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sexual abuse & Fr Lankeit

  Fr.Lankeit is a Roman Catholic priest from Phoenix, Arizona, who recently gave a homily blaming homosexuality for the sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.

His homily, ironically enough, is the very means by wgich the abuse in the church has always been facilitated.

 By shifting the blame from the mostly heterosexual clergy who are responsible for committing these crimes - clergy who prey mostly on boys not because they are themselves gay, but because boys have more shame about the abuse, and are thus more likely to remain silent about it - to simply blaming homosexuality itself, Fr. Lankeit only helps to create the very ‘culture of shame’ in which such sexual predators can and have always preyed upon children.

 Lankeit’s condemnations, in other words, only help to produce a target rich environment of potential victims who will be (hopefully) too ashamed to publicly accuse their abusers. And by doing so, shame becomes the sheep skin beneath which predator priests can prey upon children while pretending to be the lamb of god.

Even worse, the lack of transparency by the Catholic Church in all of this, its refusal to open up its historical records, may not only hide the fact the abuse has perhaps gone on far longer than the church claims, but is also a form of institutional protection that, along with the statute of limitations, only encourages the abuse by assuring abusers they will never be held liable for their crimes.

Ridicules.


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