16 centuries of silence
"The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it." Albert Einstein
Twenty first century has inherited two horrific world problems from The Holy Mother Catholic Church. It began when children became the sexual victims of the clergy beginning in the 4th century AD. The second problem the church created is an example to the world of silence, denial and ignorance for sixteen hundred years. Child abuse, molestation of children, and child pornography are a major world crisis in the twenty first century. It took sixteen hundred plus years and one billion dollars ordered in restitution to its victims to finally force the Catholic Church into public admission of betrayal of its members. The price the world is paying for a child abuse crisis because society has been taught to refuse to take a hard look at child abuse as set by the example of the Church for over 16 centuries.
The Catholic Church is not the only one to have to pay the price for its centuries of silence, denial, and ignorance. The whole world is paying for it today. Let us begin with faithful parents who entrusted their children to the Church. They believed they were acting in the highest and best good for their children, their faith, and their families. Their trust was betrayed and their children were molested. Chances are when these sexually abused children became parents, they became abusive parents. There is no way of accessing all the harm done to all the children and families that caused permanent damage and recycled through the generations to the present abuse crisis. The billion dollars the church has to pay is a pittance for what millions of people have suffered for over 16 centuries to now. There is so much more the Church should be doing for the public.
Approximately the 4th century AD the Roman Catholic Church created a policy of celibacy for its entire clergy. There is an old Chinese proverb that says he who rules without understanding the nature of whom he rules, will fail. Nothing sums up better the major mistake the Catholic Church made in the 4th century when it insisted priests, monks, and brothers refrain from marriage and remain celibate. Forbidding marriage and demanding celibacy were commands that truly ignored the nature of man. Man wasn't designed for abstinence. Sexual desire is in our hormones, blood, thoughts, and very cells of our bodies. To deny it, is to deny human nature. Consequently this denial of man's nature by the church forced priests, monks, and brothers to become victims of their own sexual fire. Their sexual fire manifested in the rape and molestation and sexual abuse of the parishioners' children. 4th century.
Prior to the 4th century AD, priests married and lived normal heterosexual lives. Nothing in the teachings of Christ required the apostles or teachers to be celibate. It is argued by the Church that celibacy does not create sexual molesters of children. That non celibate men (fathers, brothers and relatives) have just as readily molested children. I can not refrain from asking, had the Church not insisted upon celibacy by its clergy, would the clergy have kept its dirty hands off the parishioners children?
Cloaked in the glorious robes of pomp and ceremony, trust and holiness, the church has always been obsessed with controlling the sexual practices, morality, and thinking of its parishioners. It has taught sex was forbidden for non married people. Sex for married couples could only be pleasurable for the purpose of procreation. Birth control to this day is not allowed. It is not hard to imagine the first victims of clergy lust were sworn to silence and secrecy under the threat of punishment. Some adults and parents must have become aware of the clergy crimes upon their children at that time. If so, perhaps some parents of victims confronted the hierarchy of the Church then. It might be a safe assumption to think that when the hierarchy heard of these complaints, they denied them and accused the innocent of guilt instead of accepting responsibility for the malfeasant actions of its clergy. That is when silence, denial, and ignorance by the hierarchy became the mantra of the Church. That is when they taught parents around the world to remain silent and ignorant when issues of their children's sexual molestation came forward. That is when they tacitly approved of sexual deviant behavior the habit of the clergy to molest children.
Think what it was like for the poor people in the 4th Century and several centuries that followed. Only a nobleman or the clergy of the Church knew how to read and write. There was only one Holy Mother Christian Church at that time. The Catholic church had a powerful almost unquestioned voice over the people. What the church said was so, was so. It was so powerful it controlled every thought and moral of the common man. There were no newspapers, magazines, radio, television, cell phones or inter net connections to contradict or challenge their definitions of morality, edicts of the Pope, the religious traditions, or anything the clergy said.
If and when some families of children who had been molested had the courage to confront the church about the incidents, what choices did they have when the Church responded with silence, denial, and ignorance? What legal or spiritual recourses did these trusting families have to insist the clergy be accountable for the harm done to their children? If they became too aggressive in their search for justice, safety for their own lives could easily have been threatened and often was. It was probably much easier and safer for families to also adopt the policy of silence, denial, and ignorance than deal directly with the clergy predators. Catholic Hierarchy simply looked the other way and tacitly condoned the sexual exploitation of children. These recalcitrant predators got away with it for 16 centuries, before their hypocrisy was finally exposed.
If the well known axiom; we learn by example and not by lecture, is correct, then What example has the Church set for its flock and the rest of the word for over 16 Centuries? If a mother asked for counsel from a priest because her husband was molesting her children what would have been his advice? Chances are he would have advised mothers to remain silent, ignore what the father or brother was doing to the child, and say ten Hail Marys. What has the Holy Catholic Church really been teaching its defenseless flock since the 4th century? Were honesty, accountability, integrity, and responsibility for one's own action the lessons taught? What has the flock been learning? Did the flock learn to be honest and accountable? Or did the parishioners learn if the church can do anything it wants, so can they? Did the parishioners learn the depth of hypocrisy in the name of Christ began with its own leaders? Is it possible people might have gotten the idea it is o.k. to victimize innocent children as long as all remain silent, deny it ever happened, and remain ignorant as to the harm it did to their children.
I can not help speculating. If, when the Church became aware of its clergy's molestation of the children in the 4th century, it had taken a loud and strong public stand denouncing the malfeasant clergy, would the abuse of little children have grown to the proportions it has today? If the church had stood on its glorious pulpit in righteous indignation and shouted to the whole world the evils of child abuse would society continue hiding it in the closet, today? If the church had done all in its power to immediately protect the children from the clergy or any other pedophile lurking around the 4th Century, would millions of children over 16 centuries have been secretly harmed?
There is not a person since the 4th century who hasn't been hurt or affected in one way or another by this supreme disgraceful betrayal. The price the world is paying today for 16 centuries of silence, denial, and ignorance is a world of betrayed Catholics and children who should have had a right to grow up safe under the blessings of the Church. It now has a society that refuses to take a hard look at itself. Child abuse is a problem that never had to reach the gigantic proportions it has. The price the Catholic Church is paying is not enough for the major harm it did to the world.
The church has reluctantly admitted its wrongful actions and is making some restitution only because it has been legally forced. The church owes the world more than that. It has failed to tell all it knows, shown no remorse, no desire to sin no more, and no desire to do penance for its hypocrisy and inexcusable betrayal. If the Church truly wants to begin correcting the harm it's done to the world for its centuries of silence and denial, it needs to openly admit and continue to admit all the harm it did to its children. It needs to acknowledge in a very vocal way it was wrong for remaining silent and denying its rape of the children of the flock. It must take an active role in the realistic understanding, prevention, healing, and stopping of child abuse by all pedophiles. It must develop hands on help programs to enlighten and education the world about the price the world pays for child abuse.
