Talk:Roman Catholic sex abuse cases/Archive 2

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Opinions on page title wanted

I would like to invite others to comment on whether this page should reside under

  • "Roman Catholic church sex abuse allegations"
    • FearEIREANN 02:18, 10 Aug 2003 (UTC)
    • 172 07:56, 10 Aug 2003 (UTC) ("Allegations" is more appropriate. We're dealing with both unconfirmed and confirmed reports in this article. Every confirmed report is an "allegation," but there's not necessarily a confirmable "scandal" behind every "allegation." In addition, I favor the plural "allegations," since this is a global matter of many instances over thousands of years that is only getting publicized heavily now. The word "scandal" suggests that this problem is more recent in scope, as if there has only been one scandal in recent years, which it isn't the case. Other factors sensitizing our culture to Church corruption today might explain why this story hit the media in the past couple of years, not ten, twenty-five, or fifty years ago. There simply is no single scandal. To go back even further, allegations of sex abuse among the clergy and the orders, for instance, intensified in the years leading up to the Protestant Reformation.)

or:

  • "Roman Catholic church sex abuse scandal"

Please add your votes below these options, and arguments here:

Arguments for "scandal":

A scandal, according to the American Heritage Dictionary, is simply "a publicized incident that brings about disgrace or offends the moral sensibilities of society", which is arguably a very on target description of the cases in question. While it is true that some of these cases are merely allegations, using the word allegations in the title is itself a point of view, because it implies that the article is only about allegations, which is not the case. Scandal, a word that the Vatican itself uses extensively, is perfectly neutral and says nothing about whether the scandal is justified or not. Also note that all other pages linked from scandal use that nomenclature, and I see no reason to make an exception for the Catholic Church.—Eloquence 22:32, Aug 9, 2003 (UTC)

Well, it's hardly an allegation any more, if the church is making settlement offers, now is it? -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick

Read the headline, pogo. We are discussing allegations. Most are real, some are false, some have gone to court, some are going to court, some are true but cannot go to court for legal or practical reasons. It is not an allegation that clerical child sex abuse happened, it is reality. This article is not about that. It is about the complexity of the actual allegations, specifics, which is why it is factually correct to call them allegations, because if we didn't say that, 80% of cases which still at the legally unproven case could not be covered. FearEIREANN 02:03, 10 Aug 2003 (UTC)

The article is primarily discussing the nature of the abuse, with its impact on Catholicism a broader topic, not the central issue. To cover the full nature of allegations (those proven, those yet to come to court, those which cannot go to court because of time delays or the death of the abuser, and those thrown out as fiction) a neutral word is needed in the title. The impact of the abuse may be a scandal but that it reaching a judgment, which is POV. (BTW it is my POV, but wiki is not abuse POV but about encyclopaedic NPOV.) But overall impact is only one part of article; this is an article primarily about the allegations made, what they suggest about Catholicism, how they have impacted, not about the impact alone. Titles on very sensitive topics need to be very sensitive also, so the reader reaches the article without having their views on the issue coloured by the title language. This title was chosen for its neutrality to avoid tabloidising the topic and apply academic encyclopaedic neutrality, not generating up an emotional response based on title but letting the reader read the text and reach their own conclusions. It is for the reader to conclude if they wish that it is a scandal, not for wiki to tell them what to think. As to the Vatican's use of the word, they use it for its propagandistic, soundbite quality to generate emotion. We aren't in the business of soundbites, propaganda or provoking a response. We are an enyclopaedia FearEIREANN 02:03, 10 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I removed the following italicised bits -

instead of reforming its structures have fueled criticism and tested the faith of its followers.

Both are very poorly worked.

1, Reformed the structures? Which structures? Adminstrative, legal, leadership, belief system, reporting system, bureaucratic, centralised, relationship between secular and religious clergy, etc etc etc? It sounds like a rather simplistic soundbite based on little knowledge.


