Study Shows Nearly 60% Of Chicago Parishes Had Pedophile Priests

[DeSwiss]

Priest Abuse In Chicago: Study Shows Nearly 60% Of Chicago Parishes Had Pedophile Priests

Huffington Post | First Posted: 10-12-10 03:57 PM | Updated: 10-12-10 04:04 PM


Survivors Network of those Abused by
Priests founder and President Barbara
Blaine (center) holds up a picture of
herself as a child while protesting the
pope's visit to a Scotland cathedral in
September. She is joined by other
victims of abuse. (AP)


A new study conducted by three local advocacy groups paints a devastating picture of abuse by priests and other clergy within Chicago--showing that more than half of the Chicago Archdiocese's Catholic parishes have employed priests accused of sexual abuse. Reform groups Voice of the Faithful, African American Advocates for Victims of Clergy and Sexual Abuse and the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (http://www.snapnetwork.org/">SNAP) spent five years combing through data for the report--and they believe the number of unreported cases of abuse could make that percentage even larger.

"Almost 60% of the parishes have had a publicly accused predator," SNAP founder and President Barbara Blaine said in a statement. "But the key word is 'publicly accused.' History, psychology and common sense tell us there are dozens and dozens of other offending nuns, seminarians, brothers, priests, bishops and lay employees who have molested or are molesting kids now whose identities are not known. And both groups of child molesters - known and unknown - have been at or worked at the 40% of the Chicago parishes that don't seem to have been affected."

From 1980 to 1990, 57.7 percent of Chicago parishes employed an accused priest, Bob Kopp, vice president of Chicagoland Voice of the Faithful http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2010/10/roman-catholic-church-priest-sex-abuse-children-study.html">told the Chicago Tribune. The study also showed the same parishes employing multiple accused priests over the years.

Saint Christina Parish on the Southwest Side employed four accused pedophile priests between 1966 and 1993--at least two of them overlapping. Saint Leonard Parish in Berwyn employed five accused pedophile priests between 1967 and 1996 and Saint Aloysius Church in Wicker Park employed five accused priests between 1951 and 1994. Blaine said in a statement that while she believes nearly every Chicagoland parish has been affected, the study showed that "poor parishes and minority parishes have a disproportionately high percentage of problem priests."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/12/priest-abuse-in-chicago-s_n_759697.html">MORE

- I'm still waiting to read the statistics which shows how many of these "godly inter-mediators" has been tried, convicted and locked-up........
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DeSwiss






"Prayer is just a way of telling god that his divine plan for
you is flawed -- and shockingly stingy" ~ Betty Bowers

[laconicsax]

1. Clearly, pedophile priests are a tiny minority.

:grr:

[DeSwiss]

2. Clearly.

BTW, I like your "A" with the horns. Perfect.

[laconicsax]

3. I'm one of those gnu atheists.

[intaglio]

6. Rrrrrrim-shot! Are you here all week?

Is the veal ok?

Can I nick it? sorry, translating from the British may I use that A?

[laconicsax]

8. I don't see why not. n/t

[Donald Ian Rankin]

19. Hang on, are you trying to imply that they aren't?

Don't be mislead by that "60%" figure - you need to divide that by the number of priests a parish employs in 10 years, and while obviously some victims won't have come forwards, you also need to factor in the vital word "accused", omitted from the title of the linked article.

[fishstickle]

4. "and they believe the number of unreported cases of abuse could make that percentage even larger."

I would be somewhat surprised if it isn't 100%, or maybe 99.998779% something like that.

[DeSwiss]

5. Oh yeah well then, thanks!

- Now I can't the picture of this red-capper "doing it" outta my head!!!


P.S. - Welcome to DU ;)

[skepticscott]

7. But...but

child-abusing priests are just a tiny, tiny minority of bad apples. I know that because some really smart-sounding people here in RT have declared it. And every other group rapes children just as much as priests do...they said so.

