The Bishop of Tenerife has voiced the latest excuse in the Catholic pedophilia scandals, and it is a predictable one. Women have heard this claim about rape over and over again: the victim was asking for it.
His comments were that there are youngsters who want to be abused, and he compared that abuse to homosexuality, describing them both as prejudicial to society. He said that on occasions the abuse happened because the there are children who consent to it.
“There are 13 year old adolescents who are under age and who are perfectly in agreement with, and what’s more wanting it, and if you are careless they will even provoke you”, he said.
Oh, it is so hard to be a noble heterosexual man in this society, with every woman, every gay man, every child, every moist orifice, every knothole, every small animal burrow on the ground, every lemon meringue pie, every velvety wrinkle in the Pope’s cassock, all just taunting and teasing and tantalizing you, begging you to stick your penis in them. And then when you finally give in and let them have what they want, despite all your insistence that you’re doing it for their benefit, not yours, what do they do? They cry rape, or lock you up for child abuse, or the Vatican dry cleaning service sends you an extravagant bill.
It’s just so unfair!
Lemon meringue pie? Are you sure?
Keyboard and monitor both write-offs now.
Ironically, you will now be getting a dry-cleaning bill from me.
You’ll get my lemon meringue pie when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.
there are youngsters who want to be abused
what the fuck am I reading
I think he must’ve meant apple pie. [SFW]
I think I want to go wash my brain now; this nonsense beats the Catholic Church’s 50-day moving nonsense average by quite a bit.
His comments were that there are youngsters who want to be abused
I think this priest wants a punch to the throat.
Don’t forget doughnuts… the whores of the pastry world.
What is this I don’t even
*headdesk*
This story has a 2007 dateline, so it really is not the “latest” excuse, just lamentable.
You know that you are on your way to defeat when you begin to defend the indefensible. The RCC has been on its way to defeat since before it teamed up with the Roman Empire. Some catastrophes just unfold more slowly.
As much as I love lemon meringue pie… no. Just no.
It’s not unknown for children to initiate sexual encounters with adults.
Why anyone thinks this is any excuse, even when it happens (vs. is projected onto them, which I suspect is more common), is beyond me.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p
awhaaaaaaa? …
Another lesson for the Catholic Church: when you’re in a hole (no pun intended) stop digging. But I guess they’re not good at learning lessons.
What
the
Fuck?
Don’t know about anyone else’s computer/browser, but with mine there’s a line break after “every wrinkle in the Pope’s” and then you have to scan back to…”cassock.”
Timing is everything in comedy.
Watching catholics self-destruct has become quite amusing of late.
Obviously, what the Catholic hierarchy wants is gagging victims.
(For non-British English speakers, refer to http://www.peevish.co.uk/slang/g.htm)
That’s, uhm, wow, just wow. I thought it might match with NAMBLA’s ethos, but according to Wikipedia, that high-level RCC excuse would even be rejected by NAMBLA who oppose “corporal punishment, rape, and kidnapping, and [have] declared that sexual exploitation is grounds for expulsion from the group“. Bernando Álvarez is a moral monster!
I also ran across this beaut by fulminating ol’ Donohue:
Do you think that might have been a Freudian slip?
Can’t wait for the vatican to “distance themselves from these comments”. If only they would kindly distance themselves from planet earth
Well the muslims have the solution to this problem:
the burka.
its to cover up so that men, who are not able to control themselves, are not tempted.
maybe the catholic church should adopt the burka for all moist orifices, lemon meringue pies and the popes wrinkly bits???
Gee, anybody else hear the story on NPR this morning about Catholics now dominating appointments to the judicial bench because of their “reliable” conservatism? Wonder what would happen if the church threatened to withhold communion from judges who try sex abuse cases.
One after another after another. I don’t think I can read this blog anymore for a while, I’m getting too depressed. Maybe this one will be fired? How much absurdity and ignorance can the Catholic Church stand for that doesn’t even relate to its official absurdity and ignorance?
Too bad those priests weren’t raised in a moral setting.
Ugh… I don’t have words to express my disgust and revulsion.
