Child Sexual Abuse: It's Not Just a Catholic Issue

[SecularMotion]

As Catholic cardinals from around the world gather to elect a new pope, they face the growing ire of an international community that has lost confidence in the moral integrity of the Church. New details are emerging every day about Catholic priests who have committed acts of child sexual abuse and a Church hierarchy that has for decades worked to protect them.

Amid all the names, the one that has attracted the most anger in the U.S. is Cardinal Roger Mahony, archbishop emeritus of Los Angeles. Last month, a court ordered the release of files relating to more than 120 priests accused of child sex abuse which showed that Mahony, along with other officials, had protected the clerics. He was publicly reprimanded by his successor and stripped of his public and administrative duties.

The Catholic Church is in crisis, no doubt. The next pope will be bogged down for years in ongoing worldwide investigations, civil litigation and criminal prosecutions of Church officials. He faces the even tougher job of regaining the diminishing trust of many Catholics who have left the Church out of frustration and disgust.

While the media has chosen to focus on the wrongdoings of the Catholic Church, the problem of child sexual abuse -- and its cover up -- is by no means unique to this one religion. Over the past year, we have seen evidence of several other organizations where moral integrity is a given (including the Boy Scouts of America, Penn State University and an Orthodox Jewish community in London) fall prey to widespread child sexual abuse. Like the Catholic Church, these institutions chose to protect themselves and their own image rather than the lives of innocent victims.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/samantha-parent-walravens/child-sexual-abuse-its-not-just-a-catholic-issue_b_2775024.html

[goldent]

1. This is true, but as a Catholic we say the following at mass:

I confess to almighty God
and to you, my brothers and sisters,
that I have sinned greatly
in my thoughts and in my words,
in what I have done and in what I have failed to do,
through my fault, through my fault,
through my most grievous fault.

No where do we say "but others do it too."

[cbayer]

2. There are pedophiles everywhere and problems will arise anytime you give people

access to children and power.

But the church's refusal to acknowledge this and their subsequent active coverup is what makes this so heinous.

Of course they aren't the only ones, but their culpability is not reduced by that fact.

[okasha]

3. One of the worst cases I've ever heard of

happened in a local Baptist church and involved the trafficking of children.

[cbayer]

4. I think the most dangerous place right now is the internet.

Watched a movie called "Trust_" the other night which blew me away.

The ability for pedophiles to groom and assault children has never been so facilitated as it is by the internet. And it all happens completely out of the view of their parents.

I'm glad mine are grown.

[Dorian Gray]

5. Trust is a great movie

(I had a friend who worked on the production side of it, and we were sad that it wasn't bigger than it was. Clive Owen was great.)

Topic: There is no excuse for child sexual abuse (or any abuse), ever.

[cbayer]

6. I think it made people too uncomfortable. It was one of the better movies

I have seen recently and it is still haunting me.

The entire cast was superb, imo.

It's streaming on Netflix right now, so you might want to take this opportunity to tell more people about it. I know I am.

[backscatter712]

7. Excellent point - the Cathoic priests get all the press...

but I too have heard about abuses in other denominations.

And there's that imam in Saudi Arabia who raped and abused his daughter to death, and got off with just a fine (or blood money to the mother in Muslim terms.) Here's one time when I make an exception to my usual opposition to the death penalty and wish the Saudis would chop his head off.

[Angry Dragon]

8. or other parts

[skepticscott]

9. Ah yes, the tired old

"Everyone else is doing it too" defense. Always advanced without mention of the fact that none of the other organizations in which child sexual abuse has occurred have presumed the moral authority to dictate behavior for the entire world, while failing miserably to adhere to any semblance of it themselves.

How typical of the vapid and thoughtless religious commentary at Huff P.

[goldent]

11. I read the article and didn't see it "defend" the Catholic church.

It is simply pointing out a fact, and is a good reminder that it would be foolish to think that a child who has no connection to the Catholic church is at any less substantial risk of abuse.

[trotsky]

13. Except no one has ever claimed children would be safe from pedophilia outside the RCC.

That would be a red herring you just introduced.

However, the RCC is unique in the way it arrogantly interjects itself into secular law and political discussions to lecture others on moral behavior, while having harbored, protected, and enabled pedophiles (among other despicable things) for an unknown number of centuries.

[goldent]

17. "Except no one has ever claimed children would be safe from pedophilia outside the RCC"

You are right, but RCC cases are more widely reported on (exception is Penn State that maybe got more coverage), so the article does provide a useful perspective.

Regardless of this scandal, I look forward to the Catholic church continuing to express its view on moral issues of the day, for countless more centuries, and am pleased by the worldwide interest in those views. If those views conflict with secular law, then of course there may be influence.

[skepticscott]

19. It is doing much more than just "expressing its views"

and you know that very, very well. Why are you being so disingenuous? It is attempting to influence not only behavior, but the laws of sovereign nations, through the elected representatives os secular governments.

[trotsky]

20. And those cases are more widely reported because...

the church hierarchy is being exposed as blatant hypocrites. They sit there and moralize to the rest of us - the judgment is going to be a lot more intense when their immoral deeds are exposed.

Your church should keep its moral views to itself. It is contributing to the problems in so many ways. (Forbidding condom and birth control use, condemning homosexuality, etc.)

[skepticscott]

18. The title is very clear

in its statement "Child Sexual Abuse: It's Not Just a Catholic Issue" that the article is using the "look, everyone else is doing it too", i.e. what the Catholic Church did isn't as bad as you thought. And while this piece (as all other articles of the genre) pays the obligatory lip service and says, "of course, this doesn't excuse what the Catholic Church did", it is clearly meant to deflect and dilute criticism from the RCC. If it weren't, why are these articles always written in this context? It would be perfectly fine to simply criticize other organizations for not doing enough to combat child sexual abuse within their ranks, and not mention the Catholic Church at all, but they always do.

[meow2u3]

10. The root of child sexual abuse is rampant authoritarianism

It's also the elephant in the room. No one wants to admit that authoritarianism is the root cause of all kinds of abuse: sexual, physical, economic, psychological, you name it. When you give someone (near) authority over others, they're bound to let that authority go to their heads, take advantage of the most helpless and vulnerable, conspire to cover up the crimes, and even blame the victims.

Organizations with top-down, hierarchical structures are breeding grounds for abuse because of their authoritarian nature: sports, education, the Scouts, many churches, the military, the workplace, corporations, etc. The Catholic Church gets singled out because their hierarchy is held to a higher moral standard than secular hierarchical organizations.

Lord Acton was dead on when he said, "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

[cbayer]

12. Agree. Between that and access to children, you have the perfect storm.

[trotsky]

14. Well put. I would quibble with just one point.

You said: "The Catholic Church gets singled out because their hierarchy is held to a higher moral standard than secular hierarchical organizations."

I would alter that sentence to say, the Catholic church gets singled out because their hierarchy asserts they have a higher moral standard than secular hierarchical organizations.

[YankeyMCC]

15. I think you're right...That's an important distinction n/t

[struggle4progress]

16. Lack of transparency is a related structural issue. We should also mention the attitude

of self-righteous self-justification that underlies some many problems. And we ought also to note there sometimes a profound adult contempt for children, which leads to children's complaints being ignored