I guess this type of thing isn't exclusive to Catholic priests... >>>
It never was exclusively a "Catholic" or a "celibate" problem. It's just that non-Catholic conservatives/freepers , Protestants and the left-wing, socialist media joined forces against the Catholic Church to see it's demise. There were Dozens of freepers who posted every abuse case on the FR and just enjoyed to bash the Pope, the Catholic church, catholics, etc.
Sexual abuse is an equal opportunity disease for Catholics, Protestants and Jews, even Orthodox Jews; it's just that the Catholics get all the blame and negative press. And Catholic priests have been prosecuted "before" the scandal, that too was another point the media left out. It all depended from which Diocese the priest was.
"CHURCH EVANGELIZERS PREYED ON LOW-INCOME KIDS.
Men from a rural Baptist church known for its aggressive evangelizing of children are suspected of molesting as many as 22 boys & girls. The associate pastor, volunteer bus driver & a third church member are believed to have fondled some & raped others, ranging in age from 3 to 10, on church buses & property. Charges involving 10 victims were brought against Associate Pastor Timothy Lee Leonard, 32, of North Sharon Baptist Church near Grass Lake, & volunteer Sunday school bus driver, church deacon Mark Foeller. Three other church members are being investigated. The suspects went to low-income housing projects or trailer parks in 4 counties, telling parents they would "take the children to church & teach them about God", according to Det. Robert Fitzpatrick, Jackson Co. Men would walk up to children in their yards, coaxing them with treats to come to weekend services or summer Bible school. Leonard was relieved of church duties involving children in August, after police started investigating him when a doctor reported suspected abuse in a child with a sexual disease. He also worked as instructor & gym teacher in the North Sharon Christian School, enrolling about 65 students. "
We have to keep our kids _safe_ from Baptist pedophiles!
Buzz Kelly
* BRONSON MINISTER ARRAIGNED.
First Congregational Church minister David Covert Moore was charged with 5 counts of criminal sexual conduct of 4 children under the age of 15. In July he checked himself into Pine Rest Christian Counseling Services in Grand Rapids. Source: Jackson Citizen Patriot 8/29/92.
* AIR FORCE CHAPLAIN RAIDED. Deputies raided the home of Veterans Administration chaplain Rev. Donald G. Phillips, of Butler County, seizing 500 video tapes, movie equipment and restraints following a tip that he produced pornographic movies with young girls. The Baptist minister recently received the highest recognition awarded a VA chaplain, "the Award for Excellence in Chaplain Service". Source:
St. Louis Post-Dispatch 2/19/92.
* BAPTIST VOLUNTEER CONVICTED.
Granite State Baptist Church volunteer David Kirsch, 39, of Salem, was convicted of sexually assaulting 6 young girls through the church from the late 1970s to the mid-1980s.
Source: USA Today 9/25/92.
* MINISTER & GIRLFRIEND INDICTED.
Trenton pastor Franklin Tucker, 37, Final Call Ministry, was indicted for molesting his girlfriend's daughters, 9 & 15. His girlfriend was indicted for forcing her daughters to recant the allegations to police. The abuse came to light when the 9-year-old told a school official, who contacted police. Source: Trenton Times 9/15/92.
* CIVIL SUIT: 11-YEAR-OLD MOLESTED.
A family in Dare County, North Carouna is suing Methodist minister Carl M. Eller for abusing their daughter, 11, as well as the North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church, a bishop and a reverend for knowing of his history of sexual misconduct but doing nothing about it. The family says she was molested when her father, a carpenter, was installing cabinets in the parsonage. Eller pleaded no contest to a charge of criminal assault on a female. However, the family said that in 1987 Eller had molested or made lewd comments to 4 women at his church, and forcibly kissed and touched 2 girls age 13. Three women had lodged formal complaints with the church, but the only action was to transfer him from Aurora to Hamlet. Source: News & Observer 1/15/92.
* BAPTIST PASTOR RESIGNS AMID SCANDAL.
