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When Churches Become Scenes of Sexual Abuse: Why Does It Happen?
Townhall ^ | 08/16/2018 | Haley Halverson

Posted on 08/16/2018 9:46:36 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

This week a grand jury reported on documents from six Catholic Church dioceses in Pennsylvania that revealed 300 “predator priests” have been accused of sexually abusing over 1,000 children.

The grand jury report states: “We believe that the real number – of children whose records were lost, or who were afraid ever to come forward – is in the thousands. Most of the victims were boys; but there were girls too. Some were teens; many were prepubescent… But all of them were brushed aside, in every part of the state, by church leaders who preferred to protect the abusers and their institution above all.”

This report has sent shock waves through the world, akin to the 2002 Boston Globe report on a priest accused of molesting more than 80 boys who was shielded by the Catholic Church.

The grand jury rightly stated: “There have been other reports about child sex abuse within the Catholic Church. But never on this scale.”

The Catholic Church is not alone. Many churches and religious institutions have been accused of perpetuating sexual abuse, to various degrees.

In Evangelical Christian church circles, amidst the #MeToo movement, high-profile leaders have been accused of sexual assault. Leaders like Paige Patterson, the president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, was forced to retire after it was reported that he told a rape victim to forgive her attacker instead of calling the police.

Further, in 2017 an assistant pastor at Agape Bible Church in Thornton, Colo., got 13 years in prison for sexually assaulting a young girl repeatedly for 2 years. The police discovered that church leaders and the girl’s father decided to not contact the police and to simply handle the matter “internally.”

In the Mormon church, there have also been scandals, such as the recent case of Joseph L. Bishop, a retired president of the Provo Missionary Training Center, who admitted to molesting at least one female missionary. News reports state that the victim reported the incident to her local bishop, but that the local bishop ignored it because he “wasn’t going to risk sullying the reputation of someone based on that kind of a report.”

In 2017, six Mormon families tried to sue the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for allegedly covering up child sexual abuse by a church member of children as young as 4 and 6 years old. And another suit against the Mormon church claims “Native American children were sexually abused while enrolled in the church’s Indian Student Placement Program.”

There have been accusations of sexual abuse amongst Orthodox Jewish Rabbis, international Buddhist leaders, Muslim pilgrimages, and more.

The list could go on and on.

The hierarchical structures, theology, and policies vary wildly between these different institutions, and so likely will their collective responses and solutions. Each institution will handle allegations of abuse differently – but there can be no doubt that heightened media attention surrounding these issues is socially beneficial for putting churches of all faiths in the hot seat to update and enforce vigorous measures for effective, correct justice in light of abuse.

Many people are asking: why does sexual abuse happen in churches? The heartbreaking reality is wherever there are people – especially when some have greater power or authority than others or where an institution desires self-preservation – there is the possibility of sexual abuse. Sometimes the power differential is in the boardroom at work. Sometimes the institution seeking self-preservation is a Hollywood production company.

And sometimes, the scene of sexual abuse is the church.

If you are a member of a faith community, inquire with your church about the policies and procedures for reporting sexual harassment or abuse. Clarify if leaders are ever left alone with children, at what point after receiving a report the church would call the police, and talk to both fellow members and leadership about ways these policies and more could be improved. Consider asking them to adopt Keeping Children Safe’s international child protection standard, which has been adopted in more than 4,000 organizations worldwide. Ask the church to post this information publicly as well.

Let’s strive for churches to become places of reform, healing, and justice.

-- Haley Halverson (@HaleyCHalverson) is Vice President of Advocacy and Outreach at the National Center on Sexual Exploitation.


TOPICS: Current Events; Moral Issues; Religion & Culture
KEYWORDS: catholicism; church; homosexualrape; priests; ruleonenopoofters; saints; sexabuse
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To: Vermont Lt

“No one did anything because the Bishop ran half the schools. The Bishop controlled the DA, and the cops.”

There you go. Who was there who had the power to stand against that? And when I say power, I include knowledge and awareness.

The bishop enforced omerta. You’d have had no more success fighting that than a single speakeasy owner would have had taking on Al Capone.

I’ll tell you who else the bishop had influence with—the media. They had it locked up, and it wasn’t until Satan ordered the media to blow it wide open that there was any chance of exposing it.

“It was the power that this religious cult had over its parishioners.”

I don’t expect to have much success arguing this point with you, but the fault lies not with Catholicism.

Do you think a *faithful* Catholic priest would have abused his power in this way? The men of whom you speak were Catholic in no way. They were agents of evil, out to harm the Church and the faithful.

Those men did terrible things, but perhaps worst of all, they blamed it on the Church. They did Satan’s will, and people say, “Oh, look what the Catholic Church has done.”

