Church Abuse Crisis - LifeSiteNews.com

Notable Articles, Documents & Quotes

Pope John Paul's homily at World Youth Day in Toronto, July 29, 2002
"If you love Jesus, love the Church! Do not be discouraged by the sins and failings of some of her members. The harm done by some priests and religious to the young and vulnerable fills us all with a deep sense of sadness and shame. But! Think of the vast majority of dedicated and generous priests and religious whose only wish is to serve and do good! There are many priests, seminarians and consecrated persons here today: be close to them and support them! And if, in the depths of your hearts, you feel the same call to the priesthood or consecrated life, do not be afraid to follow Christ on the royal road of the cross! At difficult moments in the Church's life, the pursuit of holiness becomes even more urgent."

Cincinnati's West-Side Story, New oxford Review, June 2005
It is no coincidence that the U.S. bishops and their consultants, many of whom are well-known advocates of advancing a homosexualist agenda in the Church, have made a concerted effort to package the sex abuse crisis as a “pedophile scandal” rather than what it truly is: a product of predatory homosexuality.

This is a reality that can only be understood by way of illustration. The Archdiocese of Cincinnati is led by two bishops who have for many years been open proponents of so-called homosexual rights and “gay” tolerance programs... under the leadership of (Bishops) Pilarczyk and Moeddel, the Archdiocese of Cincinnati has introduced and zealously promoted its Catholic ministry to “gays and lesbians,” supports the presence of PFLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays), a homosexualist propaganda group in the Catholic schools, all in an effort to “eliminate bias and discrimination and support inclusion” of homosexuals in Catholic parishes and schools.

Thus, the Archdiocese of Cincinnati provides a telling example of the wholesale move toward the normalization of homosexuality in the Church and society, even in the midst of the biggest sexual scandals the Church in America has ever known.

Child Molestation by homosexuals and heterosexuals, Homiletic and Pastoral Review, May, 2005
Many homosexual leaders have admitted that there is a natural link between a homosexual orientation and child sexual abuse.

A number of studies performed over a period spanning more than half a century— many of which were performed by homosexuals or their sympathizers—have shown that an extremely large percentage of sexually
active homosexuals also participate in child sexual molestation. This is not “homophobia” or “hatred,” this
is simple scientific fact.

New Study Calls Clergy Abuse An Epidemic , National Catholic Register, Jan. 30-Feb. 5, 2005
The U.S. bishops are commissioning a study on the causes of sex abuse by clergy. And they are looking at the problem in terms of an epidemic.

Fitzgibbons said he’d be surprised if the study examines the practice of allowing homosexuals into seminaries as a potential cause of the abuse crisis.

"You’re going to get results that reflect the researchers’ views on homosexuality," Fitzgibbons said. "The results of the John Jay study, by showing that 80% of the victims were adolescent males, is a source of embarrassment to the homosexual community, and there’s a tremendous effort afoot to distance homosexuality from the sexual-abuse crisis. The challenge will be to find a university or research team that can resist social pressures and pursue the truth."

"Look, it’s real simple," Vitz said. "If you screen homosexuals from entering seminaries, like the Church used to do, you eliminate the vast majority of pedophiles in the priesthood. Period."

US diocese makes $100m abuse deal , BBC, Jan. 4, 2005
The Roman Catholic Church in California is to pay $100m to the alleged victims of sexual abuse by clergy members, a US judge has announced.

Silenced Arlington Pries warns of gay Crisis, Washington Times, Nov. 15, 2004
The abuse crisis is "far from over, says a local Catholic priest who says the true source of the crisis is a priesthood that is 'honeycombed' with homosexual clerics..."
" There's a point where you have to put your faith on the line," Father Haley said. "You have to put your life at risk. I am willing to die for this. I am willing to stand up for the truth. Someday, this will all come out.

The Major Factor In Clergy Abuse Study Is Homosexuality - National Catholic Register, March 2004
In the Catholic clergy abuse scandal, most of the activity was homosexual in nature, and yet this central fact of the abuse has been treated as almost unmentionable in the Church's internal discussions. But now that the abuse picture has been thoroughly studied, the elephant is making a racket.