Asheville Baptist pastor Michael R. Stewart, 34, of Oakley, resigned following his arrest in a prostitution sting. Stewart's name was among 400 on a full-page ad that month promoting family & traditional biblical values. Source:
Citizen-Times 6/30/92.
* CHURCH SUED FOR NEGLIGENCE.
One of several girls who said Alva minister Rev. Robert Bruce Brigden molested her is suing the First Presbyterian Church for failing to check his background before hiring him. Allegations of sexual crimes were made at his former position in Kansas. Charges allege that he molested Alva church girls, ages 4 to 14. The church posted his bond. Source: _Tulsa Tribune
* PRESBYTERIAN MINISTER GETS 40 YEARS.
Rev. Robert Bruce Brigden was sentenced to 40 years in prison for molesting young girls in his congregation, convicted on 8 counts of lewd molestation & 1 count of rape by instrumentation involving a girl, 7. Bridgen, 57, was accused of molesting 11 girls, aged 4 to 14, during the 4 years he was at the Alva church. His congregation put the church up as bond, insisting he was innocent. He was placed in protected custody. Brigden blamed his arrest on a girl, 4, whose parents were the first to take the children's allegations seriously. "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned," Brigden wrote his wife about the 4-year-old, whom he described as "4 going on 400 years old", saying she invited him to spend the night in her bed, & was mad that he declined. Source: Tulsa Tribune 8/92, Tulsa World 9/3/92, _Daily Oklahoman_ 6/14/92.
* CHURCH VOLUNTEER CHARGED WITH CHILD PORNOGRAPHY.
Church volunteer Seven Jon Long, 41, was arrested for sodomy and taking pornographic pictures of young girls under 12 from Assembly of God Church in Rogue River, where he was a youth volunteer. He told detectives his pictures were art. Source: Daily Courier, Grants Pass, 4/17/92.
* CONVICTED PASTOR "RIGHT WITH LORD".
Rev. Virgil Carpenter, 48, pastor of Bible Missionary Church in Ontario, was convicted of sodomy & sexual abuse of a girl, 9, over a 1-1/2 year period. A jury convicted Carpenter of 2 felony counts of sodomy & 4 felony counts of sexual abuse. He faces 5 additional felony charges in 2 upcoming trials. "I'm really not worried," he told supporters who had gathered in the courtroom before the verdict. "I'm right with the Lord." Source: Corvallis Gazette-Times 10/11/92.
726 PROTESTant MINISTERS ABUSE CHILDREN
http://www.reformation.com/CSA/startPage.html http://www.cin.org/users/msmith/reformation/baptistsabuse.html Catholic bashing and pedophile priests
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=26955 Minister Rapes Teen
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0530minister-sexcharge-ON.html Lutheran minister asked to quit sexuality task force
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/Midwest/11/27/priest.abuse.ap/index.html Sex scandals also affect Protestant clergy
http://www.freep.com/news/religion/prot5_20020405.htm U.S. Protestants also facing sex abuse scandals
Expert: Frequency of abuse by Protestant clergy may equal that of Catholic priests
http://www.thehollandsentinel.net/stories/040602/rel_040602027.shtml Accusations filed against NY ministers
http://www.layman.org/layman/news/news-from-pcusa/accusations-filed-against-ny-ministers.htm Protestant Clergy Abuse
http://polycafe.com/sacredfire/sacredfire-2002/3305.htm Sex scandals also affect Protestant clergy
http://www.reformation.com/CSA/HowthescandalsaredifferentforProtestants.htm U.S. Protestants also facing sex abuse scandals
Expert: Frequency of abuse by Protestant clergy may equal that of Catholic priests
http://www.thehollandsentinel.net/stories/040602/rel_040602027.shtml Catholic clergy singled out, historian says
http://www.detnews.com/2002/religion/0204/13/a09-457640.htm Sex abuse spans spectrum of churches
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0405/p01s01-ussc.html A 14-year-old girl in foster care is raped and impregnated by Deacon Stephen Andrews of the Advent Christian Church in Kennebunk, Maine, a trusted figure. She gives birth. Andrews gets 5 years in prison, 3 of them suspended, despite the protests of the prosecutor.
