Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
The Clerical Child Abuse Thread (merged)
Options
Comments
-
Knight who says Meh wrote: »Its a terrible shame the Romans were soft and didnt throw a few more Christians to the lions. We might all be better off.;)
Well your sort has been failing for 2000 years.0 -
Knight who says Meh wrote: »Its a terrible shame the Romans were soft and didnt throw a few more Christians to the lions. We might all be better off.;)
I assume you are attempting to be facetious?0 -
Knight who says Meh wrote: »Its a terrible shame the Romans were soft and didnt throw a few more Christians to the lions. We might all be better off.;)
Kinda ironic how some people are complaining about Rome being over involved and also baying for blood and for Christians to be persecuted when Christianity presents a reasonable and valid position?
0 -
The post and the two references(which are about abuse in the UK...relevance?) contain nothing about sexual abuse being a category 5 on the redress board scale. I'll take it you may have miss remembered this.
Yes. Im waiting for a reply from my lawyer collague on that source but i admit all category five may not be sexual abuse and all sexual abuse may not be category 5.
What we do know is that in Ireland bewtween the 1920s and 1990s in general and specifically in the 170,000 children in industrial schools ( which were as far as we know the worst in terms of abuse) there are
between 14 and 26 reported cases of clergy ( 14 in girls schools and institutions which may overlap with a further 12 in boys schools) sexually abusing children.
We also know that there are 31 really cases of the worst kind ( not all sexual abuse and from looking at Ireland and elsewhere we could say maybe 25 per cent of these were sexual in nature i.e say about 8 really serious cases of sexual abuse) And I accept thse are only the redress board and there may be more but that is what we have to go by for stats.
That's about one really serious sexual abuse case per decade from a population of over 170,000
and about two to three Roman Catholics priests per decade. in times when ther were about 25,000 religious priests nuns and brothers in Ireland.
One in one too many but in relation to outside the church it is a tiny number.0 -
That's about one really serious sexual abuse case per decade from a population of over 170,000
and about two to three Roman Catholics priests per decade. in times when ther were about 25,000 religious priests nuns and brothers in Ireland.
Really? And which of the over 100 victims of Brendan Smyth would you classify as being not seriously abused?
It is obvious that the Church has no power against evil and constitutes a sanctuary for it.
How else could prophecy be made to come true?
I am not an anti-Catholic as such but I am opposed to evil and if the RCC is not part of the solution (which it isn't) then it is part of the problem.
And the Pope? What kind of leader distances himself from problems within his organisation? Is it because he is a coward or is it because he is covering the ar*e of his office? Both, perhaps.
ISAW, in the same way that Bertie Ahern may say nice things about Fianna Fail, you can say nice things about your Church but in the end, your credibility is shot; evil rules in spite of your faith and the Church can do nothing to resist. (Mind you, it's not supposed to, is it? Prophecy and all that.)0 -
Advertisement
-
himnextdoor wrote: »Really? And which of the over 100 victims of Brendan Smyth would you classify as being not seriously abused?
This is called "cherry picking".
You can do this with any abuser clerical or none clerical . Name the victims and say "well were they not seriously abused"? I am quite happy to admit one case is one case too many but the point is that for every abusing cleric there are a hundred non clerical abusers
Brendan Smyth isn't part of the Institutions stats as far as I know since his abuse was mainly in Northern Ireland and outside institutions. The reason he was in the Republic was because he was fleeing another Juristiction. He had been in the religious order since 1945 and only came south in 1991!
The legality of the day meant there was no extradiction to the North. That is a State issue not a church one. The Church has admitted however that the bishop in charge of his diocese at the time should have done more, as should the State(s) . But like serial killers or wife murderers many child abusers were not believed to be as bad as we now know.
In addition Smyth is a single abuser. Yes he may have had 100 victims but this was rare. I have already admitted that clerical abusers had multiple victims but the fact remains clerical abusers are less than one per cent of abusers. In other words if clerical abusers never even existed you would still be left with the other 99 per cent of abusers. so the Church can't be accused of causing abuse if they only represent one per cent of it.It is obvious that the Church has no power against evil and constitutes a sanctuary for it.
So if a drunken priest runs down a person on the road and he is one of 1,000 people who caused death by drunk driving you think that the church is the one responsible for road deaths and not the 999 other drivers?I am not an anti-Catholic as such but I am opposed to evil and if the RCC is not part of the solution (which it isn't) then it is part of the problem.
The Church acted on child protection policies before the state did. And how can clerical abuse be "the problem" when 99 per cent plus of the abusers are not clerics but non clerics?And the Pope? What kind of leader distances himself from problems within his organisation?
1. He didn't distance himself . Popes don't micro manage diocese!
2. WHAT problem. The Vatican didn't partake in child sexual abuse , didn't encourage it, didn't facilitate it, didn't obstruct or prevent investigations into it and didn't cover it up.Is it because he is a coward or is it because he is covering his office? Both, perhaps.
See 2. aboveISAW, in the same way that Bertie Ahern may say nice things about Fianna Fail, you can say nice things about your Church but in the end,
Please don't personalise this. I have again and again stated it makes no different if I am Protestant catholic orthodox Muslim or whatever and I have taken and opposed opinions expressed by all those groups. What I am doing here is trying my best to represent the position of the RCC as I see it. I don't claim I am right but I am not a spokesperson for the Church or paid to do this or in a voluntary group doing it.
I am just expressing my opinion about anti catholic elements in the media.
The "you are just saying that because you are a catholic" line is nonsense.
I have quoted Philip Jenkins on anti Catholicism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Jenkins
Jenkins is an ex Catholic Episcopalian!
That is your unsupported opinion.your credibility is shot; evil rules in spite of your faith and the Church can do nothing to resist.
Philip Jenkins (born April 3, 1952) is as of 2010 the Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Humanities at Pennsylvania State University (PSU). He was Professor (from 1993) and a Distinguished Professor (from 1997) of History and Religious studies at the same institution; and also assistant, associate and then full professor of Criminal Justice and American Studies at PSU, 1980–1993. He is also a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Baylor University's Institute for Studies of Religion0 -
when we are talking about abuse,we are not just talking about sexual abuse,many thousands of irish babies and young children[NOT ORPHANS] were SOLD by the catholic church to americans for odoption,many of the babies that were taken off their mother without their permission,signatures were forged,and the babies were sent by plane to the new parents,the only criteria that the church wanted was that the new parents had to be catholic,as the irish goverment turned a blind eye to the baby trade ,i very much doubt they will be asking any questions, try this link,http://banishedbabies-ireland.blogspot.com/0
-
when we are talking about abuse,we are not just talking about sexual abuse,many thousands of irish babies and young children[NOT ORPHANS] were SOLD by the catholic church to americans for adoption,
Many were not sold and willingly adopted as well. But the point being discussed is the sexual abuse of children in Ireland and how clerical abuse exists in teh more general comparison of non clerical abuse.many of the babies that were taken off their mother without their permission,signatures were forged,and the babies were sent by plane to the new parents,the only criteria that the church wanted was that the new parents had to be catholic,
Where is your evidence that the church organized this, or that the Vatican or the Pope was involved in and knew of this ?
I do know of a nun who organised such adoptions. My father worked with her they were always for consenting unmarried mothers. They were not SOLD! this nun set up a charity called CHERISH.
Here is a related facebook post on it
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=229523394970&topic=14535When legislation was finally introduced in 1952, McQuaid vetted every word so that his army of Catholic children would not be led astray by adoptive parents. The Adoption Act included the clause that the adoptive parents must be "of the same religion as the child and his parents, or, if the child is illegitimate, his mother." This was found to be unconstitutional in 1974 and overturned by the court.
Source given as : "Ireland's Banished Children: Many of the thousands of Irish babies." Irish America. 30 Apr. 1997: PG. eLibrary. Web. 08 Nov. 2010.
Mullins, E. (1997, April 30). Ireland's Banished Children: Many of the thousands of Irish babies. Irish America, PG, Retrieved from http://elibrary.bigchalk.com.ezproxy.torontopubliclibrary.ca/
In fact the "child" quoted is on facebook today!
You can call this "abuse" but I don't think the "child" mentioned woudl say he is personally a victim of sexual abuse. And I haven't justified the authoritarian elements like Mc Quaid anywhere in this discussion.as the irish goverment turned a blind eye to the baby trade ,i very much doubt they will be asking any questions, try this link,http://banishedbabies-ireland.blogspot.com/
But while the church as a whole cant be criticised for this you certainly can have a go at the then Bishop of Dublin. the point is you cant't do that without admitting the involvement of those outside the Church hierarchy. So although it isn't as bad as direct child sexual abuse the same idea applies i.e. you can't single out the clergy few of whom were involved. Gardai and various department officials were also involved.0 -
i can not believe your lame excuses,even after all the evidence that is coming out daily,this thread is not just about sexual abuse is,and i quote clerical child abuse just because the vatican and the pope did not sanction the goings on, does not make them less guilty,if money was asked for as a donation even after the child was adopted the new parents would feel they had to donate, its still charging ,even in the USA there was a case of a person within this catholic adoption service being found to be selling irish children. you put a young pregnent irish girl in one of those places,she is so desperate at that time she would have agreed to anything,the baby would be with her for the first two years,she would by then be bonded with the child, and as the reporter said he has the evidence the signatures on many of the documents were forged by the mother superiors, the other thing these children/babies were not orphans,they had a mother and somewhere a father.Many were not sold and willingly adopted as well. But the point being discussed is the sexual abuse of children in Ireland and how clerical abuse exists in teh more general comparison of non clerical abuse.
Where is your evidence that the church organized this, or that the Vatican or the Pope was involved in and knew of this ?
I do know of a nun who organised such adoptions. My father worked with her they were always for consenting unmarried mothers. They were not SOLD! this nun set up a charity called CHERISH.
Here is a related facebook post on it
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=229523394970&topic=14535
Source given as : "Ireland's Banished Children: Many of the thousands of Irish babies." Irish America. 30 Apr. 1997: PG. eLibrary. Web. 08 Nov. 2010.
Mullins, E. (1997, April 30). Ireland's Banished Children: Many of the thousands of Irish babies. Irish America, PG, Retrieved from http://elibrary.bigchalk.com.ezproxy.torontopubliclibrary.ca/
In fact the "child" quoted is on facebook today!
You can call this "abuse" but I don't think the "child" mentioned woudl say he is personally a victim of sexual abuse. And I haven't justified the authoritarian elements like Mc Quaid anywhere in this discussion.
But while the church as a whole cant be criticised for this you certainly can have a go at the then Bishop of Dublin. the point is you cant't do that without admitting the involvement of those outside the Church hierarchy. So although it isn't as bad as direct child sexual abuse the same idea applies i.e. you can't single out the clergy few of whom were involved. Gardai and various department officials were also involved.0 -
This is called "cherry picking".
You can do this with any abuser clerical or none clerical . Name the victims and say "well were they not seriously abused"? I am quite happy to admit one case is one case too many but the point is that for every abusing cleric there are a hundred non clerical abusers
You said ...one case of serious sexual abuse per decade by Catholic clergy...
Was Brendan Smyth not counted among your 23,000 Priests?Brendan Smyth isn't part of the Institutions stats as far as I know since his abuse was mainly in Northern Ireland and outside institutions. The reason he was in the Republic was because he was fleeing another Juristiction. He had been in the religious order since 1945 and only came south in 1991!
See above.The legality of the day meant there was no extradiction to the North. That is a State issue not a church one. The Church has admitted however that the bishop in charge of his diocese at the time should have done more, as should the State(s) . But like serial killers or wife murderers many child abusers were not believed to be as bad as we now know.
The legality of the day means that none of this is any of my business at all but that is not enough to keep me quiet; the silence of the Church on these issues constitutes a cowardly abdication of moral responsibility.In addition Smyth is a single abuser. Yes he may have had 100 victims but this was rare. I have already admitted that clerical abusers had multiple victims but the fact remains clerical abusers are less than one per cent of abusers. In other words if clerical abusers never even existed you would still be left with the other 99 per cent of abusers. so the Church can't be accused of causing abuse if they only represent one per cent of it.
According to you, Smyth is responsible for a thousand years worth of abuse unless you define 95% of his offenses as 'not serious sexual abuse'.
And seeing as the Church actively protected Smyth then yes, actually the Church is responsible for the abuse of children; actual abusers may only be comprised of 1% of the clergy but the other 99% sat back and did nothing to stop it and the failure of the Church to become involved led directly to the abuse of even more children.So if a drunken priest runs down a person on the road and he is one of 1,000 people who caused death by drunk driving you think that the church is the one responsible for road deaths and not the 999 other drivers?
That is a silly suggestion.
However, if the Church hid the Priest until he was sober and arranged for his car to be repaired and repainted then the Church would be guilty of aiding and abetting.The Church acted on child protection policies before the state did. And how can clerical abuse be "the problem" when 99 per cent plus of the abusers are not clerics but non clerics?
Actions speak louder than written policy which is completely ignored.
Brady was part of a team that allowed Smyth to go on abusing for an extra two decades or so and that was according to Church policy which you are defending.1. He didn't distance himself . Popes don't micro manage diocese!
2. WHAT problem. The Vatican didn't partake in child sexual abuse , didn't encourage it, didn't facilitate it, didn't obstruct or prevent investigations into it and didn't cover it up.
2 THIS problem; The Vatican DID partake in child sexual abuse , didn't DIScourage it, didn't PREVENT it, didn't ASSIST or FACILITATE investigations into it and WERE SECRETIVE ABOUT IT.See 2. above
See 2 above.Please don't personalise this. I have again and again stated it makes no different if I am Protestant catholic orthodox Muslim or whatever and I have taken and opposed opinions expressed by all those groups. What I am doing here is trying my best to represent the position of the RCC as I see it. I don't claim I am right but I am not a spokesperson for the Church or paid to do this or in a voluntary group doing it.
I am just expressing my opinion about anti catholic elements in the media.
The "you are just saying that because you are a catholic" line is nonsense.
I have quoted Philip Jenkins on anti Catholicism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Jenkins
Jenkins is an ex Catholic Episcopalian!
For many people, the term 'anti-Catholicism' is synonymous to the term 'anti-evil'.That is your unsupported opinion.
Philip Jenkins (born April 3, 1952) is as of 2010 the Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Humanities at Pennsylvania State University (PSU). He was Professor (from 1993) and a Distinguished Professor (from 1997) of History and Religious studies at the same institution; and also assistant, associate and then full professor of Criminal Justice and American Studies at PSU, 1980–1993. He is also a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Baylor University's Institute for Studies of Religion
Way to go Philip!
Did you see Brendan Smyth's C.V. up to when he was charged with crimes of abuse?
High achievers tend to be good at jumping through hoops as a means to an end.
Some of the highest achievers on the planet are today engaged in dropping bombs on babies.
What's your point: people with qualifications can't be bad people?0 -
Advertisement
-
i can not believe your lame excuses,
to what "lame excuses" are you specifically referring?even after all the evidence that is coming out daily,
"all the evidence" about what?
About the Vatican or Pope being involved cover ups of clerics who sexually abused Children?
Care to list all this evidence because I haven't seen any.
In fact teh Taoiseach and Tanioste have just climbed down on this very accusation i.e. that Rome interfered with and tried to cover up in the Irish State process of investigating
clerical abuse.this thread is not just about sexual abuse is,and i quote clerical child abuse
We have been over this before all child abuse can be discussed expecially as it related to the context of clerical abuse. But the prevalence of clerical sexual abuse of young children ( the pedophile priests" myth) is the main issue of discussion. In particular RC Priests but abusers form other religions and denominations ( which outnumber RC priests ) can be discussed. Any other discussion on sexual abuse by clerics will be moved here.just because the vatican and the pope did not sanction the goings on, does not make them less guilty,
It makes then not guilty of committing the abuse.
Just as a Bishop who tried to cover it up is not guilty.
The second charge - that of covering up- usually raised by anti Catholics and atheists s a different charge. It is also unsuppored. The pope or vatican didn't cover up sexual abuse.
Of then thousand nbishops maybe ten acting individually did not report it. they dint allow it either they just dint report it to authorities when they discovered it. Sometimes the authorities came to them and proposed not to report it. In no case did more than one of these Bishops meet with or collude with another Bishop to hide it.if money was asked for as a donation even after the child was adopted the new parents would feel they had to donate,
We have discussed this! Adoption is not child sexual abuse! If you want to discuss it start another thread on that topic.0 -
himnextdoor wrote: »You said ...one case of serious sexual abuse per decade by Catholic clergy...
Was Brendan Smyth not counted among your 23,000 Priests?
No he wasn't! The 23,000 figure refers to the number in the Republic . If you include the North it is even higher. Brendan Smyth was not a priest in the Republic and we were discussing child abuse particularly in Institutional "Holy Catholic" Ireland. The North was actually run by a Protestant Majority at the time. Certainly not by the Catholic church.The legality of the day means that none of this is any of my business at all but that is not enough to keep me quiet; the silence of the Church on these issues constitutes a cowardly abdication of moral responsibility.
The Church has not been silent on Smyth. It condemns his actions. It admits that Smyth should have been dectected and dealt with and like the State it failed in this regard. The Pope and Vatican didn not know about Smyth and did not cover his abuse up or ignore it! the local Bishop or RUC did.According to you, Smyth is responsible for a thousand years worth of abuse unless you define 95% of his offenses as 'not serious sexual abuse'.
I think you may been lessons in statistics.
I have earlier presented comparable stats from the US and other places . I think Shakeshaft and Jenkins were the main sources for these. But there are examples in Australia and elsewhere. In the above sub thread we were discussing the issue of Institutional abuse in the Republic of Ireland.
Roman catholic clerics constitute about a pewrcent or less of the pedophilse abusers in society.
While it is true that some of them ( clerics) have multiple victims the vast majority of victims and of abusers are non clergy!
As for Smyth. I dont know what his 100 offences were.
I do know other people are tarred with the one brush for his evil acts because his singular behaviour is attributed to all clerics and all Catholic institution workers:
https://falselyaccusedfather.wordpress.com/2011/03/22/brendan-smyth/on the one had I was seething with anger towards this bastar! – who I would quite instinctively and spontaneously have beaten the sh!t out of if I caught him; and on the other hand I was contemplating in utter disbelief, sorrow, incredulity and tears – that I am being accused and ruthlessly investigated for carrying out such heinous practicesAnd seeing as the Church actively protected Smyth then yes, actually the Church is responsible for the abuse of children;
The Vatican or the Pope didn't! that is the point!
His local Bishop or Abbot may have but that was not widespread to the other ten thousand bishops no more than Smyth's behavior was not widespread to the other millions of priests. Even among child abusers he is an extreme case! The idea that his being a priest was some sort of cause of it is preposterous. Clearly an evil man used the Church to facilitate his evil acts. But the church is not to blame no more than society is to blame if a serial killer exists.actual abusers may only be comprised of 1% of the clergy
No no no no no! You are not paying attention. Less than 0.1 per cent of clergy.
The point is that clerical abusers are less than a per cent of ALL ABUSERS
Put it is way of a thousand abusers less than ten of them will be Roman Catholic priests. But there will be ten thousand priests for the ten abusing priests!
Far more than one in ten thousand of the population are abusers.
Do you get it?but the other 99% sat back and did nothing to stop it and the failure of the Church to become involved led directly to the abuse of even more children.
For the ten abusing priest the other 9, 999 non abusing priests didn't act because they didn't even know about the abuse. Maybe five to ten of these 9,999 knew and they were Bishops and should have acted yes. But they were not in the Vatican and were not Pope!
Meanwhile the hundreds of millions of other people didn't react either!That is a silly suggestion.
However, if the Church hid the Priest until he was sober and arranged for his car to be repaired and repainted then the Church would be guilty of aiding and abetting.
Yes they are and guess what...the church didnt do that!
That is what the Taoiseach/ Tanaiste is claiming but it seems they are wrong.
Some senior Church people ( bishops ~ 5 to ten of them all acting alonwe without discussing it with any of the others ) did . even then they didn't repaint the car. They took away the priests car and drivers licence and asked him not to drink and drive again. If the Gardai called to them they didn't lie and say "I don't know of that priest". But still that was the wrong thing to do. I happened in only a few cases and didn't involve the Vatican or Pope!Actions speak louder than written policy which is completely ignored.
It wasn't! As I stated the number of cases of abusing priests are rare. But even rarer are the actions to cover it up by some order heads or bishops. The policy was followed in other cases.Brady was part of a team that allowed Smyth to go on abusing for an extra two decades or so and that was according to Church policy which you are defending.
In terms of being part of a team Brady was like a court sternographer who took evidence in camera . Are you suggesting court sternographers speak openly about family cases? They would end up in prison for that and the case would be thrown out and the children suffer all the more!2 THIS problem; The Vatican DID partake in child sexual abuse
And the evidence you have for this claim is?, didn't DIScourage it,
You have been given evidence going back as far as the Byzentine Church Law.didn't PREVENT it,
So how do you explain non clerical abuse is 100 times higher than Clerical abuse?didn't ASSIST or FACILITATE investigations into it
Actually ther is ample records of clerical witnessess to various church and non church enquiries.and WERE SECRETIVE ABOUT IT.
Not as a whole but Ill admit some Locarl Ordinaries ( bishops) were in some cases
AS were the State . Indeed sometimes at the behest of the State! So in that case it is hardly church driven is it?For many people, the term 'anti-Catholicism' is synonymous to the term 'anti-evil'.
Yes for many ( indeed for all) anti Catholic bigots!Some of the highest achievers on the planet are today engaged in dropping bombs on babies.
What's your point: people with qualifications can't be bad people?
No my point is you are accusing me of pointing out this antiCatholic media witchhunt on the basis that "Any Catholic would say that" i.e. you claim I lack credability because any Catholic defending the RCC is not reliable.
I am pointing out
1. I have not made any claim to being a Catholic . My personal beliefs or lack of them are not at issue. I am only making the case I believe the Church would make.
2. Other highly respected and completely reliable sources cited by me are not Catholics and still point out anti Catholicism and media bias. so that blows your "this is an argument made by catholics" out of the water!
This is an argument made by REASON!0 -
Apologies for the late reply.http://www.childabusecommission.ie/rpt/03-09.php
9.94
Table 38: Position and Number of Reported Sexual Abusers – Female Industrial and Reformatory Schools
Lists 14 clergy of 188 sexual abusers of girls. A seriously high figure at round 7% but this still is saying that in the worst cases in Ireland 93% of abusers were not clergy!
9.96
7% (of the female sexual abusers)were clergy but we do not know what proportion of the religious staff that were clergy.
Most sexual abusers of male victims was by the religious, with about 50% of all victims reporting sexual abuse. A subset of this would have been clergy, about 5%, indeed clergy would only be a subset of the staff with access to children.26 identified clergy is plenty. While the paedophile priest myth as you say may not be in the hundreds based on this one report, it is not unfair to say that religious staff, clergy, brothers and nuns inflicted serious harm on far too many children.
We are not discussing "serious harm". By far tyhe most frequent abuse was physical and the victims themselves and psychologists say that the most enduring abuse was emotional. Yes religious and lay staff inflicted non sexual abuse again mostly by non clergy ( by mostly I mean 95 per cent plus by non clergy in religious institutions and 99 per cent plus outside religious institutions )
but this thread is about sexual abuse by clergy.
The reports conclusions are clear however that the religious orders covered up this abuse, protected religious abusers and moved religious abusers where they were found to other institutions. When lay people were found to be abusers they were generally reported to the gardai. The difference in treatment between religious abusers and lay is telling as to the attitude of the religious organisations.
The argument from ignorance was why I pointed out to you the figures do not support the assertion that there were only 31 cases of sexual abuse. There are hundreds in the Ryan report.And the argument that they are all from this is therefore "argument from ignorance". If you can't say how many were due to sexual abuse then you just can't claim anything! But as i have suggested we can produce studies which show the level of abuse by clergy is a tiny proportion of sexual abusers of pre pubescent children i.e pedophile in nature. We can also assert from evidence that sexual abuse is in the minority of cases of abuse that physical and emotional abuse and neglect were far more common. Finally, sexual abuse such as inappropriate fondling or for example what we might term "sexual harassment" in today's terms is a different level to Rape.
As for sexual abuse being a minority, I would certainly not call the figure of about 50% reporting sexual abuse a minority. The physical abuse was most prevalent with most victims reporting more than one kind of abuse.
The mean age of the children reporting the sexual abuse does however show that the abuse was most likely paedophile in nature.
26 clergy were found in the Ryan report it would seem. However you are trying to compare 26 clergy out of the thousands of priests in Ireland which is incorrect. The Ryan report deals with religious institutions which were mainly staffed by brothers and nuns not by clergy. So we can only assert that 26 clergy out of however many clergy worked in the institutions were sexual abusers. The Ryan report did not investigate every parish. I believe there is a Garda report being released soon which will document all of the reports they have received over the decades which may give a more broad view of the abuse. However as the Ryan and Murphy reports have shown abuse by religious often went unreported to the gardai.But we don't know if there is an overlap between the 12 and 14. But let us take 26 as the number. This is from the 1920s to the 1990s. Eight decades. 170,000 children. three priests per decade of a population of thousands of priests.
I do find it a little odd that the Ryan report had about 1500 witnesses, which is where we get most of our figures from, such as 26 sexual abuser priests, 182 sexually abusive religious of all types, 369 reports of sexual abuse. Given that the redress board has made 13000 awards then I assume that the Ryan report only shows a small subset of the actual scale of the abuse.
The survey of survivors in the Ryan report http://www.childabusecommission.ie/rpt/05-03A.phpsuggests that about half had experienced sexual abuse. If we were to use this survey to look at the 13000 claims of the redress board then the number of sexual abuse victims is huge.
It seems that the school authorities in the US also screwed up and allowed abuse.Im sure sexual abuse probably happened elsewhere in schools but to a much lower degree. Given industrial schools dealt with isolated children without family or with foster family ( who constituted the majority of abusers) the children involved were more likely to be targeted. However reports in the Us have suggested sexual abuse by non clergy outside of Religious schools were much higher than inside them.
Shakeshaft published a report based on a four-year study of 225 sexual abuse complaints—184 in New York State and 41 in other states—
Charol Shakeshaft and Audrey Cohan (1994), In loco parentis: Sexual abuse of students in schools (What administrators should know).
She found that "All of the accused admitted sexual abuse of a student, but none of the abusers was reported to the authorities, and only 1 percent lost their license to teach. Only 35 percent suffered negative consequences of any kind, and 39 percent chose to leave their school district, most with positive recommendations. Some were even given an early retirement package."
This was hardly caused by the Church or as result of any Vatican cover up.
Also you say that the majority of abusers were foster families. This is true only of female victims. For male victims it was religious staff.
The 63 is only from the sample survey of 247 survivors. What that figure is really saying is that close to 25% of the 170,000 children to be incarcerated were seriously sexually abused. That could well be 42000 children! There will be a sample bias of course.Yes dreadful between 8 and thirteen years old which is fairly much pre pubescent children.
But is this is 25 per cent of those abused who reported the worst abuse they experienced as sexual abuse. and that includes 9 5 who reported physical and sexual abuse. i.e. 63 of 247 victims of 170,000 children.0 -
Apologies for the late reply.
7% (of the female sexual abusers)were clergy but we do not know what proportion of the religious staff that were clergy.
The whole issue we are discussing is about the "pedophile priests " myth and the allegations of a cover up of priests abusing kids by the Vatican or hierarchy. Very few clergy were involved and the Vatican didn't cover it up.
And we DO know ther were 12 priests involved!
http://www.childabusecommission.ie/rpt/03-07.php
Table 24: Position and Number of Reported Sexual Abusers – Male Industrial and Reformatory Schools
234 male abusers reported 12 females reported
12 were priests
the reason it is even as high as 7 per cent is because this is in religious institutions. AS i have posted elsewhere the general level is less than one percent are roman Catholic clergy. In the institutions the "religious staff" i.e. may indeed be high because we are talking obout one or two special cases withing religious orders e.g. the christian Brothers. But even given the christian Broithers numbers are high in certain places e.g. Ireland or Boston there is not evidence of them being high elsewhere and the discussion here is specifically about clerical sexual abuse of pre pubescent children i.e. pedophile priests and their prevalence compared to the rest of society.
The term ‘abuse’ was defined by the legislation:
http://www.childabusecommission.ie/rpt/01-01.php
in the report at 1.06
we are discussing mainly (b)the use of the child by a person for sexual arousal or sexual gratification of that person or another person,
As to them being directed by the Vatican or local bishop:
http://www.childabusecommission.ie/rpt/01-06.phpIn 1820, however, the Order now known as the Christian Brothers became the first Irish Community of men to be granted a charter by the Holy See1 and to be recognised as a Papal Institute. This new status meant that the Brothers were no longer under the authority of local bishops, and could develop their own internal management, under the overall authority of the Holy See, through the Secretariat of State for Religious.
What this is saying is that CB were not reporting to the local Bishop but directly to Rome. the Local bishop while he was responsible for priests who might visit CB schools was not responsible for christian Brothers in those schools.
The report quite clearly states *with the exception of the Rosminnians) Orders did resist accusations of abuse.
But my point is if you are examining the following do you not think if abuse occured the statistical liklihood of one of the abusers being "religious" as opposed to lay is probably higher:
1.81The Rosminian Institute of Charity
The Dominican Order
The Sisters of Mercy
Our Lady of Charity of the Good Sheperd
The Presentation Brothers
The Religious Sisters of Charity
The Christian Brothers
The Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul
The Sisters of Our Lady of Charity of Refuge
The Brothers of Charity
The Daughters of the Heart of Mary
The De La Salle Brothers
The Sisters of St Clare
The Presentation Sisters
The Sisters of St Louis
The Hospitaller Order of St John of God
The Sisters of Nazareth
The Oblates of Mary Immaculate.
Jenkins is one source on this demonising of priests issue
in a more general sense:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/201961.The_New_Anti_CatholicismJenkins shines a light on anti-Catholic sentiment in American society and illuminates its causes, looking closely at gay and feminist anti-Catholicism, anti-Catholic rhetoric and imagery in the media, and the anti-Catholicism of the academic world. For newspapers and newsmagazines, for television news and in movies, for major book publishers, the Catholic Church has come to provide a grossly stereotyped public villain. Catholic opinions, doctrines, and individual leaders are frequently the butt of harsh satire. Indeed, the notion that the church is a deadly enemy of women, the idea of Catholic misogyny, is commonly accepted in the news media and in popular culture, says Jenkins. And the recent pedophile priest scandal, he shows, has revived many ancient anti-Catholic stereotypes.
Shakeshaft also says at 3.2
http://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/research/pubs/misconductreview/report.pdfAs a group, these studies present a
wide range of estimates of the percentage of U.S. students subject to sexual misconduct
by school staff and vary from 3.7 to 50.3 percent (Table 5). Because of its carefully
drawn sample and survey methodology, the AAUW report that nearly 9.6 percent of
students are targets of educator sexual misconduct sometime during their school career
presents the most accurate data available at this time.
This is for "non religious " schools
Even quadrupling the Irish data of sexual abuse and saying 1,000 victims instead of 250 this is 1000 in 170,000 or less than one per cent i.e. ten times less than the US " no religion in public schools" figure!Most sexual abusers of male victims was by the religious, with about 50% of all victims reporting sexual abuse.
That isnt true at all even withing the clearly limited scope.
Given Industrial schools run mainly by religious orders with 170,000 children
what we know for the report about males abused is - Chapter 7
7.113
253 cases involving sexual abuse between 1920and 1990
But these 253 were from a broader population ( still restricted to religious institutions) of2.09
One thousand five hundred and forty one (1541) people applied to give evidence to the Committee
of which2.14The Confidential Committee heard from 1,090 witnesses
i.e. about 25% of people (253 of 1090) who experienced abuse were victims of sexual abuse.)
Your 50 per cent is 50 per cent of all victims i.e. most abusers (in religious institutions) were male religious staff (mind you still only a tiny number were priests) . But the numbers abused (253) is a smaller proportion of the whole population than in non religious schools elsewhere.
Likewise elsewhere you will find then not 50 per cent of abusers in non religious schools but probably 100 per cent were not religious staff or priests!
Yes it is true there were
7.139
139 Brothers and 12 priests of180 religious and lay staff
But the numbers of Brothers hints at this being concentrated in a subset of Christian Brother and indeed in a subset of their schools as I have already mentioned.
Also as I have stated Clerical abuse (by priests) in particular has not been on pre pubescent kids but usually on older boys.A subset of this would have been clergy, about 5%, indeed clergy would only be a subset of the staff with access to children.
The reports conclusions are clear however that the religious orders covered up this abuse,
Some did! Some erred by bad management! Some didnt even follow their own rules or canon law. Yes all that is true. But
1. The abuse while terrible is not as bad in numbers terms as abuse by non religious.
2. The Vatican didnt cover things up. Yes the Christian Brothers had files in the Vatican but no one even knew they were there! Including the Christian Brothers.protected religious abusers and moved religious abusers where they were found to other institutions.
this happened by orders who are responsible yes. But not by bishops or by the vatican or in the knowledge or collusion of the vatican. In most cases even the Orders themselves didnt know. It was wrong yes but it was not a church conspiracy.When lay people were found to be abusers they were generally reported to the gardai.
No that is wrong. When lay people were exposed withing some instututins run by orders they were more likely to be reported.The difference in treatment between religious abusers and lay is telling as to the attitude of the religious organisations.
Of some religious orders. All of which admitted their mistake and are paying compensation for their terrible errors which let abuse continue.
Indeed ED Rice the founder of the christian Brothers opposed corporal punishment!The argument from ignorance was why I pointed out to you the figures do not support the assertion that there were only 31 cases of sexual abuse. There are hundreds in the Ryan report.
I already admitted 31 cases of the most serious abuse about 25 per cent of which we can assume included sexual abuse.As for sexual abuse being a minority, I would certainly not call the figure of about 50% reporting sexual abuse a minority.
Where is that 50% figure from again?
From 7.115-7.116 the high poercentage of sexual abuse was pre 1960
But again this 50 per cent of a population of 253 in 1090 witnessess.
What you are saying is "50% was sexual abuse of of 1% of all children in those schools"
that means about a half per cent of all children in those schools
Elsewhere in non religious schools it is higher than that!
And of this half per cent 12 of the 250 are priests i.e. less than 0.05 percentThe physical abuse was most prevalent with most victims reporting more than one kind of abuse.
The mean age of the children reporting the sexual abuse does however show that the abuse was most likely paedophile in nature.
But it does not show any of this was by priests! And counter evidence exists showing the few priests that did abuse abused older children.26 clergy were found in the Ryan report it would seem. However you are trying to compare 26 clergy out of the thousands of priests in Ireland which is incorrect. The Ryan report deals with religious institutions which were mainly staffed by brothers and nuns not by clergy.
The priests were "visiting" priests in some cases but no in all.So we can only assert that 26 clergy out of however many clergy worked in the institutions were sexual abusers.
No! Every school had one or more regularly visiting priest i.e. he "worked" in the school. Some educational orders even today have their own priests or have priests assigned permanently to them.The Ryan report did not investigate every parish. I believe there is a Garda report being released soon which will document all of the reports they have received over the decades which may give a more broad view of the abuse. However as the Ryan and Murphy reports have shown abuse by religious often went unreported to the gardai.
As did the hundred times greater number of abusers abuse by non religious!I do find it a little odd that the Ryan report had about 1500 witnesses, which is where we get most of our figures from, such as 26 sexual abuser priests, 182 sexually abusive religious of all types, 369 reports of sexual abuse. Given that the redress board has made 13000 awards then I assume that the Ryan report only shows a small subset of the actual scale of the abuse.
There could be 200 abusers with 50 victims each.
Take Table 20 Position and Number of Reported and Named Physical Abusers – Male Industrial and Reformatory Schools
496 people beat children. that does not mean onlyt 496 children were beaten.
Again I assume out of 170,000 children several thousand suffered physical abuse and maybe somewhere between 1000-2000 suffered sexual abuse as well. Very few ( i.e. maybe ten) suffered only sexual abuse.The survey of survivors in the Ryan report http://www.childabusecommission.ie/rpt/05-03A.phpsuggests that about half had experienced sexual abuse. If we were to use this survey to look at the 13000 claims of the redress board then the number of sexual abuse victims is huge.
That does not mean you can say 7,500 were sexually abused and you know that! Even if they were it is 4 per cent and most of them per 1960. But I don't accept the 4 per cent figure.
However Shakeshaft suggests more then four per cent in non religious schools.The 63 is only from the sample survey of 247 survivors. What that figure is really saying is that close to 25% of the 170,000 children to be incarcerated were seriously sexually abused. That could well be 42000 children! There will be a sample bias of course.
the 247 are of 1090! And the 63 is from pre 1960. You are cherry picking.0 -
26 clergy reported in the Ryan report, which is only a subset and only one report.The whole issue we are discussing is about the "pedophile priests " myth and the allegations of a cover up of priests abusing kids by the Vatican or hierarchy. Very few clergy were involved and the Vatican didn't cover it up.
And we DO know ther were 12 priests involved!
http://www.childabusecommission.ie/rpt/03-07.php
Table 24: Position and Number of Reported Sexual Abusers – Male Industrial and Reformatory Schools
234 male abusers reported 12 females reported
12 were priests
The 7% being clergy only becomes more significant if there were only a few clergy working in these places. You keep saying that clergy are less than a percent but I have yet to see this figure. As I understand reliable figures for abuse in the general population are hard to come by.the reason it is even as high as 7 per cent is because this is in religious institutions. AS i have posted elsewhere the general level is less than one percent are roman Catholic clergy. In the institutions the "religious staff" i.e. may indeed be high because we are talking obout one or two special cases withing religious orders e.g. the christian Brothers. But even given the christian Broithers numbers are high in certain places e.g. Ireland or Boston there is not evidence of them being high elsewhere and the discussion here is specifically about clerical sexual abuse of pre pubescent children i.e. pedophile priests and their prevalence compared to the rest of society.
The survey referenced there does not mention the rate of abusers within the schools. Only the rate of abuse.Jenkins is one source on this demonising of priests issue
in a more general sense:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/201961.The_New_Anti_Catholicism
Shakeshaft also says at 3.2
http://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/research/pubs/misconductreview/report.pdf
Yes about 9% in the American school system(but varying hugely depending on the study) but we do not have such a survey of the industrial schools to compare to, only the Ryan report(a subset of the abuse) and the raw figures from the redress board. You pick the figure of 250 but we know that the sexual abuse reports from the Ryan report of 369(182 religious) is only a subset, only 1 tenth of the actual figure due to the redress board awarding 13000 victims and still counting.This is for "non religious " schools
Even quadrupling the Irish data of sexual abuse and saying 1,000 victims instead of 250 this is 1000 in 170,000 or less than one per cent i.e. ten times less than the US " no religion in public schools" figure!
It is not 50% of all victims it is 50% of those who gave evidence to the commission. As we know from the redress board awarding 13000 victims that the Ryan reports 1090 is only 1 tenth of the scale of the abuse.That isnt true at all even withing the clearly limited scope.
Given Industrial schools run mainly by religious orders with 170,000 children
what we know for the report about males abused is - Chapter 7
7.113
253 cases involving sexual abuse between 1920and 1990
But these 253 were from a broader population ( still restricted to religious institutions) of
of which
i.e. about 25% of people (253 of 1090) who experienced abuse were victims of sexual abuse.)
Your 50 per cent is 50 per cent of all victims i.e. most abusers (in religious institutions) were male religious staff (mind you still only a tiny number were priests) . But the numbers abused (253) is a smaller proportion of the whole population than in non religious schools elsewhere.
15 of 20 schools with sexual abuse of boys had religious abusers.But the numbers of Brothers hints at this being concentrated in a subset of Christian Brother and indeed in a subset of their schools as I have already mentioned.
Not supported by the Ryan report it would seem, mean age just over 10 years old.Also as I have stated Clerical abuse (by priests) in particular has not been on pre pubescent kids but usually on older boys.
Can you back this up? I know of no figures which show this.Some did! Some erred by bad management! Some didnt even follow their own rules or canon law. Yes all that is true. But
1. The abuse while terrible is not as bad in numbers terms as abuse by non religious.
How is this substantially different to what I said?No that is wrong. When lay people were exposed withing some instututins run by orders they were more likely to be reported.
Again, 13000 cases, which we can assume 50% had sexual abuse with 25% having the sexual/sexual & physical abuse being the worst part.I already admitted 31 cases of the most serious abuse about 25 per cent of which we can assume included sexual abuse.
Volume 5, the survey of witnesses to the commission. http://www.childabusecommission.ie/rpt/05-03A.phpWhere is that 50% figure from again?
The survey shows us the type and % of abuse experienced by the witnesses to the commission. The redress board shows us the number of total abused(I can only hope that most have come forward) so at a minimum we can safely say about 50% or 6500 of the 13000 would have had some sexual abuse.From 7.115-7.116 the high poercentage of sexual abuse was pre 1960
But again this 50 per cent of a population of 253 in 1090 witnesses.
What you are saying is "50% was sexual abuse of of 1% of all children in those schools"
that means about a half per cent of all children in those schools
Elsewhere in non religious schools it is higher than that!
And of this half per cent 12 of the 250 are priests i.e. less than 0.05 percent
Unfortunately there was no control in the survey so we don't know how many were abused from the 170,000 inmates.
Indeed, we can only assume that the mean age of the victims was the same for the brothers, clergy and lay abusers, just over 10.But it does not show any of this was by priests! And counter evidence exists showing the few priests that did abuse abused older children.
The priests were "visiting" priests in some cases but no in all.
So that would mean that the 26 priests would come from a population of priests connected to the orders, so what maybe a hundred or so?No! Every school had one or more regularly visiting priest i.e. he "worked" in the school. Some educational orders even today have their own priests or have priests assigned permanently to them.
I would love to know why you mention only ten only experiencing sexual abuse. You know well enough most abuse was total, sexual, physical, emotional and neglect.As did the hundred times greater number of abusers abuse by non religious!
There could be 200 abusers with 50 victims each.
Take Table 20 Position and Number of Reported and Named Physical Abusers – Male Industrial and Reformatory Schools
496 people beat children. that does not mean only 496 children were beaten.
Again I assume out of 170,000 children several thousand suffered physical abuse and maybe somewhere between 1000-2000 suffered sexual abuse as well. Very few ( i.e. maybe ten) suffered only sexual abuse.
Why the hell not? We know that 50% of abuse victims experienced sexual abuse and we know 13000 abuse victims, and counting, have been awarded compensation. So a figure of 6500 children being sexually abused it not an unreasonable figure.That does not mean you can say 7,500 were sexually abused and you know that! Even if they were it is 4 per cent and most of them per 1960. But I don't accept the 4 per cent figure.
However Shakeshaft suggests more then four per cent in non religious schools.
Now as we know that abuse is massively under reported, that the Ryan report suggests that abuse was endemic and that sexual abuse affected nearly half
of the victims then 6500 could be a tragic underestimation.0 -
The catholic church has the biggest collection of celibate men in the world. Everybody knows that it goes against human nature to restrain and suppress ones sexuality. Given this sexual repression comes an unnatural desire for any sexual contact possible which leads to abuse of vulnerable children.
Everybody knows that if a young man wants to become a priest in this day and age (accepting a vow of celibacy) there is something very very wrong with that individual. More than likely that young man is a paedophile in my book.0 -
The catholic church has the biggest collection of celibate men in the world. Everybody knows that it goes against human nature to restrain and suppress ones sexuality. Given this, the catholic church has the most concentrated collection of sexually repressed men and with that comes an unnatural desire to abuse children.
Everybody knows that if a young man wants to become a priest in this day and age (accepting a vow of celibacy) there is something very very wrong with that individual. More than likely that young man is a paedophile in my book.
Yes I would certainly question anyone who wanted to be part of such an outdated and troubling organisation but to assume they are a paedophile seems a bit of a leap.0 -
Yes I would certainly question anyone who wanted to be part of such an outdated and troubling organisation but to assume they are a paedophile seems a bit of a leap.
Yes I can see your point, however I do think that there are a serious number of men who become priests not so much for the reason that they can access children but more so due to the fact of a sexually confused mind. When they enter into the priesthood I believe they are some how channelled towards the innocent child. This then somehow moulds their paedophile tenancies.0 -
The catholic church has the biggest collection of celibate men in the world. Everybody knows that it goes against human nature to restrain and suppress ones sexuality. Given this sexual repression comes an unnatural desire for any sexual contact possible which leads to abuse of vulnerable children.
Everybody knows that if a young man wants to become a priest in this day and age (accepting a vow of celibacy) there is something very very wrong with that individual. More than likely that young man is a paedophile in my book.
Please provide some evidence for causal link between celibacy and paedophilia. Time and again I have heard this claim made and I've yet to see anyone back it up with anything other than opinion. Maybe you will be the first to buck the trend. ISTM that such claims come from the same uninformed prejudice that says homosexuality is a causal factor in paedophilia. (I've seen both opinions expressed here with depressingly metronomic regularity.)
If you think that there is something wrong with celibacy, I wonder what your views on asexuality are? Do you consider asexual people to be somehow wrong? Additionally, assuming we can actually define what is natural - and I think that would be very difficult - do you also think that we ought to always assume deference to our nature? The disturbing corollary of your argument is that deeds like paedophilia, rape, theft, physical violence and murder might just be part of some people's nature. What then?0 -
The catholic church has the biggest collection of celibate men in the world. Everybody knows that it goes against human nature to restrain and suppress ones sexuality. Given this sexual repression comes an unnatural desire for any sexual contact possible which leads to abuse of vulnerable children.
Everybody knows that if a young man wants to become a priest in this day and age (accepting a vow of celibacy) there is something very very wrong with that individual. More than likely that young man is a paedophile in my book.
So, dclane, since you believe that abstinence from sexual intercourse leads to unnatural desires leading to child abuse, can you tell us how long you can go without sex intercourse before you get overwhelming urges to rape children? Are we talking three days? Two weeks? A month?0 -
Advertisement
-
Fanny Cradock wrote: »Please provide some evidence for causal link between celibacy and paedophilia. Time and again I have heard this claim made and I've yet to see anyone back it up with anything other than opinion. Maybe you will be the first to buck the trend. ISTM that such claims come from the same uninformed prejudice that says homosexuality is a causal factor in paedophilia. (I've seen both opinions expressed here with depressingly metronomic regularity.)
If you think that there is something wrong with celibacy, I wonder what your views on asexuality are? Do you consider asexual people to be somehow wrong? Additionally, assuming we can actually define what is natural - and I think that would be very difficult - do you also think that we ought to always assume deference to our nature? The disturbing corollary of your argument is that deeds like paedophilia, rape, theft, physical violence and murder might just be part of some people's nature. What then?
I will try to give some grounds to the statements I have made.
Firstly, the Catholic Church maintains there is no link between the vow of celibacy and paedophilia. However, a Mr. Eugene Kennedy, a former priest who left the priesthood 25 years ago to get married, says celibacy aids and abet pedophiles. "For them, celibacy is a wonderful cover he says. "Many young men at a very early age are recruited into the priesthood before they fully understand for themselves their own sexual identity," Kennedy says. "Their psycho-sexual maturation has been put on hold, so to speak, when they go in. So as a result they tend to act out with young people who were more or less the age they were when their maturation process stopped."
Secondly, Jason Berry, author of Lead Us Not Into Temptation: Catholic Priests and the Sexual Abuse of Children, says celibacy can be a cloak of supposed purity that allows unhealthy priests to hide their sexual dysfunction.
Father Canice Connors, a Franciscan priest who has spent years counseling priests accused of pedophilia, says that making celibacy optional might be a good move.
"I think there is evidence at times that people do enter the priesthood to hide from the realities of life," says Connors, who runs the St. Luke Institute in Maryland, a treatment center for pedophiliac priests. "But I think that is a very small number of individuals. And our task is to identify them."0 -
The catholic church has the biggest collection of celibate men in the world. Everybody knows that it goes against human nature to restrain and suppress ones sexuality.
One could say the same for male aggression but I don't see feminists argue against that being repressed.Given this sexual repression comes an unnatural desire for any sexual contact possible which leads to abuse of vulnerable children.
Well this is not necessarily true. If it was then the millions of atheist Buddhist monks would be abusing children. But they aren't are they? How come you are not compaling abnout all these sexually repressed atheists?
Including a Bhudist one?Everybody knows that if a young man wants to become a priestin this day and age (accepting a vow of celibacy)
rubbish! Orthodox are the second largest christian denomination numbering in the hundreds of millions. Their priests are allowed marry i.e. celibacy is not required.there is something very very wrong with that individual. More than likely that young man is a paedophile in my book.
More than likely people who apply this thinking exclusively to Catholics are an anti- catholic bigots.0 -
-
So, dclane, since you believe that abstinence from sexual intercourse leads to unnatural desires leading to child abuse, can you tell us how long you can go without sex intercourse before you get overwhelming urges to rape children? Are we talking three days? Two weeks? A month?
Safe in knowledge that I am free to express my sexuality, abstinence does not come into the equation for me. Yes there are periods of time that I go without sex however I know behind it all that I have not taken a vow which prevents me from having sex for the rest of my days until my death.
Certainly when I was in my teens and 20's I was able to develop my sexuality naturally. What I am saying is, that when a young man in his 20's enters into a vow of celibacy it is simply not natural. At some stage, that young man will need as human nature dictates to express his sexual desire. Given the close link between priests and young children, this seems take the form of paedophilia in most cases.0 -
Safe in knowledge that I am free to express my sexuality, abstinence does not come into the equation for me. Yes there are periods of time that I go without sex however I know behind it all that I have not taken a vow which prevents me from having sex for the rest of my days until my death.
so it only applies to people who vow?
How about women why does it not apply to nuns for example who make such vows?
Or how about atheists who are not priests?
Or Bhuddist priests?
Yoga masters?
Or just anyone at all who happens to make such a vow e.g. spartan soldiers;sportsmen etc.?
Why only male Catholic clergy?Certainly when I was in my teens and 20's I was able to develop my sexuality naturally. What I am saying is, that when a young man in his 20's enters into a vow of celibacy it is simply not natural. At some stage, that young man will need as human nature dictates to express his sexual desire. Given the close link between priests and young children, this seems take the form of paedophilia in most cases.
It is natural to surpress the desire to eat rich food or be aggressive?
How is such "unnatural fasting" such a bad thing for society if the money saved by not having expensive clothes or foods is given to the poor?
You are opposed to sacrifice or suffering for a cause because it is "unnatural"?
A very hedonistic philosophy.0 -
Safe in knowledge that I am free to express my sexuality, abstinence does not come into the equation for me. Yes there are periods of time that I go without sex however I know behind it all that I have not taken a vow which prevents me from having sex for the rest of my days until my death.
Certainly when I was in my teens and 20's I was able to develop my sexuality naturally. What I am saying is, that when a young man in his 20's enters into a vow of celibacy it is simply not natural. At some stage, that young man will need as human nature dictates to express his sexual desire. Given the close link between priests and young children, this seems take the form of paedophilia in most cases.
So, what you are saying is that repressed sexuality only leads to paedophilia if it is based on a religious vow? If one's sexuality is repressed for other reasons, eg someone is too ugly or geekish to get a girlfriend, then somehow their repression is magically averted from developing into paedophilia?0 -
Safe in knowledge that I am free to express my sexuality, abstinence does not come into the equation for me. Yes there are periods of time that I go without sex however I know behind it all that I have not taken a vow which prevents me from having sex for the rest of my days until my death.
Certainly when I was in my teens and 20's I was able to develop my sexuality naturally. What I am saying is, that when a young man in his 20's enters into a vow of celibacy it is simply not natural. At some stage, that young man will need as human nature dictates to express his sexual desire. Given the close link between priests and young children, this seems take the form of paedophilia in most cases.
Have you lived a Celibate life? Speaking as someone who actually has I can say your whole post above is deeply deeply offensive.
Its not the Celibate priests who abused, it was paedophile priests who abuse.
It is possible to live a celibate life with no sex, once you immerse yourselve in prayer and dedicate your life to others you see the world with another light.
The Root cause of abuse is not celibacy or the Church, in Ireland it stems from many other facts... Men who entered the priesthood not actually wanting to in the hard social times.
Reality is that today in Ireland there still is child abuse.. and its being carried out by friends and family of the kids, not by celibate priests.
Also you make Men out to be animals with your post. Not matter how weak we are, at the end of the day we choose.0 -
26 clergy reported in the Ryan report, which is only a subset and only one report.
The 7% being clergy only becomes more significant if there were only a few clergy working in these places. You keep saying that clergy are less than a percent but I have yet to see this figure. As I understand reliable figures for abuse in the general population are hard to come by.
The survey referenced there does not mention the rate of abusers within the schools. Only the rate of abuse.
Yes about 9% in the American school system(but varying hugely depending on the study) but we do not have such a survey of the industrial schools to compare to, only the Ryan report(a subset of the abuse) and the raw figures from the redress board. You pick the figure of 250 but we know that the sexual abuse reports from the Ryan report of 369(182 religious) is only a subset, only 1 tenth of the actual figure due to the redress board awarding 13000 victims and still counting.
It is not 50% of all victims it is 50% of those who gave evidence to the commission. As we know from the redress board awarding 13000 victims that the Ryan reports 1090 is only 1 tenth of the scale of the abuse.
15 of 20 schools with sexual abuse of boys had religious abusers.
Not supported by the Ryan report it would seem, mean age just over 10 years old.
Can you back this up? I know of no figures which show this.
How is this substantially different to what I said?
Again, 13000 cases, which we can assume 50% had sexual abuse with 25% having the sexual/sexual & physical abuse being the worst part.
Volume 5, the survey of witnesses to the commission. http://www.childabusecommission.ie/rpt/05-03A.php
The survey shows us the type and % of abuse experienced by the witnesses to the commission. The redress board shows us the number of total abused(I can only hope that most have come forward) so at a minimum we can safely say about 50% or 6500 of the 13000 would have had some sexual abuse.
Unfortunately there was no control in the survey so we don't know how many were abused from the 170,000 inmates.
Indeed, we can only assume that the mean age of the victims was the same for the brothers, clergy and lay abusers, just over 10.
So that would mean that the 26 priests would come from a population of priests connected to the orders, so what maybe a hundred or so?
I would love to know why you mention only ten only experiencing sexual abuse. You know well enough most abuse was total, sexual, physical, emotional and neglect.
Why the hell not? We know that 50% of abuse victims experienced sexual abuse and we know 13000 abuse victims, and counting, have been awarded compensation. So a figure of 6500 children being sexually abused it not an unreasonable figure.
Now as we know that abuse is massively under reported, that the Ryan report suggests that abuse was endemic and that sexual abuse affected nearly half
of the victims then 6500 could be a tragic underestimation.
A great post, debunking many of the myths put out on this and other threads. Don't expect a rebuttal though, you are more likely to be ignored.
There is no doubt that the institution of the Catholic Church failitated the abuse of numerous children. The cases where priests were transferred on and remained in contact with vulnerable children are especially chilling to those of us who are parents.
What amazes me is the lack of sorrow from so many of the Church and its defenders. It is only people like Diarmuid Martin who give hope for any future for the Catholic Church.0 -
Firstly, the Catholic Church maintains there is no link between the vow of celibacy and paedophilia. However, a Mr. Eugene Kennedy, a former priest who left the priesthood 25 years ago to get married, says celibacy aids and abet pedophiles. "For them, celibacy is a wonderful cover he says. "Many young men at a very early age are recruited into the priesthood before they fully understand for themselves their own sexual identity," Kennedy says. "Their psycho-sexual maturation has been put on hold, so to speak, when they go in. So as a result they tend to act out with young people who were more or less the age they were when their maturation process stopped."
Secondly, Jason Berry, author of Lead Us Not Into Temptation: Catholic Priests and the Sexual Abuse of Children, says celibacy can be a cloak of supposed purity that allows unhealthy priests to hide their sexual dysfunction.
Father Canice Connors, a Franciscan priest who has spent years counseling priests accused of pedophilia, says that making celibacy optional might be a good move.
"I think there is evidence at times that people do enter the priesthood to hide from the realities of life," says Connors, who runs the St. Luke Institute in Maryland, a treatment center for pedophiliac priests. "But I think that is a very small number of individuals. And our task is to identify them."
Those are opinions about how unhealthy individuals abused their position within the church. Not one of the quotes supports your claim that celibacy is a causal factor (the causal factor?) in somebody becoming a paedophile.
Again, where is the evidence for your claim?
Also, what about my other questions?0 -
Advertisement
-
There's a long-standing tradition of Catholic families steering their unmarriageable/sexually suspect children towards religious vocations; it's only in the last 50 years or so that gay and lesbian teenagers had better options, and we RCCs are always a little behind the curve. Pedo/ephebophiles still don't have socially acceptable options and are still steered towards religious vocations by clueless parents and parishes.
Most Protestant denominations don't have the huge, intransigent bureaucracy that shuffles deviant clergy out of one diocese and into another.
If a pedophile priest tells the church about himself, it's generally under the cover of the confessional, where it's considered a sin that can be forgiven or an illness that can be treated, not a crime that must be prosecuted with full and open cooperation with police authorities. The alternative is to admit that Mother Church has been complicit in enabling this behavior for centuries, and the kind of personalities that can grasp this don't tend to become Bishops or Cardinals.
If the Church wants to survive, it needs to drop the celibacy requirement fast. That topic and this one are very much related. An institution with no context of healthy sexuality can't be expected to cope with the unhealthy kind.0
Advertisement