Every day it’s something different – it’s society’s fault, it’s the homosexuals’ fault, it’s the sexual revolution’s fault, it’s secularism’s fault, it’s the fault of an invisible host of hellspawned demons secretly infesting the Vatican. We’re being persecuted just like the Jews that we spent all those centuries persecuting.
That bishops and cardinals and lay filth like Bill Donohue can show their faces day after day defending child rapists and those who covered up and enabled their crimes makes me feel ill.
I can’t understand how there is a single fucking layperson left in the Catholic church. In this day and age of paedophile hysteria, anti-paedophile vigilantism and sex-offender registries, why the fuck haven’t people deserted the very place that has institutionalised child rape like no other institution in history?
It must take a hell of a strong stomach to keep fronting up to mass every Sunday.
What Glen@12 said.
Children can an do initiate sexual relations, and they can and do consent at times when the adult initiates it. That’s why the crime of statutory rape doesn’t give a rats about who started what or what consent was present or absent (on the part of the child – if you can prove, as the adult, that you did not consent, then that’s obviously a valid defence).
This is particularly common (as far as these things go) in senior high schools with younger teachers. In particular, attractive young male teachers are generally encouraged to never be alone with the older female students.
Still – this is rare. Very rare. To even remotely consider the tens of thousands of documented abuse cases in the last few decades to be consensual is bordering on the insane.
Leaving their cash behind for the victims and all other oppressed folks, thankee.
I’ve read conservative estimates that put it somewhere in the vicinity of a trillion dollars.
The constant excuses and whinefests in the news from Catholic authorities make me think of this video:
Lonely Island
Can’t ruin those robes… what else can they use? C’mere, little Timmy.
It is clear that, like most of the rest of his repugnant ilk, this cretin parted ways with both reason and morality some time ago.
The ‘they was askin’ fur it, Guv.’ (A.K.A The ‘They all want it really, little minxs’ theory of female sexuality) defence to rape has never held water with any thinking person, and even the law got around to realising the fact a while ago (in most cases but, shamefully, not all).
If it is considered repugnant drivel when applied to the rape of women, why would this idiot consider it an effective excuse for child rape? I fear the answer is that a large portion of the Church hierarchy honestly believes that they are answerable only to their fiction of a god. Since, at some level, they know that god is fictional, they have come to feel that anything goes.
A proposed fix, ambulocetacean. Your spelling may vary!
The age of consent in Vatican City is 12 years old.
Has anybody named Benny the Rat in a criminal suit yet? One of the abusers that Joe Ratzinger knew about, and moved? Can, and will any agency, like Interpol, arrest him if he leaves the Vatican?
This sounds suspiciously like an attempt at self-defence. I suggest someone investigates the going-ons in the churches of the Canary islands.
Fear not about the age of the article; the bishop in question is still a bishop (no ramifications for the statement) and still making pathetic excuses, so it’s just as relevant.
This is from Dec. 2007. Why is this news now?
Wow, with yesterday’s and today’s posts, it’s just depressing. I can’t even tell whether Fulton is really the skeeviest thing I’ve seen anymore.
disgusting repulsive revolting insane
When I was a kid, I wanted to jump off the roof with a bed sheet as a parachute. Luckily, a responsible adult was nearby to prevent me from doing harm to myself. But I guess that’s too much to expect from a priest.
“There are 13 year old adolescents who are under age and who are perfectly in agreement with, and what’s more wanting it, and if you are careless they will even provoke you.”
I’ve officially just heard the worst possible thing you could say in the world, ever.
with spokesswine like these, how is it the catholic church has not yet collapsed under the weight of its own batshit insanity?
I have to agree with the Bishop of Tenerife.
It is literally a daily problem for me as I causually saunter down the street. Babies in prams wearing short onesies, toddlers with their seductive pacifiers, young children with their erotic enthusiasm and merriment, and worst of all the tween/young teens with their pubescent charms. Oh the torture. I saw a 12 year old the other day and he/she (delete as most offensive) gave me a come hither look and asked me for an “ice cream”. We all know what he/she meant.
