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Posted on 04/18/2010 9:49:35 PM PDT by Judith Anne
I seriously wonder about some FReepers, sometimes. Any other person accused of a crime would be defended by every FReeper as being innocent until proven guilty by a court of law. I've seen whole threads written by men who have been accused of child abuse by ex-wives out to deny them their visitation rights or to wrest more money out of them. These men are rightly indignant, and furious about the unjust accusations that cannot be proven but are never withdrawn.
Yet where are those FReepers when a PRIEST is accused? Where is the presumption of innocence? Suddenly, every accusation becomes a verdict, and not only the accused but his entire organization and all its adherents are held responsible.
I can only wonder what some of these so-called conservatives (who so faithfully defend the Constitution) would do, if THEY were the ones accused! It is a nightmare for any man -- all of you know how even the accusation stains the man forever, even if it is proven false!
Not only that, many here assert that the problems of 30, 40 and even 50 years ago must be tried in the media TODAY!
Remember the Duke rape case? There are more similarities than differences here. The priests are accused, nifonged, and instead of being defended, they are vilified!
What other man of you could stand under the weight of such an accusation trumpeted by the press, and come out whole? None! And such accusations made, LONG after the statute of limitations has passed, sometimes even after the accused is dead and buried for YEARS -- are YOU one of those who automatically, reflexively, spitefully, and gleefully act as judge, jury, and executioner?
Women! What if it were YOUR HUSBAND, YOUR BROTHER, YOUR FATHER, YOUR UNCLE, YOUR SON who was accused? Wouldn't you want the best defense possible? Wouldn't YOU believe in their innocence? Wouldn't YOU help protect your loved ones as much as possible? And yet, YOU JUDGE THE CHURCH FOR DOING WHAT YOU WOULD DO?
Shame! Vast shame! On all who have sinned against the innocent!
That is a wonderful summation of the data, and I certainly hope everyone reads it carefully.
Because your post is the proof that the Catholic Church is being nifonged by the leftist press, by the gullible readers, and by anti-Catholic bigots everywhere.
Anyone who brings up the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal WITHOUT addressing their own confession, or without addressing the dreadful public school environment, is fooling him/herself and/or trying to obscure their own problems.
I wonder what’s going to happen with that public school that took tens of thousands of photos of students in their own home, without the students’ (or their parents) knowledge? There are several crimes there I can think of; I sure hope it didn’t happen to any FReepers or their families. But there ought to be civil and criminal sanctions, imo.
I'm sure the IT boss who set up the system has already received a commendation and performance bonus.
And the kids who were caught doing something within view of the webcam while at home will be disciplined.
And the appropriate parents have been referred to CPS already, I'm equally sure.
School-provided laptops. What a good idea!!! LOL
As I recall, that's how this whole thing broke open. One of the school assistant principals called a kid into her office and showed him a photo of him eating candy in his room at home, and accused him of taking illicit drugs. He told his father, who visited the assistant principal, and who then proceeded with a lawsuit.
Your charts are interesting and consistent with your analysis of them.
They remind me of news reports after a major natural disaster that say “The death toll is expected to rise.”
I always think- Well short of a mass resurrection, of COURSE the death toll is expected to rise.
That’s how I read the abuse numbers form the 1980 ordinations forward. Only two things are possible with these figures; remain static or increase.
The figures leading up to the crest from the 50’s through the 70’s may reflect less abuse, less willingness to come forward or both. My guess is less willingness to come forward. That statement is totally a guess, but based on how active the Catholic church was in those periods- especially in our cities and especially with schools and orphanages.
My guess is that reported rape cases would show a similar lower incident rate during those years as well- not necessarily because there were fewer, but because of the ‘you asked for it’ or ‘damaged property’ prejudices of that time.
Regardless. Accepting your data as a true reflection of the actual number of abuses- not just the actual number of reported abuses; I would caution against chiseling the data from more recent ordinands into granite too quickly.
For whatever reason, many of the victims have waited many years before coming forward. This is the case in many abuse cases- regardless of hetero or homosexual acts; church or secular.
Additionally, it would be helpful from an analytical viewpoint to know at what point in their ministries (after 5, 10, 20 years etc) did the abusing start and peak by the priests.
When the data for the age of the victims and the span since ordination of the priests meet with the data of the known cases; then the data can be truly compared.
I will agree that the data, at least on it’s surface looks promising; and will concede that there couldn’t be a ‘better’ time for a more recent victim to come forward- so perhaps that time delay will be compressed.
I also agree that the Church is doing a significantly better job at removing abusers from ministry in a manner that protects potential future victims and creates an environment for former victims to feel safe coming forward.
As far as reading the first few chapters of Job; the scriptural standard, although one which I’m certain I couldn’t live up to is:
Mat 5: 11-12 Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
So, as long as the accusations are false- rejoice.
Of course, the balance to that teaching appears a few verses later:
Mat 5:25 Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still with him on the way, or he may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison.
Will Wallace
In answer to your question, if you take a look at table 3.3.6 in this pdf, you can surmise that about 44% would have had their first instance of abuse within about 5 years of ordination, about 61% within 10 years of ordination, and 74% within 15 years of ordination.
(that's assuming an average age of 28)
Hope that clarifies some.
Thanks for helping us keep up with the facts. Bless you.
That would strengthen the argument of a true decline.
Priests ordained in the eighties would have victims approaching and into the age ranges of the typical ‘reporting victim’
Thanks
Will Wallace
Its interesting that you believe that deeds are an essential component of Salvation. That would be deeds of commission and deeds of omission as well. That's quite a break with Calvin. Now explain your lack silence and lack of outrage at the non-Catholic abuses in this context. Examining your posting history reveals a singly anti-Catholic bent and a compete disregard for the victims.
