Catholics, Children and Conspiracy: The Epidemic of Abuse

For decades various individuals and organizations with the Catholic Church were dogged by rumors of horrific abuse – and, eventually, it turned out that several of those rumors were true. But how far back does this abuse go, and how widespread is it? Listen in to learn more.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. Hello,

(00:26):
welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my
name is no and they call me Ben. You are
you the most important part of the show, which makes
it stuff they don't want you to know? So established
this from from the jump as they say, Uh, I
am not Catholic. I am not Catholic, nor am I

(00:49):
so so far as I know, I'm not Catholic. However,
we are going to talk about something that examine and
explore something that concerns the Catholic Church. For a long
time in this show, we have had, believe it or not,
a couple of principles, and one of the principles is
that we're never going to uh denigrate someone's personal religious beliefs.

(01:12):
Believe what you want, you know, it's it's your business,
it's a personal thing. Uh. And if you don't believe
in anything, then of course that's up to you as well.
So this podcast, despite concerning the Catholic Church, is not
in any way about the religious beliefs or the values
or the practices of the Church or Christianity in general. Uh,

(01:32):
and so on and so on. But beliefs, as we
have found throughout making the show, are different from facts. Yes, right, Yeah,
that's a good point, Matt, Yeah, beliefs are different from facts. Uh.
This is more about facts. This is about an active conspiracy,
in to be honest with you, a series of numerous conspiracies,

(01:56):
not theories, not rumors, not scuttle but proven instances of
horrific crime. So one thing we promise you we are
not going to be extremely graphic when covering this topic
because it is an extremely sensitive one. We do want
to warn you in advance though this episode will contain

(02:17):
some disturbing content just because of what we're going to
be talking about. So I guess we should get into it. Um,
Shall we have the facts? Ben? Yes, but of course no,
Let's start at the very beginning with the Catholic Church.
You've probably already heard this, ladies and gentlemen. According to

(02:39):
the Catholic Church, it's history dates back to the first
century a d. When Jesus Christ made his disciple Peter
the rock upon which the church would be founded. All
the other Christian denominations by a large originate from Catholicism,
and the Catholic Church has done a lot of good
in the world. It's reserved immensely valuable knowledge, it is

(03:03):
at times promoted literacy uh and preserved great works of art.
But also there are schools involved with the Catholic Church,
so many charities, so many with all of the different
organizations that exist within the Catholic Church itself or with
affiliated or churs to But in the world of Christian

(03:25):
belief systems, Catholicism is ancient, which the most fair way
to say it is that there has there's just a
much larger passage of time here, which means there are
many more opportunities for something messed up to occur. And
over the past centuries, Catholicism has been associated with, or

(03:48):
implicated in, or directly responsible for numerous atrocities. We have
just a few examples. Yeah, some of those include the Crusades, yes,
all out or that rages across the globe because of
differing religious beliefs, different gods. It's one of those things
that we still see today with some of the Islamic

(04:11):
terrorist activities and the idea of holy war. You know,
that's this is a good example from history of that. Um,
we also have the persecution of heretics. Sure, basically nonbelievers, right,
and yeah, the it could be nonbelievers, you could believe,
be a group of people who believe in something different

(04:33):
that's not official canon. This persecution would also include, of
course blasphemers, you know, which hunts, inquisitions a postdates, Yes,
and that kind of persecution wasn't just restricted to heretics, right,
he also had anti Semitism and um, a good Another

(04:55):
example of persecution of heretics would be something like the
Spanish Inquisition, where people were tortured and ultimately killed for
their beliefs. And you know, we could do it, accrues
to me. We could do entire episodes on crusades and
witch hunts in the Spanish Inquisition, or just heretics or
just heretics heretic thought. One person's heretic is another one's reformer,

(05:21):
you know, or like starting a new religion. In fact,
if you guys know the movie The Witch is a
big fan of It starts with the father patriarch of
the film being exiled from his community, which is in
a settlement in the New World or whatever, and it's
because he takes a different approach to his religious belief

(05:42):
has never really gone into specifically, but it's enough that
the higher ups in the church deemed him to be
a heretic or an impostate, and they exile him and
his family out into the wilderness. Right and in in
this time and space, I guess where we are now,
it may a seem strange. These may seem like relatively

