Sunday 6th October 2024

Home » Featured Today » Currently Reading:

Neither Left Nor Right, But Catholic… The Sexual Harassment “Crisis” — Time For Some Clear Thinking

January 11, 2018 Featured Today No Comments

By STEPHEN M. KRASON

(Editor’s Note: Stephen M. Krason’s Neither Left nor Right, but Catholic column appears monthly [sometimes bimonthly]. He is professor of political science and legal studies and associate director of the Veritas Center for Ethics in Public Life at Franciscan University of Steubenville. He is also co-founder and president of the Society of Catholic Social Scientists. Among his books are: Abortion: Politics, Morality, and the Constitution; The Transformation of the American Democratic Republic, and most recently Catholicism and American Political Ideologies. This column originally appeared in Crisismagazine.com.)

+ + +

The sexual harassment frenzy of the last few months — and it can only be called a frenzy — is disturbing in many ways, and decent and right-minded people need to speak up about it. It’s only the latest poison from the sexual revolution and the regime of moral relativism generally.
First, it is troubling that in the minds of the media and political powers that be in Washington mere allegations — often backed up by nothing more than the fact that a woman, often out of the blue, made them — are held to equal proof. No more evidence is necessary, even though the stakes are high indeed: the destruction of careers and livelihoods, the permanent damaging of reputations — even who is going to hold a Senate seat from a state.
To be sure, while only some of these claims rise to the level of criminal acts so that proof beyond a reasonable doubt is not the formal standard in play, fundamental fairness demands that there be genuine proof that a person engaged in an act — to say nothing that the act even occurred — before he’s labeled a miscreant.
In the case of Justice Roy Moore in Alabama, we witnessed a situation where there was no firm evidence that he did anything untoward, there were inconsistencies in the claims made, at least one of the accusers had big credibility problems and a criminal background, the alleged incidents happened forty years ago, and some of the allegations — such as a thirty-something man seeking the affections of teenaged girls — were hardly an issue in the culture of that time and place.
Today it’s sexual harassment concerning which mere allegation is held to be proof. Tomorrow, it will move onto other things, until we end up having moral confusion, an undermining of law, injustices left and right, and a society of deepened interpersonal suspicion that comes to resemble something like Hobbes’ state of nature.
Allegations concerning incidents of the distant past — some, as with Moore, decades old — is another particularly disturbing element in all this. Even if the criminal law is not involved, we can learn from it. There is a reason statutes of limitations exist in the criminal law. Memories dim about things in the distant past, misimpressions about them often abound, and witnesses are often not around anymore to confirm or dispute claims.
What has been painfully evident in this frenzy has been a lack of charity. This isn’t surprising, since the secular culture that is suddenly rife with sexual harassment has overturned Christianity and with it the greatest of the Christian virtues, charity.
The imperviousness to facts and proof, the willingness to let the accused flap in the wind and be destroyed, and the subjection of innocent people to grueling investigations — whether by congressional committees supposedly in the name of ethics or within private institutions — even without anything like probable cause as a threshold so as to determine if anything happened in the first place and if it could reasonably be believed that a person did anything wrong hardly bespeaks charity.
The last time I checked, calumny, libel, and detraction were sins, but then the secular culture doesn’t think there’s such a thing as sin. So, should we be surprised that many don’t blink an eye when a person’s reputation is unjustly destroyed? Also, isn’t it uncharitable to conclude the worst about someone — for example, to read a nefarious intention into what may be an innocent comment or action?
If we can take a reference point for this whole subject of sexual harassment such criminal law principles as the desirability of statutes of limitations and probable cause, we can also add the need to spell out clearly what the forbidden actions are.
One of the most basic reasons, from the standpoint of sound ethics, why a positive law might be determined to be unjust is because it is vague. If anything has been apparent from the recent exposés, it is that what constitutes “sexual harassment” is up for grabs.
It readily reminds one of the law respecting child abuse and neglect over the past forty-odd years: There are no clear definitions anywhere so pretty much whatever someone — whether it be a neighbor who dislikes a family and anonymously calls the authorities or a child protective system operative (many of whom have no firsthand experience with childrearing and whose education and training betray an anti-parent perspective) — wants to call “abuse” or “neglect” is.
Directly on point with sexual harassment, we are seeing feminists and some others pushing an expansive definition of rape that goes well beyond what has always been understood. We’re now even told that it’s sexual harassment for a young man to keep asking a young, unattached woman for a date if she keeps saying no. Didn’t at one time we think that gentle persistence would pay off in the end for both parties, that the woman might change her mind over time and wish that she had responded positively sooner?
There is another danger of open-ended definitions of such things as sexual harassment and child abuse and neglect. If they apply to everything they become trivialized and as time goes on the true cases and perpetrators too often are missed or ignored.
In the midst of this, has it dawned on anyone that we have to be wary of the self-interest of accusers? One doesn’t doubt that there legitimately is what might be called “sexual harassment” out there (for example, unwanted touching of a genuinely sexual nature — but not something, say, like a man putting his arm around a woman’s shoulder at a public photo shoot).
Also, in a sex-saturated age, it probably happens much more frequently than in the past. By the same token one can hardly ignore the fact that some people — women are no more virtuous than men in this respect — are motivated by raw self-interest and will allege untrue things for the sake of it.
Speaking of self-interest, it’s noteworthy that some of the accusers of recent months — from the worlds of politics, entertainment, and media — say that they tolerated the harassment or agreed to provide sexual favors for fear that their careers would otherwise not advance. Were their careers more important to them than sexual virtue? Can’t they truly be viewed, at least to some degree, as cooperators with wrongdoing?
As has now become apparent in the supposed campus rape crisis, it is not unheard of that a young woman who has been involved in a consensual sexual affair that has gone sour will allege that she was raped as a way to get back at the man.
Can all the high-profile actresses and female entertainers who have alleged unwanted sexual advances by their male counterparts and bosses — whose own lack of virtue, to be sure, one has no illusion about — escape all responsibility when the movies and other types of entertainment they readily take part in are hardly examples of wholesomeness when it comes to sexual morality? Can we ignore the possibility that since big name men and entities are involved money might be a motive for some of the accusers?
One does not have to look too far to find enough cases of allegations of sex discrimination or even sexual harassment by women in workplace, educational, and other institutional settings to see such self-interest at work. One is foolish not to believe that there are enough unconscionable people ready to make untrue allegations to get something they want or to retaliate against someone.
Sometimes they can get others to join the bandwagon with them to think that they too have been mistreated and so they pile on. Sometimes, for some people, the power of suggestion can be strong in riling them up to see a supposed (but unreal) injustice.
While it would not excuse true sexual harassment, don’t women have to be attentive not to create situations that could open the door to it? For example, no one seems to see a problem with provocative dress by women. In fact, the whole notion of modesty is laughed at. Even some young Christian women don’t seem to be adequately attuned to the need for modest dress.
It’s interesting that the people telling us that we have a crisis of sexual harassment say nothing about rolling back the sexual revolution or restoring the lost ethic of the gentleman, even though at bottom line these are its causes.