Boston, Call Dallas about Homosexuality - National Catholic Register, March 2004
It is coincidence, or perhaps Providence, that the U.S. bishops' report on sex abuse has been released at precisely the time when Americans are arguing about homosexual marriage. These two news events already share one thing in common. It is painful to speak openly, frankly and honestly about either one
.

Sexual Abuse in Social Context: Catholic Clergy and Other Professionals
Special Report by Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights - February 2004

The purpose of this special report is to put the recent scandal in the Catholic Church in perspective. It does not seek to exculpate anyone who had anything to do with priestly sexual misconduct, but it does seek to challenge those who continue to treat this issue in isolation. Indeed, to discuss the incidence of sexual abuse committed by Roman Catholic priests without reference to the level of offense found among the clergy of other religions, or to that of other professionals, is grossly unfair.

According to a survey by the Washington Post, over the last four decades, less than 1.5 percent of the estimated 60,000 or more men who have served in the Catholic clergy have been accused of child sexual abuse.According to a survey by the New York Times, 1.8 percent of all priests ordained from 1950 to 2001 have been accused of child sexual abuse.Thomas Kane, author of Priests are People Too, estimates that between 1 and 1.5 percent of priests have had charges made against them.Of contemporary priests, the Associated Press found that approximately two-thirds of 1 percent of priests have charges pending against them.

Almost all the priests who abuse children are homosexuals. Dr. Thomas Plante, a psychologist at Santa Clara University, found that “80 to 90% of all priests who in fact abuse minors have sexually engaged with adolescent boys, not prepubescent children. Thus, the teenager is more at risk than the young altar boy or girls of any age.” Much has been made of a survey done by the Dallas Morning News which claims that two-thirds of the nation’s bishops have allowed priests accused of sexual abuse to continue working. But the problem with the survey is its definition of abuse—it includes everything from “ignoring warnings about suspicious behavior” to “criminal convictions.” Thus, the survey is of limited utility.

Too often, assumptions have been made that this problem is worse in the Catholic clergy than in other sectors of society. This report does not support this conclusion. Indeed, it shows that family members are the most likely to sexually molest a child. It also shows that the incidence of the sexual abuse of a minor is slightly higher among the Protestant clergy than among the Catholic clergy, and that it is significantly higher among public school teachers than among ministers and priests.


Clergy Scandals Revisited , Fr. Alphonse de Valk, Catholic Insight, April, 2003
"...there have been reports of people-including apparently commentators in Rome-who blame or have blamed the media for this crisis. That is also dangerous nonsense, indicating a state of denial which could be very harmful to resolving this crisis. The media did not create the crisis, the priests and the bishops did. The media reported it."

"Dissent as a cause for deviant behaviour has another side to it, namely, the refusal of bishops to denounce false teachers-which in North America was left principally to Rome. This, in turn, was accompanied by their decision to be silent in the public forum about Catholic sexual and marital moral truths".

The U.S. the bishops "threw themselves into the promotion of social justice, hoping to make up for silence on sexual-marital issues by loudly supporting economic and political activity on behalf a large variety of justice issues, national as well as international...The bishops had chosen the easy way out. Works of social justice were popular, opposing the morally permissive society was not".

Boston and other Bishops, Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, First Things, February 2003
"..at the end of the day the fact is that Cardinal Law brought down Cardinal Law…He was too modest in his deference to the 'expert' opinion of psychologists and others who assured him that abusing priests could be safely returned to ministry. (The deeply dubious role of St. Luke's in Maryland and other treatment centers for offenders in this Long Lent, now extending beyond 2002, has yet to be adequately told.)"...."Whether it is a curse or blessing, we do not live in a post-Christian society but in an incorrigibly and confusedly Christian America."

Pope tells seminaries: no deviants: Strong directive comes on eve of U.S. investigation - National Catholic Register, Sept. 15-21, 2002 by by ELLEN ROSSINI
"...in a Sept. 5 address to another group of bishops - this time from Brazil - the Holy Father has delivered a powerful signal that one principle in particular should be high on the agenda of any seminary investigation: Sexually disordered men aren't appropriate candidates for priests."
"...previous Vatican statements, like the Holy Father's Castel Gandolfo comments, have indicated that homosexuality as such - not only active homosexual behavior - is incompatible with the priesthood"
Said Bishop Nienstedt: "If anything, the present seminarians are really the disciples of Pope John Paul II. They're not afraid. They've been inspired by this pontificate.