When I was a Catholic Priest there was this one altar boy who insisted on wearing a short cassock. He would always give me a little wink when I started mass. It was his wickedness that lead me on, I, as a man of the cloth, am completely blameless.
The only decent thing is for us to adopt the clothing styles of those evil heathens the muslims. If everyone were forced to wear burkas then I would in no way be aroused by these wicked tempters. I also recommend that people cover curved table legs and the like unless they cause unrest.
Excuse me, I have a meeting with the Parish Women’s Rape Recovery and Dogging Group.
Louis
P.S. Do I really need a sarcasm disclaimer? There is no way any comment can be made on this in anything other than a sarcastic manner. These priests cannot even be said to be sane enough to merit serious verbal engagement. Serious violent boot to the bollocks engagement is, however, a different matter. I’m a big fan of educating child molesters and their apologists by means of a size twelve shoe being applied to their gentleman fruit with some venom. Repeatedly. Until they get it.
Louis @#41:
I realise your post was satire, but that was really a bit tasteless. Child rape is not funny.
I wish I possessed the ability, or the reason, the feign surprise…
Sorry I am at work. No time to read the entire comment section but what are the professional psychiatric and psychological saying about these excremental utterances?
I know it’s been said before, but it bears repeating – THIS IS FROM 2007!
It’s reprehensible on every level, yes, but it’s not a response to, or part of, the “current wave” of allegations. (One could say it’s evidence that child molestation isn’t so much a wave phenomenon as a steady and constant baseline in the Catholic Church, though.)
True is you think there was ever a pause in allegations.
Let’s just think of it as a response to the long standing and continual allegations of child rape in the Catholic Church, done in 2007.
Yeah, that was the gist of the, uh, second sentence of that paragraph…
(PS: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawm1qdPyIyo9dWkGS-I-MYNapFltfY6flWE is not my real name)
You’re right Walton, it’s not funny. Guess what, the intent of the post was not to joke about child rape. Try again. This time for reading comprehension.
As Terry Pratchett has regularly said, the opposite of “funny” is not serious, it’s “not funny”. I was lampooning the excorable views of the rape apologists, the satire highlights their insanity, it doesn’t minimise the horror of the acts they are apologising for. The contortions of the priesthood are funny, as is the woeful, hypocritical religious privilege that persists globally and permits this sort of nonsense to be taken as a serious view. Dealing with these people seriously is one option. Mocking them, laughing at them, roundly satirising their abhorrent bullshit is another. Humour doesn’t trivialise (a common misconception), it enlightens. It’s a method for deconstructing a situation. Humour is serious business.
Louis
Yes… but for the sake of accuracy, PZ should probably re-word the link… the rest of the post stands fairly well at pointing out the despicable depths to which church leaders will go to defend their behavior, both now and prior.
So I’d ask for a simple correction to the wording of the link, removing the indication that it is the “latest excuse in the catholic pedophilia scandals”.
At least I now have the official form with which to resign my 20 year dormant membership in this horrid organization (thanks, PZ!).
Now I have to go rub myself with some lemon meringue…
It is evidence of how twisted the thinking and rationalizations of the administrators in the Catholic Church have been this entire time. It shows that it is indeed NOT a case of “we didn’t know” but instead a case of “we knew and we didn’t care”. The fact that he is STILL a bishop in good standing, three years after making such a horrifying statement, is evidence that not only did they not know and not care, they STILL don’t care. The fact that only a week ago he said ‘Two thirds of child sex abuse takes place in the family environment but nobody is calling for all adults to be kept away from children, yet there is an agenda to do just that with priests…There is a clear motive behind the current campaign to keep cases that occurred, in some instances, 50 years ago in the limelight’ shows that he has not changed his thinking at all. I think it’s even more damning that this story is three years old, because it proves that the Catholic church isn’t reeling from something new and heretofore unknown to the administration, but instead is something they have been sickly justifying for a long, long time.
Sure, but it bears repeating that he is still making apologies for it, as Carlie pointed out @34.
fair enough
Ahem – oh. Sorry, Celtic. I see your point @49, and I do agree with it.
