[Alex Murphy]

Ping for reference

[ArrogantBustard]

One of the largest settlements to date in Protestant churches involved the case of former Lutheran minister Gerald Patrick Thomas Jr. in Texas, where a jury several years ago awarded the minister's victims nearly $37 million. Separate earlier settlements involving Thomas cost an additional $32 million.

No kidding! And the New York Times was ... silent. And the Washington Post was ... silent. CNN was ... silent. ABCCBSNBC was ... silent.

"We believe that the Scripture teaches that the church should be an autonomous, independent organization," Page said. "We encourage churches to hold accountable at the local level those who may have misused the trust of precious children and youth."

Fascinating.

[markomalley]

I certainly hope the proddie^* leaders figure it out faster and better than the Catholic bishops did. A desire to keep things quiet and avoid scandals didn't exactly work out well for them...

 

^*The term 'proddie', as used in this post, is intended as an abbreviation for those ecclesiastic communities that were founded in Western/ Central Europe or Western-European influenced areas following the 'reformation.' It is not indicative of the communities' creeds (or lack thereof), progeny, or doctrine. It also is not intended as a perjorative, as used here, in any fashion. Copyright © 2007. All rights reserved.

[L,TOWM]

I would suspect that a lot of the abuse cases involve young, single, male youth pastors violating a commandment or two with 15 - 17 year old girls that they are chrged with “shepherding”. I have been to two churches where that was rumored to have occured or at least be strongly suspected.

A smart church will have their youth pastors be 25-40, married and with a kid or two of their own. This won’t weed out the flat out pedo-pervs, but it would cut down on the 22 year old youth pastor fresh out of bible college being tempted into “intense fellowship” with the 16 year old girls he is assigned to work with.

[Salvation]

**Religious groups and victims’ supporters have been keenly interested in the figure ever since the Roman Catholic sex abuse crisis hit five years ago. The church has revealed that there have been 13,000 credible accusations against Catholic clerics since 1950.

Protestant numbers have been harder to come by and are sketchier because the denominations are less centralized than the Catholic church; indeed, many congregations are independent, which makes reporting even more difficult.**

Does anyone have the magic answer telling us why the Protestant churches do NOT report these sexual abuse cases? Or why the media does not pick up those stories when they do come out??

Inquiring minds would like to know.

[The Ghost of FReepers Past]

Don’t hide it. Prosecute all offenders the first time they are offenders. If someone has a history of it and they have done their jail time, tell them to worship at home. That may be tough, but a truly repentant person would be completely willing to do whatever it takes to keep the kids safe.

[Cheverus]

I think this article and follow up discussion shows how difficult it is to track abuse in bodies that have a looser beaucracy.

Given that many other Faith Traditions can “Call” from across the Country, it is difficult to always get all the background.

Case in point: we have a so-called “independent” Latin Mass Chapel here in West Roxbury. They hired a Pastor awhile back name Brian McMahon, who it turned out, did time for Manslaughter and is rumored to have forced a parishioner he had an affair with to have an abortion.

And if anyone is wondering why this is comparable this guy is not a Catholic Priest he was/is a Sede therefore not “rostered” anywhere, just a free agent.

[NeoCaveman]

If only they were allowed to get married.

Oh, wait, nevermind.

[trisham]

Wherever there are humans there will be sinners, whether or not it is reported.

[MEGoody]

Yep, sin will poke it’s head into a church. If the membership and leadership do not take action, soon sin has taken over. Sin must be purged from the midst of the church. If a perpetrator repents, then forgive them. . .but don’t put them into a position where they will have access to children ever again.

[N3WBI3]

A victims' advocacy group has said the Southern Baptists, the nation's largest Protestant denomination, could do more to prevent abuse by creating a list of accused clergy the public and churches could access.

Hard to argue this..

[Antoninus]

First they came for the Catholics....

Then they came for the Protestants....

And yet, the most egregious abusers of all are in the government schools.

[ThomasThomas]

As treasurer of my church at the time I was at a meeting where the insurance was reviewed. We were told by the agent (Church Mutual )that there is also fraud going on. The example they gave was caught because they played the con too many times on churches in the same area and two of the church had the same agent. Once the second claim was made research showed the same people filing claims several times. It is very hard to find evidence because sealed records of the victims. They would visit churches till they found one which would let an adult be alone with their child even for a short time. Their child was coached to ask to go to the bathroom, if they were allowed to go alone or one adult went with them, claims were made and money was asked for not to call the police. The most common claim against churches as of last year is copyright claims for churches that sell cookbooks and the recipes are copied from published cookbooks. Even if the church is unaware of the coping they are liable.

[OpusatFR]

“Joe Trull, editor of Christian Ethics Today and retired ethics professor at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, helped the Texas convention create its registry and says there are now about 11 cases involving clergy abuse with minors.

But he believes these are just the “tip of the iceberg” because churches don’t have to report abuse cases to the registry and aren’t likely to.”

Hmmm....tip of the iceberg. How many preachers are given the boot by the congregations rather than air the accusations for all to see. Must be lots more out there.