Scandal Time III, Richard John Neuhaus, First Things, August 2002

"Some still complain that the entire crisis...was manufactured by the media and motivated by anti-Catholicism...but without the deeper crisis of the infidelity and negligence of bishops, the media could not have produced the public and, consequently, episcopal sense of crisis. The scandal was in the chanceries, parishes, and seminaries before it was on the front page or television news. Whatever their motiviations...editors and reporters served a higher purpose."

"They (reporters) expected bishops... to do their job (at Dallas), to respond as bishops. Instead...there is the perception that they behaved more like Senators or CEOs engaged in damage control more than as moral teachers engaged in the gospel."

Regarding the new 'zero tolerance policy' adopted at Dallas Neuhaus says : "Another name for the zero tolerance policy is scapegoating. In setting themselves against their priests, the bishops have turned themselves into assistant district attorneys determined to prove themselves tougher than their bosses...This is not 'for the good of the Church'. This has nothing to do with 'the protection of children and young people.' This is panic and panic results in recklessness."

The bishops have succeeded in scandalizing the faithful anew by adopting a thoroughly unbiblical, untraditional, and un-Catholic approach to sin and grace. ...they end up adopting a policy that is sans repentance, sans conversion, sans forbearance, sans prudential judgement, sans forgiveness, sans almost anything one might have hoped for from bishops of the Church of Jesus Christ.

Address of John Paul II to the Cardinals of the United States, April 23, 2002

 Final Communique, Extraordinary Meeting With the Cardinals of the United State in Rome, April 23-34, 2002. Includes Rome's recommendations to the US bishops as to how they should respond to the abuse crisis.

The Policy’s Deficiencies Are Becoming Apparent, Charles Rice, The Wanderer, August 1, 2002

The bishops, in effect, have painted a bull’s-eye on the backs of their good priests. Those priests are now subjected to a life of exposure to permanent removal from ministry pursuant to vague and arbitrary criteria.

The bishops evidently are concerned only with sexual abuse by clerics of minors 'below the age of 16,' although an estimated nine of every ten reported cases involve boys of 16 and older.

The bishops’ definition of 'sexual abuse' of a minor is vague. It does not require any 'physical contact' or any 'discernible harmful outcome.' Such abuse can be found 'whether or not it is initiated by the child.' It applies to 'contacts or interactions between a child and an adult where the child is being used as an object of sexual gratification for the adult.' No burden of proof is specified. The potential here for intimidation or blackmail of priests through the threat of charges is obvious.

US Bishops and the “S” Word , Mary Jo Anderson, Living His Life Abundantly International
"Catholic laymen (need) to be very visible --respectfully—but persistently. God raises up His people to do His work. Placid, timid Catholics now know they are in a battle for the life of the Church in this nation—Dallas should be understood as a call to arms! To the degree that Catholics laity fail to defend authentic Catholic teaching, they are themselves complicit. To the degree that Catholics fail to become involved at the schools, university, parish and diocesan levels, they are equally to blame for the state of the Church in the US in the coming years"

Scandal Time (continued), Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, First Things, June/July 2002

"Homosexuality is very close to the center of the crisis. At the epicenter is the grave negligence of bishops. Not all bishops, to be sure, but too many."

"They are the ones who got us into this mess and, given what we believe is the divinely constituted structure of the Church, they are the ones who have to lead in getting us out. Faithful Catholics owe it to the Church and owe it to their bishops not to let them off the hook. In this instance, the virtue of docility includes a respect for bishops that requires recalling them to the duty and the dignity to which they were ordained. Too many of them have neglected that duty and debased that dignity. "

"...this crisis is about three things: fidelity, fidelity, and fidelity. The fidelity of bishops and priests to the teaching of the Church and to their solemn vows; the fidelity of bishops in exercising oversight in ensuring obedience to that teaching and to those vows; and the fidelity of the lay faithful in holding bishops and priests accountable"

"We are reaping the whirlwind of widespread infidelity."

