Priest Abuse and Clergy Sexual Abuse Information

Two more articles on msnbc today regarding catholic priest sex abuse (3 priests in Brazil caught on tape, ex-Vienna boy’s choir members allege sex abuse).

These incidents have been coming out for years in all countries. The problem seems to be so deeply engrained… so, a few questions:

1) Do you think this problem is worse in the Catholic church than others, or do they just get all the publicity?

2) Do you think the Church has fixed the problem, or are they still just covering it up?

"are they statistically worse than other churches?" —– No. In fact, the statistics even in light of the alleged occurrences in the past 10 years… is lower than that of the Protestant Churches and even lower compared to the rest of the world.

1) Do you think this problem is worse in the Catholic church than others, or do they just get all the publicity? ——- We jsut get all the publicity due to our 1.2Billion members world-wide….

2) Do you think the Church has fixed the problem, or are they still just covering it up? —– Again with the cover-up allegations. Innocent until proven guilty… everyone is afforded that right. We should not condemn someone over allegations… Offenders are prosecuted to the full extent of the law…

If you would like stats… read here…

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,287409,00.html

Also, in 2006, the Catholic Church put in place a Charter to address these issues. Please keep in mind that this Charter includes preventative measures, background checks, and counseling for both the victims and offenders. This obviously, is more than any other organization has offered. So yes, the occurrences happened, but there are some controls in place. Will it eradicate the issue entirely? No… but will it reduce it greatly… yes. For full details of the Charter, go here:

http://www.usccb.org/ocyp/FinalAnnualReport.pdf