How Catholic Confession Has Created Sex Scandals and Driven Members Out of the Church

Before looking at the following graph, keep in mind that the Catholic Church has been around about 1,700 years. Had the church lost just 6 percentage points of its believers each of the last 17 centuries, it would now be effectively obsolete, making Catholics about as common as pagans. Again, losing 6 percentage points per century would have obsoleted it by now.

Which brings us to the precipitous decline of Hispanics who refer to themselves as Catholic in the US.

In just four years, the church has lost 12 percentage points. At this rate, within 25 years no Hispanics will be Catholic. In terms of the time the Church has been around, a quarter of a century is a rounding error.

It's a safe bet that the church won't dissipate that quickly, but it's worth asking how Pope Francis could slow this decline.

I have two complementary theories, one having to do with confession and the other with the modern emphasis on autonomy - the self-defined life that is at the root of democracy and capitalism.

Sex scandals have hurt the church. That seems obvious. Less obvious is the persistent role of confession in sex scandals.

Centuries ago,a young woman confessing to immoral urges was positioned on her knees before the priest, her arms on his legs in a penitent position. Even the most sincere young priest, looking into the face of a beautiful confessor gazing up at him, her face essentially on his lap, would find it hard not to be moved as she confessed to sinful thoughts or acts. So a long time ago, the church decided that a confession booth would both take some of the sexual tension out of this situation and possibly protect the identity of easy marks from rogue priests. Things got better.

Then, in 1910, Pope Pius X decided that children should confess. He thought it was a good idea for 7 year old kids to begin admitting they were sinners. (The list of serious sins includes being late for Mass. It's never too early for someone to start feeling guilty, apparently, even for things for which parents are responsible.) And while the previous practice was to confess once or twice a year, Pius thought confession should become a weekly practice. So about the time everyone else began to listen to weekly radio programs, priests were listening to weekly confessions from prepubescent children.

After this policy, reports of sexual abuse of children rose. It's a terrible policy.

One difference between a church and business is the respect for tradition. It takes a lot to change the policy of a previous pope because that pope was the mouthpiece of God. Even so, popes do change policies. It happens and if Pope Francis cares at all about halting the decline of Catholics, he'll reverse this decision to have children confess. Let children be children and wait until they are teenagers, at least, before beginning to make them feel guilty for living in a body instead of existing as a purely spiritual being, unencumbered by carnal thoughts. That's one policy change that could help to reverse the decline of Catholics.

The second policy change will be harder because it gets at the heart of the difference between Catholics and Protestants.

Authority seems to evolve through at least two stages. In the first stage of nation-states, for instance, the monarch was the ultimate authority. Louis XIV, who ruled France until 1715, famously said, "I am the state." That same century, Thomas Jefferson penned the words, "All men are created equal," and then helped to create a constitution that would replace the monarch as the ultimate authority in a country. At the first stage, authority resides in a person and in a later stage it resides in the written word.

Catholics and Protestants alike believe the Bible is the inspired word of God. The difference is, Protestants think the Bible is the ultimate authority whereas Catholics think the ultimate authority is the clergy (and their ultimate authority is the pope). Catholics warned original Protestants that if they were going to make the Bible the ultimate authority then anyone was free to offer a new interpretation and the result would be thousands of denominations; it turns out they were right. But even in the midst of the chaos of multiple theologies, there is a certain freedom and democracy in the Protestant option. It is not just, as Martin Luther said, "We are all priests." Any Protestant, from Mary Baker Eddy to Billy Graham, is free to be pope, to head his or her own religion. And the Protestant emphasis more closely accords with the impulse of the modern world, with each person defining his or her own life rather than turning to an authority figure for instructions.

Here, too, Pope Francis has a chance to articulate relevant policy. A pope who says, "Who am I to judge," is one that people defining their own life are more likely to love than resent. It would be huge - but honest - for the Catholic Church to acknowledge their role of merely informing rather than defining the individual's conscience. There is a very real difference between a church that helps the individual to define his or her own life and one that wants to define that life.

Hispanics make up nearly half of American Catholics. Their loss is not trivial. It would be absurd for Pope Francis to ignore this problem. The good news for him, though, is that this decline could probably be slowed with just a couple of key changes. It's too late to avoid radical change; the Church is going to either radically change in terms of its numbers or in terms of its policy. We will see whether Francis has more commitment to tradition or reality and which kind of radical change he'll accept. It's too late for the status quo.

A Tempest in a Tea Party - the IRS Scandal

People have been fired. Mike Huckabee predicts that Obama won't complete his second term. At a minimum, Bloomberg Businessweek predicts, Obama's hope for gun legilsation, immigration reform, and a health overall are to be jettisoned. This IRS scandal is a big deal.

So what, exactly, is the big deal? The IRS targeted tea party like groups but not progressive groups. They were searching for folks who had formed groups around the notion of patriotism, tax relief, and anti-government sentiments. This much seems true and for that people have been fired. 