(06:03):
minor disagreements in dogma or in the details of something.
But in those days, uh, descent of any sort was.
It was tremendously controversial. Also in the past, the Catholic
Church assisted with some horrific colonization, you know, subjugation of

(06:27):
native peoples throughout the world. Uh. And it is on
record at least some officials in the Catholic Church aiding
and abetting Nazis and Fascists. Now before it sounds like
we're doing some kind of hit piece, because we are
listing a lot of terrible things that occurred over a
history of thousands of years. Yeah, you go back to

(06:49):
the eleventh century when a lot of the crusades were happening,
with in the sixteenth century. Then you go further further
back to some of the more heretical stuff that occurred
the prosecution and then you forward and it happened to
So yeah, there's just so much time. And also there's
so many people involved. So it's just like when we're

(07:11):
looking at any other large organization. You know. Not, of course,
not everybody who works for a federal government is a
bad person. You will hear in the news about bad
people who get caught doing something criminal or in many
cases get away with doing something criminal. Uh, same deal

(07:32):
with the banks, same deal with banks. Not everyone who's
a teller. You know, people are widely varied, and aside
from a few very common interests like breathing and eating
and staying alive, people do very different things, even if
they're ostensibly on the same team. And the Catholic Church

(07:53):
at present has many, many, many, many many adherents. According
to a twenty sixteen study, roughly one to seven two
billion people identified as Catholic in fourteen. And there are
how many billion people seven point something billion people on
the globe right now. Yeah, that numbers about seventeen percent

(08:14):
of the overall population of the world. And that yeah,
and the population of the world is still growing. It's
going to be different by the time. This shows over
a lot of Catholics seven point four. By the way,
global got the largest concentration of Catholics in Brazil, Mexico,
the Philippines, the United States of course that are also
the wealthiest of the Catholics. It's the wealthiest arm of

(08:37):
the church um and also Italy, and Italy makes sense
to be on there. You know, Philippines being on that
list was surprising to me. Ben. You know, that's an
interesting story and a lot of people in the West
aren't too aware of the colonization of the Philippines and
just how long it lasted in the countries that participated

(08:59):
in it, but do largely do impart to the Spanish
occupation and colonization in the Philippines. Uh. It is the
largest Catholic country in that part of the world. And
when we talk about the Catholic Church, Okay, we've talked
about how strong it is in terms of people, in

(09:20):
terms of people power population, right, they have a lot
of people, But the Catholic Church also has a lot
of money dollars euros. There's probably a stash of bend
Bucks in there somewhere. Uh. Their financial statistics are very,
very interesting. So, yeah, if you think about the number,

(09:42):
that number of people donating money every year, perhaps every
week or just every month, however you do it personally,
that amount of money going to a church over that
time span, Holy mackerel, that's uh Scrooge McDuck level of
wealth right there. Sorry, I'm not trying to I know

(10:03):
that's silly, but I mean, really, it's hard to fathom
the amount of money that is cycled through. I don't know.
I could picture of some you know, high level um
Catholic clergy swimming around and huge vaults of gold coins.
I feel like that's not something you would want to do. Well,
you know, it's weird. Yet it's it's very dangerous to
try that. Oh yeah, we thought too much about swimming

(10:31):
around in a pile of coins, which I would I
would never do, just because touching that much metal would
be weird. But um, but we're right at some we
all we do know that people are ultimately fallible, uh,
no matter what your position is in the world. So
there is a widely documented history of very corrupt people

(10:56):
being church officials. And did one him through money? You
know what? Honestly, no, I don't know. I'm not gonna
say definitely not. I'm not going to say I do know,
but I wouldn't be as surprised as I wish I
would be. That's probably the best way to say. It

(11:18):
scares me. Whenever you're surprised, Ben, really it really means
something serious going down. Did you see me lose lose
my mind? We're off air because I found out it
was National Sandwich Day. Well, you're very you're very passionate
about sandwiches. A man's gotta have a code. Hey, and
the Cubs just won the World Series. You guys, that's

(11:41):
that's surprised to me. It's surprised a lot of people
that you're you're gambling problem. Well, it's not a problem.
You're really good at it. Yeah. Ever since our episode
on Sports Fixing, and as soon as they hit game six,
I went, oh, you guys, what is going on here?
Then they were like, oh, we gotta go to game seven,