I think Glen D (@13) makes an important point: Children — teens certainly, but younger children as well — are sexual beings in their own right, and we ignore that at our peril. I don’t doubt that sexually precocious children occasionally initiate some sort of intimacy with adults in their lives, and I further don’t doubt that sexually repressed men living lives of enforced celibacy might be more vulnerable than most to these advances.
But, as robertdw points out (@27), such cases are almost certainly rare, and can’t account for more than a tiny fraction of the epidemic of child sexual abuse in the RCC. Also, of course, it’s absolutely not excuse, because (as tsg points out @38) it’s up to the adults to react responsibly in the face of children’s potentially risky behavior. We’re meant to take care of our kids, not take advantage of them.
Still, I think the extent to which we’re willfully blind to the sexual nature of young people goes hand in hand with the push for ignorance-only sex education curricula: We, as a culture, are just broadly squeamish about even thinking about teh seks, and as long as we’re in denial about how fundamental — and how normal — sexuality is to the human condition, we’ll continue to make stupid public policy around sexuality, and continue to react stupidly to social problems related to sex… like, for instance, a frakkin’ epidemic of child sex abuse within a major religious institution, to name just one instance.
IMHO, if we could just look at our own involvement with sexuality honestly, we’d all be better off in myriads of ways. Of course, a society capable of doing that would never tolerate or support a perverse institution like priestly celibacy in the first place.
I had a brief moment of horror when I got as far as “pope’s” where I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what the next word would be.
No, I know. I apologise: I know you were not intending to joke about child rape, and I didn’t mean to accuse you of doing so.
Amen
oh wait
Hell yeah
In fairness to the loathsome bishop, I have noticed that some of my Catholic homeschool acquaintances manage to raise daughters who know so little about sexuality that they cause considerable discomfort to the men around them. One attractive teen was given to sitting practically on a 40-something friend’s lap while wearing short shorts. He actually talked with me about how she was going to someday be putting herself in dangerous situations without even realizing it. It got better after I spoke with her mother about how her daughter’s behavior was inconsiderate and dangerous, but one shouldn’t raise kids to 17 who know so little about bodily responses.
On a related skeevy note, these friends also had a book for their daughters about how the marital bed contained not only the couple, but also JESUS and EVERY previous sex partner the woman had ever had. It didn’t seem to address the possibility that the guy would have had previous sex partners who might also be hanging around. My homeschooled teen kids thought the idea of this massive orgy on one’s wedding night was just hysterical and pretty strange.
All adults should be able to restrain themselves from sexual behavior with a minor, but it’s also helpful to teach one’s kids that they should behave themselves appropriately. It sort of links with the condoms and seat belt discussion on the other thread.
Now back to the lemon meringue… (unless the kids find me, that is.)
It is telling, though, that it is this old. It reminds us that “law and order” politicians and prosecutors the world over have had more than enough time to do something. Fuck, people have been making fun of the Church for this stuff for what, decades? Centuries? It is something everyone knew about a long time before any of us were born. It seems these scandals exist in some kind of context vacuum. The Church, the laity, the media and the governments shake there heads solemnly and everyone assumes those rascals learned their lesson.
Now there is evidence that it has been a continuous, international conspiracy. Hard evidence that it goes all the way to the top. And nothing happens. It doesn’t matter what horrible things these priests say. Most of the people that need to be impressed will not hear or see any of the press and those that do will have handy excuses or go straight to denial.
Nothing is going to happen. There is an op/ed on the NYTimes website by some woman claiming to be a catholic. She wonders what can be done. Sadly, the comments there have been shut down at 91 comments. Too many people have too much of there lives wrapped up in this thing to leave the church and a lot of rapists and abettors are going to continue wallowing in fine, gilded linen till they die, with full honors.
I have no doubt whatsoever that my great-great-great grandchildren will hear such stories about whatever church in the world has the largest membership at that time. They will shake their heads and wonder what anyone can do.
