SEXUAL ABUSE

BY CATHOLIC CHURCH

SEX PRIESTS AND SECRET CODES

The book, Sex, Priests and Secret Codes cannot be recommended enough.  Though one of its authors, Thomas P Doyle, is a priest it thoroughly exposes the sexual corruption that is so much a part of modern Catholicism and has always been a part of Catholicism.  Here is a synopsis of many of its salient points.  

The bishops worked to cover up child sexual abuse by priests and this amounted to a conspiracy but not always a wilful one (Preface x).  It says that though the Church never secretly gave out documents on the problem of solicitation, priests using the confessional to have sex with children and adults, this all changed in 1922 with a secret Vatican document that has been never been uncovered and also in 1962 with Pope John XXIII who approved a secret document on the subject (page 47).  The sudden need for secrecy shows that the popes knew their documents were evil.  The book says the Church never even published the 1962 decree in the legal bulletin of the Vatican Acta Apostolicae Sedis.  Evidently the Church was extremely embarrassed by the document and knew what the world would have thought!  It was sent to every bishop and religious superior in the world with the command to keep it only in the secret archives out of sight. 

The book gives evidence from the letter of Bishop Francis Leipzig from Washington that the 1922 document decreed that if a priest or religious abused a child sexually only the Holy Office or the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith should deal with it (page 48).  My comments are thus, why this congregation which had to do with doctrine not discipline?Clearly the Church believed this congregation should take care of it for its job was to keep giving the world a good impression of the Church even if it was false - the Church knew how scandal in the Church weakened and often took away the faith of believers. The purpose was not to serve justice but to keep up the appearances for the sake of the doctrine of the Church.

The Vatican knew it was evil to demand that the cases be dealt with a body in Rome.  Yet it demanded it to prevent objectivity and to make sure the Church would be able to cover it up and distort the evidence. It is absurd as having a court in Australia dealing with a crime committed in Ireland.  It isn’t even fair.   And secondly, the Vatican knew that the Congregation wasn’t fit to deal with the complaints for it had no legal or psychological competence – its role being purely theological.  The 1962 Church law demanded a secrecy in relation to abuse cases involving solicitation that never was known in the Church before and which didn’t fit the 1917 canon law which demanded no more than secrecy when it was necessary to protect reputations and then within reason. Page 50 tells us that the evil 1962 document was upheld as valid and in force until May 2001 by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.  I would add that the Congregation then was headed by the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger now Pope Benedict XVI and probably the future Pope St Benedict XVI.  The Congregation issued Sacramentorum Sanctitatis Tutela which stated this and was also sent to every bishop in the world.  The Congregation keeps the information it has in secret archives that no outsider can get access to (page 54).  No doubt this contributed to many victims failing to bring their abusers to justice successfully.  Each diocese is ordered to keep its records of abuse under lock and key and only the bishop has access to them (page 54, page 135). 

Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles lied under oath that he knew of no priest between 1962 and 1985 who broke his vow of celibacy and when he was shown documents he had written to the police proving that he knew of clerical sex abuse in 2004 he pretended that he had forgotten about this (page 179).  Page 191 tells us that the 1917 Code of Canon Law forbids taking the clergy to a civil court. 

Saint Pius X declared in 1906 that the pastors have authority over the flock and the flock must allow themselves to obey and be led with docility by these men (page 240).  Canon 119 of the 1917 Code of Canon Law say that the faithful owe reverence to the clergy and if they don’t give it then it is a sin of sacrilege. The Council of Trent said in its Catechism that bishops and priests are greater than the angels and are gods for they have the powers of God and they surpass all earthy dignities (page 237). This glorification of the priest and bishop was very instrumental in getting the victims they abused to be silent.  Who would dare accuse such gods?  The victims were left blaming themselves. 

In page 211 we read that in 1980 that a Catholic priest conducted a study of fifty homosexual priests and found that only 2 of them were not having sex at that time.  11 of the participants had 500 or more sexual partners.  9 of them had fewer than 10.  And 49 of them said that they were not going to stop having gay sex.  40 to 50 per cent of priests are homosexual and the majority of them are having sex (page 211).  About 70 to 90 per cent of the victims of child abusing priests are boys which shows that priests more than any other category tend to go for boys (page 211).. 

