There's an enormous amount of evidence to indicate that the priest sex abuse scandal is much bigger than being reported in the mainstream media, and scattered historical reports, often in low profile history books, indicates that it goes back centuries. There's also much better research about the cause of it and how early child abuse is often used to teach blind obedience and it also teaches children that they should deal with their problems and administer "justice" with violence.
Edit 02/23/2019: The Pope has recently accused his critics of being “the friends, cousins and relatives of the devil,” if they condemn the Church “without love,” yet they continue to stonewall and cover up only taking steps in the right direction when pressured to do so by those he refers to as "friends, cousins and relatives of the devil.” This is incredibly hypocritical especially since he still doesn't speak out against child rearing tactics that lead to escalating violence, as I posted below. Some of the local churches are quietly rejecting corporal punishment in schools, because of consultations with academic researchers on the damage it does, but not based on leadership from the Vatican.
The Vatican has an incredibly long history of fighting all reforms tooth and nail until they have no choice then claiming they took the leadership, themselves as part of "God's will." This behavior is typical of cults far more concerned with controlling the followers than with teaching higher morals.
For what it's worth, I have agreed with the Church on some occasions, including when they spoke out about climate change and social justice, although it is often a reversal on their past practices which they don't acknowledge. When Trump smeared them for the wrong reasons when he called him out on his wall or Climate changed they didn't refer to him as a friend of the devil.
I wouldn't go so far as to say that it's actually him that's a friend of the devil; however, if his God exists, chose him to deliver his messages, and doesn't have an ulterior motive, I can't help but wonder why he wouldn't have spoken out about the sex abuse scandal hundreds of years ago and corrected it, along with speaking out against Crusades and Inquisitions.
Pope Francis decries critics of church as 'friends of the devil' 02/20/2019 “One cannot live a whole life accusing, accusing, accusing, the church,” he said. People who did, he said, were “the friends, cousins and relatives of the devil”.
With Pope Championing Environment and Scientists Supporting Capitalism Who’s Right? When?
I've pointed out in past articles that the nineteen states that still allow corporal punishment in schools have higher murder rates, with six to eight of them routinely making it into the top ten, only one of them making it to the bottom ten and most of the remaining are in the top half. The average murder rates for the nineteen states that still allow it in 2015-6 was 5.98 per hundred thousand; the average murder rate in states that don't allow it in schools is only 4.54 during the same two years. Comparing it to Europe, which has much lower murder rates, is even clearer. None of the European countries allow corporal punishment in schools; fifteen European countries have a rate below one, a fraction of the USA rate; and twelve of those also ban corporal punishment in the home. However, in fairness they also provide better education and child care so that is part of the reason for their lower rates as well.
However, even though statistics often shows clear correlations between violence and risk factors, some of which might be contributing causes of violence, it isn't always the strongest research to explain why it leads to escalating violence, or how it can be used to indoctrinate children to blindly obey orders without developing critical thinking skills. The research that does show this, takes more time to read, and may also explain why the Catholic Church is digging in their heals with almost complete denial, and why many followers accept this. It may also explain why a growing number of people are standing up to them after centuries of cover-ups.
On of the good researchers is Philip J. Greven author of "Spare the Child," who focuses primarily on protestants, however many of the same principles apply to Catholics as well. He writes, "The authoritarian Christian family is dependent upon coercion and pain to obtain obedience to authority within and beyond the family, in the church, the community, and the polity. Modern forms of Christian fundamentalism share the same obsessions with obedience to authority characteristic of earlier modes of evangelical Protestantism, and the same authoritarian streak evident among seventeenth and eighteenth century Anglo-American evangelicals is discernable today, for precisely the same reasons: the coercion of children through painful punishments in order to teach obedience to divine parental authority. Fear and suffering still shape the characters of children whose obedience is obtained involuntarily by physical punishments."
In addition to obtaining blind obedience to authority, corporal punishment may also be used to intimidate the victims into not speaking out against their abusers, especially when that is an authority figure, and in many cases the community has been more inclined to believe the priest than the victim, or even when they might have been willing to believe the victim they might not have realized that, and they might have remained silent out of shame, which may also be more likely when corporal punishment is used against children to intimidate and shame them.
One thing that few are even considering in the traditional media, is the possibly that the priests might have been victims themselves of of sexual abuse, which may have been where they learned to be so abusive and consider it acceptable. In his books including "Constantine's Sword" James Carroll explained some of the intimidation that he went through as when he went to Seminary School, including efforts to censor him, although he didn't write about extreme abuse of the kind that has been exposed during recent scandals, or at least not happening to him, although he's also written many columns on the subject. In my previous article Did Padre Pio Or Other Alleged Mystics Have "Revelations" from "God?" I reviewed how Padre Pio was taught blind obedience from the beginning when he went into the seminary in an extremely abusive manner by Padre Tommaso, who taught him to self-flagellate on demand for arbitrary reasons, to show that he was loyal to the Church and that his faith was strong. This is the most extreme abuse that Padre Pio had to go through without complain but there was much more.
