Posted on 07/03/2008 7:24:45 PM PDT by Coleus
The minister of Brentford Free Church has said the "thoughts and prayers" of the church community are with those involved in the case of pastor Andrew Gilroy, who was jailed for child sex offences last Friday. Rev David Beazley said the paedophile pastor of the Syon Mission had been a "colleague and friend".
He said: "We share the sadness of the whole situation, and our hope is that there will now be opportunity for all those directly and indirectly affected to move on."
Gilroy abused his position to befriend teenage boys and invite them to his home for photographic sessions. He paid them up to £40 a session and by the time police caught up with Gilroy, he had more than 3,000 indecent images of boys aged 16 and 17, prosecutor Peter Lancaster told Isleworth Crown Court.
Bearded, bespectacled and bald, Gilroy admitted 13 charges - four of paying for the sexual services of a child, four of taking indecent photographs of a child, three of making indecent photographs, one of distributing them on the internet and one of possessing 3,471 indecent images of children between January 2006 and his arrest seven months later.
-snip-
He was found to have about 1,500 images at level one (the lowest in seriousness), nearly 2,000 at level two and 83 at level four. Level five is the most serious. Two other boys of a similar age were pictured.
(Excerpt) Read more at epsomguardian.co.uk ...
Yes.....every man's friend.
Notice that the Guardian uses the PC word "paedophile," when either "ephebophile" or "pederast" would be more correct.
The man is a youth-worshipping homosexual, which is a different critter than a "paedophile."
But of course the Guardian must conceal the truth here, and so they do ..... lightly .... and with a single, well-chosen word.
Why not put pedophile priests in once in a while? Oh, I guess they’re just pushed under the rug. At least the protty’s prosecute most of their sinful pastors.
Agreed. There's NEVER been an article posted on FR about the priest scandals in the Catholic Church, no Catholic priest pedophile has EVER gone to prison, or been prosecuted.
/extreme dripping sarcasm
Feigned ignorance by some protestants of the vast coverage of the Catholic ephebephile sex scandals here on FR is very unbecoming to the protestants. But it shouldn't fool anyone, and lamely trying to turn the focus to Catholics when the criminals are PROTESTANT. About time the protestants excoriated their own, for a change.
MAMBLA wants this creep appointed to a Scoutmaster.
Protestants aren’t happy about any child being molested, but most of the protestant pastors are prosecuted, not moved from church to church. Coleus isn’t fooling anyone by posting all s/he can find regarding protestant pedophiles.
Are you nuts? The Catholic priests have been reported on this site as long as I can remember. The only difference is when it involves the Catholics there are 70, 80, 300 or so responses filled with hate. These people seem awful quiet when it isn’t a Catholic priest that is reported.
Many of the articles posted have discussed how the pastors are out on bail, or molested children over YEARS, or had multiple victims, or are STILL ON THE CHURCH REGISTRY AS PASTORS AVAILABLE FOR ASSIGNMENT, even after being convicted.
So, I don’t think Coleus is trying to fool anyone. Aside from that being “mind reading” (which is against open thread rules, BTW) I think some protestants are fooling themselves that somehow they are better than Catholics in this regard.
I can just imagine what protestants would say about an accused priest being allowed to continue his work while being investigated—and I would agree. But it doesn’t seem to stop protestants from screaming that the pastors are innocent until proven guilty, now, does it?
Coleus (sic) is the non Catholic Pastors counter balance.
IOW It happens and the choice of ones Religion does not make it immune from human nature as perverted or not as it can be.
I think it rather silly to attribute ones faith in God to there being human screw ups.
Richard Gere was a total Buddha Boy but had some booty perversion sins with Gerbils.
Oh by the way this is my own opine not speaking for either freeper in the battle of which religion has more perverts or not war.
I'm sorry to say that I think the pope did exactly the same thing during his last visit to the United States. He specifically condemned American pedophile priests, but not the homosexual, pederast priests who perpetrated the vast majority of the abuse.
This pastor is not a pedophile. The boys were post-pubescent.
But of course this article is not about the Pope. This article is about a Protestant.
Changing the subject off the Syon Mission Chuch because Protestants can’t face their own scandals?
It amazes me how many protestants come onto these threads and immediately talk about Catholics. Why can’t Protestants deal with it? What weaknesses do they have, that encourage these epebephiles to search for victims among the sola scriptura/sola fide crowd? I think it’s the Protestant focus on emotionalism in their services, their weekly “fix” of yelling “amen!” and singing at the top of their lungs, weeping and clapping.