(12:02):
and all the alarms were going off. I was like,
I need to get Brian Towey on the phone right
now and figure out who I need to bet on. Yeah. Yeah,
You've made some powerful friends and powerful enemies with your
newfound role as as a gambling Tiker, and the unfortunate
news that Nolan I have for you, Matt is, no
matter how successful you become a gambling you will probably

(12:26):
never have at as much money as the Catholic Church.
Well that's not that's not what the guy told me,
So I don't know. I'm gonna take his word for
it for now, but I appreciate it, which is certainly
something to aspire to, because, as we've discussed already, the
Catholic Church does have quite a bit of money. We
found this quote from Wired magazine that Pope Francis is
not just the spiritual leader of one of the world's

(12:48):
major religions, he's also the head of what's probably the
wealthiest institution in the entire world. And that sounds like
a big claim, but we have to consider again this
is this is an incin organization. The time span involved
alone gave it more opportunities to accumulate wealth, and we

(13:10):
don't actually know how financially powerful this institution is. It's ginormous,
for sure, but because it's not subject to some of
the same accounting and disclosure rules that would apply to other,
you know, other institutions, the best we can do is

(13:31):
make gues estimates. So our best guests for a look
at the maybe the annual spending or budget of the
Catholic Church comes from the economist, and the economist breaks
it down into several categories. We've got healthcare coming first,
with nine point six billion dollars reportedly spent by the

(13:53):
members of the Catholic Health Association of the United States.
Then we have education. Um, there's a lot of pub
locally available operating budgets that um, they mind in order
to get some of these figures. Of the two forty
four Catholic colleges and universities that were available, UM, they
added up to a forty eight point eight billion dollars
in parish disbursements. Then we have charities, which used the

(14:16):
total annual budget of Catholic Charities USA and that was
four point seven billion. Other figures included the annual budgets
of other national religious organizations that are under the direction
of the Catholic Church at some level, UM, and that
added up to eight point five billion. And what were
some of those who want to mention them specifically, Sure, yeah,

(14:37):
there's the Knights of Columbus, the Army's excuse me, the
Arms of various religious orders like Jesuits, Dominic Dominicans, Franciscan's
Opus Day of course, and then and then there's uh,
there's another eleven billion from the Center for the Applied
Research on the Apostle at Georgetown University. And this all

(14:58):
adds up to estimated budget of one and seventy billion
dollars A hundred and seventy billion dollars. And honestly, ladies
and gentlemen, that's that's a guesta min That's probably not
the whole picture, just because we don't know. So why

(15:19):
are we talking about money? Why is this important for
the purposes of this episode. Well, we discussed before on
this show that money is the closest thing you can
get in this world currently to having a superpower, right Ben,
that's your that's a quote from you. I remember when
we were we were talking about what superpowers you we

(15:39):
would all have, and you're just like, all the money
because then you could do literally anything in this world.
That's that's interesting. Uh A wonder with the growth of technology,
you could eventually just buy superpowers, right Crispers out now,
So maybe you could make it where when you do
that cash move, you know, or you make it ready

(16:00):
up your hands together. Then it actually produced hundred dollar
bills and they just shoot at people. That'd be pretty sweet.
That would be great until uh, until it's totally messed
up the world's currency market, or someone would cut my
hands off and take them and then just put them
on a machine that just continually did that. Yes, I

(16:23):
went to a dark place. But the but the point
of this is that when you have an organization with
this kind of power that can be welld for one
thing or another, having them support or oppose something on
a global scale matters, and they can be welld weld. Yeah,
I mean it, guess wielded. I just like the that's good. No,

(16:45):
it's got gravitas, it does. It sounds like it's strolling
the strolling the planks in the Knoxford Theater. I've been
watching too much Westworld, and I've got Ford uh Anthony
Hopkins character in my head at all times, his syllable Yeah.
Now we're getting in the weeds here, guys. But it's true.

