It was a great article—worth the read!

Surely that wouldn't be the same 'Atlantic'
whose June 2019 cover and feature article was, and I quote,
"Abolish the Priesthood. Save the Catholic Church by returning it to the people"

if both articles were written by the same person, well, some people will do anything for a buck
if not, they must have some interesting editorial staff meetings

Following on kevinf’s remarks, it seems to me I’ve heard this song before / it’s from an old familiar score....

There was just recently in Harpers a story about abuse in the ultra-Orthodox community in the metro NY region. https://harpers.org/archive/2019/10/secrets-and-lies-sexual-abuse-orthodox-jews/

Earlier this year was a six-part series in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about similar problems among the Amish and Old Order Mennonites in Pennsylvania. https://newsinteractive.post-gazette.com/coverings/mennonite-amish-sexual-abuse-forgiveness-in-their-communities/

The Southern Baptists are now also cleaning house after an exposé in the Houston Chronicle. https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/investigations/article/Southern-Baptist-sexual-abuse-spreads-as-leaders-13588038.php

Last year, Tara Westover became a best-selling author with her memoir about growing up in an rural, isolated Mormon family. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/01/books/review/tara-westover-educated.html

These are just the first few big stories I can think of quickly on a Monday morning. Of course, we could go further afield to the FLDS, the Children of God, and other more theologically-unusual cults.

In my childhood as a homeschooled Evangelical in the Northeast, we lived in the modern world, but only ever socialized with our kind. Quite a lot of secrets got swept under the rug; I knew friends of mine were badly abused, but we were told The Government would be more likely to ban homeschooling and put Christians in jail if the authorities were ever called in to investigate a homeschooling family.

The majority of claims of sexual abuse with which the American Church is now dealing are from the 40s, 50s, and 60s, before the suburban exodus, when Catholics were still largely living in urban ghettos, going to separate schools, intermarrying, and staying put. This is at a time when there was still daily prayer in public schools; before anyone could talk about secularization or a sexual revolution. My grandparents lived through the Grande Noirceur in Quebec and saw what happened when this sort of Church married the State.

Such an insular community cannot ever be healthy or safe, particularly for children. Even if today all the priests in St. Marys are saints and all the citizens are upright, the conditions are perfect for abusers to move in and go about their evil deeds without being found out. In such an environment, if one mother there starts sharing anti-vax propaganda, the whole town will be at risk for the sort of outbreaks we are now already seeing in the ultra-Orthodox sections of NYC. What happens to a kid with a learning disability the parochial school can't diagnose or accommodate, or the kid with functional-alcoholic parents, or the LGBT+ kids who think suicide might be the way out?

And a matter infinitely less important: five or ten or twenty years from now, when 60 Minutes or the Times or someone finds a source, what's going to be the story? "These evil people who like incense and chant are all sadistic monsters?" "Catholics who pray in Latin are vile anti-Semites who torture children?" And how will that reflect on our work?

dad29,

The lesson I take is that sunlight is the best disinfectant, that insular places* with codes of silence are good at hiding victims away, preventing them from getting help.

*whether they are Epstein's private island, a commune, the Romanian orphanages of the 80s, the palace of the White Witch in Narnia, etc. etc.

stulte, your post makes no sense to me. Please clarify.

The undercurrent of somatolatry ...

At first I thought this was the worship of sleep - which could be quite appealing to many! :)

I need one question answered: can women wear pants?

That reminds me of the Southerner who was asked whether he believed in infant baptism. He responded: "Believe in it? I've seen it!"

Certainly an interesting article but again my concern about the SSPX isn't that isn't traditional enough or doing the mass correctly. Imagine if the apostles created an "enclave" a "refuge" from the world? The SSPX has been, at least when I was going there and obviously still today, a place to "get away from the world", not in it yet above it. This is not a universal spirit in the SSPX there but it's quite prevalent with most of the priests and parishioners, and I think that Our Lord didn't wish us to hide our faith under a bucket but to be a beacon. You can't convert the world if you're constantly retreating from it. This is of course my opinion but I experienced it first hand in well over a dozen SSPX chapels, and it wasn't a small issue for them.