Priest Abuse and Clergy Sexual Abuse Information

Every time something happens with a priest sexually abusing some young boy it always goes back to "Christians and the church are just a bunch of crazy weird people who don’t follow what they believe."

I would say that it speaks equally towards the gay community too. These priests are homosexual and instead of leaving the church(which some do) they pursue relations with boys and make the church look bad when it has nothing to do with the church being contradictory no more so than a gay man doing a horrible thing

Tommy, I’m hoping you’re just naive, ’cause the alternative is scarey…

Male Child Abusers who have a preference for boys/young men are, by overwhelming majority, primarily heterosexual. This is an expression of Power, not Sexuality.

I’m not denying that there are a small percentage of homosexual men that prefer minors, but that is no more surprising than the fact that there is a small percentage of heterosexual men that prefer minors, and women that do the same (het and not). Where this not the case, the child porn industry would fold-up and blow away never to be seen again.

Of the infinitesimal minority of Catholic Priests that *are* in deed homosexual, their "unapproved excursions" are by an large with other Priests and Laity that are of age. So, for every actual homosexual Catholic Priest that abuses boys, you likely have 20-30 or more heterosexual Catholic Priests doing it.

Good Luck!

That’s why all organized religion is a joke and should be shunned.

The coverage until recently has focused exclusively on boys and while that has had the salutary effect of raising awareness of male victims of sexual abuse, it appears that 1 in 4 victims has been female and the female victims have tended to be younger. Many, myself included, have perceived this as primarily or even exclusively an issue where boys are victimized.

Obviously, that perception is caused by the coverage but what factors do you think have shaped that coverage?

http://www.newsweek.com/id/236489

(I have other concerns about the article but I’ll save those for another time.)

juditha…. you are joking right?! what matters is KIDS – male and female have been abused. that’s like pulling out the "who" in the holocust were killed (Jews versus Christians)…. my goodness the majority were male, no one thinks there were no females.
what has shaped the coverage is the media attack on the Rcc and the media share will bring them MORE points if it’s male on male for some twisted reason. we have turned into a very sick minded society who enjoy seeing the worst of people instead of working to focus on helping people.

if the media cared a smidge about kids they would be covering not only the Rcc but the protestant denominations and schools that are abusing children and yes not doing a darned thing about it too in some cases.
http://www.reformation.com/
http://www.cpiu.us/statistics-2/

this is scary and people need to wake up to the fact kids are being abused – moreso within their own home as 60% of children are abused by their own parent!

AP article if you’re interested:
"A federal lawsuit alleges that Pope Benedict XVI and senior Vatican officials covered up allegations of child sexual abuse against a Wisconsin priest who is accused of molesting at least 200 deaf children from 1950 to 1975.

The lawsuit filed Thursday in Milwaukee by St. Paul, Minn., attorney Jeff Anderson says the unidentified plaintiff was a student at a suburban Milwaukee school for the deaf and an alleged victim of abuse by the Rev. Lawrence Murphy.

The lawsuit says the accuser, who is from Illinois, sent two letters to the Vatican in 1995 reporting the abuse and asking for help but he received no response.

The lawsuit seeks the release of confidential Vatican files detailing clergy abuse allegations and unspecified monetary damages."
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h_l0HtfJc-Jw9Q-CWAxTBrUGLaYwD9F86T2O0

The Vatican has responded calling it a publicity stunt.

Do you think it’s justifiable or wrong? Should American citizens have a right to file a lawsuit against the Pope and Vatican?

"The Vatican has responded calling it a publicity stunt."

The Vatican would, since they have no shame and no soul (metaphorically speaking). I think it’s ABOUT FUCKING TIME. Why would it be wrong…? No, you know what’s wrong? The Connecticut diocese advocating for not getting rid of the statute of limitations on child sex crimes since they’re bankrupt the church. Nevermind about the victims, nevermind about all the OTHER children raped by people other than priests.

"The letter says the bill, now pending in the legislature, would put "all Church institutions, including your parish, at risk," and warns that it could lead to bankruptcy, threaten the assets of parishes even without a history of abuse, and "would undermine the mission of the Catholic Church in Connecticut."

"The bottom line is that this is terrible public policy, discriminatory by its nature, and a huge threat to us all," says the letter, signed by Mansell, Bishop William E. Lori of the Bridgeport diocese, and Bishop Michael R. Cote of Norwich.

"We must stop this bill now," the letter says. The bishops ask parishioners to contact their representatives "TODAY!!!"

The Catholic sex abuse cases are a series of lawsuits, criminal prosecutions and scandals related to the sex crimes that were repeatedly committed by Catholic priests and members of religious orders, both under diocesan control and in orders which care for the sick or teach children,
[1] that first rose to widespread public attention in the last two decades of the 20th century.
[2] Although awareness of the widespread scope of these abuses first received significant media attention in Canada, Ireland and the United States, other cases were also reported in a number of other countries.

