza list five primary neutralization techniques: the denial of respon- sibility, denial of injury, denial of the victim, condemnation of the condemners, and appeal to higher loyalties. Cognitive-behavioral theorists have explained these techniques in terms of sex offenders’ cognitive distortions (CDs), the most common of which are minimiza- tion and/or denial and justification of offenses. Techniques of neutralization, however, are heavily reliant on cultural vocabularies of motive. As such, Catholic priests exhibit additional techniques in the form of “deviance disavowal.” This mechanism is one through which priests can deal with the emotional, psychological, and social harms of a negative label, thus distancing their “bad” or immoral acts from themselves as individuals. Priests who are accused of sexual abuse must not only manage the current label of “pedophile priests” but also exist in a world in which God is omniscient and omnipotent. Even if the external world is unaware of the priest’s deviance, there is no way to hide from God.

The techniques of neutralization regarding sexual abuse can be roughly divided into two categories: excuses and justifications for the behavior. Some accused priests use excuses to admit that they actually committed the offense of sexual abuse but do not take responsibility for their behavior. This behavior falls under the category of “denying the victim” and “denying responsibility.” Some priests also justify their behavior, admitting to the interactions, events, or acts, but not the wrongfulness of such acts. Instead, they engage in techniques known as “minimizing harm,” “appealing to a higher authority,” and/ or “condemning the condemners.” It was hypothesized that priests with allegations of abuse would exhibit tech- niques of neutralization similar to sex offenders in the general population

I'm done here. Have a nice day! :hi:

Here's something for you to ponder: (Since you said you're done here, I don't expect a response. This is just something for you to consider.)

The first result for "serial child rapist" (a label which fits many of these pedophile priests) gives a blog about a community's dissatisfaction with a serial child rapist (David Allyn Dokich) being housed in their neighborhood. He kidnapped, raped, and killed numerous victims and died of cancer in 2008.

Would you accept an explanation that he raped his victims because he had access to drugs and alcohol? Would you accept the idea that an "overall pattern of social change" was a significant factor in his choice to become a serial child rapist? Would you excuse the actions of anyone who may have harbored him from the police?

If your answer is "no" to any of those questions, why then is it "yes" to the same questions when asked about the serial child rapists protected by the Catholic Church?

you are intelligent enough to read the report carefully and to provide some cogent critical comments, if you wanted to do so -- though I really can't much blame you for not wanting to do so, since the text is long and (frankly) boring

Reading the report, one will learn something about how abuse complaints varied with time (the complainant and number of complaints varying, for example), how ideas about appropriate response varied with time, how abusers' excuses for their behavior varied with time ...

It's dull and dreary reading. And I don't doubt that many intelligent criticisms will be forthcoming. Were you willing to expend the time necessary to do so, I expect you yourself could produce thoughtful and intellectually honest criticisms. But your present remarks seem to me merely cheap and lazy

Some of us realize that the report is about real events and not just some rhetorical exercise. Maybe the victims of these serial child rapists find the report as intellectually stimulating as you do.

Pointing out that "civilian" child rapists trying to use these excuses for their actions would be laughable, but because its the "clergy" doing it, those same excuses are just fine and acceptable.


The hypocrisy that IS religion and all that surrounds it is THE reason I give religious beliefs NO respect at all.


But then again, where I see contradiction, they see confirmation, right?

I believe that in this case, where you see contradiction, they see relevant contextual issues.

I see it now.

so the priests would know to avoid them? It works for the Dept. of Transportation, why not for God's Own Representatives?

based on what?

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6681362/ResumeMirandaHalenoaddress.pdf

Especially in contrast to her purpose.

"On this site, I’ll be writing about a variety of things, but my primary focus will be issues and topics related to language, rhetoric, writing, science communication, literature, and education. I’m sure I’ll also write about politics, atheism, skepticism, and the negative effects of childhood religious indoctrination from time to time. And I’m also fond of posting fun things and pretty things, so there will be plenty of that, too."

http://mirandaceleste.net/about/

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/18/us/18bishops.html?_r=1

They come to many of the same conclusions.

