5 former priests charged with sexual misconduct amid Michigan investigation: 'This is only the tip of the iceberg'

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You can’t google it anymore because google is bias but in 2002 I looked up sexual abuse in the USA and it was disgusting to see the statistics and they where not priests. I tried to get those statistics again last year and was impossible to find it in google.

School teachers? As well as police, the social media, doctors shall I go on? I have known people who have been abused, not by priests but by those I just mentioned. Those so called professionals have never been brought to trail. And are free as a bird. Some of those who have been abused never made it public.
 
You’re entitled to your opinion on this. “Basic obligations of justice” are limited by resources all the time, and the cases prosecutors choose to pursue are often politically driven, because prosecutors are generally elected or are dependent upon their party being elected next election.

The law never will prosecute every single case where somebody might wish to have justice. The law is secular and economic.

I just hope while they’re going after the 84-year-old priest in India who offended decades ago, they aren’t letting some younger guy right in town who offended in the same way last week but doesn’t happen to be a priest skate on the same offense.
 
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Divine3 said:
In our law system you are innocent until proven guilty.
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But if we had a system of justice instead of a system of laws, those charged with crimes would be swiftly brought to trial, judged, and exonerated or punished.

Swiftness in justice is beneficial to the accused and the victimized, alike.
 
Yes, and our system is so slow in our courts and has lots of problems these days—but who put those systems in? How many people take the time to vote? Who does the lobbying? How are the lawyers doing these day ? Were they taught in Law School to read the Federalist Papers? Documents Federalists Once upon a time Lawyers were taught these truths of our Nation. How many children for decades even know what the Federalists papers are?
Founding Fathers
 
I just hope the 84 year old priest isn’t abusing as we speak.
 
If he is doing so in India, unfortunately that is outside our jurisdiction, and it is not something we can do anything about.
Our reason for arresting the man is so he can face justice for what he did in the United States, only. India is supposed to take care of what happens in India.
 
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www.catholic.com

Discussing the Scandal: Do's and Don'ts

The horrific Church scandals dominating the headlines are not just a punch in the gut for Catholics—they’re taken as sign by some skeptics, Protestants, a...
www.catholic.com www.catholic.com

from above link–surly helped me—
The horrific Church scandals dominating the headlines are not just a punch in the gut for Catholics—they’re taken as sign by some skeptics, Protestants, and even non-practicing Catholics that they are doing the right thing by steering clear of the Faith.

Still, some of these people may earnestly reach out to you as a faithful Catholic to ask how they can make sense of it all. In those moments where you may have a chance to keep the lines of evangelization open for the future, it’s important to say the right things and avoid the wrong things. Catholic Answers staff weigh in here with some do’s and don’ts for discussing the crisis with them."
 
Thanks for posting this! This is a pretty good article. Some of the things are a little off, but many are excellent. I really appreciated this one:

“ Don’t tell them that things were even worse during other times in the Church’s history, but the Church still got through them. This may be a consoling point to certain Catholics, but to unbelievers, other Christians, and lukewarm Catholics it will not bring comfort but only confirmation of their suspicions.”
 
Honestly though the reason many of these are covered up is because for whatever reason victims went to the Church, and not to the police from my understanding. So a priest abuses a kid, the parents settle with the diocese for money and promises the priest will be dealt with. Then he gets shuffled to another parish and does the same thing. Report abuse when it happens to the police and you cut out the middle man and the pedophile goes to prison. I realize that doesn’t cover every situation but you get the idea.
 
You do realize that back in the 70s and 80s, the parents who reported this stuff to the Church probably got just as much response, if not more response, than you would get from the local police department. Police departments didn’t tend to believe child victims of sexual abuse when they were accusing pillars of the community such as priests or anyone else “respectable”. It was worse if the victim was not a child, but a teen; many police would assume the teenager was making it up or that they acted in some suggestive manner towards the adult.

Nowadays whether you report it to the police or to the pastor (who will call the police), the complaints are taken much more seriously.
 
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Well I was not alive then, so not really familiar. I’m just saying that people can hardly complain about rapists or abusers walking around free if they don’t report the crime to police. :man_shrugging:t2:
 
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A witch hunt? Odd term, given the hundreds of cases, many admitted. There is a very real problem. Pretending otherwise is not helpful.
 
