As I mentioned the other day I did attend the Virtus program at my parish by order of the Diocese of Cleveland. One of the problems I had with the program was that it went out of its way to make the point that child sexual abuse was mainly caused by heterosexuals. The program did have two perpetrators who gave their stories. Neither was gay, neither was a priest. They had four victims, and the only victim who was abused by a priest was a young girl about 12-14 years old.
While I realize that sexual abuse is happening throughout our culture, in many environments, on boys, girls, adults, heterosexuals, homosexuals, bisexuals, you name it, that was not the case in the Catholic Church. What made the headlines in 2002 were the ongoing reports from men and boys that they had been molested by their priests.
Recently when the Criminal Custice report came out, that perception was affirmed. Deal Hudson analyzed the results – 81% of the victims were male, 78% past puberty with the highest abuse rate in males between 11 and 14.
I pointed this out to the leader of my Virtus program after we were through. My concerns were forwarded to Donna Albertone, Director of Protecting God’s Children Program Diocese of Cleveland.
Her reply to me was much like the one she put in the Plain Dealer The gist of it is that we don’t really know if this was a homosexual problem, access played a large part as girls weren’t serving at the altat prior to 1979, and a reiteration that child molesters are just after children.
This was my reply.
Greetings Donna,
Having read Michael Rose’s book last year,
and considering the investigative report by the Kansas City Star of the incidence of AIDS in Catholic priests,
AND considering the high percentage of male victims, I think there can be no doubt that there is a homosexual problem in the priesthood in the United States. The age of the victims also points to this being a problem other than pedophilia – these weren’t little kids without secondary sexual characteristics that were being abused. Also, as a former Catholic School Student from 3 to 12 grade, I assure you, any priest with a school in the parish had access to girls as well as boys. I don’t see the time frame as making much of a difference.
I did attend the Virtus training, and as a mom I think it is worth while. As a Catholic I’m still unclear on how this is going to solve the real problems that caused this scandal in the first place. It seems the burden is being shifted to the parish volunteers when perhaps the real work needs to be done in the seminary and the personnel office at the diocese. I also don’t see it as being quite honest in the Virtus presentation to mention that it is mostly a heterosexual problem when in the church’s experience that has not been the case. At least that caveate should be included in my opinion.
Thanks for taking the time to respond.
Now the scary part. Ms. Albertone wrote back that while there are homosexual priests, they aren’t the cause for the child sexual abuse
She said, “I can’t do anything about an adult who has the desire to ahve sex with children. I can’t prohibit them from acting out on that desire. The only thing I can do is take away the opportunity to offend.”
This appears to be Bishop Pilla’s take on it as well.
Bishop Pilla said the Diocese of Cleveland has dealt proactively with the problem of sexual abuse of minors in a number of ways, including:
Establishing and updating written policies regarding interaction with children and outlining proper follow-up to allegations.
Requiring education and training for more than 40,000 adults who have contact with children through their service in the Diocese.
Establishing a Diocesan Response Office, staffed by trained counselors, to respond to al allegations of sexual abuse of children. Allegations can be reported to 216-334-2999 or response_services@dioceseofcleveland.org.
Establishing a telephone line – 216-334-2999 – for callers to report allegations of sexual abuse of children.
Conducting ongoing gatherings of clergy and certified lay ecclesial ministers to discuss the scandal.
Creating a Review Board, composed almost exclusively of lay people, to serve in a consultative and advisory capacity and to assess the credibility of all allegations of sexual abuse of minors by clergy.
Sigh… I disagree. My response to Ms Albertone:
In my opinion, until the diocese recognizes that this problem was with homosexuals acting out on adolescents there won’t really be a resolution to the problem and if we don’t learn from this, the problem is likely to repeat.
This wasn’t a child sex abuse scandal. That is a red herring. A straw man that draws time, attention, and energy away from the reality of adult males performing homosexual acts upon young adolescent males. The Virtus program, in my opinion down plays the reality of what the scandal really is all about.
Yes, it’s very nice that you have volunteers and employees donating even more free time to the diocese for training against child abuse. But it’s like giving an aspirin to a a brain tumor patient for a headache. It doesn’t really solve the bigger problem does it.
Yes, I want children to be safe Donna. But I want more than that. I want a church that actually teaches and passes on the values and moral doctrines of Catholicism and I want seminaries that actually form and ordain holy and Godly priests.
I see no evidence of either of those being priorites on the web site for the Cleveland Diocese or from the bishop himself. I think that’s a shame
Why do I feel so sick about this?
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