Jokes about pedophile priests are probably as old as the church itself. It's always been an open secret that children are being molested in churches, even long before the giant wave of law-suits against abusive priests and nuns dragged the matter into the spotlight of public attention about a year ago.
I've written before about why exactly abuse is such a wide-spread phenomenon in the church, but one point in particular is worth being made again. While there was a huge outcry in the media about celibacy, and many demands that the custom be dropped, nobody ever seemed to wonder what other reasons there might be.
Nobody ever considered that the huge number of sexual deviants in the church might be a direct result of the churches' appearance.
However unpleasant it may be, please do try to put yourself in the shoes of an adolescent male who realizes that he gets turned on by children. Who realizes that, as he grows older, the age-gap only grows larger and larger. Consider this: It must be a painful process to realize you are part of a group that is despised by society unlike any other, that you are on your way to become one of those creepy strangers that Mommy always warned you about.
Pedophiles are tortured souls.
They know perfectly well that if they ever tell anybody about their urges, they’re socially doomed. They will instantly lose everything: Their job, their friends, their family, even if they haven’t even done anything wrong yet, even if their only crime so far were nothing but thoughts. Nobody will even pity them.
In such a situation, what possibilities are left to you? Suicide? Consulting a shrink? If people are your main problem, perhaps turning to personal help doesn't seem such a good idea.
So you turn to God.
It's the obvious choice: The church promises forgiveness for even the worst of ‘sins’, it promises acceptance, and most importantly: The custom of celibacy seems to promise that these are people who are in control of sexuality, who know how to defeat the urges that torture you. The church appears to be the panacea to these people, a solution to all their problems. The one way to live a benign life, to be left alone and not hurt anyone, perhaps even do good.
Devoting your life to god is not just the obvious, but for many also the only option.
This is not news to me. It seems pretty obvious. If only, at some point, we quit using the term "pedophile" to mean "child rapist" as if it's the same thing. We don't use the phrase "impulse control issues" or "anger management problems" to mean "beating your spouse nearly to death". It would be better for the people who have this problem as well as safer for children if we stopped being stupid about it.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, it is still news to many.
ReplyDeleteI am well aware of (and have written before about) the fact that children only serve as substitute-objects in most cases of sexual abuse, while seldom being the primary sexual preference of the culprit.
Nevertheless, 'pedophile' is a phrase used by the media to catch people's attention, so there might be some benefit in using the same vocabulary in order to educate people. That being said, you are perfectly right about the term pedophile being inapropraite here. I'll try using alternatives such as "clergy child abuse" in the future instead.
Very well put. I often catch myself comparing pedophiles to homosexuals. I consider neither to be a bad thing by definition. Luckily for homosexuals, practicing their urges is completely harmless and more often than not a joyous experience for both participants. For pedophiles, I can only feel compassion. It is they who have urges that cannot ever be satisfied without grave consequences. The mere act of discussing it with people is a total breakdown of their personal lives. In fact, I think most of them don't even want to admit it to themselves, for the mere shame of it. I can only imagine that it must be one of the worst experiences one can have.
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