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.;)
muppeteer wrote: » 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.
ISAW wrote: » 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.
himnextdoor wrote: » 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.
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 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.
getz wrote: » 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 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,
When 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.
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/
ISAW wrote: » 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 ithttp://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.
ISAW wrote: » 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
ISAW wrote: » 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!
ISAW wrote: » 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.
ISAW wrote: » 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.
ISAW wrote: » 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?
ISAW wrote: » 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?
ISAW wrote: » 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.
ISAW wrote: » See 2. above
ISAW wrote: » 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!
ISAW wrote: » 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
getz wrote: » 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,
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?
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.
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'.
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 practices
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.
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.
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.
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.
For many people, the term 'anti-Catholicism' is synonymous to the term 'anti-evil'.
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?
ISAW wrote: » 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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
muppeteer wrote: » 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 use of the child by a person for sexual arousal or sexual gratification of that person or another person,
In 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.
The 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 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.
As 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.
Most sexual abusers of male victims was by the religious, with about 50% of all victims reporting sexual abuse.
2.09 One thousand five hundred and forty one (1541) people applied to give evidence to the Committee
2.14The Confidential Committee heard from 1,090 witnesses
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,
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.
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.
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.
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.
ISAW wrote: » 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.
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 3.2http://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/research/pubs/misconductreview/report.pdf
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!
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.
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.
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.
No that is wrong. When lay people were exposed withing some instututins run by orders they were more likely to be reported.
I already admitted 31 cases of the most serious abuse about 25 per cent of which we can assume included sexual abuse.
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 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
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.
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.
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.
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.
dclane wrote: » 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.
optogirl wrote: » 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.
dclane wrote: » 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.
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?
dclane wrote: » 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.
dclane wrote: » I will try to give some grounds to the statements I have made.
PDN wrote: » 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?
dclane wrote: » 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.
dclane wrote: » 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.
muppeteer wrote: » 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.
dclane wrote: » 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."
