It's Not About "The Gays": A Look at Abuse in the Catholic Church

First, I'm writing this post in August while the Catholic church is, once again, dominating the news with yet another sex scandal. Which is part of the problem, that we look at these as individual scandals when they are, in fact, not individual but part of a pathology within the Catholic church.

Second, I'm assuming that the current scandal will have dropped out of the news by the time this posts. I'm also assuming that nothing will have changed in the church, again, so this post is still highly relevant.

Third, it's not the Catholic church that is the root of this problem, but we'll get to that in the post.

* * *

In the United States, we tend to have this perception that homosexuality and pedophilia are linked. Like one begets the other. I'm just going to say that the root of this lies in the Catholic church. The root of the perception, that is, because that's what it is, a perception. It is not a true thing beyond the fact that men have this problem with seeking out young sexual partners, which actually has nothing to do with being Catholic or homosexual and usually stops short of pedophilia.

The truth is that most, the vast majority, of the priests who have committed these atrocious acts of sexual violence against children would not or do not consider themselves homosexuals. These are not "gay" acts of men against young boys. These are acts of aggression of men in power against the only outlet they have: boys.

Which is where and why it gets complicated and misunderstood. The public has only seen it as men abusing boys -- which may be the only way the public can see it -- and interprets that has homosexual pedophiles, which causes those two things to be linked in the collective consciousness.

Probably what is needed here is a history of the Catholic church and the practice of sending young men into the priesthood, basically, against their will. But let's sum all of that up by saying that sending men to be priests because it would be good for the family or sending away the troublemakers in hopes that it will straighten them out or sending men because they simply have no other prospects are all bad reasons for anyone to become a priest. None of these men are really signing up for the "required" celibacy, so it should be no surprise when they don't succeed at it.

The problem is that when they don't succeed at it, at keeping their sexual desires in check -- And when I say "desires," I don't mean the desire to have sex with other men or with boys; I mean the desire to have sex. Period. You men reading this should understand what it's like to be young and horny.* -- the only people they have around them with whom to express these desires, the only "safe" people they have around them with whom to express these desires, are young boys. I say "safe" because they can't express these desires with each other. Let's look at those reasons before I talk about why children are "safe" targets.

1. As I said, these men, on the whole, don't identify as homosexuals, so they're not actually attracted to their companions. Or to men.
2. The men around them are their equals, so their silence is not assured.
3. The attitude about sex in the Catholic church is that any sex not specifically meant for procreation inside a marriage relationship is sinful. Protected sex is sinful. Masturbation is sinful. Sex because you're horny is sinful. [I should point out, though, that it is perfectly fine for a man to rape his wife as long as he can say it was his intent to put a baby in her. The Catholic church is FUCKED UP. [I should also point out that many protestant churches, especially Evangelical churches, share these same views.]]
4. The Catholic church (and most protestant churches) view homosexuality as a sin. They, in fact, treat it as if it is somehow the worst of all mortal sins. So, though I said that these priests don't view themselves as homosexuals, they also know that having sex with their compadres would be a homosexual act.

It's pretty clear, I think, that the idea of approaching a brother priest with the idea of sex is more than just dangerous. Priests could get excommunicated for things like that or, at the very least, severely disciplined, and it would ruin any future prospects for anyone with any kind of ambition.

Which leaves only one outlet for their sexual frustrations, the young boys working in the church alongside them. Boys because that should remove all doubt of any shenanigans. Because, you know, homosexuality is so serious and surely no priest would ever engage in anything even suggestive of it. I'm going to guess and say that the issue of sexual abuse in the church would be even greater if they allowed, also, for altar girls.

See, the thing about kids is that they are easy to intimidate into silence. Then, even if they do talk, adults are so dismissive about what they have to say, especially if it's not something they want to hear, that it hardly matters that they tried to tell anyone. And, if someone believes one of the kids, say, a mother, then she has to break through the male power structure of the Catholic priesthood to have someone listen to and believe her.

Until recently, all of this has been insurmountable.

And it takes us back to the real problem: male power structures. Because this not just a problem in the Catholic church; it's a problem everywhere you have men in power. You don't have to look any farther than our own #fakepresident to know as he gleefully boasted about how he could grab women by the pussies and they would just let him do it. And Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby and and AND! So many ands.

