Session Notes

Vatican

The sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church in the US and abroad was a matter of homosexuals preying on adolescent boys, not one of pedophilia, said the Vatican’s representative at the UN in Geneva, Switzerland. It is “more correct” said Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, to speak of ephebophilia, a homosexual attraction to adolescent males, than pedophilia, in relation to the scandals.

“Of all priests involved in the abuses, 80 to 90 per cent belong to this sexual orientation minority which is sexually engaged with adolescent boys between the ages of 11 and 17,” said Tomasi. His statement is backed up by a report commissioned by the US bishops that found that in the overwhelming majority of cases the clergy involved were homosexuals, with 81 percent of victims being adolescent males.

Ok, I’ve been waiting weeks for someone to finally go public with this reality: it’s not often I find myself supporting much that comes out of the Vatican — but this is brilliant — and, perhaps, hope for change…

(Yes, I fully recognize this guy is gonna get roasted alive for sheer political stupidity — but it’s not like I can’t relate to being such a driven truth-teller that I end up looking like a bull in a china shop myself. Yes, I realize that the latter part of the article is a whiny and pathetic attempt at deflection — but HE’S STILL TELLING THE TRUTH in the first part.)

Here’s what he is saying:

Accusing the Roman Catholic clergy of Pedophilia is actually letting them off the hook. The majority of the offenders are really gay and, in addition, they seem to lack the ability to relate even to other adult gay males.

Let me translate that for you:

The RC Church has, through celibacy, created a situation where men who struggle with sexual orientation seem to be inordinately selected for the clergy. It selects them simply by creating a place where they easily find that their lack of desire for members of the opposite sex will not come under scrutiny and will even be applauded.

But, it’s beyond even that…

The RC Church, through a system of alienation from normal society, has also created a situation which attracts those who are unable to properly relate to adult sexuality.

Ephebophilia is an attraction to adolescents or people in puberty. By itself, it has NOTHING to do with gays, or even men. Thus, what is really happening is that the RC Church has created a system which not only selects for Homosexuality, it also further down-selects for those who, largely, could only see themselves as exercising such towards 11-16yr old boys (and, thus, do not simply ignore the rules of the RC Church and have sex with other men.) In other words, a very rare breed indeed.

Ok, first, let’s get a few things on the table:

(1). His popeliness is in this — and in it up to his eyeballs:

The future Pope Benedict XVI took over the abuse case of an Arizona priest, then let it languish at the Vatican for years despite repeated pleas from the bishop for the man to be removed from the priesthood, according to church correspondence.

Documents reviewed by The Associated Press show that in the 1990s, a church tribunal found that the Rev. Michael Teta of Tucson, Ariz., had molested children as far back as the late 1970s. The panel deemed his behavior — including allegations that he abused boys in a confessional — almost “satanic.” The tribunal referred his case to then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who would become pope in 2005.

But it took 12 years from the time Ratzinger assumed control of the case in a signed letter until Teta was formally removed from ministry, a step only the Vatican can take.

As abuse cases with the pontiff’s fingerprints mushroom, Teta’s case and that of another Arizona priest cast further doubt on the church’s insistence that the future pope played no role in shielding pedophiles.

An abuse hotline set up by the Catholic Church in Germany melted down on its first day of operation as more than 4,000 alleged victims of paedophile and violent priests called in to seek counselling and advice.

The numbers were far more than the handful of therapists assigned to deal with them could cope with.

In the end only 162 out of 4,459 callers were given advice before the system was shut down.

Andreas Zimmer, head of the project in the Bishopric of Trier, admitted that he wasn’t prepared for “that kind of an onslaught’.

(3). In the first article, the following statistics were published:

The vast plurality of Protestant churches in the US, numbering more than 224,000, including thousands of independent non-denominational groups, make the kind of organized tracking and recording of individual abuse cases as was done in the Catholic Church all but impossible. Nevertheless, some of the sex abuse cases in other religious communities have been documented piecemeal.

