Posted on 03/11/2007 6:58:18 AM PDT by siunevada
If "all" reporting is incorrect, then we can trust nothing except what we see with our own eyes.
No wonder those two young men were driven to attempt suicide when their own Catholic church (and you, apparently) did not believe them.
Perhaps the Catholic church needs to look more closely at its leaders. Certainly this would have been good advice for the Praise Tabernacle church. Shame on all those who turn away or do not discern correctly.
Do you understand the meaning of this sentence? Do you agree, or disagree?
I asked a few specific questions in the previous post. I'd appreciate having answers to them.
"A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away ... I learned NOT to believe anything "reported" on ABCCBSNBCCNNWashPostNYTimes."
I asked if you really meant "nothing" and you replied "NOTHING."
As to your question, I answered it. I do know the Praise Tabernacle Church is Protestant and I think the young person's accusation must be taken very seriously.
If it is proved in a court of law to be true, then that minister should be jailed, EXACTLY LIKE THE ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST WAS JAILED AFTER HE WAS TRIED AND CONVICTED OF SEXUAL MOLESTATION OF MINOR BOYS IN HIS CONGREGATION.
There's not a lot of room here for misinterpretation by the MSM. The guy is a felon. He lost his church, but oddly enough, he is still a priest.
How do you ever expect to solve this problem if you do not get rid of pedophiles in positions of authority in your churches?
I note your continued evasion of my questions.
Good grief. What question are you talking about?
I have no wish to join in with the 'rasslin' match you and AB have going on.
Yes, it does "seem" clear.
But most of what the MSM has highlighted since 2002 is an aggregate of offenses that have taken place over the last 50 years or more. Anyone that was paying attention to the Catholic media since the mid-80's knew there was trouble brewin'. They were pointing out individual incidents here and there but nobody started to add up the numbers until later.
Seemingly, the only dispassionate academic look at the subject is by a non-Catholic, Professor Philip Jenkins of Penn State. He was working on this long before the MSM got hold of it. I'd guess they probably poached off his work since (the citations indicate) he published in 2001 and things exploded in 2002 in the MSM. This is a portion of an article (poorly written; they must use the same proofreader I use) at Answers.com:
Prof. Philip Jenkins, Professor of History and Religious Studies at Penn State University, published the book Pedophiles and Priests: Anatomy of a Contemporary Crisis in 1996. In it, he calculated that approximates 0.2 percent of Catholic priests are child molesters.[16] His 2002 article "The myth of the 'pedophile priest'"[9] expresses his views. In contrast to Louise Haggett's statement, Professor Jenkins states:
"My research of cases over the past 20 years indicates no evidence whatever that Catholic or other celibate clergy are any more likely to be involved in misconduct or abuse than clergy of any other denomination -- or indeed, than nonclergy. However determined news media may be to see this affair as a crisis of celibacy, the charge is just unsupported."
Media hype explanation
Some —including non-Catholic academics such as Philip Jenkins—have observed that the Catholic Church is being unfairly singled out by a secular media which they say fails to highlight similar sexual scandals in other religious groups, such as the Anglican Communion, various Protestant churches, and the Jewish and Islamic communities. In particular the Catholic Church may have a lower incidence of molesting priests than Churches that allow married clergy. Statistically child molestation occurs within families but Catholic priests do not have families. Similarly, the term "pedophile priests," widely used in the media, implies a distinctly higher rate of child molesters within the Roman Catholic priesthood when in reality the incidence is lower than most other segments of society"[17].
In response it has been said that irrespective of disproportionate attention lavished upon Catholic priests by the media or misrepresentations that molesting priests were involved, the media did not conjure up the examples of law breaking priests and dangerously incompetent bishops.
16 ^ Philip Jenkins, Pedophiles and Priests: Anatomy of a Contemporary Crisis (Oxford University Press, 2001). p81
9 (? Unsure if they are citing correctly) ^ George Weigel, The Courage To Be Catholic (Basic Books, 2002). ISBN 0-465-09261-6 Page 61
17 ^ Philip Jenkins, Pedophiles and Priests: Anatomy of a Contemporary Crisis (Oxford University Press, 2001). ISBN 0-19-514597-6
As I explained to AB, it's best to read from a lot of sources, look around with your own eyes and ears, and then try to discern the truth correctly.