But ambook, it shouldn’t matter if a 13 year old is pole dancing naked while singing “sex me up” in front of a priest; the only proper adult response would be to say “Stop that right now and get your clothes on”. Yes, children should be taught how to act appropriately, but that’s entirely orthogonal to how adults respond to them. What you’re saying veers right into the nest of victim-blaming: “Oh, she shouldn’t have worn such a short skirt”. “Oh, he should have known better than to go back to the private part of the rectory with the priest”. I give no quarter in these situations, full stop. There is no room for being “led on” by a child.
Carlie – Yes, I KNOW (and I said) that it doesn’t matter what the kid does. And I know that it’s orthogonal to how adults respond to the kid. The point is that, in the name of preserving innocence, Catholics can raise kids who are stupidly provocative to responsible adults and are totally unable to protect themselves from predators. That’s different from whether the RCC protects said predators, but it’s all part of the same delusional system of thinking about sexuality and responsibility.
One of the funniest experiences I ever had with these particular folks was the dad giving me a lecture on how I didn’t really understand what pornography did to men. (Uh, sorry Charlie, I think I do – it’s not a particularly subtle thing.) The clueless nature of these folks would be funny were it not for how it impacts the rest of us.
I know it’s a bit pedantic and doesn’t really change the point… i just like to be accurate if possible… gives the apologists less to latch on to to distract from the actual point.
Walton #57,
Fairy Nuff. Let’s shake hands and go down the pub. ;-)
Louis
I don’t think that was ambook’s point. First, as a parent I can tell you that correcting the behavior of another person’s child, especially one so close to adulthood, and most especially for behavior that is inappropriate out of naivete, is an awkward moment at best. Second, yes, adults should not take advantage of that situation, but some will so it is in the children’s best interests to protect themselves. Stealing is wrong and forgetting to lock your door does not excuse it, but you should lock your door anyway.
@Louis, #41 – You consistently give me belly laughs. . . it’s good you’re coming ’round more!
tsg – I get the point, but I do disagree with it in this instance. When it comes to issues of sexual abuse, study after study shows that statistically, the behavior or activity or appearance of the victim really has little to no correlation with the abuse itself. Telling someone that they should lock their door is useless advice if just as many homes get broken into with locks as without, and can be worse than useless if the fact that it was unlocked is later used against them. I don’t think that discussion has any place here at all, and runs the danger of providing a justification/victim-blaming excuse as well. What ambook has seen is an example of parents not teaching their own kids how to properly interact with others, but I don’t think it’s germane to the abuse situation.
I don’t think it was meant to be.
ambook (@62):
This is a big part of what I was getting at @55, except that I see it in a somewhat larger context: As long as we won’t talk openly about sexuality at all, let alone about young people’s sexuality, we’re at risk. If we can’t even allow ourselves to imagine a child behaving provocatively, how can we counsel them not to? Or, more to the point, not to accidentally behave provocatively through naivete? For that matter, how can we talk to adults about how to respond appropriately to the (perceived) provocative behavior of children. Not that succumbing to a child’s sexual “wiles” is ever the appropriate response, of course, but short of predation, there are better and worse way to handle that situation… but we can only discuss them if we first admit the situation exists.
The more I think about it, the more I think humans’ perverse mix of shame and denial about all things sexual is at the root of a surprising number of social problems and dysfunctions.
tsg (@66):
QFT!
tsg – I guess my trigger was set off by the fact that it’s all too common for people to connect those two particular types of things.
Oh damn. I’m never going to be able to eat lemon meringue pie again. PZ, why did you do that?
Listening to the news yesterday, the Catholic lawyers were claiming that the Pope/Vatican have no control over the bishops and therefor the Vatican cannot be sued for actions of the bishops. It’s a wonder they could talk at all while trying so hard to keep a straight face while they said it.
The only proper action now or ever was the Catholic Church calling the police every time they discovered an instance of abuse and turning over all information. Anything short of that is aiding and abetting.
Carlie:
I hit Submit on my post @70 before I saw yours @68. I hope it’s clear, but just in case it isn’t: I’m not attributing the RCC abuse scandal to poor sex education, nor am I in any sense excusing it or exculpating the offenders or their protectors.