"But this study is likely to be regarded as the most authoritative analysis of the scandal in the Catholic Church in America."

allegedly found in one or another of two places a hundred miles apart, in a region where the authorities were accused of shooting protestors and dumping their bodies: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=214&topic_id=210631#211026

I'm sorry if you disapprove of such efforts to sort out the actual facts

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=214&topic_id=275729&mesg_id=275933">"I think I engage in some discussions in this forum purely for the exercise and in hopes of clarifying my own thinking."

-struggle4progress, April 18, 2011

Where you see contradiction, they see confirmation!!!!!!!!

You can start here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=214&topic_id=282700&mesg_id=282904

Ctrl-V can do it if you're too lazy or intellectually dishonest to read it yourself. It is one of the blogger's more cutting points distilled so you yobs can't say "ooooh, she/you didn't read the report/aren't a scientist/hate America/or whatever" The blogger pointed out that they redefined pedophilia so that they could claim a much lover prevalence of "pedophile priests." No pedo priests, no problem, right?

Wrong.

========

It's right there in the damn report.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/55745387/Causes-and-Context-o...

Church-supplied data: (Final Paragraph, Page 7, or page 15 of the PDF)

…the USCCB wanted to know the extent of the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church on a national level from 1950-2002. Any method of data collection on a project of this scope has limitations. The John Jay College researchers determined that it would be impossible to gather an adequate sample—there was simply not enough known about the problem nationally. It was decided that the best method to study this problem was to conduct a “census,” or to collect comprehensive information from the records of every diocese, eparchy, and religious institute in the United States. Though this method had restrictions, these files provided a wealth of information regarding the abusers, minors who were abused, and the financial cost of the individual cases (7)


Funded by the Church, including: (Acknowledgements: Page 9 of the PDF, un-numbered in the document.)

the Knights of Columbus, the Raskob Foundation, Catholic Mutual Group, Sisters of Charity Ministry Foundation, the Luce Foundation, the Catholic Health Association of the United States, the St. Joseph Health System, The Greater Cincinnati Foundation, The Assisi Foundation of Memphis, Daughters of Charity Foundation/Province of the West


Pretending like it's not pedophilia if the victim is older than 10: (First Paragraph, Page 10 of the document, or Page 18 of the PDF)

It is worth noting that while the media has consistentlyreferred to priest-abusers as “pedophile priests,” pedophiliais defned as the sexual attraction to prepubescent children. Yet, the data on priests show that 22 percent of victims were age ten and under, while the majority of victimswere pubescent or postpubescent. Figure 1.4 shows theoverall gender and age distribution of the victims from the Nature and Scope data.


TL : DR You're being obtuse on purpose. Why are you even here?

Do you have any evidence the data has been corrupted simply because it comes from Catholic dioceses and the study was paid for by the USCCB?

Would you trust a study from BP about how the Gulf Coast is doing WONDERFUL?

Would you trust a study from TEPCO about the safety of radiation releases?

Would you trust a study from Raytheon about the benefits of depleted uranium shells?

Would you trust a report form Massey Energy about how their mines are OH SO SAFE?



Also, the third point, the most important point, stands regardless. It's still rape, even if you pretend that pedophilia only counts if the victim is under 10, which is unmitigated horseshit.

and those who covered up for them to explain why they are not at fault, or at least not on the hook for being called baby rapists.

They are self-reported child molesters, you know, they didn't deny that. They're just quibbling over definitions of pedophilia and trying to blame the hippies for their failure as human beings.

And it still stands that they are pedophiles, which you apparently do not dispute, unlike this "report", which rather clear illuminates its value.

On edit: fuck it, what's the point of talking to either of you two if you forget how English works once you're cornered.

some allowed to be covered up for a long time and truly don't understand. I have not read the report so I can only speak to the two sources sited here but they seem to be moving down side trails that may or may not give a complete answer to the problem. They must realize that even the appearance to minimize this is bound to cause an outcry of protest by many who don't trust the Church in the first place and those who hate it in the first place. Their best course would have been to have a completely independent investigation by experts not so closely tied to the Church.

The independence of the study is not really in issue.

granted they are made by some people with an agenda but not all who raise the issue of trust have that same agenda or bias against religion in general or the Church in particular.