All that emotionalism is very intoxicating....
Save your anti-Protestant bigotry for a Protestant.
Actually, the article is about a protestant pederast/ephebephile. I find it interesting that so many protestants are in denial about the existence of the problem in protestant churches. If you find that dull of me, oh well.
What FReeper is that? Which threads are those? I've looked all over the articles listed under the Religion Forum, and I can't find anything that resembles what you're describing. Certainly nothing to the tune of 5-15 articles a day.
I would certainly encourage anyone who finds any news stories about Catholic priests engaging in sexual sin to post them.
I know Catholics will be on it if there are any new instances revealed, especially if they are not handled through the law.
It is time to bring all this filth out in the open so that it can be battled in the light instead of growing in the dark.
I don’t care if it is a thousand posts a day if it makes people aware and less likely to be victims or raise victims.
10-4
I would discourage keeping score on this. It's a terrible axe to grind and a sad body count. Whoever wants to tangle about denominations, go right ahead. But if the first thing that crosses your mind when you read of sex abuse by clergy is "Whose side was it on?", then we all need to think more about praying.
When the Freeper that does that goes on his binge I will ping you.
I cant think of the screenname off hand.
I would appreciate the ping!
You are clearly obsessed with the score of your sick little game, but some of us could not care less who “wins.”
Exactly. We need to be praying because satanists are always praying that our pastors and priests sin grieviously and usually sexually. Why should their prayers be overshadowing our own?
I don’t think we’re counting perverts here. I prefer to pray for these men who feel they can take advantage of children because they’re supposedly ‘godly’ men. It happens everywhere. Teachers do it, Scout leaders do it, pastors and priests do it, others in authority do it. God will not stand for this much longer.
I think we can all read, Judith Anne. We KNOW that pastors and other ‘godly’ men are more than capable of this grievious sin. It’s time to pray for all our leaders, that God would expose the pedophiles and perverts, which I believe He’s doing, and that they would repent and turn back to Him (which IS possible).
Am I nuts? No, I’m not. I don’t like ANY so-called Christian diddling our kids. My son was molested for four years by an older neighbor’s kid, from the time he was 8 until he was 12. I am VERY sensitive about these things, no matter what religion they represent. Priests seem to be in the majority, however, and much of it has been pushed under the rug and priests get shoved from parish to parish with no warnings to the next congregation. NO one, pastor, priest, trustee, or janitor in a church, should get away with this.
You wrote, "and that they would repent and turn back to Him (which IS possible)"
Thank you so much for adding this. The usual line I hear both from talk shows and even here on FR is that these people CAN NOT repent or change. That is wrong.
When a friend several years ago, who visited our church, turned out to have molested his adopted daughter many dozens of times, I was really floored. I had to discern whether he was a monster masquerading as a "nice guy" or something else.
I started researching in earnest and discovered that molesters can be divided into psychopaths who have no sense of guilt at all and will never change and others who are really messed up but don't want to do what they do. Molestation that occurs within families is often of this second type.
This fellow confessed (even to incidents that no one knew about) and pleaded guilty to everything. His total sentence was thirty years. For psychopaths (my type 1, above) this may be appropriate but not for type 2.
On the anniversary of turning himself in, he called me and said that although he had many conflicting emotions that day, his strongest reaction was gratitude to God for stopping him from that sin.
He now has a ministry in the prison he is incarcerated in as a chaplain's clerk. He seems truly happy when he calls us!
Yes, there is salvation and healing even for these people.
Yes, there really is and God is the ONLY one who can heal them of their abberations. Counseling won’t do it. Even incarceration won’t do it. It has to be a complete change of heart, which of course only God is able to make happen. Love, Mxxx
You said: Priests seem to be in the majority,..
They only seem to be because of the MSM agenda against Catholicism. By far the largest majority of cases come from home abuse followed by the public schools. Current Catholic cases (abuse this decade) are fairly rare but have skyrocketed among protestant clergy:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/childrensministry/articles/sexualabuseinthechurch.html
We can all agree that we need to protect our children from these perverts.
What is it with you guys and your mind reading baloney? Or your ‘don’t get personal’ junk. Why not let the mods take care of what they consider personal and mind reading. When you guys do it, it looks like kissing up to the mods. Get a grip.
Actually, incarceration protects us but doesn’t help them. My friend will not be eligible for any program (e.g. counseling) for another twenty five years or so!
For people who want to change, good therapy can help. But he won’t get any.
It seems to me that this “they can’t change” nonsense CAUSES more abuse because it keeps anyone from seeking help when the urge or problem is just starting. If “they can’t change” why should they ask for any kind of help?
