Defending the indefensible

I'm a pretty forgiving guy.  I recognize we all have failings, and heaven knows I've led a far from blameless life myself.  But there are two things that I find it hard to fathom, and nearly impossible to forgive.

Those two things are rape and pedophilia.

Victimizing the less powerful turns my stomach.  I can barely stand even reading news stories that involve those two acts, which is why I felt actual nausea at a trio of disgusting articles about the recent revelation of a massive coverup by the Catholic Church in Pennsylvania involving the rape of 1,200 (possibly more) children by priests.

Let's start with the response to the scandal by Dr. Taylor Marshall, Catholic theologian, who at least acknowledged the problem -- more than a lot of church leaders have done -- but then proceeded to deflect the blame in a way that is as maddening as it is baffling.  Here's what Marshall had to say:

Three reasons for sexual scandals:

1. Denial of Christian faith. These clerics are secretly atheists, agnostics, or Satanists who see the Church as a social justice network that pays well and provides a lifestyle of insurance, income, retirement and unquestioned access to compromised men and vulnerable children.
2. Homosexuality. The 2004 John Jay Report publicized that 80% of priest abuse victims are male.  The orientation of abuse was overwhelming homosexual According to James Martin and Larry Stammer, 15–58% of American Catholic priests are homosexual in orientation.  Father Dariusz Oko of Poland has suggested that 50% of the bishops in the United States are homosexual.
3. Evolution of the mega-diocese. Since 1900, the concept of the Catholic diocese has morphed into something that would not be recognized by Christians of the medieval period, and certainly not by the Church Fathers.

So the reason priests have molested children is not because they're sick, predatory, and in a position of power, and are being overseen by men more concerned about the church's image than they are about protecting children.

No, the reasons are atheists, gays, and big churches.

[Image courtesy of the Creative Commons license Samuli Lintula, Altar of Helsinki Catholic Cathedral, CC BY-SA 3.0]

Then there's Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, who said that Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro is "anti-Catholic" and "salacious" for going after pedophile priests.  Donohue, who is known for his vitriolic, combative Catholicism-Is-Never-Wrong stance, had the following to say:

Shapiro said that "Church officials routinely and purposely described the abuse as horseplay and wrestling and inappropriate contact. It was none of those things."  He said it was "rape." 

Similarly, the New York Times quoted from the report saying that Church officials used such terms as "horseplay" and "inappropriate contact" as part of their "playbook for concealing the truth." 

Fact: This is an obscene lie.  Most of the alleged victims were not raped: they were groped or otherwise abused, but not penetrated, which is what the word "rape" means.  This is not a defense — it is meant to set the record straight and debunk the worst case scenarios attributed to the offenders.

First of all, how does Donohue know that "most of the alleged victims were not raped?"  That certainly contradicts a lot of the information that's been released (see the next article for more information about that).  And instead of defending the church and the priests, how about a little compassion for the children that were hurt?

Worst of all, there's the piece by Hemant Mehta that I would not recommend you read unless you have a far stronger stomach than I have, that gives details about a number of the cases being investigated.  I read it with an increasing sense of horror, not only because of the disgusting nature of the crimes committed, but because of the sheer number.  Mehta's list goes on and on -- but it bears mention that these are only cases that are being prosecuted in one state in one country.  Multiply that by the size of the Catholic community worldwide, and the imagination boggles.

And besides the scale, the other thing that will jump out at you is the lengths to which church leaders will go to protect not the victims, but the priests and the church.  Consider, for example, a letter from the bishop to Father Thomas Skotek, after it was revealed that he'd raped an underage girl, who became pregnant, and then paid for her to have an abortion.

"This is a very difficult time in your life, and I realize how upset you are," the bishop's letter said.  "I too share your grief."

This letter was written to Father Skotek, not to his victim.

The whole thing leaves me reeling.  It bears mention that I knew one of the first pedophile priests to be prosecuted and jailed for his crimes -- Father Gilbert Gauthé, who in the late 1960s and 1970s raped over a hundred boys in southern Louisiana.  At first, instead of turning Gauthé in for his crimes, the two bishops who supervised him, first Bishop Maurice Schexnayder and then Bishop Gerald Frey, moved him from one parish to another an effort to hide the scandal.  All that did, of course, was simply to give Gauthé a new batch of children to molest, and the crimes themselves didn't come to light until 1983.  (Despite my being a child when I knew him, Gauthé never acted inappropriately toward me, probably because he knew my grandmother, with whom I was living at the time, would have strangled him with her bare hands if he had.)