Seeking Power

In good feminist fashion — copying Marxism and Hobbesianism — it’s all about power. The solution is to “empower” women. Hasn’t that been what the current wave of feminism has been about for almost half a century, however? They have had one success after another, helping to transform the landscape of American culture and the male-female relationship. Still they would have us believe that women are more vulnerable than ever.
The contradictions abound. Women are the same as men, androgyny rules, the old protections enshrined in law for women had to go by the boards — yet they say that women now need protection, even from the smallest of slights. Women, they say, are as tough and capable as men. Yet, we have to respect every kind of sensitivity they might have — even if it’s an oversensitivity.
Isn’t this just another version of ensuring the “safe spaces” that some students insist upon on the campuses, so that even ideas they don’t like are considered offensive and so off-limits? We are told that women should be in every workplace alongside men and can handle all the challenges as well as them — in fact, women who choose to stay at home are denigrated — but at the same time, every small or merely perceived offensive action or injustice is pounced on and can literally become a federal case. So, institutions are constantly on their guard for fear of lawsuits.
The effect of all this — and almost all of what feminism has to offer — has been to sour relations between men and women. Oh, and by the way, check out the studies done about women’s attitudes in the era of the current feminism: Women are unhappier than before.
Like so much today, this topic cries out for realism, common sense, mutual respect across the board, norms of civility and charity, and traditional — true — morality. Don’t expect the people who are screaming about sexual harassment as one of the crises of our time to pay much attention to such things, however.