Wouldn't you agree that those who exploit the victims for political or sectarian purposes are nearly as guilty as those who exploit them for sexual gratification?.
If you say so....
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Further evidence of your denial and consequential exploitation of the victims for your own purposes. May God have mercy on your soul.
I was never united with Calvin so as to be able to break with him.
I respond to the threads in whatever way seems appropriate to me and owe no explanations if I don't make comparisons of one group's abuse to anothers.
But if my statement that you quote is not so, I'll try your logic should I ever be hauled before the bar:
“Your Honor, Why are you picking on me when there are thousands, yea, tens of thousands, doing the same and worse and you've not said a word about them!!”.
And then I'll accuse him of bias against me, having an agenda, indifference to all the other victims of crime, his silence on forums I read, maybe pull out some charts to show my law breaking has slowed to a minor amount.
Yeah. some logic.
“Wouldn't you agree that those who exploit the victims for political or sectarian purposes are nearly as guilty as those who exploit them for sexual gratification?.”
You do understand then why those of the hierarchy that turned their heads while the abuse was taking place have to be dealt with too.
"Your Honor, Why are you picking on me when there are thousands, yea, tens of thousands, doing the same and worse and you've not said a word about them!!”.
I think that's the point. Why focus on one religious group when abuse occurs everywhere?
IOW the only reason at this point to focus on the Catholic Church wrt "abuse" is to attempt to smear the Church as some kind of breeding ground for abuse.
The conditions that fostered the continued abuse by some priests have been corrected, or at the very least are in the process of being corrected. No one can reasonably deny that.
The rate of abuse in the Church at the height of the scandal was at least, no greater than the general population, if not less than the population.
Given these facts, there is no reason to continue to single out the Church for sins some of Her clergy committed. The only reason to do so, that would be reasonable, would be a concern that it's still going on. There is no evidence of that.
To return to your analogy, this would be akin to asking a judge to recuse himself when/if there is a hint of bais on his part. Those who continue to hammer the Church for sins in the past, with no evidence abuse continues today (at least none that is ignored/referred for treatment by some leftist Bishop) show this level of bias, and therefore should "recuse themselves" from such discussion/debate.
That is, if such people are intellectually honest.
All I can say is (Comment Removed by Moderator) and therefore (Comment Removed by Moderator)!!!!!
Don’t you agree?
Who could find fault with an overwhelming argument like that?
Why would you make a list of Natural Law’s removed comments, when the Religion Moderator stated that it was a sourcing issue, and that the comments could be reinstated when correctly sourced and checked for copyright issues?
There was nothing wrong with the information, and no dispute of its accuracy.
Please be sure to explain that, when next you post a list of deleted comments, otherwise it appears that there was a problem with the information in the posts, which would be false.
Let’s see how this would work:
“Your Honor, Since everything I’ve been accused of is in the past, you must be biased or you wouldn’t keep bringing it up, particularly since I’m in this 12 step program.
So unless you can prove to me you lack bias you shouldn’t comment on my actions and to continue doing so is intellectually dishonest of you”.
“The rate of abuse in the Church at the height of the scandal was at least, no greater than the general population, if not less than the population.”
But the clergy ARE NOT the general population according to Catholic teaching. It is a vocation from God that indelibly changes the man so that once ordained the priest is always a priest, for life.
Furthermore he is a shepherd responsible to Christ for the sheep that ultimately belong to Christ. He is charged with their protection and feeding etc.
Given all that, you’re using the general population as a standard?...............ho boy.
I have not seen a single Catholic deny or defend child molestation, but I have seen wide scale denial and ambivalence regarding molestation by non-Catholic clergy from the non-Catholics. This lack of outrage and condemnation simply illustrates that the real agenda of the non-Catholics is not to comfort and heal the victims or even to prevent new victimization. It is only to harm the Catholic Church.
When I see non-Catholics loudly state that; "Yes, my denomination has abusers in its clergy and it is wrong" and when they address all victims of clergy abuse as a group, not singling out the victims of Catholic clergy as an exploitable group to attack the Church I will begin to see things differently I am sure such non-Catholics exist, just not in any numbers here on FR.
Not my list, J.
Which victims - and victims of what and whom? I can say with a straight face that, according to Judith Anne who originated this thread, no one's a victim here, unless you mean the priests who were found guilty in a court of law, or by their archdiocese. Because we've all learned on this thread that:
a) (Most) Catholic priests were engaging in completely legal sex acts
b) (Most of) the priests' partners were at an age of legal consent, according to Catholic apologists, meaning that
c) (Most of) the priests' partners were engaging in consensual sex acts
d) (Some of) the priests were actually seduced by teenage boys into engaging in these legal, consensual sex acts
e) A priest who finds teenage minors sexually attractive (ephebophilia) is harboring neither a pathological nor a mental disorder.
f) There's a legal difference between molestation and rape, which means that molesting a 13 year old is better than raping a 13 year old..
g) There's at least as much abuse in Presbyterian churches as there has been in Catholic ones [which can't be very much, given points a - f]
h) There's 3-4 times as much abuse by clergy in Protestant denominations [which can't be very much, given points a - g]
i) Silence in regards to abuses by clergy shows a lack of care and concern for the victims. Speaking out in regards to abuses by clergy is exploiting the victims in order to harm others. [which condemns those who brought up points g and h, above]
I didn't ask Judith Anne I asked you and your silence and obfuscation is deafening.
I don't know what was accomplished by copying the Reichbishop on this.
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