Aid to the Church in Need: THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, PEDOPHILIA AND THE MEDIA

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, PEDOPHILIA AND THE MEDIA - Part 2

Posted by Information report on 13/8/2002, 5:35 pm
Message modified by board administrator 2/4/2003, 11:12 pm

Canon Law versus the Law of the Jungle
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, PEDOPHILIA AND THE MEDIA - (Courtesy of the Annals Australasia Ph:(02)9662-7894
e-mail: annalsaustralia@hotmail.com)
Part 2
What Rosetti says of the US could be applied to Australia: ‘In general, the bishops of the United States have done well in dealing with most cases of child abuse by priests over the past decade. There have been exceptions and mistakes have been made. But there will always be mistakes made with such complex and difficult cases.’
Media-led Moral Revolt
Few would be unaware that hard on the heels of the controversial UN Convention on the Rights of the Child have come demands that children’s rights to leave home, or to divorce their parents be respected. Advocates of the ‘sexual emancipation of children’ are now insisting on children’s ‘right’ to sexual experience. Next their ‘right’ to view pornography will be in the pipeline.
In an age awash with demands for ‘rights’ – of minorities, of the child, of women, of aborigines, of homosexuals, even of criminals injured while committing a crime - the conspicuous exception is the Catholic Church. Hardline ‘liberals’ in lobby groups and the media see no illogic in denying natural justice to the Catholic Church while demanding it most vociferously for ducks, foxes, cattle destined for export, and the insects and trees of the Amazonian rain forest.
If the Church pays compensation to alleged victims this is denouced as ‘hush money’ by the media. Were she to defend the case in the courts she would be accused of cruelty in forcing alleged victims to relive their ordeal in the full-glare of court proceedings.
In the Netherlands the official age of consent for sexual activity is 16. But the law permits sex between an adult and a young person between 12 and 16 if the young person consents. Under Dutch law parents have no clearly defined power to prevent or terminate ‘consentual’ sexual relations between a 12-year-old child and an adult.
Judith Levine, author of The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex claims that ‘the threat of pedophilia and molestation is exaggerated by adults who want to deny young people the opportunity for positive sexual experiences.’ According to Stephanie Dallam of the Leadership Council for Mental health, Justice and the media, the leaders and foot-soldiers of the sexual revolution ‘view children as the next sexual frontier’.
Greater Need than Ever for Loyalty to Catholic Teaching
The Catholic Church has traditional, clear and challenging teachings on human sexuality, chastity, birth control, abortion, marriage, pedophilia and homosexuality. Many people, including ‘liberal’ Catholics disagree with a few or all of these teachings. Despite the present climate of bitterness and criticism, the Church [and that means the bishops] needs to hold the line as far as her teachings are concerned. If these were not hitting a nerve, she wouldn’t find herself in the situation in which she is today.
Also she needs to make it clear, as Cal Thomas does, quoting the President of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, that the abusive behaviour under discussion ‘was the result of [the priest’s] defying Church teachings on sexual matters’.
Danger of Supping with the Devil
In the past some bishops seem to have been more concerned with what the media think of them than with their duty of representing the Catholic Church’s Magisterium, and applying the Church’s teaching energetically, without fear or favour.
Catholic Universities, schools, parishes, parish school religious educators and some diocesan chanceries seem to be filled with people who regard the Church’s teachings on sexual and other matters to be out of date. They have long abandoned them in favour of the current fads [promoted by the very media that today are howling for the Church’s blood] in liberal sex education and mores. ‘Rule by Committee’ especially when the committee is anti-Catholic, is no substitute for a bishop’s exercising the authority granted by his office for the good of all the Catholic people.
It would be refreshing if the Australian bishops could finally be stung into support for the Pope’s blueprint for the Catholic Church in Oceania. Seminaries need to be strengthened. New Religious Orders need to replace the old ones. New Catholic universities and schools will spring up to replace the present ones that have ceased to fulfil their declared role of defending and propagating the Faith.
The current debacle demonstrates the emptiness of hopes that some contemporary Australian Catholics undoubtedly fostered of compromising on matters of Catholic doctrine and morals in order to dialogue with the world. Such Catholics, including numbers of bishops, are learning the hard way that if you sup with the devil, you need to use a long spoon.
- Paul Stenhouse, MSC PhD
(Our thanks goes to ANNALS for allowing us to use this editorial)
14. art.cit., pp.13-14.
15. New York Times, April 13. quoted ‘The Emancipated Child,’ by William Norman Grigg, The New American, June 3, 2002.
16. Grigg, art. cit.
17. art.cit.

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