Posted on 07/26/2011 7:19:54 AM PDT by marshmallow
Across the U.S., temples frustrate investigators by insisting they have no control over monks' actions, whereabouts
The meeting took place at Wat Dhammaram, a cavernous Theravada Buddhist temple on the southwest edge of Chicago. A tearful 12-year-old told three monks how another monk had turned off the lights during a tutoring session, lifted her shirt and kissed and fondled her breasts while pressing against her, according to a lawsuit.
Shortly after that meeting, one of the monks sent a letter to the girl's family, saying the temple's monastic community had resolved the matter, the lawsuit says.
The "wrong doer had accepted what he had done," wrote P. Boonshoo Sriburin, and within days would "leave the temple permanently" by flying back to Thailand.
"We have done our best to restore the order," the letter said.
But 11 years later, the monk, Camnong Boa-Ubol, serves at a temple in California, where he says he interacts with children even as he faces a second claim, supported by DNA, that he impregnated a girl in the Chicago area.
Sriburin acknowledges that restoring order did not involve stopping Boa-Ubol from making the move to California. And it did not involve issuing a warning to the temple there. Wat Dhammaram didn't even tell its own board of directors what happened with the monk, he said.
"We have no authority to do anything. He has his own choice to live anywhere," Sriburin said.
A Tribune review of sexual abuse cases involving several Theravada Buddhist temples found minimal accountability and lax oversight of monks accused of preying on vulnerable targets.
Because they answer to no outside ecclesiastical authority, the temples respond to allegations as they see fit. And because the monks are viewed as free agents, temples claim to have no way of controlling what they do next.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
Or is it simply my imagination?
Must be an error. Everybody knows only Catholic priests behave like this.
/sarc
Actually probably not, sexual abusers groom their victims and their enablers too. This is why religious authorities need to be grim, distant, and authoritative. The charismatic personalities' types like to bend the rules...to their advantage.
I demand the Pope do something about this immediately! /s
Ain’t diversity grand?
What's Jeff Anderson's number?
Thank you very much for this link, I utilized it in a post: http://religiopoliticaltalk.com/2011/07/buddhist-monks-and-sex-abuse-you-will-only-hear-about-catholic-abuses/
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