Bernard Ruffin, the author of his biography, claims Padre Tommaso was extreme even for his time, which would have been just over a hundred years ago, however there's no guarantee that a lot of this abuse isn't still going on since it is almost always done in secrecy, and most of these stories have only been told in low profile records. However reviewing scattered historical records indicates that using corporal punishment was far worse throughout most of history, including when Saint Augustine wrote, "Though I was only a small child, there was a great feeling when I pleaded with you that I might not be caned at school. And when you did not hear me, which was so as ‘not to give me to foolishness’ (Ps 21:3), adult people, including even my parents, who wished no evil to come upon me, used to laugh at my stripes, which were at that time a great and painful evil to me." Most accounts of Saint Augustine indicate that he opposed the use of corporal punishment on children most, if not all the time.
According to Augustine, Luther and Solomon: Providing Pastoral Guidance to Parents On the Corporal Punishment of Children "Augustine believed the corporal punishment he received in school was not only ineffective, it actually inhibited his learning." This is just one of many exapmles where adults found amusement by the abuse that tehy used on thier own children, and for hundreds of years it was much worse than it is in recent history. If you look into the history of some of the worst mass murderers, including Charles Manson, Gary Ridgeway, etc. they went through worse abuse in their early childhood long before they became violent criminals.
Even the Catholic Church has improved on this subject, but unfortunately it isn't being led by the top. According to "Pope Francis says it is OK to smack children if their ‘dignity is maintained’" 02/05/2015 Francis spoke about a father who said, "I sometimes have to smack my children a bit, but never in the face so as to not humiliate them;” and he responded by saying, “How beautiful. He knows the sense of dignity! He has to punish them but does it justly and moves on.”
Most, if not all the improvements in reducing the use of Corporal Punishment seems to have come reluctantly from pressure at the grassroots, often with the help of good researchers showing how it leads to escalating violence, and almost certainly contributes to the abuse of children by priests. One of the most outspoken critics of corporal punishment for a long time was Alice miller, who wrote extensively about how it is related to sexual abuse in numerous books including her most famous book, "For Your Own Good" (Complete copy available on line) and a follow up in 2001, Alice Miller "The Truth Will Set You Free" (Chapters 3 and 5), where she reposts a letter from Olivier Maurel, author of "Spanking Questions and answers about disciplinary violence" (Online copy) and another expert on the subject, asking Pope John Paul II to speak out against corporal punishment and advise Catholics against it, reversing Biblical justifications for it's use.
Unfortunately neither Olivier Maurel or Alice Miller received a constructive reply from the Vatican or any of the Cardinals or other Church officials they attempted to contact. However, this doesn't mean that all religious leaders support the use of corporal punishment, although most of them seem to. In addition to Saint Augustine expressing concerns about the use of corporal punishment, Martin Luther also had his concerns saying, "For what a person enforces by means of a rod will come to no good end. At best the children will remain good only as long as the rod is on their backs." Gordon Hinkley, former leader of the Mormon Church spoke out against it, claiming that his Church always opposed it, although, as far as I can tell he was the first one to openly speak out against it.
James Garbarino is one of the few academic child psychologists that also take a strong position supporting religion and claims that being part of a religious community can be an important part of raising children. And he's opposed child abuse consistently in his books, although most of them don't put much emphasis on corporal punishment; however when starting this article I wrote to ask him about it and he responded "Thanks for writing. I have made statements in public opposing using physical violence against children (I prefer to say that rather than use the term "corporal punishment"). I think the research linking hitting children to problems later is clear. Count me in the 'no' column. Best regards, Jim Garbarino"
While searching for additional information from him on this subject I found this contribution to a book edited by Murray Straus, who is a strong and credible opponent of corporal punishment:
Corporal Punishment of Children in Theoretical Perspective edited by Michael Donnelly, Murray Straus; Chapter by James Garbarino
Consider the case of child abuse. We need to look at the community that establishes laws and policies about child abuse as well as at the families that offer a powerful definition of reality for the next generation. We should look also at the culture that defines physical force as an appropriate form of discipline in early childhood. (p.8)
We have found this in our study of the impact of community violence on Palestinian children; the effects of exposure are mediated by the nature of discipline within the home, with those exposed to more punishing styles more adversely affected by violence outside the home. (p.11)
But we do have an inkling that exposing a child to corporal punishment creates a negative emotional experience of the family regardless of the overt cognitive definition offered by the child. That is, hitting children creates negative feelings despite the fact that the child may come to rationalize the hitting as “normal,” “necessary,” and “for the child’s own good.” In the extreme case of physical child abuse, research shows that cognitive interventions which assist the child in exploring the meaning of hitting can bring about a realignment of belief in which the negative feelings aroused are now matched by an appropriate cognitive evaluation (Herzberger 1986) – that is, that hitting children is wrong, that it leads to adverse developmental outcomes, and that the responsibility lies with the parent, not the child.
