Monty Python and the HOLY FAIL

A few days ago the Vatican released a set of guidelines regarding the new methods by which the Church will handle Priest Sexual Abuse going forward. This was in anticipation of the long awaited John Jay School of Criminology study and, it was assumed, that the guidelines addressed the findings. Several years ago we saw the first part of the 'impartial study' and its  damning conclusions make the much anticipated sequel's lame conclusions mind blowing. The flowering revelations of the first begged the answers in the second. It was not to be. Someone once said that you can tell by the flowers if the tree will bear fruit. Not so here. The 'fruit' of this second study was meant to kill the flowering truth  that was the first. Someone else said that by your fruits you'd be known... So be it.

Studying the Study

Over five years and nearly two million dollars were spent by the USCCB Bishops to address the scandal that has rocked the Catholic church. The stated mission was to find an impartial and scientific study to find the causes and context of the scandal  but a reading of the second study leaves one wondering if the stated mission bears any resemblance to the actual mission or to impartiality. Evidently, the choice of John Jay College is a good one for the Church:

"Providence has given our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as privilege and interest, of a Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers."

-Justice John Jay

The preferred Christians here are the United States Conference of catholic Bishops. Not so preferential is the treatment of the victims. The revelations of the first study are ignored or roundly refuted with new statistics, definitions and a dizzying array of pseudo-social commentary that comes from who knows where. It is uninformative and unapologetic. Odd, given the notion of a 'causal' study but, then again, it isn't a study. You may be happy to note that the college is paid for by city and state taxes. 

As noted, the actual study is not actually a study. It is a questionnaire. It is neither impartial nor does it seek to ‘discover’ the causes or the context. What arises is a carefully orchestrated question and answer period with the Bishops asking the questions and the Vatican via her priests giving the answer. While the study has not been fully analyzed and spun yet, you can read it for yourself as well as discover the methodology of the first John Jay study about the ‘nature and scope’ linked here for those who want to read that one.  The new one(summarized) is freshly out (whole) following a modified version of the previous methodology and the preliminary findings, and opinions have hit the media. Here is my take.

Who paid for it

Of the roughly 1.8 million dollar price tag of the study, $918,000 was paid for by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. The remaining half was by the US Justice Department (a grant of $283,651), Knights of Columbus, ($250,000)

Donations, from $100,000 to $1,000, came from foundations including the Raskob Foundation, Catholic Mutual Group, SC (Sisters of Charity) Ministry Foundation, Luce Foundation, Greater Cincinnati Foundation, Assisi Foundation of Memphis and Daughters of Charity Foundation/Province of the West; and health-related organizations such as the Catholic Health Association of the United States and St. Joseph Health System in Orange, Calif.

There also was a $100,000 anonymous donation and donations totaling $242 from individual members of Voice of the Faithful. Hardly a broad crosssection of those involved, victimized or interested. Most interesting is a quarter of a million from the Justice Department. Our Money. Well Spent.

Now it isn’t impossible to be impartial if you are largely funded by the very body being accused but it certainly makes it difficult. More important is the media spin that this is a ‘secular and independent’ school of criminal justice.  As you can see in the next section, the ‘causes and context’ were a fait accompli.

Who defined the methodology

Like the first ‘study’, the methodology is a questionnaire designed to ascertain cause and context (the title of the study). The problem here is that, like the first ‘study’ the crucial evidence, documents, court documents, depositions and Vatican directives, memos, etc. were declared off-limits and, instead, the meat of the study focused on asking a set of questions to be answered by the priests, deacons, staff etc.


The rest is analysis of the first study and a contextual study of 'the times' 1950-2010. This is telling because the 'study is a thinly disguised debunking of the first disastrous study and a contextual analysis where they will eventually place the blame. The excuse is that the Church cannot divulge materials relevant to litigation but clearly this is being used to bolster those cases, so why can't facts be entered into the study? There are only questions...

So who wrote the questions? Not John Jay. Like the first study a person was appointed to write the parameters and questions to be asked and that was then turned ovwer to the College to create a study.  Despite the obvious problem of impartiality, there is the added problem of the questions themselves.

It is clear from the first study that the nature and scope was bigger, deeper, longer and worse than they (the Bishops) imagined. To circumvent a similar surprise finding, the Bishops elected to narrow the questioning to ‘the spike of reported incidences’ from the fifties on.

