I agree. The Pillar surely knew (or should have known) when it used the term "inappropriate conduct" with a child that, these days, that would likely be construed as sexual misconduct of the grossest sort. Care should have been taken to avoid giving that impression without further evidence of the particulars. I say this as someone who thinks that Father Martins behaved cluelessly and spoke stupidly.
Is the solution, in your eyes, to not report anything at all until all the facts are known conclusively? Or would it not be better to report what is known when it is known and not make any conclusions?
I understand the concern about grooming through desensitization to touch. There is a reason why safe environment guidelines prohibit this type of behavior. The parish and the diocese were right to take some kind of action. But I guess I question what that action should be.
Is a full police investigation, expulsion from the diocese, and public statement the appropriate response here? Without more, I would be inclined to say no. But the diocese has said there is more. So I am trying to reserve judgment until we learn what it is.
For me, if there has been something like allegations of similar behavior at other stops on the tour, then the action starts looking more justified. If other parishes or dioceses have already informed him that behavior was inappropriate (if it was in fact happening at other stops), then it starts looking like a pattern of knowing disregard, which would demand some kind of escalation in enforcement. But we just don't know at this point whether something like that has happened here.
Most fathers in the current church environment are going to be alarmed at a visiting priest who they don't know from Adam touching their young daughter without her parent there. I don't think this is an unreasonable concern, and there may well be more to the story.
Yes this!!! I admit a bias against priests from lesser known orders because there is not the same level of oversight and type of interaction with the community that the priests in my local parishes have.
B) The diocese acted appropriately in canceling the tour pending investigation.
C) It was hugely inappropriate of them and a violation of his rights not to clarify that there had not been sexual misconduct *in their original statement.*
I'm seeing now my original post was too short and so a bit unclear.
I agree that it demonstrates poor judgement on his part, and am not trying to condone that touching. I think "completely inappropriate" might be a bit strong given the context (visiting on a tour, building rapport, in front of 300 people), but I see how others could think that language is right on point. I'm not trying to argue for that one way or another.
But my "nothing-burger" refers to the fracas that immediately swept the online catholic world vs. the boundary violation as it occurred (with all the details currently known) vs. what everyone was imagining after the original statement. I think we can agree that he shouldn't have touched her hair, and also agree that situation #1 (incident with student, safe environment policy, police report, immediately asked to leave diocese, everyone is safe) is different than situation #2 (touched hair to demonstrate length while making bad joke about flossing and balding in front of 300 people, police had conducted initial investigation and declined to charge, etc).
No. It's more evidence that Catholic priests in America are generally considered - even, as we see in this incident, by fellow priests - to be likely to be child molesters, period. And one reason for this near consensus is the disgusting failure of the Church hierarchy to stand behind its own clergy when they're accused.
Others might think that it’s because of the Church hierarchy hiding abusers and moving them to other assignments where they could abuse more people and a real lack of accountability that makes them want to report an issue with a priest directly to the police.
I fail to see how it is "defamation" to report on the already-publicized exclusion of an international figure from a national tour that is scheduled to visit other parishes and dioceses.
I don't think it's about misunderstanding or understanding, it's about defense attorneys doing literally everything that they can to defend their client, including making sure that the news agency that broke the story is made to look bad. Calling it "defamation" is a tactic to deflect from the facts and reduce their impact.
I am glad that the crew at The Pillar reported the original story. I am also happy to see that they are continuing to follow it and making sure that the situation is more clarified as facts and statements continue to be given out. Honestly that's a rare behavior in journalism today, both secular AND religious. Give me the ALL facts and statements as they become more clear and I will make my own judgements.
Yes I presumed you were probably doing something like that :) My apologies if it seemed like I was trying to "clarify" your statement for you.
I think we ALL need to remember the dynamics here. We haven't heard the police or official diocesan report yet, so we should hold off on judgement, and we also ALL need to remember how attorneys operate. They are paid to skew the truth in favor of their clients.
The fact that not just the priest's lawyers, but also spokesmen from the Joliet diocese are coming out to clarify that this isn't sexual assault/harassment, but rather (what seems to me a benign and entirely forgivable) "boundary gaffe" is relieving. As a grown man, I often congenially jostle the hair on the top of the heads of some of the kids of my friends at my parish as a way to naturally and lightheartedly interact appropriately. Of course, everybody at my parish already knows me, and that I am a father myself, so that level of trust is already established. If it was a man you didn't know personally, one could be forgiven for having apprehensions about the hair comment and lifting a lock of hair in good humor.
Especially considering that our own President's unquestionably-inappropriate conduct with girls' hair has created a certain "vibe" around hair. That might have something to do with it.
I think that this is a very good sign for the Church - a complaint was filed through the police first, then diocese and tour organization immediately put the events on hold, then made a public statement, then followed up with another public statement laying out a clear description of events, and then basically saying "but we agree with with a police investigation regardless in due diligence"
This would not have happened so smoothly and transparently in years past. The Church (in the USA) is showcasing that it is in fact learning and executing best practices, rather than act shady as if with something to hide. Pray God, I think this will all smooth out. Pray God, I hope I am not proven wrong.
I have no problem with the Pillar reporting this, but with the ridiculous over reaction of the diocese of Joliet, which again removes the ability of spiritual growth and blessings for Catholics through association with wonderful relics because a priest touched some girl's hair. This is typical of Bishop Hicks who has punished several pastors in the diocese for calling homosexual acts, cohabitation, and contraception sinful by demoting them or even sending them out for "sensitivity training". You can be sure of one thing with Bishop Hicks: if any lay person complains about a priest for any reason in his diocese, he will chastise the priest automatically. And the USCCB just picked Bishop Hicks to be in charge of their Clergy and Vocation Committee. Shows how the bishops are not in touch with reality sometimes.
Thanks for the background. That helps to answer my principal objection to the shape of the reporting of this story here: Pillar should have looked into why local Church authorities rushed to judgement against this outsider priest, as it was clear that they did. From something I've since read elsewhere, I suspect that there may be even more background here that begs to be illuminated.
That said, I realize that both of the Pillar's chief pillars are lawyers, and if I were a lawyer writing for publication in a country as aggressively hostile to traditional Christianity as America has become, I might be instinctively averse to appearing to be defending the rights of a Catholic priest who'd been accused of "inappropriate behavior" with a child. The popular assumption in America - as in perhaps most "advanced" Western countries - seems to be that if a priest was accused of such a thing, he is certainly guilty, and if anyone attempts to stand up for him, he is complicit.
That is a great point you are making and the motivation for all my comments, to protect priests against illogical accusations and assumptions. Priests are assumed to be perverts, while others, like secular teachers and coaches who abuse kids much more often, are considered trustworthy. It reminds me how my sons have gone to camps run by an orthodox, holy religious order of men and we have promoted these camps. Yet time and time again we hear a comment like this repeated by other parents: "I am a little nervous sending my son to a camp with a bunch of priests considering all the scandals in the Church." It is an evil mindset in our society that allows for what happened to Father Martins to occur.
Because I am what people currently call neurodiverse (if you like shorter words, you can call me "dense as a box of hammers") I am unable to reliably tell when someone is "flirting". The conversation as related sounds so stupid that it makes me think "this sounds like flirting" (composed partly of flattery, partly of jocose lies: it's not possible to floss with hair, I tried it once when I was out of floss; and partly of an excuse to make physical contact). Is it *not* flirting? Could someone who has the more usual sort of brain let me know what a normal human conversation classifier would make of it?
I don't know that I count as having a normal brain, but I wouldn't have automatically thought of it as flirting if somebody tried that with me. I would just think they were kind of weird. If anything, it sort of reminds me of my dad's awkward attempts to connect with me as a teenager; but, uh, nobody in my family has a particularly normal brain so... maybe somebody else should try to answer. My answer is that I would find it mildly discomfiting but I wouldn't have interpreted it as flirting.
It sounds like it was a priest trying awkwardly to establish rapport with a group of students (not an easy task for anyone) by joking around. I've heard it many times, "boys and girls" comments trying to talk at their level but kind of turning them off by condescending to them or underestimating their maturity.
I don’t know if I have a usual sort of brain but to me it sounds like something that started as a cute self-deprecating joke about his own baldness but should have ended there. He had a second chance to end it after saying he used to have long hair, and then a third attempt to end it when he said he would floss with it (gross). Then he doubles down on not ending soon enough and touches her hair. On the one hand, awkward at best. On the other hand, touching in front of groups (didn’t we just discuss this re the John Allen defense of Fr Principi) is a common behavior for abusers?
It's a "news" article, Bridget. Today, that means it's probably a story meant to tease readers into reading it. The story text will reinforce the teasing headline by giving details that inform a little while teasing more. We don't know what happened. Any descriptions are fragmentary, at best.
Think about it. To have a decent ability to understand what happened and is happening there now, we'd need to have at least fairly intimate knowledge of the community, of the principals, and of the history surrounding them all. We cannot have that.
Saw the lawyer letter posted elsewhere. There's three sides to every story, and I'll wait to hear the diocese/ police side before I reach any conclusions.
Keep up the good work, JD and Ed. I greatly appreciate the level of calm and sanity with which you are approaching this, in contrast to certain other "journalists" who are practically foaming at the mouth. If you need a legal defense GoFundMe, I'll be happy to throw down.
I'm sure they'll be fine. Becciu threatened them with the same thing and nothing ever came of it. "Cease and desist letters" are basically just bullying with legal letterhead. If they had the juice, they'd have just served them outright.
This letter from Fr Martins' lawyer seems to me to just be Fr Martins trying to plead his case in the court of public opinion. As well as notifying the world that he's lawyered up so stop contacting him for a statement.
Even if it is as his attorney described (and for the sake of all, I pray it was), it's refreshing to see the parish priest following the guidelines of the policy, whether or not he believed it to be warranted.
I'm not even mad if the father is just A Very Angry And Easily Offended Person, the fact that the parish priest followed through is positive in my view. For too long have things like this been ignored when it should have been followed up on.
Here's hoping the diocese doesn't ruin the good of the investigation by lacking transparency in their findings (ah, who am I kidding. Of course they will 🫤). The ball is in their court to provide countering evidence, which they seem to indicate they have.
I read through their policy and it's -absolutely unclear- what could have caused this reaction based on what the attorney said. If the attorney omitted part of the truth this needs to be amended, or it just looks like fear mongering from the diocese by lack of transparency.
No matter what judgment one makes on the actions of the priest in question, I think the pastor and bishop handled this very well. Someone made a complaint, it was immediately referred to the police and the diocese halted any further activities with that priest until the matter is adjudicated. Those are the steps that must be taken with any complaint, and then if it is determined that nothing untoward happened, the priest can resume his activities with no issue. But as has been observed many times throughout recent history, if you don't report because "this guy is too holy", it invariably ends badly.
And as far as the Pillar is concerned, once the priest and bishop have made public statements, posted to their website, about the matter, it is 100% public information and worthy of reporting. And I'm sure if he is exonerated, the Pillar will publish that info as well.
I think what the priest and bishop did was ridiculous succumbing to the woke agenda instead of simply saying: "touching a girl's hair in jest does not constitute inappropriate behavior and we refuse to punish any good priest and ministry for such ridiculous accusations." Father Michael Lane has done this before, removing a Nashville Dominican from being principal at his grade school because a small group of mothers complained that the sister was scaring the kids teaching them that the devil exists. One of these mothers F-bombed the sister in front of a group of 2nd graders which included my daughter, and the Mother Superior of the order came to Joliet to investigate and refused to replace the sister as principal. But Father Lane succumbed to pressure from radical woke parents like he did this time. Shame on him and the bishop for defaming the good name of a good priest because he was afraid of some insane parishioner.
