Abuse not limited to clergy

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Read this article. This shows at sex abuse scandal is not limited to the clergy.

news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070728/ap_on_re_us/church_abuse_lay_abusers_3;_ylt=Av5Wlq8QsAE8EvImKTK2BgpH2ocA

Excerpts from the link:

SAN DIEGO - The maintenance trailer outside St. Joachim’s Elementary School in Costa Mesa looked harmless from the outside, but once the door slammed shut it was hell on earth for Joe and Paul Livingston.

Lured with doughnuts, candy and games of checkers, the boys were repeatedly molested over several years by the church janitor who lived inside.
 
Mannyfit75 said:
Read this article. This shows at sex abuse scandal is not limited to the clergy.

Lured with doughnuts, candy and games of checkers, the boys were repeatedly molested over several years by the church janitor who lived inside.
Click to expand...
Manny, unfortunately you are right. I know of a case where a young girl was molested on school grounds by a police officer who lived in a trailer at the school to provide security for the property. The devil isn’t choosy, he works on everyone who will let him.

Peace
 
I think what is also important to note, is that the ‘abuse’ was not something that was limited to the Catholic Church. In this time, in this society, child abuse, sexual abuse, pedophilia, homosexuality is rampant in all religious denominations (Christian, Jew, Islam, Wicca, etc.) and in all parts of secular society. The Catholic Church just makes for good headlines.
 
The abuse is certainly not limited to clergy. But it is also not limited to homosexuals. Heterosexuals do it as well.
 
goofyjim said:
The abuse is certainly not limited to clergy. But it is also not limited to homosexuals. Heterosexuals do it as well.
Click to expand...
You are right on about that. I have read several different authorities on the subject of pedophilia state that there is NO connection between pedophilia and homosexuality. None whatsoever. Pedophiles are pedophiles whether they be homosexual or heterosexual. There are no more homosexuals committing these crimes than heterosexuals.
 
Unfortunately, our media seems to enjoy sensation more than facts.

The real lesson that our society SHOULD have learned from the clergy abuse scandal has NOT been learned because of faulty reporting and reporters with an axe to grind or an agenda to advance. The scandal is not that catholic priests are sometimes sexual abusers. The scandal is that EVEN priests are sometimes sexual abusers. Genuine numbers show that the occurence of abuse by priests is MUCH lower than by OTHER professions/vocations that place adults in positions of authority and power over young people. Teachers, counselors, coaches, police are statistically MUCH more likely to commit abuse than a priest. (Married clergy of other faiths have a higher rate too, IIRC.) Predators have an MO. They seek out professions in which they have access and authority over a buffet of potential victims. Watch ANYONE who has access to your kids closely.

But don’t forget precise definitions too. There are different kinds of predators. Pedophilia is the abuse of young children by an adult. It is not related to homosexuality though it sometimes occurs in same sex cases. Like rape, it is more about power than sexual lust. But the catholic scandals ARE a little different than pedophilia as a whole. IIRC from the John Jay report, over 80% of the victims of priest abuse were pubescent boys, not small children. This is NOT pedophilia. It is more aptly described as pedarasty, which IS linked to homosexuality. The media are at fault for mischaracterizing the priest scandal as ‘pedophelia’ AND for implying that priests are more likely than other authority figures to victimize small children. Very few priest victims were small children.

IMO, the priest scandal is not pedophilia at all, but a failure in past catholic pastoral approach to those with SSAs. They were treated with contempt instead of compassion and those suffering persistant SSA seemed to have no choice but to try to live a single life (among whispers in the community) or to mistake the SSA for a call to celibate priesthood (or use the priesthood as a cover story for never marrying). Combine this problem with a near total lack of sexual discernment or discussion in seminary education and you had numerous time bomb priests who felt they could never discuss their problem with anyone, never admit it to anyone (i.e. never get help) and inevitably became surrounded by impressionable pubescent boys who respected them. This is why recent Vatican guidance requires that anyone that has suffered an SSA get help and be free of such temptations for a period of time before entering the seminary. Not because those with an SSA are likely to commit ‘pedophilia’, but because they are at risk for succumbing to the temptation to commit pedarasty. The priesthood is inherently an ‘occasion of sin’ for such sufferers.

The temptation today is to respond to these errors in the past with NEW errors like Integrity/Dignity and tell SSA folks that it is OK and God loves you just as you are, so go do what you feel! Instead support groups like COURAGE that encourage those with SSA to see if there are trauma or insecurity issues that contribute that can be resolved and the SSA eliminated or reduced. They also acknowledge that this might NOT be possible and that such people NEED loving support and affirmation of their worth and human beings in order to live out a humble, christian, celibate life. Just not a priestly one.
 
Manualman, you have described the issues clearly and succinctly. Thank you for that and I agree the media and us too should be a little more careful in the terms we use for this issue.

God Bless
 
manualman said:
Unfortunately, our media seems to enjoy sensation more than facts.