The Elephant in the Sacristy, Mary Eberstadt, Weekly Standard, June 8, 2002
A lengthy, detailed report on the controversy.

Bishops Ignore Elephant - and Camel - Michael Novak, National Review, June 18
"Seminaries come directly under the authority of the bishops. No one has more authority there than they do. They allowed elephants in, to stomp out true and orthodox vocations, to crush true faith, to despoil chastity, to create a desert. The really deep secret, then, of the last 40 years is the fear, timidity, and passivity of the American bishops."

Homosexuality among Catholic Clergy - Fr. Leonard A. Kennedy C.S.B., March 2002 Catholic Insight

Orthodoxy begets Vocations, Review of GOODBYE! GOOD MEN by Father Kenneth Baker, editor of Homiletic and Pastoral Review

"I can say with no hesitation that this is a shocking book. The author’s thesis, borrowed from an article by Archbishop Elden F. Curtiss of Omaha, Nebraska, is that 'the priest shortage is artificial and contrived.'"

"The news is shocking because Rose demonstrates that liberal priests, feminist nuns, ex-priests and ex-nuns got control of most of the seminaries in the country. What characterizes these folks is their hostility to Catholic doctrine, Catholic morals, and many of the ancient traditions of the Church. Simply stated, they are ideologues with an agenda very different from that of the Magisterium and Vatican II. Their agenda was and is to change the very nature of the Catholic priesthood. Their agenda includes women priests, married priests, priests who tolerate sexual deviancy in all its forms, from contraception and abortion to homosexuality and stem cell research. In short, they want to abolish the traditional male, celibate clergy."

"Old dissidents from the 1960s will be furious at the appearance of this book and will do all they can to discredit it."

"All Mr. Rose has done is to assemble together between the covers of one book what most seminarians and young priests in this country already know. Mr. Rose is a courageous man: he is willing to say publicly that the emperor has no clothes—that most of our seminaries, from the point of view of doctrine, morals, piety, and simple good manners, are a disaster—and should be closed down."

Origins of a Scandal - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, June 22, 2002, Interview with Michael Rose

Catholic Bishops and Sex Abuse - Dallas Morning News - A lengthy report, bishop by bishop, of negligence regarding abusive clergy indicating that almost two-thirds of US bishops have been negligent in responding to abuse incidents in their dioceses.

Kansas City Star's "examination of death certificates and interviews with experts indicates several hundred priests have died of AIDS-related illnesses since the mid-1980s. The death rate of priests from AIDS is at least four times that of the general population", the newspaper said. (The Jan. 3, 2000 report by Judy L. Thomas is available for $2.95 U.S. from the Star

An open Letter to the Bishops - Catholic Medical Association, May 29, 2002
A letter from professionals who have successfully treated many homosexual oriented clergy and who have learned some of the major reasons why this problem has become so serious within the church and how it can be prevented in the future.

Scripture on Homosexuality
A Christian Researcher Says Biblical Prohibition Is Categorical
Reprinted With the Permission of Zenit International News - March 21, 2002
A thorough analysis refuting liberal Catholic/Christian arguments justifying acceptance of homosexuality

Rod Dreher - National Review
The Gay Question, April 22, 2002
The Dallas Outlook - The American Bishops Need a Conversion, June 12, 2002
Done in Dallas, June 17, 2002 - Reaction to the results of the Bishops' Dallas Conference

An Open Letter to US Bishops (no longer on line), Operation Plainspeak, Catholic World News, 2002 - Others were invited to sign the letter.
"The resolution of this crisis will begin, we respectfully suggest, when you, our bishops, firmly insist that the teachings of the Church must be upheld, and the discipline of the Church must be enforced, in the seminaries, parishes, and schools under your authority."

Homosexuality and Child Sexual Abuse, Timothy J. Daily, Family Research Council
"...despite efforts by homosexual activists to distance the gay lifestyle from pedophilia, there remains a disturbing connection between the two."

