Posted on 01/18/2014 8:57:41 PM PST by narses
Last week, I suggested that having comprehensively and repeatedly apologised for the small number of priests who have in some way sexually abused children and young people, it was time we moved on to the offensive against those who (often with an undeclared anti-Catholic agenda) continually assert that the Church is in some way particularly prone to this disgusting crime. I referred to a Newsweek article which said that “priests seem to abuse children at the same rate as everyone else”.
The fact is, however, that not only is the Catholic Church NOT an endemically paedophile organisation, the evidence is now emerging that, in fact, even Newsweek is exaggerating: it’s not that “priests… abuse children at the same rate as everyone else”: actually, according to Dr Thomas Plante of Stanford University and Santa Clara University, “available research suggests that approximately two to five per cent of priests have had a sexual experience with a minor” which “is lower than the general adult male population” – in which the percentage of those who have interfered with minors “is best estimated to be closer to eight per cent”. In other words, children who have anything to do with priests are between 1.6 and four times LESS likely to be abused by them than by anyone else.
“When,” asks the blog La Salette Journey, giving these and other details, “will the media acknowledge that the sexual abuse of children is not a ‘Catholic problem’?” The fact is, suggests the writer, Paul Anthony Melanson, that “the media are not so much concerned with the welfare of children as they are with unfairly portraying the abuse of children as a ‘crisis in the Church’ ”. For example, the state school system in the US has a considerably higher rate of sexual abuse than the Catholic Church: according to a report prepared for the US Department of Education entitled Educator Sexual Misconduct: A Synthesis of Existing Literature, “9.6 per cent of all students in grades 8 to 11 report… educator sexual misconduct that was unwanted.” This report has been virtually ignored by the media.
But the penny is just beginning to drop. An article by Jim Dwyer in the New York Times reported (April 27) that the New York State legislature is now addressing the fact that child abuse is not only a problem for the Church, but for the whole of society. “Should it be possible,” asks Dwyer “… to sue the city of New York for sexual abuse by public school teachers that happened decades ago? How about doctors or hospital attendants? Police officers? Welfare workers? Playground attendants? … To date, New York City has been publicly silent…. but sees the possibility of enormous expenses.”
Well, join the club, New York City. As Dwyer’s article points out: “Since 2004, Catholic dioceses nationwide have paid $1.4bn to settle claims of abuse, many from acts from the 1970s or earlier… Yet [he continues] there is little evidence to show there is more sexual abuse among Catholic priests than among clergy from other denominations, or, for that matter, among people from other walks of life.”
That’s the bottom line. This is a problem we share with everyone, though actually we are less guilty of it than society as a whole and are doing a lot better in acknowledging such child abuse as does exist. We need to get that, and the evidence for it, firmly into our heads. We have a battle ahead: we all need to be prepared for it.
Too often, problem teachers are allowed to leave quietly. That can mean future abuse for another student and another school district.It’s a dynamic so common it has its own nicknames—“passing the trash” or the “mobile molester.”
If only the priests would marry... Oh, wait!
just read an article on Drudge about a nun who got pregnant, had a baby, and named it after the Pope! Things that make you wonder what is going on....
I don’t know how millions of ordinary people of all persuasions, from atheists, to Catholics, to gay, to Muslim, to Lutheran, to Buddhists and Satanists, to whatever, who work at schools, became the holy grail for comparing to the Catholic priesthood.
I think what really fascinates people about the Catholic leadership, is not that they occasionally have a church leader who messes up and dates a teen girl, or has an affair with a woman, or the church organist, but the rampant homosexuality.
The general public is trying to figure out why so much of the Catholic denomination’s leadership, is practicing, or fighting to deal with, or personally overcome, male on male sexuality.
See http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/804825/posts for part of the story...
I concur that sexual abuse is far-flung.
Problem with Catholic diocese was the cover-up.
Transferring of problem priests out of jurisdiction, etc.
We had one at the prison where I worked who was getting packages of drugs; LSD and marijuana. They sent him out of country, last I heard.
