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markeverett49
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The fact that the media had a ‘feeding frenzy’ over the Tiger Woods story does not change the underlying facts of the case. The same goes here. The Pope has acknowledged that priests have victimized children. That the story is overplayed is by no means the graver sin!
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BlueSapphire
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I’m not denying the fact that certain members of the Catholic Church did some terrible abuses. There is almost equal if not more abuse cases in other institutions, that are not given the same ‘frenzied’ media coverage.
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brina1416
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Thanks for the article post
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Bobby_Jim
Guest
I certainly would not want to excuse anything that anyone in the Catholic church has done by pointing to other institutions where similar problems are ignored and go unchecked…
But one great big elephant in the room here is that the vast majority of sexual abuse does not happen in the Catholic church, nor in Protestant churches, boy scout troops, public school classrooms, doctors offices, therapists’ offices, or any other institution or organization.
No, the majority of child abuse - sexual and otherwise - happens in or near the home, by family members - fathers, mothers, stepfathers, stepmothers, live-in boyfriends/girlfriends, older brothers and sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, neighbors, and others with close relations to the victims.
And very sadly, most of this abuse is never reported. Many times other family members know about the abuse, and do nothing. Parents know to not let their kids be alone with Uncle Creepy, maybe because of something terrible he did to them years ago… but they don’t turn him into the police. They just politely decline his offer to take the kids fishing. Sometimes mom knows that the new boyfriend, or whomever, is sexually abusing her daughter, but does nothing to stop it, and makes excuses for it, because she’s afraid of being alone. (And before anyone complains - I know it’s not just men who do the abusing, and just women who enable it; it’s very hard to write this in a gender-inclusive way).
There’s something very deeply ingrained within us that wants to turn away from this, hide it, deny it, sweep it under the rug, or even enable it. That said, I think the church needs to be much, much better than that - the Church needs to do everything it can to really and truly be holy, and not just sweep things under the rug so that it merely appears holy. I don’t necessarily expect teachers, or Mormons, or Lutherans to be above reproach. But I do expect my Catholic priests and bishops to do everything in their power to be truly above reproach.
But one great big elephant in the room here is that the vast majority of sexual abuse does not happen in the Catholic church, nor in Protestant churches, boy scout troops, public school classrooms, doctors offices, therapists’ offices, or any other institution or organization.
No, the majority of child abuse - sexual and otherwise - happens in or near the home, by family members - fathers, mothers, stepfathers, stepmothers, live-in boyfriends/girlfriends, older brothers and sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, neighbors, and others with close relations to the victims.
And very sadly, most of this abuse is never reported. Many times other family members know about the abuse, and do nothing. Parents know to not let their kids be alone with Uncle Creepy, maybe because of something terrible he did to them years ago… but they don’t turn him into the police. They just politely decline his offer to take the kids fishing. Sometimes mom knows that the new boyfriend, or whomever, is sexually abusing her daughter, but does nothing to stop it, and makes excuses for it, because she’s afraid of being alone. (And before anyone complains - I know it’s not just men who do the abusing, and just women who enable it; it’s very hard to write this in a gender-inclusive way).
There’s something very deeply ingrained within us that wants to turn away from this, hide it, deny it, sweep it under the rug, or even enable it. That said, I think the church needs to be much, much better than that - the Church needs to do everything it can to really and truly be holy, and not just sweep things under the rug so that it merely appears holy. I don’t necessarily expect teachers, or Mormons, or Lutherans to be above reproach. But I do expect my Catholic priests and bishops to do everything in their power to be truly above reproach.
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BlueSapphire
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I’m a survivor of sexual abuse by my Grandfather 35 years ago - he was living with us at the time. I confided in an Aunt 20 years later and begged her not to say it to my parents, which of course she did - they were devastated, and I didn’t want them to suffer as my Grandfather was long dead by that time. It was not their fault. 
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