Catholicism and Pedophilia

I woke up this morning to a lot of statuses about the Pope resigning. Most of them were from Catholics  reflecting on the Pope's teachings and wondering what will happen next. Some of them were from atheists making joking comparisons between the Pope and Emperor Palpatine (there are those that see a physical resemblance). And, as with pretty much any situation where Catholicism is in the headlines, I saw a lot of statuses about child abuse and pedophile priests.

Seems to me that non-Catholics, especially secularists, associate pedophilia a lot more with the Catholic Church than other institutions (such as other religious denominations, public schools, or say, the family.) Look, it's bad no matter where it comes from, but I'm dubious the Catholic Church merits the close association everyone assigns it. As Pat Wingert of The Daily Beast explains,

Many point to peculiarities of the Catholic Church (its celibacy rules for priests, its insular hierarchy, its exclusion of women) to infer that there's something particularly pernicious about Catholic clerics that predisposes them to these horrific acts. It's no wonder that, back in 2002—when the last Catholic sex-abuse scandal was making headlines—a Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll found that 64 percent of those queried thought Catholic priests "frequently'' abused children. Yet experts say there's simply no data to support the claim at all.

...

Since the mid-1980s, insurance companies have offered sexual misconduct coverage as a rider on liability insurance, and their own studies indicate that Catholic churches are not higher risk than other congregations. 

According to Wingert's article, estimates suggest 4% of Catholic priests have abused children, compared to roughly 10-20% of the general male population.

Of course if the best defense for the Catholic Church is that everyone else is even worse, I don't find that terribly reassuring. After all, 4% is still way too high. But my point here is not to defend of condemn Catholics, but to figure out why Catholics are associated so much more strongly with child abuse when they actually abuse at a rate equal to or less than everyone else. A few thoughts:

1. People react strongly to hypocrisy. Child abuse is always bad. Child abuse from institutions that are supposed to be moral authorities in the world is even worse.
2. You'd think, then, that people would be equally appalled by all other religious denominations (not to mention school teachers) that abuse. And I expect people would be equally appalled, but you hear about it more in regard to Catholics. Wingert suggests a few reasons for why this is the case:

• Catholicism is one of the largest religious denominations in the country (there are more protestants than Catholics, but Protestantism is broken into many denominations). The rate of Catholic abuse may be equal or less than others, but the raw numbers will be higher as compared to smaller denominations.
• Catholic sex abuse scandals have been made public in waves. Victims often delay reporting, but when some come forward others realize they aren't alone and feel encouraged to report as well. What might seem like a high concentration of scandals is actually a diffuse pattern over years or decades that comes to light all at once. This pattern is similar to abuse patterns for the general male population, but it appears much worse because of the way it's reported.
• The Church has been historically bad at punishing and preventing this sort of abuse, and this can result in a single priest abusing many children before he is revealed. In other words there haven't been very many abusive priests, but many of those who have been abusive have been able to go on for far too long without intervention. One study estimated over 160 abuse cases per abusive priest.

Again, it's not exactly reassuring to think that Catholics aren't that special because everyone else abuses children at least as much, if not more. It's freaking awful. 

However, given the seeming eagerness of some detractors to bring up pedophilia every time Catholicism gets mentioned in any context, and given my own (now confirmed) suspicions that it is not somehow a Catholic-specific phenomenon, I tend to see the accusations as more of an anger at Catholicism (or religion in general) than as an anger over child abuse. Although there's no reason it can't be both, really.

Thoughts on polling and labels.

Even as Planned Parenthood moves away from the "Pro-choice" label, more Americans are adopting it. Again. 

According to Gallup 48% of Americans describe themselves as "pro-choice," compared to 44% who describe themselves as "pro-life." Yet only last year Gallup reported a record low number of self-described pro-choicers (41%, compared to 50% "pro-life"). That's a lot of fluctuation, and (again according to Gallup's trends) the labels have been fluctuating for several years now.

Depending on which way the percentages move, one side of the other will emphasize the poll and talk about long-term, big-picture changes in the never-ending national abortion debate. Maybe they're right, but I don't think we can really see that from these polls. 

Labels like "pro-life" and "pro-choice" are not as well-defined as abortion activists like to suggest. I suspect people's reasons for choosing one label or another have to do with a lot of factors beyond their perspective on abortion specifically. For example, some pollsters suggest recent changes may be due to ignorant Republican comments about rape and pregnancy, or due to last year's contraception debates. I also suspect adherence to pro-choice and pro-life labels have a lot to do with how people feel about the Democrat and Republican parties at a given time, even if their feelings about the parties change due to topics other than abortion.

And of course there's a lot of ambiguity about what the terms "pro-choice" and "pro-life" imply. To my mind, a pro-choice person is someone who believes, at minimum, that women should be able to get abortions for any reason during the first trimester, and for severe reasons (rape, life/health of the mother, fatal fetal abnormalities) in the second two trimesters. A "pro-life" person is someone who believes, at minimum, that abortion should be illegal throughout all stages of the pregnancy except for those severe reasons. There are more "pure" pro-choicers and pro-lifers who may argue that the above definitions compromise too much, but my point here is not ideological purity. I'm trying to summarize what I think the majority of people in the abortion debate would consider "pro-choice" or "pro-life."

