Some Proddie folks handle this and other sins responsibly and some don’t. Things are improving.
Sometimes I think hard heartedness is more destructive and deadly than sexual abuse, as horrid as that IS.
A lot of times, the responses of the people around the victims of sexual abuse determine the severity of the damage—all other things being equal—of course.
I think PREVENTION by healthy parenting of all children is a crucial super high priority.
Of course, alertness on everyone’s part is important.
Everyone loses with this horror and other abuses of all kinds.
The silence with emotional abuse is pretty horrid, too.
Prisons are filled by REACTIVE ATTACHMENT DISORDERS—most probably from single parent homes with absent and/or abusive dads . . . but also abusive mothers.
Some Proddie folks handle this and other sins responsibly and some don’t. Things are improving.
Such as is common for man.
I think PREVENTION by healthy parenting of all children is a crucial super high priority.
I would go so far as to say that an increase in abuse is simply a reflection of the current pathos of our society.
God created within us a sexual desire. Part of the natural desire to reproduce: "be fruitful and multiply"
The devil perverts that desire. Nothing new here...he always has and he always will until he is finally cast into the lake of fire.
What makes things particularly bad now is that the technology currently makes communicating bad behavior so much easier than it ever has been.
The existence of broadcast radio and television has managed to normalize societal norms and 'advance' them to those norms that are determined to be appropriate by a few rich folk in New York and Los Angeles. People who would never be given a face-to-face audience in a typical city now have access and a forum to spread their lies. And then weak-minded people, on an individual basis, can buy into those lies. And they can do so from the privacy of their homes...thus not falling to the moderating influence of their communities.
And what has happened: rather than sexual purity being exalted as a virue, it is now called sexual repression. Rather than modesty in dress being exalted, audaciousness is currently highly valued. Chastity is a joke. Desire is the norm that simply must be fulfilled.
And then we look at the truly modern technologies: cable, satellite, and Internet: now all of a sudden the natural desire of man for all manner of perversion can be fed...and from the privacy of the person's bedroom.
And people get fed this no matter what. Unless they totally isolate themselves from the world like the Amish claim to do. It's pushed on them no matter where they go. And if they want more, they can get what they want. And nobody has to know.
The protections that we would have as a result of living in a basically Christian society are gone. A person can sin in his bedroom on Saturday night and go to church as a pillar of the church on Sunday morning...and nobody has to know.
As a result of this, our society is collapsing. And there is nothing we can do about it.
Each of us has a dark spot in our soul. It's called original sin and we inherited it from Adam. While the accountability for that dark spot is washed away in baptism, the damage left by that dark spot exists and can be fed and can spread like a cancer through our soul. When that cancer has gone far enough, we will act. What's happened with the explosion of communication that I mentioned earlier is that the bar to cross for action is lower. And it is continually getting lower and lower. And that bar is going to affect clergy as well as laity and no denomination is exempt.
More so now than ever before, we need to have a revolution. That revolution needs to happen in the hearts and souls of each of us. We EACH need to make an INDIVIDUAL decision to follow Christ. And that decision is not a one-time thing, it needs to be made every day. We need to put on Christ and make NO provision for the flesh. And it's an individual thing that each person must do interiorly.
What does that have to do with prevention? Well, clergy are human just like the rest of us. They are subject to the same pressures, the same desires, and the same weaknesses as is common to man. I know there are wolves who gravitate to that existence, as it improves their access, but I also believe that those wolves are few and far between. All clergy, without exception, are men and are descended from Adam. All clergy are subject to the same forces that the laity are...they have made the decision to radically follow Christ as witnessed through their lives (with the exception of a few televangelists, I know of very few rich clergy...regardless of denomination), but they, like us, must make the decision on a moment by moment basis to continue that radical lifestyle. And they need our intense prayers on a daily basis. After all, it has got to give the Devil particular joy to cause a member of the clergy to trip...even moreso than his joy at deceiving a member of the laity.
Bottom line is that we need to pray for all of them. Just like it's more difficult now than ever for us to live as Christ willed, it's got to be as difficult or even worse for a member of the clergy to follow his calling in this day and time.