I don’t see how reporting a priest for a clear boundary violation (at the very least; we’ll see what other accounts come out) is “succumbing to the woke agenda.” I think it’s great that there were procedures put in place to deal with issues like this and that parents who are concerned about a priest’s interaction with their child have real recourse, that hopefully all these reforms actually mean something. And now we can let the procedures move forward so that hopefully there will be a clear resolution.
Even this "clear boundary violation" including this is ridiculous. I am always sad seeing children wanting to hug a priest but the priest being scared to death that this will be considered a boundary violation. That the secular world has imposed bizarre ideas of what a boundary is does not make us have to change our behavior, especially since Liberals saturated with pedophiles are the ones imposing it on us. They expose our kids to pornography, sex education (including through disgusting Catholic programs where kids are shown pictures of sexual organs), homosexuality, and gender theory, but we are most worried about a priest touching a girl's hair. These reforms were implemented because the Church refused to remove homosexuals from the priesthood who were the perpetrators of 86% of church pedophile cases (according to the independent John Jay College study). All the modern day psychological torture of priests and seminarians is just leading many good men refusing to be treated this way and not becoming priests, if they could be accused of "boundary violation" everytime they get anywhere closer than ten feet to a kid.
It's not "ridiculous". Based on your username, I'm guessing you are not female. I am, and I was once a young girl at a Catholic elementary school. This behavior from a visiting priest, an authority figure who had just met this girl and was not a relative or even a close long-time friend of her family, is frankly out of line and uncomfortable. The fact that many people don't seem to understand that it is uncomfortable, or go rushing to excuse it when it's "their favorite priest, he's so holy", is why we need the safeguarding rules.
Again, I asked females in my family who had a different view from yours. Again, I do not have a problem with someone telling the priest not to do that, just like I recently told someone not to use cuss words in front of my kids. But calling in the police and defaming a person in public for something almost certainly done innocently is not
appropriate in either situation. The proper thing, which the Bible mandates, is to rebuke someone first in private because God in his Wisdom, which our unmerciful modern society has forgotten, knows that the vast majority of what people do that can be perceived as wrong is done out of ignorance.
Yes, but this "boundary" issue has caused most priests to avoid getting even close to any kid at anytime. This is because we make a big deal about everything, including reporting a priest to the police over something like this. It is not a crime to touch a girl's hair in jest, and if it is, we are an insane society. The only thing that should have happened here is someone from the parish telling Father Martins "please don't do that anymore, it is not considered appropriate according to our diocesan policies." Making this criminal shows that in our hearts we consider priests to be perverts until proven otherwise. Yet we have no problems leaving high school kids with high school teachers and coaches who routinely sleep around with them without our knowing (the percentage of pedophiles among non-priests is many times higher than among priests, but we only scrutinize priests in our society because we choose to believe the false propaganda of the secular media). No, Father Martins needs to be ostracized and exiled because he touched a girl's hair. Absurd.
Calling the police gives it the appearance of being a criminal offense, otherwise why call the police? I realize he is innocent until proven guilty, but still, just involving the police is enough for many to make that leap. Any priest, proven guilty or innocent in such a situation will always have to carry that stigma no matter the outcome. That just the way people are today.
The police were called because the parish priest is a mandated reporter and is therefore required by law to report any complaint of misconduct. If a mandated reporter is informed of misconduct and does not report it, he can be held liable for the misconduct himself.
Mandated by the USCCB rules that any bishop can choose to ignore since nothing the USCCB mandates obligates a bishop, as every bishop is only required to be obedient to the Pope. Note to anyone reading this: you are not obligated to call the police if you see someone only touching a girl's hair. So the priest was obligated only by his bishop to call the police.
I believe Fr. Martins to be a good man. He’s not my preferred taste, but he seems earnest in his care for souls and love for Jesus and the Church. But it’s 2024, and he’s a priest. He ought to know better.
Blaming anyone but him is victim-shaming and probably a sin against charity and justice. The parish priest being “obliged only by his bishop” is a perfectly good reason for what happened as a response to the complaint.
If my daughter is touched by a priest I’ve never met when I’m not there, you’re damn right I’m calling Fr. Pastor. And I know that my pastor (who I think reads the Pillar) would respond in the proper manner.
That's weird behavior from an adult toward an adolescent. I used to be an educator and I cannot imagine ever having that kind of physical contact with one of my students, even though we generally had great repore and I employed humor as part of our interactions. Highly inappropriate as described here, and this is coming from the priest's own lawyers! I can only imagine what the full picture from the archdiocese will say. Bad business, to be sure.
That is because you have been so educated by propaganda that now every innocent gesture is considered highly inappropriate. Father Lane was pastor of St. Jude's parish in Joliet just last year where some boy in kindergarten was dressing up as a girl and called himself a girl, and nobody will tell the parents of this kid that they are committing child abuse by letting a kid act that way. Yet a priest touching a girl's hair is considered by some mixed up people as horrible abuse. This world is truly mad.
Get out of here with this attitude. The reason "innocent" gestures are considered highly inappropriate is because that is how grooming begins. Predators will test a child's response to innocuous touch in order to see if they can get away with it, and to gradually desensitize a child in order to better enable abusive touch and behavior. That why it is called a "boundary violation": the act itself might be innocuous, but it lowers or damages a boundary to touch or behavior that is abusive. That is why boundary violations are not harmless, because they serve as a precursor to harmful touch.
Everyone has a duty to respect boundaries and prevent violations, because even if you intend no harm, you can still make a child vulnerable by confusing them about what is appropriate with adults, and cause both children and adults to miss grooming behavior and red flags from actual abusers.
As a church, we've been hugely successful in combating abuse and driving it to historically low levels by holding a hard line and strict accountability on this. We cannot go back.
It seems hard to think that this was a grooming issue between a priest and a student who have a brief encounter in conversation in a large group and will never see each other again.
But note to self if you are a priest or CCD teacher or youth leader or teacher: No touch is safe. None. And I also think that every priest thinks of this and thanks God as he says his night prayers: Protect us Lord as we stay awake and watch over us as we sleep that awake we may keep watch with Christ, and asleep rest in his peace.
In this case, likely not, but it's immaterial. It's still a boundary violation and still has the potential to expose the child to future abuse by confusing them or guardians as to what is and is not appropriate. "Zero tolerance" is the case because once you start making exceptions because abuse doesn't seem plausible in this or that case, abusers start exploiting those loopholes and slipping through.
The reason abuse has decreased is because of what Pope Francis reiterated when speaking to the Italian bishops: homosexuals are not to be allowed in the seminaries (at least evident ones are not alllowed anymore). It is that simple. It has nothing to do with priests patting children on the head or hugging them or putting their arm around them to comfort them. Those were normal human behaviors for centuries, but now are considered boundary violations. I remember patting a little 2 year old boy on the head recently who was playing with my kids and for a brief moment I thought to myself, "I hope the parents don't think my completely innocent gesture is wrong". Fortunately the parents were from Poland and they did not mind. I remember an elderly priest in a little village in Poland going around for the collection patting every kid in the church on the head. Every adult smiled at these lovely gestures, not realizing in our primitive, old fashioned heads that the priest was grooming the 50 or so kids in that church. Or maybe we still had normal minds that American wokeness had not destroyed.
If you cannot see the difference between a kindly pat on that head and playing with a middle school girl's hair, there's not much point in continuing this conversation. Especially since you have accused everyone in this thread who thinks the priest is wrong with supporting transgender surgery for minors.
I am not accusing everyone of that, but the source for the type of thinking that innocent behavior is considered grooming is the same sources from modern day psychology that consider gender theory to be a good idea. It is like one priest said that we are all infected by modernist heresies which we have a difficult time getting rid of. If you asked kids and adults throughout history if a priest touching a girl's hair is wrong, they would look at the person asking as if they were strange. Now, since the last 20 years have been so much more enlightened, we know better than anyone else in the past what is right or wrong. Child abusers do a lot of things at the beginning to groom kids. The problem is that 99% of people do the same things as completely innocent gestures. Simply because a pervert can use an innocent gesture to groom a kid does not automatically make the gesture itself nefarious. I asked my teenage daughter and wife about this first and neither of them thought touching a girl's hair in jest by a priest is wrong.
1) Gender theory does not arise from modern psychology at all. It comes from entirely different sources, and it is simply the case that groups like the APA have capitulated to gender theorists, with no firm evidence even based on their own methods.
2) Church standards for boundary violations are not based on psychological theory. They are based on decades of evidence gathered from thousands of abuse cases that show the common ways in which abusers operate, and how communities can obscure or miss the signs of abuse in their midst.
But grooming is not a one time gesture, but a process. A guy may flirt innocently with a woman and so may a rapist, but it does not mean flirting is evidence for a soon to occur rape. Having the worse possible ideas about what a priest is doing when less than 0.1 percent of priests are pedophiles means we are not really good Catholics who should trust priests rather than assume they are doing something wrong. There are many more abusive high school teachers and coaches but I cannot recall the last time I heard of a coach being demonized in the press and suspended for touching a student's hair. No, we Catholics are only good at pointing fingers at good priests who we automatically consider to be perverts unless they act like aloof robots who we can only then trust.
As I have stated, boundary violations are serious not just because it might be part of a grooming pattern by the violator, but because it might make it easier for someone else to conduct grooming at a later date, even without the knowledge of the first person.
The Diocese of Juliet's own Safe Environment standards specifically allow for the following types of physical contact. It's perfectly reasonable to expect priests and all others working in the church to stay within these bounds:
• Side hugs • Shoulder to shoulder hugs • Pats on the upper back • Handshakes • “High-fives” and hand slapping • Arms around shoulders • Holding hands while walking with small children • Sitting beside small children • Kneeling or bending to receive hugs from small children • Holding hands during prayer • Pats on the head when culturally appropriate • Reciprocation of appropriate gestures initiated by a minor or vulnerable adult
It is reasonable to set standards, but an innocent one time gesture beyond those standards does not require an overreaction like happened in this case anymore than driving 5 miles over the speed limit does not mean you should be handcuffed by the police. A simple "Father, we don't do that in this diocese" would have been sufficient, rather than calling the police and suspending all future appearances in the diocese over something so obviously innocent.
Well, the diocese has already said that there is more to the story than Fr. Martins lawyers are sharing, so we'll have to see what it is. Plainly, whatever happened, the priests of the parish and the bishop did not find it to be "so obviously innocent".
No, if you cannot understand comparisons, I cannot help you in understanding what I wrote. A single man flirting with a single woman is not automatically a rapist, neither is a priest touching a girl's hair a pedophile, nor a man driving a car over 5 miles an hour worthy of arrest. Don't keep thinking the worse of what people write.
My apologies. I thought you were explaining that you thought that touching hair was flirting.and that in many circumstances flirting is innocent, but I must have misunderstood. Would I be correct in thinking that you do *not* think that touching hair is flirting, and that the "flirting" example was intended to be completely unrelated to anything the priest and the schoolgirl were doing? As noted in another part of the comments section I don't really understand what flirting is, so hopefully my confusion is not surprising.
The last 20 years have been more enlightened by so many victims coming out of the woodwork, not wokeness. Before no one would listen if someone said they were abused, and this attitude is still prevalent in the upper levels of the Church. Rupnik is a prime example, and there have been others in recent memory. Even last week.
I don't know that you can take this as a given. Certainly in some cultures demonstrative touch was/is more common, but not in every culture, and even in cultures where it was/is more common it was often restricted by relationship.
Ditto things like chaperonage. Of course most of the time if two unrelated people are alone in a room together nothing will happen. But there were still norms of open doors and providing chaperones, both to protect potential victims and prevent accusations that could neither be proven or disproven. In modern framing we often talk about this as horribly inconvenient or limiting freedom (especially for women), but a lot of the safe environment stuff is bringing things like this back.
