Child Sex Trafficking and Abuse in the Catholic Church

As bad as CPS is in aiding the "legal" kidnapping of children, and the horrendous child sex trafficking "industry", they are relatively new on the scene. Religious institutions have been around for much longer, and some like the Catholic Church have a notoriously dark and long history of kidnapping and abusing children.

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The Catholic Church has faced increased scrutiny this year, with investigations started in several U.S. states to look into child molestation and sexual assault committed by what are called predator priests. These priests prey upon the immature and impressionable youth and commit acts of pedophilia which traumatizes the psyche for life.

Like pedophilia that takes place in higher echelons of society often being covered up and safeguarded by those hierarchies of political authority, the Catholic Church has a the same protection racket running. Bishops and archbishops, even Popes, keep priests from being exposed or losing their positions within the church structure because it would apparently be too damaging to the image of the Church to let it happen. It's sort of like a "too big to fail" mentality, but instead of immoral monetary conduct, it's immoral sexual conduct.

The focus is usually on the Catholic Church, but the Protestant Church also has issue with some clergy, as does Judaism with rabbis which undercover stings by law enforcement have exposed.

No matter which religion, there are members in the religious structure that have destroyed the lives of thousands of children. When others learn of these heinous acts, some people ignore them in order to not cause a ruckus and upset the sanctity of the institution. Even within families people ignore children who are molested or raped because it's seen as bringing shame. The Muslim culture has examples of this where girls are raped and then punished like being stoned, while the rapist has no consequences applied.

Being sexually abused at a young at takes a psychological toll. The capacity to trust is damaged or broken, especially if no one wants to listen or do anything about it. Meaningful healthy adult relationships with a partner are also affected, as well as their relationship with any children they have. Trust in the religious institutions is certainly broken.

As an adult, the trauma to the psyche can be so great that they can't form a relationship to even get married, or maintain a stable employment. The shame and depression also drives some to end their lives in suicide, as they feel alone and guilty for what was done to them. They felt their lives devalued to such an extent by those that see them as expendable beings to be used for pleasure. The damage to the child is of no concern to child predators.

Religious institutions like the Catholic Church were supposed to be images for works of good, like helping orphans. But they have become mired in a history of sexual molestation, torture and neglect of children going back centuries, and that's for both male priests and female nuns.

As previously mentioned, the institution cover up the crimes. This only serves to hurt their reputation even more. If they wanted to restore an image of virtue and goodness, they should be serious about catching abusers in these positions of trust and authority within communities. Instead, they protect them in order to save face at the best, and at worst enable them to continue their dark behavior by shuffling them around and letting more children become victims.

Institutions that claims to stand for moral principles shouldn't allowing immorality to fester or grow. The church should be reporting these crimes, because that's what they are. No matter who commits these immoral actions against children, there should be no special treatment. Pedophiles are pedophiles no matter what their vocation is.

To be clear, sexual abuse is "...inappropriate physical contact, making a child view sexual acts or pornography, using a child in making pornography, or exposing an adult’s genitals to a child." Adults who do this are called pedophiles. A pedophile can also be one who is attracted to children, but doesn't act on it. Whether this is a mental illness or not is another issue. But those who do act on these inclinations are guilty of committing immoral behavior that harms children.

Oddly enough though, the Roman Catholic Church has not declared child molestation to be a criminal act. It seems this is a desired policy, otherwise why not consider it such? I think if they did, they would have to oblige themselves to crack down on the rampant pedophilia in the clergy. Maybe they want things to stay this way because they are evil, or maybe it's just to save face and not have the institution come under a dark cloud for the actions of some. But then, if the latter is true, does simply moving clergy around and covering up for their immorality really excusable to save face and keep up a false image of a broken institution?

The RCC see child molestation as a "confidential personnel matter". The priests are personnel in a business, and they deal with the "personnel" problem in-house. Discipline for what they call "inappropriate behavior" are rare. They just move around the pedophiles and ask them to pray more in counseling for what they did. That's what came to light in the recent Pennsylvania grand jury report on sex crimes committed by priests in that state, where 82% of victims were boys, and 12% girls.

Catholic bishops have kept records, which show $4 billion in settlements have been paid out since 1950. An estimate of 15,000 children have been victimized throughout the U.S., and only 1/3 have filed for damages. Paying for abuse doesn't make it go away, it only normalizes it. The statute of limitations also limits suits to try, convict and sentence predatory pedophile priests. Pennsylvania had over 300 priests abuse over 1,00 children for 70 years, and that's just the identifiable victims.

Coming back to the point of child molestation not being a crime, even an archbishop, Archbishop Robert Carlson of St. Louis, Missouri, has said he didn't always know that a priest having sex with a child was a crime. What a sick joke.

