'Journalists abandon standards to attack the Pope'

[nonconformist]

Countdown to next "blame the victims" psot

 

[ParkCungHee]

This report was commissioned by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and was based on surveys completed by the Catholic dioceses in the United States. The surveys provided information from diocesan files on each priest accused of sexual abuse and on each of the priest's victim . . .

The consistency of the findings in dioceses across the United States is remarkable: whether region, number of Catholic communicants or number of parishes is used to array the dioceses, the results show allegations of sexual abuse have been made against 2.5% to 7% of diocesan priests. Similarly, whether religious priests are ranked by overall membership o[r] religious clerical membership, the percent of priests in communities who have been accused ranges from 1% to 3%, or approximately half of that of the diocesan priests.

To estimate the percentage of all priests in ecclesiastical ministry between 1950 and 2002 who have been the subject of allegations requires a reliable overall total of priests in ministry during that time period. This calculation was done two different way—first by using the data collected through the Diocesan and Religious Order Profiles and then by using the estimates produced by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate. [1; notes are collected in a note section at the end of this Web version; after clicking the number to view the note, click Back to return to this point in the text of the report] These different methods both yielded the same statistic: approximately 4% of Catholic priests and deacons in active ministry between 1950 and 2002 have been accused of the sexual abuse of a youth under the age of 18.

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/reports/2004_02_27_JohnJay/index.html

Tried to dig up some comparable statistics. While 4% is appalling, a conservative estimate of the national average for men in 10%.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/236096

 

[naterator]

What nobody on the catholic side seems to understand is that nobody is trying to deny it happens elsewhere. It's just that a massive global organization that claims to be the moral shepherd of billions handling abuse in the way it has is a HUGE story. Of course it exists elsewhere, people kill people sometimes too, doesn't even always make the local news; but when one group of people kill a lot of people it's a story.

When your behavior has led you to become a legitimate "story of the century" candidate, it will always feel like the media is picking on you. Just ask tiger woods.

Nobody is downplaying abuse elsewhere, as shekwan put it:

Whenever public school teachers are repeatedly found to be raping children, and the public school system moves them from school to school to cover this up, and this occurs over a period of decades, destroying generations of kids, yes I would hold the executive responsible.

The problem is the handling of things. People understand that awful things happen. That's why even with the whole "perversion files" flap in the boy scouts of america, people are more understanding, because the scouts appear to have taken steps to prevent abuse as much as possible BEFORE it got to the point where it was either an epidemic within the organization or a massive scandal. To add to the quote above, if there were a massive global school district that, at best, turned a blind eye the districts moving the raping teachers then the media would be rightfully ripping them apart, including the entire upper management staff for being, at best, so negligently blind to what their management is up to.

It's the complete mismanagement at an orgizational level that fostered a mindset that protecting the church from scandal was more important than protecting it's congregation from unspeakable atrocities. It


Oh, i'm gonna re-link the full Ryan Report on ireland and the John Jay Report on America. It would be easier to read scrotie mcboogerballs without vomiting than these.

 

[ParkCungHee]

It's the complete mismanagement at an organizational level that fostered a mindset that protecting the church from scandal was more important than protecting it's congregation from unspeakable atrocities.

I don't think anyone is going to disagree with you there. However it takes maybe a quick tour around Off-Topic to realize that most people following this story didn't see this as such.

 

[Lillefix]

Tried to dig up some comparable statistics. While 4% is appalling, a conservative estimate of the national average for men in 10%.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/236096

Whover says this has to be taking the numbers out of the air, or they define sexual abuse as looking at someone the wrong way.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Whover says this has to be taking the numbers out of the air, or they define sexual abuse as looking at someone the wrong way.

Yes, I'm sure that's how they conduct research at John Jay college.

 

[frekk]

Tried to dig up some comparable statistics. While 4% is appalling, a conservative estimate of the national average for men in 10%.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/236096

The report was not an estimate. It only includes those cases documented by the diocese ... the author is playing fast and loose with statistics, comparing figures that represent completely different things.