I don't think "unrelated people should not touch each other regardless of intention" is necessarily a horrible social norm. Arguably, it's rather traditional.
I agree with Thomas: a visiting priest who had one interaction with a student in front of 300 people could hardly be called out for "grooming" behavior. The judging of these sorts of things is very dependent on culture and setting. Is mussing up a kids' hair now considered grooming? People are going to judge this one differently in today's society, but one thing is certain, 40 years ago nobody would have thought twice about it, since it obviously wasn't going to lead to anything untoward.
This reminds me of the mom being jailed for letting her son go for a walk to the store to visit his friend's grandmother.
The point is not whether this priest was grooming this girl. The point is that touching hair is a boundary violation and boundary violations set kids up for future violations of their self. Ask a hundred women, honestly, if they are ok with having their hair touched and called attention to in front of a group by a man they don’t know and listen to their answers.
Oh, yes, because there is a group of priest violators coming to Joliet to purposely touch the hair of one girl so they can groom her for another priest. When is the last time a high school teacher or coach was exposed to the public for something like this? No, they just sleep with their students while we worry about an innocent priest touching a girl's hair. We Catholics are such good hypocrites attacking the priests and then complaining about a lack of vocations, when the slightest "boundary violation" requires calling in the police and defaming the priest.
I refer to my reply above to SC: you can be guilty of boundary violations without any intention to commit grooming or abuse. This is because even an "innocent" boundary violation can expose a child to risk of harm by muddying the waters, should they come into contact with an actual predator. We all have a duty of care to make sure this doesn't happen and that our own behavior does not violate boundaries. We'll have to see what else the diocese has to say when they release their side of the story.
I find myself of two minds here. Thomas' 'capitulation to wokeness' framing is unhelpful to the point of actively hindering understanding. I second Rebecca's commendation of your clear explanations; thank you for taking the time.
But at the same time, there's something deeply deeply tragic about this. And unnatural! People like Thomas who remember a world that didn't think about casual touch this way aren't off base, and I can understand why what you're saying (which, again, I appreciate and commend) sounds like paranoia. It does feel unfair to say that someone can be committing a boundary violation even if their intent is lightyears from anything sexual. And caring human touch is good for human beings! Including (especially?) for children. This is not to criticize your points, just to highlight how tragic it is that we feel forced to operate with such vigilance.
“Side hugs • Shoulder to shoulder hugs • Pats on the upper back • Handshakes • “High-fives” and hand slapping • Arms around shoulders • Holding hands while walking with small children • Sitting beside small children • Kneeling or bending to receive hugs from small children • Holding hands during prayer • Pats on the head when culturally appropriate • Reciprocation of appropriate gestures initiated by a minor or vulnerable adult “
Now, is the contact described by Fr. Martins lawyers “casual”? I would argue not. It quick touch or pat to the top of the head is one thing. Touching and holding up a girl’s hair while making a comment about it is prolonged and, in my mind, not casual. Others may disagree, but there are plenty of approved alternatives for showing physical affection in a safe and respectful manner.
I again appreciate you taking the time for a thorough and informative response. It hadn't occurred to me that a diocese would have an official enumerated policy, but now that you've brought my attention to it, yes that seems prudent and a win for transparency.
But at the same time, it doesn't really seem all that helpful? Surely a side hug *could be* a boundary violation and a regular hug certainly needn't be one. It seems difficult to define the category in a just way without factoring in any evaluation of the intent behind the action.
Or to put it another way, maximum transparency/uniformity is sometimes at odds with justice in individual cases.
I am surprised that you are surprised by the Diocese of Joliet's enumerated policies. These policies have been around for 20 years and are required by the 2002 Dallas Charter. Any person who has been involved in church ministry with minors in the past two decades is going to be aware of it. I have gone through two different sets of this training myself.
As far as the helpfulness of these standards, they are not theoretical. They come from tens of thousands of case studies which have deeply examined how sexual predators operate and how they get away with their behavior (and how they are caught). When I've done safe environment training, this involved watching extensive video testimony from convicted child molestors explaining their methodology as part of their sentence. So we know how actual predators operate, what behaviors (by predators and others) put children and communities at risk, and what actions and systems are effective at stopping abuse from occurring. This is demonstrated by the historically low levels of abuse in Catholic institutions that have been achieved since 2002, especially in comparison to secular institutions. The system works. To deny this or call it into question is to ignore the empirical evidence of the past 20 years.
We shouldn't conflate boundary violations and grooming behavior. As I said below to Paphnuti, the point of boundary violations is that they remove ambiguity from people who are unqualified to investigate potential abuse, and do not force them to judge intent. Side hugs are recognized and agreed upon normal social behavior. While an abuser might start out with side hugs before they begin grooming a child, giving a side hug will not confuse a child about what constitutes appropriate touch from an adult. However, if an adult engages in prolonged contact with and manipulation of a child's hair, that could confuse a child at a later date. Hence it is a boundary violation (in my opinion, and apparently in the Diocese of Joliet's opinion too). And because it is a strange thing for an adult to do (even if it is later determined to be without any malice or intent to abuse), it can still confuse an adult and make them more likely to write off and not report actual grooming behavior at a later date. Again, this also makes something a boundary violation.
Justice is served by allowing allowing these kind of transparencies and reporting to function accordingly. It is justice to children to be surrounded by people who will take action to protect them, and for children themselves to know what kind of physical contact is and is not appropriate. A child should never have to wonder, "Was that OK that I was touched that way?" It is justice to parents and volunteers by not making them worry about "Should I report this or not?" That is an unfair burden to make them carry, just as it would be unfair to ask you to investigate a suspicious abandoned backpack on the subway. If you see something, say something, and then get to a safe distance and let the professionals take over.
And it is justice for priests everywhere, because the more these systems, protections, and boundaries are maintained, the less that priests have to walk around under a cloud of suspicion. These systems allow priests to minister to young people with full confidence as to what sorts of behavior are and are not acceptable. Priests don't have to wonder if they are crossing any lines, because those lines have been so well-enunciated and drilled into them from seminary onward. They don't have to worry as much "Do people suspect me of criminal behavior?" because everyone is operating on the same transparent set of standards, and everyone knows that if something did happen, the priest would be reported and investigated. This allows the vast majority of innocent and God-fearing priests to focus on their ministry and devote themselves with full hearts to the people of God.
A very late reply on my part to thank you for your patient explanations. I had been thinking of the boundary in question in 'boundary violation' along the lines of an individual's personal boundaries (i.e. what an individual personally feels comfortable with and communicates to others; by nature very difficult to speak categorically about actions in this case) as opposed to a boundary set by the law in recognition of a risk, although that risk might not be actualized in every situation.
And as for my surprise, I converted as an adult and do not have children.
Thinking further, I think what makes this case so difficult, in some respect, is the nature of the touching of the hair here itself sits at on a very uncomfortable line of ambiguity about the boundary. A single quick pat on the head is unambiguous in its innocence; any number of sexualized touches are unambiguous in their perfidy. But this sits right in this zone that is clear in neither direction: it pushes against our intuited socially accepted norms without explicitly breaking the delineated norms. This puts it in a bit of a twilight zone. In some respect, this reminds of the 2015 "the dress" phenomenon, where half of the internet seemed perceived the photograph as blue and black, while the other half perceived it as white and gold.
In any case, nobody can effectively judge this case until all information is available.
To quote one of my favorite films, "Whenever there is any doubt, there is no doubt. That's the first thing they teach you." The point of boundaries and correcting boundary violations is so that everyone knows that it is not OK touch touch minors in ways that land in uncomfortable line of ambiguity. This is because actual predators thrive in this zone as a way to camouflage their actions, because as people we generally want to give others the benefit of the doubt. We don't want priests and lay volunteers looking at ambiguous actions and trying to figure out for themselves if grooming or abuse is occurring. They are supposed to be able to observe an action or behavior, say "I know that this is not clearly acceptable", and take action by reporting to the people who are trained to investigate further and have the power to safeguard children in the meantime.
I definitely don't disagree. I think it's a sad necessity that, functionally speaking, we need to operate using such guidelines, and like you've pointed out, the guidelines we've adopted are based off of extensive research and case study into the functioning of groomers and abusers. I would much rather we have stringent guidelines in place, even if it feels sad, institutional and inhuman, than to continue to operate out of a naive blind-eye that give groomers and abusers greater liberty to perpetrate.
My earlier comment was less in commentary of the right/wrongness of guidelines, etc., but rather was an observation as to why this case is quite divisive in such a way that folks (who all almost certainly agree about the problem of grooming and abuse) feel very differently about this case.
I think that many people feel so beaten down by the abuse crisis that they look for any bright spots they can find, and are loathe to see yet another priest they admire go down. I also think that, as Americans, we have become very casual and informal as a culture: in the way we speak, in the way we dress, and in the way we act around other people. We don't have a strong sense anymore of the ideas of social propriety and norms of behavior that are strictly enforced. "What's the harm in it?" has been the common objection I have seen from many of Fr. Martins defenders, and that attitude is very much in line with where we are as a culture. The idea that certain ways of speaking, dressing, and acting, even though harmless in themselves, are still socially unacceptable and worthy of censure, is an increasingly alien concept to us, and this make concepts like "boundary violations" difficult to understand, because we are not used to thinking that way.
That's well-put; I think you're on to something there. To build off of that--living in the information age means that we are privy to vast amounts of specific information happening all over the country, less to say the world, much (or perhaps most) of which is bleak, discouraging, or disturbing. And, living in that age of information, we've naturally adapted our policies, ethotes, and ways of being to address it. And living with all those policies and structures, despite their necessity, over time feels very discouraging. I find myself rosily thinking about hobbits and their villages, or the way my great-grandparents grew up, or the simplicity (and simple hardship) of life in the late Middle Ages, and to covet the kind of straightforward...humanness?...that those times seem to exude. Such idealization and romanticization helps nothing, but I imagine that instinct, surely fairly common, contributes to the reactionary distaste that we're seeing a conflagration of right now.
Wokeness, the newest form of modernism, is what the secular media and secular "science" believes is true, normal and abnormal in the past 30 to 50 years, rather than what most of mankind, especially Catholics, have believed to be true, normal and abnormal for the prior 1600 years since Christianity and her norms were established as dominant in the Roman empire (since we have inherited that culture in the West). Those infected with the woke virus, for example, consider a nun or priest hitting a kid with the ruler on the hand or a teacher yelling at a student as child abuse, while those not infected with that virus consider it an appropriate example of discipline that formed good citizens for centuries instead of the spoiled brats of the last few generations.
Hitting a kid on the hand with a ruler is not okay. I learned this from Little Women which is a very old book, but before that, I also learned it from the Gospel according to St Matthew, which is an even older book.
Okay, that is helpful to see where you are coming from. While I think there are very clear excesses in our culture of political correctness and certainly an attempt by some to undermine and reframe moral norms and understanding of marriage, for example, some parts of our culture have changed because we know more now about how something like disciplining a child by hitting them with a ruler is detrimental to their development — both as an individual and in how they relate to an adult who punishes them in this way. It sounds like you’re saying, “let no new thing arise” which has its merits in some areas. But we do know more now about how predator priests thrived for so long and how they groomed their victims, and so now we can do more to protect children and other adults who they may want to manipulate and abuse. Wanting to set up clear boundaries to protect children and then procedures for what to do when violations of those boundaries happen is a good thing; wanting to hold predator priests and other adults accountable is also good. Neither of those things is “woke.”
