Just a Catholic Problem?

Special Bulletin Welcome! Catholic sex scandals dominate the news. Are we next? A Protestant lists samples of scandals in Protestantism

Catholic Scandals: A Crisis for Celibacy?, Touchstone, by Leon J. Podles, "The real story behind clerical 'pedophilia' and what it really means...Homosexuality is the problem.

Sex Abuse Spans Spectrum of Churches, Christian Science Monitor, April 5, 2002, "Despite headlines focusing on the priest pedophile problem in the Roman Catholic Church, most American churches being hit with child sexual-abuse allegations are Protestant...."

Breaking Faith, WORLD magazine Cover Story, by Lynn Vincent, "As sexual scandal rocks the Roman Catholic church, Protestants face a lurking sex scandal as well."

The Myth of the Pedophile Priest, by Philip Jenkins, ZENIT News Services
March 11, 2002, "A Researcher Puts Scandals in Context"

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Anti-Catholics love to bash our Church with sensational instances of Priestly Sexual Misconduct, in particular, pedophilia. The inference is that Clergy Sexual Misconduct is mostly just a Catholic problem...a problem which not only "proves" that the Holy Catholic Church is not the true Church of Christ, but is not even a Christian Church at all.

A small example at this link from the Free Presbyterian Magazine (scroll down to Corruption in his Church, claims R. C. academic), a magazine associated with my friends at the Free Church of Scotland (Presbyterian) on my Creeds page. (Note: My site caught their eye! See The Free Church and the Antichrist? :)

It turns out that the anti-Catholic propaganda is just that. In fact, it appears that the media has skewed the "Catholic problem" by sensationalizing the celibacy issue, as noted by this powerful Catholic League link:

A REVIEW ESSAY OF PHILIP JENKINS' PEDOPHILES AND PRIESTS

Clerical Sexual Misconduct...including "pedophilia"...IS NOT just a Catholic problem. In fact, if anything, it is more of a Protestant problem, as show by these quotes from the Catholic League link:

Jenkins asks us to consider why there is no such term as "pastor pedophilia"? It is not for lack of pastors involved in sexual abuse, rather it has much to do with the way the issue of pedophilia has been "framed" by our social constructionists. For example, who ever heard of [Protestant Pastor XXXXX. ED NOTE: Decided to conceal name on my page. It's on the Catholic League link. SPH]

In the 1980s, [Protestant Pastor XXXXX] had abused perhaps one hundred boys in several southern states, but few of us ever learned of it. [Protestant Pastor XXXXXX] had the distinction of being a Pentecostal minister and was, therefore, not within the "frame" of those who were busy constructing reality. The same is true of the three brothers, all Baptist ministers, who were charged with child molestation in the 1990s: the public learned little about this highly unusual series of cases because it was not deemed worthy of dissemination by those fixated on Catholic scandals....

Notwithstanding the difficulties that such data comparisons hold, the available information on clergy sexual misconduct shows that the problem is bigger among Protestant clergy. For example, the most cited survey of sexual problems among the Protestant clergy shows that 10 percent have been involved in sexual misconduct and "about two or three percent" are "pedophiles." With regard to the "pedophile" problem, the figure for the Catholic clergy, drawn from the most authoritative studies, ranges between .2 percent to 1.7 percent. Yet we hear precious little about these comparative statistics.

I am not acting from the position of trashing Protestants with this information. Rather, I am acting more from a sense of relief...relief that Clerical Sexual Misconduct IS NOT really just a Catholic problem. (No, please don't confuse this statement with a perceived callousness towards Protestant clergy or, especially, their victims.)

You see, I kind of DID believe all of the anti-Catholic propaganda that it is mostly just a Catholic problem.

And I bet I'm not alone.

I kind of suspected it was all one-sided propaganda while dealing with my article Priestly Sex Scandals and my Protestant friend Rand's accusations. The Advocateweb.org link on my article indicates that sexual misconduct definitely is a problem within the Protestant clergy. Furthermore, at least two articles on that link, Church Secrets We Dare Not Keep (scroll way down to "Confronting the Secrecy") and Sexual Abuse & the Orthodox Clergy (here's another link to the Orthodox info: Protection of the Theotokos: A Site for Victims of Abuse in the Orthodox Church), appear to corroborate that the sensational nature of priestly celibacy skews the subject so as to cloud and protect Protestant clergy.

Equalizing the sexual misconduct issue should eliminate the matter as an issue in Protestant/Catholic dialogue. Our radically anti-Catholic friends really BELIEVE that it is mostly just a Catholic problem...heck, I even believed it. Consequently, I don't believe they really respect us. This information should bring them to the discussion table on an equal basis, effectively eliminating the entire issue.

What would Christ say?

I believe that Christ did have plenty to say about hypocrites (in this case anti-Catholic propagandists) who hurl stones while living in glass houses.

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A review of Prof. Jenkins' book. He's a former Catholic, now Episcopalian.

Our Sunday Visitor (25 Feb 96)

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