Incensed man
Posted on 05/26/2008 6:51:35 PM PDT by Dqban22
CLEVELAND MAN INCENSED OVER CATHOLICISM TARGETED IN THE MEDIA
MAY 2, 2008
Sam Miller, prominent Cleveland businessman - Jewish, not Catholic - is fighting mad about the seemingly concentrated effort by the media to disparage the Catholic Church in the United States.
The following are excerpts of a speech by well-known Cleveland businessman Mr. Miller at the City Club of Cleveland, given on Thursday, March 6. Even though of the Jewish faith, Miller has been a staunch supporter of the Cleveland Diocese and Bishop Anthony Pilla. It was published in the May-June issue of the Buckeye Bulletin.
Why would newspapers carry on a vendetta on one of the most important institutions that we have today in the United States, namely the Catholic Church?
Do you know - the Catholic Church educates 2.6 million students everyday at the cost to your Church of 10 billion dollars, and a savings on the other hand to the American taxpayer of 18 billion dollars. Your graduates go on to graduate studies at the rate of 92%, all at a cost to you. To the rest of the Americans it’s free.
The Church has 230 colleges and universities in the U.S. with an enrollment of 700,000 students. The Catholic Church has a non-profit hospital system of 637 hospitals, which account for hospital treatment of 1 out of every 5 people - not just Catholics - in the United States today.
But the press is vindictive and trying to totally denigrate in every way the Catholic Church in this country. They have blamed the disease of pedophilia on the Catholic Church, which is as irresponsible as blaming adultery on the institution of marriage.
Let me give you some figures that you as Catholics should know and remember. For example, 12% of the 300 Protestant clergy surveyed admitted to sexual intercourse with a parishioner; 38% acknowledged other inappropriate sexual contact in a study by the United Methodist Church, 41.8 % of clergywomen reported unwanted sexual behavior; 17% of laywomen have been sexually harassed.
Meanwhile, 1.7% of the Catholic clergy has been found guilty of pedophilia. 10% of the Protestant ministers have been found guilty of pedophilia. This is not a Catholic Problem.
A study of American priests showed that most are happy in the priesthood and find it even better than they had expected, and that most, if given the choice, would choose to be priests again in face of all this obnoxious PR the church has been receiving.
The Catholic Church is bleeding from self-inflicted wounds. The agony that Catholics have felt and suffered is not necessarily the fault of the Church. You have been hurt by a small number of wayward priests that have probably been totally weeded out by now.
Walk with your shoulders high and you head higher. Be a proud member of the most important non-governmental agency in the United States. Then remember what Jeremiah said: “Stand by the roads, and look and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is and walk in it, and find rest for your souls”.
Be proud to speak up for your faith with pride and reverence and learn what your Church does for all other religions. Be proud that you’re a Catholic.
To those seeking the truth, what a better witness than the testimony of Albert Einstein, the great Jewish physicist, who had first hand experience of the horrors of Nazism? In 1944 he said: “Being a lover of freedom, when the Nazi revolution came in Germany, I looked to the universities to defend it, but the universities were immediately silenced. Then I looked to the great editors of newspapers, but they, like the universities were silenced in a few short weeks. Then I looked to individual writers…they too were mute. Only the Church,” Einstein concluded, “stood squarely across the path of Hitler’s campaign for suppressing the truth…I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel great affection and admiration…and am forced thus to confess that what I once despised, I now praise unreservedly.”
Per Pastor news 2005 over 2000 Protestant Ministers a year are kicked out of their churches due to dilly dallying with their parishioners... Pray for THEM TOO!
Defending Pilla isn’t exactly defending the Catholic Church. Pilla was forced to resign after the current Pope was elected.
If folks are looking for a poster boy for the RC church, Pilla probably shouldn’t be their first choice.
** the seemingly concentrated effort by the media to disparage the Catholic Church in the United States. **
This is so true.
Reasoning — secular world versus God’s world.
The Catholic Church has always stood staunchly against abortion, homosexuality, euthaniasia, embryonic stem cell research, married priests, self-centeredness, suffering in imitation of Christ, etc. etc. etc.
Thus, the liberal media loves to bash the ‘old fashioned’ Catholic Church.
Holiness through love, faith and charity will win this war.
That should have been in favor of **suffering in imitation of Christ**
The modern world does not like that, do they?
“incensed?”
No citations, no footnotes, no proof. It looks like religious bigotry isn't limited to anti-Catholicism.
MORE PROTESTANT MINISTERS GUILTY OF PEDOPHILIA THAN CATHOLIC PRIESTS, NEW RESEARCH REVEALS
A Penn State historian, Philip Jenkins, has done an in depth research of pedophilia and sexual abuse among the clergy and has come up with some rather eye opening facts. It seems that while 1.7 percent of Catholic clergy have been guilty of pedophilia (or sexual abuse particularly of boys), a whopping TEN percent of Protestant ministers have been found guilty of pedophilia!
This is all the more interesting, notes Jenkins, since there has been NO media term “Pastor Pedophilia” coined at all!