86% of priest abuse victims, according to the independent John Jay College study, were boys between age 13 and 17. Before Vatican II, girls were not allowed to spend time alone with a priest unless in a confessional. In fact, men in the past in general did not associate with adolescent girls unless they were relatives. So the solution is actually simple: be very strict about getting rid of all homosexual and pro-homosexual priests, brothers, and seminarians, implement single-sex education, and not allow any males to associate in any close manner with a group of young females except in a public type of situation (such as the one Father Martin was involved in). Then you will eliminate almost all the abuse cases except the ones involving relatives. Again the rules of the past make so much sense, and that includes measured and just corporal punishment. My wife praises the old style nuns she was afraid of who taught her during grade school and gave her "love taps" when she deserved them. She ended up with solid Catholic values, while most of the girls in the ghetto she grew up with ended up with all the sorts of pathology (drugs, kids with different men, sexual abuse) and they of course were never punished corporally in public school nor at home.
Your children are RELATED TO THEIR GRANDPARENTS. It would be proper that their grandparents or aunts or uncles would pat them on the head. Please. Ask any seminarian or young priest if they would play with a teen’s hair.
It's not over until final statements come from the police and parish/diocese with the "additional facts". But from what we have here: (1) a concerned parent who made a formal complaint to the police, (2) the police have yet to be heard from, but I don't think they are obligated to say anything if they end their investigation without charging the priest with a crime. (3) a priest who didn't act on the "no touching/no hugging (especially children)" memo. (4) The parish/diocese immediately reacted. (5) The parent, of course, can pursue civil complaint against the priest, parish, diocese, etc. alleging harm to his/her child.
These are the new rules.
As far as I can tell the Pillar is reporting on what's public without speculating on the missing details. And even if ends here, It will be impossible for Fr. Carlos Martins to have his reputation restored. By the way, no future complaints about priests being "unapproachable" or "aloof".
Some of the warmest, friendliest people I've known have been Carmelite nuns behind two sets of grilles. I've known plenty of excellent, approachable, pastoral priests who have never had any need to touch me to communicate their closeness and concern. Saying that enforcing healthy boundaries will necessarily result in all priests isolating themselves out of fear is a straw man. We've had these standards of conduct for over 20 years. None of this is new.
I've met plenty of very approachable, warm, friendly priests, religious, and also secular authority figures like bosses, teachers, and professors, and they never touched me except for the occasional social handshake when meeting. They sure didn't pat me or play with my hair. It is not necessary to violate boundaries in order to be warm, caring, approachable, and friendly.
Even if the events are exactly as his lawyers described, they're horribly inappropriate and a clear violation of all safe environment guidelines. Whether or not they were intended in this way, this kind of behavior is stereotypical grooming behavior. It'd be my hope that this was an innocent mistake by the priest, but it's clearly a mistake, and one that he should be willing to profusely apologize for when he comes to understand the level of the mistake it was.
Another example of insane woke ideas. My teenage daughter and my wife were shocked that this harmless behavior was treated in this way. We live in a strange world where people are OK with surgical mutilation of minors for "gender affirmation" but some innocent gesture is considered grooming. Wow, it seems even Catholics have been so seeped in leftist propaganda that they have lost common sense.
A person who thinks that transgender surgery for children is bad AND thinks that initiating physical contact by playing with the hair of a girl is inappropriate exists.
While I agree that the world has gone crazy with "gender affirmation" and other nonsense, I don't know what the connection is between that and this incident. Is anyone in the comments promoting gender affirmation? Do the authors of the piece or the editors of the site promote such nonsense? No, in fact they seem to be strongly opposed to it. I don't know why you'd bring it up.
I bring it up because the root cause of bigger things are smaller things. For example, almost all Catholics are OK with divorce and contraception. But it is specifically this that led to marriage being a contract rather than a sacrament, so now we can have homosexual marriage. It also caused the drinking water to be polluted with excessive estrogen (due to women using birth control pills which cannot be effectively removed from the sewage system) leading to effeminate men and boys who believe themselves to be gay or to be female. The same is a society that calls the police over a priest touching a girl's hair but is no where to be seen in protesting the filth that girls are exposed to on their phones (which parents will almost never deny them) like Snapchat, Tiktok, Instagram,pornography etc. and are usually ok with their daughters shacking up before marriage. So the overreaction to a priest, assuming right away that he is a pervert is a symptom of a Catholic society infected by a woke virus that acts exactly like the leftist liberal society around them, supporting calling in the police for something innocent while tolerating the mutilation of minors and adults.
Just to clarify, are you suggesting that everyone in this comment section that is saying that this is inappropriate behavior by the priest are the sort of people that are responsible for "effeminate men and boys" or is part of "a Catholic society infected by a woke virus" that tolerates "the mutilation of minors and adults"? Because I suspect most of us would strongly object to that characterization.
If anyone believes that this sort of behavior is worthy of calling the police and publicly ostracizing a priest, then you are absolutely correct. Someone noted that the behavior of Father Martins could be considered improper manners and that maybe something worthy of consideration. But to consider what Father Martins did as criminal activity (which is the only reason you would call the police for that) would mean that you are infected by a woke virus which does not allow you to discern between the degrees of human actions, most of which are innocent (though sometimes stupid) and rarely perverted or evil.
Deliberately touching someone without consent is technically a battery. If accompanied by intimidation, it becomes assault and battery. That's my understanding. Happy to be corrected.
We seem to live in a humorless society/ Church. Even if it’s poor, awkward, or tasteless humor, it is suspect. And we live under ‘guilty until proven innocent’ mindset, and even ‘we’re still suspicious if innocent’.
As a young woman, I just want to say that it’s not poor or tasteless humor that is the problem, it’s crossing of boundaries. Who knows what that young woman told her dad. I know I would have been shocked and upset if a priest touched my hair. I may have laughed and played along on such a stage, but it would have been very strange.
We don’t need zero contact with priests. I’ve given priests plenty of chaste hugs, all initiated by the priest themselves. But you don’t need to touch someone to develop a rapport with them. He could have made all those jokes and just… not touched her.
I know this may seem so over the top to many people, but many women, including myself, have been inappropriately touched or even groped by others. It makes many women really sensitive to unwanted touch. I think any man, and particularly all priests, should be aware of that and take care to not touch people unless it’s in a chaste, mutual way (such as a hug, which someone can reject or move to a side-hug, or a high five or fist bump)
> I may have laughed and played along on such a stage, but it would have been very strange.
When I had to look back over an abusive relationship to the earliest stages for annulment paperwork, I revisited some early events that had puzzled me a great deal at the time that they happened (and they had never stopped puzzling me). But I had gone along with it at the time, because that is a polite young woman's default behavior when in doubt, because I did not know that actions fall into three categories, not two: "clearly fine", "clearly not fine", and "feels like mist, like losing one's way, like Fiver feels in Cowslip's warren (in Watership Down)".
Thank you for your frank and vulnerable insight. There are good reasons to be humorless and sober, as boundary violations have been (and will be for the foreseeable future) ubiquitous in the Church and society writ large. I only wish to shine the light on the nature of a climate of suspicion. Such a cultural atmosphere is exhausting and anxious to everyone. Something to ponder is its costs and benefits.
Oh I completely agree that sometimes, if not many times, we are over suspicious- I suffered from this for many years myself.
But in the same breath, priests and laypeople should stick to their Virtus training, including refraining from commenting on physique as well as strict guidelines on what kind of touching is allowed.
I pray for our priests. I know it’s hard, I really hope it does not feel alienating. I pray priests have friends, family and fellow priests they can be themselves with and confide in!
Thank you for your consistency in reporting these kinds of incidents. I just came over here from Reddit, and there’s a lot of “Pillar Readers, but not in a good way” over there right now. I think it’s wonderful that we’ve got a news outlet with the integrity to report these kinds of incidents, regardless of who’s being accused.
So, this is hubub is all over a joke about flossing with hair where the priest used an example in the audience? What a tempest in a teapot.
According to Newsweek, 1 in 14 Americans will admit to flossing with hair. Probably he should have asked the girl to hold up her hair to show how long it is, but cancelling this whole tour seems like a massive overreaction.
Also, in the priests defense, I do understand why he would think The Pillar took a hostile approach. They basically went out of their way to suggest that his stories of exorcisms weren't true. There is no reason to use both the words "allegedly" and "claimed" in the following sentence if you aren't trying to emphasize skepticism toward his ministry: its redundant.
"a 2023 podcast series featuring dramatic audio portrayals of *allegedly* demonic encounters Martins *claims* to have experienced in ministry as an exorcist."
The article in whole appears to not only besmirch his moral probity around children but also the reality of his ministry as an exorcist.
I can't agree with your whole comment, but I was also taken aback at the wording about his ministry in exorcisms. I agree that it seemed to discredit the ministry and paint the priest as shady for exercising that ministry, which is a red herring to the content of the story one way or the other.
Perhaps not their best choice of words for an unbiased report.
I imagine that the Pillar staff deal with many priests on a regular basis and as far as I have seen and heard, priests universally take a dim view of "celebrity exorcists" and even more so of videos of purported exorcisms. So it is possible that the Pillar staff are sceptical of such videos for good reason.
They are audio portrayals, not video or audio of an actual exorcism. Every well-known exorcist I've heard from considers sharing actual footage to be quite immoral.
Dramatic audio portrayals seem to me like they should have a dim view taken, along with movie portrayals, but that falls more into the realm of opinion.
You might well be right, Erin, but if so, then the Pillar staff should have acknowledged their inability (or unwillingness) to be objective about the story they were covering.
For what it is worth, I do not see it as emphasizing skepticism or trying to discredit him. The words "allegedly" and "claims" are generally used when an author is trying to avoid making any judgment about whether the subject matter is true or false. If anything, I would argue that their use is evidence of that the Pillar is trying to be objective, and that the perceived hostility could actually be a sign of bias in the reader.
“ They basically went out of their way to suggest that his stories of exorcisms weren't true. There is no reason to use both the words "allegedly" and "claimed" in the following sentence if you aren't trying to emphasize skepticism toward his ministry”
When I first read the initial The Pillar story I did not know who Fr. Martins was. I took the information regarding his public exorcist persona simply as background for the uninitiated like myself. The tone may have been mildly flippant, but given what I’ve since learned of Fr. Martins’ active self promotion, I don’t think it was out of line. I do read a lot of JD’s articles and I have become familiar with his sense of humor. He is not a writer of “hit pieces” so I didn’t read it as one.
Do we know that the Pope directed Pena Parra to reinstate the priest?
I agree. The Pillar surely knew (or should have known) when it used the term "inappropriate conduct" with a child that, these days, that would likely be construed as sexual misconduct of the grossest sort. Care should have been taken to avoid giving that impression without further evidence of the particulars. I say this as someone who thinks that Father Martins behaved cluelessly and spoke stupidly.
Is the solution, in your eyes, to not report anything at all until all the facts are known conclusively? Or would it not be better to report what is known when it is known and not make any conclusions?
So, is this a nothing-burger after all?
I would say it depends on what those "additional facts" are.
Fair enough! But my comment was just to say "this seems like a very different news story than 24 (48?) hours ago".
Don't know about you, but if I were that girl's father and a stranger touched her when I wasn't around, I would be pretty pissed off.
I understand the concern about grooming through desensitization to touch. There is a reason why safe environment guidelines prohibit this type of behavior. The parish and the diocese were right to take some kind of action. But I guess I question what that action should be.
Is a full police investigation, expulsion from the diocese, and public statement the appropriate response here? Without more, I would be inclined to say no. But the diocese has said there is more. So I am trying to reserve judgment until we learn what it is.
For me, if there has been something like allegations of similar behavior at other stops on the tour, then the action starts looking more justified. If other parishes or dioceses have already informed him that behavior was inappropriate (if it was in fact happening at other stops), then it starts looking like a pattern of knowing disregard, which would demand some kind of escalation in enforcement. But we just don't know at this point whether something like that has happened here.