It's clear that anywhere you have men in power that they will abuse that power, frequently in ways that damage other people, especially if they have other men around them to help them cover up those abuses. The Catholic church just happens to be the greatest bastion of male power on the planet, so it has become the bastion of the greatest abuses.

Oh, yeah, I hear you people out there saying that women aren't any better and that they would also abuse power if they had it. But here's the thing: You have no real empirical evidence for that. You can't, because women have so seldomly been in power. And, when they do abuse power, it's almost never against people. None of which matters, anyway, because it's just a deflection from the point.

The point being that male power structures, having been built up over centuries, have a rotten core and need to be replaced. I'm not advocating for any specific replacement, but, as far as I'm concerned, the entire priesthood of the Catholic church -- including the Pope, and I like him! -- probably ought to resign. If they had any amount of honor in them and empathy for people the church has been raping, literally and figuratively, for hundreds of years, they would all step down. Unless they believe that raping children is what God's work is all about.

Then we can move on to all of the other churches where men hold all the power. And all of the other institutions and government structures.

*I once had a friend tell me that when he was horny, he was almost willing to fuck anything with a hole in it. And I had another friend who kept a special Coke bottle in his room, the old glass kind that used to come in soda machines before they switched over to cans.

The Religion of Writing: Part Seven -- The Priesthood

The idea of the priesthood in a religion is an interesting one. Generally speaking, the idea of priests (no matter what they're called: pastors, rabbis, politicians) starts out as a group of people meant to help their congregation or flock. They're assistants.

But it never ends up that way, because those guys always end up with the authority. No longer are they there to help people out, they're there to tell them what to do, how to think, what's right and what's wrong.

It's not all their fault.

People like to have other people in authority over them. They like to have people tell them what to do so that, if (when) it goes wrong, they have someone else to blame. Besides, thinking is hard, so why not have someone else do it for you? Also, for instance, reading the Bible is a lot of hard work, so, if you can have someone else do that and just tell you what it says, why not? It certainly makes life a lot easier and more convenient.

So, ideally, you'd have people reading the Bible and going to a priest (or whomever) and saying, "I don't quite understand this; can you help me with it?" And the priest would say, "Well, because I have studied this stuff and based on these other texts, my interpretation of this is... Now, here are some other resources you can use to figure this out, because you shouldn't just take my word for it."

Instead, you have, "What does the Bible say?" And you get:

• The Bible says <group a> are all going to Hell in a handbasket.
• The Bible says <group b> are all going to Hell so fast that they don't even get a handbasket.
• The Bible says <group c> aren't even going to make it to Hell because God is going to strike them down here on Earth.
• The Bible says that if you wink your left eye while crooking your pinky you will also go to Hell.
• Or if you crack your egg on the small end. (How's that for a literary allusion?)

Basically, you have people preaching their own, personal feelings as scripture, because, I'm here to tell you, the Bible does not say "abortion is a sin," and anyone that tells you that the Bible says that is a liar. Whether abortion is a sin is based upon an interpretation of other things the Bible says, so the correct way of dealing with that is to say, "Based upon these passages, I have come to believe that abortion is wrong," or, conversely, "Based upon these [other] passages, I do not believe abortion is wrong." Because the Bible does not speak about abortion.
For example.
And, yeah, I picked a touchy subject, but it was the first thing that popped into my head, and, no, I am not going to go into my personal opinion (because it doesn't matter and isn't what we're talking about), and, yes, there are passages of scripture which support both sides of that argument. (Maybe, I should have chosen the death penalty as my example, but I think people could get just as riled over that.)

[I do know that it's not like this everywhere, but those other places are the exceptions, not the rule.]

At any rate, the point of the priesthood (and, yes, I do include politics and, even, science) in any religion should be to help people to understand things and come to their own conclusions, not just deliver the "Word of God" and expect people accept it blindly. Except that, like I said, people want to accept things blindly. It doesn't take so much work.

Which, in a roundabout way, brings us to editing and editors, the priesthood of the publishing industry. You know, because "no one can edit their own work. They're too close to it." Which is just like "common people shouldn't read the Bible. It's too confusing to them. Only the priests should read it and tell the people what it says." And before you accuse me of Catholic bashing again (which is not to say that I'm not bashing that idea), most religions promote that kind of thought. Sure, the Baptists want you to have your Bibles with you on Sunday so that you can open them up and read along with the pastor, but the pastor is actually going to tell you what that thing you just read means, and you don't have to worry your pretty little heads over it. And, sure, Bible studies are promoted... full of handy little guide books that will explain everything for you. Forget any other interpretation which may be possible.

