Why is Catholic child abuse immoral?

Answer 1

Because nothing is more evil than harming a defenceless child. The Catechism itself acknowledges this. So, the various sex scandals in the Church from around the world are a source of great shame for the Catholic Church.

Answer 2

All child abuse is immoral, so I will deal with this first. Physical, emotional or, especially, sexual abuse of children is abhorrent in the extreme, if only because children are so vulnerable. This vulnerability, and therefore the moral evil, is accentuated when the perpetrator is a person in authority over the child. Authority, in turn, is compounded when the perpetrator has what the child perceives to be spiritual authority in addition to any other secular authority as teacher, guardian and so on.

Perceived spiritual authority can be the most damaging, first because the child often believes he or she must implicitly and at all times obey and respect the person with this authority, and second because when that trust is finally broken then the child's relationship with his or her church is also broken.

Spiritual authority is exercised by clergy of all faiths, not just the Catholic Church, or even just the Christian faith. And child abuse can be, and is, perpetrated by clergy of all faiths. Anecdotally, child abuse seems to be more prevalent within the Catholic Church than within most other major Christian denominations, but this has yet to be established beyond doubt. What appears to be the case is that institutional positions that place people in positions of trust and authority over children attract paedophiles and sadistic people, although it must always be said that most people in these roles are moral and upstanding people, dedicated to the welfare of their charges.

Objectively, each case of child abuse by Catholic clergy or staff is no more immoral than a similar case of child abuse by clergy or staff of another church or institution, although the very numbers involved add to the systemic immorality of the institution. Perhaps more than any other church, the Catholic Church holds itself up as the ultimate authority on morality, so systemic failures in the Catholic Church diminish any moral authority the Church still has.

The Catholic Church can, with some justification, claim that it can not be entirely responsible for the actions of its priests, brothers, lay teachers and others. However, it is responsible for selecting, training, inducting and supporting them. Poor selection and induction practices are a moral failure when the risks are known. To the extent that the demands of sexual abstinence lead, directly or indirectly, to moral failure on the part of priests, then the Church must accept moral responsibility, especially in cases where the Church fails to support young priests through their long period of self-denial. The Catholic Church hierarchy must also be responsible for a culture that exists within the Church, whereby seminarians and some priests flout its own rules by engaging in casual sex, which must surely engender a cynical attitude towards those rules and the rules of society. Finally, the most immoral aspect of child abuse within the Catholic Church is the systematic cover-up of offences by Catholic clergy, and also the well-documented bullying of victims who, often years later, come forward to seek redress.

Answer 3

All child abuse is immoral, that done by people who profess to believe in God and supposedly are following His Will is particularly repugnant. To abuse a child is vile, to cloak it in a life supposedly given to good deals is beyond words.

Answer 4

Whether Catholic, Protestant, Baptist, Islamic, Atheist, ALL abuse is wrong legally and wrong morally. Children are not there to serve adult needs. They are powerless and do not deserve to be harmed, neglected, starved, or sexually abused.