Pope’s child porn 'normal' claim sparks outrage among victims
Victims of clerical sex abuse have reacted furiously to Pope Benedict's claim yesterday that paedophilia wasn't considered an “absolute evil” as recently as the 1970s.In his traditional Christmas address yesterday to cardinals and officials working in Rome, Pope Benedict XVI also claimed that child pornography was increasingly considered “normal” by society.
“In the 1970s, paedophilia was theorised as something fully in conformity with man and even with children,” the Pope said.
“It was maintained — even within the realm of Catholic theology — that there is no such thing as evil in itself or good in itself. There is only a ‘better than' and a ‘worse than'. Nothing is good or bad in itself.”
The Pope said abuse revelations in 2010 reached “an unimaginable dimension” which brought “humiliation” on the Church.
Asking how abuse exploded within the Church, the Pontiff called on senior clerics “to repair as much as possible the injustices that occurred” and to help victims heal through a better presentation of the Christian message.
“We cannot remain silent about the context of these times in which these events have come to light,” he said, citing the growth of child pornography “that seems in some way to be considered more and more normal by society” he said.
But outraged Dublin victim Andrew Madden last night insisted that child abuse was not considered normal in the company he kept.
Mr Madden accused the Pope of not knowing that child pornography was the viewing of images of children being sexually abused, and should be named as such.
He said: “That is not normal. I don't know what company the Pope has been keeping for the past 50 years.”
Pope Benedict also said sex tourism in the Third World was “threatening an entire generation”.
Angry abuse victims in America last night said that while some Church officials have blamed the liberalism of the 1960s for the Church's sex abuse scandals and cover-up catastrophes, Pope Benedict had come up with a new theory of blaming the 1970s.
“Catholics should be embarrassed to hear their Pope talk again and again about abuse while doing little or nothing to stop it and to mischaracterise this heinous crisis,” said Barbara Blaine, the head of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests,
“It is fundamentally disturbing to watch a brilliant man so conveniently misdiagnose a horrific scandal,” she added.
“The Pope insists on talking about a vague ‘broader context' he can't control, while ignoring the clear ‘broader context' he can influence — the long-standing and unhealthy culture of a rigid, secretive, all-male Church hierarchy fixated on self-preservation at all costs. This is the ‘context’ that matters.”
The latest controversy comes as the German magazine Der Spiegel continues to investigate the Pope's role in allowing a known paedophile priest to work with children in the early 1980s.
Man in California, William Lynch, arrested in beating of priest who sexually abused him 35 years ago
A man who was allegedly molested by a priest more than 30 years ago was arrested Friday on charges that he took savage revenge on the now-elderly clergyman by beating him within an inch of his life in the lobby of a retirement home.
William Lynch, 43, had said he had dreamed for decades of confronting Rev. Jerold Lindner, 65, who allegedly molested him and his younger brother in 1975.
Lynch's festering anger finally erupted on May 10 when he visited Lindner at the Sacred Heart retirement home for Jesuit priests in Los Gatos, Calif., where he had been living since 2001.
Lynch met Lindner in a small room near the lobby of the home and asked the old priest if he recognized him, police said.
When Lindner said he did not, Lynch began pummeling him in the face and the body in front of horrified witnesses.
"They're saying it was pretty close to beating him to death," defense attorney Pat Harris told The Associated Press. "They're essentially saying that he waited all these years and then took out his revenge. It's sort of the ultimate revenge story."
Lindner was treated at a local hospital for bruises and lacerations.
Lynch surrendered to Santa Clara County Sheriff's deputies Friday and was booked on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon. He posted $25,000 bail.
Harris said he will plead not guilty at an arraignment in November.
Police said they were able to tie Lynch to the attack using phone records.
A half hour before the attack, a caller identifying himself as "Eric" called the home and said someone would be visiting Lindner to report a family death, the AP reported.
In 1998, Lynch and his younger brother received $625,000 in a settlement with the Jesuits of the California Province after accusing Lindner of sexually abusing them in 1975 during church-led camping trips in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
The boys, who were 7 and 5 then, were raped in the woods and forced to have oral sex with each other while Lindner watched, Harris said.
Lindner denied abusing the boys and was not criminally charged.
He has been accused of abuse by nearly a dozen people, including his sister and nieces and nephews, and was named in two lawsuits for abuse between 1973 and 1985, according to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.
Lindner was removed from the ministry, and has lived at the Los Gatos home since 2001.