Salvation Army Captain William Douglas is convicted of molesting, sodomizing and sexually terrorizing young Indian boys in a village in British Columbia. Douglas was acquitted of similar charges in 1985; the judge said he could not accept that a minister would lie.
Born-again Delaware preacher William J. Keichline, Sr. is commended by the legislature for running Mission of Care ministry for the homeless. As a landlord he assaults and rapes a girl for 3 years starting when she is 7, threatening to evict her family if she tells. He gets eight 20 year prison terms for rape, bondage and child pornography.
Included in the study were prominent clergy and evangelists who had made names for themselves through special ministries or "good works."
The profile of the typical minister charged with molesting children: a 45-year-old man (ages ranged from 24 to 80 at the time of arrest), with 4 to 5 named victims, most often boys in their early teens.
Of all the accused, 37% involved female victims, 58% male victims, and 3.2% children of both sexes. (In 1% of the cases, the sex of the victim was not identified.)
Charges for all 190 cases involved a total of 847 victims. Most ministers, however, were suspected of molesting many other children. Conservatively, the 190 clergy had at least 4,000 other victims, for a low estimate of an average of 21 victims each. These children were not included in charges for pragmatic legal reasons, because they had been molested in other cities and times, or because the statute of limitations had been exceeded. Some estimates were anecdotal based on investigations or confessions by the molester.
Convicted ministers averaged 5 victims each, with 133 ministers molesting at least 651 named victims.
Information on the marital status of Protestants, gleaned from newspaper accounts so therefore incomplete, showed that at least 43% were married. This would dispel the idea that celibacy alone triggers ministerial child molestation. Twelve cases involved clergy charged with molesting their own children, stepchildren, adopted children or foster children.
While many see therapy as a panacea for this crime, only about a third of the convicted ministers and priests had had some kind of counseling or psychiatric evaluation, mandated or otherwise.
Typical Profile
The average age of priests charged last year with sexual abuse of children was 50 years. The range was 35 to 73 years.
The average Protestant minister was 46 years, with a similar range.
Lay Catholics and Protestants charged with sexual abuse were typically caught while in their 30's.
Many Previous Records
Shockingly, 11 out of 46 Protestant ministers charged in 1990 with criminal sexual abuse had prior convictions--almost a quarter of the cases:
All prior convictions were since 1985. Most of the men received light sentences enabling them to return to the pulpit--and continued sexual abuse of children--quickly. Churches are not only failing to check ministers' records, but in some instances are knowingly hiring convicted child molesters.
Five of the 23 nonordained Protestant church workers charged last year had had run-ins with authorities, including one discharged from the Navy for molesting boys.
In 22% of the cases, cover-ups shielding Protestant ministers were reported, in a variety of denominations. These included out-of-court settlements, defrocking a suspected child abuser but not notifying authorities about the abuse, "spiritual support," complicity, congregations applauding accused abusers, and telling reporters "The whole church knows he's not guilty," and "We're solidly behind him." "Satan can get his claws into anyone," said the friend of an Episcopalian rector accused of 73 counts of sodomizing and abusing mentally and emotionally handicapped boys before church functions.
The most blatant cover-up involved a Salvation Army minister who was permitted to keep his job and given continuing access to children after back-to-back arrests for sexually abusing children at the church.
I can't recall who said it, but rumor is the anti-church establishment will go after conservative evangelicals when they are finished with Catholics.
Nicely done, Coleus.
ten percent of girls are sexually abused, and probably 5 percent of boys. Of course it is not a problem only with priests.
Indeed, ten percent of doctors have had sex with their patients, and the percentage of sexual activity with patients is at least twice that high with psychologists/psychiatrists. but no one bothers to metion this...