2. Tested the faith? Another bit of poorly worded nonsense. Even the Catholic Church has no idea on the impact of the crisis on individual people's faith . It may outwardly impact on the symbols of their faith; Mass going, etc. but that may simply be an act of disapproval, it does not mean their faith has changed one iota. There are many people who have a strong faith but who do not go to church. As to a crisis of faith, disapproval of the institution may or not be a symptom of that. No-one knows how the sex abuse crisis has impacted on faith and it will be decades in the future before anyone can make any definitive judgment on the impact of the sex abuse on Catholic belief. Remember this is not an institution that thinks in terms of the next press release; it thinks in decades and centuries not how a story carries on NBC Nightly News on July 27th. It is a classic 'make haste slowly' type organisation. Talking about how the crisis impinged on faith is a bit like wondering whether the Iraq war has changed US republicans' beliefs. Who knows? It is an utterly pointless reference that suggests a very superficial understanding of catholicism. Wiki needs to avoid simplistic references that simply reflect today 's thinking on the issue without making some effort to understand that this is a far far more complex issue that dodgy soundbites reflecting August 2003 thinking can convey.

BTW the above was written before Eloquence reinstalled the removal. I could not save the above because of the work on the system. (It has been sitting on my computer for 3 hours.) I am re-removing the line. BTW also, the 'missing footnote' was one lost all the messing around with the article location. I am going to have to retype it in, as with other stuff Eloquence's unilateral antics lost also. (Quite what else if anything was lost I don't know yet.) FearEIREANN 02:03, 10 Aug 2003 (UTC)

While list of Roman Catholic sex abuse allegations might be an appropriate title for a listing of allegations of sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests, that is not what the content of this article is. This article discusses the allegations, the media coverage, the response by the Church, etc.--that is, the whole scandal. I'm moving this to "scandal". If someone wants to break off component parts into separate entries, they're welcome to do so. --The Cunctator

I support a change of title, I oppose the split-off of the Church response as POV (it's an important part of the scandal, although with the current title, I agree that it is off-topic).—Eloquence 17:15, Dec 14, 2003 (UTC)

Please change the title of response of Roman Catholic Church to sex abuse by priests in the 20th century to something more neutral and edit its content if you can figure out what that is. Please don't call it "mutilations" and just revert it.

I'm making an honest effort to separate the different subjects of this entry, which you agree needs to be done.

My read is essentially that there's two significant periods--the time during which cases were handled privately by the Roman Cathollic Church, and then the time following widespread media coverage of the volume and severity of the cases and of how the Church handled them. The entry response of Roman Catholic Church to sex abuse by priests in the 20th century presently discusses just the handling before the scandal.

How's this for a fair breakdown?

The late 20th-century Roman Catholic Church sex abuse scandal is the scandal concerning sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests in the 20th century and the response of Roman Catholic Church to sex abuse by priests in the 20th century. Cases of sexual abuse of children by priests, nuns, and employees of the RCC were handled privately by the Church until the volume and severity of the cases, and the nature of the Church's response to known and alleged sex abusers, were made public in widespread media coverage at the end of the 20th century.
The scandal involved thousands of allegations of sexual abuse. Most of the allegations were substantiated, but many were not.

--The Cunctator 17:46, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

That sounds good... Greenmountainboy 17:50, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)


Look, I only agreed that under the title "allegations", material such as the Church response was slightly off-topic. It is desirable for numerous reasons to have topics that are almost always going to be referred to together combined into a single article. Who on Earth would search for an article on the "response of Roman Catholic Church to sex abuse by priests in the 20th century"? It's the articles that should be detailed, not the titles. Not to mention that there are POV problems with splitting away the church handling from the main article about the abuse scandal (decreases information visibility).

Also, this is not just 20th century stuff. Much of the scandal has been reported in the last couple of years, so it sounds very silly to always refer to it as a "late 20th century" scandal.—Eloquence 17:53, Dec 14, 2003 (UTC)

Yes the scandals were recently uncovered but did not necessarily recently occur. Greenmountainboy 17:56, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)
So would you refer to the late 1990s discovery that Swiss banks profited from the Holocaust as an "early 1940s scandal"? Scandals are primarily processes of public discovery and shame, and dated as such.—Eloquence 18:01, Dec 14, 2003 (UTC)
no, i thought you meant it should be called early 20th century. My mistake. Greenmountainboy 18:05, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

The idea that topics that are almost always going to be referred to together must be combined into a single article just is not workable. This leads to articles of unstoppably arbitrary length. The criteria for entry names is not how likely someone's going to search on the title, but for how accurately it presents the content. There is clearly enough content in Wikipedia on both the Church response to sex abuse before the scandal and the Church response following the scandal for there to be two distinct entries on that content.

In response to "the scandals were recently uncovered but did not necessarily recently occur.": the sex abuse scandal is the recent uncovering of cases of sexual abuse which did not necessarily recently occur. That is why the two topics need separate entries.