Page 271 says that a high 7.6 per cent of the priests of the Boston Archdiocese were child sex abusers.  Obviously the real figure has to be much greater for many paedophiles get away with their crimes.  Now the figure is given as 10 per cent.  My comment is that these figures do not include priests who abuse adults so the percentage of abusing priests is frighteningly high.  24 per cent of the priests of Tucson Arizona in 1986 were sexual abusers (page 271).   56 of 710 priests of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles in 1991 were sexual abusers.  Los Angeles admitted it had records of abuse relating to 244 priests between 1930 and 2003 (page 271).  The real figure would have been very much higher.  The records prove what a liar Cardinal Mahony is.  Over half the parishes in the archdiocese of Los Angeles have a sex abuser priest involved with them.  My comment is that when these figures are so high in America they are bound to be higher in cultures where the Church has far more power such as rural Ireland and Poland.  It would be foolish to think that the Los Angeles problems are unique to Los Angeles.  If that archdiocese is rotten then it should be typical for every archdiocese. 

Only a few bishops have looked for forgiveness for covering up and ignoring complaints (page 273). 

The pope is certainly the richest man in the world.  Though he doesn’t own Church property he has the right and authority to sell property anywhere in the world (page 253).  The power to sell property is more important than actually owning it and we recall what Christ said about the rich.  He said that they need a miracle from God to get into Heaven.  He said that it is impossible for a rich man to be saved but with God it is possible.  He was not thinking that God could save a rich man who holds on to his wealth!  If he was then he could also say, "A whore cannot get into Heaven but God can make it possible!"

This is the oath Cardinals have to take.  “I cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, promise and swear to remain from this moment and as long as I live … never to reveal to anyone whatsoever has been confided to me to keep secret and the revelation of which could cause damage or dishonour to the Holy Church” (page 205).  So Pope John Paul II and the dreadful Pope Benedict XVI took this oath to cover up child sex abuse by priests and bishops and religious when they became cardinals.  It is no wonder that in 2002, a judge who was a member of the Holy Roman Rota, the top court in the Church, wrote that bishops should not report the abuse of minors and so on by priests to the civil authorities and it is stated that the Vatican approved of this stance (page 205).

The statement on page 198 says it all.  It tells us that despite there being complaints and evidence that many priests were abusing minors these same priests ended up being promoted in the Church (page 198-199). Evidently they were being rewarded.  The book gives some accounts of sexual abuse being known and the Church pleading with the family of the victim and even the military not to prosecute the priests who were guilty of these crimes (page 195).

The book shows us that the Roman Catholic leadership is virtually a paedophile ring composed of paedophiles and their collaborators.  The book explores how when complaints arose about priests and bishops in relation to the sexual abuse of minors the accused were moved around and allowed access to children and how everything was covered up to the extent that even files and records of the complaints were destroyed.  The Church leaders were actually worse than the perpetrators of the abuse for they abetted them and gave them new opportunities and supported them all the way.

ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS CATHOLICS ARE ASKING, Tony Coffey, Harvest House Publishers, Oregon ,2006 

Breaking the Silence, One Garda's Quest to Find the Truth, Martin Ridge, Gill & Macmillan, Dublin, 2008 order from Gill & Macmillan, Hume Avenue, Park West, Dublin 12

PAPAL SIN, STRUCTURES OF DECEIT, Garry Wills, Darton Longman and Todd, London, 2000

Putting Away Childish Things, Uta Ranke-Heinmann, HarperSanFrancisco, 1992

The Womb and the Tomb, Hugh Montifiore, Fount – HarperCollins, London, 1992 

Sex, Priests and Secret Codes, Thomas P Doyle, A W R Sipe and Patrick J Wall, Volt Press, Los Angeles, California, 2006

Son of Joseph, The Parentage of Jesus, Geoffrey Parrinder, T & T Clark, Edinburgh, 1992

God Is Not Great, The Case Against Religion, Christopher Hitchens, Atlantic Books, London, 2007