It’s just that I see the abuse scandal in the larger context of a society that goes to great pains to keep itself in denial about sexuality. IMHO, if we were a bit more honest with ourselves about our sexual nature, many of the social problems related to sex could be averted, and we’d be better able, as a society, to respond to those that did occur.
IOW, our ignorance-only approach to sex almost certainly didn’t cause the abuse scandal (and absolutely certainly doesn’t excuse it), but I fear it complicates our ability to talk about it meaningfully, and to respond to it with sensible public policy.
I have a tendency to always try to move from particular stories toward broader social implications, and I fear sometimes that makes me seem insensitive about the immediate stories. I promise that’s not my intent.
Ed Brayton presents another, more recent, case study in Catholic excuse generation.
If any of these flailings gets any perceptible traction in the media/public opinion, expect to see it on billboards and late-nite informercials at saturation levels.
Imagine the prayers rising from the cathedrals:
“Oh Lord, if Thou wast willing to slay Michael Jackson to help get Gov. Mark ‘Appalachian Trail’ Sanford out of the headlines, willst Thou not today ease Thy servants’ suffering? Please, whackest Thou Brangelina/Barack/Billy Graham, and soonest!”
Bill, I see your point, and I guess my point is a data bit within yours: it’s almost impossible to talk about the two topics of a)personal responsibility of victims and b)influences on predators without putting them together to equal “he/she asked for it”. That’s true even when the broader picture is “What does the Catholic church teach about sex in general”, because as soon as a and b are anywhere near each other they glom onto each other like the opposite poles of a magnet.
I appreciate the new links; I’ll add them to my running post about Catholic hierarchical paranoia on this issue:
http://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2010/04/pope-benedict-goes-paranoid-with-anti.html
My jaw is on the floor.
You know, every time someone in the Catholic Church says or does something newly appalling regarding the child rape scandal, I keep thinking, “Well, that’s it. This can’t possibly get any worse.” And then it gets worse. Just the other day, Nurse Ingrid and I were joking about how any day now, the Church was going to start using “the kids were just asking for it” as their latest excuse.
It was a joke! A joke! For fuck’s sake! They’re actually saying that now? I am now reluctant to make any more jokes about how at least the Church isn’t saying or doing X… out of an irrational superstitious fear that joking about it will make it happen.
For a group to be so deluded that they believe in a god/trinity it is not such a stretch that they would also be delusional about their interactions with humans. As they are also cowards makes them interact with the more vulnerable humans in a most disgusting (to rational people) way.
Too bad that hell doesn’t exist.
I’ve never used these words more aptly: HOLY FUCK!
Greta Christina #77,
NooooOOOOOoooo! Don’t stop joking, use your powers for good. Make jokes about how the Pope’s going to get prosecuted along with all the other priestly apologists, enablers and perpetrators of child rape. Make jokes about how the catholic church (which claims to speak for god and the sonny jesus etc) is about to sell off it’s cathedrals and such like to become national monuments owned by the state, and use the money (and all it’s other riches) to fund contraception and education programmes, combined with gifts of agricultural kit to the third world of course.
Whilst you’re at it could you also make jokes about me winning the lottery a few times on rollover nights? I’d use the money for good causes…honest. ;-)
Louis
P.S. Love the blog btw.
Had a conversation with AnonymousRelativeWhoHangsOutWithThesePeople about this.
She said something to the effect of ‘realistically, if it’s not their kid, they’re not going to care about it’. That, plus a comment I’ve seen on another site that said something to the effect of ‘Well, they’re not going to leave the church because they want to go to heaven’.
Which flabbergasted me. Not only does their vaunted ‘heaven’ not exist, but these idiots apparently think that sucking up to their religion is more important than justice.
Religion is affecting these people’s ability to do the right thing.
Little by little, these revelations about priestly rapes and RCC excuses are making an impact. I’ve been pointing out numerous articles to my very catholic parents about the rape of children by priests in the RCC and the various cover ups. I just learned over the weekend that they have stopped donating money or time to their diocese. May not sound like much to some or most of you, but for mom and dad to tell their parish priest ‘no’ to any further financial support for the archdiocese is a huge act of defiance for them. I don’t see them ever leaving the RCC, especially as they near age 80, but it’s rewarding to see their eyes open wider to the world around them even at that advanced age.
