Reconciliation doesn’t involve bringing him BACK into the family to do it again while there are still multitudes of potential victims in the house. Whatever you feel about forgiveness and grace, the common sense action at that point should have been Josh going to live with his (still living) grandparents. Or some other relative with no small children present.
As I’ve said. Unless the family installed cameras all through the house, they have no idea what he was doing. They had fourteen OTHER children to pay attention to at that point. Moreover there’s no indication that anyone else was made aware of his predilections to keep OTHER small children away from him.
Recidivism with pedophiles is nearly universal. Regardless of whether you ‘forgive’ them or not. One of the hallmarks of that particular personality trait is untruthfulness. So even if he says ‘I prayed about it, received forgiveness from God and am no longer attracted to 4yr old girls’, you have no way of knowing if they’re telling the truth or not.
And common sense would dictate you keep such people FAR FAR away from other children. For the children’s safety and the sanity of the perp. Making a pedo be around other small children day in and day out w/o re-offending is no different than asking a recovered alcoholic to tend bar. It’s unfair to the perp as well.
And, given his statement, I see absolutely no contrition for what he did to his sisters. I see only concern about ruining HIS future. THAT is the most disturbing part of all of this. His statement is absolutely pathological in that regard.
Completely agree with your point about recidivism rates for pedophiles. Agree that maybe his parents could/should have done more to protect the other children. You completely miss my point. It breaks my heart to see fellow Christians stand in such Pharisaic self-righteousness judgment, as though our sins are somehow less “sinful” than this sin. God is no respecter of persons. My sin is no less sinful than Josh’s. His is just a lot more public. And maybe he will have legal consequences for his. But, he is just as needing of God’s grace and just as deserving as I was when I raised my hand and said “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”