Pedophilia More Common Among Gays, John Dougherty in WorldNetDaily.com, April 29, 2002

10 Myths About the Priestly Pedophilia Controversy - Crisis Magazine

Catholics learning sex from Kinsey's disciples - Art Moore, WorldNetDaily.com, June 12, 2002

"They are not addressing the problem – but they can't because many of these bishops are compromised and waiting to be exposed [for abuse] themselves."

'Likoudis asserts that homosexuals and pedophiles controlled the post-Vatican II liturgical reform in the United States and Canada. Along with Weakland, he names Archbishop Roger Mahony of Los Angeles, Bishop Matthew Clark of Rochester, Bishop Howard Hubbard of Albany and Bishop John Cummins of Oakland as among the biggest promoters of homosexuality in the U.S. Church."

"I think some of the bishops in this country are so committed to social acceptance of homosexuality that they don't care about anything else," Likoudis told WorldNetDaily. "That's their No. 1 thing in life, because that is what they are spending most of their resources on."

"Gay" Culture in Catholic Church Grows - Toby Westerman, WorldNet Daily.com, March 24, 2002

Catholic Bashing and Pedophile Priests - Michael Medved, WorldNetdaily.com, March 25, 2002

A Question of Character - Catholic World Report, March 2002
The Scandal in Boston and Beyond - Catholic World Report, March 2002
The #2 Catholic Scandal - Catholic World Report, March 2002
The Symptom and the Disease - Catholic World Report, March 2002

Priests-Homosexuality ( no longer on line) , John Thavis, Catholic News Service, March 6, 2002
Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, secretary of the Vatican's doctrinal congregation stated "Persons with a homosexual inclination should not be admitted to the seminary".

1961 Vatican document, Careful Selection And Training of Candidates For The States Of Perfection And Sacred Orders, from the Sacred Congregation for Religious - explicitly prohibits the ordination of those with homosexual inclinations (see section 30, subsection 4, last paragraph)

Bishops Betraying the Catholic Church - Mary Jo Anderson, WorldNetDaily, June 14
"An invisible war is being fought for the life of the Catholic Church in the United States – and it is a fight to the death. The war is more than a century old now, and this is a key engagement. The war is not about pedophilia or homosexuality, as repugnant as those two symptoms are. It is about an attempted coup d'état within the Catholic Church – one of only two global institutions on this planet. Whoever gets the Keys of St. Peter walks off with the power to change the world – or so the betrayers think."

Can the Bishops heal the American Church?, George Sim Johnston, Crisis Magazine, June 1, 2002
"The Catholic Church in America is at a watershed. The current crisis is the culmination of decades of bad management, errant theology, and sinful behavior. It is partly about sex and partly about bishops. It is also about deluded therapies and an institutional Church that often goes flopping along with the mainstream on moral issues. The crisis is mostly, however, about active homosexuals in the priesthood. Anyone (including an archbishop) who does not admit this is simply part of the problem."

"One of the benefits of the current scandals is the exposure of the therapeutic culture that has invaded the Church. The Catholic landscape is dotted with therapy centers that purport to treat sexually abusive priests. These centers give bishops the illusion that they are doing something about the problem. But they are often staffed with "experts" who are sympathetic to the gay agenda."

St. Patrick's Msgr Says Allowing Gays in Seminaries Was Big Mistake, NY Daily News, April 22, 2002

We Told you so: The Homosexual Network 20 Years Later Connie Marshner, Free Congress Foundation, February 28, 2002
Reveals the heavily researched, thoroughly documented 1982 book "The Homosexual Network: Private Lives and Public Policy" by Fr. Enrique Rueda, a Catholic priest then in the diocese of Rochester, New York. Rueda exposed the widespread militant homosexual network within US church institutions, named names and provided lots of evidence. He was rewarded with hostility instead of thanks from bishops and no actions were taken on his discoveries.

CMI - Secretive Chicago-based homosexual clergy and religious organization , Roman Catholic Faithful

The Catholic (Universal Problem) - Cal Thomas in Town Hall June 18, 2002

Gays and the Seminary, Newsweek, May 20, 2002
"There will never be a gay students' group--or gay film series or gay dance--at St. John's Seminary, one of the most respected training grounds for Catholic priests in the nation. Yet the 64-year-old institution, nestled in the hills of Camarillo, Calif., may be one of the country's gayest facilities for higher education. Depending on whom you ask, gay and bisexual men make up anywhere from 30 percent to 70 percent of the student body at the college and graduate levels"
Search the Newsweek archives for this article. $2.95 U.S. fee for the article.

