Quote of the Day

Sexual abuse in seminaries and monasteries is a generational and systemic problem. It is the very point Richard Sipe and others have been making for decades. It is not a gay problem so much as it is a cultural problem. In Africa this culture is expressed as a convent problem. It's what happens when power is coupled with truncated sexual maturity. Sexual expression becomes an issue of power over dependent others. It becomes a twisted form of both a rite of passage and a form of hazing. This whole notion of the influence of a 'lavender mafia' is an attempt to dress up a far more mundane and universal phenomenon. It is a problem that leaves a ton of wreckage in it's wake and it's also one uni sex patriarchal societies seem loathe to address. As one priest told me, the seminary was some 'thing' I survived. It was not some 'where' I thrived.

– Colleen Kochivar-Baker
"A Very Disconcerting Story from Down Under"
Enlightened Catholicism
September 11, 2011

Recommended Off-site Links:
Confessions of an Ex-Seminarian – Gregory Flannery (Killing the Buddha, August 15, 2002).
Seminaries and the Sexual Abuse Crisis – Katarina M. Schuth (America, March 22, 2004).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
The Real Crisis
Fr. Thomas Doyle: "There is Something Radically Wrong With the Institutional Catholic Church"
Now We Know
The Roman Catholic Pyramid is Crumbling
An Offering of Ashes
Report: Homosexuality No Factor in Abusive Priests
Donohue's "Blame the Gays" Tactic Refuted by John Jay Study Researcher
Bill Donohue's Homophobic Claims Refuted by Bishops' Study
Roger Haight on the Church We Need
Rescuing Catholicism
Quote of the Day – July 18, 2011
Quote of the Day – January 19, 2011
Quote of the Day – December 22, 2010
Quote of the Day – April 1, 2010

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