In June 2007, the Associated Press revealed that three companies that insure the majority of Protestant churches in the US said they receive upward of 260 reports each year of young people under 18 being sexually abused by clergy, church staff, volunteers or congregation members. Church Mutual Insurance Co., GuideOne Insurance Co. and Brotherhood Mutual Insurance Co., which insure 165,495 churches for liability against child sex abuse, emphasized that their figures did not always specify which cases were against minors and added that not all allegations were followed by convictions or even investigations.

National surveys by Christian Ministry Resources (CMR), a tax and legal-advice publisher serving more than 75,000 congregations and 1,000 denominational agencies, has also issued a report that found that child-abuse allegations against American Protestant churches averaged 70 per week since 1993, with a slight downward trend starting in 1997. The same report also found that among Protestant churches, volunteers are more likely than clergy or paid staff to be abusers.

Basically, the 70 per week number is meaningless headline mongering as no insurance company in the world would touch that sort of risk and 3 of them obviously have. But, we can trust the 260/yr figure — the insurance companies in question have a vested interest in maintaining the accuracy of those statements.

Of the approximately 350,000 churches in the US, only 5 per cent are Catholic. If we use the same reporting period (52yrs) the Catholics are using, scale by capita (in other words X .5) and then use 40% of that number to separate the actual numbers of Protestant clergy/staff abusing minors from volunteers/parishioners, we end up with a per capita comparison of 2740 : 10,667 of Protestant to Catholic abuse victims or 389% higher rate of abuse by Catholic Clergy. Protestant circles apparently have, per capita, even less VICTIMS then the RC Church has ABUSERS!!! (And few abusers only abuse once…)

The RC Church can rant all they like about this not being a problem of celibacy — but, apparently married people seem to not score as homosexuals with ephebophilia anywhere near as often as the celibate…

In other words, It’s already a huge problem, it’s been suppressed from the top and the lid (judging from their call center crash) is about to blow off of thousands more victims. There are only about 400,000 Catholic clergy worldwide. “1.5-5 percent” is not much of a defense – it’s actually a completely damning figure. Their own numbers really mean 6,000-20,000 abusing priests world wide — the majority of which their own stats say they have done nothing about. The occurrence of homosexuals who struggle with ephebophilia in the general population is a tiny fraction of that. Honestly, if the Vatican decides to sell stock, I wouldn’t be buying any for the next few decades as the payouts are going to be mind blowing…

But, here’s the interesting part of all this — the hope inducing part:

For years, the general public has been screaming for the RC Church to do something about the problem of Pedophile priests. And, the RC Church has been responding with statements about how it is unfortunate that positions of power attract Pedophiles and with statements about plans for addressing that problem (And real action). That’s blatant denial. It’s the equivalent of saying: “We have a weasel problem in our hen house and all of our chickens are getting eaten. We need to erect an electrified bear fence to keep out large predators.”

What this rather whiny but still highly placed Vatican leader is really saying here is that the Church finally gets it, is admitting it and, hopefully is going to do something about it. Now, what is going to be interesting to see is if they attempt to put in place some band-aid screening test for homosexuals who struggle with ephebophilia or if someone at the top is finally going to grow a set of them and admit that the only sure way to select for non-homosexuals who are attracted to and can maintain healthy sexual and romantic relationships with adult members of the opposite sex is to make sure the priests are married — you know, kinda-sorta like Paul’s idea…

It’s not like we DON’T know that around 20% of them are already married and doing just fine… (Which, by the way, makes that 6,000-20,000 number all the more extreme…)

ABC News

Women who took the birth control pill beginning in the late 1960s lived longer than those never on the pill, a new study says.

British researchers observed more than 46,000 women for nearly four decades from 1968. They compared the number of deaths in women on the pill to those who never took it.

In the study, women on the pill generally took it for almost four years. Experts concluded the pill cut women’s risk of dying from bowel cancer by 38 percent and from any other diseases by about 12 percent.

The research was published Friday in the British medical journal, BMJ.