Carlie (@75):
Yeah, I get that… but in this case, the bad guys are already saying “he/she asked for it.” All I’m saying is that “oh, no, she/he didn’t, because sex is dirty and children are too pure to behave that way” is a bad way of unpacking the wrongness of the bad guys’ claims. Not, mind you, that I’m saying you (or really any of our faithful Pharyngulans) take that position… but I do fear there’s a thick vein of sexual denialism in our culture that leads lots of others to that place.
A few days ago, Cardinal Cañizares said “The recents scandals of pederastia are only attacks against the Catholick Church, that pretends that the people doesn’t talk about God, but other things.
Last year he said: The pederastia in Ireland is irrelevant when it’s compared with the true crime: abortion.
Sure it is far better for the Roman Catholic ChurchTM clergy to scape-goat little children for their own crimes rather than taking personal reponsibility. What’s next, blaming Jews as they used to (and some members of the clergy still do)?
Bill, I agree with you. Our incidence of sex abuse would go down if we educated children early about sex, sexual feelings, the names and functions of appropriate parts, and made them feel comfortable telling when something happened (and with the right words so there are fewer misunderstandings).
I would hope no one is saying that specifically, but children are for the most part too young to understand that they are behaving sexually. They are very often seduced and one of the most common claims made by molesters is that the child liked it or was coming on to them. I distinctly remember a friend of a person I knew when *I* was a child who I later found was arrested for molesting a third grade girl.
His response.
“But she asked me to marry her.”
Tip for the spiritual seeker #189
When you hear yourself say, ‘Them kids were asking to be molested’. You may have chosen the wrong path to enlightenment.
Ol’ Greg (@86):
Right. And precisely because they don’t understand that they’re behaving sexually, it especially behooves us (by which I mean adult society) to understand it ourselves, so we can teach about that behavior, and moderate it, and better understand our own reactions to it. Pretending it’s not sexual behavior, or asserting that it’s morally wrong on the part of the child, extinguishes our ability to react to it in appropriate ways.
I know full well that “she [or he] came on to me” is almost always a lie, and even when it’s not, in never an excuse… but constructive responses to lies and excuses need to be based on truth, and the truth is that humans, including even children, have a sexual nature.
The fact that this guy could even imagine that might be an excuse worth offering is evidence of how broadly fucked up our society is about sexuality. Maybe he’s just an evil bastard, and his excuse was a flat-out lie, and nothing would’ve stopped him from molesting… but suppose the girl actually did say or do something — perfectly innocently and without understanding it — that confused him? If we had a saner culture, somebody would already have talked to him about the fact that little kids start to feel things before they really understand them, and they sometimes repeat things they’ve heard grownups say, and none of that ever means you have permission to touch them.
Maybe, just maybe, in 1 out of 1000 cases, that might make a difference (and, of course, saving even one child is a victory). But in any case, a society full of people capable of having that sort of conversation about children’s emerging sexuality would be a healthier society in many, many ways.
I’d have thought that inappropriate attention from kids is an occupational hazard for anyone who works with them. I certainly remember having crushes on a couple of my teachers, and while for me (as I expect for most) this didn’t go beyond yearning and fantasy, a minority of kids will flirt. Anyone who doesn’t understand that you don’t take advantage of this is a moral imbecile. Remind me again: what is it that priests are supposed to teach the rest of us, because they know best?
What makes this particularly tragic is that a child who genuinely comes on to an adult may be that way because of earlier abuse. Their sense of boundaries has been literally fucked up. The last thing such a victim needs is to be victimised again!
Nice article from Paula Kirby here:
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/paula_kirby/2010/04/and_still_they_keep_digging.html
I have to wonder just WTF the apologists for priestly child rape and the churchly cover-ups of same think they’re going to achieve with such disgusting drivel.
It’s almost like saying “GETCHA FREE PITCHFORKS AND TORCHES HERE! BTW, I’ll be up at the old windmill if you need me.”