So, yeah, I hate that whole "no one can edit their own work" thing. And I hate that publishers give editors greater power over the work than the author, the one that knows the work and what it's there to communicate. Or not communicate. Or whatever. There was a time when an editor was just someone that came alongside the author to help. "Hey, this may not be the correct word here." "This sentence is confusing; what did you mean?" "What happened to Billy? He just disappears after chapter four?" Editors were meant to help authors think about what they had written and make sure they were saying what they thought they were saying. And the grammar? The author was expected to know all of that, because why? He was the author and knowing how to write, the grammar and punctuation, was his job.

But, you know, if we can let the editors be the authority on grammar and whatnot, why should we bother to know that stuff? So we fail to be as knowledgeable as we could and, then, complain at what the "editors" (and publishers) did to our works. [Not that that is the case with all authors, but there are plenty of big name authors out there that take issue with the editing in their works, and there are plenty of "author's preferred editions" out there trying to overcome what the editor did.]

Here's the thing that complicates all of this: Many, probably most, authors out there do need an editor. Or three. And I don't just mean someone to catch typos, either; I mean someone that can help them make their stories readable. And I kind of have to wonder at that point, if that kind of editing is needed, if that person should be seeking publication at all. For instance, there's an article or something written by Lovecraft about all of the things a "novice author" needs to master before seeking publication; many of those things were grammar related (this is not that article, but it does summarize it and link to the original text) and almost all of them are things authors (or publishers) expect editors to do these days. And Lovecraft has not been the only author to to talk about how novice writers need to learn their stuff before trying to get published. Don't let the editor be the authority.

And I'm hearing, again, many of you saying, "But you're too close to your own writing." To that, I will respond with a quote from my wife (because she's smart that way (and we talk about this kind of stuff all the time)):

To that I would say: Then what did we spend all that time in high school and college to learn to write for? We had to self-edit our papers, theses, and so on. We had to learn structure, pay attention to spelling, provide references and all of that. Did we forget it all just because, maybe, we're writing fiction? Do we believe that editors (people who edit) just sprang from the womb able to do it, or is it something they maybe learned? It's like a priesthood.

And, yes, that's what gave me the idea for the title of this one, because it is like a priesthood, and only the priests are allowed to edit. And that's just... foolish.

Of course, the key here in all of this is knowing your strengths and knowing where you need to get help. No matter what it has sounded like I've been saying in this post, I'm not advocating for people not to get editing help. Far from it. I wish more people would get better editors. What I am saying is that the idea that no one can edit their own work is fallacious. What I am saying is that authors shouldn't just give over authority of their own manuscripts to other people. What I am saying is that authors do their parts of the job and learn all the technical skills about writing as they can, because, to paraphrase Lovecraft, "Anyone can learn that stuff in school." The implication there is that if you don't know it, go back to school and learn it. Be able to approach an editor with, "I'm not sure about this part right here (whether it's a grammar question or a structure question); what do you think?" rather than, "Here's my manuscript; you do the rest." Know your stuff well enough to be able to tell editors, "No, what you're saying doesn't fit with my manuscript."

There was one point when Lovecraft was still starting out when he sent this:

"If the tale cannot be printed as it is written, down to the very last semicolon and comma, it must gracefully accept rejection. Excision by editors is probably the one reason why no living American author has any real prose style."

I'm pretty sure no one these days would get published under any traditional model with that attitude, and it was already rare a century ago, but Lovecraft did get published and is still considered the master of his... field? Genre? Man, I don't even quite know what to call what he did, and I don't like the title "weird fiction" which is what I often see it being called. The point is that he became his own authority. Clearly, self-editing is possible. Tolkien often had to go back and re-edit his manuscripts because the editors, not being as skilled or as knowledgeable as him, would cause problems in his works. The first edition of The Hobbit doesn't have "dwarves" in it; it has "dwarfs," which is a completely different connotation, because the editor thought Tolkien had made a mistake and didn't bother to check with him about it. That was not the only time that happened in the early days of Tolkien's books being published.

Editors have no special gifts. They have not received divine inspiration. They are not magical. They do not know anything that any author cannot learn. Any author should learn. But, of course, if you don't bother to learn that stuff, I suppose an editor can seem like an all-knowing priest.