BAD APPLES ROTTEN TO THE CORE! CHURCH SEXUAL ABUSE OF CHILDREN KNOWN FOR AT LEAST A CENTURY!!/PL COMMENTS!

Here's a clip from the news story first:

LOS ANGELES — The head of a Roman Catholic order that specialized in the treatment of pedophile priests visited with then-Pope Paul VI nearly 50 years ago and followed up with a letter recommending the removal of pedophile priests from ministry, according to a copy of the letter obtained by The Associated Press on Wednesday.

In the Aug. 27, 1963, letter, the head of the New Mexico-based Servants of the Holy Paraclete tells the pope he recommends removing pedophile priests from active ministry and strongly urges defrocking repeat offenders.

The letter shows that the Vatican knew, or should have known, about clergy abuse in the U.S. decades ago, said Anthony DeMarco, a plaintiff attorney in Los Angeles who provided the letter. The accusation comes as plaintiffs in Kentucky are attempting to sue the Vatican for negligence for allegedly failing to alert police or the public about priests who molested children.

Yet the problem was very well-known to Rome well before the 1960s. The 1917 code of canon law criminalized sexual abuse of minors. Five years later, the Vatican penned a document outlining detailed procedures for handling such cases. In 1962, that document was updated and has been used in many of the lawsuits by victims against U.S. diocese and the Vatican itself.


Here's PL:

Okay, obviously there's no more need for me to slam any particular defenders of the church at this point. They are toast, and hopefully, they are reconsidering their blind allegiance to authority.

So, let's try and understand the why of the situation at hand in this ongoing travesty.

When a problem goes back centuries, when there needs to be a "special order" created to deal with it, it is obviously not a "bad apple" problem; it is a systemic problem. Clearly, the sexual abuse of children in the Catholic Church has been rampant in many places for many, many years.

What is it, then, about this particular organization that leads to this kind of particular dysfunction.

Well, I've been writing for a while on this blog about sexual repression and the very serious damage it does across all aspects of our society. Sigmund Freud, of course, wrote extensively about the subject over a century ago. He illuminated not only the reality that human beings are intensely sensual beings by nature right from infancy, but he also wrote about how and why certain institutions, like the church, sought to inhibit sexual expression.

Freud understood that in order for the Church to maintain its hold on its followers, it must be seen as all powerful by its followers. The Church understood this very well, which is why it established the incredible "Infallibility Doctrine," which unabashedly states that the Church and the Pope are incapable of erroneous policies or dogma! Whew!!

And of all of the forces driving human beings, the Church understood that sexual desire was the strongest, and therefore, the one the Church must seek to dominate (excuse the pun!) at all costs. Thus, for parishioners, sex for any purpose other than procreation between a heterosexual man and a woman was prohibited. For priests, who could only be men, sex was completely off limits. Oh, and these orders were, of course, infallible!

Okay, so, who would be drawn to join such an extremist organization, one in which the most powerful urges in our species were deemed unacceptable under all but the most proscribed conditions?

Well, it's Psychology 1.0 folks. Only people who have major issues around sexual expression, extreme guilt and shame combined with a harsh, oppressive conscience and an attraction to authoritarianism would seek out the ludicrous and maniacal restrictions of such a regime. And Psychology 2.0 will tell you that eventually, the rubber band will snap and the full force of the repressed, festered and now extremely distorted sexual urges will explode out in compulsive, destructive behavior, and that doesn't just mean child abuse; it mean all kinds of acting out, including violence.

One last point. The Church, of course, didn't create the people who've joined it. The Church is a manifestation of human ego which won't allow there to be a force greater than itself. The sexual force is first and foremost a spiritual force. It channels directly through us from our souls. Great sex, connected with love and Eros, blows the ego away, knocks it out. But if we haven't done the work necessary to deconstruct our ego, the ego will fight for control over us, even establishing a vast corporation like the Church to do its bidding.

Ahh... well, sorry, it always comes back down to that, doesn't it? Working on yourself. You name the evil - and we can certainly label the Church that way - and the solution is in-depth, determined, individual self-work.

Amen!