.2% is a ludicrous percentage.
In my own neighborhood it is closer to 20%.
It's up to each of us to look at the facts and act accordingly. As long as the Catholic church thinks it does not have a serious problem, children's lives will continue to be destroyed. And worst of all, those lives are destroyed near God's house of worship.
They will have to answer for every sin they commit. God forgive them, because I don't since very few of them evidence any remorse or true repentance.
Wow. Got a link for the source?
I think he might be wrong, but the problem does cut across all Christian sects. It may well be that the RCC has a worse image because they kept it hush hush for so many years rather than throwing the church doors open and cleaning house. Where ever the abuse is found and proved the penalties should be so severe that no one so inclined would want to take a job in the clergy.
"The accusation is against an African American male -- that's it," said Dew, who is African American. "I was the only one there (at the library) leaving."
I think that this is a bit of a stretch when you think that it happened at Martin Luther King Jr. Library in Meadowview, a predominately black neighborhood.
Pentecostal to be exact.
Looks like you're going to have to wait a long time for your answer. The bigot has spewed his/her venom and has no concrete answers.
S/he sounds like one of the Clinton's trying to spin his/her position into one of concern "for the children," victims of pedophilia, while the primary goal is using an opportunity to rant against the RCC.
It's a sin when a catholic abuses a child, and it's equally a sin when a protestant does. Seek Christ and grow up.
sorry bout that .. I may not be a Catholic, but I can sure recognize anti-Catholic bigotry. And, frankly, it's really offensive. I would have thought that was an issue.
We are living in a world where Western culture and Christianity of all stripes is under attack in very deadly forms. Why some can use this forum for anti-Christian and/or anti-Catholic bigotry and not be called on it is beyond me. Maybe that could be brought under control.
I am also outta here ...
The Doc gave me a private reply to that question.
We may never have any hard numbers because as Jenkins discovered in his research no one other than the Catholics are tabulating the numbers to get a big picture. Each individual researcher has to do the bloodhound work and find each incident for themselves and add it to the tally. Catholics have a tendency to record everything and keep the records so the basic legwork is done.
It may well be that the RCC has a worse image because they kept it hush hush for so many years rather than throwing the church doors open and cleaning house.
No question about it. Once the various patterns became obvious in each individual diocese, Catholics had some questions for the bishops. How could you be so gullible or negligent or criminally complicit? (Choose one or more depending on the individual circumstances.)
All this was out in the open at least as far back as 1985 but the bishops dropped the ball or covered up the scope of the problem, depending on one's viewpoint. That's a liberal source but it does report facts, one being that the media, especially the Catholic media, were aware that there was a potentially huge problem that wasn't being dealt with.
It took the MSM the better part of two decades to pay attention to their religion reporters, catch up to the story and say, "Hey, them Catholics got a problem." Do they have a touch of complicity in the story? Maybe a touch.
If any good is going to come out of this evil, I hope we don't fall asleep again and say, "Well, that was horrible but it's all over now." or "It happened to them, but us? Never!"
Predators are what they are and they aren't going to disappear. They will take advantage of the circumstances that are presented to them.
As to the guy in this article: if things happened the way the kid told the security guard, then he is not the typical abuser that slowly weasels their way into a family's and a kid's confidence. This was an assault on a stranger in a public place. The guy's totally whacked out.
Nobody needs to "own" him. This didn't happen because he's a clergyman. He's a predator that assumed the guise of a clergyman.
I asked several questions regarding (generally) how trustworthy you consider the MSM, and as to whether you actually understand my opinion of them. Review my previous posts. The questions are noted by having a "Question Mark" (?) at the end. You seem to put much more faith in them than I think is warranted, but I don't want to be "reading your mind", or assuming anything. So I asked. If you don't want to answer, that's OK. Just say so.
Excellent posts. Thank you.
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