The sex abuse scandal is specifically the event of the publication and response to the publication of the history of sex abuse in the Church and the history of the Church's response. If you prefer history behind Roman Catholic Church sex abuse scandal which began in the late 20th century to response of Roman Catholic Church to sex abuse by priests in the 20th century then that's one approach. But I find the claim that the events leading up to a scandal and the scandal itself need to be merged strikingly unconvincing, --The Cunctator 18:08, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

"The events leading up to a scandal" vs. "the scandal itself"? Excuse me? What is "the scandal itself"? We're talking about sexual abuse of children that often occurred decades ago. Are these the "events leading up to the scandal"? Then what about Church instruction to cover up such cases? Are these the "events leading up to the scandal"? Then what is the "scandal itself"?
I'll help you out: The scandal itself is the process of publication of numerous facts and allegations related to sexual abuse within the Roman Catholic Church. Some of these facts and allegations regard the abuses themselves, of course, widespread and hitherto unknown as they were. Some of these facts and allegations regard the way the RCC dealt with the sexual abuses shortly after they occurred. And the RCC fueled the scandal through the way it dealt with it.
We are talking about the same complex here -- children were sexually molested by priests, the Church tried to cover this up as best as they could and threatened those who would talk with excommunication, and lastly they lied about their level of involvement and refused to provide proper compensation to the victims when the scandal become public. To separate these all closely related incidents without need is like wading through World War II and splitting off battles arbitrarily.
I am not opposed to splitting up articles when they get too long (30-40K). But if we do so, we have to do so in a proper fashion: By taking each section, regardless of its content matter, moving it to a separate article and leaving a summary in place (like the country pages). I don't think this is needed at this point and would prefer to shorten some of the article's more rambling passages (as well as the footnotes). —Eloquence 18:19, Dec 14, 2003 (UTC)

You ask what is the scandal itself, and then you answer yourself with the same answer I gave. The scandal is the process of publication of numerous facts and allegations. The numerous facts and allegations are not the scandal. They caused the scandal. The break-in at the Watergate hotel was not the Watergate scandal--it led to the Watergate scandal. The trading of arms for hostages was not the Iran-Contra scandal--it led to the Iran-Contra scandal.

I did take the section I moved and leave a summary in place. I'm really at a loss as to how what you're saying gibes with your claim that my actions were mutilations. Do you feel that I left an insufficient summary? Is that the basic problem? --The Cunctator 19:52, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I fail to see any logic in your first paragraph. Are you saying that all information relating to the events that caused the Iran-Contra scandal should be moved out of that article, and only a discussion of the media coverage of said scandal should remain?—Eloquence 19:56, Dec 14, 2003 (UTC)

No; I'm saying that the events that caused the Iran-Contra scandal should be summarized in that article, and that extended discussion of the events themselves should be in their own entries. For example, if there was sufficient content in Watergate scandal about the Watergate break-in itself to merit its own entry, then there should be a Watergate break-in entry, leaving only the summary of the information most relevant to the scandal. --The Cunctator 20:04, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I can agree with you to move information out of this entry that is sufficiently logically separate from the scandal itself. I do not agree that this is the case for the entire Church response section, but it seems applicable to the 1971 report and perhaps some other parts of the article.—Eloquence 20:24, Dec 14, 2003 (UTC)

Suggestion for title

The title is "Roman Catholic Church sex abuse scandal", so would not the first sentence make more sense as "In the late twentieth century, the Roman Catholic Church was...". That is, I propose changing the topic of the first sentence from "Roman Catholicism" to "the Roman Catholic Church". I suspect the latter is the more damaged party of the two ("was hit" is the main verb). But if this is a flame war like MT, please simply delete my suggestion and proceed :) -- ll


I don't mind if it's "scandal" or "allegations" but I'd like to point out another thing. The RC Church consists of both clergy and lay people. As far as I know, the scandal is only about priests abusing children, so the title should be rather "Roman Catholic clergy sex abuse scandal (or alegations if you will)". Kpalion 00:26, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The article is a pain, and so does this discussion. An encyclopedia don´t have to reflect recent events, it has to be historical. So, why there is not ANY indication that the allegations are by no means new (a link to e.g. Alexander VI. would give me some hope that NPOV at least is a goal). One of the "not-so-good" examples of Wiki.