Like Carlie said at #61
Of course tweens and teens are curious about sex but that’s no excuse for priests fucking them. The fact that so many posters here are talking about child sexuality shows just how easy it is for the RCC to shift focus away from their crimes.
Also, I’d like to know exactly what percentage of young boys and girls actually want to lose their virginity to a fat old gross priest.
Sounds to me like this douchebag is an inhuman monster.
I won’t speculate as to what he might be asking for by saying something so obscene. I leave that exercise to your fruitful imaginations.
As to the question of Ratzinger actually being arrested or held accountable for his part in this massive criminal conspiracy, I wouldn’t bet on it.
The best we can really hope for is to make it impossible for him to leave his house-city and let the reputation of the church sink further down the sewer pipes.
So, this is an old Onion article reified.
Ed Brayton, has’s an op-ed from the moonie times by a child-rape apologi–er, writer from Catholic World Report that states:
You left out “rubbing the bacon”, PZ.
Not much more to contribute beyond the revulsion I see here, except to express my sympathy for the deluded faithful who are too afraid to recoil in appropriate horror over the moral bankruptcy of the RCC. As this muck keeps surfacing, and the stupidity increases, pehaps more eyes will finally open. The molestation problem is just the tip of the iceberg, in terms of the evil that the RCC actually perpetrates. Their activities in Africa with condoms and so forth probably make the goons in the KKK proud. I think the RCC has killed and/or intimidated more people of color than the KKK EVER did. Yeesh.
startlingmoniker @#8
You made me think of an unintentional innuendo by a man named Bill Tennant who hosted a talk show on Scottish Television in the 1970’s, that had a cookery segment by a lady called Fanny Craddock.
She had just made those very pastries and Bill said “The recipe will be on the screen in a moment …and I hope all your doughnuts turn out like Fanny’s”.
Apparently the studio audience sat in shocked silence while it dawned on the man what he had just said.
(You probably know that in the UK, fanny refers to a part of a woman’s anatomy, unlike the US use.)
Anti-Life Justifies My Hate.
Can it get any uglier? Seriously, instead of the cries of “Won’t somebody think of the children” the Church cries “We blame the children!”.
Oh, those choir boys, with their flirtatious winks, and seductive little bottoms. There’s no way we priests can be expected to resist that. Be reasonable.
Church officials have been blaming the victims for not just years, but decades (if not centuries).
I knew a woman who had a son (age 9, I think) abused by a Catholic priest. Unlike many victims’ parents, she found out about it before more than a year or two had passed. When she went to the Church to report it and see something done, the (Bishop or Monsignor, I’m not sure) she talked to said “Well, Mrs. Jones, you are aware that the age of reason is 7. As your son is above the age of reason, we really must explore what he did to cause this good man to make such a mistake with him.”
My reaction to hearing her tell me about that was to reply “Oh, well, Father, isn’t your priest also above the age of reason, as well as the age of consent? Shouldn’t we be looking at his behavior as a responsible adult?”
This was a decade ago. My quotes may be slightly inaccurate, but the gist is correct. I am sure that the “what he did to cause this good man to make such a mistake” is accurate.
She was too dumbfounded by the B/M’s remark to respond appropriately at the time, unfortunately.
eruvadhril @99:
Hey, now, Glorious Godfrey and the Justifiers at least worked for an honest Evil Overlord!
Darkseid was straight up about Ruling the Universe.
Someone may have already brought this up, but if not, I will. And if they have, well, I’ll bring it up again, dagnabbit!
There is perhaps a small germ of truth in what this guy said. I have known many, many gay men who, back when they were teenagers, had a strong sexual interest in older men. So it is plausible.
That said, it also doesn’t really matter. A 16yo who hooks up with a 26yo he met while out and about (as what happened with my best friend when he was 16), is miles away from someone’s priest having a go at them. Even if the younger person is coming on to the priest, it was the priest’s duty to refuse. The power imbalance there is too great.
Well the muslims have the solution to this problem:
the burka.
I don’t know it used to be required that women and girls covered there head in church. Maybe the priests should cover their fricken heads.