Bastard. One of the main promoters of pedophilia was Ralph Underwager a Lutheran minister. You can find the interview he did in the Dutch magazine “Paedeka” ,a pro pedophile magazine, on line. So unfortunately the involvement of ministers in such activity is not new or unique to one faith.
I love the generalization of thousands of past cases. How many? What defines abuse? How many years back? I imagine the numbers are way exagerated and that abuse can mean anything from an inppropriate remark to rape.
Did abuse happen? I have no doubt. But Holland is a small country and the idea of there being thousands of legitmate accusation of abuse just does not make sense.
Sad, but true.
In the latest example of the Boston archdiocese's chaotic record-keeping on problem priests, church officials acknowledged yesterday their discovery of new records detailing allegations of the Rev. Paul R. Shanley's involvement in NAMBLA - the North American Man-Boy Love Association........more damning were numerous documents revealing that Bernard Cardinal Law, his predecessor, Humberto Cardinal Medeiros, and other archdiocesean officials were aware of Shanley's behavior as far back as 1967, but continued to assign him to posts that put him in direct contact with children....
....records showed that Shanley spoke in favor of sex between men and boys at a December 1978 Boston convention that led to the founding of the intergenerational sex advocacy organization. But a Shanley supporter who organized the meeting and later co-founded NAMBLA insists that it has been mischaracterized, and that many different points of view on the subject were presented....
....More germane to the accusations of MacLeish's clients is Socrates' contention that it would have been totally out of character for Shanley to have had violent sex with a 6-year-old. In his suit and in a criminal complaint to Newton police, Gregory Ford, 24, claims that Shanley yanked him out of CCD classes and repeatedly fondled and raped him as a child in the rectory of Newton's St. Jean's Parish for six years beginning in 1984. ``I don't believe it, based on what I know of him,'' Socrates said, insisting that the priest would never have had sex with a pre-pubescent boy. ``I don't believe he ever did anything by force.''
-- from the 2002 thread BREAKING: Church uncovers [NEW!!!] file on Shanley NAMBLA activity