Yes, I see your point but there are great priests or should I say holy priest that are suffering from these Judases.
These Judases are a reflection of the perversity of our Nation, steeped in porn and immorality. Those who own and control the cesspool of the social media will be accountable for their greed, lies and immoral agendas. The communication media is responsible to work for the common good of society not its destruction. We have much sexual abuse, and physical abuse in our nation and the majority of these sick people are not Catholic priests. The greatest abuse is the lawful killing of the unborn.
 
Divine3 said:
Yes, I see your point but there are great priests or should I say holy priest that are suffering from these Judases.
These Judases are a reflection of the perversity of our Nation, steeped in porn and immorality. Those who own and control the cesspool of the social media will be accountable for their greed, lies and immoral agendas. The communication media is responsible to work for the common good of society not its destruction. We have much sexual abuse, and physical abuse in our nation and the majority of these sick people are not Catholic priests. The greatest abuse is the lawful killing of the unborn.
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I don’t know that I understand your point, but to the extent I do understand I disagree strongly. The abuses are not isolated to the United States, and have been going on since long before social media. In fact, they have been going on since long before electricity. We can’t simply blame “society” - there is a real problem and it needs to be addressed.

You also seem to be saying that priests are not committing abuse at a higher rate than other people. I think that is demonstrably incorrect. But even if that were true, we would still have to fight against priestly abuse. The fact that there are great priests does not diminish the obligation to do something about the abusers.
 
And the fact that there are bad priests does not mean all the accusations are truthful. Lots of people, plaintiffs and lawyers, are making lots of money from the Church. It’s hard to not be skeptical when there is such large financial incentive. The percentage of truth compared to the percentage of hoaxes? Who knows. One thing for sure is that it isn’t all one way. There is plenty of truth but also plenty of hoaxes.
 
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This is painful, but this wound needs to be cleaned and cauterized.

Drag it out into the open and shine a light on it.

I’ll be remembering the victims and perps in my prayers.
 
[Be proud to be a Catholic By Sam Miller, prominent Cleveland Jewish businessman – (NOT Catholic)] 🤔 https://fratres.wordpress.com/2008/...s-anti-catholic-bias-in-news-media-full-text/
Sam Miller, prominent Cleveland businessman – Jewish, not Catholic – is fighting mad about & concentrated effort by the media to denigrate the Catholic Church in this country.

"I’m going to say things here today that many Catholics should have said 18 months ago. Maybe it’s easier for me to say because I am not Catholic, but I have had enough, more than enough, disgustingly enough.

During my entire life I’ve never seen a greater vindictive, more scurrilous, biased campaign against the Catholic Church as I have seen in the last 18 months, and the strangest thing is that it is in a country like the United States where there is supposed to be mutual respect and freedom for all religions.

This has bothered me because I too am a minority in this country. You see, unfortunately and I say this very advisedly the Catholics have forgotten that in the early 1850’s when the Italians, the Poles, the Latvians, the Lithuanians, all of Catholic persuasion, came to this country looking for opportunity because of famine, (particularly the Irish) they were already looked upon with derision, suspicion and hatred. Consequently the jobs they were forced to take were the jobs that nobody else wanted bricklayers, ditch diggers, Jewish junkmen, street cleaners, etc.

This prejudice against your religion and mine has never left this country and don’t ever forget it, and (sic) never will. Your people were called Papists, Waps, Guineas, frogs, fish eaters, ad infinitum.

And then after the Civil War, around 1864, the fundamentalists, conservatives, Protestants and a few WASP’s began planting burning crosses throughout the country, particularly in the South. And today; as far as I’m concerned, very little has changed. These gentlemen now have a new style of clothing they’ve gone from bed sheets to gentlemen’s suits."
May eternal rest and joy be his —rip
 
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The more I read the threads the more I sadly realize that I cannot have my children guided by clergy or laity in formation or Church activity.
 
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We had to pull our teens from youth group last year (current school year though) due to an incident involving a lay person and sexual abuse. Even with police involvement, those of us affected have received very little information and when we try to talk about it we are shushed. Initially there was communication and one news report, but now it’s as if nothing ever happened. It’s a very complicated case that doesn’t involve just our parish but other parts of the community as well. If you want more information you can PM me.

It just blows my mind that everyone considers all this a thing of the past or something that rarely happens. I keep hearing how safe our kids are in Catholic Churches, yet we have had incidents in three parishes in three different states over the last 15 years. I wish I were naive enough to buy into the feelings of security.
 
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