(17:07):
Money equals power, and it affords certain individuals that control
it what's let's call it privileges, shall we say, sure? Yeah,
having the support or opposition of something Uh, can can
make a tremendous difference in world affairs. On a side note,
I know we're in the weeds here, but man, Vatican

(17:27):
City is weird. Would you guys like to hear some
fun facts about Vatican City? Yes? Oh? Great, good, because
because I don't know what I would do if you
guys said no. Uh. It is the only place in
the world where the A T M s are in Latin.
That's pretty neat. Uh. It also has the world's highest
crime rate, proportionally one point five crimes per citizen. That's

(17:49):
largely in effect of the small population. These aren't necessarily
violent crimes. These are like, you know, pickpockets and thefts
and stuff. But until fairly recently, the age consent in
Vatican City was technically twelve years old. Hamona what HAMMONA, Yes,
and it was. It's since been raised to eighteen. Uh.

(18:11):
That that last fact is not doesn't really qualify as
a fun fact. But I am glad that they have
raised their age of consent. Uh. And we know that
even though we live in an increasingly secular world, many many,
many people, many of whom are not even Catholic, are
very protective of the dignity of the Catholic Church and

(18:35):
especially the dignity of the Pope, which brings us to
an interesting episode in our own lifetimes. So in October,
and on the third to be precise, uh, set O'Connor
performed on Saturday Night Live. It was the Tim Robbins episode.
I actually remember this. I was a wee boy at

(18:57):
the time when it happened. But uh, I my parents
always watched that show and I they would talk to
me about it. Um. But anyway, she performed war by
Bob Marley. Uh. She did it alone on stage. He
did acapella, and during rehearsals she was going to tear
up a picture of I think a child, like a

(19:19):
child who had been abused. Essentially, the idea is that
this child is starving. Um. And there I forget exactly
everything that was happening around it, but it made sense
to the producers of Center It Live that she would
do that, and that was the plan. Well, when they
went to live, she pulled out a picture of the
Pope and she said she tore it up and she
said fight the real enemy. And the producers the audience, uh,

(19:44):
you know, it's happening live in downtown New York. Everyone
was aghast. Yeah, to say the least. Um, I mean,
everyone was just stunned, essentially. That's a That's what my
understanding of it was. Because it's not something you do.
There was a massive backlash people in bonkers in a
very very bad way. And I can only imagine the

(20:07):
amount of uh phone calls mail that Saturday Night Live
received about that and the network that owns them. By
way of apology, when Joe Pesci hosted Saturday Night Live,
he had the photograph taped back together, presented it on air,
wild applause from people, and then uh said, you know

(20:29):
he would have I can't remember his exact phrase. I don't.
He said he would grab her by the eyebrows. That's
what it was. He was. He was acting like he
was gonna grab her by the hair, like pretending by
the eyebrows. Yeah. Yeah, And uh, Madonna rediscovered her own Catholicism.
And again, I'm not going to question the sincerity of

(20:49):
someone's beliefs, but maybe he seem to like a prayer
of video. I mean, she's clearly quite religious. Oh man. Yeah, Uh,
I've never met Madonna, but Madonna, if you're listening, um,
come on this show, yes, please, But what ultimately what

(21:10):
we're saying here is people, we're so upset about this happening,
so instantly upset? Yes, and why why were they instantly upset?
And why would she do this? That was the question
on everyone's mind at the time. And we have an
answer to that right after a word from our sponsor,

(21:37):
and we're back with the answer that we have mentioned
at the top of the show. Uh, sanade O'Connor was
not just being some sort of precious performance artist. Instead,
she was remarking, as she said in later interviews, on
the hushed up abuse occurring in various parts of the
Catholic Church around the world and various institutions, she herself

(22:01):
was a victim of abuse. And the Catholic Church, of course,
for their part, has never officially condoned any abuse in
its recent history. So you know, of course, in the
distant past they would condone inquisition trials or torture of
native peoples and so on, But the modern Catholic Church
is not you know, is in no way, um pro

(22:25):
that sort of monstrous stuff. Absolutely not. However, not only
has there been a proven epidemic of child abuse when
the within the Catholic Church were we're talking children of
all ages, primarily boys. But there's also no telling how
far back this abuse has gone, where it where it originated,

(22:48):
or to what degree it occurred, or how often it
occurs today right now as we're making this podcast right
many cases have been actively covered up or ignored, with
high RUPs in the church relocating abusive priest rather than
having them prosecuted or invested investigated or prosecuted in a
court of law. In the United States, this phenomenon gained

(23:12):
attention in the mid eighties, and fellow named father Gilbert
Gothe of Lafayette, Louisiana, pled guilty to abusing at least
eleven boys over his time in the area. There's a
piece here from Minnesota Public Radio. It goes into detail
about this and villainous. I just want to warn you

