[marshmallow]

I've posted it several times recently and the response has been uniformly hostile. Many are unaware of its existence and have somehow gained the impression, probably from current media coverage, that this is an escalating problem which is raging unabated. They have no concept that recent cases have slowed to a trickle and are nothing like as frequent as 2-3 decades ago.

Others get on a tear about the Church not doing enough and when confronted with hard numbers, become highly defensive and post a link to some recent case to show that it is still occurring when nobody is denying that it isn't. Still others will say it's not representative of the universal Church while the truly obstinate will say "oh so there are fewer cases than before.....big deal!!"

IOW, they'll say anything, rather than admit that things are improving.

I've outed a number of trolls masquerading as "truly concerned bystanders" with this graph.

[Mrs. Don-o]

The other things that's outstanding in this case is that the accused priest (I say "accused," though he has not in fact been accused and brought to trial for sexual abuse) was a member of a religious order, "The Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity." So the Archdiocese didn't in fact have oversight or supervision over this priest: hhe Archbishop wasn't even his religious suprior.

So why doesn't the victim bring charges against the priest? Or against the priest's religious order? Or against the Texas Highway Patrol? Or the gun manufacturer? Or --- hey, George Bush lives in Texas...

And the victim says he kept going back every two weeks, for two years...

We'll have to wait until more information comes out, of course, but per the information in this article, it certainly doesn't pass the smell test.