Have any of the rest of you, with your friends and associates in Western Europe's Catholic countries, discussed the matter of Catholic priests messing with kids?
Ages ago when
the big Boston brouhaha came about, I brought it up with friends in Switzerland and France. I got essentially the same feedback from all of them:
Americans are so naive, and then when your naivete bites you in the ass, you go looking for someone else to blame.
Europeans have for centuries known priests are more likely than anyone else to mess with teeangers, boys or girls, depending on whether they're gay because all that "cloistering" and whatnot makes for a lot of "blue balls," so when they see an opportunity that seems rather low risk re: discovery, they'll go for it.
Common sense would tell anyone that canonical vows or not, 17-45 year-old males want sex, and the older the guy, the more appealing be young partners. It's that way with straight and gay guys. Why the hell do you think women are so obsessed with looking young and men aren't? Because men of all ages want nubile, or at least seemingly so, sex partners.
Consequently, folks use common sense and just don't for extended periods leave their kids unaccompanied and sequestered with priests. For example, if your kid is an alter boy, fine, you get him to the church a few minutes before mass and if he's not returned from the sacristy within five minutes after mass, you're on your way in there to retrieve him.
According to my friends, the above described approach people in their communities have used has worked for ages. No, it's not 100% perfect, but it's close enough that they aren't having the sorts of conniptions Americans are. To wit,
in Germany there are some ~3700 reported sexual abuse cases that happened between the 1940s and 2014 (~55/year). That seems like a lot (to be sure one is too many, but that's not the point here) but when one considers there are tens of thousands of Catholic priests and
some 23M+ Catholics in Germany, the matter is far, far more "sensational" than it is frequent.
Frankly, though the priests' acts are reprehensible, I cannot help but think a material share of the hoopla about the matter stems from the fact and incidences of decades of abuse having come to light much like an earthquake or dam breaking, whereafter, in typical American fashion, there was a lot of outcry and "Oh, my God! I would never have thought a/my priest would have done that." To that, my European friends would say, "Well, that's just it. You didn't think. A cassock and surplice doesn't make a man any less horny, yet you acted as though it does."
Lest some readers misconstrue the above:
- I am not condoning or absolving the priests or their comportment.
- I am ridiculing folks for making such a big deal about something they should have been savvy to and circumspect about from the get go.