(23:34):
before you hear this, ladies and gentlemen. The priest took
boys on camping trips and invited them for sleepovers in
the rectory. He claimed old practices for altar boys every
day at six am and encouraged parents to let their
boys spend the night. His sexual appetite was uncontrollable. He
put bars on the windows of a rectory. He kept
a gun by the side of his bed, and when

(23:54):
children refused to submit, he threatened to use it. And
then it goes in detail about what he forced these
kids to do with him to each other, and how
he documented it on a polaroid camera, and how this
went on for more than a decade. He remained in
the ministry, even when his bishop learned he had abused

(24:15):
one boy and licked the faces of two others. After
the second complaint, the bishop transferred him to a small
church in the isolated town of Henry, Louisiana, And finally
three boy told his father, Wayne Sagrera, about this. Sagrera
reported it to the diocese. The bishop sent the father
away for psychological treatment and offered nine families confidential settlements

(24:38):
of more than four million dollars. The reason we know
about this is because one family refused to settle and
they went public, and then the American public woke up
to first that you know, close community. Even then the
rest of the US became more aware of this. Yeah,
he ended up going getting arged with several cases, got

(25:03):
a sentence of twenty years. Then he got out in
nine years. For good behavior. Uh then he went back
for another case of abuse for a few more years
than was released. Again. Um, this is an interesting, messed
up case. If you want to learn more about it,
feel free. I would not recommend it, but go for it. So.

(25:26):
Documentation from the time also showed that the church was
supposedly concerned of a possible quote domino effect occurring, and
Reverend Thomas Doyle, who was a canon lawyer, wondered how
far the scandal went just you know, part of the
question that we're asking today. Um, was this an isolated case?
Was it more widespread? Eventually he became more and more

(25:48):
concerned the resulting revelations could in fact bring down the
Catholic Church in the United States, and he teamed up
with Father Gothe's defense lawyer of filling In Gray Moton,
and they created a confidential report and was confidential at
the time, called the Problem of Sexual Molestation by Roman
Catholic Allergy. It warned that hundreds of priests might be

(26:10):
abusing children and that the lawsuits and settlements could cost
the US Catholic Church a billion dollars in ten years. Today,
this formerly confidential document is available online if you google
the title, you will find it. So they worked on this,
they presented it to the UM, to the church authorities,
and apparently it was ignored. In fact, Doyle believes his

(26:33):
career was ruined because of his push for the church
to confront the brewing abuse scandals. So let's talk a
little bit about the percentage of people that are that
would be doing this stuff. A survey of the ten
largest US diocese found two hundred and thirty four priests
from a total of twenty five thousand, six hundred and

(26:55):
sixteen in those dioceses have had allegations of sexual abuse
aid against them in the last fifty years. The report
doesn't say how many of these were proven versus how
many were allegations, So we do know a couple of things.
This means that it's by no means, again, something involving
every member of the church. Nor is it in any

(27:17):
way indicating that every clergy member even knew about the situation. Like,
it's completely possible that people just weren't in in a
situation where they saw that kind of behavior from a
clergy member. Um. Yeah, because that's what all like, that
is a small percentage of the priests, and you know,

(27:39):
the vast majority of the vast majority, whether it's Christianity,
whether it's Buddhism. Regardless of the religion, the vast majority
of people who choose to dedicate their life to religious
contemplation or religious service are obviously kinder people in many

(28:00):
ways than the average bear, you know what I mean,
But than the average Barrenstein, Um, I was trying to
do a Mandela effect joke, and I just don't think
it work. Now, you know, you did? You did it?
Is it? Barren ste I don't even know anymore? So.
The next question, and one that people have spent a

(28:20):
lot of time exploring, is what what causes this phenomenon?
Because it's real, It's apparently been something that happens in
multiple countries, multiple situations, multiple places, multiple socioeconomic backgrounds. So
what what's the cause? Well, according to Laurie Goodstein, who

(28:43):
wrote for The New York Times, that there are several
contributing factors, and the first one is that it's just
a matter of sheer numbers. Catholics makeup about a quarter
of the US population, like we talked about earlier, through
the largest single religious denomination that existists. And second, the
church keeps extensive documentation, meaning they're gonna have or at

