That is an excellent point. And I wonder how many non-Catholic priests are out there right now victimizing young children, yet no one in the media seems to be concerned.
Some of you may recall this little boy
On May 25, 1979, a little boy left for school and never came home. By late in the afternoon, when Etan had not returned home, the Patzes called the police. Officers searched the neighborhood. It was a difficult investigation. There were no leads. There was no crime scene. They couldn't dust for fingerprints. They didn't even know where he disappeared. It would take years before a suspect emerged.
Some boys had accused a man named Jose Antonio Ramos of trying to lure them inside a drainpipe, where he lived in 1982 in the Bronx. When police searched the drainpipe, they found photographs of Ramos and young boys who resembled Etan. When no one pressed charges, the case was dropped and Ramos vanished.
In 1985, Ramos was brought to NY to meet with a detective who asked him directly, "How many times did you have sex with Etan Patz?" According to the detective, Ramos "froze" and said, "I'll tell you everything." Ramos' response is now known as "the 90 percent confession." He admitted taking a young boy back to his apartment for sex on the day Etan disappeared and told GraBois he was 90 percent sure it was the boy he later saw on TV. As GraBois pointed out, "the only boy missing and on television that evening was Etan Patz." GraBois said that at that moment he "believed we had the right guy." But the confession was not complete. Ramos did not use Etan's name and he claimed he had "put the boy on a subway."
No Catholic will ever defend the indefensible. Most of the sex abuse that took place dates back to the 50's and earlier, long before JPII. I would ask you, however, what is being done in non-Catholic communities to stop predatory sex abuse of children? This is not limited to the Catholic Church.
Sex Abuse of Children by Protestant Clergy.
The Catholic Church here, through its bishops in the USCCB, have implemented a program to prevent future occurrences. This includes all members of the community who come in contact with children, from janitors in the schools to volunteers who teach children at the parish level. We all are subjected to fingerprinting and a police background check. We are also required to attend classes on how to identify sexual predators and what actions to take. This is possible because of the centralized nature of the Catholic Church. It is also the reason why the media have been able to focus a laser beam on us. This is not possible in the non-Catholic denominations where there is no one to take responsibility.
Report: Protestant Church Insurers Handle 260 Sex Abuse Cases a Year
Worse still, is the sex abuse of children in the education system.
WHEN BOYS ARE MOLESTED BY TEACHERS AND OTHERS IN POSITIONS OF AUTHORITY
And then there are the camp counselors, Big Brothers of America and the list goes on and on. There is plenty of guilt to go around. You should be more concerned about the counteless victims of Ramos than the 0.3% of priests. Ramos said the boys were "friends," and none turned out to be Etan. Ramos did tell detectives, however, that his former girlfriend had worked for the Patzes, walking Etan to and from school during a bus strike.