Study links child abuse by priests to 60's counterculture

Facts, yo

Until the beginnning of the twentieth century, age of consent was at best at around thirteen. So that kind of attitude to age of consent and teenage sex is nothing new.

the statement above is false

The argument as given is not precisely that the '60s made people into molesters. Rather, it's that the '60s activated a potential that was already inherent in the church's attitudes towards sex.

That's Feo . . . He's a disgusting, mysoginistic, paedophilic asshat who moonlights as a shitty writer—Something Awful

Reminds me of that one time when a journalist commented a 150-pages long report without skimming through it even once.

The report is here.

It is actually very critical towards the way the bishops handled the situation. Further, it identifies a number of factors, most of which have nothing to do with "counterculture" or anything like that.

The part that raised the whole issue is at pages 36—37: I would comment on it further, but to be honest I need to read the report better myself.

edited 27th May '11 12:42:37 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

I guess you're right.

Currently taking a break from the site. See my user page for more information.

That is a rather big oversimplification. The Jay Report (which is being conducted by a secular organ) is merely stating that the 60's made some priests think everything was OK, and made an already bad problem worse. And that's only one factor - the conclusion of the report is that there was no one predominant cause of the spike in child molestation cases - not the presence of homosexual priests, not clerical celibacy - nothing. What helped stop it, IIRC, was a Vatican crackdown that took the better part of the decade (one of the major figures behind it is now Pope) thanks to that enemy of all that is good, the bureaucracy (consisting of bishops who were engaging in turf wars... seriously, diocesan turf wars are like Flame Wars, only withour swearing).

TLDR: No one cause, except maybe sheer incompetence at personnel management on the part of the bishops.

Sorry. It's just a Berserk Button of mine.

Edit: Fuck, ninja'd two posts above.

edited 28th May '11 12:35:10 AM by Cojuanco

That kind of makes sense. 60s counterculture had pretty insane ideas about sexual liberation. Contrary to popular belief it wasn't only about openness and tolerance but also about promiscuity and rejection of the very idea of 'immoral' sex. So yeah, I don't think it caused child abuse but it mght have been one of the factors that made it bigger. IMHO the bigger ones were celibacy and Church's reluctance to take actions against it though

"Take your (...) hippy dream world, I'll take reality and earning my happiness with my own efforts" - Barkey