More than 1,300 priests accused of abuse since 1950, records indicate

[MaineDem]

The scope of sex abuse accusations against Roman Catholic clergy since 1950 appears to be much greater than previously estimated by victims' groups and the media, an Associated Press review of reports from dioceses has found.

The U.S. church will make an unprecedented, nationwide accounting of abuse claims and costs later this month, and some bishops already have started releasing local figures. The AP contacted dioceses across the country and found that 1,341 clergy members have been accused of molesting minors, with more than half the dioceses yet to report.

"What it's really doing is showing us in black and white that the problem is much worse than any of us thought," said Sue Archibald, president of The Linkup, a Kentucky-based victim advocacy group.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/02/10/more_than_1300_priests_accused_of_abuse_since_1950_records_indicate/

And my mother wonders why I don't still go to church. The Archbishops who say they won't give a politician communion because he/she supports a woman's right to choose and then allow pedophiles to contine contact with children make my head explode.

[Muddleoftheroad]

1. "Accused"

Please note the word.

[truthspeaker]

10. stop defending the bad guys

Putting a collar on doesn't give anyone special rights.

[Malva Zebrina]

2. pretty bad record

What is being done about it? I hope something. Perhaps all Catholic parents should teach their children to never ever trust their priest and never ever be alone with that priest?

If I were a parent in that situation that is what I would do given these statistics. And I would certainly feel anxious about any priest being alone with my child.

But then, how do you teach your child that this priest is the representative of a god who will absolve them from all of their "sins", if at the same time you must teach your children to not trust being along with any priest?

[DemBones DemBones]

9. A lot is being done about it in the Catholic Church

but it does need to be handled better by parents, Catholic or not.

Given the facts that

1) approx. 1-2% of all men are abusers

2) abusers seek out ways to be in contact with children, not just the clergy, but also coaching, teaching, being scout leaders

I think parents absolutely must teach their children the whole "good touch/ bad touch" concept and teach them that it's very important to be cautious about being alone with any adult, and that includes family members as well as their hockey coach or scout leader or Fr. Joe (or Rev. Ken, Elder Jones, Rabbi Jacobs, whatever.) I knew several girls abused by a dentist or doctor back in the fifties and sixties, though that type of abuse has curiously never gotten any press.

How parents handle the question "WHY would Fr. Joe (Rev. Ken, etc.) do bad things if he loves God?" is up to them. I think you teach kids that most people really are good but sometimes do very bad things. If parents have been teaching them all along, kids know that they have been bad sometimes, but they know they're not bad people, they just screw up sometimes. And they don't screw up because they don't love God or don't love mommy and daddy.

Obviously sexually abusing children is a whole 'nother level of bad, but most kids have hit other kids, and been hit by them, so they know that hurting someone is a bad thing but people who are otherwise pretty OK people do it. So you try to help them understand that it's like that except grownups can hurt kids worse.

And after all, nobody ever said raising children was easy! It exhausts me just to remember those years, doesn't it you?

[saltpoint]

3. The Press pounds & screams this story while --

-- at the same time barely whispers the story about the accusations of rape in the military in Colorado Springs and the accusations of rape in the military in the Middle East.

Why is one story treated as an abomination and the other soft-pedaled?

Just asking.

[Malva Zebrina]

5. I really don't know but it seems to me that each is equally as

abominable, would you not agree?

[saltpoint]

7. I'm not arguing which is more abominable; I'm asking --

-- why the media scream one story and all but ignore the other.

I'm asking what motivates the obvious imbalance in the coverage.

[wickerwoman]

6. Because everyone knows white boys are more important than brown girls.

I agree that it's horrible that anyone should experience molestation or rape in any form.

The fact is, however, that priest sex sells because our culture fetishizes white boyhood. Whenever this story comes up all we see are interviews with white men. Sexual molestation by the clergy shatters our favorite myth of healthy American boyhood. We get much more indignant about an attack on our boys than their girls (or even our girls- isn't the statistic something like 1 in 4 girls will be raped or molested before she reaches 18?) What we're mostly upset about is the shattering of the myth, not the fact of the molestation. (And by "we"I mean the general American public, not specific members of DU so please don't get defensive.)

[Voltaire99]

11. Many reasons...

...ranging from fulfilling its traditional jingoistic function to fearing an advertiser backlash and the loss of profits it makes on war.

But having said that, I don't think the issues are more than superficially similar. The Catholic church has been shown to have systematically covered up and facilitated sexual abuse for half a century. You're asking us to compare that historical pattern to recent instances of abuse in the military. Don't you think fifty years is a somewhat broader and more damning sample?

Mind, I'm not denying there is other fairly recent historical evidence about sex crimes in the military. The military is a bastion of violence, sexual and otherwise, but it still has a long way to travel before it reaches the special accomplishments of Catholic priests.

[saltpoint]

13. I'm not sure the female victims --

-- of rape by military men would agree that their suffering is somehow less. Severity of transgression is not my question.

My point again is why is there such an obvious imbalance in coverage?

[LeftCoast]

4. Yet the Church feels it can lecture me on the "morality" of Gay Marriage

Hmph!

Seems like they better get their own damned house in order...

[DemBones DemBones]

8. Being accused doesn't equal being guilty,

but even if all the accused priests were guilty, what percent of all the priests who've served as parish priests, taught, run retreats, even visited, in the United States since 1950 does this number represent? What's the total number of priests who've been in this country since 1950?

Priests who molest children make up 1 or 2% of all priests, just as child-molesting Protestant ministers make up about 1-2% of all Protestant ministers, and there have been cover-ups of those cases, too. Jehovah's Witnesses have no clergy but investigations have shown that unpaid laymen with some authority in congregations (i.e. the men who manage the bill-paying and organizational duties that clergymen do in most churches) are prone to molesting children and the Watchtower Organization (the Vatican for Witnesses) covers up all the cases! Unless a man confesses, the Witnesses take the man's word over the child's. I'm not sure there are stats, but I'd guess it's about 1-2% of the elders who are involved.

The same thing has been shown about the Church of Latter Day Saints (the Mormons.) None of the molestation cases among Protestants, Witnesses, or Mormons are ever as highly reported as the cases involving Catholic priests have been. In the past two or three years, there have been at least three cases of Orthodox rabbis molesting children, and other rabbis and influential Orthodox laypeople covering up the crimes. Those cases have been little-reported, too. But even more importantly, priests and rabbis and ministers are first of all men, and it is predominantly men who abuse children. These abusers often try to find work that puts them in contact with their chosen prey, which is why they enter the clergy, become teachers, coaches, and scout leaders.

Those who have studied the problem of child molestation and looked at all the statistics say that clergy, Catholic priests as well as other clergy, are guilty of child molestation at the same rates as the population of men as a whole.

[Bridget Burke]

14. "many cases were not reviewed by law enforcement"

In cases of child molestation--not "sexual harrassment"--the transgressions should have been reported directly to the police. Criminal charges should have been made.

This is not to excuse the guilty--whether they did the deeds or covered them up. But, apparently in an effort to avoid embarrassment, complaints were made to church officials instead of the secular authorities. Perhaps the accused were transferred; often, a monetary settlement was accepted.

If criminal charges are made, an investigation must follow; guilt must be proven. But this is the only way to put real pedophiles away. Accepting payment for staying silent won't help.

[ComerPerro]

12. Chapelle's show Negrodamus

"Negrodamus, What was Michael Jackson's biggest mistake?"

"Michael Jackson never should have been a singer. He should have been a priest. Then he would just have been transferred"