After all those years of health food nuts freaking out over the birth control pill, it seems they may have signed their own death warrants by NOT taking it…

Of course, correlation does not prove causation. This could just as easily prove that non-health-food-inclined women who have lots of sex also chose to go on the pill — and it is having lots of sex that makes them live longer…

wittenburgdoor.com

Several recent studies have shown the limited effectiveness of abstinence programs, leading many to the conclusion that we have simply set the bar too high for the advanced libido of today’s average teen. Our young people already face enough stresses in life without adding unnecessary ones. Churches should be building up our future leaders, not crushing them under a load of guilt. The answer to this problem is both clear and simple: If the expectations can’t be met, then lower the standards. Though we have already learned this principle in the arena of public education, once again, the Church is slow to catch on.

Jesus Himself said “My burden is light.”

That’s why we are proud to offer a “lite” version, or re-visioning of a popular abstinence program. We confront specific areas in which previous abstinence methods have failed, and offer exciting options.

Thanks Kathy for pointing this out…

Some links just don’t deserve to be hidden in the comments… Yes, it’s a parody — but it’s just as real as the insanity of purity ball/ring thing.

On the one side, we have Fundamentalist Evangelicalism — with their useless shame and purity balls. On the other we have the liberal left — with teachings that (Though well hidden) really do sound allot like the above link.

Seems either is so much better then addressing the real issue: Shame, guilt, fear and shattered relationship — you know, things WE WOULD actually have to change instead of just hammering our kids…

abcnews.com

At least nine out of 10 Americans, men and women alike, have had premarital sex, says a new report. And premarital sex isn’t new — the high rates include the sexual habits of women born in the 1940s, challenging the idea that sexual behaviors used to be more restrained.Sex has apparently become something of a young American habit. “It’s hard to stop the evolution of that urge,” said Judy Kuriansky, a sex therapist, media personality and adjunct professor of psychology at Columbia University Teachers College in New York.The report, published by the private Guttmacher Institute in New York, challenges the thinking behind government-funded programs that rely primarily on abstinence-only teachings. The study, released Tuesday, appears in the new issue of Public Health Reports.

So to summarize, everyone is having premarital sex. All the Christians are having premarital sex too — even those subjected to purity balls and purity rings. In fact, it matters not at all what race, sex or religion the persons hold, they are all having every sort of sex and the only reason they are not having babies all over the place is that, in spite of the US government and abstinence education, more and more of them have figured out contraception.

Oh ya, and 5% of Americans apparently lie on anonymous surveys about having sex…

Yahoo! News

U.S. states whose residents have more conservative religious beliefs on average tend to have higher rates of teenagers giving birth, a new study suggests.The relationship could be due to the fact that communities with such religious beliefs a literal interpretation of the Bible, for instance may frown upon contraception, researchers say. If that same culture isn’t successfully discouraging teen sex, the pregnancy and birth rates rise.

This is a remarkably well done study. We have known for years that Fundamentalist Evangelical states tend to have really high rates of teen pregnancy — but this reality was always written off under the line that the other states are just aborting the children.

A line, we now learn, that is not even remotely true.

Apparently, even when you factor in those abortions, the fear, denial, shame, avoidance of the subject, abstinence based education, teen chastity balls/purity ring thing and the absence of credible teen education in contraception is doing nothing to stop teen sex — and a lot to help the whole, “Be fruitful and multiply,” thing.

Perhaps someone should have had a talk with Paul… His contention that the, “The law kills but the Spirit brings life,” seems to have finally been proven false.

The laws of Fundamentalist Evangelicalism DEFINITELY do bring forth life from teen girls…

Wittenburg Door

Ms. Wisteria, who holds a degree in early Christian fabric and drapery design from Emory University’s Candler School of Theology, worked as a model during her student days, and she came to a conclusion: Christian women needed a lingerie line that would let them look sexy but still retain that sense of modesty required for bedtime prayers and morning quiet time.

There’s a widespread misconception, she said, that Christians fear pleasure, especially sexual pleasure, and see it as degrading, corrupting and tainted.

“That’s a dirty, rotten LIE,” she yelled, stamping her foot on the marble floor.

