Moral Equivalency?

Many Catholic apologists are pointing to the recent story about sexual abuse in public schools and crowing–”See, you can’t fault celibacy or anything else unique about the priesthood! Schools have the same problem!”

But do they? Is it the same problem?

AP reports 2,570 cases of teachers being removed for sex-related problems (out of 3,000,000 teachers). 1,801 of those cases involved “young people” (not defined)–80% of those were students–or 1,400 cases.

So, that’s 1,400 of the 3,000,000 teachers who’ve been working the past five years. Catholic numbers are 4,400 of 110,000 priests who’ve been in service over the past 50 years.

The report doesn’t break down the cases by sex. Some involve female teachers with 16 (or 17 or 18) year old male students, but the report says (not surprisingly) that most of the teachers are male.

Among these are cases like Stephen Murmer, fired for painting with his butt (despite the fact he did all he could to keep his painting career separate from his school teaching).

Can these instances really be compared with what has happened in the Catholic Church? No. The Catholic problem isn’t just about priests who want to have sex with young people under 18. It’s about homosexual priests who prey overwhelmingly among young men, mainly teenagers. It’s about a culture of homosexuality that has pervaded many seminaries and dioceses and religious orders … that sought to change Catholic teaching on morals … about homosexual priests and bishops who covered up for one another … about bishops who moved offenders again, and again, and again, and again. And it was all being done by people who supposedly had an “indelible character,” recipients of a sacrament that supposedly gave them an extra helping of the Holy Spirit, who were believed to speak with divine authority. And how many of those bishops have been removed …?

Is that what’s happening here? It doesn’t sound like it. Still evil–but it isn’t the Catholic problem.

So you don’t forget all that’s involved in the unique Catholic scandal, see Roman Catholic Faithful, BishopAccountability.org, and Goodbye, Good Men.