By the way, I checked out my on-line research by scheduling an appointment with the head of our state’s sex abuse therapists association who just happened to be a committed Christian. He confirmed all this. Many people can chage. We read about the ones that don’t.
ROTFL! And you can trust me on this: it looks nothing like "kissing up to the mods"...
Statistically speaking, it's not that they can/can't change, it's that they don't change. But I'm glad that you brought up this issue, because I was just thinking about this very question before I read your post. More specifically, I was pondering the U.S. Supreme Court's recent "child rape" case wherein they struck down the death penalty for convicted child rapists, and whether it's going to affect prosecution of sexual abuse cases in/by the Church.
FWIW, the Old Testament case laws proscribed death for rapists when the victim is under marital vows (Deut 22:22). In cases when the victim is unmarried, the rape (surprisingly) is not a capital offense. Instead, the perpetrator becomes legally (and financially) responsible to marry and support the victim (Ex 22:16-17) for life; only the victim is allowed to initiate a divorce afterwards (i.e. the attacker is financially and legally responsible to support the victim as their spouse for life, losing the right to seek a divorce from the victim under any grounds). In both cases, there is no consideration of "change". In either case, the decision to grant mercy lies with the victim, not with the courts. It's up to the victim, and no one else, to decide if the attacker can "change", and the attacker is at their mercy.
Alex,
That is really interesting. I have to point out a small jump in your thinking, however. That the victim can determine whether or not to show mercy does NOT equate directly to whether the person CAN change but rather to whether they have changed.
By the way, this brings up another issue. The people who CAN change are usually family members or others who are close to the victim.
In such cases, the victim is often torn between strong affection for and great anger at the perpetrator. This is certainly true in the case I referred to earlier.
This is usually referred to as “ambivalence”, which is usually a rather unassuming, gentle word but in the context of child sexual abuse is part of the great emotional burden placed on young lives.
Does it seem to anyone that this plague, which is much more wide spread than priests or clergy in general, (it is widespread in schools, and in your local paper at least weekly) is growing at an alarming pace?
Is it just that we are more aware of this or is the rate increasing?
Are we limited to punishing perps or is there any thing we can do to stop it before it starts?
Nor was it ever intended to; I do not always agree with the RM. I respect the position, however and the rules, and that should be quite clear from my postings.
My intent in making the statement was to point out the behavior, whether the RM ever sees it or cares about it or not.
Why can I trust you on this? Do you discuss my posts with the RM?
Did you post this through the wrong account?
If so, we can expect a lot of deleted posts.
That "small jump" was no error in my thinking, but rather an intentional shift in the argument. Whether or not the perp can change is beside the point. If we take the approach that the OT case laws are a demonstration of God's unchanging moral values, then a decision re "can criminals change?" can only be answered on a case-by-case basis, and only by the perp's victim. The views of society and/or the court system should be given no consideration at sentencing time.
I agree with you.
The vocation of the perv is not in ? unless they are purposely signing up to have access.
My opine was we have a couple of good freepers who just happen to go on Catholic pervs and non Catholic Perv posting sprees.
That is the tally board.
Ya know the media is all over tiki torch fuel that comes in a looks like juice container.
I told KV that when I was 3ish yrs old my birth Mom took me around the house and showed me with a very stern voice that I was not to touch the bottles she put the skull/crossbones on it is poison ect ect....
We are missing that somehow if we have to hold the product industry liable as educators when Moms and Dads should cover this.
I am so glad my child rearing days are behind me.
Only thing I regret is things I pounded into his head he now warns me about...safety first Mom.
Love it.
I think priests are the most PUBLISHED and I think my nephew’s son who was molested by a youth minister would agree.
LOL! Are you for real? You think this goes on in all Protestant churches? Not in mine.
As for sex scandals, I really don't care what religion they are, they come in all stripes. Protestant, Catholic, etc. Perverts are everywhere. You seem to be angry that so much attention was paid by the MSM to the priest sex scandals from a few years ago.
I will just say this, Cardinal Law should be in prison right now, not serving at the Vatican. People who cover up and protect pedophiles are evil, no matter the religion.
As I said before, pervs come in all stripes. If these pervs are getting shipped to other churches and some are hiding their past, well then yes we have a problem.
Bingo. Keeping score is pathetic.
I don’t have to raise kids anymore either. My baby is in his early 40’s, but I am concerned for my grandchildren. It’s a tough time to be raising kids, even when you do it right, or try to. satan is always on the prowl.
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