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You may remember the numerous explanations that child sexual abuse in the Catholic church was an old problem, that all the molestation happened in the past, that things were hunky-dory now what with the new safeguards. Surprise! On June 15th, 2015 Ramsey County attorney John Choi filed charges (pdf) against the St. Paul-Minneapolis archdiocese, calling out Archbishop Nienstedt and his deputy in particular. If you don't want to read the PDF, see the Guardian story. The archdiocese had known since the 1990s that the abusing priest, Curtis Wehmeyer, had substance problems, personality problems, and chastity problems; in 2001 they went ahead and ordained him anyway. In January 2004 Wehmeyer got a citation for hanging out in an area used for cruising. Sometime during that year Wehmeyer was spotted leaving the boys' room in St. Joseph's school and was told to stop; the archdiocese was notified and the then- Archbishop Flynn agreed to act as Wehmeyer's "spiritual adviser". In May 2004 Wehmeyer tried to pick up two young-looking men in a Barnes and Noble; a parishioner, P.M., contacted the archdiocese because he was worried that the young men appeared to be the ages of his own sons, then 15 and 17. The then-Archbishop told P.M. that this was just "thrill seeking, playing with fire, and a misunderstanding." The usual story continues, with Wehmeyer being referred for treatment but not getting it, partial information being given to parishes about Wehmeyer, and the Archdiocese shuffling Wehmeyer around. Wehmeyer was assigned to a group called "POMS" (Promoter of Material Standards") monitoring to be watched and evalutated for sexual and substance problems. POMS doesn't actually monitor anything. In 2008, Archbishop Nienstedt takes over. SSDD. In June 2009 the Archbishop appoints Wehmeyer to be pastor of two churches, ignoring a warning from Jennifer Haselberger (see below) about his record. Children get abused, the Archdiocese is told, nothing happens. Lather, rinse, repeat. As always, when the Archdiocese can no longer ignore Wehmeyer's behavior, the archdiocese minimizes it and assure complainers that Wehmeyer has repented now. In June 2012, Jennifer Haselberger, the archdiocese's former chancellor for canonical affairs, gets tired of the coverups and goes to the police. Note the timeline: that's eight years after the Archdiocese was warned, explicitly, about Wehmeyer's inappropriate behavior with children. Once an actual investigation starts, it turns out that several other priests were abusing children in this time period. In June 2015 (see above) the formal indictments go down. June 15th Nienstedt resigns -- the resignation is actually accepted promptly by the Vatican, which is an improvement over previous Vatican reactions -- with the comment "“I leave with a clear conscience knowing that my team and I have put in place solid protocols to ensure the protection of minors and vulnerable adults....” Good to know his conscience is clear. So, presumably, is Wehmeyer's. e: I meant to tag this as "Patriarchy", but somehow I misclicked. Arsenic Lupin fucked around with this message at 19:22 on Jun 15, 2015 |
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Jun 15, 2015 19:15
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System Metternich posted:The The John-Jay study of 2005 came to the conclusion that the most cases of abuse occurred during the 60s and 70s and have been continuously on the decrease since then, while the obligation to celibacy remained. It's been nine years since the John Jay study and modern abuse cases continue to roll in (see this thread, for instance). Furthermore, the John Jay study was based on self-reported data from Church sources; this is a serious design flaw, given that the Church has consistently been lying and underreporting (see this thread). National Catholic Reporter Online posted:Too often, the research team uses assertive language about the number of abusive priests or the number of victims rather than qualifying these as accused or reported perpetrators and only victims who have come forward. While acknowledging that abuse is both underreported and reported years after the fact, Terry does not convey tentativeness about her findings. There are reasonable, literature-based extrapolations that can be made to conclude that the actual number of victims over 60 years is closer to at least 35,000 than 11,000 and that there are priests who perpetrated but were never accused. In addition, priests already accused may well have had more victims who have never come forward. Terry should have included statements about the significant likelihood that the number of reported victims and of reported perpetrators are both understated.
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Jun 16, 2015 15:26
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System Metternich posted:That's definitely correct, but on the other hand I wouldn't necessarily call it a "design flaw" - where else could they have obtained such a dataset? When they had only looked at the cases reported to the police, it would have been even less - only 14% of the ~11,000 officially known to the Church, as the link you posted said! They probably should have communicated it more clearly, but I honestly think that this is probably the best they could work with, given that a large number of cases remains unreported or hushed up by Church authorities. Data on child abuse have a built-in latency, because many, many children don't realize they were abused because the abuse was normative in their household/school whatever. They don't report because they won't be believed. They *do* report and aren't believed. They don't report because they think it's only them. All of these motives for underreporting become less important -- although not unimportant -- as the children mature. The John Jay study simply didn't have enough reliable data to make forward predictions.
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Jun 17, 2015 16:04
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