Some people have asked me to comment on Michael D’Antonio’s book Mortal Sins: Sex, Crime, and the Era of Catholic Scandal.
D’Antonio is a Pulitzer Prize winner, so the book is well written and carries the reader along. He narrates the process in which the extent of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church was revealed over the past generation. He organizes his material by focusing on key agents, especially Richard Sipe, Tom Doyle, and Jeff Anderson (all of whom I know).
Tom Doyle and Jeff Anderson are both recovering alcoholics, which they have made public. In Doyle’s case, I think I was the despair he felt at the hierarchy’s attitude that led him to a drinking habit.
Anderson had deeper problems, including cocaine use and adultery. I thought the book went too far in detailing these problems, to the embarrassment of his children. But Sipe explained to me that AA demands brutal honesty about failings, and Anderson also talked publicly about his sins so no one could blackmail him. That is, no one could say, “Go easy on this priest, or we will reveal that you did XYZ.” Anderson had already told the papers that he had done ABCDEF and so on all the way through XYZ. Still….
Everyone who has dealt with the sexual abuse crisis has paid a price. The fires of hell singe even those who are trying to put them out. Joseph Epstein said he had stopped reading about the Holocaust when he noticed that those who studied it too closely tended to commit suicide. I have had endless nightmares; others have had their marriages wrecked, or have been driven to drink. The collateral damage has been heavy for the rescue workers.
D’Antonio gives a good overview, and it is less painful to read than my book, Sacrilege. Some of my friends, including psychiatrists, told me that they couldn’t read my book; it was too explicit about the abuse.
D’Antonio is substantially factually accurate, as far as I know. A few minor quibbles. He said that the First Vatican Council gave the pope the gift of infallibility – that is not exactly what happened. He also said that the pope governs the church through encyclicals. Encyclicals are teaching documents; government is done through motu proprios, apostolic constitutions, and such like.
D’Antonio also follows the party line that clerical homosexuals are no more likely to abuse minors than clerical heterosexuals. I have my doubts about this claim. In the general population it may be true, but I suspect that the type of homosexual attracted to the clergy is more likely to abuse than a heterosexual is.
D’Antonio also doesn’t address some of the deeper theological problems that contributed to the abuse – the misunderstanding and over-stress on obedience and the suspicion of emotions, especially anger, in the spiritual life. Conrad Baars diagnosed the latter.
But the book is a good introduction and overview, and I hope that people who can’t read the more painful accounts will read this one.
When C. S. Lewis was writing the Screw Tape Letters, his friend John R. R. Tolkien warned him it was dangerous to think too much about or try to get into the mind of the Evil One. Perhaps this is true of evil in general and the evil of pedophilia and pederasty in particular. The Hebrew Catholic author of the excellent book “Salvation is From the Jews”, writing of the sexual perversion of Nazi leaders, said “When sex is perverted, demons come running”.
Amen Fr,
St John the Evangelist spoke about the martyr who died in the city of Pergamon ,”the city which was the seat of satan.” St Antipas was matyred in a cauldron set on the altar of Zeus in 92 AD in Pergamon Now let us see what Hitler did with that altar .
http://museumsecrets.tv/dossier.php?o=146
First a city then a nation. Is the globe next?
Unrepentant mortal sin leads to deeper mortal sins like a chasm that deepens widens and has no bottom…Hell?
………continuing with the Hitler theme mentioned above.He enacted laws (similar to the terrorist prevention laws we have now) after the Riechstag Museum burned to the ground. That is when he first ordered German citizens be spyed on as possible enemies of the state to be rounded up and arrested.
I could not help recalling this while reading about the recent revelations by the Justice Department’s vast collection of private communication spying on the AP Press reporters.
Nietzsche— “Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.”
Thanks for posting this review here. Are you going to post this on Amazon, as well?
Lee
Knowing some folks in the deliverance ministry and also myself being involved in work that fights various spiritual ills, I can relate that sacramentals are very important, especially holy water and salt, blessed with the older exorcism prayer, and the image of the face of Christ. Praying very specifically for protection and using deliverance prayers like the Divine Mercy chaplet are also important. Our fight is with principalities, etc. If there is an oppressive influence like bad dreams, or obsessive influence like alcohol, deliverance is in order – same as doctors and nurses needing to take tests and meds…nothing to be ashamed of. I recommend Stella Davis’ book called Spiritual Warfare on amazon. Get a team praying for you all the time. Get regularly prayed over – frequent reception of the sacraments of course. Pray for discernment of spirits so you can spot them as they come through various channels, including reading books, etc. If you are called to a certain work, God will give remedies but we have to follow them religiously – like brushing your teeth every morning. Expect physical ailments (especially severe and persistent illnesses that come one after the other) and physical attacks when other means like depression, despair, fatigue fail to stop you in your work. The blows will come but God restores, because He is not mocked and he who protects His little ones has angel armies at the ready.