Why it is important to know the specifics of the magisterial teachings of te cathoic church on child sexual abuse?
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While variously described as a problem or crisis or scandal or nightmare or scourge, the sexual and
emotional abuse of children within Catholic settings by priests, religious brothers and sisters, is
ultimately a tragedy of immense proportions. Novello (2015) calls it the Church’s Biblical lament
while for Coldrey (2004) it is a Christian apocalypse. For Abbate (2012), it is the Church’s Golgotha.
The ravished innocence of the child - abused, assaulted, violated, raped, and sodomised - lies at the
very centre of this Catholic catastrophe. Many thousands of lives across the world have been badly
damaged, if not destroyed, in the continuing and tragic saga of the sexual abuse of children which
can be traced back to New Testament times in the first century as we shall see. It has become an
unholy mess. A priest offender has reflected, ‘...and what would God think?’1
The tragedy is further compounded by the knowledge that the Catholic Church has during that time
educated and cared for millions of children, even in the most scarifying of circumstances, giving
them bright, fulfilling and transcendent futures. Jesus, living in his contemporary Greco-Roman and
Jewish contexts, overturned the concept of the child. He told his adult followers that they must
become like little children (Mt 18, 2), and witheringly denounced those who might harm a child:
‘Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have
a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea’ (Mt 18, 6). In
his view, children are important; they have status and they have standing. He scolds his disciples for
preventing parents from bringing their children to him: ‘Let the children come to me. Don’t stop
them! For it is to such as these that the Kingdom of God belongs’ (Lk 18, 16). Zelyck (2017), writing
for the periodical of the Pontifical Biblical Institute, reflects on Mt 18, 1 – 14 how Jesus presents
eschatological warnings of divine retribution for those who sexually abuse children. He notes that
the verb ‘scandalizo’, used by Jesus and rarely used in or outside the Bible, has a strong sexual
connotation
emotional abuse of children within Catholic settings by priests, religious brothers and sisters, is
ultimately a tragedy of immense proportions. Novello (2015) calls it the Church’s Biblical lament
while for Coldrey (2004) it is a Christian apocalypse. For Abbate (2012), it is the Church’s Golgotha.
The ravished innocence of the child - abused, assaulted, violated, raped, and sodomised - lies at the
very centre of this Catholic catastrophe. Many thousands of lives across the world have been badly
damaged, if not destroyed, in the continuing and tragic saga of the sexual abuse of children which
can be traced back to New Testament times in the first century as we shall see. It has become an
unholy mess. A priest offender has reflected, ‘...and what would God think?’1
The tragedy is further compounded by the knowledge that the Catholic Church has during that time
educated and cared for millions of children, even in the most scarifying of circumstances, giving
them bright, fulfilling and transcendent futures. Jesus, living in his contemporary Greco-Roman and
Jewish contexts, overturned the concept of the child. He told his adult followers that they must
become like little children (Mt 18, 2), and witheringly denounced those who might harm a child:
‘Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have
a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea’ (Mt 18, 6). In
his view, children are important; they have status and they have standing. He scolds his disciples for
preventing parents from bringing their children to him: ‘Let the children come to me. Don’t stop
them! For it is to such as these that the Kingdom of God belongs’ (Lk 18, 16). Zelyck (2017), writing
for the periodical of the Pontifical Biblical Institute, reflects on Mt 18, 1 – 14 how Jesus presents
eschatological warnings of divine retribution for those who sexually abuse children. He notes that
the verb ‘scandalizo’, used by Jesus and rarely used in or outside the Bible, has a strong sexual
connotation
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