“But it’s always so hard for a couple to transition from kneeling together in awe before the gates of heaven — praying for famine victims in Darfur, for instance, or the political situation in East Timor–and then jumping into the sack for a session of hot carnal pleasure. I wanted to help bridge that gap. That was my sacred mission.”

The result was her first popular cutting-edge design– the breakaway flannel granny gown.

If I wouldn’t take so much heat out of the fundamentalist Evangelical right (And reverends thereof), there’s a twisted part of me that would want to not bill this as the parody it is — and see how many would take it seriously.

But, having been drawn and quartered for not condemning a client who bought his wife sweaters from Victoria’s Secret, for linking to a site which sells foam wedges to support couples for love making (Especially disabled couples), for suggesting a Pyrex toy could be used to treat vaginal spasms, for suggesting that God created our ability to have fantasy and for having the nerve to suggest a sexual teaching guide (with [GASP] pencil diagrams) was not leading a couple into pornography, I must refrain — and wonder how much of the article really is parody; or if it’s history…

nationalpost.com.

When a teenage girl knowingly sends provocative pictures of herself to friends or a boyfriend, is she guilty of child pornography or simply practicing self-expression?

New research that looks at the criminalization of self-made images exchanged among consenting minors argues that the laws and public service campaigns designed to protect girls from becoming victims may actually be blaming the girls themselves and curbing their natural desire for sexual self-expression.

Teenagers sending provocative and even pornographic images via cellphones — a practice known as sexting — is really just a modern variation on "playing doctor or spin the bottle," Peter Cumming, an associate professor at York University in Toronto, argued in a paper on children's sexuality defending the practice.

"Technology does change things, and there can be very serious consequences," Prof. Cumming said. "But that obscures the fact that children and young people are sexual beings who have explored their sexuality in all times, and all cultures and all places. A distinction has to be made between nudity and child porn," he added.

In the last couple of months, the media suddenly seemed to discover that teens had phones (With cameras) as well as computers (With WebCams) and, as usual, the sky was falling. News outlets ran stories, prosecutors suddenly started charging girls who were even photographed in their underwear and, “Dr.” Phil commenced his usual clueless moralizing and grandstanding to shame girls into ceasing the practice of sending erotic pictures of themselves to others (Which, of course, he and others immediately commenced calling pornography.)

Ignoring the reality that this doesn’t fit any scientific definition of rage based erotica (Which Porn is). Ignoring that even under the blunt instrument of the law, nudity does not even remotely equal erotica/pornography and ignoring the raw senselessness of punishing a victim as her own perpetrator, this insanity has provided an interesting window into the collective self hatred present in the sexual psyche of North America. It’s like the veil has been violently pulled back and people are suddenly exposing the attitudes about sex that make them so uncomfortable:

Sex as a means of manipulating others.
Sex as a means of violating others.
Sex as a reason for marital failure (If marriage itself doesn’t kill sex in advance.)
Sex as pure sleaze.
Sex as a means of keeping one gender or another under your thumb.

No more are those attitudes hidden in the back room — but the weird thing is that the proponents of such are hardly hanging their heads in shame over the obvious shattered reality now visible in their belief systems. The above attitudes are actually the foundations of their sudden outrage and activism with rants about how boys will use girls, how gullible girls are for being sexual, how no one will want a girl who does this and how badly girls who do this are gonna get hurt.

As far as I can tell, this is the first researcher who has squarely faced the key question: Why are we shaming/punishing/condemning young girls for being sexual beings (Yes, very stupid ones…) instead of addressing those who would distribute the evidence of said stupidity?

The stunning irony in this entire debate is that neither Oprah, “Dr.” Phil, Hannah Montana star Miley Cyrus, High School Musical star Vanessa Hudgens, WiredSafety nor any of the major news outlets launched their campaign with a set of messages to young boys about respecting the sexualities of young girls, how a woman’s sexuality (especially offered to you) is a precious gift, how much of a moron you look like when you treat a girlfriend (Or her picture) like a piece of meat to hand around to your friends, how women are attracted to men of honor and how those that violate the above should be charged and educated to grow up.