I haven't as yet.

and self serving. I think that since certain people have moved on to the Vatican the US bishops have done a much better job trying to repair the damage done by these criminal priests. I am just saying when you deal with perceptions they sometime become "truths" that are hard to correct.

if the victim is under 10 years old and it happens more than once.

on the motivations of sex offenders

I'm not competent to address the pedophilia/hebephilia/ephebophilia debate; the age groupings in the report seem roughly consistent with a pedophilia/hebephilia/ephebophilia distinction

defining the definition down by three years, IIRC.

The financial conflict of interest is very blatant, and it's very easy to buy a sympathetic expert these days.

Finally, the fact that the Church had final say over whether or not the report could be released calls the point of the whole exercise into question. How do we know there weren't ten other studies that found the opposite, but were barred from release and sealed under a non-disclosure agreement?

Frankly, it looks like an attempt to paper over the entire disgusting travesty.

U 03 Pedohebephilic Disorder
... Pedophilic Type — Sexually Attracted to Prepubescent Children (Generally Younger than 11)
Hebephilic Type — Sexually Attracted to Pubescent Children (Generally Age 11 through 14) ...
http://www.dsm5.org/ProposedRevisions/Pages/proposedrevision.aspx?rid=186

The more I read this thread, the angrier I get. Sweeping the whole thing under some sort of pedantic-ass rug by redefining everything away won't heal those broken lives, and it will not bring their attackers to justice. Are you really, seriously implying that this change in the DSM, intended to give finer granularity to a diagnosis, serves to let these bastards off the hook? It does serve to distract and obfuscate so that people don't question the oh-so-holy church, it does that very well indeed.

While we're being vastly pedantic, here's the language for the current edition, DSM-IV:

http://www.behavenet.com/capsules/disorders/pedophiliaTR.htm


(Note that v. 5 is still under construction and is not scheduled for release until 2013.)

Note that the statistics in the church-funded study do not include the over-10 statistics in the discussion at all, even as a seperate "Hebephilic" category. This church-sponsored study might have been valid had they done so, but instead they completely dropped those children from consideration. Further discussion of these shenanigans can be found in this earlier post, explaining all the gruesome statistical details: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=214&topic_id=282656&mesg_id=282733

They weren't included...

Because they were too old.

Which is ironic.

Upthread, you cited DSM to object to the particular way abuse cases were aggregated in this study. So I pointed out it might be consistent with the next version of DSM

The report contains summary data on the abused, where the abuse occurred, when the abuse occurred, characteristics of the abusers, when the abuse was reported, who reported the abuse ...

I don't know who you think wasn't included in the study "because they were too old"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=214&topic_id=282656&mesg_id=282733

It is no summary of anything at all except what the church voluntarily released, using definitions favorable to the church, UTTERLY EXCLUDING any victims outside of the church's own self-serving definition of pedophilia, so that God's Own Baby-Humpers could avoid public scrutiny. How aren't you aren't utterly horrified? Does anyone here actually believe it isn't hideously wrong for a 50 year old man in a position of "spiritual" power to have sex with a child as long as they've grown some pubes?

Clearly, a 2000 year old edifice of power is far more important than justice for some slutty 12 year old who was probably asking for it, right?



Let me post that some more so that you might notice it.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=214&topic_id=282656&mesg_id=282733
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=214&topic_id=282656&mesg_id=282733
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=214&topic_id=282656&mesg_id=282733
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=214&topic_id=282656&mesg_id=282733
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=214&topic_id=282656&mesg_id=282733
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=214&topic_id=282656&mesg_id=282733
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=214&topic_id=282656&mesg_id=282733
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=214&topic_id=282656&mesg_id=282733
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=214&topic_id=282656&mesg_id=282733
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=214&topic_id=282656&mesg_id=282733
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=214&topic_id=282656&mesg_id=282733
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=214&topic_id=282656&mesg_id=282733
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=214&topic_id=282656&mesg_id=282733
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=214&topic_id=282656&mesg_id=282733
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=214&topic_id=282656&mesg_id=282733
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=214&topic_id=282656&mesg_id=282733
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=214&topic_id=282656&mesg_id=282733

you just enjoy making stuff up

why it even MATTERS whether any of the priests who raped and sexually abused children qualify as "pedophiles", regardless of how you define that word. Why does the report (dishonestly, to boot), even bother spending so much time trying to shed that label? Does it lessen their crime if the victim was 12 instead of 9?