Jenkins theorizes that the media, proving the ‘point’ of the ‘necessity’ of sexual promiscuity, overemphasizes any instance of pedophilia found among the Catholic clergy since it can use this to criticize the entire idea of celibacy. But it is interesting that the NON Celibate Protestant ministers have a MUCH GREATER problem with it than the celibate Catholic priests!
Protestant pastor pedophilia is not within the frame of our ‘social constructionists’ as Jenkins calls the media:
“In the 1980’s, [Pastor] Leyva had abused perhaps one hundred boys in several Southern states, but few of us ever learned of it. Leyva had the distinction of being a Pentecostal minister and was, therefore, not within the ‘frame’ of those who were busy constructing reality. The same is true of the three brothers, all Baptist ministers, who were charged with child molestation in the 1990’s; the public learned little about this highly unusual series of cases because it was not deemed worthy of dissemination by those fixated on Catholic scandals.” [1]
“Once the media elites focused their attention on framing the issue in terms of the ‘celibacy’ problem, it became difficult for them to assert that the problem was larger among the non-celibate Protestant clergy.” [2]
Jenkins’ research was based on several highly respected studies and statistics. He points out that whereas sexual misconduct has always been a problem, among Catholic and non Catholic clergy as well as among the general populace, what is new now is that the ‘problem’ of priest sexual abuse, constructed by the media as a result of a ‘moral panic’ occurring in the mid 1980’s.
Sue Widemark
Endnotes:
1. Donahue, William A “A review of Philip Jenkins’ PEDOPHILES AND PRIESTS, “Catalyst”, Vol 23, no. 4 (May 1996) (published by the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, email: jpan2so@execpc.com)
2. ibid
Well said.
First off, all of us, Catholic or Protestant, need to stand up against the sexual abuse/explotation of minors in the U.S. I would like to give Bill O’Reilly of Fox news credit for covering this issue on a broader level as he has rountinely pointed out judges who have given convicted sex offenders suspended sentences. Again, all of us need to stand up against this.
Second, here is an article from the Protestant/Evangelical Magazine “Christianity Today”,
http://www.christianitytoday.com/childrensministry/articles/sexualabuseinthechurch.html
which states the following:
“In the last three years, an average of 23 new articles each day have appeared in secular media sources revealing sexual abuse allegations arising in Protestant Churches in the United States. Protestant denominations have been tempted to call sexual abuse a “Catholic problem”; this is simplay not true. Within the past eight years, verdicts, or settlements exceeding hundreds of millions of dollars have been levied against Protestant Churches for sexual abuse allegations arising from children participating in ministry programs.”
Now at 23 per day * 365 Days * 3 years, that would equal 25,185 cases of sexual abuse against minors in Protestant Churches. Now, the Christianity Today article does not break it down by individual Protestant church, but using a conservative number of 600 distinct Protestant churches, that would be 42 per distinct Protestant Confession/church.
So while the newsprint (local in most cases) has covered these stories as I assume that is where Christiantiy today got the data, the TV MSM (CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN, etc) have not covered this story to the same level as the Catholic Church sexual abuse of minors crisis.
One then has to ask the question, Why?
You wrote:
“No citations, no footnotes, no proof. It looks like religious bigotry isn’t limited to anti-Catholicism.”
How on earth is that religious bigotry? He is not saying that it is so BECAUSE they are Protestants. That’s what anti-Catholics do: pedophilia is a problem in the Catholic Church precisely because it is Catholic and has Catholic practices. All this guy did was say that the problem of sexual abuse was universal and existed in all groups but is, for some reason, only an issue for the press when Catholics are involved.
I don’t know about all his statistics, but I do know you’re wrong to accuse him of religious bigotry when he never expressed any.
Incensed man
I see your incensed Cardinal Mahoney,
and raise you one incensed Bishop Raymond Burke
Now that's some serious incensing!
" LOL. This is an outright lie by some crazed Catholic apologist.
Who's the "Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights" who published this ludicrous book?
When the RCC doesn't like the facts, it just makes up statistics and tosses them out to a gullible Catholic public who's used to blindly following its magisterium.
Attacking the messenger is a sure sign of a weak position.
Jenkins must be destroyed because his research threatens to knock a favorite bludgeon from the hands of those who hate all things Catholic.
God bless this man! Who better than a Jew to recognize religious persecution. Thank you for posting this thread!
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That is not the case with the 30,000+ Protestant denominations which has posed a problem. Since there is no governing body, they must handle each case of sex abuse, separately. This is also true for Jewish and Muslim prelates. Ultimately, with no one guarding these Churches, there is no one to protect children from predator sex abuse, which continues to this day.
Report: Protestant Church Insurers Handle 260 Sex Abuse Cases a Year
Right or wrong percentage notwithstanding, the overwhelming majority of Protestant and Catholic pastors and priests are men of God. It is in the best interests of the anti-religious to furthur divide us whenever they can.
They have been very successful here on FR.
BTW 10% sounds high to me too, but it sure had the effect of a bucket of gasoline on a smoldering fire.
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