(29:06):
least they're more likely to have some kind of paper
trail that you can follow. Yeah, and third, good Steam
believes factors involving the nature of the priesthood itself may
actually contribute to this abuse epidemic. And within this one,
you you have to know that priests have this exalted position,
there is this uh, this thing called Then you might

(29:28):
have to say this for me, but I'm gonna say
it in persona CHRISTI. Essentially the argument being that for
true believers, this is one of the ultimate authority figures,
this is your direct line to God, essentially allowing for
the potential for some of these folks to develop a
bit of a God complex perhaps or abuse that power

(29:49):
in some formers in terms of seeing themselves as an
ultimate you know, figure of authority and twisting that in
a very unhealthy way, which leads us to the next point.
I think I don't even think it's seeing themselves in
that way. I think it's knowing that the other person
sees you in that way. Well, imagine if you're if

(30:10):
you're a child and there is some religious authority figure
who wants to make you do something, whether it's whether
it's some sort of abuse or whether it's something as
simple as like, I don't know, steal, stealing a zero
or whatever, and they say, well, you don't want to
go to hell, do you? Uh, that's my favorite sandwich
and for good and go to Heaven, et cetera. So

(30:33):
there's a very there is a very unequal power ratio there,
or authority ratio, and unfortunately certain um diseased individuals use that. Um.
Goodstee also points out that there are celibacy requirements and
that the priesthood is all male, and some of her
colleagues who have looked into this have cited those two

(30:56):
things in particular as factors, which I think is understandable
that that would contribute to something. But you know, we
also have to note, as she does, that this sort
of abuse occurs in institutions that have married clergy, and
it happens in other religions, and it happens in just
non religious family structures. It's a very very different lifestyle,

(31:19):
you know, Um, and you're also you are in a
position of authority in that kind of service, but you're
also answerable to this gigantic organizational hierarchy. You know what
I mean. You're very much living within a system. And
living within a system is not a bad thing. Everybody

(31:40):
lives in some sort of system. The most anarchist person alive.
If you're listening right now, you live in an ecosystem
and like the laws of gravity still govern you. I'm sorry, man, man, No,
I don't believe it. So there's another thing. So these
are these are factors that are pretty strong factors, I
would argue. And I know that good Steam doesn't completely

(32:04):
agree with all of those, especially when it talks about
the structure lending itself to it. But we um, we
do know that regardless of the cause, there have been
difficulties and prosecuting these events. I think before we get
into this final wrap up, we should have one more
quick sponsor break. So, since some of the events come

(32:34):
to like many years, decades, even after investigators in different
countries found statute limitations had passed, meaning that cases were
not prosecutable, someone comes forward in the nineties nineties about
something that happened in the fifties. UM needs may differ
by country, but then sometimes the offender has passed away

(32:57):
or is uh maybe senile or simply untouchable. Yeah, because
we're talking about fear. Fear first off, as a child,
if you're being abused, UM, fear of an organization, fear
of God even comes into play when we when you're
dealing with this kind of abuse, and it's a tremendously

(33:21):
I'm only speaking from you know what I believe it
is like. But I can imagine there would be one
of the hardest things ever to do in your entire
life to come forward and admit that something like this
has happened to you. Absolutely, And another factor that goes
here is that the Catholic Church, for its part, has
made several public statements that it is addressing this phenomenon.

(33:47):
In two thousand and two, the United States Conference of
Catholic Bishops initiated strict new guidelines, or zero tolerance guidelines
for the protection of children and youth in Catholic institutions
across the country. Then, in two thousand nine, church officials
noted that abuse occurs in other religions and institutions and
indicated that this could be seen as uh some kind

(34:10):
of disproportionate focus on the Catholic Church itself uh in
instead of looking at it as a whole. In either
religious organizations or organizations worldwide, right right, and then uh,
there's something that you talked about earlier off air, met
the nick Lellan Commission. Yeah, that was that was in Scotland.

