I am not a particularly militant atheist - I rather like English parish churches and early Renaissance religious art, and so on - but I do have an anti-clerical streak.
And it is this anti-clerical streak I have been trying to hold in check whilst following the unfolding horrors of the Catholic Church's child sex abuse scandal.
I would find it very easy to dismiss the whole Catholic Church as a sophisticated child sex abuse ring.
It has a set of plausible techniques in getting its members to be close to children, winning the trust of parents, and - afterwards - in keeping the silence of children.
It then has an array of means for protecting the perpetrators, ranging from a culture of evasion and deniability, to having safe houses and effective legal immunity.
In addition, the Catholic Church has centuries of well-practised defences to those who question what is going on, without anyone ever taking actual responsibility for their actions.
Yes, it would be very easy to write about this in an anti-clerical way, and at considerable length; but I will not write more than this, as it would probably owe more to my prejudices than anything else.
But there are questions which are fair and appropriate to ask.
Why are the perpetrators - alleged or otherwise - just not dealt with by the secular criminal authorities?
Why do we still seem to have this bizarre medieval duality of secular law and "canon law"?
(And don't start me on "canon law".)
Adults abusing children - without the paraphernalia and sophistry of the Catholic Church - remains simply that: adults abusing children.
In my view, the police should walk straight in, and deal with those involved as normal criminal suspects.
And they should do so regardless of the elaborate make-believe world which makes it possible for the adults to think they can get away with it.
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Monday, 29 March 2010
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I was under the impression that the Church has established, through tradition and concordat a nice little pozzie for itself that, keeps it largely off limits in a number of countries.
It is with some degree of hope that I note that lawyers in New South Wales are attempting to have laws repealed that protect the church from being sued as they are considered only landholders and not vicariously liable for priests and lay teachers.
We have all seen the media reports, and to my untrained eye they seem damning.
As someone in the legal profession, do you have a view on the strength of the available evidence? Is it weak enough to discourage the secular authorities?
Hi Jack
In many of the jurisdictions in which abuse has occurred are saturated with Catholicism. All the members of the police forces and judiciary (who would be expected in other circumstances to behave as you suggest) are members of good standing of the Church. They buy into the "elaborate make-believe" and to collude with Church authorities in the cover-up.
What can be done about this, other than to support "mavericks" in the police and judiciary who would challenge this status quo and of course to push for a secularisation of the organs of the State and of the State itself.
As you rightly suggest, it's not just the Church that has failed the victims, it is the whole society - and this is what makes the claims of moral superiority by the Church (and of the claims that society would fall into a cess-pit of immorality if religion is so much as even questioned) so galling.
Do you not think that the fact that the adults doing the abusing here are in a position of trust and/or authority (by analogy with psychoanalysts and teachers), in addition to the age difference, makes it worse? So they should be dealt with even more severely than 'ordinary' paedophiles, by the normal criminal law.
Also, is it only Catholic priests who get the 'get out of jail free' card, or all ministers? That may be due to the status as its own country of the Vatican, who can thrust diplomatic immunity onto its buildings and personnel.
Carla
Thanks for writing on this topic, as there does seem to be something equivalent to 'religious immunity' that either deters conventional secularists from prosecuting, or protects believers from prosecution.
Presumably for the child abusers, they can just go to confession, admit what they've been up to, and hey presto justice is done. Frankly this isn't good enough for the rest of us. I hope you will continue to question and comment on the legality of process as these terrible stories emerge.
The problem is that the senior Church hierarchy, but certainly not the vast majority of laity and clergy, believe in some respects they answer to the laws of God, as often divined by the Pope, above those of the laws of man. As far as they are concerned the clergy operate under the authority of the Vatican, not the secular authorities and thus any wrongdoing within the church is an internal matter concerning the church alone.
"Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s"
This is often invoked, reasonably so imho, as a rebuttal to those who claim Catholic politicians owe a greater allegiance to the Pope than they do to their country. The Vatican's interpretation of this however would seem to be that crimes committed within the church are the responsibility of God, not those of more earthly powers. Hence the apparent lack of enthusiasm by the Church to defer authority to a state's legal system when it comes to clerical abuse.
The lessons of the Reformation have clearly not been learned.
If an organisation *believes* that God's law overrules secular law, we shouldn't be surprised if they actually *behave* as if it does.
The answer is to ensure that the divine law is *unrecognised*; such organisations must submit to secular law *at all times*. In the case of the CC this problem is exacerbated by its existence as a separate state - they have resort to an internationally recognised 'safe haven'.
Note that the IHEU has been trying to challenge the CC at the UN, but it's unclear what sanctions could be applied. Anyone know about these things?
http://www.iheu.org/vatican-condemned-un-child-abuse
There does seem to be a sense that people who are against religion are gloating about the whole scandal. This is something I'm not comfortable with. I'm not comfortable with echo-chambers in general.
The question you leave hanging in your blog post, and which I was hoping you'd answer, you being a legal blogger, is: why aren't offending priests being prosecuted under the law? The answer may be different in different countries.
