Dawkins Is Losing It

"Anti-Catholicism is the anti-semitism of the intellectual" writes Pat Buchanan in a recent article in which he quotes the writer Peter Viereck. In light of all this, now self-appointed atheist spokesman Richard Dawkins (along with Christopher Hitchins) is ranting calling for the arrest of Pope Benedict the XVI when he arrives in Britian later this year on an official state visit..

"Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, said: “This is a man whose first instinct when his priests are caught with their pants down is to cover up the scandal and damn the young victims to silence.”

Hitchens, author of God Is Not Great, said: “This man is not above or outside the law. The institutionalised concealment of child rape is a crime under any law and demands not private ceremonies of repentance or church-funded payoffs, but justice and punishment."

First, a few points need to be made clear here...

#1. "According to a survey by the Washington Post, over the last four decades, less than 1.5 percent of the estimated 60,000 or more men who have served in the Catholic clergy have been accused of child sexual abuse.

#2. According to a survey by the New York Times, 1.8 percent of all priests ordained from 1950 to 2001 have been accused of child sexual abuse.

#3. Thomas Kane, author of Priests are People Too, estimates that between 1 and 1.5 percent of priests have had charges made against them.

#4. Of contemporary priests, the Associated Press found that approximately two-thirds of 1 percent of priests have charges pending against them.

For comparison, let's examine incidence of such abusive behavior by Catholic priests with other professions...

Protestant clergy- Penn State professor Phillip Jenkins has determined that between 2 and 3% of Protestant clergy are pedophiles while his same study indicates that between .2 and 1.7% of Catholic priests are.

Teachers- Charol Shakeshaft (PhD) and Audrey Cohan in their study have determined that "up to 5 percent of teachers sexually abuse children."

Psychologists- Another position of trust. Studies indicate that "Between 3 and 12 percent of psychologists have had sexual contact with their clients. While today virtually every state considers sexual contact with a client as worthy of revoking a psychologist’s license, as recently as 1987 only 31 percent of state licensing boards considered sexual relations between a psychologist and his or her patient grounds for license revocation. What makes this statistic so interesting is that many bishops in the 1980s took the advice of psychologists in handling molesting priests." Link to above statistics

There is a tendency by people to react emotionally upon hearing of a report of abuse by a member of the clergy. An initial reaction as such is understandable for two reasons. First, there is the initial revulsion and reaction to a crime as heinous as pedophilia which in and of itself, can almost stifle conversation on the subject being that it is such an emotionally charged, horrible and almost unthinkable crime. Secondly, members of clergy are often held in high regard and afforded more trust than average persons. When that trust is betrayed, it is doublely devastating.

Abuse of this type is a societal problem, not anything that is particular to the church, rampant in the church, or something that the church is immune from. The Vatican has instituted a zero tolerance program over the last 10 years. Let's hope that it works and that Pope Benedict is successful in rooting out what he calls the "filth" that is in the church.

Pat Buchanan in his above cited article brings up the almost taboo-like possibility as to why there have been a couple of stories in the media recently concerning abuse within the Catholic church.

"the Times’ Richard Berke blurted to the Gay and Lesbian Journalists Association 10 years ago, often, “three-quarters of the people deciding what’s on the front page are not-so-closeted homosexuals.”

Is there perhaps a conflict of interest at The New York Times, when covering a traditionalist Catholic pope?"

It makes one wonder.