The Weaknesses of Priests, Pastors & Imams.

[AgnosTheist]

When you see Priests, Pastors & Imams in head line news, you can almost always predict what trouble they are in:

Catholic Priests - Sexual Molestations.

Pastors - Money corruptions.

Imams - promoting violence.

Its a pattern.

The other clerics…rabbis, hindu priests, buddhist monks, …they hardly get in trouble.

Your thoughts?

 

[ralphinal]

well, some Buddhist monks landed “in trouble” recently for being pro-democracy.

Seriously, I think that there are two reasons for the disparity. First, the other groups do not have the media exposure in America. Second, I think that we look for these things. According to research, protestant ministers are more likely to be sexual abusers than priests, but that is not the way it is covered. I am not blaiming the media. These people are sinning in a dangerous way and should be exposed while protecting the innocent.

Now, why are these things connected with these groups? That is another thread. I think that you can find stories of the sins of others if you look. I was told on another post that there are many riots in other countries lead by Hindu and Buddhist clerics. I am sorry but the concept of a Buddhist terrorist hurts my head

 

[dparker]

“News” by it’s nature is the unusual. The extraordinary. The exception.

Media rarely, if ever, covers devout spiritual leaders who are counseling the distressed, comforting the afflicted, teaching the congregation, carefully budgeting the limited resources for the benefit of the many needs, preaching the Gospel, spending time in prayer and reflection, performing weddings, funerals, baptisms…etc.

All these things and more are what the vast majority of Priests and Pastors do, day in and day out with little recognition. The media ignores all of it.

 

[bogoljub]

When you see Priests, Pastors & Imams in head line news, you can almost always predict what trouble they are in:

Catholic Priests - Sexual Molestations.

Pastors - Money corruptions.

Imams - promoting violence.

Its a pattern.

The other clerics…rabbis, hindu priests, buddhist monks, …they hardly get in trouble.

Your thoughts?

God bless !

1:You are writing here of humans wich suffer of sin ! Where is the problem ? Do u not suffer of sin ?

Or did u perhaps had a wrong concepts of priests ? Do u think they are automatical Saints after ordination ?
You should not build your faith on humans or their sins.

Did u not hear that even an apostel was a betrayer ??and greedy ??

2.You should also not build your faith or the image of Church on the information u get from the news ?? Or do they also show the good priests and their good deeds - NO that would be boring !

1. That hindus and other religions do not suffer of sínful leaders is foolish - I know many scandals of Yogis wich were abusing kids in the states but of course the news are not so interested in bad image of this confessions !

In CHRIST

 

[AgnosTheist]

Seriously, I think that there are two reasons for the disparity. First, the other groups do not have the media exposure in America.

i dont think the media discriminates. if a rabbi is found raping, justifying violence, or stealing a lot of money, it will find its way on the front page. people want to hear about it. its money for the press.

According to research, protestant ministers are more likely to be sexual abusers than priests, but that is not the way it is covered.

hmmm never heard about that. & i cant rationalize why. if only you can show a link for that.

 

[ralphinal]

Estimates on Priests who molest

religioustolerance.org/clergy_sex8.htm

Points about the issue in general (read about % of molesting priests being at least as low as molesting teachers, and lower than overall population)

answers.com/topic/roman-catholic-sex-abuse-cases

Stats about other abuse (though it is from a Catholic site, the sources are unbiased)

catholicleague.org/specialreports.php?id=1
I also find it interesting that they cite sourses that say nearly 1/3 or more of protestant ministers claim to have had sexual contact with a church member.
One quote:
“Finally, in the authoritative work by Penn State professor Philip Jenkins, Pedophiles and Priests, it was determined that between .2 and 1.7 percent of priests are pedophiles. The figure among the Protestant clergy ranges between 2 and 3 percent.[xxii]”

I agree that any crime by a man of God, so to speak, will make the news. My point is that the press LOOKS for molesting priests, embezeling ministers and violent imams.

 

[bpbasilphx]

Don’t forget, there are agnostics and even athiests who are violent, avaricious libertines, too.