Is there some sort of legal protection for priests? Is the Church doing something to protect offenders? Are the police and legal system packed with Catholics who are protecting it? Are the police and legal system packed with non-Catholics who still have respect for the Church? Is there a difficulty getting evidence (e.g. finding witnesses who will testify against the Church)? Is external pressure being put on prosecuting authorities? Is it simply a societal convention not to prosecute religious figures?
And with all the publicity, we now have the additional questions: Is this situation going to change? And is it going to change (semi-)voluntarily? Or will change be forced on it from outside?
I hate to finish on a trite remark, but we should genuinely "think of the children" here. As atheists/secularists/humanists, or simply as good people, we want to minimise future harm to children in any church, and help those who have already been victims of such crimes.
Oh, and re "militant atheist": Richard Dawkins, the archetype of the militant atheist, likes religious music from Bach to Christmas carols. So I'm sure you're allowed to like the architecture and art, and still be a militant atheist.
Matt asks the excellent question "why aren't offending priests being prosecuted under the law?", but there's a clue to one of the reasons in his comment. He *starts* by observing that there's 'a sense that people who are against religion are gloating about the whole scandal'.
This is the *last* thing that should come to mind when reviewing the news on this issue, but unfortunately it has become de rigueur to lambast atheists for attacking religion, so it's almost a knee-jerk reaction amongst some who still, against all reason, *respect* faith, even if they have none.
Examine this tendency to unwarranted respect and we might figure out (one of) the answers to the question.
I do get the sense that some people are greeting this with nothing short of glee. And why is it that English people seem unable to refer to Catholicism without sticking "mediaeval" in there somewhere? But I'll leave that aside.
I'll try to answer Jack's question about canon law. The Catholic Church has its own internal judicial system (as do the CofE, United Synagogue etc) which rests on canon law. This is mostly to do with internal discipline. Think of it in terms of a professional code of conduct; a canonical trial aimed at laicising a miscreant priest is no different in principle from the Law Society having a formal procedure to discipline a dodgy solicitor.
As with most professional codes of conduct, canon law runs parallel to the civil and criminal law. Many if not most offences under canon law are not actually criminal offences - see the now famous 1962 document Crimen sollicitationis, which lots of people are referring to but few seem to have read. It deals almost exclusively with the offence (under canon law) of priests abusing the sacrament of confession to solicit sexual favours, something the criminal law has nothing to say about.
Now, as for why priests can't be tried under criminal law. Of course they can, and many of the questions around this might be better directed to the criminal justice system. So in the Milwaukee case (itself a pretty shocking failure on the part of the Church authorities) it's often missed that the abuse was reported to the police in 1974, the police didn't believe the victims and no charges were brought. You need to have a criminal justice system that functions in these cases.
Is there anything in canon law that precludes calling in the secular authorities? Not at all. Current guidelines in the Catholic Church - which has spent fifteen years putting into place some of the toughest child protection procedures around - stipulate that, when a credible charge is made against a priest, he is suspended from pastoral duties and the secular authorities informed, and canonical discipline is deferred until any criminal proceedings are complete. The problem historically has not been canon law, but a culture of silence. Bishops shouldn't have needed to be told, but many of them evidently did.
The culture of silence issue, of course, applies equally to other areas of society that seem remarkably uninteresting to many people who are going in big for anti-popery at the moment. The enormous abuse scandal in the New York public schools, for one.
In addition to the question of why abusive priests are not charged, what about the legal possibilities of charging those higher up the chain (bishops, councils etc) with (a) aiding and abetting criminal activity by their moving peccant priests around, or (b) criminal conspiracy to permit it to go on happening? I for one won't believe the CC has even started on the path to rehabilitation until I see a bishop in the dock. Forced or semi-forced resignations (eg Brady, the Archbishop of Armagh, if he decides to go) are just not enough. As indeed the CC should know full well: are they not past masters at sniffing out acts of insincere contrition? At least, they say they are...
Why are the perpetrators - alleged or otherwise - just not dealt with by the secular criminal authorities?
That is the important question, and one that is not easily answered, otherwise I am sure you would have answered it yourself.
My own (poor) answer is - because it has become the norm, almost tradition, to make exceptions and excuses for any transgressions that seem to have a religious link. Whether it's registrars refusing to marry same-sex couples, pharmacists refusing to dispense contraceptives, or check-out personnel refusing to sell alcohol - in all cases there seems to be a presumption that these objections are likely to be acceptable, even though in most cases they quite clearly are not.
On some level there is still a level of fear taking on religious institutions and religious beliefs; and it goes beyond fear of offending others, it's also fear of potential repercussions, and it's sometimes even as if it is a fear of doing something that is wrong.
I'm not sure how one tackles that. Long-held attitudes are hard to budge. But mostly it takes courage of certain individuals who are prepared to risk condemnation for what is right.
Spot-on. The Catholic church likes to kid itself that it somehow transcends the rest of human society. It doesn't. It exists as an anachronism that excludes itself from wider society, whilst attempting to influence it. That's not transcendence, it's subversion.