(34:30):
It occurred in Scotland with the Catholic Church there. There
was a report that was published on August eighteen and
it was again looking at these like what policies should
the Catholic Church enact to ensure that children are protected.
That's what it was looking at. However, it didn't go
into any specifics of abusers or where abuse was occurring,

(34:53):
or how the Catholic Church responded to it. It it
was looked at by critics as being I think they
called it fluffy, a fluffy report, and it just made
everything you know, it was like a um let's let's
discuss it. Let's say that there's wrongdoing, but there are
no real answers here on how to protect children in

(35:15):
the future. Still, the church has officially declared it will
take action with the um like against these abusers of
Pope Francis in September famously in one of his speeches
saying that all responsible will be held accountable. And you know,
critics of the the system and the organization and the

(35:37):
institution are obviously going to say that they feel that is,
you know, a bunch of pr spin essentially, but other people,
especially many many, um many people not just Catholics, but
secular people, are people from different religions will say, well,
this is a very very very very very large organization

(35:59):
and they're hunting a small number of people. But again,
it is an inarguable fact that more than one time,
more than one time higher up authorities got reports of
abuse and just relocated the offender. Yes, and it goes

(36:20):
all the way up to the Pope. In some instances
there were newer reports coming out that the previous pope
Pope rats and Rots or Ratzinger is his actual name,
but it was Pope benedict Um, that he was aware
and attempting to to like root out some of these people.

(36:41):
But also alternate reports that were saying that he may
have been involved with some of this stuff. And then
the same with Pope John Paul the second of like
how much did he know? And you can refine. You
can find reports on NBC, you can find reports on
any news organization. Amount to mention the Boston Globe Spotlight, Yes,
became a movie became a very well regarded film, and

(37:03):
these investigative journalists uncovered, Um, I believe more than a
hundred and thirty crimes, more than a hundred and thirty
instances of childhood abuse since the nineteen nineties that were
essentially covered up quite a way is up the chain. Yeah, yeah,
and that goes I think those reports came out around
two thousand two and that led to some resignations in Boston,

(37:25):
right it did. Uh. You know, that is one example
of what investigative journalism can do. And that's one thing
that you can really point to and say, wow, it
it works when a group of people get together and
try and figure out bad stuff when it's happening and
then just open their mouths or write it down on
a piece of paper. Um, it makes me feel good

(37:48):
about the future of what investigative journalism could be. Well.
Speaking of superpowers, I mean that is one of the
very few that we can actually wield as the ability
to shed light on things that others would maybe rather
have remained in the dark. Yeah, and we are going
to wrap up the episode today. Uh. We hope that

(38:09):
this has been viable information. Again, this is not by
any means a conspiracy theory. It has tragically been proven true.
And at this point we um, we don't know how
far back this stuff goes, to what degree various people
were complicit. And of course, as we've taken pains to

(38:31):
say several times, we're talking about the bad guys. We're
not talking about all people who are Catholic or anything
like that, priests or anyway. And as you guys know,
this is a serious thing. Though it might sound strange
to some listeners, you guys knew I. I spent a
lot of time when I was younger hanging out at

(38:53):
a monastery and uh, it was awesome. Actually. Um. But
there's one very, very very important thing that we want
to emphasize for anyone who is listening to this UM
and has concerns. Although it can always feel like you
are alone or isolated or trapped, you are not. Uh.

(39:19):
There are people who have dedicated their lives to helping
you or a loved one who's in a situation, an
abusive situation, you know, whether that's something involving the cases
we're talking about now or whether that's something like domestic violence.
You have people you can reach out to, and there's

(39:40):
a number here for the Child Help National Child Abuse
Hotline which you can contact. It's an eight hundred number.
It's one eight hundred four to two four four five three.
Do not hesitate to to reach out for people to people,
it's frightening, it's terrifying, it's scary, and it's not your fault.

(40:03):
And I know that that brings the tone down a
little bit, but I think we, like the three of
us who agreed that's important information. And uh, we as
always really appreciate your time, and we'd like to ask
you for a favor. If you're inclined to social media
and interneting, as so many people are, why not drop
by and give us a visit to like, I subscribe

(40:25):
on Facebook, Twitter or YouTube. You could also, if you're
feeling charitable, give us a review on our iTunes page
or wherever you listen to podcasts. You should note there
that there is a video feed and an audio feed
for for this show, and if you put a review,
make sure you put it on the audio one, as

(40:47):
we were getting reviews on the video feed for the show.
All right, um, that could be confusing, and of course
our best ideas come from you. So if you have
an idea for something we should cover in the future.
We'd love to hear from you directly. Our address is
conspiracy at how stuff works dot com. M hmm