…. This implies that interventions to reduce corporal punishment in one setting (for example, school) may not endure if efforts are not made to create support for those interventions in other systems into which the individual may enter (for example, family). Gaining the power to affect these other systems in a coordinated way is a matter of public policy, a matter for exosystems. (P.14-5) (Additional excepts available if you check Google Books searching one of these excerpts)
Consider the case of child abuse. We need to look at the community that establishes laws and policies about child abuse as well as at the families that offer a powerful definition of reality for the next generation. We should look also at the culture that defines physical force as an appropriate form of discipline in early childhood. (p.8)
We have found this in our study of the impact of community violence on Palestinian children; the effects of exposure are mediated by the nature of discipline within the home, with those exposed to more punishing styles more adversely affected by violence outside the home. (p.11)
But we do have an inkling that exposing a child to corporal punishment creates a negative emotional experience of the family regardless of the overt cognitive definition offered by the child. That is, hitting children creates negative feelings despite the fact that the child may come to rationalize the hitting as “normal,” “necessary,” and “for the child’s own good.” In the extreme case of physical child abuse, research shows that cognitive interventions which assist the child in exploring the meaning of hitting can bring about a realignment of belief in which the negative feelings aroused are now matched by an appropriate cognitive evaluation (Herzberger 1986) – that is, that hitting children is wrong, that it leads to adverse developmental outcomes, and that the responsibility lies with the parent, not the child.
…. This implies that interventions to reduce corporal punishment in one setting (for example, school) may not endure if efforts are not made to create support for those interventions in other systems into which the individual may enter (for example, family). Gaining the power to affect these other systems in a coordinated way is a matter of public policy, a matter for exosystems. (P.14-5) (Additional excepts available if you check Google Books searching one of these excerpts)
Addressing the "matter for exosystems" seems to involve reducing violence and abuse of children where ever they are, including in schools, churches and at home; which James Garbarino also addresses in more details in several of his books including "Lost Boys," "And Words Can Hurt Forever," and "See Jane Hit." One of his recommendation includes advising teachers to check the back ground of children with problems at school and seek to solve this through "non-punitive measures" that often involve educating parents about child rearing tactics, when possible to avoid resorting to the criminal justice system except in the case of the worst child abuse problems; and a home visitor program which he recommends being offered to at risk mothers when they give birth. I first heard of these in the nineties from a Boston Globe article that said that Hawaii, the first state to use it, had great success with it and studies showed that it saved costs from the criminal justice system after reviewing the results of those that took advantage of it compared to those that didn't have it available. By the time James Garbarino wrote about it in a book a few years later there were more studies from other states adding to this research showing that it was very successful.
Unfortunately the media virtually never reports on this, with the exception of a few newspaper articles spread out over decades, that often get little attention and they're routinely reported on very limited amounts of research. Get tough on crime policies are pushed by politicians all the time and when they do report an enormous amount of crime and murder shows they routinely act as if the only solution to the problem is to promote "justice" after the fact by threatening those that are guilty with punishment as a deterrent. When ever someone speaks about an abusive childhood on shows like Nancy Grace of Ashleigh Banfield, someone screams "that's no excuse," as if the only reason to discuss this is to reduce jail time for the suspect. These shows never try to explain that if more people understood the causes of escalating violence and how to prevent them that they could do more to prevent victims from being attacked or killed in the first place, instead of punishing the perpetrator after the fact.
Understanding that violence needs to be reduced in "exosystems," as James Garbarino put's it might help explain the opposition to a lot of resistance to banning corporal punishment including in New Orleans where according to St. Augustine High School corporal punishment debate is about more than the paddle 03/06/2011 Archbishop Gregory Aymond spoke out against the use of corporal punishment, and along with the Josephite trustees in Baltimore decided to ban the use of corporal punishment in schools and faced a lot of objections from the parents and local teachers. At one point "Aymond apologized for any unintended suggestion that St. Augustine's discipline had anything to do with crime," however this might not have been true; and, although I wasn't there for the entire debate which was finished before I heard about it, I suspect that some additional background about research could have helped explain the situation. In addition to the opposition to banning corporal punishment in this New Orleans school, while searching the subject on the internet for this article I also came across similar arguments in Baltimore and Atlanta. All three of these big cities have exceptionally high murder rates; and New Orleans is the highest in Louisiana, which has the highest murder rates of all fifty states.
