I’ve written a couple of essays here on the abuse of children from the Catholic Church. I promised my readers I would continue to do so because I think that abuse of another person, especially a child, by someone in power, someone that is trusted, should be decried for what they are: A rapist.
What do we see from the Catholic Church? The same sort of excuses we’ve seen in the past from defenders of rapists: Her skirt, or top was provocative. We don;t see that defense much anymore, thankfully, and that this great organization that purports to have people live by biblical values? It’s worse.
I think about all those, within the church hierarchy our without that take a blame the victim approach to this horrible, inexcusable, exercise in power. The Pope himself has said that there are more important issues. No I’m not going to link to that, or any statements by Bishops or Cardinals that lay the blame on the victims or their families.
I won;t link to them because I don’t want to give any of them the slightest amount of credibility. Of course there are those supporters of the Church that fall in line with what they are told. I’m thinking of the Catholic League, whose president, Bill Donohue, is one of the most despicable people on the planet, having not a thread of humanity within.
On the upside, at least 12 states have begun investigations into priest abuse in the U.S. There may be more by this writing. I hope so. I would like to see all 50 states involved in the investigation into rape by priests. I not only want to see those go to prison, but that the church, as a whole be held accountable for their decision to ignore the rapists in their midst.
Is there anything more we might be able to do to show our disdain for the actions of this criminal organization? Well, of course there is, and everyone reading this knows that I may not have solution, but something that would be an earthquake of such consequence, the church may never recover.
The Catholic Church has been recognized as it’s own state since 1929 (look it up). Since then, every western leader has attended the then Pope. I’ve alway found the pretend obedience to a religious leader offensive.
But we in the U.S. may make statement that will forever change how the Roman Catholic Church is viewed. It’s really simple and yes, would create an earthquake felt around the world.
We can remove recognition of the Vatican as a state. That would encompass removing our ambassador and closing our embassy. On this side of the Atlantic, we would have to expel the ambassador from the Vatican and close their embassy in the United States.
Earthquake.
I actually receive views from throughout the world. Not a lot, as I’m just a small voice in a large ocean of viewpoints.But I’m going to ask all of you, from wherever you are to do the same tht I am willing to do.
Demand your government unrecognize the Vatican as a state. Deport all those within that state.demand that your country initiate an investigation as to the abuse of children over decades and produce a report to the same.
We, as a society, worldwide, have an opportunity to make a change to rid ourselves of an organization thats promotes pedophelia. It’s tie to take them to tsk nd end this abomination worldwide.
Conservative Skeptic 
I have a qualm about naming any act of abuse at all — all acts of no matter what description as “rape.”
The word “rape” has a specific meaning for ordinary citizens, but these molestations did not come within the ordinary meaning of the word “rape.”
Here is a clip from a recent post of mine over at Atheist Revolution:
(continued in the next answer field because I am too too long-winded)
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Part II
The priests’ abuse of little boys often took this form
• Hanging out in the bedroom with the boy in his bedtime pajamas, reading him a bedtime story, for example, and chatting him up
• That progressed to touching and fondling the child’s private parts
• The abuse usually stayed here for a long time, even years.
• It was accompanied by gifts, treats, activities, and the affection, interest, and esteem of the priest outside of the bedroom.
• Gifts were progressively age-appropriate, with gifts of food and toys giving way to gifts of money (cash, tuition, sports or music lessons), and lap-sitting giving way to outings to ball games, for example, or overnight Scouting, or overnight road trips for sports or music participation and competitions
• Eventually the fondling at bedtime progressed to oral contact in either direction (or on both sides)
• Very rarely did the abuse consist of intercourse unless the boy was gay (or had been led to believe he was gay)
• The abuse virtually never involved physical force or violence
• The abuse did always involve the psychological compulsion and domination by a powerful and respected adult over a child.
• No child can overcome the will power of an adult. They are genetically programmed to obey adults until adolescence, when they begin to resist this genetic imperative.
• The predatory adult took advantage of the child’s confusion, guilt, and shame to keep him cooperative and silent
• The child was usually unsure about his feelings and his sociological power in the circumstances. He could not tell if anyone would believe him, or what his theological consequences would be, or if God was mad at him, or if he cooperated willingly because he liked the money or attention or gifts or even the feelings. This is why most victims waited so long. Only recently has society clarified the message that we do not hold children responsible for anything that happened
(Continued in the next answer field)
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I agree with the impulse to express our detestation and anger in the strongest terms possible. I feel the same impulse too.
But I have a qualm about referring to these acts as “rape.”
I don’t care about protecting the priests, and I wish they all were at the bottom of the sea before they ever laid a hand on a little kid.
What concerns me is this:
Referring to the years-long non-violent fondling of a child, even if it switches to oral contact at adolescence, could potentially trivialize the actual rape of women and girls..
Victims of rape are raped during a violent physical attack, leaped on out of the darkness, beaten and injured, knocked to the ground, attacked with weapons, strangled, tied with ligatures,and put in fear of death.
Rapists often seek to smother their cries by stuffing cloth into their mouths, and the women swallow the cloth in order to breathe. In some cases, an entire scarf or T shirt has been recovered from the stomach and esophagus.
With their dirty, huge, ragged fingernails, rapists claw gouges in their throats and mouths when they stuff their hands into their mouths to keep them quiet. The vagina and rectum are also clawed in this way. They are exposed to STDs and pregnancy.
They are repeatedly threatened with death, and that fear of murder is one of the lingering horrors of being raped.
I have never been threatened or offered any violence by any man, stranger or otherwise.
But I wince when I hear the meek, cowardly, fearful stroking of a child’s penis referred to as “rape.”
How does that blurring of her experience with an entirely different kind of sexual assault make a victim of rape feel?
Does conflating the two kinds of sexual assault trivialize her unbearable experience?
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I see any abuse, especially of those unable to protect themselves as rape. Fondeling a child, male or female, is in my mind, a form of rape. Fondeling, groping, etc., a grown woman, in my mind is a form of rape. It’s not diminishing what happens to women or girls (in fact, in the case in PA., girls were also “abused”).
We need laws to protect the innocent, no matter the age. It’s why I’ve caslled for a federal law eliminating any statute of limitation for rape which yes, in my opinion, includes the fondeling of a childs penis, or vagina. We want to say that rape is just forceable pentatration, but I think it goes way beyond that, especislly with children.
We place people in prison for life for just possessing child pornography, without having commited any acts of violence. It’s time we as a society started protecting everyone, especially the most vulernable.
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I’m concerned that making a criminal equivalency between “grazing a child’s buttocks while boosting him out of the swimming pool” and the kind of violent rape depicted in Irreversible trivializes real rape.
I’d be afraid that victims of real rape would feel belittled and dismissed.
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Do you not agree with modulating the response to various degrees of crime, or is all “touching” to be the equivalent of “murder”?
Should every crime be just lumped together as a “felony”?
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One of my friends is an observant Jew who argues with me about religion.
She often tries to make the point that I am actually religious by claiming that all varieties of human emotions are religious — patriotism, family love, affection for pets, conscientiousness…
But it’s better to use language to make finer and finer distinctions rather than to obfuscate by blurring all boundaries so that “everything” becomes “anything.”
The law classifies various acts of child molestation into various categories (varying by state).
It looks like you are saying that all those categories should be junked and any lewd act on or at a child be considered the same as an actual rape.
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Just on a practical note, juries often refuse to convict when the DA has overcharged.
But most of all, it must be extremely painful for the permanently-damaged and scarred victim of a real rape to hear that patting a little boy’s behind is the same as her horrendous suffering.
I’d hate to be the one who had to explain that to her.
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