Share Button

2019 The Wanderer Printing Co.

Vatican and USCCB leave transgender policy texts unpublished

While U.S. bishops have made headlines for releasing policies addressing gender identity and pastoral ministry, guidelines on the subject have been drafted but not published by both the U.S. bishops’ conference and the Vatican’s doctrinal office, leaving diocesan bishops to…Continue Reading

Biden says Pope Francis told him to continue receiving communion, amid scrutiny over pro-abortion policies

President Biden said that Pope Francis, during their meeting Friday in Vatican City, told him that he should continue to receive communion, amid heightened scrutiny of the Catholic president’s pro-abortion policies.  The president, following the approximately 90-minute-long meeting, a key…Continue Reading

Federal judge rules in favor of Gov. DeSantis’ mask mandate ban

MIAMI (LifeSiteNews) – A federal judge this week handed Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis another legal victory on his mask mandate ban for schools. On Wednesday, Judge K. Michael Moore of the Southern District of Florida denied a petition from…Continue Reading

The Eucharist should not be received unworthily, says Nigerian cardinal

Priests have a duty to remind Catholics not to receive the Eucharist in a state of serious sin and to make confession easily available, a Nigerian cardinal said at the International Eucharistic Congress on Thursday. “It is still the doctrine…Continue Reading

Donald Trump takes a swipe at Catholics and Jews who did not vote for him

Donald Trump complained about Catholics and Jews who did not vote for him in 2020. The former president made the comments in a conference call featuring religious leaders. The move could be seen to shore up his religious conservative base…Continue Reading

Y Gov. Kathy Hochul Admits Andrew Cuomo Covered Up COVID Deaths, 12,000 More Died Than Reported

When it comes to protecting people from COVID, Andrew Cuomo is already the worst governor in America. New York has the second highest death rate per capita, in part because he signed an executive order putting COVID patients in nursing…Continue Reading

Prayers For Cardinal Burke . . . U.S. Cardinal Burke says he has tested positive for COVID-19

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — U.S. Cardinal Raymond L. Burke said he has tested positive for the virus that causes COVID-19. In an Aug. 10 tweet, he wrote: “Praised be Jesus Christ! I wish to inform you that I have recently…Continue Reading

Democrats Block Amendment Banning Late-Term Abortions, Stopping Abortions Up to Birth

Senate Democrats have blocked an amendment that would ban abortions on babies older than 20 weeks. During consideration of the multi-trillion spending package, pro-life Louisiana Senator John Kennedy filed an amendment to ban late-term abortions, but Democrats steadfastly support killing…Continue Reading

Transgender student wins as U.S. Supreme Court rebuffs bathroom appeal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday handed a victory to a transgender former public high school student who waged a six-year legal battle against a Virginia county school board that had barred him from using the bathroom corresponding…Continue Reading

New York priest accused by security guard of assault confirms charges have now been dropped

NEW YORK, June 17, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — A New York priest has made his first public statement regarding the dismissal of charges against him.  Today Father George W. Rutler reached out to LifeSiteNews and other media today with the following…Continue Reading

21,000 sign petition protesting US Catholic bishops vote on Biden, abortion

More than 21,000 people have signed a letter calling for U.S. Catholic bishops to cancel a planned vote on whether President Biden should receive communion.  Biden, a Catholic, supports abortion rights and has long come under attack from some Catholics over that…Continue Reading

Bishop Gorman seeks candidates to fill two full time AP level teaching positions for the 2021-2022 school year in the subject areas of Calculus/Statistics and Physics

Bishop Thomas K. Gorman Regional Catholic School is a college preparatory school located in Tyler, Texas. It is an educational ministry of the Catholic Diocese of Tyler led by Bishop Joseph Strickland. The sixth through twelfth grade school provides a…Continue Reading

Untitled 5 Untitled 2

Attention Readers:

  Welcome to our website. Readers who are familiar with The Wanderer know we have been providing Catholic news and orthodox commentary for 150 years in our weekly print edition.