Yet I've met people who think that they are technically pro-choice because they believe in exceptions for rape and life of the mother. And I've met plenty of "personally pro-life" people who think abortion is a necessary evil that should be legal. How do people like these respond to polls?

Meanwhile, as Secular Pro-Life has pointed out, a recent Pew Research Poll found only 62% of adults knew Roe v. Wade was about affirming a woman's right to an abortion. In fact, 17% of adults thought the case had to do with school desegregation, the death penalty, or environmental problems. I don't really blame them--if you're not passionate about abortion I can understand not knowing anything about Roe v. Wade. I'd be hard-pressed to name a landmark SCOTUS decision about the environment.

Still, I wonder how much national ignorance plays a roll when Gallup asks people whether they thought Roe v. Wade should be overturned (53% said no, 29% said yes, and 18% said they don't care).

It's also interesting how the "pro-choice" and "pro-life" demographics break down:

Religion.

Having no religion is the biggest predictor for being pro-choice--bigger, even, than being liberal. Note, though, that the intense correlation doesn't cut both ways: 80% of the nonreligious are pro-choice, yet only 50% of non-Catholic Christians and 45% of Catholics are pro-life. In fact, more Catholics called themselves pro-choice than pro-life! And yet we're allegedly a Catholic movement?


Politics.

73% of liberals and 63% of Democrats call themselves pro-choice. 63% of conservatives and 67% of republicans call themselves pro-life. I never have been that clear on the distinctions between liberal/Democrat and conservative/Republican. They seem to generally follow the same polling trends. In any case this still leaves roughly 1/3 of Democrats who don't consider themselves "pro-choice" and 1/3 of Republicans who don't consider themselves "pro-life." If the labels weren't so strongly associated with specific political parties, how might that change peoples' self-descriptions?


Education.

The more college education a person has, the more likely they are to say they're pro-choice. Other polls have shown the more college education a person has, the less religious that person tends to be. And it's no surprise that education is positively correlated with income. In other words, while it's clear that education and the "pro-choice" label are correlated, it's not clear whether (a) increased education causes people to be pro-choice, (b) being pro-choice makes it easier for people to increase their education (how many women cite disruption to their education as a reason to get an abortion?), or (c) being pro-choice and being well-educated are both correlated with some third causal factor, like being non-religious.


Income.

I think this factor surprised me the most. According to Guttmacher, 73% of women who get abortions cite financial problems as a major reason. Yet the less income a person has, the less likely they are to say they're "pro-choice." I'm not sure what to make of that.


I would love to see a poll that asks more about the legality of abortion, and less about labels. It should also ask not just whether abortion is moral or immoral, but why respondents think it's moral or immoral. Maybe that would shed more light on the national perception of the abortion debate.

Re-posted at Secular Pro-Life

You're either with us or against us.

I have friends across the entire range of the political spectrum. This often means I'm privy to a lot of conflicting perspectives. In the last day or two, I've seen a lot of the following kind of mentality:

A Catholic whose conscience has been properly formed by scripture and Church teaching cannot justify a vote for a candidate or referendum question that opposes the teachings of the Church. The definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman, open to the birth of children, is a matter of established Catholic doctrine. Any Catholic who supports a redefinition of marriage—or so called “same-sex marriage”—is unfaithful to Catholic doctrine. - Bishop Malone

I wish my moderate Republican friends would simply be honest. They all say they’re voting for Romney because of his economic policies (tenuous and ill-formed as they are), and that they disagree with him on gay rights. Fine. Then look me in the eye, speak with a level clear voice, and say, “My taxes and take-home pay mean more than your fundamental civil rights, the sanctity of your marriage, your right to visit an ailing spouse in the hospital, your dignity as a citizen of this country, your healthcare, your right to inherit, the mental welfare and emotional well-being of your youth, and your very personhood.”

It’s like voting for George Wallace during the Civil Rights movements, and apologizing for his racism. You’re still complicit. You’re still perpetuating anti-gay legislation and cultural homophobia. You don’t get to walk away clean, because you say you “disagree” with your candidate on these issues. - Doug Wright

It irritates me any time I see statements of the form "If you don't vote for my preferred candidate, then you [rotating answer] aren't a true Catholic/atheist/conservative/liberal/or are a bigot/racist/sinner/or are lazy/stupid/selfish or don't care about the poor/our future/our safety..." and on and on.

The truth is there are a lot of factors to consider when picking a candidate, and people weight these many factors differently. I do believe people of good conscience can diverge a lot on both their stances and the weight they give those stances. This means people can have good motivations and vote for a candidate I think sucks.

It's one thing to say "If so-and-so gets elected, I believe these bad things will happen with regard to this issue, an issue I consider very important." That's pretty different then saying "If you vote for so-and-so, then a) you know and agree with me that it will have these bad effects and b) you just don't care about these bad effects because you think/feel/believe these bad things."

Don't assign motivation just because people come to different conclusions than you.