A psychologist who treats priests was not surprised by continuing revelations of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. But there was something that surprised him:
“It was a surprise for me to see how many psychopaths I met in the priesthood,” Dr. Leslie Lothstein said. “Glib, callous, could say anything to you and be charming.”
Read A psychologist steeped in treatment of sexually active priests, on nytimes.com.
Link suggested by a Lovefraud reader.
Ox Drover
QUOTE: “When I asked him (a priest) why (after fathering two children) he didn’t just use a condom, he said ‘that’s against the laws of the church'” ROTFLMAO CHOKE SNORT
I know it isn’t funny, but doggone it, I couldn’t help but laugh. At least the man was engaging in sex with an adult woman, not with a 5 year old child!
I think the treatment for pedophiles should be crucifiction–but since that is not allowed, I think the next best thing is natural life in prison.
one/joy_step_at_a_time
dark mood quickly. i spent about 5 minutes trying to find the name a corrosive substance that they could be treated with; then i stopped. i am courting this bloody mindedness, and it doesn’t play well in Peoria, or in my heart.
may i find peace and calm and hone my fierceness, but use it only when it is the right tool. may i develop discernment. may i develop my gentleness again. may i live deep in my body and may i keep growing and taking care of myself. i wish for a gentled safe heart, a safer life, and the sense to run fast first and to never leave myself again, and to use the knife of detachment quickly and efficiently, the and the saber of wrath patiently and efficiently. may we all have and work for and pray/ wish for what is most necessary for us.
Buttons
And, so he says: “And if they don’t have a conscience, you try to give them a mentalizing function” to help them imagine other people’s feelings…” ……….are you kidding me? Help them imagine what? Feelings? For what purpose? So they can work their victims more effectively????? (fainting dead away)
One_step…..{gentle hugs}
Ox Drover
Buttons, yea I got that one too! I was just so out of breath from laughing at the CONDOM comment I couldn’t type to get to the “therapy” one! LOL Thanks for pointing that one out! LOL ROTFRLMAO
Wonder if he knows how to make them CARE about other people’s feelings when they start to “mentalize” them. LOL ROTFLMAO–okay, breatheeeeeee, breatheeeeee!
Buttons
You know, OxD, with all of this insanity, sickness, and EEEEEVIL, there has to be some gallows humor or I’d slip my last cog and go for voluntary in-patient psych. Holy potatoes….
Matt
When I read this article I wasn’t surprised. My religious upbringing was sort of schizophrenic with a Catholic father and an Episcopalian mother. I guess it could have made me a diluted or deluded Catholic, and then I chose my own path.
I am always amazed when I have friends who are Catholic tell me “oh, the Catholic church is changing.” I have news for everyone who says that. The only thing that is ever going to change the Catholic church, or any faith that has been harboring these creatures is being driven into bankruptcy. One thing I learned as both a lawyer and dealing with the S-ex is that the only thing people understand at the end of the day is a hit to their pocket books. Money talks. And people listen when money talks. Especially when the money is flowing out of their pockets.
I am epecially outraged at the Catholic church’s complicity in fereting Cardinal Bernard Law out of Boston hours before the state troopers showed up to subpoena him in connection with the horrific sexual abuse revelations which were going on in the archdiocese in Boston and which Cardinal Law (or, more apprpriately Cardinal Lawless) was at the center of. And what does the Vatican do with him once they have him safely harbored in Vatican City. They put him in charge of the Church of Santa Maggiore and also put him on several important Vatican committees. The whole thing revolts me.
Too bad the victims in Europe can’t sue. But, hopefully they can go after these cretins in criminal court. Meanwhile, when enough archdioceses in the US are bankrupted, maybe the Catholic church will finally decide to enter the real world. It’s taken a few indirect steps. For example, the priest at my father’s Catholic church is a former Episcopalian priest who is married. Under the Catholic church’s “presto-chango” rule, apparently this can happen. I guess if the wife dies, you don’t get a second bite at the apple. But, my father says he’s the best priest they ever had — because he actually can relate to the problems facing the parishoners.
So, let the lawsuits continue — all the jawboning in the world ain’t gonna change a thing in the Catholic church. But having to shell out a hell of a lot of moola to the victims may finally bring about some long overdue change.
Buttons
Yah, Matt, and it might come as an even harder blow if they had to start selling off some of those priceless pieces of art that are cloistered in Vatican City! Thou shalt not covet…stuff!
Ox Drover
It’s always been funny (odd) to me that with all the poverty in the world, the churches and ministers/priests that live like Kings! Now let me see, how “Christ-like” is that? I think Jesus said He had “no place to lay His head”—-so all the satin pillows these “ministers” have don’t seem to me to jive some how! I’ve just got a problem with that!
Buttons
Having been raised Episcopal and attending Catholic School with mom converting to Catholicism late in life, I just don’t get ANY of it. I mean, I really don’t get it. Such a lack of humility just rubs my fur the wrong way, I guess.
Matt
Always found it interesting how nuns take the vow of poverty and priests don’t. At a Catholic church around the corner from where I lived in NYC, a monsignor managed to clip an elderly parishoner for about a million bucks. The list just doesn’t stop.