  Our daily version offers only some of what we publish weekly in print. To take advantage of everything The Wanderer publishes, we encourage you to su
bscribe to our flagship weekly print edition, which is mailed every Friday or, if you want to view it in its entirety online, you can subscribe to the E-edition, which is a replica of the print edition.
 
  Our daily edition includes: a selection of material from recent issues of our print edition, news stories updated daily from renowned news sources, access to archives from The Wanderer from the past 10 years, available at a minimum charge (this will be expanded as time goes on). Also: regularly updated features where we go back in time and highlight various columns and news items covered in The Wanderer over the past 150 years. And: a comments section in which your remarks are encouraged, both good and bad, including suggestions.
 
  We encourage you to become a daily visitor to our site. If you appreciate our site, tell your friends. As Catholics we must band together to rediscover our faith and share it with the world if we are to effectively counter a society whose moral culture seems to have no boundaries and a government whose rapidly extending reach threatens to extinguish the rights of people of faith to practice their religion (witness the HHS mandate). Now more than ever, vehicles like The Wanderer are needed for clarification and guidance on the issues of the day.

Catholic, conservative, orthodox, and loyal to the Magisterium have been this journal’s hallmarks for five generations. God willing, our message will continue well into this century and beyond.

Joseph Matt
President, The Wanderer Printing Co.

Untitled 1

Catechism

Today . . .

This week at the Synod on Synodality — revolution or much ado about nothing?

Perhaps it is in the very nature of the Synod on Synodality to take steps back after having taken several steps forward. But the tone of the opening days of the synod’s final general assembly makes it apparent that, for the moment, there is no talk of revolution within the Church.  That tone was set days before the gathering got underway this week at the Vatican, when in his speech in Belgium on Sept. 27, Pope Francis…Continue Reading

Wyoming doctor fired by GOP governor for opposing child ‘sex changes’ asks to be reinstated

(The Daily Signal) — Wyoming’s governor removed a doctor from the state’s board of medicine because the doctor supported a law banning “gender-affirming care” for minors. The doctor is suing, and his lawyers are filing a motion Tuesday asking the court to reinstate him on the medical board. His legal team also revealed that more than 5,000 Wyoming residents have signed a petition asking the governor to reinstate him

Pro-life leaders express disgust with ‘fully booked’ mobile Planned Parenthood unit at DNC

(LifeSiteNews) — Planned Parenthood was “fully booked” with 25 appointments to dispense abortion pills at a mobile center on Monday and Tuesday during the Democratic National Convention (DNC). “Twenty-five innocent human beings whose lives are being ended at the DNC. And this is done as a political statement,” pro-life activist Lila Rose remarked Tuesday on her podcast.

Pope Francis acknowledges conference for ‘LGBT Catholics’

Pope Francis this week said he is “united in prayer” with those participating in a conference for Catholics who identify as LGBT taking place this weekend in Washington, D.C. Father James Martin, a controversial Jesuit priest who founded the pro-LGBT group Outreach in 2022, reportedly asked Pope Francis if he would like to send a greeting to the group’s 2024 gathering, taking place Aug. 2–4 at Georgetown University. Cardinal Wilton Gregory of Washington is scheduled to celebrate Mass on Saturday at…Continue Reading

Senators Slam Army After Presentation Calls Pro-Life Americans Terrorists

Senators James Lankford (R-OK) and Ted Budd (R-NC), along with Representative Richard Hudson (R-NC) and their colleagues, sent a letter to Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth demanding answers after an anti-terrorism training conducted at Fort Liberty, North Carolina depicted Pro-Life Americans as terrorists. “We write regarding social media reports that anti-terrorism training conducted at Ft. Liberty, North Carolina depicts Pro-Life Americans as terrorists. Specifically, the slides identify National Right to Life, ‘Choose Life’ license plate holders, and…Continue Reading

The King of Kings

Cindy Paslawski We are at the end of the Church year. We began with Advent a year ago, commemorating the time awaiting the coming of the Christ and we are ending these weeks later with a vision of the future, a vision of Christ the King of the Universe on His throne before us all.…Continue Reading