The biggest problem with the methodology is that when the current Pope centralized all information and administration dealing with the scandal under his then post as Cardinal for the Congregatrion of the Doctrine of the Faith, he began to systematically disseminate the official church position on all questions that may be asked. In other words, the Bishops wrote the questions and the Pope provided the answers. That is not the worst of it.

Who defined the terms

The terminology used in the  study was narrowly defined to guarantee a result. The first study taught them that open ended questions and broad connotations yielded the unwanted result of Truth. Here is how it works. If I asked you to reveal how many times you pooped your pants, the number might be staggering. If I redefine ‘pants’ as diapers and only ask how many times ‘after ten’, the results become infinitesimal. Ergo… You never pooped your pants… Science. Ridiculous?

In the study ‘Pedophilia’ was defined as ‘ten and under’ rendering a staggeringly small  5% of all accused priests (over 6000 recently accused) as pedophiles. The effect was then reported as a finding effectively minimizing the problem and insinuating (by omission) the other 95% as non-sexual run of the mill abuse, consensual sex or plainly a lie.

The results would be staggeringly different if we were to apply the psychological definition of thirteen or the common law definition of sixteen or the strict legal definition of ‘minor’ at eighteen. The fact that the other 95% is ignored speaks to the deviant nature of the study and its real aims. It speaks to the culture of Rome. But ignoring the vast majority of the evidence is evidence of the vast majorities ignoring the problem and the culture still in denial from the Pontiff on down.

Who defined the information sources

When asked about the evidence that might be more useful in a real study, the Bishops refer and defer to the Pope. The Pope feigns ignorance despite his previous position as Inquisitor General and the man who put himself personally in charge of all matters regarding the scandal. It is disingenuous of the Pope to claim ignorance in these matters or to put out a set of guidelines that runs contrary to what he knows to be true. There is no larger repository of evidence, allegations, findings, cover-ups and records then the one he personally oversaw.

The office of the Doctrine of the Faith provides no information to the John Jay study and so how can the study do anything but provide a five year stall and well rehearsed response froim the faithful? One only has to listen to the Pontiff's speech to the Irish to see the broad outlines of the official Church position and the resultant outcome of the study and how they coincidentally match.

The most startling piece of the study is not its methodology or the study itself but the conclusions. After the findings of the first study showed the nature and scope of the problem, the second seems to answer the first by denying that the priesthood, the Bishops, Vatican or Pope is  responsible. A feeble statement of cause claims that :

….the sex scandal is only a temporary problem, due partly to the influx of 'poorly trained priests' into seminaries. The rest of the blame goes onto the prevalence of “deviant behavior” like the sexual and drug experimentation during the 1960s and 70s,

Evidently, they simply weren’t trained well. So how has that changed? What training is there now? I think a different study may have asked, “How long  has this been going on and why were parishioners more likely to come forward during this time and less likely before and after?” The pressure to keep silent in the past and the strategies to hide and divide in the present leaves this gaping hole now conveniently blamed on Woodstock.

'Context is all'

So goes the mantra from Margaret Atwoods Dystopian ‘Handmaid's Tale’ in which a Theocracy takes over America before anyone realizes. And so it goes from the Dystopian nightmare that is the New Vatican's answer to the first study and critics of the Pope. After a swift rationalization and justification comes a mea culpa that sounds like ‘we just weren’t ready for the twisted priest candidates that you sent us… We blame you... and the Church Police concur. The final blow or conclusion sounds like something out of a Monty Python Sketch:

(Organ music. A huge hand descends and points at the man.)

Bishops:   All right, it's a fair cop, but society is to blame.

John Jay:   Agreed.

Bishops:   I would like drugs, sex and rock n’ roll to be taken into consideration.

John Jay:   Right. And now, I'd like to conclude this arrest with a hymn.

That hymn…

I hope that John Jay College doesn’t use this methodology to train cops. “Damn the evidence, question the accused, ignore the victims and acquit…” Today, as the study is released,  they are singing the Popes praises with the same effusion they had for the first million dollar study and, to quote the Pope, in his ‘Science: A Hymn Of Praise”

 “that between science and faith there is friendship, and that men of science can undertake, through their vocation to the study of nature, a genuine and fascinating journey of sanctity.”

Unless, of course, we mean the nature and sanctity of Truth.

 "But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in Me, 

it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, 

and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea" 


(Matthew 18:10, King James Version).