Like, wow.
So it wasn't celibacy or an all-male priesthood or a repressive, secretive organization that led priests to abuse children over the last decades.
According to a five-year study by America's Catholic bishops, none of these factors were responsible for the widespread sexual abuse of kids. It was Woodstock.
The report, obtained by the New York Times, claims that
the abuse occurred because priests who were poorly prepared and monitored, and were under stress, landed amid the social and sexual turmoil of the 1960s and ’70s.
The study was conducted by a team of researches at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
Again, wow.
I know I was pretty fucked up back in the 70s. I've got a few blank pages in the old memoir, if you know what I mean.
My friends and I couldn't afford a copy of the Physicians Desk Reference, so we identified found pills by the "gulp--I'll let you know what it is in a half an hour or so" method. We did things I know we shouldn't have. I mean, blowing shotguns in the mounted cops' horses' faces at the Smoke-Ins probably was uncool. And that night I got it on with my girlfriend's sister after my girlfriend had passed out from too much weed and Ripple probably wasn't my finest hour.
Bad judgement? Hoo, by the kilo, dude. Note to younguns: hallucinogens and automobiles are a bad mix. Ditto for firearms. And rooftops.
But in all that time, I know neither I nor anyone I knew used our positions of trust and authority to rape children in churches. I mean, that would have been, like, total downer, man.
So, Your Disgraces, don't go there. Don't try and pass off the blame for your horrible, hateful sins onto a bunch of kids whose greatest crime was a bit too much idealism and a bit too little sense.
We may not have been that smart, but we knew cool.
And that shit's not cool, man.
Addendum:
Oh, hell. No way I'm going to let this diary go without a soundtrack.