The most horrifying thing of all is that these kinds of crimes are not, as they have often been characterized, the sole provenance of the Catholic Church.  They can occur any time you have two ingredients -- a power structure that puts the leaders in a position of absolute authority over their followers, and people running the whole thing who are more bent on protecting themselves and their institution than they are on protecting innocent victims.  (If you want to read a novel that shows a similar thing in a different setting, read Ava Norwood's book If I Make My Bed In Hell, which is simultaneously one of the most beautifully written, and most disturbing, works of fiction I've ever read.)

As horrifying as it is, I hope the cases in Pennsylvania will uncover the similar instances of pedophilia that must exist in equal numbers in other places.  The victims have a right to have their voices heard, and their wrongs redressed, insofar as that is possible.  The perpetrators need to face justice for what they have done.

And the people like Taylor Marshall and Bill Donohue who are still making excuses and defending the church leaders rather than showing the slightest compassion to the victims need to shut the fuck up.

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I picked this week's Skeptophilia book recommendation because of the devastating, and record-breaking, fires currently sweeping across the American west.  Tim Flannery's The Weather Makers is one of the most cogent arguments I've ever seen for the reality of climate change and what it might ultimately mean for the long-term habitability of planet Earth.  Flannery analyzes all the evidence available, building what would be an airtight case -- if it weren't for the fact that the economic implications have mobilized the corporate world to mount a disinformation campaign that, so far, seems to be working.  It's an eye-opening -- and essential -- read.

[If you purchase the book from Amazon using the image/link below, part of the proceeds goes to supporting Skeptophilia!]

A governmental cult

Cult (n.) -- a system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object, often involving a misplaced or excessive admiration for a particular person or thing; a relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister.

I bring this up so that we can have a working definition right at the outset, because it's a term that has been misused (and in some places overused) to the point that it's lost a lot of its punch.  But two news stories in the past week have brought the word to mind -- apropos of the veneration with which the extreme wing of Trump voters treat the president and his cronies.

Let's start with the less egregious of the two -- an Alabama pastor, Earl Wise, who said in an interview with The Boston Globe that he would vote for accused sexual predator Roy Moore for Senate, even if the allegations against Moore were proven true beyond a shadow of a doubt.

In a tirade that combines "tone-deafness," "misogyny," and "excusing pedophilia" into a truly nauseating confection of venom, Wise said:

I don’t know how much these women are getting paid, but I can only believe they’re getting a healthy sum.  If these stories were true, the women would have come forward years ago...  There ought to be a statute of limitations on this stuff.  How these gals came up with this, I don’t know.  They must have had some sweet dreams somewhere down the line...  Plus, there are some fourteen-year-olds, who, the way they look, could pass for twenty.

So now what a child looks like determines the age of consent?

Make no mistake about it; if we were talking about a Democrat here -- hell, if we were talking about a non-Trump-supporting Republican -- Wise would be recommending crucifixion.  This is a man who thinks that two men in a committed relationship getting married is "an abomination," but a grown man targeting children is "championing conservative religious values."

If you think that's bad, wait till you hear about the other one.  Mark Lee, a Trump voter who participated in a panel discussion on CNN, was talking about how wonderful the president is, how he's "draining the swamp" and "helping the little guy" even though mostly what the president seems to be doing is appointing unqualified cronies to public office, lining his own pockets, and tweeting messages that sound like they came from a petulant and rather stupid fourth grader.  But all of that pales by comparison to a statement Lee made later in the discussion: "If Jesus Christ gets down off the cross and told me Trump is with Russia, I would tell him, 'Hold on a second.  I need to check with the president if it's true.'"

Okay, what?

Isn't the whole idea of traditional, conservative Christianity that Jesus Christ is the ultimate authority?  Because it sure as hell sounds to me like in Mark Lee's mind, Donald Trump has somehow usurped that position.

What I'm most curious about this is what could possibly be the motivation.  Are these people simply siding with the person they think will give them what they want -- pro-life legislation, anti-LGBTQ legislation, conservatives running the courts, religion in school (only the right religion, of course), the Ten Commandments in every government building?  Because that's pretty Machiavellian, but at least I can understand it.  To some extent, most of us make deals with the devil when we vote -- there is seldom anyone who is 100% aligned with our beliefs and interests.

My fear, however, is that this goes way, way beyond pragmatism.  This kind of thing, especially the statement by Mark Lee, smacks of the same kind of single-minded veneration the people of North Korea are supposed to have for Dear Leader.  No, of course the president couldn't be wrong.  About anything.  It's the kind of thinking that inspired this:

Cf. the definition of cult above.