So then, what nefarious things did they do once they'd targeted these groups? They requested information. Specifically, they asked the following questions:

These questions were deemed "unnecessary." 

That's right. These groups had to answer questions they didn't have to. They weren't shut down. They weren't fined. Their members weren't subject to wire-tapping. Their leaders weren't imprisoned or targeted by drones. Nobody was water boarded. They were asked to provide information.

That's the big scandal. 

We live in time when we're about to hit a big inflection point. Going one way, we could enter a time of prosperity that past generations could not even imagine. Going another way, we could enter a time of unfolding disasters. And in the face of that, the government with the most influence of any group in the world is focusing on an issue that is - depending on the angle from which you observe it - either inane or irrelevant. 

We don't really have to worry about what future generations will think of us, though. With judgment about real vs. trivial issues this faulty, we're likely to cause our own extinction before those future generations can show up to judge us. That will shut them up.

Judge Incarcerates 4,000 Children (Some as Young as 10) for Profit and Is Fined Less Than His Profit

US judge receives 28-year jail term for his role in kids-for-cash kickbacks

Mark Ciavarella Jnr ordered to pay $1.2m in restitution after he was found to be a 'figurehead' in the conspiracy

This poor excuse for a human being, Judge Mark Ciavarella, was putting kids as young as 10 years old into prison. Not for the crimes they'd committed but instead for kickbacks from the for-profit prison system into which the kids were sent.  Hard to imagine a more vile piece of humanity than Ciavarella. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned 4,000 of his convictions. 4,000. I guess it's easier to do such things when you've already sold your soul.

His sentence was not harsh enough. A 28 year sentence to a 61 year old man might be enough, but a million dollar fine for a million dollar profit is not. For other judges and for-profit prisons, this could just be seen as a cost of doing business, and not even a high enough cost to stop such practices.

The reason it is not enough is because the odds of getting any sort of fine are so low.

The odds that Ciavarella would be caught were less than 100%. There was maybe a 20% chance, say. The odds that the DA would decide to prosecute were less than 100% - perhaps about 50%? And finally, the odds that he'd be found guilty were less than 100% - again, maybe 70%? (And yes, I'm making up these numbers; the only thing that I know for sure is that the odds of his making it to each stage are less than 100% and by 10's of percent.) So by these calculations, the odds that Judge Ciavarella would be caught, prosecuted, and found guilty were about 7% (20% X 50% X 70%). 

So if you are another judge who is amoral enough to look at the incarceration of the young as a for-profit venture, you could easily make the following calculation. "I could make a million dollars by giving out the maximum sentence to these kids. Money I'd get in kick backs for the cost of their incarceration. Money paid by taxpayers to the for-profit prison company." Then you'd have to ask about possible costs. By the above calculations, the probable cost of this venture would be about $70,000 (7% of the million). Now you can make your own calculations about probabilities but no matter how you do it, you'll find that a fine equal to the reward for criminal behavior is inadequate. It would only make sense if the odds of being caught, prosecuted, and found guilty were 100%. They're not. 

I'd suggest that the judge's fine should have been at least $15 million, not merely $1.2 million. And who could make up the difference? The for-profit prisons. 

Scandalous!

Oh the media loves a good scandal.

Paul Wolfowitz is the brain-damaged wonk who came up with the idea to invade Iraq. As a reward for such a brilliant idea, George W. made him head of the World Bank. That, apparently, was fine.

What is not fine, by contrast, is that Wolfowitz wrongfully promoted his girlfriend within the World Bank. This is news and did provoke an apology from Paul.

He doesn't apologize for egging on our president to invade Iraq but he apologizes for a few thousand dollars wrongly spent on his paramour?

Ai ya ya.

I have lived in this country for 46 years and I still haven't got the hang of its strange customs.

How Blogs and YouTube Will Transform the 2008 Campaign

We're going to see the most fascinating video during this presidential campaign. It could be a video of a candidate awkwardly dancing at teen prom, shoplifting at a convenience store, or calling someone a racial slur (Macca comes to mind). The point is, in this age of YouTube the flaws of candidates are no longer abstractions. Video changes the facts. It is one thing to know that someone crapped in the woods and quite another to actually see video footage of it. As a fact it is a footnote of little importance - as a video this fact becomes disgusting.

The Republicans who hated the hair dresser's son understood this. It was not enough to accuse Clinton of having sex with an intern; the Star report released details vivid enough to script a video in the apparent hope that this government sanctioned porn might turn the public against him. As it turned out, the public became weary of this and the detailed description that might have initially seemed so damning eventually became irrelevant to most Americans who became frustrated with the Republicans' obsession with Bill's libido and wanted to move on.

In the Clinton scandal we may see a ray of hope. I remember asking my (then) ten year-old daughter if she thought that Clinton was a role model at the height of the Lewinsky scandal. She wrinkled her nose and said, "No." I told her that he might just be a role model in this regard: in spite of some obvious flaws he was trying to move the world in what he thought was a positive direction. In general, the American people seemed to agree. Clinton left office with a 65% approval rating - a point higher than Ronald Reagan and more than double Bush's current approval rating. Ultimately, the American people judged the man's perceived policy and performance rather than his flaws.