Why, you find sexual predators among those who never even set foot in a church or mosque!

 

[Kitty_Chan]

TV and media were invented for commercials.

News has to compete with Hollywood, in order to sell commercials.

So the extreme is always more flashy.

Stereotypes are easy to deal with.

So people get labeled.



and . . . .what are labels only good for.??

 

[Rolltide]

When you see Priests, Pastors & Imams in head line news, you can almost always predict what trouble they are in:

Catholic Priests - Sexual Molestations.

Pastors - Money corruptions.

Imams - promoting violence.

Its a pattern.

The other clerics…rabbis, hindu priests, buddhist monks, …they hardly get in trouble.

Your thoughts?

Wow… if you knew anything about the history of India, China, and Japan, you’d know that there are Hindus and Muslims fighting all the time in Kashmir promoting violence, and factionalism in Buddhism that has led to many violent, horrific clashes over the past 100 years. Buddhists in Japan were always getting in trouble for corruption under the shogun, and continued up until the twentieth century. There are no religious leaders that are immune to this.

 

[Reuben_J]

When you see Priests, Pastors & Imams in head line news, you can almost always predict what trouble they are in:

Catholic Priests - Sexual Molestations.

Pastors - Money corruptions.

Imams - promoting violence.

Its a pattern.

The other clerics…rabbis, hindu priests, buddhist monks, …they hardly get in trouble.

Your thoughts?

It is sad when we see priests fall into sin. As consecrated ministers of God, they would be judged twice than ordinary persons would. Much is expected of our priests and religous, simply because often time ‘they are the church’. They do need our prayers, support and affirmation.

Interestingly sins that they are involved in are phenomena prevalent in the culture they were in. Homosexuality and paedophellia are more common in western countries than, for example, in Asia.

Young people may find seminaries as escape route to run away from the predicament of their sexual orientation, but alas, theyget trapped while there.

Priesthood is a divine calling and should never be substituted as convenient vocation.

Take comfort that fallen priests are the small minority as statistic rightly indicates so. We know that the hands of God are upon His chosen ones, and none will be lost whom He has called. And the Gate of Hell will not prevail against His church.

The church owes much to our priests. Many have given the best of their lives for the sake of the church and for the words of their calling. Many have travelled to far foreign lands to serve God’s flock and many of these died in the places where they served and never to come back to their homeland.

God save His people. +

 

[AllSaints1631]

When you see Priests, Pastors & Imams in head line news, you can almost always predict what trouble they are in:

Catholic Priests - Sexual Molestations.

Pastors - Money corruptions.

Imams - promoting violence.

Its a pattern.

The other clerics…rabbis, hindu priests, buddhist monks, …they hardly get in trouble.

Your thoughts?

they only have themselves to blame for the way the public stereotypes them.

 

[dosdog]

When you see Priests, Pastors & Imams in head line news, you can almost always predict what trouble they are in:

Your thoughts?

Chiang Kai-shek 1921–1948 …10,000,000 dead
Mao Zedong 1923–1976 …77,000,000 dead
Joseph Stalin 1929–1953 ;;;;;;43,000,000 dead
Adolf Hitler 1933–1945 ;;;;;;;;;;21,000,000 dead

Abuse Social Context
CONCLUSION

The issue of child sexual molestation is deserving of serious scholarship. Too often, assumptions have been made that this problem is worse in the Catholic clergy than in other sectors of society. This report does not support this conclusion. Indeed, it shows that family members are the most likely to sexually molest a child. It also shows that the incidence of the sexual abuse of a minor is slightly higher among the Protestant clergy than among the Catholic clergy, and that it is significantly higher among public school teachers than among ministers and priests
catholicleague.org/research/abuse_in_social_context.htm

Persecution of Catholics still alive
In India, Catholic churches are regularly burned by Hindu Fundamentalists, and both Hindus and local animist groups have harassed and killed Catholic converts. In Pakistan, which disagrees with India about everything else, an Islamic Fundamentalist government does the same.
catholicherald.com/royal/royal1.htm

Our Sunday Visitor: Persecution of Catholics still alive, oppression’s face fanatic, traditional
catholic.org/international/international_story.php?id=19509/

San Francisco’s ‘Anti-Catholic’ Resolution Prompts Lawsuit
According to Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, “The demagoguery and virulent words of this resolution are reminiscent of the anti- Catholic bigotry of the Ku Klux Klan and the Know Nothings, which marred our Nation’s earlier history. San Francisco may as well have put up signs at the City limits: ‘Faithful Catholics Not Welcomed.”
thomasmore.org/news.html?NewsID=410

The Act of Settlement, 1701, William III
1.This makes the succession of Catholics, the illegitimate, or those who are adopted illegal.