Why was the support for corporal punishment so strong in these areas where they have among the highest violence rates in the country?
One of the sources that James Garbarino cites in his books is Fox Butterfield's "All God's Children," which traces the Bosket Family back to before the civil war. Butterfield isn't a psychologist, but he reports on how corporal punishment was taught to African American's by slave owners before the civil war and it was passed down from generation to generation, along with a long history of violence that took place as adults as well, and when there isn't intervention at an early age, as there wasn't with Willie Bosket or his father they're more likely to resort to violence, which is how they were educated through violent upbringing, and as James Gabarino said he prefers to refer to it as child abuse not corporal punishment.
During the debate in New Orleans Rev. John Raphael asked "Why do African-American families have to beg permission from folks in another culture to raise their kids in the Judeo-Christian tradition that has sustained our culture for so many generations?" Which is regrettable, Butterfield's book demonstrates that the child rearing techniques that he was defending were taught to them through violence from their white slave owners and passed down from generation to generation; which means that although he's not aware of the history behind it, he's defending authoritarian teaching methods that were forced on his ancestors from "folks in another culture," although they're not the same folks or from the same culture, and the history of this was forgotten by the majority of those involved in this debate.
James Garbarino also reported on how the culture of using “physical assault as discipline” in the following article, where he mentions Donald Trump's suggestion that they send in the feds, and a police officer's view that they could solve the problem by shooting the gang members as they arrest them, like they do in El Salvador, which has much more violence, before offering far more rational solutions:
Gun Violence in Chicago by James Garbarino 06/01/2017
..... After we brought him in to be booked, I asked the officers what would happen to him: “He'll probably be back out on the street in a few hours,” one said. I asked him what it would take to make a difference in this kind of street crime and the violent gangs that flourished in such an environment. He made a gun gesture with his hand and responded, “If we could shoot them as we caught them.” ....
Zagar's work indicates that much of what needs to be done to “fix” the situation in Chicago (and elsewhere) is “simply” a matter of applying programmatic resources (such as jobs, anger management, and mentoring) on a larger scale. This approach would eliminate many of the murders that arise from teenagers and men who are loaded up with risk factors, and do not have a positive role in the society, do not have sufficient “emotional intelligence” to demonstrate good “executive function,” and do not have prosocial relationships that push them in the direction of nonviolent behavior when faced with altercations and negative peer influence. What more needs doing? I would point to three other major items on the violence prevention agenda in Chicago.
First, there is the matter of identifying early the individuals who are abused and developmentally vulnerable, and are thus on the fast track to become part of the 15% who seek out violence as a way to manifest and express their demons. While treatment for psychopaths has generally proved futile, a new intensive approach labeled “Compression Therapy” has shown some promising results with juveniles headed down the path to psychopathy. It requires 3 to 4 hours per day of one-on-one attention over a period of at least 6 months, but given the costs of not preventing them from going down this path, it is likely to prove cost effective. My own research has focused on individuals who committed murders as teenagers and were clearly in a sociopathic state then, who have, 20 years later, shown themselves to be rehabilitated and transformed to the point where they are capable of living as “solid citizens” outside prison (as reported in my forthcoming book Miller's Children: Why Giving Teenage Killers a Second Change Matters for All of Us—University of California Press, in press for 2018). .....
The legacy of slavery has effects that extend widely and deeply, including the fact that African Americans are twice as likely as other groups to endorse and use “physical assault as discipline” (a term I much prefer to the euphemism of “corporal punishment,” which only serves to obfuscate). This means that African Americans in Chicago (and elsewhere) are exposed disproportionately to this socialization technique that increases the risk of future violence. This is added into the developmental mix of other risk factors for African American youth at a higher rather than for other groups. Low income African Americans have a murder rate eight times the national average—a phenomenon that, I believe, is a function of the interaction of the Southern Culture of Honor (the historical geographic origins of most African Americans) and persistent economic inadequacy (related to chronic discrimination coupled with lack of educational and vocational success).
All these affect African Americans generally, but are particularly problematic in Chicago. Chicago is America's most racially segregated city (more than Philadelphia and New York, for example). What is more, from 1990 to 2012, white incomes in Chicago increased by 33% while black incomes decreased by 4%. Also, a bit more than half of census tracts with a majority black population in Chicago have more than 30% of families living in poverty, while only 2% of predominantly white census tracts have such a high percentage of families in poverty. Most demographic factors relevant to violence show a similar pattern. I once interviewed an African American teenage killer who told me, “It wasn't until I was 14 that I ever met anyone who had a father living in the home.” This is crucial, because a boy who has developed a chronic pattern of bad behavior, acting out, aggression, and violating the rights of others who lives in one of these neighborhoods is four times more likely to engage in violent delinquency at age 17 years than a similar boy who lives in a “good” neighborhood.