The real lesson that our society SHOULD have learned from the clergy abuse scandal has NOT been learned because of faulty reporting and reporters with an axe to grind or an agenda to advance. The scandal is not that catholic priests are sometimes sexual abusers. The scandal is that EVEN priests are sometimes sexual abusers. Genuine numbers show that the occurence of abuse by priests is MUCH lower than by OTHER professions/vocations that place adults in positions of authority and power over young people. Teachers, counselors, coaches, police are statistically MUCH more likely to commit abuse than a priest. (Married clergy of other faiths have a higher rate too, IIRC.)
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Could you point me toward some statistical figures on this? Is there a good source I could go to online to show this to people who like to blindly Catholic bash??
 
The link i provided on my previous post to an article by Father Jonathan Morris appears to have been censored when i tried to post it on the forums of Rupert Murdoch’s U.K.Sun newspaper(Right-Wing paper).Another post i did later was published.
On the other hand,that same link was published on the forums of the Left-Wing Sunday Mail newspaper.
 
manualman said:
The scandal is not that catholic priests are sometimes sexual abusers. The scandal is that EVEN priests are sometimes sexual abusers.
Click to expand...
As I see it, the SCANDAL was not that even priests can be abusers, these are men with a psychological problem.
No, rather the SCANDAL is the Bishops and other administrators who knew they were abusers, and not only did nothing to stop them, but actually moved them to new parishes where they could carry on their behaviour. For these enablers there is no fire hot enough in hell.

The situation is analogous to Watergate.
If the first priest that was caught by the church in the 50’s had been defrocked and turned over to the civil authorities for jail time, there would have been no scandal. People would have thought the situation regretable, but at least the church would have been doing what it could to deal with the problem.
The scandal came with the coverup, not the crime.
 
Excellent point above. My earlier post was a response to the now common media image of priests being highly likely to be abusers. It’s like they don’t care about truth, just sensation.
 
piperspop said:
As I see it, the SCANDAL was not that even priests can be abusers, these are men with a psychological problem.
No, rather the SCANDAL is the Bishops and other administrators who knew they were abusers, and not only did nothing to stop them, but actually moved them to new parishes where they could carry on their behaviour. For these enablers there is no fire hot enough in hell.

The situation is analogous to Watergate.
If the first priest that was caught by the church in the 50’s had been defrocked and turned over to the civil authorities for jail time, there would have been no scandal. People would have thought the situation regretable, but at least the church would have been doing what it could to deal with the problem.
The scandal came with the coverup, not the crime.
Click to expand...
Let’s not forget that in 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, maybe even the 80’s sexual abuse was not understood like we understand it today. While I am sure that there were some cases where abuse was deliberately covered up to hide the truth, many more cases were handled poorly simply out of ignorance. The media, of course seized on the prior.

Here is a good link on the statistics:
The Nature and Scope of the Problem of Sexual Abuse of Minors
by Catholic Priests and Deacons in the United States
A Research Study Conducted by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice
 
Cattitude said:
Let’s not forget that in 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, maybe even the 80’s sexual abuse was not understood like we understand it today. While I am sure that there were some cases where abuse was deliberately covered up to hide the truth, many more cases were handled poorly simply out of ignorance. The media, of course seized on the prior.

Here is a good link on the statistics:
The Nature and Scope of the Problem of Sexual Abuse of Minors
by Catholic Priests and Deacons in the United States
A Research Study Conducted by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice
Click to expand...
I agree the badly handled cases did have a lot to do with ignorance.It was not realised that this was not a one-off sin,it was an addiction.I remember in the 1970’s reading a Fatima Newsletter
which said that communists were trying to infiltrate protestant and catholic churches.
The links below will give you an idea of the attack on the Pope in a UK Newspaper and his attackers are not all British.When i tried to respond to the right-wing Sun newspaper my post contained a link to a Fox News article by Father Jonathan Morris.That post was not published,but the following one was,in which i objected
to the constant reference to ENGLAND troops in Iraq.I suggested
that they should follow that literally and let the Scottish troops stay at home and don’t bother to come to Scotland for taxes to keep that Queen of ENGLAND.If i remember correctly,the first British soldier to die was Scottish.There was a time in history i would have landed in the Tower of London for this post,but it was the previous post that was censored.
You won’t beat me,so i went to the left-wing Sunday Mail Forums
and the Father Morris Fox News article was published.My name on these forums is franklin or delboy.
The Sun newspaper has a reputation because of its topless page 3 girls.Also,the English edition is conservative and that made it unpopular in Scotland,so they plug the Scottish Nationalists in the Scottish edition of the paper,rather than the Conservative Party

forums.sundaymail.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=125

thesun.co.uk/mysun/comment/view.page?storyId=1445566&submissionId=3713028&nav=jump&pageNo=1

foxnews.com/story/0,2933,286153,00.html
 
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