And now the abuse report from Poland

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I didn’t and don’t find it horrible. I realize that not every person can or wants to deal with such matters. God equipped me and the others I know who do/ did such work to be able to handle it to a great extent.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
I didn’t and don’t find it horrible. I realize that not every person can or wants to deal with such matters. God equipped me and the others I know who do/ did such work to be able to handle it to a great extent.
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My work was always at the other end, as an advocate for abused children, so I would find it hard to be dispassionate and ‘balanced’ about the abusers. Theoretically I could understand that God forgives even them, but in practice, my own heart would find it very hard to do so.
 
I think it is US centric to think that the cover ups are behind us. In the USA and other developed places I do think that is the case. But in the third world and even second world countries like Italy it is not out of line to think abuse is still covered up. And the “cover up” can be just an inability to handle things correctly. Even the Vatican has failed recently with these issues. And a broad problem even in the USA is the lack of knowledge and action many bishops and diocese have. Like I said, we have a good bishop. But the diocese was horrible when handling the legal issues with recent abuse cases. To the point that they did not know how to evict a priest on trial for horrific things from diocese property. Neighbors had to inform the diocese about landlord tenet law to keep their kids safe. I think sometimes it is just as scary that the abuse is not covered up but rather catching the Church unaware of how to deal with it. And comparing it to other things that have abuse is not recognizing some major differences and challenges the Church faces. The Church needs secrecy to survive. It needs freedom from any state, even if that state is the Good ole USA. But it has to balance that with safety and recognizing the challenges that it faces with an all male celibate priesthood with some socially outcast people in it. These things need to be addressed. The all male can never change, the celibate part should not change and the socially awkward part is a generalization to be true. Vigilance and the clinging to what is true will be the cure. Theologically and practically.
 
Hoosier-Daddy said:
I think it is US centric to think that the cover ups are behind us. In the USA and other developed places I do think that is the case. But in the third world and even second world countries like Italy it is not out of line to think abuse is still covered up.
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You are correct, I am answering primarily from a US-centric view.

If I had to guess I would say that US, Canada and some of the European nations probably are getting a good handle on this matter now.

But I shudder to think what might be happening in countries where the clergy still has a lot of power and confers a lot of benefits, like education and jobs, on those it favors, such as certain African, South American and Central American nations. I also think in those places there may be a lot of abuse of adults going on, not just pedophilia.
 
The actual percentage would be much lower. I’m sure there have been more priests than 5000 in Poland over the past 20 years. (You would have to include priests who have died during that period). I am not aware of any evidence that there are a higher percentage of abusers among clergy than among the general populace. But of course one is too many. And the bigger scandal in the Catholic Church is historic cover ups.
 
The laity aren’t much of a threat with their inactivity in the matter.
 
And yet when laity speak up, even here, others will attack them with all caps and questions about their motivations. Perhaps those who want to speak out feel that they will be considered ‘bad Catholics’ for daring to believe victims. Just an idea.
 
I’ve got to say- your post made me feel worse about the numbers!

I was under the impression that pedophilia was lower among priest than among the general population.

%8 is kind of high don’t you think?
 
Once again, my estimate, which is more like a “guesstimate” as I haven’t looked up the total number of active priests in the area over 30 years, is probably high. I skewed high lest I be accused of “minimizing the problem”.

And no, it’s not lower; I would guess it’s roughly the same.
It would be good if it was lower.
It would be best if it was zero!
 
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Sad that we can’t expect our priests to show a higher standard than the general populace. Maybe that’s naïveté on my part
 
I think the problem escalated because of the cover-ups. If those who knew about the behaviour had stopped it in the beginning instead of moving priests from parish to parish, then perhaps the cancer would not have grown quite so big. The pedophilia is a crime but so is the cover-up because it allowed it an environment to thrive and grow.
 
Speaking up doesn’t do anything and resembles the supposedly inactive bishops.
 
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By speaking up, I am not referring to the laity but to those in charge of the pedophile priests who just kept moving them from parish to parish instead of taking action against them.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
This is wrong, but even if we err on the conservative side and say 400 priests were accused (instead of the actual number, 382) and say that there’s a priest in Poland, including religious orders, for every 2 parishes, making a total of 5000 priests serving 10000 parishes, then you have 400/ 5000 = 8 percent.

We need to get it to zero percent, but the conclusion based on my conservative estimate remains that 4600 priests, well over 90 percent, have not been accused of any abuse…and the actual number of priests in Poland since 1990 is likely to be higher than the conservative estimate I made, which would drive the percentages lower.

Nobody is ever going to run a headline that says, “90% of priests in Poland were never accused of sexual abuse” though.
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I don’t know the full details of the report, but I’d assume the report also lists accusations against now deceased priests as well. If there are currently ~5000 priests in Poland, then there are many thousands more who are deceased. This means that the percentage would be much smaller.
 
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