Chicago is perhaps the most American city, and as such, it is a perfect laboratory to understand, prevent, and treat violence in all its many forms with all its many causal chains. This is not a simplistic matter as Trump would have us believe. It is not a matter of “sending in the Feds,” unless those Feds come with jobs, anger management, and mentoring, as well as enhanced assessment and intervention with troubled, untreated traumatized children who are on track to become violent teenagers and young adults. Complete article
..... After we brought him in to be booked, I asked the officers what would happen to him: “He'll probably be back out on the street in a few hours,” one said. I asked him what it would take to make a difference in this kind of street crime and the violent gangs that flourished in such an environment. He made a gun gesture with his hand and responded, “If we could shoot them as we caught them.” ....
Zagar's work indicates that much of what needs to be done to “fix” the situation in Chicago (and elsewhere) is “simply” a matter of applying programmatic resources (such as jobs, anger management, and mentoring) on a larger scale. This approach would eliminate many of the murders that arise from teenagers and men who are loaded up with risk factors, and do not have a positive role in the society, do not have sufficient “emotional intelligence” to demonstrate good “executive function,” and do not have prosocial relationships that push them in the direction of nonviolent behavior when faced with altercations and negative peer influence. What more needs doing? I would point to three other major items on the violence prevention agenda in Chicago.
First, there is the matter of identifying early the individuals who are abused and developmentally vulnerable, and are thus on the fast track to become part of the 15% who seek out violence as a way to manifest and express their demons. While treatment for psychopaths has generally proved futile, a new intensive approach labeled “Compression Therapy” has shown some promising results with juveniles headed down the path to psychopathy. It requires 3 to 4 hours per day of one-on-one attention over a period of at least 6 months, but given the costs of not preventing them from going down this path, it is likely to prove cost effective. My own research has focused on individuals who committed murders as teenagers and were clearly in a sociopathic state then, who have, 20 years later, shown themselves to be rehabilitated and transformed to the point where they are capable of living as “solid citizens” outside prison (as reported in my forthcoming book Miller's Children: Why Giving Teenage Killers a Second Change Matters for All of Us—University of California Press, in press for 2018). .....
The legacy of slavery has effects that extend widely and deeply, including the fact that African Americans are twice as likely as other groups to endorse and use “physical assault as discipline” (a term I much prefer to the euphemism of “corporal punishment,” which only serves to obfuscate). This means that African Americans in Chicago (and elsewhere) are exposed disproportionately to this socialization technique that increases the risk of future violence. This is added into the developmental mix of other risk factors for African American youth at a higher rather than for other groups. Low income African Americans have a murder rate eight times the national average—a phenomenon that, I believe, is a function of the interaction of the Southern Culture of Honor (the historical geographic origins of most African Americans) and persistent economic inadequacy (related to chronic discrimination coupled with lack of educational and vocational success).
All these affect African Americans generally, but are particularly problematic in Chicago. Chicago is America's most racially segregated city (more than Philadelphia and New York, for example). What is more, from 1990 to 2012, white incomes in Chicago increased by 33% while black incomes decreased by 4%. Also, a bit more than half of census tracts with a majority black population in Chicago have more than 30% of families living in poverty, while only 2% of predominantly white census tracts have such a high percentage of families in poverty. Most demographic factors relevant to violence show a similar pattern. I once interviewed an African American teenage killer who told me, “It wasn't until I was 14 that I ever met anyone who had a father living in the home.” This is crucial, because a boy who has developed a chronic pattern of bad behavior, acting out, aggression, and violating the rights of others who lives in one of these neighborhoods is four times more likely to engage in violent delinquency at age 17 years than a similar boy who lives in a “good” neighborhood.
Chicago is perhaps the most American city, and as such, it is a perfect laboratory to understand, prevent, and treat violence in all its many forms with all its many causal chains. This is not a simplistic matter as Trump would have us believe. It is not a matter of “sending in the Feds,” unless those Feds come with jobs, anger management, and mentoring, as well as enhanced assessment and intervention with troubled, untreated traumatized children who are on track to become violent teenagers and young adults. Complete article
The fact that a police officer even considered that they could solve the problem “If we could shoot them as we caught them,” might also raise doubts about how they train police, which is often in the same authoritarian manner. David Couper, former police chief or Madison Wisconsin has reported on how they often use hazing to teach police to obey order the same way they do in the military, which is an extension of authoritarian upbringing that often starts with corporal punishment in the home, and only teaches to escalations violence. I went into David Couper's criticism of authoritarian training of police more in "Editor's Blog: To The Protesters & Haters" and Police, which was a response to a former police officer that was in total denial about problems facing the poor, who are often treated as if they're guilty until proven innocent, Like Garbarino, he also supports modern Christianity and tolerance. This authoritarian police training doesn't prevent causes of violence by repairing the social and educational structure as Professor Garbarino recommends. Other solutions like reversing the outsourcing that has been going on for decades so that troubled children have reasonable economic opportunities would also help.
