The following statements serve as the absolute foundation, cornerstone, and bedrock of this article: God is love and goodness itself; all things that come from God is good; by His nature, God can only create good; evil, in and of itself, is not a thing; evil exists as a result of the absence or distortion of the created good; evil does exist; God does not create evil, but for reasons we do not understand; however, He permits it to bring about some good, even if we never know why (John 9:3); humans, from the beginning of time, create evil through their free will; those who bring evil into the world, especially those in positions of power, should be punished to the full extent of the law and will have to answer for those evils; there is nothing that justifies evil, and there are no words that can be spoken to excuse it, period.

Catholics, understandably, are often asked how we can be members of a Church that has had so much scandal, especially in the context of sexual abuse. It is a fair question. As already mentioned, absolutely nothing can excuse the individual behaviors that comprise those very scandals. Catholics will be the first to express their pain, sorrow, anger, disgust, and sense of betrayal due to the behavior of those individuals.

The Church is some 2,000+ years old. Throughout its long history, it has been failed more than once by some individual members of the Church. In his book, Light from Darkness, Steve Weidenkopf tells the stories of nine times that the Catholic Church found itself in crises and emerged stronger than before. Of course, all Catholics pray that there will be no more scandals, but the reality is that the Church, like all organizations, involves human beings, some of whom will, at some point, behave in an evil manner.

To answer the question, we must do several things. We need to understand who created the Catholic Church; we need to realize that there is a difference between the institution and teachings by the Church of the truth revealed by Christ, and the individuals within the Church; we need to know whether or not we can trust that Jesus sent the Holy Spirit, as he said He would, to protect the Church from delivering false teachings and doctrine; we need to know if this type of behavior is prevalent only in the Catholic Church, and if not, why is it that it seems the Catholic Church is the only institution experiencing this horrible scandal; and how does the destruction of Christian unity during the Reformation factor into this discussion?

Let’s begin with who created the Church. We find the answer in Matthew 16:18. And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. Words are important. What we see in this verse is that Jesus creates the Church upon the rock of Peter, who becomes the first Pope. He also promises to protect the Church. It is important to note that Jesus uses the word “my” Church, not “a” Church, the implication of which there is to be one Church. We know that God, by His nature, creates only good. So, if Jesus, as the second person of the Trinity, created the Church, then the Church itself is good.

In John 14:16-17, Jesus tells His apostles, “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth, which the world cannot accept, because it neither sees nor knows it. But you know it because it remains with you and will be in you.”  Further in verse 26, He tells them, The Advocate, the Holy Spirit that the Father will send in my name—he will teach you everything and remind you of all that [I] told you. As the final bit of foundation, we see in verse 24 that Jesus is talking to His ultimate betrayer, Judas, and says, “Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; yet the word you hear is not mine but that of the Father who sent me.” In these few verses, we answer several of the questions. The Holy Spirit protects the Church from leading the members into false teaching and doctrine. Verse 24 tells us that the apostles, and their successors, will be taught and reminded of the truth. However, we also see that among the apostles chosen by Jesus Himself is a human capable of creating evil and betrayal, Judas. In John 6:70-71, Jesus is clear that although He chose the twelve apostles, He knew that Judas would betray him. Did He abandon the Church or scrap His plans to use the Church to teach the truth? No, He did not. Christ grew closer to those who did not betray Him, especially Peter. Despite the multiple betrayals by humans (Judases of their time) throughout the history of the Church, if Jesus did not leave Peter because of Judas, why would we? Why would we not trust the protection of the Holy Spirit and follow His example and follow the teachings of His truth by the very Church He created?

To answer the remaining questions, let’s, once again, declare that all evil is just that, evil. There is no excuse or defense. What follows is not throwing stones because we all live in glass houses. However, the information is critical to understanding the answer to the original question about how Catholics deal with the scandal. The sad truth is sexual abuse scandals are prevalent in all denominations. For example, and simply to establish the seriousness, a recent study sponsored by LifeWay Christian Resources reveals that 10% of Protestants under the age of 35 have left the Church previously because they felt that sexual abuse and misconduct were not taken seriously by their church. This is twice as many people as the 5% of churchgoers from any religion who have walked away due to the mishandling of sexual abuse. More than 375 leaders and volunteers in the Southern Baptist church have been charged with sexual misconduct over the past 12 years. Over 200 of these volunteers and leaders pled guilty or were convicted for their crimes. In another study, the Senior Pastor perpetrated 35% of abuse cases. The same egregious prevalence statistics are also found, sadly, among schoolteachers. Again, this is not intended to point fingers, but it is presented to create awareness.

In Matthew 7:1-5, perhaps Jesus gives us all a glimpse at the beginning of the solution when He says: “Stop judging, that you may not be judged. For as you judge, so will you be judged, and the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you. Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove that splinter from your eye,’ while the wooden beam is in your eye? You hypocrite, remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter from your brother’s eye.” The truth is that Catholics, Protestants, academia, and institutions all have beams in their eyes. Maybe we should start there and acknowledge the reality surrounding us and pray for each other.

Finally, if that is indeed the case, why does the Catholic Church seem to always be in the spotlight? Why don’t we hear so much about the other institutions? 

There is no more vigorous advocate for faith and morals than the teachings and doctrine of the Catholic Church. Even though the Holy Spirit protects the teachings, those who disagree with them find the scandals easy targets to discredit the Church.

John 17:20-21 contains Jesus’ Unity prayer where He prays the following to the Father: “I pray not only for them[apostles] but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me.” The Catholic Church is the “My” Church that Jesus founded. In contrast, Protestantism is not a church; it is an umbrella term describing non-Catholics. The distinction is essential. Because the Catholic Church is universal, or “one” as Jesus prayed, then we, as Catholics are all united as the body of Christ following the single truth as revealed by Christ. There are thousands of Protestant denominations, each teaching its different version of the truth. That is what is meant by Christian unity being fractured by the Reformation.

Because of this fracture, there are many different denominations within Protestant faiths, such as United Methodist and Free Methodist (there are 42 Methodist denominations in North America), Southern Baptist, and National Baptists (there are 19 Baptist denominations in the U.S.). Each of the individual church locations stands independently. The opposite is true in the Catholic Church. As Jesus prayed, there is one Roman Catholic Church teaching the same truth regardless of where it is located anywhere in the world.

This is a significant reason why the Catholic Church stands alone in the spotlight of scandal. As the body of Christ, when something happens in the Church, every Catholic is affected. Whatever happens, happens to “us.” On the other hand, if a Protestant church on a particular corner in a specific city experiences the evil of scandal, a member of that church can simply move to another non-related church, and suddenly the scandal happened to “them.” In other words, they can remove themselves from the offending church and scandal, thereby becoming “innocent by disassociation.”

A Catholic does not have or desire that option. The Catholic Church is the Church created by Christ. We rejoice together, and we suffer together, precisely as Jesus said we would. But we also find hope in the knowledge that God only creates good, and He created His Church. We are “one” for which Jesus prayed. He knew there would be Judases among us. We also find hope in knowing that He sent the Holy Spirit to protect us. He did not give up on the Church then, and He does not now. Those individual humans that create evil will have to answer for that. The Church doesn’t have a mission, but rather the mission has a Church. Because of that, Catholics will not leave Peter because of Judas. The fact that the Church has survived its collection of Judases and continues to teach the same truth for 2,000+ years is proof of Jesus delivering on His promise to send the Holy Spirit to protect it.