Rev. John McGarry, the provincial at the home, told the AP that Lindner had recovered from the attack and resumed caring for 75 ill priests at the home.
He is not allowed to leave the facility unsupervised, McGarry said.
In a 2002 Los Angeles Times article, Lynch said he'd had nightmares for years, battled depression and alcoholism and had attempted suicide twice because of the priest's abuse.
"Many times I thought of driving down to LA and confronting Father Jerry," Lynch told the Times। "I wanted to exorcise all of the rage and anger and bitterness he put into me… He stole my innocence and destroyed my life."
BY Philip Caulfield
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
The Love and Sex After (Part 1)
Shahida Muhammad’s recent piece about dating a man who had been the victim of sexual abuse got me thinking about the inverse. What is it like for the men who lie with and/or love sisters like myself: those of us who belong to a sisterhood no woman would ever pursue. Victims, survivors, or whatever title you deem most appropriate (and by “you,” I only mean other women who have experienced this. I genuinely don’t care about what others think the term should be). And why do we here so little from women when it comes to their “life after?”
**Couple things: the relationship of the male victim of abuse/rape to society and community is very different than that of the female. This is why I am discussing women separately. Furthermore, when I put out the call for lovers of female survivors of sexual maltreatment, I only heard from men. This was not a deliberate attempt at being heteronormative. However, I’d imagine that there are some varying feelings between male lovers of female victim and female lovers of female victim, right? Okay. But we are all here to talk. All voices and ears are needed.**
This is the first in a series of a few pieces about love and sex after abuse. I have spoken to a few people about their experiences with this side of the road, and will present them sans judgment. Let me start with mine. I was sexually assaulted in Maryland on July 6, 2007. I think I would have forgotten the exact date, except that my homegirl was born on the 7th and I remember calling her up like “Hey! Happy birthday! So, um . . . bad news, though . . . ” No need to get into all of the details, but a brief overview would go something like this: it was dark, it was late, I was in car by myself. He had a gun. He got all my money and I had to perform a sex act. I was just happy he didn’t shoot me.
After: I do recall wanting to put something physical in between myself and my assailant as soon as I could. As I wasn’t dating anyone at the time (I had been cutting people off in preparation for my move), that left me with a guy with whom I had a casual acquaintanceship. We hooked up a couple of weeks later when I came back to DC for my belongings. I thought about being assaulted while I was with him. This was the case with the next few lovers. I couldn’t help it, it was still there. It’s still there now, but it doesn’t usually come up in the heat of passion.
There’s no lucky side of sexual assault, nor is there “diet” rape. But I can say that the nature of my experience allowed me to have a much easier trajectory towards healing than those who may have endured prolonged abuse, a more physically violent attack, an assault at the hands of someone they trusted, etc. However, it’s still a part of who I am and a part of the Jamilah narrative that I can’t dismiss. Thus, it is part of the information with which I have to present the men I date once I have determined that we are going to have a certain level of connectedness. I recognize that this is a part of my life—one that does correspond with my sexual identity—that they should know about.
I discovered rather quickly that I had both uneasiness about telling men what I had been through and a strong desire to do so. It’s hard for me to tell my story to platonic friends and women as well. This may sound silly, but it makes people sad and it is really hard for me to make people feel sad. Ain’t that ridiculous? I gotta live with being assaulted my whole life, but I’m worried about someone feeling sad for hearing it? LOL! (Go on, laugh. We need a LOL moment up in here.)
As this particular matter goes, I have made wise choices in picking suitors; every guy to whom I told my story has been either infuriated that it happened, deeply compassionate about my experience, and/or supportive in some other way. This was the case with my platonic brothers as well; while the women around me were saddened, there is this feeling we girls seem to have . . . this understanding that rape is just all too possible. It’s bad to hear that it happens to someone, but never surprising. The men, however, seemed to go into protector mode. An ex informed me that he felt protective of me upon hearing this, that he wanted to take care of me and keep me safe. Aww. It’s not feasible in a rape culture, but “aww” nonetheless.
Life and love and sex . . . good, hot and SAFE sex . . . continue for me post-rape, and my daily existence is not centered on what I’ve been through. It’s a piece of my story, but it’s hardly the climax. My life (love, professional, otherwise) will be colored and shaped far more by the beauty in my hands than by the ugliness of my past.
By Jamilah Lemieux
http://clutchmagonline.com/lifeculture/feature/the-love-and-sex-after-part-1/
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