2.That whosoever shall hereafter come to the possession of this Crown, shall join in communion with the Church of England, as by law established

3.The sovereign of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland must join in communion with the Church of England.
bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A695441

Earlier in 2006, Blair rejected calls for repeal.

British Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor
"Talking about Prince William, he can marry by law a Hindu, a Buddhist, anyone, but not a Roman Catholic,” he said. “That seems to me anomalous and I think it should go.” catholic.org/international/international_story.php?id=24206

The American Nazi Party is a group which formed on March 8, 1959 by George Lincoln Rockwell with the intent of reviving Nazism in the United States. The organization was headquartered in Arlington, Virginia,
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Nazi_Party

NAZIS AWARD PROMINENT AMERICANS
On his 78th birthday, the prestigious German Grand Service Cross of the Golden Eagle was presented to Henry Ford by a German diplomat in the USA on July 30, 1938, on behalf of Adolf Hitler himself.

In that same year, the senior executive of the General Motors (German branch) also received the Grand Service Cross of the Golden Eagle award. . The same Golden Eagle award was presented by Herman Göring to American aviation hero, Charles Lingbergh, in October, 1938, during his third visit to Germany.
members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan/facts.html

Eugenics -
Buck v. Bell supplied a precedent for the eventual sterilization of approximately 8,300 Virginians

Borrowing from Laughlin’s Model Law
the German Nazi government adopted a law in 1933 that provided Laughlin proudly published a translation of the German Law for the Prevention of Defective Progeny in The Eugenical News

The Nazi philosophy which has taken over health care in the United States through the HMOs, as well as associated pro-euthanasia policies, was identified as early as 1949 in the New England Journal of Medicine. Dr. Leo Alexander, who had worked with the prosecution at the postwar Nuremberg Tribunal devoting to prosecuting the Nazi doctors, put his finger on it: It is the utilitarian attitude which classified some lives as not useful, or, in Hitler’s own words, ``not worthy to be lived.’’
LIVES UNWORTHY OF LIVING: EXPERT ON NAZI POLICIES
eugenicsarchive.org/html/eugenics/essaystextonly.html
uta.edu/public-affairs/pressreleases/page.php?id=2202
healthsystem.virginia.edu/internet/library/historical/eugenics/3-buckvbell.cfm
blackgenocide.org/sanger.html

 

[KarenNC]

When you see Priests, Pastors & Imams in head line news, you can almost always predict what trouble they are in:

Catholic Priests - Sexual Molestations.

Pastors - Money corruptions.

Imams - promoting violence.

Its a pattern.

The other clerics…rabbis, hindu priests, buddhist monks, …they hardly get in trouble.

Your thoughts?

Assuming you are in the US, it may have as much to do with the religious makeup of your area as anything. For instance, here, we simply don’t have that many non-Protestant clergy, much less non-Christian. As most clergy of any religion don’t get into trouble, the likelihood that one of the few here will do so is much smaller.

I was very surprised to see that you felt that Protestant pastors were usually in money trouble rather than sexual issues. My impression was that it was much more likely to be sexual pecadillos such as mistresses, prostitutes, running off with a church member, etc and includes the periodic one who molests a child. Money issues are there as well, but it is the other that sticks in my mind as more common.

The other thing that typically gets ministers in the local headlines here is a protest or letter to the editor over something they consider “unGodly liberal” (like a clerk saying “Happy Holidays” rather “Merry Christmas” at the store) or some amateur group putting on “Jesus Christ Superstar”.