Wednesday, May 19, 2010

When the Catholic Church gets caught…

I ran this survey for a couple weeks.

"Sexual abuse is worse in the Catholic Church than anywhere else."

Undoubtedly. 3
Depends. 2
Not sure. 5
Not at all. 10

On a prima-facie reading, this suggests that most of my readers are of a religious bent. And that some are of an extremely anti-religious bent. (It also suggests I have only about 30 regular readers, but I will suppress that disheartening and sobering implication so I can still think I am awesome.)

I could write a great deal on why this poll is much, much more complex than the single question suggests. Suffice it to say that the upper 5 votes of this poll may have an urge to say that sexual abuse in the Catholic Church is "worse" because it is so grossly hypocritical of authentic Catholic piety. If those votes suggest there is either a higher gross or proportionally greater incidence of intergenerational sexual abuse, those readers are just misinformed. I will also add that the generally indiscriminate outrage against Catholic sin is itself an indication of the valor and worth of Catholic sanctity. It is nothing but an instinct for redemption to rage against the fall of our greatest signs of redemption.

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