“They did not want to turn on someone of their brotherhood. Their bonds with their evil brothers were greater than the lives of these kids.”

You started your post by telling us exactly why nothing could be done. Even if someone had tried to blow the whistle, the bishop and the Lavender Mafia would have destroyed them.

Only a man of the stature of Billy Graham in his prime could have begun to expose the Lavender Mafia, but what would the evilstream misleadia have said if he had tried?

When people are saying that “the Church” should have done something, what they’re really saying is that people who lacked the ability to achieve anything should have martyred themselves in a futile effort.

But maybe you’re right. Only God knows, IMO, but perhaps every priest had a duty to destroy himself in a failed effort to expose this. Perhaps every parent had a duty to suffer excommunication and persecution by employers and authorities.

Perhaps...Dexter? But no, intrinsically evil means are always prohibited.

At my age I am not too prone to hold people to standards so high that they result in destruction. How many of us are really called to martyrdom?


101 posted on 08/16/2018 3:04:38 PM PDT by dsc (Our system of government cannot survive one-party control of communications.)
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To: Louis Foxwell

“I am here to tell you that sodomites were deliberately escorted into the priesthood through seminaries, for whatever reason.”

Yes, and the reason was the KGB.


102 posted on 08/16/2018 3:08:08 PM PDT by dsc (Our system of government cannot survive one-party control of communications.)
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To: Louis Foxwell

Read your “stuff”, You appear to be a warrior...…………..

(Exodus 15:3) The LORD is a warrior; Yahweh is His name!

Be encouraged.


103 posted on 08/16/2018 3:08:16 PM PDT by PeterPrinciple (Thinking Caps are no longer being issued but there must be a warehouse full of them somewhere.)
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To: dsc

When people are saying that “the Church” should have done something, what they’re really saying is that people who lacked the ability to achieve anything should have martyred themselves in a futile effort.


You make some good points.

But what does God say on the matter is the question, and I am not sure I like the answer.

On the other hand I am often glad our gray haired founding fathers risked it all in their futile effort for our nation.


104 posted on 08/16/2018 3:45:19 PM PDT by PeterPrinciple (Thinking Caps are no longer being issued but there must be a warehouse full of them somewhere.)
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To: dsc

Untrue. I know gay men who are not attracted to underage. It makes them sick that others are. Just like straight men. There are straight men who get disgusted at the idea of themselves sleeping with an underaged girl no matter how pretty, and there are straight men who go for it when they think they can. There is a difference.


105 posted on 08/16/2018 4:04:30 PM PDT by Yaelle
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To: SeekAndFind
Does God exist? In my opinion, yes.......

With that being said, why are there so many religions across the planet with each one claiming to be the one and only true house of God?

Religions are a farse and nothing more than an opportunity to reap the financial benefits of those who want to believe in a higher order and only in their church can that be achieved.......with your tithings, you "love offerings", your "$1,000 financial seed" that God will multiply for you.......ad nauseum.

If it isn't the Catholic church it's the Bakkers, Robert Tilton, Peter Popoff, Jimmy Swaggert.........and the sordid list goes on.

No thank you, I don't need a church or religious leader to preach to me about the word of God then ask for money.

I can believe in God on my own at home.

106 posted on 08/16/2018 4:14:43 PM PDT by Hot Tabasco (I once found a needle in a haystack but it wasn't the one I was looking for...)
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To: a fool in paradise

“I don’t buy that these homosexual preists molest boys ceause they cannot marry a wife.”

81% of the cases in the PA report involve male clergy sexually molesting young teenage boys. Male on male is homosexuality. Purge the church of these faggots and fix the problem. A lot of them are bishops. Fact.


107 posted on 08/16/2018 5:26:12 PM PDT by NKP_Vet ("Man without God descends into madness")
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To: miss marmelstein

The PA investigation was supposed to include all religious faiths and also include public schools, and anywhere else that there’s a high rate of sex assaults. When the report came out the only organization that was cited was the Catholic Church. That’s why Bill Dohohue has been raising hell about it. He claims the DA wanted tbe Catholic Church for the shock value and let other faith organizations and public schools and colleges skate.


108 posted on 08/16/2018 5:36:31 PM PDT by NKP_Vet ("Man without God descends into madness")
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To: miss marmelstein

good luck with your defense of perverts. I would take a good look at the fingernails next time you accept the host from perv, it probably has poop on them.


109 posted on 08/16/2018 6:10:21 PM PDT by Vermont Lt
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To: dsc

The greatest influence of the KGB was on the Democrat party. It has become the embodiment of the Communist plot to destroy the USA.


