DougJ asks: What is it about religion and sexual abuse?
The answer is nothing. It’s not about religion and sexual abuse. The priest sex scandal was not about sex. It was about the abuse of power by the bishops and archbishops and cardinal archbishops and the Vatican hierarchy to deny and conceal sexual abuse, pressure abuse victims to retract their claims, and protect the abusers above all else. It’s not about sexual abuse. It’s about power abuse.
When this thing became known as the “priest sex scandal” that’s when I knew it wasn’t going to lead to either the downfall of the present church in America (which it could have) or to sweeping changes in the church’s hierarchy overall. Because if it’s about priests and sex, then we’re all still arguing about the wrong things.
But it’s a lot more titillating to talk about dirty vicars and whatnot than it is to argue legal cases involving the statute of limitations and the reasons for sealing court records and the case for having them unsealed. So “priest sex” is the shorthand, not “bishop fraud” or something similar.
A.