Part of the reason why most people were unfamiliar with this history, and the most effective research about reducing violence, is that the majority of the public often doesn't read a lot of non-fiction, and gets an enormous amount of information they use to make their decisions from the traditional media and political establishment which almost never discusses the best research. Demagogues like Donald Trump and Nancy Grace get an enormous amount of media coverage, while more credible researchers like Garbarino, Straus, Miller or Dorothy Otnow Lewis are almost never reported in the traditional media. These expert's recommendation, that instead of resuming corporal punishment in schools they end it in the homes and teach different methods of child rearing, would be far more effective. Once they start using it in the home they teach children to respond to violent discipline tactics, so it might seem to be more effective; however if they never use violent disciplinary tactics in the first place then not only are the new problems they encountered after banning it in St. Augustine's less likely but all other violence would also be less likely. Once again, I haven't reviewed the full history of St. Augustine high school, but there's an enormous amount of research indicating that overall there's much less violence in areas that use different child rearing methods, and changing the methods in one setting while still allowing abusive methods in another isn't going to solve the whole problem.
The mainstream media has also been slow to report on more historical reports of child abuse or other scandals by many priests, which have been going back decades if not centuries, including numerous reports in "Padre Pio: The True Story" by Bernard Ruffin who writes about many accusation against Archbishop Pasquale Gagliardi and several other priests or bishops. David Kertzer author of "The Pope and Mussolini" also reports about several additional incidents, including Cardinal Caccia Dominioni who had "the honor of placing the papal tiara on Pacelli’s head" when he was elected Pope and became Pius XII.
Caccia Dominioni was implicated in sexual numerous scandals including, as Kertzer writes "While riding on a bus in Rome the previous August, a policeman had found his attention drawn to the cartons of foreign cigarettes that a young messenger boy was carrying. Suspicious, he discovered that they lacked the required Italian tax stamp. When he asked the lad where he had gotten the contraband cigarettes, the boy replied that someone high up in the Vatican had given them to him. Pressed further, the boy identified Cardinal Caccia. When the police phoned the cardinal to check the boy’s story, he confirmed the account and asked that the boy be left alone. 'As Caccia Dominioni enjoys the reputation of pederasty,' the police informant concluded, 'they are saying that the reason for the offer of these cigarettes was easily explained.'”
There's also plenty of evidence to indicate that early child abuse through authoritarian upbringing also contributes to many other types of violence including domestic violence, murder, religious persecution, often based on superstitions, and even war including World War II, among many others. Philip Greven has reported on how corporal punishment leads to increased amount of paranoia and a willingness to believe many of the most absurd lies, especially when they come from leaders or are supported by large crowds; and David Kertzer, in his Book, "The Popes Against the Jews," among other historical records have reported how the Catholic Church has demonized the Jewish community with false accusations of "Ritual murder," or Blood libel.
When we hear about Ritual Murder or Blood Libel, and look at the evidence many of us find it hard to believe that our ancestors could have believed any claims so absurd; however when you take a close look at the history of demagogues from the Catholic Church repeating these stories over and over again, and how it's also reported in Catholic Newspapers, over and over again, it start's to make sense. This makes even more sense when people understand how children that are raised in authoritarian manners by emotional parents that often teach them to obey under the threat of corporal punishment that is often accompanied by yelling and screaming that begins before a child learns how to develop critical thinking skills, it makes even more sense.
There is good research from the most credible academics about the causes of escalating violence which also contributes to priests becoming pedophiles and the ability of the Church to get away with it for so long and cover it up. This research also explains why so many people would still think of the Church as a moral authority when they have an incredibly long history of covering these sex abuses and many other atrocities up, including torture during the Inquisitions, the Crusades, support of a long list of tyrants throughout history; and for a long time the Church has opposed the democratic process and modern education tactics that teach children to think for themselves.
Unfortunately the best research showing the most effective solutions to these problems gets minimal amount of coverage in the traditional media, which only provides coverage for researchers like James Garbarino or Barbara Coloroso on relatively limited basis while giving demagogues enormous amounts of obsession coverage, which is part of the reason they often nominate two incredibly unpopular candidates that don't discuss the best interests of the majority like Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.
Alice Miller, and many other academics, perhaps including Philip Greven, believe that the reason that the Pope doesn't take a strong stand on opposing child abuse or corporal punishment is because this is a method used to indoctrinate children to adopt the religious beliefs of their parents without question as part of a system that is more concerned with controlling children than with educating them or looking out for their best interests. Although some of the quotes or historical reports from Saint Augustine or Martin Luther imply they have doubts about the use of corporal punishment, there are conflicting reports on this; and Alice Miller and others have also pointed out that, at times, they have recommended it, and she believes that it has consistently had bad results, as additional modern research has confirmed. She believes that without abusive upbringing they wouldn't be able to pass their religious beliefs down from one generation to another.
