The Dish

Buzzfeed features ten low flybys. The Top Gun intro has to be endured but then they're really cool. Number 3 will knock you over.

"For a host of structural and cultural reasons, the Church has for a miraculously long time been allowed a parallel track in history. It was, in some sense, an alterative to modernity, and, as well, a drag on it. It’s separateness, its largely unchallenged authority, have been crucial to its identity.  This is now coming to an end, one which history will judge as perhaps overdue, but nevertheless unexpected and abrupt.

We will tell our grandchildren about it," – Michael Wolff.

A reader writes:

I found this on the web with no mention of its original source, but it seems to indicate that there were problems with child abuse as far back as the third century:

Saint Basil of Caesarea, the fourth century Church Father who wrote the principal rule of the monks of the East, establishes this: “The cleric or monk who molests youths or boys or is caught kissing or committing some turpitude, let him be whipped in public, deprived of his crown [tonsure] and, after having his head shaved, let his face be covered with spittle; and [let him be] bound in iron chains, condemned to six months in prison, reduced to eating rye bread once a day in the evening three times per week. After these six months living in a separate cell under the custody of a wise elder with great spiritual experience, let him be subjected to prayers, vigils and manual work, always under the guard of two spiritual brothers, without being allowed to have any relationship . . . with young people."

The punishment was old school, to say the least, but it also had the commonsense clause that the offender be kept away from young people thereafter.

Also, I recommend checking out The Silence of Sodom: Homosexuality in Modern Catholicism by Mark D. Jordan (University of Chicago Press, 2000), which explores the history of homosexuality in the church (as well as pederasty – the two have been conflated by the church so I suppose the study couldn't separate them). It's full of historical details like this:

In 1570, a canon of the shrine of Loreto was named as a sexual partner by a choirboy. The boy's testimony was confirmed by multiple interrogations and by torture. (p. 122)

Avoiding scandal seems to have been more important than prosecuting offenders. Cases we do discover in the archives are often cases with aggravating circumstances, such as violence or public outcry. A Capuchin was burned publicly in Paris in 1783 for killing a boy who resisted being raped. (p. 123)

One Minim friar, Pedro Pizarro, dubbed "La Pizarra," maintained a well-supplied "playroom" on the monastery grounds in Valencia until his arrest in 1572. He would invite boys into the monastery on the pretext of doing paid work, ply them with food and wine, then couple with them in various combinations, often with the assistance of other friars. (p. 127)

In his Trifles, the twelfth-century priest and poet Walter Map repeats a familiar joke about St. Bernard, the second founder of the Cistercian monastic order. Two Cistercian monks are talking piously about an incident in which Bernard tried to bring a young man back from the dead by stretching out on top of the corpse. Bernard did not succeed. Another clergyman, an anti-Cistercian, interrupts the pious story with feigned astonishment. He had often heard of monks throwing themselves on top of boys, but usually both the monk and the boy got up afterward. (p. 132)

Jordan also details the way in which clerical courts were historically less likely to prosecute sodomy than civil courts, and that their punishments were less severe, and that they were harder on laypeople than clergy.

Plus ca change. I am, of course, aware of Mark Jordan's ground-breaking book. I wrote a review-essay on it in 2003, which can be read here.

Photo-illustration by Jill Greenberg.

Scott Morgan notes that the drug czar isn't saying much about California's marijuana initiative:

We've reached a point where it's no longer politically wise for the Administration, particularly a Democratic one, to be visibly associated with aggressive reefer madness. They've appeared to understand this so far, thus the Administration's tone regarding the California legalization effort will speak volumes, regardless of whether or not they actually say anything.

Bernstein yawns at precision framing:

It's fun to think of clever ways of  selling one's policies, but in the real world it's not bound to do much good.  Oh, both sides should try; as long as you don't believe your own propaganda, there's nothing wrong with a good attempt at spinning something.  But spin rarely works in the real world, because it doesn't fit the way people evaluate policies.  Spin has to compete with two far more powerful things — partisanship, and to a lesser extent actual personal experience.

Copyranter comments on an advert from the New York Press Association:

New York City residents, your local papers want you to know that, while, yes they may be mortally wounded by digital news sources and even stupid blogs that break the big stories before they can, they're not going down without passive-aggressively making you feel guilty as hell about their demise. That "Told ya" is just so preciously fucking childish. As Lindsay Beyerstein, who snapped the poster at the Brooklyn Carroll St. subway station says, the ad "perfectly distills the ineptness of the newspaper industry."

More examples from the ad campaign here.

A reader writes:

Like you, Andrew, I was raised in the Catholic Church, and I still revere and hold dear its core teachings of Christ.  I had 12 years of good Catholic schooling – tough and disciplined. In my junior year of high school I went to the priest at my high school for 'counseling' as I was feeling depressed with some life events.  After the 3rd or 4th visit, he molested me.

I went into absolute shock and denial and couldn't move. But once I realized what he was doing, I snapped to reality and ran from his office.  His attempts at groping at my breasts ended there.  I shudder to think how far he would have gone if I hadn't done that.  I was one of the lucky ones.

No, I didn't tell anyone. Not my parents, not my friends, other family members nor the school authorities.  I instinctively knew that he must have done or tried to do the same thing with other girls. True, I was 16 y/o.  But I was an impressionable, naive, innocent virginal child of those times and that age.  I trusted this priest with my whole heart. Him abusing that trust is abominable.

No one is asking the question… what about the girls??? I am somewhat offended at this disregard by the media and other commentators, but glad to see you mention it on your blog.  I suspect if and when that door is pried open, a veritable abyss will open up as well.  Not every priest was attracted to young boys, many were attracted to young girls.