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anglomedvedIn response to yesterday's post, a friend asked "does this mean that for 25 years everyone knew about this illness?"
I think the answer is at three levels:
Level one: When exactly the former Archbishop knew exactly the story about Vangheluwe is very difficult to know. The factor of 'don't want to know' may have played a large role here. It fits with what poeople closer to him have told we about Danneels. I have had it suggested to me that the story broke precisely because of the change of archbishop – that the victim thought that he would finally get himself heard.
Level two: About pederasty in the R.C. Church, everyone knew that it was going on, if you like, everyone had a few bits of a big jigsaw. But this is probably the first time someone has put the jigsaw together. Three comments here:
- First that most of the cases which have come to light are 30 or more years old. It may just be that a 50-year old is more prepared to speak than a 30-year old. My own suspicion, and frankly it is a suspicion only, is that sexual misbehaviour has gone in waves: that in the 1960s it was pederasty, in the 1980s it was priests having mistresses (the present new archbishop made himself very unpopular as a new bishop 20 years ago by cleaning this out of his diocese). In the 2000s the scandal is probably the sexual mores of the black clergy from the former colonies who have come in the depleting numbers of native priests...
- Importantly, the Vangheluwe scandal is untypical: this is a boy with his uncle: it is as much ‘family rape’ as the traditional priest-altarboy pattern.
- It would be unfair to say that all pederasty in Belgium at the time happened in the Church. All the psychologists are telling us that the majority of abuse of minors of both sexes is in the family.
Level three: Understanding the wider malaise. This is quite complex – I have spent two years trying to work it out. The malaise of the Church and the social and political malaise in Belgium are hopelessly intertwined. In the Flemish north of the country (where 90% of the cases the commission saw were reported) and which was solidly Catholic till the 1970s, there is an underlying ‘light Fascism’, which was acceptable in the Church till Hitler came and invaded the country (and would be perfectly tolerated in the Orthodox Church in Russia). Since then it has been pushed underground and is not accepted in polite circles. I suspect that this has created a big void and that space has to be made for it.
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no subject
Date: 2010-09-13 07:42 am (UTC)Что до сексуального насилия над детьми, то я боюсь, что в современной России оно чрезвычайно распространено - в десятки раз более, чем на Западе - в том числе, в Церкви. Чрезвычайное распространение всевозможных приютов, как при м-рях и храмах, так и отдельно, полная бесконтрольность и т.п.... Лет через сорок это начнёт всплывать, но я надеюсь уже этого позора не видеть. А что-либо сделать, не трогая систему - светскую и церковную - невозможно.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-20 07:53 pm (UTC)How, as a Russian, would you advise me, as a westerner, to handle this?
no subject
Date: 2010-09-21 03:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-21 06:43 am (UTC)Another approach may be say that there is a certain fundamental quantum of sin in the world, and that it takes different forms according to how the evil one thinks he can do more danger in a particular culture.
And probably he does more damage in a particular culture with what is thought by that culture to be relatively harmless than by what horrifies that culture.
In plain text: the evil one does more damage in Europe with homosexuality (and with what is possibly its real cause: unisex) where we are lenient, than with alcoholism (which is seen as a very grave sin in particular in Protestant countries); in Russia it is the other way round: you are more lenient with alcohol, which does huge amounts of damage, than with homosexuality, which horrifies you, but probably does not do too much damage.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-21 09:31 am (UTC)Порочность унисекса - спорный вопрос. Я должен подумать. С лёту я не вижу в этом ничего сильно дурного. И не получается ли, что мы вообще всё время ворчим. В 70-е ворчали на сексуальную революцию, теперь - на отсутствие сексуального... То нам не нравились толстые грудастые, теперь нам не нравятся худенькие и плоские...
no subject
Date: 2010-09-21 03:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-21 06:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-21 09:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-13 08:04 am (UTC)На эту тему обычно пишут только в жанре скандальной хроники, анализом никто не занимается. Ни на Западе, ни на Востоке :-(((. Табу, а как же.
Help me
Date: 2011-04-28 12:02 am (UTC)