Some candidacies have been destroyed by a single revelation. Gary Hart's romantic indiscretion and Wilbur Mills’ affection for the stripper Fanne Foxe are among the more colorful incidents of self destruction.

But in this age of YouTube and blogs, it is hard to imagine any flaws remaining hidden for the duration of a two-year campaign. What seems probable is that we'll have dirt on all the candidates by the time we're supposed to vote. And at that point, it'll be difficult to choose between the guy who helped to finance the razing of a section of rain forest and the guy who cussed out a poor, immigrant bell hop and the gal whose phone sex session was captured on tape. Because we'll have documents on all of this. And as John Edwards’s recent problem with the two bloggers who had the nerve to insult the Catholic Church has proven, even the indiscretions of campaign staff can wound a candidate.

What will happen when everyone is, so to speak, sitting in the sauna sans robe or towel? I think it could be wonderfully liberating. Suddenly forced to confront the fact that even Super Models have flaws they rely on photographers and photo editors to gloss over, voters will have to give up on their odd notion of finding a flawless candidate.

Rumors of Lincoln's bouts of depression and Jefferson's half-black child would have been enough to scuttle their campaigns in this modern era. We wonder why our leaders today don't have the stature of leaders past. Perhaps we've dismissed them on criteria that history has proven to be largely irrelevant to the task of leading a great nation.

If the Internet forces us to confront the fact that we have only flawed candidates from which to choose, perhaps it'll get us to focus more on evaluating policy and purpose. And this could be the best thing to happen to politics since they gave women the right to vote. After all, these aren't saviors we're trying to elect - just politicians.

Post Script: and as if on cue, Giuliani has announced his candidacy and Youtube has provided just such a video. (With commentary about it by one of my favorite Americans here.)

Neutral Press = Neutered Politicians

Blogging is merely the tip of the iceberg in a process of media fragmentation. The effect of this new model of journalism is going to significantly change politics. I'm less interested in web 2.0 than media 2.0 and what it will mean for politics.

In the old model, news pretended to be neutral. One of the flaws with operating under this guise of neutrality is that it makes the press biased towards certain stories. Scandal is a story for everyone, regardless of political persuasion, and can be reported freely without fear of seeming to have an agenda other than morality in politics. The result has a variety of consequences but the two main consequences have to do with the focus of politicians and the issues that are allowed into the national debate.

The issues allowed into the national debate are very meager. The press largely pretends to cover issues that are factual - our deficit went up, crime went down, GDP grew by 2.3%. The press does cover more controversial issues like climate change, globalization, and corporate governance but the coverage is typically about political votes and support (e.g., "Democrats oppose the president's new proposal ...") rather than engaging in reporting that takes a stance about what kind of world we'd live in with or without this legislation. The result of this is that politicians and experts find it nearly impossible to attract the attention of the press on issues that haven't already reached crisis proportions. Islamic extremism is of little import - or rarely reported - - until a tragedy like 9-11. Climate change is little reported until buildings in Alaska begin to sink as what was previously permafrost begins to thaw.

Given that the media hasn't bothered to report on issues for fear of being perceived as biased, politicians have been largely unable to push for actual policy. In lieu of policy they run focus groups to learn what sorts of key words they should use in speeches and debate. And most importantly, they run scared: scarred that their flaws should be revealed -whether through embarrassing gaps in their knowledge or zippers.

A neutral press and neutered politicians are tied together and there is a very real difference between a person focused on avoiding errors and a person focused on doing what is right. Of course, "what is right" is value-laden and we will rarely have complete agreement about its definition. But as long as the media refuses to take a stand on what is right, the media finds itself focused on libido more than policy.

One of the things so alluring about the blogosphere is that it promises an alternative to this. Bloggers focused on politics insist that their issues be taken seriously. Wherever there are people there will be interest in stories of personal flaws, but flawed people are all we ever get in politics. The real stories are not those of the inevitable peccadilloes but the stories of policy. Do you really care whether your china cabinet was made by a cheating Baptist or a faithful Buddhist? Why should something even more important than your furniture – as important as policy – be ignored because of the “facts” about the scandalous or virtuous life of its creator?

The best thing about the blogosphere and media 2.0 is that it will once again focus us on issues, values, and topics that are both sure to divide groups but, perhaps paradoxically, move them forward. A neutral press has neutered politicians and disabled the ability of communities to grapple with real issues, much less develop real strategies.

Call me an optimist, but I think that we'll look back at the politics of the period past as the equivalent of political elevator music - politics that is designed to offend no one that finally annoys everyone while avoiding any issue of substance or importance. Media 2.0 could result in politics 2.0.

The mantra for this new period? Let your soap operas be soap operas and your politics be politics.