High level church officials like bishops, archbishops, cardinals and even Pope Francis have long been aware of pedophile predator priests violating young boys, and they have condoned them through the covering up of these crimes. This never put pressure to stop the behavior, but only sanctioned it and allowed it to perpetuate. It's long been known that priests who are exposed to accusations get protected by shuffling them around to different churches in U.S. states.

Knowingly covering up criminals activity is a crime. Covering up the criminal pedophilia in the church is also a crime that is covered by laws under Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO). If these laws are applied to the church, they could finally stand to learn the consequences of their corrupt behavior and stop harboring child abusers and aiding them in their crimes.

The self-protecting network of church officials has been coming undone, as catholic alternative media, like Church Militant, is exposing the dirty shit that the official church media keeps underplaying. Reporter Michael Voris spoke of the compromisd nature of these news services:

There is something sort of floating around in the Catholic ether that needs to be addressed head-on. It is the credibility of Catholic “news” outfits that have close association with the church establishment – and those associations can be either direct or indirect financial relationships.

These outfits cannot afford to fall out of favor with the bishops because they will suffer tremendously in the area of advertising or exposure or having the seal of approval taken away or getting access to various church events and personalities for interviews and all of that.

In short, they are beholden to the establishment and therefore cannot take too great of a chance of running afoul of them.

They cannot be relied upon to bring you the entire truth in complete context...

Right now, many of these outfits are more PR outfits for the bishops rather than news outlets.

The Vortex — Truth and Context?

The cover up goes all the way to the top, to the pope himself, and not just this pope but all of them. Apparently, Pope Benedict’s resignation in 2013 was a result of a 300 page Dossier detailing the immoral behavior of predator priests.

Pope Francis, while acting as Archbishop Jorge Bergoglio in Argentina, accepted priests from Italy that had serially raped deaf and mute children for decades. They continued to rape children in Argentina. He also blocked an investigation in sex abuse against Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor. O'Connor was instrumental in getting Pope Francis elected, working for years to get the task accomplished.

To reiterate the issue of children speaking up to parents or family, yet they do nothing to help the abused child, further compounding the trauma see this testimony from the 1,400 page Pennsylvania Grand Jury report on sex crimes committed by priests:

By a man testifying before the Grand Jury on October 18, 2016:

The man came forward in 1994 and reported he had been sexually molested by Father Guy Marsico while at St. Leo the Great (in Rohrerstown).

Marsico asked the boy’s parents for permission for the boy to spend the night at the rectory. The boy’s parents knew he wanted to be a priest and granted permission for the boy to stay overnight.

The boy went to the rectory to stay overnight. Marsico had boxes on a spare bed. Marsico told the victim he could not remove the boxes and that he had to sleep in the same bed with Marsico. Marsico made the boy undress. Marsico gave the boy full body massages and touched the boy’s penis. Marsico put his mouth on the boy’s penis. The boy stated that Marsico and he slept together in the same bed overnight. The boy also blacked out for a period of time due to fear. The boy was 13 years old at the time.

The boy disclosed that he told his mother about the abuse when he was 14 years old. His mother did not tell anyone. The boy told his father about the abuse when he was 16 years old. His father did not tell anyone.

The boy felt strong enough to report the abuse to the Diocese of Harrisburg. Diocesan officials confronted Marsico. Marsico admitted to sleeping in the same bed with the boy and giving him massages. Marsico stated that he “brushed his penis aside” when massaging the boy’s stomach and pelvic area. Marsico sent the boy a letter of apology.

The Diocese of Harrisburg agreed to pay for prescription medications and counseling for the boy. The boy later found out that his counselor reported what occurred during his counseling to the Diocese. The boy disclosed that he attempted suicide in 1986.

Many people fall under the delusion of appeal to authority, and religious authority is no different. Many religious parents dare not question, confront or challenge the authority of the priestly class. As a result, parents fail their children as they don't stand up for them. The child feels ignored, alienated, devalued and guilty as if they did something wrong. The trauma is amplified and follows them throughout life, or leads to their attempts to end their lives.

Society has shunned children of religious child abuse for too long. It started to change in the 90s with more cases being exposed. But some people may still have trouble accepting the reality of child sex trafficking and sexual abuse within religious institutions like the Catholic Church. If your child or someone you know was abused, don't ignore them or be silent. They need your help. They need justice. The abuse needs to stop, and the perpetrators need to be dealt with.

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References:

• The Catholic Church and Pedophilia: Trafficking Children as Sex Slaves
• Child Sexual Molestation Law and Legal Definition
• Excerpts from the grand jury report on child sex abuse in 6 Pennsylvania Roman Catholic dioceses

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