Sex Abuse Crisis: An Apologetic

[ahs]

I really hate to beat a dead horse, but this topic does come up fairly often for me, and I know there are still many folks who have not been given adequate answers to their concerns. I also happen to know that not all Catholics are comfortable talking about the subject, and some might be in danger of having their faith weakened because of it. It is for these reasons (plus the anonymous comment that was posted on one of my blog articles) that I decided to write a researched and thorough investigation on the sex abuse crisis, where it is occurring, and who is doing something about it.

CA has some primer-type info on the scandal within the Church, but I have found that these are only helpful if you already know some hard-data and are confident with the actual facts. This article is intended to give solid facts from primary sources. It makes no excuses, hides nothing, and points out the glaring elephant in the room…that the Catholic Church has little company in trying to protect children.

The Sex-Abuse Crisis: What are Christians Doing About It?

I forgot to mention, if anyone finds anything within there helpful and useful, you are free to use it without quoting me*. I’m pretty sure I didn’t come up with anything original while writing this. As for the sources within there (if you quote a source that I also quoted), just use common sense and give credit to the original author(s).

*There is an exception for the picture I used. Please do not use that without asking first. It was given to me by a very special contributor and I don’t want it being misused.

 

[St_Francis]

Very nice article on a tough subject; thank you.

A couple of points: the links to research on how many children are abused at home didn’t go to the right place. Also, if you could point this out, I have read that when abuse by “parents” is alleged, it is usually a step-parent. (If they write “parent figure,” invariably they are including transient romentic interests of the biological parents.) I think it is impotant to differentiate these and not perpetuate the idea that there are lots of biological parents committing these acts.

 

[ahs]

Thanks for the feedbak on the links. I’ll check that out and fix them. I’ll also make an edit in regards to “parent figure” as you pointed out.

Thanks again!

 

[ahs]

For the links that were not working, or were not directing to the poroper source material, I direct-linked into the report at the pages which give the info I was referring to.

“*If you replace it with “Public Education System” or “American Public” or “Human Population of the World”, the message becomes truer still. In the U.S. alone, national statistics show that over 62,000 children are victims of sexual abuse each year *(see Table 3-8 in THIS report, *as well as *Exhibit 3-e).”

The blue text shows where new links were put in. I left the link within “national statistics show” as it was, so folks can still navigate the Child Welfare national statistics website as they please.

I also clarified the “parent” definition and included more pertinent links (shown in blue below).

“*Even sadder is the fact that more than 80% of these abuse incidents happen at home by one or both ***“parents” (not necessarily biological, but step-parents, transient romantic relationships and common-law situations, etc.). **The Child Welfare report showed that between 80.3 and 81.5% of all abuse (including sexual assault) occur at home by at least one parent (Page 21, Perpetrator Relationship and Pages 61-73, Perpetrators, Chapter 5).”

I also fixed the broken link in "A 2004 report by the US Dept. of Education testifies… " so it leads to that very report.

 

[St_Francis]

For the links that were not working, or were not directing to the poroper source material, I direct-linked into the report at the pages which give the info I was referring to.

“*If you replace it with “Public Education System” or “American Public” or “Human Population of the World”, the message becomes truer still. In the U.S. alone, national statistics show that over 62,000 children are victims of sexual abuse each year *(see Table 3-8 in THIS report, *as well as *Exhibit 3-e).”

The blue text shows where new links were put in. I left the link within “national statistics show” as it was, so folks can still navigate the Child Welfare national statistics website as they please.

I also clarified the “parent” definition and included more pertinent links (shown in blue below).

“*Even sadder is the fact that more than 80% of these abuse incidents happen at home by one or both ***“parents” (not necessarily biological, but step-parents, transient romantic relationships and common-law situations, etc.). **The Child Welfare report showed that between 80.3 and 81.5% of all abuse (including sexual assault) occur at home by at least one parent (Page 21, Perpetrator Relationship and Pages 61-73, Perpetrators, Chapter 5).”

I also fixed the broken link in "A 2004 report by the US Dept. of Education testifies… " so it leads to that very report.

That’s great I esp am concerned with the way so many of these statistics conflate all sorts of “father figures” with actual fathers, for whom sexual abuse is *much *lower.

 

[ahs]

That’s great I esp am concerned with the way so many of these statistics conflate all sorts of “father figures” with actual fathers, for whom sexual abuse is *much *lower.

Yep. Even if a particular report did show that a" biological father" was responsible for the majority of home abuse, this report (the one I used for example) is taking in ALL abuse categories, not just sexual abuse, which only accounts or 9.6% of all abuse.

I actually was looking to see if I could find something that shows that sexual abuse at home is mostly from non-biological parents (something I could link to as another source), but I could not find anything solid. If anyone has a link to something like this, I will gladly work it into the article.