Pope attributes Irish sex abuse scandal to "growing secularization"

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

This is so ass-backward it staggers the mind.


Religion has excellent PR so we tend to accept claims that, for instance, the christian church was the driving force in abolition.

Yes, many Churches were involved in abolition but when you step back and look at the sweep of history you will notice that Christianity had about 1600 years of free reign to do something about slavery and did not. (Much like Republicans with healthcare reform... the church is quick to point fingers but back when they ran the whole show they didn't do anything.)

It was only post-Enlightenment, when educated people started taking religion less seriously, that the urge to abolish slavery arose, and in short order. The social/intellectual mood to abolish slavery was a product of secularization--including the effect of growing secularization on the church itself. Then, when that stance became widespread in decent and enlightened circles a lot of churches came on board and, due to their powers of moral suasion and organization, played a role in abolition.

Sexual abuse of the helpless by church officials has existed as long as there has been a church. (That's not a particular knock on churches... sexual predation has always been common wherever people have total power over others. Where clergy have authorty and power there is more potential for abuse of power.)

The thing that arose from "rising secularization" was not sexual predation, it was objecting to sexual predation.

For heaven's sake... this is stuff everybody knows if only they will stop to think. The middle ages were distinctly non-secular... like over-the-top non-secular. Would any educated person care to cite the middle ages as an era of morality and decency? Would any educated person fail to note that all our modern ethical sensibilities gained traction from the Enlightenment?

There is an effect that rising social awareness creates the illusion of rising pathology. Rape and child abuse are less common in the west than they used to be. The difference is that we no longer accept them. We note them today as exceptional occurrences.

(Look to things like the Magdalene Laundry to see how upright the Irish church was back before the internet and gay adoption ruined everyone's morals.)

Secularization is the reason this stuff won't fly anymore.

Secularization offered the ethical framework within which the church must now operate.