Naw… Because that would expose our own attitudes about sex and, particularly, women’s sexuality. Like, perhaps the fact that we think sex is evil, dirty, sick and nasty — and you should only do it with the one you love…

The Daily Beast

Maine this week became the fifth state, and the fourth in New England, to legalize gay marriage, provoking yet another national debate about same-sex unions. The Lessins’ advocacy group, the Maui-based World Polyamory Association, is pushing for the next frontier of less-traditional codified relationships. This community has even come up with a name for what the rest of the world generally would call a committed threesome: the “triad.”

Unlike open marriages and the swinger days of the 1960s and 1970s, these unions are not about sex with multiple outside partners. Nor are they relationships where one person is involved with two others, who are not involved with each other, a la actress Tilda Swinton. That’s closer to bigamy. Instead, triads—”triangular triads,” to use precise polyamorous jargon—demand that all three parties have full relationships, including sexual, with each other. In the Lessins case, that can be varying pairs but, as Sasha, a psychologist, puts it, “Janet loves it when she gets a double decker.” In a triad, there would be no doubt in Elizabeth Edwards’ mind whether her husband fathered a baby out of wedlock; she likely would have participated in it.

But, But, But — they PROMISED!!! They were so sure it wouldn’t be a slippery slope…

CNN.com.

In a message posted on the Miami archdiocese Web page, the archbishop apologized to parishioners and radio listeners for what he called a “scandal.”

“Father Cutie made a promise of celibacy and all priests are expected to fulfill that promise with the help of God,” Favalora said. “Father Cutie’s actions cannot be condoned despite the good works he has done as a priest.”

Cutie apologized in an online statement Tuesday, saying he “wants to ask for forgiveness if my actions have caused pain and sadness. … I assure you that my service and dedication to God remain intact.”

Isn’t it interesting how an archdiocese well known as a safe haven for sexually abusive priests suddenly manages to get so pissy assertive when the other person involved is old enough to vote. And has ovaries.

It says something about the priorities and underlying patterns of brokenness here that this is what would finally be called a, “Scandal…” In any other church, everyone would be cheering that the one leader in the area who is actually doing something productive to really change people’s love lives has now, himself, found love.

You always see this pattern in systems of religious power: Those actions which undermine the power system are always deemed to be so much more evil then those which are neutral or actually maintain said system. The rating process really has nothing to do with any sort of evaluation of the actual damage sustained by human hearts…

post-gazette.com.

Grove City student suspended over gay porn video

Says film income helped pay tuition

Thursday, May 07, 2009

The Associated Press
GROVE CITY, Pa. — A student is appealing his suspension from a Christian college in Mercer County for appearing in gay porn videos using a pseudonym.

Twenty-two-year-old John Gechter, of Philadelphia, was suspended for one year pending appeal from Grove City College after a student saw him last month in a video posted online.

Mr. Gechter is appealing the suspension and says he may sue, claiming that the gay porn job isn’t any of the school’s business, especially since he performed using the name “Vincent DeSalvo.” Mr. Gechter says he used his porn income to pay for his schooling.

School officials say Mr. Gechter is suspended because he was well aware his porn involvement “exhibited behavior contrary to the values” of the school about 50 miles north of Pittsburgh.

Three interesting things here:

The most interesting part of this is still being recognized by precisely nobody… Apparently, the student who was looking at same-sex oriented erotic videos and narc’ed him out — well, s/he’s still a member of the student body…

It seems that, on this week’s edition of the naughty list, the sex acts involved in viewing same-sex erotic materials are not quite naughty enough to qualify as a, “Really bad sin,” — but performing them (at least on film) is. Or maybe, the real issue is just that the public can’t identify which student reported the problem — thus the school can still claim the problem doesn’t exist in their back yard, avoid dealing with it and still retain their carefully crafted public image…

The second interesting fact is that this guy is telling the truth about his financial needs. It seems that, for no better reason then hiding their finances from the government, the school canceled every student’s ability to subsidize an education in the normal (student loan) way.

The third interesting thing is that no one stated considering keeping them both there, admitting that the entire student body is overloaded with broken hearts and working with all of them to heal such…

Fundamentalist logic…