Most fathers in the current church environment are going to be alarmed at a visiting priest who they don't know from Adam touching their young daughter without her parent there. I don't think this is an unreasonable concern, and there may well be more to the story.
Yes this!!! I admit a bias against priests from lesser known orders because there is not the same level of oversight and type of interaction with the community that the priests in my local parishes have.
It's completely inappropriate for him to touch her. Period.
A) Yes, absolutely.
B) The diocese acted appropriately in canceling the tour pending investigation.
C) It was hugely inappropriate of them and a violation of his rights not to clarify that there had not been sexual misconduct *in their original statement.*
I'm seeing now my original post was too short and so a bit unclear.
I agree that it demonstrates poor judgement on his part, and am not trying to condone that touching. I think "completely inappropriate" might be a bit strong given the context (visiting on a tour, building rapport, in front of 300 people), but I see how others could think that language is right on point. I'm not trying to argue for that one way or another.
But my "nothing-burger" refers to the fracas that immediately swept the online catholic world vs. the boundary violation as it occurred (with all the details currently known) vs. what everyone was imagining after the original statement. I think we can agree that he shouldn't have touched her hair, and also agree that situation #1 (incident with student, safe environment policy, police report, immediately asked to leave diocese, everyone is safe) is different than situation #2 (touched hair to demonstrate length while making bad joke about flossing and balding in front of 300 people, police had conducted initial investigation and declined to charge, etc).
Is it Ok when Pope Francis does it? https://www.catholicherald.com/article/global/pope-francis-advice-for-teens-find-nice-friends/
No. It's more evidence that Catholic priests in America are generally considered - even, as we see in this incident, by fellow priests - to be likely to be child molesters, period. And one reason for this near consensus is the disgusting failure of the Church hierarchy to stand behind its own clergy when they're accused.
Others might think that it’s because of the Church hierarchy hiding abusers and moving them to other assignments where they could abuse more people and a real lack of accountability that makes them want to report an issue with a priest directly to the police.
PS You should probably link to this story from the original for anyone coming late to the news...
whoops. thanks.
Thank you for the update and your reporting.
I fail to see how it is "defamation" to report on the already-publicized exclusion of an international figure from a national tour that is scheduled to visit other parishes and dioceses.
Yes, always unfortunate when lawyers seem not to understand defamation law.
I don't think it's about misunderstanding or understanding, it's about defense attorneys doing literally everything that they can to defend their client, including making sure that the news agency that broke the story is made to look bad. Calling it "defamation" is a tactic to deflect from the facts and reduce their impact.
I am glad that the crew at The Pillar reported the original story. I am also happy to see that they are continuing to follow it and making sure that the situation is more clarified as facts and statements continue to be given out. Honestly that's a rare behavior in journalism today, both secular AND religious. Give me the ALL facts and statements as they become more clear and I will make my own judgements.
True. By "seem not to understand" I guess I was covering both "do not understand" and "pretend not to understand."
Yes I presumed you were probably doing something like that :) My apologies if it seemed like I was trying to "clarify" your statement for you.
I think we ALL need to remember the dynamics here. We haven't heard the police or official diocesan report yet, so we should hold off on judgement, and we also ALL need to remember how attorneys operate. They are paid to skew the truth in favor of their clients.
The fact that not just the priest's lawyers, but also spokesmen from the Joliet diocese are coming out to clarify that this isn't sexual assault/harassment, but rather (what seems to me a benign and entirely forgivable) "boundary gaffe" is relieving. As a grown man, I often congenially jostle the hair on the top of the heads of some of the kids of my friends at my parish as a way to naturally and lightheartedly interact appropriately. Of course, everybody at my parish already knows me, and that I am a father myself, so that level of trust is already established. If it was a man you didn't know personally, one could be forgiven for having apprehensions about the hair comment and lifting a lock of hair in good humor.
Especially considering that our own President's unquestionably-inappropriate conduct with girls' hair has created a certain "vibe" around hair. That might have something to do with it.
I think that this is a very good sign for the Church - a complaint was filed through the police first, then diocese and tour organization immediately put the events on hold, then made a public statement, then followed up with another public statement laying out a clear description of events, and then basically saying "but we agree with with a police investigation regardless in due diligence"
This would not have happened so smoothly and transparently in years past. The Church (in the USA) is showcasing that it is in fact learning and executing best practices, rather than act shady as if with something to hide. Pray God, I think this will all smooth out. Pray God, I hope I am not proven wrong.
I like your comment on its own merits but I also feel compelled to like it based on your username alone.
I have no problem with the Pillar reporting this, but with the ridiculous over reaction of the diocese of Joliet, which again removes the ability of spiritual growth and blessings for Catholics through association with wonderful relics because a priest touched some girl's hair. This is typical of Bishop Hicks who has punished several pastors in the diocese for calling homosexual acts, cohabitation, and contraception sinful by demoting them or even sending them out for "sensitivity training". You can be sure of one thing with Bishop Hicks: if any lay person complains about a priest for any reason in his diocese, he will chastise the priest automatically. And the USCCB just picked Bishop Hicks to be in charge of their Clergy and Vocation Committee. Shows how the bishops are not in touch with reality sometimes.
Thanks for the background. That helps to answer my principal objection to the shape of the reporting of this story here: Pillar should have looked into why local Church authorities rushed to judgement against this outsider priest, as it was clear that they did. From something I've since read elsewhere, I suspect that there may be even more background here that begs to be illuminated.
That said, I realize that both of the Pillar's chief pillars are lawyers, and if I were a lawyer writing for publication in a country as aggressively hostile to traditional Christianity as America has become, I might be instinctively averse to appearing to be defending the rights of a Catholic priest who'd been accused of "inappropriate behavior" with a child. The popular assumption in America - as in perhaps most "advanced" Western countries - seems to be that if a priest was accused of such a thing, he is certainly guilty, and if anyone attempts to stand up for him, he is complicit.
That is a great point you are making and the motivation for all my comments, to protect priests against illogical accusations and assumptions. Priests are assumed to be perverts, while others, like secular teachers and coaches who abuse kids much more often, are considered trustworthy. It reminds me how my sons have gone to camps run by an orthodox, holy religious order of men and we have promoted these camps. Yet time and time again we hear a comment like this repeated by other parents: "I am a little nervous sending my son to a camp with a bunch of priests considering all the scandals in the Church." It is an evil mindset in our society that allows for what happened to Father Martins to occur.
Because I am what people currently call neurodiverse (if you like shorter words, you can call me "dense as a box of hammers") I am unable to reliably tell when someone is "flirting". The conversation as related sounds so stupid that it makes me think "this sounds like flirting" (composed partly of flattery, partly of jocose lies: it's not possible to floss with hair, I tried it once when I was out of floss; and partly of an excuse to make physical contact). Is it *not* flirting? Could someone who has the more usual sort of brain let me know what a normal human conversation classifier would make of it?
I don't know that I count as having a normal brain, but I wouldn't have automatically thought of it as flirting if somebody tried that with me. I would just think they were kind of weird. If anything, it sort of reminds me of my dad's awkward attempts to connect with me as a teenager; but, uh, nobody in my family has a particularly normal brain so... maybe somebody else should try to answer. My answer is that I would find it mildly discomfiting but I wouldn't have interpreted it as flirting.
It sounds like it was a priest trying awkwardly to establish rapport with a group of students (not an easy task for anyone) by joking around. I've heard it many times, "boys and girls" comments trying to talk at their level but kind of turning them off by condescending to them or underestimating their maturity.
I don’t know if I have a usual sort of brain but to me it sounds like something that started as a cute self-deprecating joke about his own baldness but should have ended there. He had a second chance to end it after saying he used to have long hair, and then a third attempt to end it when he said he would floss with it (gross). Then he doubles down on not ending soon enough and touches her hair. On the one hand, awkward at best. On the other hand, touching in front of groups (didn’t we just discuss this re the John Allen defense of Fr Principi) is a common behavior for abusers?
It's a "news" article, Bridget. Today, that means it's probably a story meant to tease readers into reading it. The story text will reinforce the teasing headline by giving details that inform a little while teasing more. We don't know what happened. Any descriptions are fragmentary, at best.
Think about it. To have a decent ability to understand what happened and is happening there now, we'd need to have at least fairly intimate knowledge of the community, of the principals, and of the history surrounding them all. We cannot have that.
Saw the lawyer letter posted elsewhere. There's three sides to every story, and I'll wait to hear the diocese/ police side before I reach any conclusions.
Keep up the good work, JD and Ed. I greatly appreciate the level of calm and sanity with which you are approaching this, in contrast to certain other "journalists" who are practically foaming at the mouth. If you need a legal defense GoFundMe, I'll be happy to throw down.
I'm sure they'll be fine. Becciu threatened them with the same thing and nothing ever came of it. "Cease and desist letters" are basically just bullying with legal letterhead. If they had the juice, they'd have just served them outright.
This letter from Fr Martins' lawyer seems to me to just be Fr Martins trying to plead his case in the court of public opinion. As well as notifying the world that he's lawyered up so stop contacting him for a statement.
Or, in the immortal words of Rick Stika, "I'm gonna sue your ass!" Zero lawsuits later, here we are...
Even if it is as his attorney described (and for the sake of all, I pray it was), it's refreshing to see the parish priest following the guidelines of the policy, whether or not he believed it to be warranted.
I'm not even mad if the father is just A Very Angry And Easily Offended Person, the fact that the parish priest followed through is positive in my view. For too long have things like this been ignored when it should have been followed up on.
Here's hoping the diocese doesn't ruin the good of the investigation by lacking transparency in their findings (ah, who am I kidding. Of course they will 🫤). The ball is in their court to provide countering evidence, which they seem to indicate they have.
I read through their policy and it's -absolutely unclear- what could have caused this reaction based on what the attorney said. If the attorney omitted part of the truth this needs to be amended, or it just looks like fear mongering from the diocese by lack of transparency.
No matter what judgment one makes on the actions of the priest in question, I think the pastor and bishop handled this very well. Someone made a complaint, it was immediately referred to the police and the diocese halted any further activities with that priest until the matter is adjudicated. Those are the steps that must be taken with any complaint, and then if it is determined that nothing untoward happened, the priest can resume his activities with no issue. But as has been observed many times throughout recent history, if you don't report because "this guy is too holy", it invariably ends badly.
And as far as the Pillar is concerned, once the priest and bishop have made public statements, posted to their website, about the matter, it is 100% public information and worthy of reporting. And I'm sure if he is exonerated, the Pillar will publish that info as well.
I think what the priest and bishop did was ridiculous succumbing to the woke agenda instead of simply saying: "touching a girl's hair in jest does not constitute inappropriate behavior and we refuse to punish any good priest and ministry for such ridiculous accusations." Father Michael Lane has done this before, removing a Nashville Dominican from being principal at his grade school because a small group of mothers complained that the sister was scaring the kids teaching them that the devil exists. One of these mothers F-bombed the sister in front of a group of 2nd graders which included my daughter, and the Mother Superior of the order came to Joliet to investigate and refused to replace the sister as principal. But Father Lane succumbed to pressure from radical woke parents like he did this time. Shame on him and the bishop for defaming the good name of a good priest because he was afraid of some insane parishioner.
I don’t see how reporting a priest for a clear boundary violation (at the very least; we’ll see what other accounts come out) is “succumbing to the woke agenda.” I think it’s great that there were procedures put in place to deal with issues like this and that parents who are concerned about a priest’s interaction with their child have real recourse, that hopefully all these reforms actually mean something. And now we can let the procedures move forward so that hopefully there will be a clear resolution.