There's a real danger when people start claiming to know the Mind of God.  As Susan B. Anthony put it, "I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires."  It is far more dangerous, however, when people believe that some flesh-and-blood human is the embodiment of the divine -- and infinitely more so when that person has shown himself to be venial, corrupt, greedy, lecherous, and dishonest.

I'm not at all sure what to do about this.  Once you've ceded your will to anyone or anything else, there's not much anyone can do to help you.  I keep hoping that Robert Mueller will step in and put a stop to the miasma of corruption, cronyism, and nepotism our government has become, but I know that these people won't go down without a fight.

And what absolutely terrifies me is that the Earl Wises and Mark Lees of the world will be right there in the front, very likely well-armed, fighting for the man they've turned into a god.

Deflating "Pizzagate"

A question I get asked a lot is why, here in Skeptophilia, I take time away from serious matters to look at the lunatic fringe, as I did yesterday with my piece on the reappearance of Mothman.  Let the weirdos be weird, seems to be the gist.  You're not going to convince them, you're not going to expunge all weirdos from the world, so it really is kind of pointless.  One friend said it was a little like masturbation; it makes you feel good for a little while, but in the end it doesn't really accomplish anything.

Well, I obviously disagree, because I keep at it on a daily basis.  (Writing Skeptophilia, I mean, not masturbating.)  And I do think there's a point to highlighting the activities of the loonies -- two, in fact.  First, there is the unfortunate tendency that once you've accepted one crazy idea, you're more likely to fall for others, because you've abandoned evidence and logic as the sine qua non of understanding.  Second, there's the even more unfortunate tendency that given enough encouragement, the wingnuts sometimes act on their beliefs.

This all comes up because of a Skeptophilia frequent flier, namely Alex Jones, who in the last few weeks has been ranting about something called "Pizzagate."  Which brings something else up, namely the fact that the media's tendency to turn anything into a scandal by adding "-gate" to the end of it really grinds my gears.  This annoys me almost as much as Alex Jones does himself, which is saying something, because if I had to choose between a root canal and listening to an entire episode of InfoWars, I'd choose the root canal because at least then I'd get some good drugs to help me through the experience.

But I digress.

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

Anyhow, "Pizzagate" is the insane idea that Hillary and Bill Clinton and various other influential people in the Democratic Party are using the Washington D. C. pizza joint "Comet Ping Pong" as a front for pedophilia and satanic rituals.  At first, the owner of Comet Ping Pong, James Alefantis, tried to go online and defend himself from the allegations, but I'm sure you can predict how successful that was.  The message "Don't let up.  #PIZZAGATE Everywhere!" was posted on Twitter and got thousands of likes and reposts.  "It was like trying to shoot a swarm of bees with a gun," said Bryce Reh, Comet's general manager, who was nearly pushed into quitting his job because of harassment and death threats.

Then Alex Jones got involved.  He posted a "special message" on his website about how serious Pizzagate was, and the horrible the things they were covering up.  "InfoWars and the Pizzagate investigators are just trying to uncover the truth," he said.

Jones, of course, gets not thousands but millions of views, so suddenly the whole thing exploded.  And a couple of days ago, a guy showed up at Comet Ping Pong with an assault rifle, saying he was there to "do some investigating of Pizzagate" for himself.  He fired off at least one, possibly more, shots, but thankfully no one was injured.

The attacker, Edgar Maddison Welch, said that he heard about the pedophilia ring from Alex Jones and decided he needed to do something about it.

Poor James Alefantis, of course, is just trying to keep a business he's sunk ten years of his life into building from tanking.  "I really hope that all of these people fanning the flames of this conspiracy would take a moment to contemplate what has gone on here today and maybe to stop," he said.  I hope so too, but from experience, I can tell you that once conspiracy theorists latch on to an idea, they never give up.

So a lot of wacky beliefs are harmless, but they establish a pattern.  You stop asking questions, you start trusting purveyors of bullshit like Alex Jones, and all of a sudden you move from "odd but not a problem" to "possible incitement to do some serious damage."  And that's why I spend so much time railing against the woo-woos -- even those who, on the surface, seem pretty innocuous.

I'll keep after the big stuff, too.  As you know if you have read this blog for any length of time, I'm not one to suffer in silence.  But the small stuff and the low-hanging fruit deserves some attention too, from time to time.  As the adage goes, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."  And that applies whether you're headed to someplace nice, or CloudCuckooLand.

Too high a price

If you wanted a further demonstration of why religious leaders and religious organizations should be subject to the same laws as the rest of us, consider the ruling last week in Louisiana in which a judge struck down a rule requiring priests to report suspected child abuse.

