Replies

>> Again, it's too funny that Catholics complain about other churches doing the very thing they excuse in their own church. <<

Where has anyone excused anything. Didn't you try that lame argument about 100 posts ago?

>> OK, so how do you know what the *real* scope of the *problem* is in Calvinist churches is if there's no database.. Maybe there's no database because there's no one in the Calvinist churches to be on it.<<

Presbyterians Today: The Office of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) estimates that there are about 50 clergy sexual misconduct cases every year.

And that's without lawyers circling to make millionaires against anyone who makes a claim.

Oh, and for references, PCUSA is one TWENTIETH the size of the Catholic Church, so that would be the equivalent of ONE THOUSAND sexual misconduct cases PER YEAR in the Catholic Church. (This includes heterosexual abuse, however.)

While this doesn't give numbers, at least it acknowledges a PROBLEM:

DallasNews Religion, April 12, 2007. . . In recent weeks, Southern Baptists have scrambled to respond to a rising number of its ministers who have been arrested for abusing children.

How deep in denial could you possibly be?

Hey, we Catholics were in denial in the early 1990s. Several reports came out about pedophile priests, and pretty much all of us thought it was just the liberal news media out to attack Catholicism. Then they netted Cardinal Bernardin, accidentally, and buried the story for another decade. Then, in 2001, Cardinal Law in Boston was shown to be to be still covering up evidence, and Catholics got furious: Law should have learned his lesson that psychological "rehabilitation" and reassignment work, and Catholics across the nation went out for scalps.

But you're still living in the 1980s of "it can't happen, here," aren't you? You haven't learned a thing, and you're just throwing mud.

If you’re still in denial, let’s look at what’s been going on among those Baptists:

1/6/11: Sturdevant man gets seven years for sexual assault [of minor]. (Pleasant Street Baptist Church volunteer; pastor gushes about how nice he was. Note, nothing in headline links him to church.)

12/30/10: Rio Linda [First Baptist Church] pastor arrested for [six counts of] child molestation. UPDATE: 1/1/11: Rio Linda church stands behind pastor after arrest.

12/26/10: Dallas County [Greenville Baptist Church] pastor accused of sexual assault

12/20/10: [ANOTHER] Dallas County pastor accused of sexual assault.

12/17/10: Kimball pastor charged in possession of child porn. [Wave a few million dollars and I’m sure some victims will show up.]

12/11/10: Norfolk former Baptist pastor jailed for sex assaults.

That’s FIVE fresh arrests in the past month. (I won’t count the first article, since the arrest is older, and the man wasn’t pastor.) Still, that’d be an average of SIXTY arrests per year. Given that the Catholic Church is FOUR TIMES larger, that would be the equivalent of THREE HUNDRED in ONE YEAR, or six a week. Not 300 abuse cases, mind you, but arrests. And yes, all five of the ones I’m counting are sexual abuse of minors by pastors.

And yet, no database to track perpetrators. No policy for revoking credentials by the Baptist seminaries. No policy put forth by the SBC. (And don’t get claim that it’s just because they’re independent congregations; the SBC has policies for EVERYTHING.) No plan for reform of the seminaries. Just denial, obfuscation, and deliberate unaccountability.