Beyond Outrage V. Archdiocese of Philadelphia Sexual Abuse Scandal
September 25th, 2005 · 1 Comment
Today was the first day EVER that I NEEDED to go to church. I WANTED to hear what the priest had to say about the horrific grand jury report released by Philadelphia District Attorney.
I don’t know what I had hoped to hear, but I heard exactly what I expected. Despite the suprisinug admission by the celebrant that he himself had been abused, I heard the typical circular talk emblamatic of modern public relations and not the Catholic Church that I had grown up with.
In the interest of full-disclosure, although I was raised Catholic, I am much a Catholic as I am a unicorn. And no, I wasn’t touched (bad pun) by this scandal, although I know some who were. And this shameful excercise just magnified by separation from the church. The church I grew up with was all about taking care of the kids. Mass every first Friday, stations of the cross during the school day in Easter, I was even an altar boy.
What got me most upset, even more so than the Archdiocese’s attempts to portray the report as “anti-Catholic” and an inquisition (not getting that it was the Catholics who were historically responsible for that period of history), was the tactic employed by the celebrant priest, notably, blame the victim.
After a touching (there I go again) story of his brave rebuff of someone who picked him up while hitchhicking and asked for sexual favors, he went on to state that we should do everything we can to teach the children to say no. I’m not sure if this was his intent, but what I heard is “blame the victim”. Never mind the other red herrings, like gay priests did it, or it happened by the hand of lay teachers and those outside of organized religion, but his central theme was that our children should have the “chutzpah” (his words) to be able to reject someones sexual advances.
Does this we mean that we should teach our children to never go away with strangers or Catholic priests?
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1 response so far ↓
1 James R. Brown // Dec 28, 2007 at 4:26 pm
During confession, I was excommunicated from the Catholic Church by a priest who wanted information about young boys that were having sex. I gave a couple of fake first names, but that didn’t satisfy the priest. He wanted last names. This priest, Father Miller, was never mentioned by the Grand Jury, although the Grand Jury said they would call those who filed lawsuits, I was never called to testify. Beware of any Father Millers who you might find in your parish.
This was in an orphanage in North Philadelphia. What was common was that most of those molested were alter boys. Perhaps alter boys have a different personality or maybe were just more accessible than the other orphans.
Those abused in California received about one million dollars each. Those in Pennsylvania, did not, due to the statute of limitations (too much time has passed).
Jim Brown
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