Work on it then - I think there's room for both a historical analysis and an accurate description of current events.—Eloquence 19:01, Mar 10, 2004 (UTC)

John Jay study

Why is there no mention in this article of the widely publicized John Jay study? --Radarthreat 19:41, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

What is the scandal?

The scandal is not that some priests are pedophiles. So are some rabbis and cops. The scandal is the institutional culture that covered it up; a culture that persists to this day. Note the ruling by Ratzinger excommunicating any catholic who blows the whistle. Bernard Law is more guilty than John Geoghan was.

Sorry, I forgot to sign the above. Too Old 21:20, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
Classic "I'm less responsible for my own actions" thinking. John Geoghan is of course more guilty because he is the one that actually did the crimes. Do you think if the Church had defrocked him and helped send him to prison he'd have stopped being a pedophile? That said the Catholic Church in Massachusetts was apparently horrid in its running. They suck up to the rich by giving Kennedy's anullments when they want them and most of the Catholic politicians in the state favor abortion laws more liberal then even France's. Ideally all priests who did this should be sent to cloistered monasteries in Siberia for the rest of their life, the courts could never do anything like that, and background checks should be done on entering seminary. Not the "are they gay" background checks, but "are they psychotics or felons" type background checks. Possibly full psychological testing too.--T. Anthony 04:26, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
Besides being inflammatory, the above is either patently untrue or in contention. There was not a single systematic "cover up"; further, many actions which are currently being criticized were considered acceptable or exemplary at the time they occurred--before the 1980's, it was believed by the medical community that pedophilia could be cured and the healthy individual could return to normal life. I will point to Pontifical Secret for dispution of your assertation against Pope Benedict XVI (then Cardinal Ratzinger). Brlancer 02:23, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
What have I said that is untrue? Many teen-aged lovers were proscuted and jailed for statutory rape because their sweethearts were under the age of consent. I doubt whether anyone in the church would have opposed such punishment. I have read the article on Pontifical Secret. I note that the passage quoted below, which you apparently regard as refuting me, besides being logically ridiculous, (they were keeping it secret only from themselves?) was made in the context of a legal case, and postdates the scandal in Boston. In other words, they locked the barn door after the horse was gone. The extreme efforts that the Roman Catholic Church made over many years to keep these things secret from all outside the church bear evidence on the matter. As far as being 'inflammatory' - perhaps there should have been more inflamation previously. By the way, I feel the same way about all official secrets, no matter which religious or civil organization is involved. Too Old 21:18, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
When plaintiffs in Houston, Texas began a suit arguing obstruction of 
justice, in April 2005, the Archbishop of Houston, Joseph Fiorenza, issued
a statement elucidating “pontifical secret”: “These matters are confidential
only to  the procedures within the Church, but do not preclude in any way
for these  matters to be brought to civil authorities for proper legal
adjudication. The Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People of
June, 2002, approved by the Vatican, requires that credible allegations of
sexual abuse of children be reported to legal authorities.”


Part of the scandal included allegations of assault and misconduct against adults; while this wasn't the main focus of the news, I do think it falls under the larger scope of the scandal. I'll try to get some information/links. Brlancer 03:17, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

Hi there, I hope it will be alright for me to include the updates. I made no mention of contumacy - which in canon law relates to how a crime can only class as a crime if it is known by the perpetrator to be a crime . I have not studied canon law to do with paedophilia but I have read it concerning other church activity . Contumacy- means: if these paedophile priests (some rapes would perhaps be of adults) did not know that what they did was a crime , then it were no crime .So- If I swung out of the jungle , fancy your ass and grab you and rape you - I'm a monkey . I expect someone here could quote the relevant canons , or are there none . If I think you are a cutey, a bit young but you seem to like me raping you or encourage me ( the argument has been broadcast ) , and if I don't see that this is wrong and in conflict with my canon law duty to be nice to you , well I'm just being nice to you by raping you , perhaps ? Thats not contumate, and so not a crime , seems . I shouldn't say it really , as it's a better let-off . In fact if my bishop knows I'm like a monkey and don't have an understanding or shame , well since I have not committed a canon crime, he doesn't commit a contumate crime by allowing me to continue if he thinks similarly , that a bit of sex is just natural monkeys. Sorry to say that Editorial Crime we all notice pronto .There is very thin ice around the WP lake , and canon law is simple as pie compared to WP law (oops) .And yes- "allegations" is POV , as was conspiracy . EffK 01:40, 10 November 2005 (UTC)