In addition to the actual abuse, much of the scandal focused around the behavior of some members of the Catholic hierarchy who did not report the crimes to civil authorities, and in many cases reassigned the offenders to other locations where they continued to have contact with minors, giving them the opportunity to continue their sexual abuse.[
3] In defending the church’s widespread sheltering of pedophiles (needs citation), some bishops and psychiatrists contended that the prevailing psychology of the times suggested that people could be cured of such behavior through counseling. In response to the widening scandal, Pope John Paul II failed to firmly declare that sex crimes are a criminal as well as a spiritual offense. He declared instead in 2003 that "there is no place in the priesthood and religious life for those who would harm the young".
[4] With the approval of the Vatican, the hierarchy of the church in the United States instituted reforms to prevent future abuse including requiring background checks for Church employees and volunteers and, noting the preponderance of adolescent males (teenage boys) amongst victims of abuse, warned that a more searching inquiry is necessary for a homosexually oriented man;
[5] and the worldwide Church also prohibited the ordination of men with "deep-seated homosexual tendencies".
[6]Rather than acknowledging the church’s culpability, members of the church hierarchy have compared the church with the most depraved parts of the secular world, arguing that media coverage of the issue has been excessive given that abuse occurs in other institutions.
[7] For example it has been estimated by the only official government report comparing sexual abuse between the Catholic church and public schools in the United States that sexual abuse is much more prevalent in public schools than the church. link Sex Abuse by Teachers Said Worse Than Catholic Church, E. Dougherty, Newsmax Monday, Apr. 05, 2004 Other commentators have said that the scandal highlights deep-seated problems with mandatory celibacy in the priesthood of the Catholic Church and how that institution deals with allegations of child abuse by its clergy.
[8] Other experts in the field of sexual abuse counseling contend that celibacy has no effect on rates of child abuse in the Catholic Church, as it has been shown that the rates of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church is not higher than in society, other public institutions and other religious denominations.
Have you experienced any abuse?
Should the bishops be held responsible for the cover up?

According to mental health professionals, pedophilia is not connected to celibacy.

This very small group of child molesters would be just as sick or evil whether or not they had taken a vow of celibacy.

For more information, see "10 Myths about Priestly Pedophilia": http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/facts/fm0011.html

With love in Christ.

in their ranks? schools as they claim? the media maybe? What´s your opinion?

There is something very basic wrong with the Catholic church but they will not admit it. Instead they put the blame elsewhere and sympathize with each other and continue to try to hide their sins. In the past they were just as bad and worse. They had babies encased in the cement in the catacombs and they were responsible for the inquisition which lasted 256 years. Plus they were the ones who accepted Adolf Hitler into the Catholic church which gave ALL Christians a bad reputation to this day. I wonder if that had something to do with money, btw. They have a history of violence and were attacking the Protestants for years in Ireland. They even attacked a home prayer meeting and threw rocks threw a window which caused glass to enter a child’s eyes. I don’t know whether he ever recovered and he was perfectly innocent and they were trespassing on private property to boot.

It’s not right that they say they can’t marry and this is not in the Bible except a warning against such teachings. In fact they do quite a few things the Bible says not to do such as many rituals, and all the show about being religious is ridiculous—the popes huge tall hat! What are they trying to prove?

….Why do Catholic priest questions always get removed?

They don’t even have to be blatantly provocative questions or statements put up by trolls purely for the sake of aggravating people.

Questions that even so much as REFER to priests get removed.

Do Catholics own Yahoo!Answers or something?

Yelp they do kind of stick together
.
To bad the rest of the religions on the planet can’t do the same
.
Oh there are a few that do but some have a bad results when they do
.

Spain, France, Italy, Portugal, and Poland has fewer reported cases compared to America, Germany, Austria, and Ireland.

Are there fewer lawyers in Spain, France, Italy, Portugal and Poland or more Catholics?

cause they don’t do it there?

Hello, all:

Catholics and others, how do you feel about today’s revelation that the current Pope failed to defrock a child-abusing priest back in 1985?

http://www.idahostatesman.com/2010/04/09/1147249/files-show-future-pope-resisted.html

"The future Pope Benedict XVI resisted pleas to defrock a California priest with a record of sexually molesting children, citing concerns including "the good of the universal church," according to a 1985 letter bearing his signature.
"The correspondence, obtained by The Associated Press, is the strongest challenge yet to the Vatican’s insistence that Benedict played no role in blocking the removal of pedophile priests during his years as head of the Catholic Church’s doctrinal watchdog office."

Does this sadden you? Disappoint you? Make you reconsider your membership in the Catholic Church? Or do you feel it is irrelevant?

Thanks to everyone who takes the time to respond.

This story confuses the action of then Cardinal Ratzinger in weighing the evidence on the abusive homosexual priest Stephen Kiesle and deciding on actions removing him from the priesthood with justice in the matter of the abused boys.

Nothing the Cardinal could have done would have any bearing on the legitimate prosecution of this man for his crimes. Yet when the evidence against Stephen Kiesle was weighed in court, he was only sentenced to probation.

It seems to me that your beef is with the Oakland courts, not with the church, and perhaps with the presiding bishop, who had the responsibility for placing this offender in ministerial roles with boys. The Cardinal was exercising a very distant investigative role for a worldwide church of a billion people.

Cheers,
Bruce

Should medical personnel be required by law to notify police if they see or treat injuries consistent with domestic violence or physical abuse?

Should such notification requirements be considered a violation of physician-patient privilege?

Would such notification requirements affect how many victims of domestic abuse seek medical attention for their injuries?

By "domestic abuse", I also include rape and sexual assault.

I am asking about adults, not minors (if that affects your answers).

Rape by any party is a already a crime. Report of Domestic Violence is not currently a HIPAA violation. If medical personnel were mandated reporters of domestic violence in adults, fewer victims would seek care for broken bones, etc.

As a former victim of physical violence, I do not believe the law should require reporting. Victims of DV (not just women) should have the right to receive confidential care for his or her injuries without the fear of escalating the situation.This would drive victims further underground.

This is a psychological issue as well as an issue of injury. Victims must be ready to make a legal move.