A five-year study commissioned by the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops to provide a definitive answer to what caused the church’s sexual abuse crisis has concluded that neither the all-male celibate priesthood nor homosexuality were to blame.
Instead, the report says, the abuse occurred because priests who were poorly prepared and monitored, and were under stress, landed amid the social and sexual turmoil of the 1960s and ’70s.
Known occurrences of sexual abuse of minors by priests rose sharply during those decades, the report found, and the problem grew worse when the church’s hierarchy responded by showing more care for the perpetrators than the victims.
The “blame Woodstock” explanation has been floated by bishops since the church was engulfed by scandal in the United States in 2002 and by Pope Benedict XVI after it erupted in Europe in 2010.
This reminds me of something an old boss of mine once told me. "Mike," he said, "You never hire a consultant without first telling him the answer you want."
So who, exactly, paid for this study that was "commissioned by the nation's Roman Catholic bishops?"
About half was provided by the bishops, with additional money contributed by Catholic organizations and foundations.
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While I'm on the subject, a story in the Chicago Tribune last week reported (my emphasis):
Emboldened by a recent court ruling that ordered the Vatican to open its records about a priest accused of child sex abuse, a Minneapolis attorney has sued the Vatican on behalf of a mother whose son was molested by former Roman Catholic priest Daniel McCormack.
Announcing the suit at a news conference in Chicago on Wednesday, attorney Jeff Anderson said he had sufficient evidence to hold Pope Benedict XVI and his predecessor Pope John Paul II accountable for enabling McCormack's long pattern of child sex abuse.
What say we slow down all this talk of sainthood just a little?
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