David Couper and James Garbarino have both expressed support for moderate religion, and presumably disagree with part of this if not all of it, and both support less authoritarian training of children and police, which implies that it's unlikely that religious beliefs would end quickly if child abuse is eliminated.
Previously I reported on how there's also much more violence, on average in areas that have Megachurches nearby than there is in areas that are only served by small churches, or where people are less religious; part of the reason for this is probably because the small pastors are more likely to interact with their parishioners, and listen to their needs, while large megachurches with Pastors making millions of dollars, protected by bodyguards keeping them away from troubled parishioners and living in expensive mansions are less likely to learn from the community to better serve their needs, and more likely to spend money on monumental Church decorations that have little or no practical purposes, although they look beautiful. I know that in my area, which doesn't have many megachurches, some of the churches that do serve the needs of the public best are small churches; and the response to Hurricane Harvey and other stories about megachurches indicates they may not be serving their community as well.
Some of the most extreme stories about the end of days or talk about how “witchcraft’s trying to take this country over, which is still going on in Alabama where Pastor John Kilpatrick is asking his flock to pray for Trump to make him strong enough to stop it, that are increasingly popular with the Trump administration, are almost certainly more likely to be believed by people with an emotional attachment to their religion that are unwilling to believe evidence proving that a lot of these claims are clearly false. Those that do believe the prophecies about tragedies often peruse a course of action that actually brings about disasters, which might be similar to the ones being predicted, when good research could show them how to avoid it.
Also, if there's an enormous amount of evidence to indicate that abused children are much more likely to become child abusers as adults then there's a good chance that these priests that have been accused of abusing children were also abused as children themselves; if so, then research should be done to find out so they can better understand how to prevent it. I don't say this to come up with excuses for the priests, although it might be considered mitigating circumstances to some people; but to better understand the causes of how violence escalates so it can be prevented.
Even without additional research, which we'll always need, we have enough to know that educational programs to improve child care and education everywhere, not just in wealthy neighborhoods, will be far more effective at reducing violence than prisons and courts after the education system fails. For example, the home visitor programs to help and advise at risk parents so they don't repeat the same mistakes in child rearing as their parents, that James Garbarino recommends, have proven to be very effective at reducing violence, which is the most important thing; and they've also proven to save an enormous amount of money in court and prison costs; yet the politicians routinely push "get tough on crime" policies that only "Get tough" crimes of working class people not white collar crimes that increase poverty and other problems even though they don't work and they cut funds for programs that do work.
If more people were educated about this politicians that do this would have a much tougher time getting elected and crime would be solved more effectively, and in some parts of the country this is already happening.
The average murder rates for the nineteen states that still allow it in 2015-6 was 5.98 per hundred thousand; the average murder rate in states that don't allow it in schools is only 4.54 during the same two years. These averages were based on FBI crime rates 2015/2016 includes population estimates The nineteen states states that still allow it includes NC, SC, Ga., Fla., Al, Mi, La., Ak., Tn., Ky, Mo, Ind., Tx, Ok, Ks, Co, Wy, Ariz, and Id. the estimated population for these nineteen states combined in 2015 was 133,322,590; in 2016 134,800,581; total number of murders in 2015 was 7,589; 2016: 8450; the rest of the country including the District of Columbia, but not territories like Puerto Rico had an estimated population of 2015: 187,574,028; 2016: 188,326,932; murders: 2015: 8,294 2016: 8,790. The average murder rate in states without corporal punishment in 2015 was 4.42, in 2016 it was 4.67; the average rate for those with corporal punishment in 2015 was 5.69; in 2016 6.27.
These statistics may actually underestimate the increase potential for violence in states that use corporal punishment more. One of the only contributing causes that might be almost as important as early child abuse is probably abandoned inner cities where they don't have a functioning economic or educational system. These cities have much higher murder rates, often at least twice the national average, and sometimes as much as four to eight times the national average. If anything they're almost certainly more common in the states without corporal punishment. Also, a couple of the states that do still allow corporal punishment in schools hardly ever use it in practice, and are the only ones that ever come close to the bottom ten. The ones that use it more often are the ones that are in the top ten. There are, of course, additional contributing factors which could go in either direction; but when the difference between murder rates is about 30%, this is a stronger correlation than most statistical studies, indicating more importance.
When it comes to the Catholic Church, though, this correlation might not actually be as strong as it is with Protestants, since they're more common in the North East, where there are lower murder rates. However, child rearing tactics are much slower to change in the most religious communities, including those preparing for the priesthood, as Philip Greven has shown, and Bernard Ruffin has demonstrated that it also applied to Catholic education of their monks as well early in the twentieth century, and it's unlikely that it has completely changed.