June 13 address to the Dallas Conference by Bishop Wilton Gregory

Excerpts:
We are the ones, whether through ignorance or lack of vigilance, or – God forbid – with knowledge, who allowed priest abusers to remain in ministry and reassigned them to communities where they continued to abuse.

We are the ones who worried more about the possibility of scandal than in bringing about the kind of openness that helps prevent abuse.

And we are the ones who, at times, responded to victims and their families as adversaries and not as suffering members of the Church.

Bishops' Spokesman Shielded gay Priests ( no longer on line) - Washington times - June 13, 2002

Decision in Dallas, National Catholic Register, June 22-29, 2002
...Archbishop Chaput said homosexuals in the priesthood should not be viewed as a primary cause of the sexual abuse scandal... The more pertinent issue, he said, has been the history of American priests and bishops succumbing to cultural pressure for leniency on many Church teachings pertaining to sex and marriage.

"We've seen a permissiveness regarding contraception and pre-marital sex, and the same priests who allow that can easily slip into giving themselves permission regarding other issues of sexual moralities," Archbishop Chaput said. "It's a spirit that says each person and priest can decide individually what to accept in terms of Church teachings."

Faith, Hope and Dallas, National Catholic Register, June 22-29, 2002
Interview with Bishop Timothy Dolan, auxiliary bishop of St. Louis

"In a way, thanks be to God that people are horrified by this terrible scandal. It is at odds with human decency, it is at odds with the Gospel, it is particularly at odds with everything the priestly vocation stands for. It also shows again how far off the mark we've gotten when it comes to the Church's whole teaching on chastity, how far we have strayed from the Church's beautiful teaching on sexual love. What's a painful paradox is that many of the people who find this [scandal] most horrible don't make the connection that so are other sexual aberrations."

Catholic Scandals: A Crisis for Celibacy? The Real Story Behind Clerical "Pedophilia" & What It Really Means, by Leon J. Podles in Touchstone, April 2002 "Most men are outraged by a homosexual advance to a youth, not only because it is wrong, but also because it encourages the youth to deviate from heterosexuality, a crucial constituent of masculinity. The absence of this normal male outrage among bishops and other religious leaders has been astonishing and disquieting, and is a symptom of another and deeper problem, a lack of masculinity.

"The difficulties with celibacy are simply an egregious manifestation of a general lack of discipline in the Church, a discipline that must be mostly self-discipline, and a symptom of a laxity and worldliness that were encouraged by some of the changes after the Second Vatican Council."

Sex Abuse Wars: How CBS, ABC, NBC and the Gay Movement Suppress Free Speech, Fred Martinez, Newsmax.com, June 26, 2002
Exposes media bias in reporting of the bishops' Dallas meeting and the shutdown by the media and many bishops of discussion of the homosexual and dissent issues. Also reveals that aggressive attempts will be made by the media and homosexual activists to sabatoge the Apostolic Visitation of the seminaries.

Excerpts:
"With the Apostolic Visitations of U.S. seminaries expected to begin in August [and expected to last for two years], Dignity/USA and other church reform groups are going to be monitoring to see whether Vatican leaders will quietly attempt to purge gay men from the priesthood. GLAAD will be working closely with Dignity and our respective contacts inside the church to make sure the media are closely monitoring the process and outcomes of these visitations.”

Time‘s May 20 issue in its preparation for the Apostolic Visitations of U.S. seminaries showed its strategy by using words like "hate" and "scapegoat" to color faithful Catholics and the Church's attempt to uphold its 20-centuries-old moral teachings in its own seminaries. The piece quoted a homosexual priest saying, "We're all sort of like Anne Frank's family, up in the attic, waiting for the Nazis to come."

Web Sites on church scandals and homosexuality
LifeSite reports on the issue
Why is LifeSite reporting on this issue?