Bill Donohue of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights:
How many of the 300 were probably guilty? Maybe half. My reasoning?
The 2004 report by the John Jay College for Criminal Justice found that 4
percent of priests nationwide had a credible accusation made against
them between 1950-2002. That is the figure everyone quotes. But the
report also notes that roughly half that number were substantiated. If that
is a reliable measure, the 300 figure drops to around 150.
Of course, substantiated means going back over accusations made in the 1950s, where many of the witnesses, victims, and abusers, were dead.
Myth: The grand jury report was initiated to make the guilty pay.
Fact: False. It has nothing to do with punishing the guilty. Pennsylvania
Attorney General Josh "Salacious" Shapiro admitted on August 14 that
"Almost every instance of child abuse (the grand jury) found was too old
to be prosecuted." He's right. But he knew that from the get-go, so why
did he pursue this dead end?
Why did he waste millions of taxpayer dollars in pursuit of alleged
offenders when he knew he couldn't do anything about it? Because he,
and his predecessor, Kathleen Kane (who is now in prison for lying under
oath and misusing her Attorney General's office) wanted to shame the
Catholic Church.
Too old to prosecute doesn't make them irrelevant to understanding the damage done. Shaming officials who assisted in hiding these crimes seems like a way to discourage repeating.
Fact: This is an obscene lie. Most of the alleged victims were not raped:
they were groped or otherwise abused, but not penetrated, which is what
the word "rape" means. This is not a defense—it is meant to set the
record straight and debunk the worst case scenarios attributed to the
offenders.
Furthermore, Church officials were not following a "playbook" for using
terms such as "inappropriate contact"—they were following the lexicon
established by the John Jay professors.
Examples of non-rape sexual abuse found in the John Jay report include
"touching under the victim's clothes" (the most common act alleged);
"sexual talk"; "shown pornography"; "touch over cleric's clothes"; "cleric
disrobed"; "victim disrobed"; "photos of victims"; "sexual games"; and
"hugging and kissing." These are the kinds of acts recorded in the grand
jury report as well, and as bad as they are, they do not constitute "rape."
True: no penetration means it isn't rape. But that list of covered-up offenses is hardly what most people think of when you say "in the Name of Christ."
There have been two scandals related to the sexual abuse of minors in the
Catholic Church. Scandal I involves the enabling bishops who covered it
up. Scandal II involves the media cover-up of the role played by gay
molesters.
Let me repeat what I have often said. Most gay priests are not molesters,
but most of the molesters have been gay. Not to admit this—and this
includes many bishops who are still living in a state of denial about it—
means the problem will continue. Indeed, there are reports today about
seminaries in Boston and Honduras that are disturbing.
How do I know that most of the problem is gay-driven? The data are
indisputable.
He is right that this is overwhelmingly priests going after boys. Heterosexual abuse is a minority of the offenses. Still, blaming gay men and ignoring their status as priests and the role of the Church in covering up both secular crimes and violations of Christian standards is hardly a ringing endorsement of Christ's representatives on Earth. Matthew 18:6:
"If anyone causes one of these little ones--those who believe in me--to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.
Donohue should be looking for a way for the Church to make amends to these victims and make sure that the hierarchy that covered up these crimes never does this again.
