Catholic Church Controversy:
Sexual Abuse
Stephanie
7/16/2012
Section: U01B
Every once in awhile in the news you hear about controversy in the Roman Catholic
Church, but in most recent times there have been stories about priests sexually abusing
other people and because of their power they have been covered up for so long.
Allegations of priests and sexual abuse began to receive extensive national media coverage
in the United States in the mid-1980s (Rossetti 5). Lawsuits have been made and then
lawsuits against churches have been made, but we all wonder how it came to be for these
priests who are known for helping people and the poor but somehow end up making such a
cruel act.
One of the first cases that came to light about a priest sexually abusing a child was the case
of Reverend Gilbert Gauthe of the Diocese of Lafayette, Louisiana (Rossetti 5). Not only
was Gauthe being charged for a crime but also the church in 1983 for not responding to the
allegations and not stopping Gauthe from continuing his crimes which sort of makes them
an accomplice; the law suits when finalized led to a settlement of a total of ten million
dollars. Another case with a man named James Porter grabbed even more media attention
because he was accused of the molestation of 100 children, however when the charges
became public the church in which Porter was a priest (the Diocese of Fall River)
remained silent and did not offer any help to the victims (Rossetti 10).
There are many reasons why these men choose to become these sexual offenders but there
is no definite cause. On way of thinking about it is celibacy, this pressure to be pure and
not have sex or marry anyone at all, this probably pushes many priests to commit sexual
abuse. However this is under debate, maybe priests are too intimidated by women
therefore seek refuge in celibacy which gives them an excuse to not to have to deal with
women however they end up sexually abusing children because they are more vulnerable
and obviously less intimidating (Crosson 190). There is another theory that a lot of the
priests find a sanctuary at the church, since most of them have been insecure or they could
be homosexual and let’s face it, the Catholic Church would go through any means
necessary to protect a priest and not allow the truth to the surface.
That leads us to the next topic, does the church really try to cover up everything? Well
there are plenty of reasons for them to want to stop the allegations to come to the surface.
Because of all of these allegations of sexual abuse many people have lost faith in the
church. Not only that but there’s an estimate of two billion dollars in settlements (New
York Times). Money is also put in to sometimes the recovery of the priests and there
therapy, although some are band to ever preach again. John Porter like mentioned before is
a great example on how the church covers things up, he admitted that he molested about
one hundred children in the twenty years of his career but somehow his actions never came
to the light until he himself admitted to his mistake. The church is just basically sugar
coating everything because they either just don’t want to deal with problem or they don’t
know how to deal with it. A lot of the times the Church does know what these sexual
offenders are doing but refuse to do anything because their afraid of what the people would
think and don’t want to lose their credibility. According to the New York Times,
Monsignor William J. Lynn was found guilty by the jury in Philadelphia making him the
first senior official of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States to be convicted for
covering up child sexual abuse by priests; he was charged with conspiracy (New York
Times, June 22nd 2012). The whole trial gives a message to the Catholic Church that they
do have to make sum effort to do things right and that covering up the truth can lead up to
three-and-a-half to seven years in prison. Because of Monsignor Lynn’s position, he was
basically like a supervisor to other priests, if he knew that one priest was molesting
children he could’ve taken it to the authorities instead of allowing it to happen which
makes him as much as a bad person as the person committing the crime. But that leads to
what the hierarchy of the U.S. Catholic Church say about these horrible crimes; The USCC
(United States Catholic Conference) has issued several but short statements regarding
sexual abuse. But they have said that all they are is consultative, meaning all they can do is
suggest things to the 188 individual dioceses but at that point each individual diocese must
respond in any form they want about the abuse (Rossetti 11)
A lot of the sexual abuse has been to done to children; they’re always the first to be the
victims. Mostly because their the easiest to prey for, children don’t know a lot of things
and on top of that parents leave their children with these priests because they trust them
since their the people they go to for advice and religious knowledge. Once the priest has a
child with him he can easily manipulate the child and force him/her to do these sexual
immoralities. A lot of the time the priest goes out for little boys like mentioned before there
