It’s hard to ask this in a non-confrontational way, so I’ll just come out with it:
How do you square that with the modern Catholic church’s systemic support of sexual abuse of minors?
I mean this in the most inquisitive way possible. An organization’s what it does; the modern Catholic Church (leaders) have supported some horrible things. How do you separate out the good bits from the bad bits?
I appreciate it, but there's no need to be delicate: sexually abusing minors is evil. It's especially evil when a priest does it, since they hold positions of special influence and, of all people, should be best acquainted with how evil sunders the soul from God (priests are specifically trained to hear confessions, absolve people of sin, and advise them on how to avoid sin).
So that's the categorical statement.
More concretely, every adult in our archdiocese receives training on the risks of sexual abuse and I regularly hear the sex abuse scandals addressed during homilies. So it seems like the church, as an organization, is taking steps to address the issue.
But to step back and take a wider view, I think Catholicism acknowledges the brokenness of human beings, but reserves eternal judgement for God. So most serious Catholics are not going to walk away from the church because there is evil inside of priests. There is evil inside all of us. But we are called to do battle with evil. For most of us, that battle is within our own hearts, but certainly we must also root out systemic evil within the Church.
And finally, I see this line of thinking a lot from atheists wrt religion, but I think it is more widely applicable. Which is this: "people have done evil in the name of (or under the banner of) this religion and I will choose to only consider that one particular thing when measuring the moral worth of this religion." So in this case, it would be "the Catholic Church facilitated the mass sexual abuse of minors, therefore it is evil and should be done away with." But I think we have to consider the good that people and groups do when measuring their moral worth. In this case, I would point to all the charitable works done by the church and its faithful as worthy of your consideration.
To see how essential this expanded consideration is, I think it helps to slot in institutions which have less emotional valence than the Catholic Church (or Christianity or whatever). For instance, there have been many cases of school teachers sexually abusing students. Yet I don't think anybody would argue that the entire institution of school should be done away with or that adherents to schooling should walk away from it. After all, school is a crucial institution where many children thrive and where most teachers are grinding out good acts on a daily basis.
> So most serious Catholics are not going to walk away from the church because there is evil inside of priests. There is evil inside all of us. But we are called to do battle with evil. For most of us, that battle is within our own hearts, but certainly we must also root out systemic evil within the Church.
I'm shooting from the hip here and I don't have CCC citations to back me up, but I want to say that the Church herself is not (and cannot be) inherently corrupt, because it is the mystical body of Christ. We must remember that actions of individual members of the Church (no matter how influential or high up they may be, even to the utmost) may be evil or disordered, but the Church will persist.
Christ included Judas among the twelve. The shenanigans some folks in the Church get up to these days don't exactly compare. Indeed, seeing that the Church has persisted these 2000 years despite schisms, etc, was a small part of what convinced me that it is the one true Church.
> How do you square that with the modern Catholic church’s systemic support of sexual abuse of minors?
I'm the first to criticize Catholicism given a chance, but ... I'm not sure that's actually a valid claim to make outside of the particular case of ... I think it was New York in the 1990s, which is a statistical outlier (at least in English-speaking countries).
There are a lot of Catholics and therefore it's unavoidable for a lot of pedophiles to be Catholics, but the same is true about teachers. Can you reasonably say "how can you support the school system given that teachers systematically sexually abuse minors"?
Remember, there are 4 kinds of lies:
- lies
- damned lies
- statistics
- things somebody said on the Internet
That’s an odd comparison to make. The ‘school system’ isn’t a monolithic system that is actively refusing to acknowledge or take action against sexual predators. Is there an example of a school district that has been shielding predators on an ongoing basis and refusing to take remedial action?
I'm an atheist and no fan of any church (or, y'know, sexual abuse) but I don't love this line of discussion because it's a real case of whataboutism.
The Cathlolic church's actions w.r.t. sexual abuse are certainly worth talking about. Their views on euthanasia (which I disagree with) are too. I don't know that they can be meaningfully discussed simultaneously within the same discussion.
Every single organization that interacted with children pre-2000 has sex scandals. Boy Scouts, myriad public school districts, the Congressional page system, youth sports. It attracts pedophiles. Now we are all much more aware of the dangers.
For me it boils down to this: the Catholic Church exists as a body of members who are all sinners- laymen and women, priests, bishops, cardinals, and the pope included. The clergy are simply functionaries within the church who serve very important roles, but are not sinless, perfect humans by any stretch of the imagination.
The way of life the Church offers along with its teachings, are what you might be able to consider the "good bits".
The "bad bits" are the members, who are sometimes clergy, who sin against God and against their neighbor.
The church used to be powerful. Being a priest included some sacrifices but it was balanced with significant social perks and power. Normal men were drawn to the role.
The church got less powerful, but they kept the restrictions on priests. Who wants to be a person with no power and no sex? People who are strange or who have ulterior motives.
If the power of the church was restored, I think the abusive priest issue would be gone in a generation. Or if they remove the sex prohibition, of course.
How do you square that with the modern Catholic church’s systemic support of sexual abuse of minors?
I mean this in the most inquisitive way possible. An organization’s what it does; the modern Catholic Church (leaders) have supported some horrible things. How do you separate out the good bits from the bad bits?