Can I endorse the notion that appreciating art with a religious connotation doesn't preclude you being a "militant atheist". I think parts of Handel's Messiah are great and Haydn's The Creation is brilliant whatever Dawkins would say about the words to it!
Having read sections of last year's report of the judicial enquiry into the events in the Dublin Diocese, what impressed me were the reports of the wall of silence that Vatican made when approached by the enquiry.
I don't see why the police shouldn't just get search warrants and turn over all the files held by the clergy. They have forfeited any right to any respect.
The Mafia wouldn't tolerate child abuse like that and would wheel out the concrete boots against perpetrators - if they were lucky. For some reason I don't follow they are seen as nastier than the Catholic Church.
I'm 100% with you, Jack. Thank you for saying it.
agree while the priests are here in the flesh then let them be subject to criminal low as a priority. When they are gone let their God judge them.
Unfortuneately we are still seeing the same excuses in Ireland from the 1950's onwards when the State and the Church were pretty much the same thing :(
It has crossed my mind that one of the "goals" (or The Goal?) of religion is to wield power. If this were the case then the observed behaviour regarding the protection of criminal priests and other office bearers of the church is hardly a surprising outcome. To do otherwise would be to rescind power.
However, since "discovering" the concept of the meme, or "good idea"[1] I now think that the best model for religion is simply that it is a Good Idea. A self perpetuating meme, a transmissable disease of the mind if you like. It turns out (by evolution - if you can stand the irony:) that the idea can be better perpetuated if it includes power wielding priests and other officers. We then get to the same outcome as before, power wielding priests use that power to protect their own since to do otherwise would be to rescind power.
There is no reason that they should be above the law. (Other than of course in Cherie-la-la-land)
[1] (thanks Mr Dennett - which is where I read of it first)
The Irish government is sitting cosily in the background whilst the church is momentarily getting all the stick - but it too ought to be getting whipped almost as much - for its lack of accountability in the past to innocent defenceless children - who were incarcerated illegally in child prisons
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=227
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=230
I enjoy early Church music, cathedral and church architecture and some religious art - all of which I see as evidence of human skill and imagination, mostly produced at a time when the Church was the main/only employer for creative people.
The Vatican is being battered by exposes of child abuse and the media are having a field day. What is being pretty much ignored is the abuse of adult women which, according to some researchers, is even more prevalent. Women being raped and told it is good for them, for example. But it doesn't make for such good headlines.
There is plenty of evidence of this happening in the Protestant Church too, so there is no moral high ground for the C of E.
splinteredsunrise wrote:
"Current guidelines in the Catholic Church - which has spent fifteen years putting into place some of the toughest child protection procedures around..."
You just lost all and any credibility right there.
> There does seem to be a sense that
> people who are against religion
> are gloating about the whole
> scandal.
For the most part, I don't think it's gloating so much as outrage.
These monstrous acts are so much the worse because they come from an institution that claims moral authority over everyone else. That is truly something to be outraged about and I'm appalled that even the faithful are able to delude themselves into tolerating such behaviour.
It seems that in many cases, the abuse took place actually *in the confessional*. Could there be a greater abuse of responsibility than to turn guilt at footling 'offenses' (let's face it, these are kids: what are they likely to be confessing apart from the odd bit of anger, impure thought and bout of frantic masturbation?), fear of hellfire and promise of salvation so directly against these poor children? Could anything be more obviously calculated and premeditated? And then we find that the church has repeatedly and routinely covered up these cases, protected priests from exposure and from justice and has repeatedly moved the rapists to other places, where their abuse has continued.
If atheists are jumping on each new revelation with more than usual vigour, I don't blame them in the slightest. What else should we do? Murmur quietly and let them get on with raping children? Or tear that institution to pieces so they can't harm anyone again?
I for one confess to a little bit of gloating. This is because the catholic church has itself exposed some of the hypocrisy many have been pointing out for years in a more spectacular fashion than I had imagined possible. It is fun seeing these monsters running for cover and fun anticipating a time when children might no longer have to fear them.
Mockery is one of our best tools against unreason. We're only encouraged to shy away from it in the case of religion: not in that of astrology or homeopathy or any other such nonsense. I say mock, gloat, be strident and shrill, but above all, sustain our outrage and never hesitate to communicate it.
"There does seem to be a sense that people who are against religion are gloating about the whole scandal."
"I do get the sense that some people are greeting this with nothing short of glee."
I don't get this impression at all. And I hope that is not the case. Like Latsot, I see outrage rather than gloating. Outrage that the "minders of morality" are committing heinous crimes against the most vulnerable and trusting in our society.
Also, I agree with splinteredsunrise that the secular laws and Catholic Church's guidelines are in place, and that the problem is more one of failing to apply those laws and guidelines.
However, apart from criminal prosecution, there is also the question of prevention. Prevention should be the primary concern. Most importantly, the CC needs to seriously reconsider the whole question of celibacy.
Rather late in the day but just to clarify a point John Collins made. You should of course enjoy or not enjoy Handle's Messiah regardless of the opinion of Dawkins on the matter. But as it happens he has singled out that piece in interviews as one he enjoys.
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