The rule, part of Louisiana's Children's Code, faced the challenge because of the case of Father Jeff Bayhi.  Bayhi had been sued by Rebecca Mayeaux, who had confided to Father Bayhi during confession that she was being molested by a sixty-year-old parishioner.  According to Mayeaux, not only did Bayhi not tell authorities, he gave Rebecca some stomach-turning advice:

Two years ago, Mayeux told us she went to Father Bayhi seeking advice when she was 14, because she trusted him more than her parents. Court records show when Mayeux went to Bayhi, Rebecca says he told her, “This is your problem, sweep it under the floor and get rid of it.”

When Mayeaux sued, Bayhi claimed that his religious freedoms were being infringed upon, based on the Roman Catholic doctrine of the inviolability of the "seal of confession."  And last week, State District Judge Mike Caldwell ruled that Bayhi was right.

I have a personal reason for finding this appalling.  When I was a teenager, I knew Father Gilbert Gauthé, who was one of the first priests tried and convicted for pedophilia.  He was the assistant pastor at Sacred Heart Catholic Church of Broussard, Louisiana, where my grandmother worked as the priest's housekeeper and cook.  Gauthé never approached me inappropriately -- fortunately for him, because my grandmother would have strangled him with her bare hands if he had -- but while he was there, he became a Youth Group and Boy Scout leader.  During his tenure in Broussard and in three other parishes, he molested dozens of young boys -- some say as many as a hundred.

Father Gilbert Gauthé (ca. 1983)

Part of the problem was that Gauthé was a charmer.  I remember that well.  He was funny, personable, and friendly; everyone liked him.  Even after he was caught, it was hard to believe that someone like him could do such horrific things.  His defense lawyer, Ray Mouton, found it difficult to stay impartial. "No one would have believed this nondescript, mild-mannered, soft-spoken person could have done the things he was charged with," Mouton said. "And then he began to speak about these things and being in that room with him was the creepiest experience of my life."

And the whole time Gauthé was hurting children, Bishop Gerard Frey knew what was happening, but because of the shame it would bring on the church, refused to turn Gauthé in.  Instead, he was transferred from parish to parish, bringing him into contact with fresh groups of children to violate.  Even when he was caught, the church leaders tried to do damage control for their own reputations rather than helping the victims.  "The church fought me at every turn," Mouton said.  "They wanted me to plead him out and make it go away."

Mouton himself was so disgusted by the whole thing that it drove him not only out of his law career, but out of the church as well.   "I honestly believed the church was a repository of goodness," he said.  "As it turns out, it wasn't...  When I decided to take that case, I destroyed my life, my family, my faith.  In three years, I lost everything I held dear."

And Caldwell's ruling last week, hailed as a "victory for religious liberty," is making it easier for predators to remain free, and for church leaders who are complicit in their abuses to retain their veneer of holiness.  Father Paul Counce, canon lawyer for the Diocese of Baton Rouge, explained that priests can be excommunicated for violating the seal of confession.

A fate, apparently, that carries a higher price than all of the lives ruined by pedophiles who will never come to justice.

Mike Huckabee, Josh Duggar, and hypocrisy

Rape and pedophilia are two of the most unforgivable crimes.  From the horrific emotional scars they leave in the victims, to the complete disconnect from anything remotely close to human empathy in the perpetrator's mind, attacks of this sort turn my stomach so quickly that I can barely stand to read news stories that cover cases of rape or child molestation.

It is why I have, up to now, avoided dealing with the whole debacle surrounding Josh Duggar, and the allegations that when he was a teenager, he molested five little girls, including his younger sisters.  It seemed to me that the police were dealing with it, and the backlash against the hyper-Christian, ostensibly ultra-pure family would take care of itself.

The Duggars have been the darlings of the Christian Right for some time; their TLC show 19 Kids and Counting was held up as an example of how good Christian families should behave.  Everything was about traditional family values and going to church and dedicating your life to Jesus.  When the allegations surfaced, it was a devastating blow; the "reality show" was cancelled, and Josh Duggar resigned his position as a lobbyist with the Family Research Council, an organization that raises money and support for conservative causes.

Which is as it should be.  You get accused of something like this, you retreat in disarray.  So far, nothing much to comment, unless you count exclamations of disgust.

