Are Priests the Problem?

I just came across another article that holds up Catholic priests as central figures in the sexual abuse of children. Do you think they are?

For a dozen years the Catholic Church has been the target of unrelenting criticism not only because of the sexual abuse exposed by the 2002 Boston Globe’s investigative series, but also because of the revelations that the hierarchy covered up the abuses. Most of the criticism is deserved. But not all.

It’s true that thousands of priests in U.S. Catholic parishes were, and are, pedophiles. It’s also true that many Bishops covered up the abuse, moved priests to other parishes—sometimes to other states and countries, bribed or threatened victims into silence, failed to report the crimes to the police, covered up and destroyed evidence. Some Bishops were, themselves, predators.

Undoubtedly, there is much more we don’t know.

But this is something I do know: The Catholic Church is not the problem.

No matter how loudly the media trumpets the ills of the church, those ills don’t absolve the real villains—the pedophiles, the predators. And the church isn’t the only place that harbors them.

Our whole society harbors them. They live among us.  (more...)

Are Priests the Problem?