Even this "clear boundary violation" including this is ridiculous. I am always sad seeing children wanting to hug a priest but the priest being scared to death that this will be considered a boundary violation. That the secular world has imposed bizarre ideas of what a boundary is does not make us have to change our behavior, especially since Liberals saturated with pedophiles are the ones imposing it on us. They expose our kids to pornography, sex education (including through disgusting Catholic programs where kids are shown pictures of sexual organs), homosexuality, and gender theory, but we are most worried about a priest touching a girl's hair. These reforms were implemented because the Church refused to remove homosexuals from the priesthood who were the perpetrators of 86% of church pedophile cases (according to the independent John Jay College study). All the modern day psychological torture of priests and seminarians is just leading many good men refusing to be treated this way and not becoming priests, if they could be accused of "boundary violation" everytime they get anywhere closer than ten feet to a kid.
It's not "ridiculous". Based on your username, I'm guessing you are not female. I am, and I was once a young girl at a Catholic elementary school. This behavior from a visiting priest, an authority figure who had just met this girl and was not a relative or even a close long-time friend of her family, is frankly out of line and uncomfortable. The fact that many people don't seem to understand that it is uncomfortable, or go rushing to excuse it when it's "their favorite priest, he's so holy", is why we need the safeguarding rules.
Again, I asked females in my family who had a different view from yours. Again, I do not have a problem with someone telling the priest not to do that, just like I recently told someone not to use cuss words in front of my kids. But calling in the police and defaming a person in public for something almost certainly done innocently is not
appropriate in either situation. The proper thing, which the Bible mandates, is to rebuke someone first in private because God in his Wisdom, which our unmerciful modern society has forgotten, knows that the vast majority of what people do that can be perceived as wrong is done out of ignorance.
Fr. Martins initiating physical contact with a girl is not the same as a child hugging a priest-hope this helps.
Yes, but this "boundary" issue has caused most priests to avoid getting even close to any kid at anytime. This is because we make a big deal about everything, including reporting a priest to the police over something like this. It is not a crime to touch a girl's hair in jest, and if it is, we are an insane society. The only thing that should have happened here is someone from the parish telling Father Martins "please don't do that anymore, it is not considered appropriate according to our diocesan policies." Making this criminal shows that in our hearts we consider priests to be perverts until proven otherwise. Yet we have no problems leaving high school kids with high school teachers and coaches who routinely sleep around with them without our knowing (the percentage of pedophiles among non-priests is many times higher than among priests, but we only scrutinize priests in our society because we choose to believe the false propaganda of the secular media). No, Father Martins needs to be ostracized and exiled because he touched a girl's hair. Absurd.
Who said that he's a criminal?
Calling the police gives it the appearance of being a criminal offense, otherwise why call the police? I realize he is innocent until proven guilty, but still, just involving the police is enough for many to make that leap. Any priest, proven guilty or innocent in such a situation will always have to carry that stigma no matter the outcome. That just the way people are today.
The police were called because the parish priest is a mandated reporter and is therefore required by law to report any complaint of misconduct. If a mandated reporter is informed of misconduct and does not report it, he can be held liable for the misconduct himself.
Mandated by the USCCB rules that any bishop can choose to ignore since nothing the USCCB mandates obligates a bishop, as every bishop is only required to be obedient to the Pope. Note to anyone reading this: you are not obligated to call the police if you see someone only touching a girl's hair. So the priest was obligated only by his bishop to call the police.
I believe Fr. Martins to be a good man. He’s not my preferred taste, but he seems earnest in his care for souls and love for Jesus and the Church. But it’s 2024, and he’s a priest. He ought to know better.
Blaming anyone but him is victim-shaming and probably a sin against charity and justice. The parish priest being “obliged only by his bishop” is a perfectly good reason for what happened as a response to the complaint.
If my daughter is touched by a priest I’ve never met when I’m not there, you’re damn right I’m calling Fr. Pastor. And I know that my pastor (who I think reads the Pillar) would respond in the proper manner.
In Indiana it's required by law.
That's weird behavior from an adult toward an adolescent. I used to be an educator and I cannot imagine ever having that kind of physical contact with one of my students, even though we generally had great repore and I employed humor as part of our interactions. Highly inappropriate as described here, and this is coming from the priest's own lawyers! I can only imagine what the full picture from the archdiocese will say. Bad business, to be sure.
That is because you have been so educated by propaganda that now every innocent gesture is considered highly inappropriate. Father Lane was pastor of St. Jude's parish in Joliet just last year where some boy in kindergarten was dressing up as a girl and called himself a girl, and nobody will tell the parents of this kid that they are committing child abuse by letting a kid act that way. Yet a priest touching a girl's hair is considered by some mixed up people as horrible abuse. This world is truly mad.
Get out of here with this attitude. The reason "innocent" gestures are considered highly inappropriate is because that is how grooming begins. Predators will test a child's response to innocuous touch in order to see if they can get away with it, and to gradually desensitize a child in order to better enable abusive touch and behavior. That why it is called a "boundary violation": the act itself might be innocuous, but it lowers or damages a boundary to touch or behavior that is abusive. That is why boundary violations are not harmless, because they serve as a precursor to harmful touch.
Everyone has a duty to respect boundaries and prevent violations, because even if you intend no harm, you can still make a child vulnerable by confusing them about what is appropriate with adults, and cause both children and adults to miss grooming behavior and red flags from actual abusers.
As a church, we've been hugely successful in combating abuse and driving it to historically low levels by holding a hard line and strict accountability on this. We cannot go back.
It seems hard to think that this was a grooming issue between a priest and a student who have a brief encounter in conversation in a large group and will never see each other again.
But note to self if you are a priest or CCD teacher or youth leader or teacher: No touch is safe. None. And I also think that every priest thinks of this and thanks God as he says his night prayers: Protect us Lord as we stay awake and watch over us as we sleep that awake we may keep watch with Christ, and asleep rest in his peace.
In this case, likely not, but it's immaterial. It's still a boundary violation and still has the potential to expose the child to future abuse by confusing them or guardians as to what is and is not appropriate. "Zero tolerance" is the case because once you start making exceptions because abuse doesn't seem plausible in this or that case, abusers start exploiting those loopholes and slipping through.
The reason abuse has decreased is because of what Pope Francis reiterated when speaking to the Italian bishops: homosexuals are not to be allowed in the seminaries (at least evident ones are not alllowed anymore). It is that simple. It has nothing to do with priests patting children on the head or hugging them or putting their arm around them to comfort them. Those were normal human behaviors for centuries, but now are considered boundary violations. I remember patting a little 2 year old boy on the head recently who was playing with my kids and for a brief moment I thought to myself, "I hope the parents don't think my completely innocent gesture is wrong". Fortunately the parents were from Poland and they did not mind. I remember an elderly priest in a little village in Poland going around for the collection patting every kid in the church on the head. Every adult smiled at these lovely gestures, not realizing in our primitive, old fashioned heads that the priest was grooming the 50 or so kids in that church. Or maybe we still had normal minds that American wokeness had not destroyed.
If you cannot see the difference between a kindly pat on that head and playing with a middle school girl's hair, there's not much point in continuing this conversation. Especially since you have accused everyone in this thread who thinks the priest is wrong with supporting transgender surgery for minors.
I am not accusing everyone of that, but the source for the type of thinking that innocent behavior is considered grooming is the same sources from modern day psychology that consider gender theory to be a good idea. It is like one priest said that we are all infected by modernist heresies which we have a difficult time getting rid of. If you asked kids and adults throughout history if a priest touching a girl's hair is wrong, they would look at the person asking as if they were strange. Now, since the last 20 years have been so much more enlightened, we know better than anyone else in the past what is right or wrong. Child abusers do a lot of things at the beginning to groom kids. The problem is that 99% of people do the same things as completely innocent gestures. Simply because a pervert can use an innocent gesture to groom a kid does not automatically make the gesture itself nefarious. I asked my teenage daughter and wife about this first and neither of them thought touching a girl's hair in jest by a priest is wrong.
1) Gender theory does not arise from modern psychology at all. It comes from entirely different sources, and it is simply the case that groups like the APA have capitulated to gender theorists, with no firm evidence even based on their own methods.
2) Church standards for boundary violations are not based on psychological theory. They are based on decades of evidence gathered from thousands of abuse cases that show the common ways in which abusers operate, and how communities can obscure or miss the signs of abuse in their midst.
But grooming is not a one time gesture, but a process. A guy may flirt innocently with a woman and so may a rapist, but it does not mean flirting is evidence for a soon to occur rape. Having the worse possible ideas about what a priest is doing when less than 0.1 percent of priests are pedophiles means we are not really good Catholics who should trust priests rather than assume they are doing something wrong. There are many more abusive high school teachers and coaches but I cannot recall the last time I heard of a coach being demonized in the press and suspended for touching a student's hair. No, we Catholics are only good at pointing fingers at good priests who we automatically consider to be perverts unless they act like aloof robots who we can only then trust.
As I have stated, boundary violations are serious not just because it might be part of a grooming pattern by the violator, but because it might make it easier for someone else to conduct grooming at a later date, even without the knowledge of the first person.
The Diocese of Juliet's own Safe Environment standards specifically allow for the following types of physical contact. It's perfectly reasonable to expect priests and all others working in the church to stay within these bounds:
• Side hugs • Shoulder to shoulder hugs • Pats on the upper back • Handshakes • “High-fives” and hand slapping • Arms around shoulders • Holding hands while walking with small children • Sitting beside small children • Kneeling or bending to receive hugs from small children • Holding hands during prayer • Pats on the head when culturally appropriate • Reciprocation of appropriate gestures initiated by a minor or vulnerable adult
https://catechesis.diojoliet.org/documents/d/child-protection/doj-standards-of-behavior-for-those-working-with-minors-and-vulnerable-adults-rev-12-20-2023-_with-transportation-policy-pdf
It is reasonable to set standards, but an innocent one time gesture beyond those standards does not require an overreaction like happened in this case anymore than driving 5 miles over the speed limit does not mean you should be handcuffed by the police. A simple "Father, we don't do that in this diocese" would have been sufficient, rather than calling the police and suspending all future appearances in the diocese over something so obviously innocent.
Well, the diocese has already said that there is more to the story than Fr. Martins lawyers are sharing, so we'll have to see what it is. Plainly, whatever happened, the priests of the parish and the bishop did not find it to be "so obviously innocent".
Thank you.
> A guy may flirt innocently with a woman
In order to fully understand your viewpoint, I have to ask: in your point of view, can a priest flirt innocently with a woman?
No, if you cannot understand comparisons, I cannot help you in understanding what I wrote. A single man flirting with a single woman is not automatically a rapist, neither is a priest touching a girl's hair a pedophile, nor a man driving a car over 5 miles an hour worthy of arrest. Don't keep thinking the worse of what people write.
My apologies. I thought you were explaining that you thought that touching hair was flirting.and that in many circumstances flirting is innocent, but I must have misunderstood. Would I be correct in thinking that you do *not* think that touching hair is flirting, and that the "flirting" example was intended to be completely unrelated to anything the priest and the schoolgirl were doing? As noted in another part of the comments section I don't really understand what flirting is, so hopefully my confusion is not surprising.
The last 20 years have been more enlightened by so many victims coming out of the woodwork, not wokeness. Before no one would listen if someone said they were abused, and this attitude is still prevalent in the upper levels of the Church. Rupnik is a prime example, and there have been others in recent memory. Even last week.
"Those were normal human behaviors for centuries"
I don't know that you can take this as a given. Certainly in some cultures demonstrative touch was/is more common, but not in every culture, and even in cultures where it was/is more common it was often restricted by relationship.
Ditto things like chaperonage. Of course most of the time if two unrelated people are alone in a room together nothing will happen. But there were still norms of open doors and providing chaperones, both to protect potential victims and prevent accusations that could neither be proven or disproven. In modern framing we often talk about this as horribly inconvenient or limiting freedom (especially for women), but a lot of the safe environment stuff is bringing things like this back.