7,000 Pro-Lifers March In London

By STEVEN ERTELT LONDON (LifeNews) — Over the weekend, some seven thousand pro-life people in the UK participated in the March for Life in London to protest abortion.They marched to Parliament Square on Saturday, September 2 under the banner of “Freedom to Live” and had to deal with a handful of radical abortion activists.During the…Continue Reading

An Appeal For Prayer For The Armenian People

By RAYMOND LEO CARDINAL BURKE (Editor’s Note: His Eminence Raymond Cardinal Burke on August 29, 2023, issued this prayer for the Armenian people, noting their unceasing love for Christ, even in the face of persecution.) + + On the Feast of the Beheading of St. John the Baptist, having a few days ago celebrated the…Continue Reading

Robert Hickson, Founding Member Of Christendom College, Dies At 80

By MAIKE HICKSON FRONT ROYAL, Va. (LifeSiteNews) — Robert David Hickson, Jr., of Front Royal, Va., died at his home on September 2, 2023, at 21:29 p.m. after several months of suffering and after having received the Last Rites of the Catholic Church. He was surrounded by friends and family.Robert is survived by me —…Continue Reading

The Real Hero Of “Sound of Freedom”… Says The Film Has Strengthened The Fight Against Child Trafficking

By ANA PAULA MORALES (CNA) —Tim Ballard, a former U.S. Homeland Security agent who risked his life to fight child trafficking, discussed the impact of the movie Sound of Freedom, which is based on his work, in an August 29 interview with ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. “I’ve spent more than 20 years helping…Continue Reading

Advertisement

Our Catholic Faith (Section B of print edition)

Catholic Replies

Editor’s Note: This lesson on medical-moral issues is taken from the book Catholicism & Ethics. Please feel free to use the series for high schoolers or adults. We will continue to welcome your questions for the column as well. The email and postal addresses are given at the end of this column. Special Course On Catholicism And Ethics (Pages 53-59)…Continue Reading

Color Politics An Impediment To Faith

By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK The USCCB is rightly concerned about racism, as they should be about any sin. In the 2018 statement Open Wide Our Hearts, they affirm the dignity of every human person: “But racism still profoundly affects our culture, and it has no place in the Christian heart. This evil causes great harm to its victims, and…Continue Reading

Trademarks Of The True Messiah

By MSGR. CHARLES POPE (Editor’s Note: Msgr. Charles Pope posted this essay on September 2, and it is reprinted here with permission.) + + In Sunday’s Gospel the Lord firmly sets before us the need for the cross, not as an end in itself, but as the way to glory. Let’s consider the Gospel in three stages.First: The Pattern That…Continue Reading

A Beacon Of Light… The Holy Cross And Jesus’ Unconditional Love

By FR. RICHARD D. BRETON Each year on September 14 the Church celebrates the Feast Day of the Exultation of the Holy Cross. The Feast Day of the Triumph of the Holy Cross commemorates the day St. Helen found the True Cross. It is fitting then, that today we should focus on the final moments of Jesus’ life on the…Continue Reading

Our Ways Must Become More Like God’s Ways

By FR. ROBERT ALTIER Twenty-Fifth Sunday In Ordinary Time (YR A) Readings: Isaiah 55:6-9Phil. 1:20c-24, 27aMatt. 20:1-16a In the first reading today, God tells us through the Prophet Isaiah that His thoughts are not our thoughts and His ways are not our ways. This should not come as a surprise to anyone, especially when we look at what the Lord…Continue Reading

The Devil And The Democrats

By FR. DENIS WILDE, OSA States such as Minnesota, California, Maryland, and others, in all cases with Democrat-controlled legislatures, are on a fast track to not only allow unborn babies to be murdered on demand as a woman’s “constitutional right” but also to allow infanticide.Our nation has gotten so used to the moral evil of killing in the womb that…Continue Reading

Crushed But Unbroken . . . The Martyrdom Of St. Margaret Clitherow

By RAY CAVANAUGH The late-1500s were a tough time for Catholics in England, where the Reformation was in full gear. A 1581 law prohibited Catholic religious ceremonies. And a 1584 Act of Parliament mandated that all Catholic priests leave the country or else face execution. Some chose to remain, however, so they could continue serving the faithful.Also taking huge risks…Continue Reading

Advertisement(2)