Posted on 08/16/2018 9:46:36 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
This week a grand jury reported on documents from six Catholic Church dioceses in Pennsylvania that revealed 300 “predator priests” have been accused of sexually abusing over 1,000 children.
The grand jury report states: “We believe that the real number – of children whose records were lost, or who were afraid ever to come forward – is in the thousands. Most of the victims were boys; but there were girls too. Some were teens; many were prepubescent… But all of them were brushed aside, in every part of the state, by church leaders who preferred to protect the abusers and their institution above all.”
This report has sent shock waves through the world, akin to the 2002 Boston Globe report on a priest accused of molesting more than 80 boys who was shielded by the Catholic Church.
The grand jury rightly stated: “There have been other reports about child sex abuse within the Catholic Church. But never on this scale.”
The Catholic Church is not alone. Many churches and religious institutions have been accused of perpetuating sexual abuse, to various degrees.
In Evangelical Christian church circles, amidst the #MeToo movement, high-profile leaders have been accused of sexual assault. Leaders like Paige Patterson, the president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, was forced to retire after it was reported that he told a rape victim to forgive her attacker instead of calling the police.
Further, in 2017 an assistant pastor at Agape Bible Church in Thornton, Colo., got 13 years in prison for sexually assaulting a young girl repeatedly for 2 years. The police discovered that church leaders and the girl’s father decided to not contact the police and to simply handle the matter “internally.”
In the Mormon church, there have also been scandals, such as the recent case of Joseph L. Bishop, a retired president of the Provo Missionary Training Center, who admitted to molesting at least one female missionary. News reports state that the victim reported the incident to her local bishop, but that the local bishop ignored it because he “wasn’t going to risk sullying the reputation of someone based on that kind of a report.”
In 2017, six Mormon families tried to sue the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for allegedly covering up child sexual abuse by a church member of children as young as 4 and 6 years old. And another suit against the Mormon church claims “Native American children were sexually abused while enrolled in the church’s Indian Student Placement Program.”
There have been accusations of sexual abuse amongst Orthodox Jewish Rabbis, international Buddhist leaders, Muslim pilgrimages, and more.
The list could go on and on.
The hierarchical structures, theology, and policies vary wildly between these different institutions, and so likely will their collective responses and solutions. Each institution will handle allegations of abuse differently – but there can be no doubt that heightened media attention surrounding these issues is socially beneficial for putting churches of all faiths in the hot seat to update and enforce vigorous measures for effective, correct justice in light of abuse.
Many people are asking: why does sexual abuse happen in churches? The heartbreaking reality is wherever there are people – especially when some have greater power or authority than others or where an institution desires self-preservation – there is the possibility of sexual abuse. Sometimes the power differential is in the boardroom at work. Sometimes the institution seeking self-preservation is a Hollywood production company.
And sometimes, the scene of sexual abuse is the church.
If you are a member of a faith community, inquire with your church about the policies and procedures for reporting sexual harassment or abuse. Clarify if leaders are ever left alone with children, at what point after receiving a report the church would call the police, and talk to both fellow members and leadership about ways these policies and more could be improved. Consider asking them to adopt Keeping Children Safe’s international child protection standard, which has been adopted in more than 4,000 organizations worldwide. Ask the church to post this information publicly as well.
Let’s strive for churches to become places of reform, healing, and justice.
-- Haley Halverson (@HaleyCHalverson) is Vice President of Advocacy and Outreach at the National Center on Sexual Exploitation.
Murder is the worst sin. Near it is gossip. There are many sins and the ickiest aren’t always worse than some of the more subtler ones.
I really want to read that Guimaraes book.
I think the sexual abuse in the Church is part of a concerted agenda to set boys on the path to lifelong homosexuality and weaken the Church.
I stand by my original comment.
RE: part of a concerted agenda
Who is coordinating this?
Leftists have always hated to Catholic Church. I couldn’t tell you exactly who but there are always the usual suspect: Soros, Obama, the Clintons, etc. The Left is always in lockstep anyway so individual names are almost unimportant.
Nobody argued with the policy that a "retreat" could cure a sodomite from his desire to bugger boys either.
So the KGB sent a whole bunch of homosexual Russian agents to join the Roman Catholic Church in the 1930s. So many that they all got into positions of power quickly inside the church, took over the majority of the bishop posts and leadership of the seminaries and deceived all the faithful priests.
So it was not really the Roman Catholic Church who was doing it even though they allowed those KGB agents in and then promoted them and followed them blindly.
O-kay.
So where were they coming from? Who were their parish priests that recommended them?