I don't think "unrelated people should not touch each other regardless of intention" is necessarily a horrible social norm. Arguably, it's rather traditional.
"get out of here" is not a very logical argument.
I agree with Thomas: a visiting priest who had one interaction with a student in front of 300 people could hardly be called out for "grooming" behavior. The judging of these sorts of things is very dependent on culture and setting. Is mussing up a kids' hair now considered grooming? People are going to judge this one differently in today's society, but one thing is certain, 40 years ago nobody would have thought twice about it, since it obviously wasn't going to lead to anything untoward.
This reminds me of the mom being jailed for letting her son go for a walk to the store to visit his friend's grandmother.
https://www.thefp.com/p/brittany-patterson-georgia-mom-jailed
The point is not whether this priest was grooming this girl. The point is that touching hair is a boundary violation and boundary violations set kids up for future violations of their self. Ask a hundred women, honestly, if they are ok with having their hair touched and called attention to in front of a group by a man they don’t know and listen to their answers.
Oh, yes, because there is a group of priest violators coming to Joliet to purposely touch the hair of one girl so they can groom her for another priest. When is the last time a high school teacher or coach was exposed to the public for something like this? No, they just sleep with their students while we worry about an innocent priest touching a girl's hair. We Catholics are such good hypocrites attacking the priests and then complaining about a lack of vocations, when the slightest "boundary violation" requires calling in the police and defaming the priest.
I refer to my reply above to SC: you can be guilty of boundary violations without any intention to commit grooming or abuse. This is because even an "innocent" boundary violation can expose a child to risk of harm by muddying the waters, should they come into contact with an actual predator. We all have a duty of care to make sure this doesn't happen and that our own behavior does not violate boundaries. We'll have to see what else the diocese has to say when they release their side of the story.
I find myself of two minds here. Thomas' 'capitulation to wokeness' framing is unhelpful to the point of actively hindering understanding. I second Rebecca's commendation of your clear explanations; thank you for taking the time.
But at the same time, there's something deeply deeply tragic about this. And unnatural! People like Thomas who remember a world that didn't think about casual touch this way aren't off base, and I can understand why what you're saying (which, again, I appreciate and commend) sounds like paranoia. It does feel unfair to say that someone can be committing a boundary violation even if their intent is lightyears from anything sexual. And caring human touch is good for human beings! Including (especially?) for children. This is not to criticize your points, just to highlight how tragic it is that we feel forced to operate with such vigilance.
It is sad, though it must be said that the Diocese of Joliet’s Safe Environment policies (https://catechesis.diojoliet.org/documents/d/child-protection/doj-standards-of-behavior-for-those-working-with-minors-and-vulnerable-adults-rev-12-20-2023-_with-transportation-policy-pdf) specifically allow all the following kinds of physical contact with minor:
“Side hugs • Shoulder to shoulder hugs • Pats on the upper back • Handshakes • “High-fives” and hand slapping • Arms around shoulders • Holding hands while walking with small children • Sitting beside small children • Kneeling or bending to receive hugs from small children • Holding hands during prayer • Pats on the head when culturally appropriate • Reciprocation of appropriate gestures initiated by a minor or vulnerable adult “
Now, is the contact described by Fr. Martins lawyers “casual”? I would argue not. It quick touch or pat to the top of the head is one thing. Touching and holding up a girl’s hair while making a comment about it is prolonged and, in my mind, not casual. Others may disagree, but there are plenty of approved alternatives for showing physical affection in a safe and respectful manner.
I again appreciate you taking the time for a thorough and informative response. It hadn't occurred to me that a diocese would have an official enumerated policy, but now that you've brought my attention to it, yes that seems prudent and a win for transparency.
But at the same time, it doesn't really seem all that helpful? Surely a side hug *could be* a boundary violation and a regular hug certainly needn't be one. It seems difficult to define the category in a just way without factoring in any evaluation of the intent behind the action.
Or to put it another way, maximum transparency/uniformity is sometimes at odds with justice in individual cases.
I am surprised that you are surprised by the Diocese of Joliet's enumerated policies. These policies have been around for 20 years and are required by the 2002 Dallas Charter. Any person who has been involved in church ministry with minors in the past two decades is going to be aware of it. I have gone through two different sets of this training myself.
As far as the helpfulness of these standards, they are not theoretical. They come from tens of thousands of case studies which have deeply examined how sexual predators operate and how they get away with their behavior (and how they are caught). When I've done safe environment training, this involved watching extensive video testimony from convicted child molestors explaining their methodology as part of their sentence. So we know how actual predators operate, what behaviors (by predators and others) put children and communities at risk, and what actions and systems are effective at stopping abuse from occurring. This is demonstrated by the historically low levels of abuse in Catholic institutions that have been achieved since 2002, especially in comparison to secular institutions. The system works. To deny this or call it into question is to ignore the empirical evidence of the past 20 years.
We shouldn't conflate boundary violations and grooming behavior. As I said below to Paphnuti, the point of boundary violations is that they remove ambiguity from people who are unqualified to investigate potential abuse, and do not force them to judge intent. Side hugs are recognized and agreed upon normal social behavior. While an abuser might start out with side hugs before they begin grooming a child, giving a side hug will not confuse a child about what constitutes appropriate touch from an adult. However, if an adult engages in prolonged contact with and manipulation of a child's hair, that could confuse a child at a later date. Hence it is a boundary violation (in my opinion, and apparently in the Diocese of Joliet's opinion too). And because it is a strange thing for an adult to do (even if it is later determined to be without any malice or intent to abuse), it can still confuse an adult and make them more likely to write off and not report actual grooming behavior at a later date. Again, this also makes something a boundary violation.
Justice is served by allowing allowing these kind of transparencies and reporting to function accordingly. It is justice to children to be surrounded by people who will take action to protect them, and for children themselves to know what kind of physical contact is and is not appropriate. A child should never have to wonder, "Was that OK that I was touched that way?" It is justice to parents and volunteers by not making them worry about "Should I report this or not?" That is an unfair burden to make them carry, just as it would be unfair to ask you to investigate a suspicious abandoned backpack on the subway. If you see something, say something, and then get to a safe distance and let the professionals take over.
And it is justice for priests everywhere, because the more these systems, protections, and boundaries are maintained, the less that priests have to walk around under a cloud of suspicion. These systems allow priests to minister to young people with full confidence as to what sorts of behavior are and are not acceptable. Priests don't have to wonder if they are crossing any lines, because those lines have been so well-enunciated and drilled into them from seminary onward. They don't have to worry as much "Do people suspect me of criminal behavior?" because everyone is operating on the same transparent set of standards, and everyone knows that if something did happen, the priest would be reported and investigated. This allows the vast majority of innocent and God-fearing priests to focus on their ministry and devote themselves with full hearts to the people of God.
This is a thoughtful and excellent comment. I had not thought of "boundary violations" to this extent before.
A very late reply on my part to thank you for your patient explanations. I had been thinking of the boundary in question in 'boundary violation' along the lines of an individual's personal boundaries (i.e. what an individual personally feels comfortable with and communicates to others; by nature very difficult to speak categorically about actions in this case) as opposed to a boundary set by the law in recognition of a risk, although that risk might not be actualized in every situation.
And as for my surprise, I converted as an adult and do not have children.
I agree, and would just add that Fr. Martins is a visiting priest and a stranger to the girl, so no showing of physical affection is appropriate.
Nathaniel, you voiced my thoughts almost exactly.
Thinking further, I think what makes this case so difficult, in some respect, is the nature of the touching of the hair here itself sits at on a very uncomfortable line of ambiguity about the boundary. A single quick pat on the head is unambiguous in its innocence; any number of sexualized touches are unambiguous in their perfidy. But this sits right in this zone that is clear in neither direction: it pushes against our intuited socially accepted norms without explicitly breaking the delineated norms. This puts it in a bit of a twilight zone. In some respect, this reminds of the 2015 "the dress" phenomenon, where half of the internet seemed perceived the photograph as blue and black, while the other half perceived it as white and gold.
In any case, nobody can effectively judge this case until all information is available.
To quote one of my favorite films, "Whenever there is any doubt, there is no doubt. That's the first thing they teach you." The point of boundaries and correcting boundary violations is so that everyone knows that it is not OK touch touch minors in ways that land in uncomfortable line of ambiguity. This is because actual predators thrive in this zone as a way to camouflage their actions, because as people we generally want to give others the benefit of the doubt. We don't want priests and lay volunteers looking at ambiguous actions and trying to figure out for themselves if grooming or abuse is occurring. They are supposed to be able to observe an action or behavior, say "I know that this is not clearly acceptable", and take action by reporting to the people who are trained to investigate further and have the power to safeguard children in the meantime.
I definitely don't disagree. I think it's a sad necessity that, functionally speaking, we need to operate using such guidelines, and like you've pointed out, the guidelines we've adopted are based off of extensive research and case study into the functioning of groomers and abusers. I would much rather we have stringent guidelines in place, even if it feels sad, institutional and inhuman, than to continue to operate out of a naive blind-eye that give groomers and abusers greater liberty to perpetrate.
My earlier comment was less in commentary of the right/wrongness of guidelines, etc., but rather was an observation as to why this case is quite divisive in such a way that folks (who all almost certainly agree about the problem of grooming and abuse) feel very differently about this case.
I think that many people feel so beaten down by the abuse crisis that they look for any bright spots they can find, and are loathe to see yet another priest they admire go down. I also think that, as Americans, we have become very casual and informal as a culture: in the way we speak, in the way we dress, and in the way we act around other people. We don't have a strong sense anymore of the ideas of social propriety and norms of behavior that are strictly enforced. "What's the harm in it?" has been the common objection I have seen from many of Fr. Martins defenders, and that attitude is very much in line with where we are as a culture. The idea that certain ways of speaking, dressing, and acting, even though harmless in themselves, are still socially unacceptable and worthy of censure, is an increasingly alien concept to us, and this make concepts like "boundary violations" difficult to understand, because we are not used to thinking that way.
That's well-put; I think you're on to something there. To build off of that--living in the information age means that we are privy to vast amounts of specific information happening all over the country, less to say the world, much (or perhaps most) of which is bleak, discouraging, or disturbing. And, living in that age of information, we've naturally adapted our policies, ethotes, and ways of being to address it. And living with all those policies and structures, despite their necessity, over time feels very discouraging. I find myself rosily thinking about hobbits and their villages, or the way my great-grandparents grew up, or the simplicity (and simple hardship) of life in the late Middle Ages, and to covet the kind of straightforward...humanness?...that those times seem to exude. Such idealization and romanticization helps nothing, but I imagine that instinct, surely fairly common, contributes to the reactionary distaste that we're seeing a conflagration of right now.
Anyway--I always appreciate your comments, Mike.
Thank you for this clear and thorough explanation. Boundary violations are definite red flags.
Touching someone’s hair or patting them in the head is intimate.
“On”
Woke, so woke. So when my kids' grandparents pat them on their heads, they are intimate with them?
You keep using the word “woke.” How do you define it?
Wokeness, the newest form of modernism, is what the secular media and secular "science" believes is true, normal and abnormal in the past 30 to 50 years, rather than what most of mankind, especially Catholics, have believed to be true, normal and abnormal for the prior 1600 years since Christianity and her norms were established as dominant in the Roman empire (since we have inherited that culture in the West). Those infected with the woke virus, for example, consider a nun or priest hitting a kid with the ruler on the hand or a teacher yelling at a student as child abuse, while those not infected with that virus consider it an appropriate example of discipline that formed good citizens for centuries instead of the spoiled brats of the last few generations.
Hitting a kid on the hand with a ruler is not okay. I learned this from Little Women which is a very old book, but before that, I also learned it from the Gospel according to St Matthew, which is an even older book.