HURRRR, they were 12 so it's different. Can't you read the dictionary? :sarcasm:

The hope is that by getting bogged down in whether a serial rapist is a pedophile, people will forget that they're still a serial rapist.

Or maybe a ---------.

(Not even a little sorry I said it.)

(Edit: Ok, maybe a little. Please don't nuke the whole thread. MODS=GODS <3<3<4)

Obviously that "draft" is not in effect yet, was not in effect when this report was being prepared, and was not in effect when these children were being sexually abused. So why would you even try to make such a silly point, unless you were scraping the bottom of the apologetic barrel?

seems to have aggregated victim age data to accord with the classifications currently proposed for the next edition of DSM

The proposed changes in DSM apparently reflect an evolution of ideas among some specialists in psychology and psychiatry about how certain mental disorders should be diagnosed

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I hope you haven't wasted too much time trying to spin this, because you're not doing very well.

It's right there in the damn report.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/55745387/Causes-and-Context-of-Sexual-Abuse-Minors-by-US-Catholic-Priests-1950-201051211

Church-supplied data: (Final Paragraph, Page 7, or page 15 of the PDF)



Funded by the Church, including: (Acknowledgements: Page 9 of the PDF, un-numbered in the document.)



Pretending like it's not pedophilia if the victim is older than 10: (First Paragraph, Page 10 of the document, or Page 18 of the PDF)



TL : DR You're being obtuse on purpose. Why are you even here?

This could be a case study for cognitive dissonance in action!

but don't expect the believers to acknowledge them no matter how firmly you rub their noses in the fact that their church's report reeks of obfuscation, self serving, and outright lies.

"Oh, he was ten, so it didn't count as the rape of a child."

she 's even down on Martin Rees for his templeton award.

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You are constantly slingly the hatred accusation, so this is nothing new.

on second thought, nevermind. Its just not worth the effort.

I wasn't disagreeing with the article, I was commenting on the posters tendency to commonly use decidedly atheistic sources for reference, which that site is.

"You're wrong because you are an Atheist."

Once that particular meme catches hold, you can not reason someone away from it. Anything you say is wrong by default due to its source; it's the fruit of the poisoned tree.

It's damn frustrating, isn't it?

They have to climb out of the hole themselves. All anyone else can do is lower a ladder and hope that they notice it.

my sources many times even though some were PhD's. Speaking of bias.

If one already KNOWS that the author/organization has produced prior material that was found to be wrong (Hovind and Ham come to mind), one can then dismiss any further material.

You never even heard of this woman or her blog until now.



Cue the false equivalency in 3...2..1..

what does the length of time I have been aware of her blog have anything to do with anything. A quick check tells the story. I made no criticism of her one way or another, but only to point out that you very often quote only atheist websites.

I NEVER SAID YOU QUOTED HOVIND OR HAM. I used them as examples of sources that are not credible and get dismissed out of hand. Why do you always feel the need to obfuscate like this?



And are you telling me that your post of, "24. Miranda Celeste is just another atheist website.

was simply supposed to be for informational purposes of the thread and NOT a statement about the source of the OP? Really?

If it was not a statement of your opinion about the source, for what purpose would there be to point that out? To point out that I "very often quote only atheist websites"? Yeah, so what? What bearing does that have to do with the information provided from that source about the OP? Please tell me? How does pointing out that I quote from non-religious websites have any thing to do with the topic at hand? Is the source not credible? We already established that you had not even heard of this source until today, so unless you are saying that ALL non-religious websites are not credible, what was the point of making that distinction?

F
O

AD

I was kinda worried about you there for awhile. Your number of anti-Christian threads was declining.

I love how you post your nonsense, as if the rest of the thread is not visible to the whole world or something.

Thats cognitive dissonance, you know. Maybe you should seek professional help.

avoidance.

Like I said, you post things like this as if no one can see what was previously posted.

Its like you have a disconnect from reality or something.

But then again, where you see contradiction, I see confirmation.

:rofl: