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The Clerical Child Abuse Thread (merged)
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Very soon we will have a poster saying that there has been no sexual abuse not just in the last 10 years, not just in the last 15 years (already claimed) but in the last century. You want the facts - look them up yourself.
Look up "shifting the burden" would you? And people didn't claim no abuse ever happened. What I claiomed was that less than about 1% of sexual abusers of young children are priests.
When it comes to clerical abuse even though R$C clerics are hugely more numerous in proportion non Roman Catholics also outnumber RC priests. Clerical abuse is heavily weighted on non RC but you don't see much hyped about that.0 -
Quote " In response to the furore aroused by the media reports, the Irish government commissioned a study which took nine years to complete. On May 20, 2009, the commission released its 2600-page report,
Which you didnt read.which drew on testimony from thousands of former inmates and officials from more than 250 church-run institutions.
And which had how many sexually abusing clerics over whatperiod of time?
The latest being?
And what about the other 5 million kids not in the industrial schools?
And the ones not in contact with priests?
They didn't suffer at all I suppose?0 -
Look how many Hitler killed - that seems to be the defence of the apologists in this thread.
Would be better to stop the cover-up and denial approach and with some humility think of those who suffered. The church would never have gotten into this mess if they had not contorted all ways to avoid the truth and deny the crimes. Its time to call a halt to that failed approach.
Going forward we all need to keep an eye out to make sure it doesnt happen again and that is what should concern anyone with integrity.0 -
And priests are less than a tenth of one percentage of the population. Thats 00.1%What I claiomed was that less than about 1% of sexual abusers of young children are priests.
And do not forget reports like SAVE put the % of boys abused by Priests and religous teachers / brothers at 4%.0 -
Look how many Hitler killed - that seems to be the defence of the apologists in this thread.
We have the Hitler thing and "Goodwin's Law" several times.
But to be fair even though more suited to the atheism/God thread it is a valid issue.
After all ever heard "democracy is the worst possible form of government ,....apart from all the other forms"Would be better to stop the cover-up and denial approach
Cover up of whatin particular?
Where is there evidence that the Vatican covered up abuse?
Would it not be better to stop the false unsupported allegations?
So far we have asked of evidence of bishops ( from 100,000 plus worldwide) over the last century and have come across cases of maybe five to ten all acting on their own who made bad judgements ( some were not cover up but say for example moving a priest at the behest of a family of a victim) in some of the cases of which they were aware. And you are talking about a bishop knowing about atmost two or three abusers in their diocese , no other bishop knowing it and the bishop who did know about it thinking psychology dealt with it and no law existing or a convoluted system of prosecution in which the State wont co operate.
Likewise for denial? Haw many cases of a bishop knowing about a case and denying it is true? I am sure you will find one or two but Im not aware of any. You meigh even find a bishop who commited a serious crime like manslaughter. this doesnot mean bishops are murderers and murder is "endemic" to the church. There are thpousands of times more sex abusers outside the church. Dose that mean abuse is "endemic" to society?and with some humility think of those who suffered.
WE do. Including the victims of the 99 per cent plus non clerical abusers.The church would never have gotten into this mess if they had not contorted all ways to avoid the truth and deny the crimes.
Sweeping statement and hand-waving argument.Its time to call a halt to that failed approach.
Going forward we all need to keep an eye out to make sure it doesnt happen again and that is what should concern anyone with integrity.
Thats why the church embarked on new policies several decades ago and has child protection policies.0 -
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Which you didnt read.
And which had how many sexually abusing clerics over whatperiod of time?
The latest being?
No there is not, not of children, which is what this thread is about.There are thpousands of times more sex abusers outside the church.
You were shown dictionary definitions of "endemic" before. The government said in its concluding part of the long and detail report that it found that Child abuse is endemic to the Irish RC church. Malaria is endemic to certain parts of the world eg s.e. Asia : that does not mean malaria is endemic to the world.Dose that mean abuse is "endemic" to society?0 -
It would be interesting if the protagonists on this thread took a different approach where they focussed on the suffering caused by child abuse and how that caused by Catholic priests has greatly undermined the respect for and belief in the faith which is supposed to be a priests mission in life.
The point scoring and reliance on statistics / dam lies and "he said" "she said" tic tac becomes so boring and lacking in sincerity.
Noticeable that when some posters get excited they become totally unable to spell or form coherent sentences
Very true. I noticed that too.0 -
Dont you understand stats. Child abusers themselves are a tiny percentage of the populationAnd priests are less than a tenth of one percentage of the population. Thats 00.1%
If priests are less than one per cent of them clergy are less than a hundreth or a thousand of a percent of the the population!
The abuse of minors stat is running at about 80 to 100 convictions a year for the last ten years. Guess what- no priests! Less than a millionth of a per cent of the population !And do not forget reports like SAVE put the % of boys abused by Priests and religous teachers / brothers at 4%.
Where do you get the SAVI stats from? From me originally.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=65508086&postcount=855Yes they are! Figures for non clerical abusers are available. wher do you think the figure of "one percent of abusers are clerics" comes from?
http://www.oneinfour.org/about/irishstatistics/
Girls: One in five (20.4%) of women report sexual contact in childhood with a further one in ten (10%) reporting non-contact sexual abuse.
http://www.drcc.ie/about/savi.pdf
see table 4.3 through 4.5
page 85 in particular begins a discussion on "perpetrators"
A Look at table 4.11 will ascertain religious ministers as between one and two percent of abusers.
I have frequently referred to "less than one percent" in the case of the roman church because the frequency is less for them then for other religious groups . I have produced statistics supporting this also. That is why when you take religious in general the figure becomes about 1.5 percent.
if you take babysitters+teachers (and i deliberately exclude religious teachers and take non religious teachers here) +coach +other authority figure you get about 14.5 per cent of all abusers. so these four groups alone number more than fifteen times as many abusers as Catholic clerics!
by the way page 75 shows only 722 of the 3,087 surveyed were born after 1970. So about 80 % of your stats are on the population of Ireland before 1970. But you refer to a population of priests in the 2006 census over 35 years later!
Anyway on thatpage it gives a Statistical significance: p = 0.125 for women and 0.500 for men. the statistical significance isnt mentioned later on page 85 What does it mean.
It means in the case of women ther is a 12.5% chance that you could get the same result justby accisent and in the case of men a 50% chance. In otherwords the values for men are completely meaningless.
A standard value is less than 5% or p<=0.05.
So the figures are ropey at best.
Page 76gives p =0.0043; p=0.001 and p= 0537
Again we can dismiss the last ont . The other two are for 1911-29;30-49 and 50-69
showing a two fold increase in abuse. so we can say in that period abuse doubled. Still nothing directly to do with the church though.
For reports from 1911-1983 ( page 77-78) we get an "inclonlusive" p=0.08 in other words an 8% chance the result is just accidental.
then we get "good" p values all under 1% that they would tell friends or a councillor rather than a doctor or family member so we can assume these are valid.
Afgter that the report does not show any p values
You keep going for table 4.9 on page 84 for which no p values are given
Only one p value is later given = 0.01 with respect to 39 per cent of rape being related to family incest whereas 18 of non family related abuse was rape.
Which brings us to Table 4.11 which you keep quoting but not referencing.
We know six cases of abusers of males and six of females ( about 1.5% not 4% ) were "Ministers." We dont know how many were RC priests. I suppose It is fair to assume half were.
Less than 1%!0 -
No there is not, not of children, which is what this thread is about.
Of children it may only be hundreds of times more abusers.You were shown dictionary definitions of "endemic" before.
Not before you were.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=73077537&postcount=1261The government said in its concluding part of the long and detail report that it found that Child abuse is endemic to the Irish RC church. Malaria is endemic to certain parts of the world eg s.e. Asia : that does not mean malaria is endemic to the world.That priests have a preference for black socks over really really really really really dark navy could be described as being endemic to priests.
That child abuse and pedophila happens outside of the clergy is enough to negate the governments statement you so love to refer to as the reality is that child abuse is not endemic anywhere. Except in Belgium where it seems it is endemic to the judiciary, the police force and men of wealth with access to large quantities of chocolates. In the UK it appears to be endemic to social workers.
Both of the latter statements constructed using the governments definition of "endemic".
...
So married men don't abuse children? Get real.
There are sufficiently high levels of child abuse within families in Ireland to be able to say, using the government's understanding of the use of the word "endemic" and their general understanding of english, that child abuse is endemic in Irish families, if we are to believe all the reports and the media. So much so that there are Child Protection agencies in most counties.
It is also reasonable to say that ebephilia is particularly endemic in families while ephebophilia is more endemic in the teaching and coaching community, but again only while using an Irish government dictionary.0 -
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The problem with comparing incidence of child rape by priests with others brought to prosecution is that the non-church perpetrators did not and have not the church organisation to hide in and to give them protection or escape routes from justice. The non-church perpetuators did not have access at the same level as priests to hush money, legal means or influence in society and with the Garda to have any abuse hushed up or ignored.
The ordinary perpetrator had to live in his/her community and behave without drawing attention to themselves. They did not have the unreserved trust of the community which priests had and exploited to the full. They had to work hard to get themselves into positions where they had access to young children while priests had always enjoyed unfettered access to children because of their pastoral duties.
The jury of public opinion is out and so long as parents / teachers etc are on their guard and preventing one to one contact between their children and priests, then there should be a significant reduction in the incidence or re-occurrence of child rape by priests. It will be a long time before the trust in the church can return and the situation can be normalised.0 -
The problem with comparing incidence of child rape by priests with others brought to prosecution is that the non-church perpetrators did not and have not the church organisation to hide in and to give them protection or escape routes from justice. The non-church perpetuators did not have access at the same level as priests to hush money, legal means or influence in society and with the Garda to have any abuse hushed up or ignored.
The ordinary perpetrator had to live in his/her community and behave without drawing attention to themselves. They did not have the unreserved trust of the community which priests had and exploited to the full. They had to work hard to get themselves into positions where they had access to young children while priests had always enjoyed unfettered access to children because of their pastoral duties.
The jury of public opinion is out and so long as parents / teachers etc are on their guard and preventing one to one contact between their children and priests, then there should be a significant reduction in the incidence or re-occurrence of child rape by priests. It will be a long time before the trust in the church can return and the situation can be normalised.
Priests today don't have unfettered access to children because of their pastoral duties. The most they have is supervised visits to a class, for confession a Teacher is present if the class is preparing.
Are you suggesting that in 2011 the Gards are covering up for priests?
Again I ask Name 1 case of abuse in Ireland by Priests in the last 10 years.
Just one case committed in the last 10 years
any?0 -
Look how many Hitler killed - that seems to be the defence of the apologists in this thread.
Would be better to stop the cover-up and denial approach and with some humility think of those who suffered. The church would never have gotten into this mess if they had not contorted all ways to avoid the truth and deny the crimes. Its time to call a halt to that failed approach.
Going forward we all need to keep an eye out to make sure it doesnt happen again and that is what should concern anyone with integrity.
Hi Zorbas? Any news on any cases of abuse commited in Ireland in the last 10 years by Catholic Priests?
Just one case to prove me wrong will do.0 -
The problem with comparing incidence of child rape by priests with others brought to prosecution is that the non-church perpetrators did not and have not the church organisation to hide in and to give them protection or escape routes from justice.
the problem is you are inventing mythical fictitious senarios and attributing them to reality.
Yes priests did abuse in the past. How many? Maybe dozens? Ten tweenty thirty? Of tens of thousands of priests. There were much much much more non clerical offenders . More than 100 times the number of priests. While the abusers themselves abused their position ( as didd swimming instructors and babysitters) Of the 20 to 30 priests I reckon you can list five who because of misguided people both inside the church and outside it ( who did not believe a priest woudl abuse) hampered investigations.The non-church perpetuators did not have access at the same level as priests to hush money, legal means or influence in society and with the Garda to have any abuse hushed up or ignored.
But even when clerical abuse occurred if money was paid over it was in very rare instances. some abusers were so brazen as to deny the abuse and convince other clerics and the Gardai that they were telling the truth.The ordinary perpetrator had to live in his/her community and behave without drawing attention to themselves. They did not have the unreserved trust of the community which priests had and exploited to the full.
They were not "ordinary" they were child sexual abusres - justas the clerics were. They didnt all behacve as you imagine . They were in positions of authority. According to SAVI ( which is not wholly reliable) about 20% of abusers were Authority figures http://www.drcc.ie/about/savi.pdf figure 4.12 page 87
Of these Authority figures 8 to 9% were ministers.( page 88)
Maybe half of the ministers were Roman Catholic
Page 89 tells up 89% of abusers ( all abusers not just authority figures) were lone men and 7% lone women. Of all abuse by multiple abusers ( about 4% of all cases) none were clergy.They had to work hard to get themselves into positions where they had access to young children while priests had always enjoyed unfettered access to children because of their pastoral duties.
They also had to "work hard" over 7 years plus to become priests and then maybe the same again to get into official positions over children.The jury of public opinion is out and so long as parents / teachers etc are on their guard and preventing one to one contact between their children and priests,
The thing is most abuse was by parents uncles etc.then there should be a significant reduction in the incidence or re-occurrence of child rape by priests.
Abuse by clergy is a tiny percentage and rape is a fraction of that.It will be a long time before the trust in the church can return and the situation can be normalised.
And what is "normal"? To have only non clerics abuse children? Preposterous.0 -
Thought this was the clerical abuse thread - is this not what we are talking about?
Why the constant references to the other criminals who have raped children when we are discussing the issue of clerical abuse here? - at least that is the title of the thread.0 -
Why is there just one megathread on clerical abuse - it's highly insulting.
Any issue/topic/report needs its own thread.0 -
hotmail.com wrote: »Why is there just one megathread on clerical abuse - it's highly insulting.
Any issue/topic/report needs its own thread.
Yeah, and any reasonable discussion is stifled at birth .0 -
hotmail.com wrote: »Why is there just one megathread on clerical abuse - it's highly insulting.
Any issue/topic/report needs its own thread.
If you have a question about why the moderators have contained one single issue to one single thread then please address it via PM or Feedback, not inthread.0 -
Thought this was the clerical abuse thread - is this not what we are talking about?
Why the constant references to the other criminals who have raped children when we are discussing the issue of clerical abuse here? - at least that is the title of the thread.
Yes and the mods decided on that but i wont give my thoughts on that.hotmail.com wrote: »Why is there just one megathread on clerical abuse - it's highly insulting.
Any issue/topic/report needs its own thread.
Again I can't say what I think about that just refer you to the decision
The threads merged were not all threads directly on clerical child abuse. One for example was on whether Cardinal Brady should resign for matters related to knowing about child abuse.
It was a Catholics only (see post 8)
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=65076556&postcount=10 -
Thought this was the clerical abuse thread - is this not what we are talking about?
Why the constant references to the other criminals who have raped children when we are discussing the issue of clerical abuse here? - at least that is the title of the thread.
Maybe for context as most abuse in Ireland is not by clerics.
Any answer to one single new case of abuse in Ireland by Priests in the last 10 years?0 -
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correct. According to the SAVI report 4% of boys who were abused in Ireland were abused by Priests / religous teachers / Brothers.Maybe for context as most abuse in Ireland is not by clerics.
To put things in context there are just over 3000 Roman Catholic Priests in the country, out of a population of what, 4,500,000 people. Even if we round up the number to 4,500 people thats a tenth of one per cent. ie 00.1%
and why do you assume that half of the religous ministers were RC , when the vast majority of religous ministers in the jurisdiction in which the survey was completed ( Rep. of Ireland ) were Roman Catholic ?Of these Authority figures 8 to 9% were ministers.( page 88)
Maybe half of the ministers were Roman Catholic
Most ( ninety something per cent ) of of the population of the Republic is RC background , as are most of the clergy. Also, most if not all clerical child abuse scandals in the Rep of Ireland seem to have concerned RC clergy. Can you point out any clerical child abusers here in the Republic which were not RC clergy ? So why do you say only maybe half were RC ? I suggest you are trying to change figures to suit your own argument, and it does you no favours.0 -
Lets see how long gigino can ingnore these questions :It has to be said clerical child abuse is not the problem it once was because virtually all parents / guardians now - in this part of the world anyway - would not let their children next or near a Priest.
Where's your proof it must also have nothing to do with the new child protection polices being implemented properly ?
Why does non clerical child abuse continue in areas where there are no child protection polices ?Its a pity , because there are a lot of decent priests and I feel sorry for them.
So what % are decent ?
Now last time I asked you, you asked me to define your own term 'decent'
Soo feel free to define it with your spin, and THEN answer the question what % are decent ?0 -
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The Quadratic Equation wrote: »Where's your proof it must also have nothing to do with the new child protection polices being implemented properly ?
I never said "it must also have nothing to do with the new child protection polices being implemented properly ". As you are the one who brought that up, you can provide your proof or not, if you are interested in that topic.The Quadratic Equation wrote: »So what % are decent ?
"decent" is a subjective adjective ; everyone could interpret the word differently and no meaningful statistics could be gathered on that, so you are after asking a silly question. If you want to go in to % of priests, its easier to gather statistics on something like the % of Priests who are homosexual. ( results from different studies report 48.5% and 50%, as linked earlier ). " Decent" can mean different things to different people. Even Hitler or Jack the Ripper or Bin Laden seemed "decent" to some people.0 -
hotmail.com wrote: »It's highly insulting.
Right. So the decision to collate the plethora of threads on child sexual abuse into one mega-thread has all of a sudden become a source of deep insult to you? I couldn't imagine why.
When you are done with the righteous indignation bit you might just consider the work that the mods have to put in to keep the forum running. If mega-threads make their job easier then so be it.
It's not like this is the only place in the world to discuss the involvement of religious orders in sexual abuse. Nor are you forced to read any thread. So from the outside it almost seems as if you are looking to get offended - which would be absolutely ridiculous, no?0 -
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correct. According to the SAVI report 4% of boys who were abused in Ireland were abused by Priests / religous teachers / Brothers.
No!
According to SAVI ( and the statistical reliability for this section of SAVI is questionable)
1.9% of males under 181.4% of females under 18 were abused by "ministers"
It does not state whether they were RC Protestant Mullahas or Rabbis though I doubt any were the latter two.
For "religious teachers" this is 3.9 and ZERO per cent.
It is only for the people surveyed. they may be a rough sample or they may be from industrial schools. WE don't know. No confidence interval or p value is given. WE do know over 80 per cent of them were pre 1970.
You are aware percentage of abusers of boys does not mean percentage of boys abused?To put things in context there are just over 3000 Roman Catholic Priests in the country, out of a population of what, 4,500,000 people.
Today ther are . In the past century before 2000AD there were over 6000 priests at any one time and a total over tens of thousands in the century and less than 3 million people at any one time. If you include brothers nuns etc. it comes to about 25,000 plus in about 2.5 million or about 1%Even if we round up the number to 4,500 people thats a tenth of one per cent. ie 00.1%
Today it is. Today when the population of abusing priests is less than 0.001 per cent. In the past it was closer to one per cent of the population were priests/religious.and why do you assume that half of the religous ministers were RC , when the vast majority of religous ministers in the jurisdiction in which the survey was completed ( Rep. of Ireland ) were Roman Catholic ?
It is based on all the other (much more robust stastically ) surveys I showed you
You know Jenkins, Shaheshaft et. al.
But given you iognored them I doubt ( unless someone wants them) showing thim to you will convince you since you remain willfully ignorant ion spite of this evidence.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=66647442&postcount=5Most ( ninety something per cent ) of of the population of the Republic is RC background , as are most of the clergy.
Disputable but so what?Also, most if not all clerical child abuse scandals in the Rep of Ireland seem to have concerned RC clergy.
Aha! "seem to"Can you point out any clerical child abusers here in the Republic which were not RC clergy ?
I have consistently don't that for you several times.
Her is just one example http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=65509576&postcount=862According to a survey by the Washington Post, over the last four decades,
less than 1.5 percent of the estimated 60,000 or more men who have served in
the Catholic clergy have been accused of child sexual abuse.
Alan Cooperman, "Hundreds of Priests Removed Since '60s; Survey Shows Scope
Wider Than Disclosed," Washington Post, June 9, 2002, p. A1.
According to a survey by the New York Times, 1.8 percent of all priests
ordained from 1950 to 2001 have been accused of child sexual abuse.
Laurie Goodstein, "Decades of Damage; Trail of Pain in Church Crisis Leads
to Nearly Every Diocese," New York Times, January 12, 2003, Section 1, p. 1.
Thomas Kane, author of Priests are People Too, estimates that between 1 and
1.5 percent of priests have had charges made against them.
Interviewed by Bill O'Reilly, Transcript of "The O'Reilly Factor," May 3,
2002.
Of contemporary priests, the Associated Press found that approximately
two-thirds of 1 percent of priests have charges pending against them.
Bob von Sternberg, "Insurance Falls Short in Church Abuse Cases; Catholic
Dioceses are Forced to Find other Sources to Pay Settlements," Star Tribune,
July 27, 2002, p. 1A.
Almost all the priests who abuse children are homosexuals. Dr. Thomas
Plante, a psychologist at Santa Clara University, found that "80 to 90% of
all priests who in fact abuse minors have sexually engaged with adolescent
boys, not prepubescent children. Thus, the teenager is more at risk than
the young altar boy or girls of any age.
Thomas Plante, "A Perspective on Clergy Sexual Abuse,"
www.psywww.com/psyrelig/plante.html.
So as for Jews and Protestants:The data on the Protestant clergy tend to focus on sexual abuse in general,
not on sexual abuse of children. Thus, strict comparisons cannot always be
made. But there are some comparative data available on the subject of child
sexual molestation, and what has been reported is quite revealing.
In the spring of 2002, when the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church
was receiving unprecedented attention, the Christian Science Monitor
reported on the results of national surveys by Christian Ministry Resources.
The conclusion: "Despite headlines focusing on the priest pedophile problem
in the Roman Catholic Church, most American churches being hit with child
sexual-abuse allegations are Protestant, and most of the alleged abusers are
not clergy or staff, but church volunteers."
Mark Clayton, "Sex Abuse Spans Spectrum of Churches," Christian Science
Monitor, April 5, 2002, p. 1
In the authoritative work by Penn State professor Philip Jenkins, Pedophiles
and Priests, it was determined that between .2 and 1.7 percent of priests
are pedophiles. The figure among the Protestant clergy ranges between 2 and
3 percent.
Philip Jenkins, Pedophiles and Priests (New York: Oxford University Press),
pp. 50 and 81.
Rabbi Arthur Gross Schaefer is a professor of law and ethics at Loyola
Marymount University. It is his belief that sexual abuse among rabbis
approximates that found among the Protestant clergy. According to one
study, 73 percent of women rabbis report instances of sexual harassment.
"Sadly," Rabbi Schaefer concludes, "our community's reactions up to this
point have been often based on keeping things quiet in an attempt to do
'damage control.' Fear of lawsuits and bad publicity have dictated an
atmosphere of hushed voices and outrage against those who dare to break
ranks by speaking out."
Rabbi Arthur Gross Schaefer, "Rabbi Sexual Misconduct: Crying Out for a
Communal Response," www.rrc.edu/journal, November 24, 2003.So why do you say only maybe half were RC ? I suggest you are trying to change figures to suit your own argument, and it does you no favours.
And I suggest you show me what is wrong about what Jenkins, Clayton and Schaefer say above about that!0 -
The splinter has already been address beacuse its a tenth of one per cent yet has done 4% of the damage.;)
Today Roman Catholic clergy are a tenth of a per cent of the population.
In the past they were much higher.
The RC clergy didn't do a 4% of anything.
The closest you can keep hyping is an unreliable report which says 1.9% of males under eighteen and 1.4% of females were abused by "Ministers"
the actual report you quote has under 2% and for ministers of all religions
http://www.drcc.ie/about/savi.pdf PAGE 88
and that is MINISTERS not RC priests!0 -
Are we now taking stats from the US into the argument ISAW. Thats a whole different can of more recent worms.0
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