Please enlighten me where exactly in the Gospels corporal punishment is criticized?
Okay, that is helpful to see where you are coming from. While I think there are very clear excesses in our culture of political correctness and certainly an attempt by some to undermine and reframe moral norms and understanding of marriage, for example, some parts of our culture have changed because we know more now about how something like disciplining a child by hitting them with a ruler is detrimental to their development — both as an individual and in how they relate to an adult who punishes them in this way. It sounds like you’re saying, “let no new thing arise” which has its merits in some areas. But we do know more now about how predator priests thrived for so long and how they groomed their victims, and so now we can do more to protect children and other adults who they may want to manipulate and abuse. Wanting to set up clear boundaries to protect children and then procedures for what to do when violations of those boundaries happen is a good thing; wanting to hold predator priests and other adults accountable is also good. Neither of those things is “woke.”
86% of priest abuse victims, according to the independent John Jay College study, were boys between age 13 and 17. Before Vatican II, girls were not allowed to spend time alone with a priest unless in a confessional. In fact, men in the past in general did not associate with adolescent girls unless they were relatives. So the solution is actually simple: be very strict about getting rid of all homosexual and pro-homosexual priests, brothers, and seminarians, implement single-sex education, and not allow any males to associate in any close manner with a group of young females except in a public type of situation (such as the one Father Martin was involved in). Then you will eliminate almost all the abuse cases except the ones involving relatives. Again the rules of the past make so much sense, and that includes measured and just corporal punishment. My wife praises the old style nuns she was afraid of who taught her during grade school and gave her "love taps" when she deserved them. She ended up with solid Catholic values, while most of the girls in the ghetto she grew up with ended up with all the sorts of pathology (drugs, kids with different men, sexual abuse) and they of course were never punished corporally in public school nor at home.
Your children are RELATED TO THEIR GRANDPARENTS. It would be proper that their grandparents or aunts or uncles would pat them on the head. Please. Ask any seminarian or young priest if they would play with a teen’s hair.
*the vast majority of priests
That's ridiculous.
It's not over until final statements come from the police and parish/diocese with the "additional facts". But from what we have here: (1) a concerned parent who made a formal complaint to the police, (2) the police have yet to be heard from, but I don't think they are obligated to say anything if they end their investigation without charging the priest with a crime. (3) a priest who didn't act on the "no touching/no hugging (especially children)" memo. (4) The parish/diocese immediately reacted. (5) The parent, of course, can pursue civil complaint against the priest, parish, diocese, etc. alleging harm to his/her child.
These are the new rules.
As far as I can tell the Pillar is reporting on what's public without speculating on the missing details. And even if ends here, It will be impossible for Fr. Carlos Martins to have his reputation restored. By the way, no future complaints about priests being "unapproachable" or "aloof".
Some of the warmest, friendliest people I've known have been Carmelite nuns behind two sets of grilles. I've known plenty of excellent, approachable, pastoral priests who have never had any need to touch me to communicate their closeness and concern. Saying that enforcing healthy boundaries will necessarily result in all priests isolating themselves out of fear is a straw man. We've had these standards of conduct for over 20 years. None of this is new.
So true. You dont have to hug someone to demonstrate closeness.
I've met plenty of very approachable, warm, friendly priests, religious, and also secular authority figures like bosses, teachers, and professors, and they never touched me except for the occasional social handshake when meeting. They sure didn't pat me or play with my hair. It is not necessary to violate boundaries in order to be warm, caring, approachable, and friendly.
Even if the events are exactly as his lawyers described, they're horribly inappropriate and a clear violation of all safe environment guidelines. Whether or not they were intended in this way, this kind of behavior is stereotypical grooming behavior. It'd be my hope that this was an innocent mistake by the priest, but it's clearly a mistake, and one that he should be willing to profusely apologize for when he comes to understand the level of the mistake it was.
Another example of insane woke ideas. My teenage daughter and my wife were shocked that this harmless behavior was treated in this way. We live in a strange world where people are OK with surgical mutilation of minors for "gender affirmation" but some innocent gesture is considered grooming. Wow, it seems even Catholics have been so seeped in leftist propaganda that they have lost common sense.
Right on.
A person who thinks that transgender surgery for children is bad AND thinks that initiating physical contact by playing with the hair of a girl is inappropriate exists.
Can this comment be bumped please? We are both/and people.
While I agree that the world has gone crazy with "gender affirmation" and other nonsense, I don't know what the connection is between that and this incident. Is anyone in the comments promoting gender affirmation? Do the authors of the piece or the editors of the site promote such nonsense? No, in fact they seem to be strongly opposed to it. I don't know why you'd bring it up.
I bring it up because the root cause of bigger things are smaller things. For example, almost all Catholics are OK with divorce and contraception. But it is specifically this that led to marriage being a contract rather than a sacrament, so now we can have homosexual marriage. It also caused the drinking water to be polluted with excessive estrogen (due to women using birth control pills which cannot be effectively removed from the sewage system) leading to effeminate men and boys who believe themselves to be gay or to be female. The same is a society that calls the police over a priest touching a girl's hair but is no where to be seen in protesting the filth that girls are exposed to on their phones (which parents will almost never deny them) like Snapchat, Tiktok, Instagram,pornography etc. and are usually ok with their daughters shacking up before marriage. So the overreaction to a priest, assuming right away that he is a pervert is a symptom of a Catholic society infected by a woke virus that acts exactly like the leftist liberal society around them, supporting calling in the police for something innocent while tolerating the mutilation of minors and adults.
Just to clarify, are you suggesting that everyone in this comment section that is saying that this is inappropriate behavior by the priest are the sort of people that are responsible for "effeminate men and boys" or is part of "a Catholic society infected by a woke virus" that tolerates "the mutilation of minors and adults"? Because I suspect most of us would strongly object to that characterization.
If anyone believes that this sort of behavior is worthy of calling the police and publicly ostracizing a priest, then you are absolutely correct. Someone noted that the behavior of Father Martins could be considered improper manners and that maybe something worthy of consideration. But to consider what Father Martins did as criminal activity (which is the only reason you would call the police for that) would mean that you are infected by a woke virus which does not allow you to discern between the degrees of human actions, most of which are innocent (though sometimes stupid) and rarely perverted or evil.
If nothing else, the priest's action is something a well brought up gentleman would not do to a stranger.
That may be true, but police should not be called for a lack of manners.
Unless the lack of manners qualifies as a battery.
That’s for the lawyers in this case to sort out.
If in America lack of manners qualifies as battery, our laws and our culture have sunk much further much faster than I've realized.
Deliberately touching someone without consent is technically a battery. If accompanied by intimidation, it becomes assault and battery. That's my understanding. Happy to be corrected.
We seem to live in a humorless society/ Church. Even if it’s poor, awkward, or tasteless humor, it is suspect. And we live under ‘guilty until proven innocent’ mindset, and even ‘we’re still suspicious if innocent’.
As a young woman, I just want to say that it’s not poor or tasteless humor that is the problem, it’s crossing of boundaries. Who knows what that young woman told her dad. I know I would have been shocked and upset if a priest touched my hair. I may have laughed and played along on such a stage, but it would have been very strange.
We don’t need zero contact with priests. I’ve given priests plenty of chaste hugs, all initiated by the priest themselves. But you don’t need to touch someone to develop a rapport with them. He could have made all those jokes and just… not touched her.
I know this may seem so over the top to many people, but many women, including myself, have been inappropriately touched or even groped by others. It makes many women really sensitive to unwanted touch. I think any man, and particularly all priests, should be aware of that and take care to not touch people unless it’s in a chaste, mutual way (such as a hug, which someone can reject or move to a side-hug, or a high five or fist bump)
> I may have laughed and played along on such a stage, but it would have been very strange.
When I had to look back over an abusive relationship to the earliest stages for annulment paperwork, I revisited some early events that had puzzled me a great deal at the time that they happened (and they had never stopped puzzling me). But I had gone along with it at the time, because that is a polite young woman's default behavior when in doubt, because I did not know that actions fall into three categories, not two: "clearly fine", "clearly not fine", and "feels like mist, like losing one's way, like Fiver feels in Cowslip's warren (in Watership Down)".
Thank you for your frank and vulnerable insight. There are good reasons to be humorless and sober, as boundary violations have been (and will be for the foreseeable future) ubiquitous in the Church and society writ large. I only wish to shine the light on the nature of a climate of suspicion. Such a cultural atmosphere is exhausting and anxious to everyone. Something to ponder is its costs and benefits.
Oh I completely agree that sometimes, if not many times, we are over suspicious- I suffered from this for many years myself.
But in the same breath, priests and laypeople should stick to their Virtus training, including refraining from commenting on physique as well as strict guidelines on what kind of touching is allowed.
I pray for our priests. I know it’s hard, I really hope it does not feel alienating. I pray priests have friends, family and fellow priests they can be themselves with and confide in!
Thank you for your consistency in reporting these kinds of incidents. I just came over here from Reddit, and there’s a lot of “Pillar Readers, but not in a good way” over there right now. I think it’s wonderful that we’ve got a news outlet with the integrity to report these kinds of incidents, regardless of who’s being accused.
So, this is hubub is all over a joke about flossing with hair where the priest used an example in the audience? What a tempest in a teapot.
According to Newsweek, 1 in 14 Americans will admit to flossing with hair. Probably he should have asked the girl to hold up her hair to show how long it is, but cancelling this whole tour seems like a massive overreaction.
Also, in the priests defense, I do understand why he would think The Pillar took a hostile approach. They basically went out of their way to suggest that his stories of exorcisms weren't true. There is no reason to use both the words "allegedly" and "claimed" in the following sentence if you aren't trying to emphasize skepticism toward his ministry: its redundant.
"a 2023 podcast series featuring dramatic audio portrayals of *allegedly* demonic encounters Martins *claims* to have experienced in ministry as an exorcist."
The article in whole appears to not only besmirch his moral probity around children but also the reality of his ministry as an exorcist.
I can't agree with your whole comment, but I was also taken aback at the wording about his ministry in exorcisms. I agree that it seemed to discredit the ministry and paint the priest as shady for exercising that ministry, which is a red herring to the content of the story one way or the other.
Perhaps not their best choice of words for an unbiased report.
I imagine that the Pillar staff deal with many priests on a regular basis and as far as I have seen and heard, priests universally take a dim view of "celebrity exorcists" and even more so of videos of purported exorcisms. So it is possible that the Pillar staff are sceptical of such videos for good reason.
They are audio portrayals, not video or audio of an actual exorcism. Every well-known exorcist I've heard from considers sharing actual footage to be quite immoral.
Dramatic audio portrayals seem to me like they should have a dim view taken, along with movie portrayals, but that falls more into the realm of opinion.
You might well be right, Erin, but if so, then the Pillar staff should have acknowledged their inability (or unwillingness) to be objective about the story they were covering.
For what it is worth, I do not see it as emphasizing skepticism or trying to discredit him. The words "allegedly" and "claims" are generally used when an author is trying to avoid making any judgment about whether the subject matter is true or false. If anything, I would argue that their use is evidence of that the Pillar is trying to be objective, and that the perceived hostility could actually be a sign of bias in the reader.
“ They basically went out of their way to suggest that his stories of exorcisms weren't true. There is no reason to use both the words "allegedly" and "claimed" in the following sentence if you aren't trying to emphasize skepticism toward his ministry”
When I first read the initial The Pillar story I did not know who Fr. Martins was. I took the information regarding his public exorcist persona simply as background for the uninitiated like myself. The tone may have been mildly flippant, but given what I’ve since learned of Fr. Martins’ active self promotion, I don’t think it was out of line. I do read a lot of JD’s articles and I have become familiar with his sense of humor. He is not a writer of “hit pieces” so I didn’t read it as one.