The Big Lie; Pennsylvania Priest molesting edition

As a Catholic I’m sickened by the fact that some priests have molested children.  I fully support every effort to identify and stop such crimes in the Church.  I believe the Church has a responsibility to reach out to each and every victim and do everything it can to help them recover from the horror they have endured.

But I also object to the media’s Big Lie that the Catholic Church is supportive of child molestation and is the nexus of child molestation in America today.

The recent report by the highly biased Pennsylvania Attorney General is an example of how the Left is lying about the Catholic Church.

The PA AG says that the report is about 300 priests who “raped” 1,000 children.  It’s true that 300 Catholics have been accused, not convicted, of having molested—ranging from talking inappropriately to kids to raping kids—1000 kids in Pennsylvania.

What you haven’t heard is that those actions occurred over the span of 70 years—with most cases dating back more than 33 years--, one case dates back to the 1930s, that the 300 number includes men other than priests, and that other groups in America are guilty of far more massive assaults on children.

Since even one case of a priest molesting a kid is too much 300 seems huge.  Until you realize that in 2014 in PA alone hundreds of sexual misconduct complaints against public school teachers were filed. Extrapolating that out to the same 70 years covered by the PA report makes the 300 number look small.  Further the rate of complaints about teachers has grown dramatically while the rate for priests has decreased rapidly.  The accusations against priests peaked in the 1970's and were back to 1950's level, i.e. very low, by the 1990's.

That doesn’t mean that what those priests did isn’t horrible but it does mean that the Church is not the leader in assaulting children. It's dishonest for people to care only for children molested by priests and not those children who were molested by teachers.  We need to love and support all the victims no matter who molested them.

Also the 300 includes not just priests but deacons—who can be married--, brothers—monks--, and seminarians.  The left is trying to inflate the number of priests to make the Church look worse. 

Historically about 50-60% of accusations turn out to be substantiated.  There’s an entire book about cases where innocent priests were accused of molesting kids.  The most famous case was when Cardinal Bernadine of Chicago was accused by a man of having molested that man when the man was 17.  The accuser later recanted and apologized.  The fact that the Church has paid out a fortune to victims incentivizes fraud as well.

The Big Lie is saying that all priests are to be assumed to be guilty until proven innocent.  We know that the Left has no problem defending or casting doubt about charges of molestation against people who they like, Roman Polanski and Woody Allen for example. Woody Allen has been credibly accused, just like the priests in the PA report, of “inappropriately touching” a 7 year old girl.  I don’t know if he’s guilty or not but the media has not had a problem repeating Woody’s claims of innocence while simultaneously assuming that every accused Catholic priest is guilty.

If we assume that half of the accusations are true that means that just a few percent of the thousands of priests who served in PA over 70 years were guilty of molesting children.  Far too many but that still means that the vast majority of priests are completely innocent. But the media works hard to make you think that most priests are predators.

Another aspect of the Big Lie is that the PA report has revealed an ongoing problem.  To someone who just listens to the news it appears that priests are molesting children right and left today.  But that’s not true.

While the media isn’t making a point of it the PA AG admits that few of the accusations he discovered can be prosecuted because the statute of limitations has run out.  In PA the state can prosecute a molester so long as the victim comes forward before the victim is 50 years old. That means that if a 17 year old is molested he has 33 years to report the crime.

Hence most of the accusations that the PA AG found occurred more than 33 years ago.  That refutes the media’s Big Lie that this is a current problem in the Church. In the last two years only 0.05% of Catholic priests in the US have been credibly accused of molesting a child.  Clearly the Left doesn’t want you to know that the Church has done a lot to fix the problem it had decades ago.

Many Americans think that the Church is the only place in America where children are molested because that’s all the media reports on.  But that’s part of the Big Lie too. The Pennsylvania Professional Standards and Practices Commission states that 10% of children in Pennsylvania public schools will be subject to sexual misconduct between kindergarten and graduating from high school.  That works out to about 17,500 victims in a 13 year period in PA alone.  Extrapolating that out to the same 70 years covered in the PA report gives us nearly 100,000 children who were victims of sexual misconduct in PA public schools.

Does that mean that what molesting priests did was ok?  Of course not but it does mean that the silence by the media on other sources of child molesters, and the lack of interest on the part of the PA AG, is part of the Big Lie that child molestation is a uniquely Catholic problem.

Many good Protestants think that Protestant ministers don’t molest children. But according to Protestant sources, and the insurance companies that cover both Catholic and Protestant churches, ministers are accused at the same or slightly higher rate than Catholic priests.  Does that mean that the Protestant churches are evil supporters of child molesters? Of course not; it simply means that Catholic priests and Protestant ministers are humans who can succumb to sin.  It’s wrong to tar the vast majority of innocent priests and ministers because of the sins of a few. Yet that’s precisely what the media is trying to do to Catholic priests; convince the world that the Church supports child molestation and that many priests are molesters.

Another aspect of the problem that the media doesn’t cover is that only about 5% of the cases involve pedophilia— where the victim hasn’t yet passed through puberty.  The vast majority of the victims are teenage boys who have been preyed on by gay priests.  While most priests who suffer from same sex attraction don’t molest children most priests, around 80%, who do molest kids are gay. 

We shouldn’t blame all gays for the sins of those gay priests and the media shouldn’t blame all Catholic priests for the crimes of those priests.  The fact that the victims of those gay priests are older doesn’t make their crimes ok but part of the Big Lie is trying to make it appear that every accusation is about a priest raping a 5 year old.  It’s horribly evil to seduce a teenager but it’s much worse to rape a 5 year old.

Another misdirection by the media is the idea that Bishops are constantly covering for offending priests.  Decades ago psychiatrists told the Bishops that the offending priests had been cured.  That the Bishops believed them was stupid but that is far from the Bishops malevolently reassigning priests they knew were dangerous. Having learned its lesson the Church no longer moves offenders around.

However today public schools cover up accusations of molestation and commonly let teachers accused of molestation simply go to another school. By ignoring the details, not mentioning that cover ups are generally a thing of the past in the Church, and never mentioning how cover ups occur in other institutions the media is working hard to create the false image of the Church as a unique predator.

The fact that the left-wing media/Democrat complex is lying about the nature, timing, and extent of the sexual molestation problem in the Church doesn’t excuse any of the crimes that have been committed by priests or Bishops. Nor does it mean that the Church doesn’t have to continue to improve in this area. But it does show that the common perception of Americans that the Catholic Church is the heart of the child molestation problem in America is simply false.

As a Catholic I will work to drive down the incidence of child molestation in the Church to zero but I will not stand by and support the Big Lie that the entire Church is either responsible for the sins of a few or that the Church is the biggest source of molestation in America.

UPDATE: Changed the number of charges filed against PA teachers in 2014 from more than 500 to hundreds. The source says that the number was on track to hit 700 by the end of the year and that about half would be for sexual misconduct.