110 posted on 08/16/2018 6:37:33 PM PDT by Louis Foxwell (The denial of the authority of God is the central plank of the Progressive movement.)
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To: Louis Foxwell

Here’s my take ( and I could be wrong, but based on observations ):

Not all Pedos are homos

Not all Homos are Pedos


111 posted on 08/16/2018 7:45:46 PM PDT by SeekAndFind (look at Michigan, it will)
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To: Yaelle

“Untrue. I know gay men who are not attracted to underage.”

You know sodomites who *say* that.

I have also known sodomites who said that.

They were lying.


112 posted on 08/16/2018 8:07:43 PM PDT by dsc (Our system of government cannot survive one-party control of communications.)
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To: NKP_Vet

“He claims the DA wanted tbe Catholic Church for the shock value and let other faith organizations and public schools and colleges skate.”

He is correct.


113 posted on 08/16/2018 8:17:56 PM PDT by dsc (Our system of government cannot survive one-party control of communications.)
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To: SeekAndFind

“Not all Homos are Pedos”

They are not all *exclusively* attracted to prepubescent males, true.

However, no attractive male of any age is safe from a man who suffers from same-sex attraction disorder. (With the single exception, in some cases, of infants.)


114 posted on 08/16/2018 8:23:12 PM PDT by dsc (Our system of government cannot survive one-party control of communications.)
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To: dsc
Well it was spread by someone in power because seminaries were told they could not refuse to take those men as students and Bishops ordained them.

So unless you want to brand a whole bunch of Roman Catholic Princes of the Church as KGB agents then it was the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.

Certainly no one from the top down said anything against it.

115 posted on 08/16/2018 8:32:19 PM PDT by Harmless Teddy Bear (Somewhere there's danger, somewhere there's injustice, and somewhere else the tea is getting cold.)
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To: dsc

Here’s how the church used to deal with predator sodomites.

Pope St. Pius V: “Having determined to do away with everything that may in some way offend the Divine Majesty, we resolve to punish, above all and without indulgence, those things which, by the authority of the Sacred Scriptures or by most grievous examples, are more repugnant to God than any others and raise His wrath: that is, negligence in divine worship, ruinous simony, the crime of blasphemy, and the execrable libidinous vice against nature [sodomy]. For such faults peoples and nations are scourged by God Who, according to His just condemnation, sends catastrophes, wars, famine, and pestilence ...
Let the judges know that if, even after this our Constitution, they are negligent in punishing these crimes, they will not only be guilty of them in the divine judgment but also will incur our indignation ... If someone commits that nefarious crime against nature that caused divine wrath to be unleashed against the children of iniquity, he will be given over to the secular arm for punishment [of death]; and if he is a cleric, he will be subject to the same punishment after having been stripped of all his degrees [of ecclesiastical dignity].”
- St. Pius V, Constitution Cum primum, April 1, 1566, in Bullarium Romanum (Rome: Typographia Reverendae Camerae Apostolicae, Mainardi, 1738), vol. 4, chap. 2, p. 284, apud Atila S. Guimaraes, Vatican II, Homosexuality and Pedophilia, TIA, 2004, pp. 19-20


116 posted on 08/16/2018 9:08:40 PM PDT by NKP_Vet ("Man without God descends into madness")
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To: dsc

Sodomy is only one of many, many listed sins.


117 posted on 08/16/2018 9:55:00 PM PDT by Yaelle
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To: Louis Foxwell

Cleveland, Baltimore, or Houston?


118 posted on 08/16/2018 9:56:02 PM PDT by robowombat (Orthodox)
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To: Harmless Teddy Bear

“Well it was spread by someone in power because seminaries were told they could not refuse to take those men as students and Bishops ordained them.”

Not exactly. The seminaries were not told they could not refuse those men. It was rather that sodomites had risen to positions of authority within the seminaries, so they were able to accept those men in the normal course of events.

The sodomite problem did not originate at the top and trickle down. It began with the first KGB infiltrators back in the 1930s. They, and subsequent generations, wormed their way up from the bottom.

“So unless you want to brand a whole bunch of Roman Catholic Princes of the Church as KGB agents”

I doubt that any current bishops are first-generation Russian-by-birth agents, but those agents got more homos in, and they got more, and who knows what generation they are at by now? So no, they aren’t KGB agents; they are the product of the efforts of KGB agents.

“then it was the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.”

Not no way, not no how.

“Certainly no one from the top down said anything against it.”

No one? Really?


119 posted on 08/16/2018 9:57:00 PM PDT by dsc (Our system of government cannot survive one-party control of communications.)
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To: Yaelle

“Sodomy is only one of many, many listed sins.”

No, it is regarded with special opprobrium. Not even murder is termed “abomination.”


120 posted on 08/16/2018 9:59:37 PM PDT by dsc (Our system of government cannot survive one-party control of communications.)
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