But then the support for Josh Duggar began to surface.  His family came out on his side, which was unsurprising until you think about the fact that some of the alleged victims are his sisters.  Josh's parents, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, said, "Back twelve years ago our family went through one of the most difficult times of our lives.  When Josh was a young teenager, he made some very bad mistakes, and we were shocked.  We had tried to teach him right from wrong.  That dark and difficult time caused us to seek God like never before."

Which, you'd think, would include getting his victims some counseling from professionals trained to help molestation victims, something that there's no indication ever happened.  Josh, on the other hand, was told what could happen to him if he did it again, and was sent to "stay with an acquaintance and do manual labor."  Apparently, in their eyes, this did the trick; Josh Duggar said he's patched it all up with Jesus. "I asked Christ to forgive me and come into my life," he said.  "In my life today, I am so very thankful for God's grace, mercy and redemption."

So far, still not something that's all that surprising.  In this worldview, if you apologize to god, you're just hunky-dory no matter what you did.  When this happened, I still thought, "Nope.  Not going there."

But then Mike Huckabee got involved.

Huckabee, a contender for the Republican nomination for president, has been vitriolic in his stance against LGBT rights.  In a speech just last month sponsored by the Family Research Council, Huckabee said that legalizing gay marriage would lead to Christians being arrested for their beliefs:

If the courts rule that people have a civil right not only to be a homosexual but a civil right to have a homosexual marriage, then a homosexual couple coming to a pastor who believes in biblical marriage who says ‘I can’t perform that wedding’ will now be breaking the law.  It’s not just saying, ‘I’m sorry you have a preference.’  No, you will be breaking the law subject to civil for sure and possible criminal penalties for violating the law….  If you do practice biblical convictions and you carry them out and you do what you’ve been led by the spirit of God to do, your behavior will be criminal... Christian convictions are under attack as never before.  Not just in our lifetime, but ever before in the history of this great nation.  We are moving rapidly towards the criminalization of Christianity.

And this same man, who has over and over again claimed that marriage between two same-sex people in a committed relationship is an abomination, has come out unequivocally in support of Josh Duggar:

The reason that the law protects disclosure of many actions on the part of a minor is that the society has traditionally understood something that today’s blood-thirsty media does not understand — that being a minor means that one’s judgement is not mature.  No one needs to defend Josh’s actions as a teenager, but the fact that he confessed his sins to those he harmed, sought help, and has gone forward to live a responsible and circumspect life as an adult is testament to his family’s authenticity and humility... (F)ollowing Christ is not a declaration of our perfection, but of HIS perfection.   It is precisely because we are all sinners that we need His grace and His forgiveness.  We have been blessed to receive God's love and we would do no less than to extend our love and support for our friends.  In fact, it is in times like this that real friends show up and stand up.  Today, Janet and I want to show up and stand up for our friends.  Let others run from them. We will run to them with our support.

Then, there's the fact that when the story about Josh Duggar hit the media, Judge Stacy Zimmerman ordered that the file on the allegations be destroyed.  No reason was given, and Springdale Police Department spokesperson Scott Lewis said that this was unusual -- that records of this kind are typically kept indefinitely.  But the situation becomes a little clearer when you add to that the fact that when Huckabee was the governor of Arkansas, he twice appointed Zimmerman to serve on influential committees, and that she gives prominent mention of her ties to Huckabee on her re-election website.

Gotta stick together, you know.  Can't have any nasty allegations stinking up the party of the pure of heart.

The whole thing has such a nauseating smell of hypocrisy that I barely know where to begin.  The man who in his stump speeches has been all about "traditional family values" rushes in to support an accused pedophile, while simultaneously expressing revulsion toward consenting adults who happen to be attracted to members of the same sex.  The fact that the Duggar family is "saved" somehow puts them outside of the realm of criticism; the media that has brought to light these charges is "blood-thirsty," and Josh himself is "responsible and circumspect" because he "confessed his sins."

So let's make sure that a judge orders the documents destroyed, and pretend the whole incident never happened.

I think that it's the self-righteousness that bothers me the most.  Even the mealy-mouthed "we're not perfect" declarations by the Duggars, and by Huckabee about them, smacks of "but because we're saved, we're going to heaven no matter what, so we're still better than you godless scum."  They've set themselves as paragons; just the fact that they felt the need to have a "reality show" about their family speaks volumes.

Yes, I know, I'm not perfect myself.  I've done bad things, things that I very much wish I could go back and undo.  I've tried to make amends when I could, and (most importantly) tried not to repeat my mistakes.

The difference is, I know that the times I've fallen short morally can't be fixed by apologizing to some invisible Sky God.  Forgiveness comes from the people you've hurt, not from Jesus.

Nor, incidentally, from Mike Huckabee.