For additional sources see the following:
The 51 Countries That Have Banned Corporal Punishment - UN Tribune 11/21/2016
Wikipedia: List of countries by intentional homicide rate
Alice Miller "The Truth Will Set You Free"
David Kertzer "The Pope and Mussolini"
Wikipedia: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases
Cliff's Notes: St. Augustine's Confessions
Augustine, Luther and Solomon: Providing Pastoral Guidance to Parents On the Corporal Punishment of Children Though I was only a small child, there was a great feeling when I pleaded with you that I might not be caned at school. And when you did not hear me, which was so as ‘not to give me to foolishness’ (Ps 21:3), adult people, including even my parents, who wished no evil to come upon me, used to laugh at my stripes, which were at that time a great and painful evil to me.12 .....
Augustine believed the corporal punishment he received in school was not only ineffective, it actually inhibited his learning. For Augustine, “free curiosity has greater power to stimulate learning than rigorous coercion.”16 He notes that in his infancy he did not know Latin but “learnt it with no fear or pain at all, from my nurses caressing me, from people laughing over jokes, and from those who played games and were enjoying them.”17 In contrast, teachers taught foreign languages by inflicting “fearful and cruel punishments” that Augustine believed kept him from learning “any of the words.”18
"For what a person enforces by means of a rod will come to no good end. At best the children will remain good only as long as the rod is on their backs." Martin Luther
St. Augustine High School corporal punishment debate is about more than the paddle 03/06/2011
Pope Francis says it is OK to smack children if their ‘dignity is maintained’ 02/05/2015
Atlanta Church Embroiled in Corporal Punishment Controversy 04/30/2001 Summerville says there have been three state Supreme Courts that have ruled one instance of bruising during spanking is not child abuse, in and of itself. "But if you know that each time you are spanking the child, you are bruising the child, then you are intending to bruise and that is illegal. If you are not intending to bruise the child and the spanking is reasonable, but a bruise does occur, that is not abuse."
Religious Attitudes on Corporal Punishment by Rita Swan
Pope Francis' remarks on spanking challenged by child abuse experts 02/07/2015 A group of child abuse experts summoned by Pope Francis to help tackle priestly abuse in the Roman Catholic Church has criticized remarks made by the pope himself in which he suggested that it was permissible for parents to spank their wayward children.
Catholic Bishops: Discipline and punishment are not the same
Vatican: Pope Francis on spanking 02/07/2015
Report details sexual abuse by more than 300 priests in Pennsylvania's Catholic Church 08/15/2018
Former Catholic Priest Says Pennsylvania Bishop Ignored His Reports Of Abuse 08/16/2018
Lies and cover-ups: Catholic church in Pa. had 'playbook' to keep priest abuse secret 08/16/2018
'Go home, be a good priest': How 25 bishops in Pa. Catholic dioceses responded to sex abuse 08/17/2018
Va. Megachurch Youth Pastor Will Only Serve 8 Months For Sexually Abusing Teen 02/23/2018
Spanking Is Great for Sex Which is why it’s grotesque for parenting. 09/17/2014 So I wasn’t surprised to read that some kids who are regularly spanked experience a surge of oxytocin when they sense danger.
Priest accused of molesting teens, stealing from Oak Cliff's St. Cecilia parish in Dallas Tx. has gone missing 08/20/2018
Priest Abuse Victims Blast Pope: Vatican ‘Should be Target’ of Sex Abuse Summit, Not Leading It 10/08/2017
Deafening silence from Pope Francis amid scathing report of sexual abuse by Catholic priests 08/16/2018
Gutenberg The Confessions of Saint Augustine, by Saint Augustine
WATCH: Alabama pastor speaks in tongues demanding prayers for Trump because ‘witchcraft’s trying to take this country over’ 08/22/2018
How a boy becomes a killer 12/19/2012
Vatican Official Accuses Pope Francis of Sex Abuse Cover Up, Calls for His Resignation 08/27/2018 Archbishop Viganò then said in his written statement that Pope Francis “continued to cover” for McCarrick and not only did he “not take into account the sanctions that Pope Benedict had imposed on him” but also made McCarrick “his trusted counselor.”
Beating Children With State Support by Hal Smith 03/20/2007 According to Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance, “the LDS church has consistently discouraged this approach to child rearing.” President Hinckley: “called physical abuse of children unnecessary, unjustified and indefensible.” He said: “I have never accepted the principle of ‘spare the rod and spoil the child.’ I am persuaded that violent fathers produce violent sons. Children don’t need beating. They need love and encouragement.”
Does lack of education increase violent crime? Religion?
A Brief History of the Mormon Church