That’s not what I’d call “stepping up”.
“available research suggests that approximately two to five per cent of priests have had a sexual experience with a minor” which “is lower than the general adult male population” – in which the percentage of those who have interfered with minors “is best estimated to be closer to eight per cent”. “
If this is comparing apples to apples - if “had a sexual experience with a minor” and “interfered with minors” is referring to the same thing, then I am very skeptical of the claim that 8 percent of the general population have done so.
Too often, problem teachers are allowed to leave quietly. That can mean future abuse for another student and another school district.It’s a dynamic so common it has its own nicknames—“passing the trash” or the “mobile molester.”
...according to a report prepared for the US Department of Education entitled Educator Sexual Misconduct: A Synthesis of Existing Literature, “9.6 per cent of all students in grades 8 to 11 report… educator sexual misconduct that was unwanted.”
Trust me, it isn’t an international conspiracy to convince young homosexual men to devote their entire lives to being Catholic Priests, that is the explanation.
What is your belief then?
Wait a minute, I guess that is on the table, except it isn’t the Communists who hire and examine, and choose to be Priests for life.
I have a problem with that as well.
It wasn't so much the sodomite infestation that was the problem. I could understand why the Roman Church might have had a higher infestation rate (although this article says otherwise) than others, because I believe their seminaries were targeted in the 60s and 70s. Sodomites saw it as an easy place to hide out, and to prey on unsuspecting young boys. The Roman Church could do little to prevent this plague. Where they fell down, and where their actions were an abomination, was when they did not turn these felons over to the Law, and even worse they transferred them to other unsuspecting dioceses. That was unfathomable.
Talking about the many millions of teachers that are just all kinds and types of generic people from all walks of life and who merely work at a day job with no connection to each other, or each other’s employers or states, or anything, isn’t the answer, what they have to do with Catholic Priests is zero.
You’ve posted that link twice now. The fact that other organizations do it does not make it any better.
The Catholic Church’s record of aggressive and proactive protective measures is unparalleled in any organization today. Since the beginning of the abuse crisis, the Catholic Church:
has instituted a “zero tolerance” policy in which any credibly accused priest is immediately removed from ministry. Law enforcement is also notified;
has trained over 5 million children in giving them skills to protect them from abuse;
has trained over 2 million adults, including 99 percent of all priests, in recognizing signs of abuse;
has conducted over 2 million background checks, including those in the intensified screening process for aspiring seminarians and priests;
has installed “Victim Assistance Coordinators” in every diocese, “assuring victims that they will be heard”;
has conducted annual independent audits of all dioceses to monitor compliance with the groundbreaking 2002 Charter for Protection of Children and Young People;
has instituted in all dioceses abuse review boards – often composed of child welfare experts, child psychologists, and abuse experts – to examine any claims of abuse against priests.
No other organization even comes close to implementing the measures the Catholic Church has taken to protect children in its care. In this regard, the Catholic Church in the 21st century is the model for other institutions to follow in the safeguarding of youth.
Huh? What are you trying to say?
Catholic priests and Bishops haven’t exactly been well known throughout history for having a high morality, despite the party line:
“If morals be inquired into, we shall find few or almost none whom the ancient canons would not have judged unworthy. If one was not a drunkard, he was a fornicator; if one was free from this vice, he was either a gambler or sportsman, or a loose liver in some respect. For there are lighter faults which, according to the ancient canons, exclude from the episcopal office. But the most absurd thing of all is, that even boys scarcely ten years of age are, by the permission of the Pope, made bishops. Such is the effrontery and stupidity to which they have arrived, that they have no dread even of that last and monstrous iniquity, which is altogether abhorrent even from natural feeling. Hence it appears what kind of elections these must have been, when such supine negligence existed... the general and approved practice is (and it is carried on as it were systematically), that drunkards, fornicators, gamblers, are everywhere promoted to this honour; nay, this is little: bishoprics are the rewards of adulterers and panders: for when they are given to hunters and hawkers, things may be considered at the best.” (John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 4, Ch. 5)
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