Here is the problem, she could not have done it if the ground work had not been laid at least 30 years before. Long before the KGB was around. In fact the KGB was not around until 1954.
And let's not forget that she was saying this in the 1950's. Before these sodomite communists could have climbed very high. She knew who they were and yet somehow they were not rousted out from their places?
I am sorry, but this attempt to claim that the Roman Catholic Church is not at fault for ordaining sodomites because of some vast plot that they apparently have known about for 70 years and made no attempt to clean up their mess is a bit much.
Either they were all fools or they saw no problem with this.
Which was it?
Not all Pedos are homos. Not all Homos are Pedos.
True and true.
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=catcher%20or%20pitcher
It is a distinction without practical meaning.
Then the DA belongs in prison, too. There's an infinite amount of venom available for the church, but next to none for the government officials who didn't do their jobs. Why is that?
The DA is there to prosecute lawbreakers, not protect his friends.
You argue this like a leftist argues politics—with blind malice, impervious to fact.
The placement of agents in seminaries is fact, exposed in Soviet documents after the fall of the USSR.
You misrepresent a period of decades—two, three, four, five decades—as “quickly.”
You dishonestly restate my position to an unlikely extreme—that they “all” rose to power, that “the majority” of bishops are these first-generation agents, and that they “deceived all” the faithful priests. That’s three lies in one sentence, comrade.
The next sentence contains only two lies: that the Church “allowed” these agents and their recruits into the priesthood and then “followed them blindly.”
Instead of arguing against what was said, you invented five lies and attributed them to me.
Shameful.
Conservatives are, above all, honest.
You really think the KGB wasn’t good enough to infiltrate agents into seminaries? An active agent of the USSR was a trusted aide pushing FDR’s wheelchair at Yalta.
You really think that none of these highly intelligent, highly trained agents could rise within the clergy over twenty, thirty, or forty years? You really think these agents couldn’t draw in more sodomites behind them?
You really believe that none of the sodomite bishops were brought in by sodomites who were brought in by sodomites who were brought in by these highly intelligent and trained agents?
You’re so eager to blame the victim that you’re willing to say anything.
“So she was just calling up the seminaries and telling them to take these sodomite communists as students?”
How do you think people get into West Point and Annapolis? Doesn’t it even occur to you that these sodomite communists were pretending *not* to be sodomite communists? What, do you think they had “sodomite communist” tattooed across their foreheads?
“So where were they coming from? Who were their parish priests that recommended them?”
I begin to suspect that you are ignorant of the capabilities of the KGB. Finding and recruiting leftard sodomites was child’s play for them.
“Here is the problem”
Facepalm.
“she could not have done it if the ground work had not been laid at least 30 years before.”
Nonsense. Twenty years would have been more than enough.
“Long before the KGB was around. In fact the KGB was not around until 1954.”
The name of the organization is irrelevant. I tend to use “KGB” because I am of that generation, but the organization that was for a period known as the KGB has existed from the inception of the USSR to the present day.
“And let’s not forget that she was saying this in the 1950’s. Before these sodomite communists could have climbed very high.”
They couldn’t have climbed very high in twenty years? You really want to make that claim?
“She knew who they were and yet somehow they were not rousted out from their places?”
She might have remembered some names, but not many. She was, after all, a dunce. If you were not blinded by malice, you would see that it was simply not possible to blow the lid on this at that point in history. Any accusation she might have made would have brought the full fury of the media, academia, and the demonrat party down on her, and would have come to naught.
“I am sorry, but this attempt to claim that the Roman Catholic Church is not at fault for ordaining sodomites because of some vast plot that they apparently have known about for 70 years”
Another lie. The Church, at large, has not “apparently” known about this for 70 years, and no one but you said such a thing. The left kept the lid on this for decades. It didn’t come out until, as I said, the leftist media began breaking these stories and using them against the Church.
“and made no attempt to clean up their mess is a bit much.”
Boy, you really don’t care at all if what you say is true. Read the report. According to your source, these things peaked in the 60s and 70s, then declined, and no reports were received since the turn of the century.
Pretty good for “no attempt.”
“Either they were all fools or they saw no problem with this. Which was it?”
False dichotomy. The third alternative—the truth—is that the Soviets were really, really good. Better even than most people think the pathetic CIA was.
Ever hear of the Sparrow Academy?
You haven’t a leg to stand on. All you can do is blame people for not knowing what they could not have known, and hold them responsible for what they could not have prevented.
The church welcomed “non practicing” homosexuals into its ranks begining in the 60s... this is the end result...
Yes abuse happened before... and yes the church betrayed everything right by covering this up.. but they let a cancer in that now must be removed but won’t even be honest about what the problem is.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.