[DeSwiss]

13. I've heard and read similar....

...comments toward that end. They are often referring to the http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/11/18/new-catholic-sex-abuse-findings-gay-priests-not-the-problem/">John http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/researchers_find_sexual_abuse_rates_in_the_catholic_church_are_the_same_as_societys/">Jay study which stated that abusing priests in the Catholic Church are no more prevalent there than what is found in the larger society. Which to me only goes to show that they ain't all that special after all. What's so holy about them, then? Eh?

Unfortunately that study didn't tell us whether these child abusing priests are also being convicted of their crimes at the same rate as the rest of society. That at least would be progress. The problem is, child abusers who're not privy to the sanctity and protection of The Church don't have an entire institution looking out for them and helping them evade the police and the justice systems in countries all over the world.

So I guess that in that sense, they are special......

[edhopper]

9. Shouldn't they lock this thread

because some one might say something offensive to Catholics?
:sarcasm:

[darkstar3]

10. I guess that depends

on whether a certain mod happens to see it and take offense.

Edit: grammar and to add: Consistency may be difficult to achieve with a diverse group, but clear bias should be avoided, and it is clear that some don't care about that fact.

[onager]

11. And the DU Red Squad should be along any time...

To claim Stalin was a pedophile. And Tsar Nicholas II discovered it, which led to the Russian Revolution.

Or something like that.

[darkstar3]

12. Red Squad...I like it.

Especially when you consider the many connotations of "Red vs. Blue." ;)

[DeSwiss]

14. Facts.....

...in and of themselves, aren't offensive.

- Even though they may often offend some who object to the effect facts have in the removal of blinders and the exposing of lies......

[Donald Ian Rankin]

20. Hitler was a leader who made Germany strong, reduced unemployment and build good roads.

Selective quoting of facts - not that there is anything wrong with that; unselective quoting of facts is impossible in a post of finite length - *can* be offensive.

In this case I think that drawing attention to the fact that a) Catholic priests have been and very possibly still are disproportionately likely to abuse children, and that some in the Catholic heirarchy (arguably including the current Pope) have been actively complicit in concealing and in some cases abetting this is perfectly reasonable, but it's a sufficiently important issue that exaggerating it - especially to support a pre-existing agenda - is not.

For what it's worth, I think that the OP is mostly on the right side of the line (although its title isn't) - it's reporting on an as-far-as-I-can-tell reputable study of the problem - but that responses #1 and #2 in the thread are (a long way) over to the wrong side of it - the proportion of Catholic priests who have molested children *is* a small minority (although a. it's significantly larger than the proportion of adults as a whole and b. the fraction of Catholic bishops involved in covering it up may well be significantly larger) and I'm afraid I think that suggesting it isn't in defiance of the evidence is reasonable grounds for suspiction that the speakers motivation is more hostility to Catholicism than concern for victims of child abuse.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

15. The OP title is *not* what the study actually says.

Actually, the study says that nearly 60% of Chicago parishes employed at least one priest who was *accused* of being a paedophile.

I very much hope that the mistitling was an honest mistake and not a deliberate misrepresentation.

[laconicsax]

16. Thank you for pointing out another way the real number could be higher.

"Actually, the study says that nearly 60% of Chicago parishes employed at least one priest who was *accused* of being a paedophile."

So the number could be higher. If a parish employed two paedos, it would have only been counted once.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

18. No, actually.

If 40% of parishes don't employ priests accused of child molesting then 40% is a lower bound on the fraction of priests not accused of child molesting (unless for some reason big parishes have more child molestors per capita than small ones, I suppose), and you'd only get anywhere near that lower bound if every parish had either 0% or 100% of its priests accused.

The number of *priests* accused of child molesting will almost certainly be higher than 60% of the number of *parishes*, but that's not a terribly meaningful statistic.

[DeSwiss]

17. OP's title = Article's title.

If you will click the link that I provided at the end of the article's excerpt, you will see that this is so. If you disagree with the article's title, then might I suggest you take it up with the Huffington Post.

Thank you.

[_ed_]

21. The Catholic Church

is a glorified child rape ring. It should be investigated, dismantled, and shamed like any organized crime syndicate.