 

[Arwon]

I always like to imagine who would be defending the religious institutions if it was a bunch of Imams who had aided and abetted child sex abuse.

 

[NBAfan]

I always like to imagine who would be defending the religious institutions if it was a bunch of Imams who had aided and abetted child sex abuse.

I am sure if something like this happend in Islam it would go unreported.

 

[Riffraff]

I am sure if something like this happend in Islam it would go unreported.

By the victims or the media?

 

[nonconformist]

You have any idea how closely we watch our Imams?

 

[Lord Gay]

How can you watch them? I heard they hide in minarets.

 

[JollyRoger]

What is the instance ratio like compared to other similar institutions? Has anyone looked at that?

You mean of the guys doing the molesting or covering it up being ousted? Probably higher ratio than the Catholic Church.

By the victims or the media?

By the Islamic leaders.

 

[Shekwan]

I am sure if something like this happend in Islam it would go unreported.

Do you honestly think that if Muslim organisations were abusing kids in Europe or North America it would go unreported?

Are you high/drunk/biased? All three?

 

[Formaldehyde]

What do the Boy Scouts and the Roman Catholic Church have in common?

Spoiler :

A Portland attorney compared the Boy Scouts of America to the Roman Catholic Church on Thursday, arguing that the organization reacted in much the same way to cover up decades of child abuse instead of taking steps to protect children.

The Boy Scouts of America and Oregon's Cascade Pacific Council defend themselves against a $14 million lawsuit by a man molested by volunteer Timur Dykes.Attorneys for the Boy Scouts vigorously rejected any comparison with the Catholic Church in closing arguments in a four-week trial over a $29 million suit that has drawn national attention. They argued that the organization did its best to ban suspected pedophiles and was ahead of its time in recognizing the problem.

Kelly Clark, who also represented many abuse victims against the Catholic Church, asked a Multnomah County jury to hold the Boy Scouts responsible for failing to protect one child in particular: a Southeast Portland boy molested by an assistant Scout leader in the early 1980s. Clark said the Scouting organization has known it had a problem with pedophiles as far back as 1925, when it reportedly started compiling secret files on suspected child molesters, yet the Scouts kept the information from parents.

"You need to speak to them in the language that they will understand," Clark told jurors. "You take those secrets, and you shout them from the rooftop of this courthouse."

Chuck Smith, an attorney for the Boy Scouts of America, said it's unfair to compare the Boy Scouts to the Catholic Church, which for decades transferred priests accused of abuse into new parishes. Smith said the Boy Scouts kept files on suspected child molesters solely to ban them from the organization. It's just that the system didn't always work flawlessly, Smith said.

"Some mistakes were made," Smith said. "There's no question about it. We're not perfect. There's some questionable judgments."


Jurors will begin deliberating today whether the Texas-based Boy Scouts of America and the Portland-based Cascade Pacific Council were negligent in failing to protect Kerry Lewis from Assistant Scoutmaster Timur Dykes in 1983 and 1984. Jurors have been asked to award Lewis, now 38 and living in Klamath Falls, up to $4 million.

Lewis, who originally filed suit under a pseudonym, has agreed to be named by The Oregonian, which usually does not identify victims of sexual crimes.

If at least nine jurors decide the Boy Scouts are at fault, they will be asked to determine whether the Boy Scouts should pay up to $25 million in punitive damages for allegedly recklessly allowing Dykes -- who had admitted to a bishop and Scouting coordinator that he'd molested 17 Boy Scouts -- to continue to associate with the troop.

The jury will be able to refer to more than 1,000 files of suspected pedophiles compiled by the Boy Scouts from 1965 to 1985 across the nation. The Boy Scouts fought to keep the files out of the public eye, arguing they would be damaging to victims.

Judge John Wittmayer ordered the Boy Scouts to hand over the files, and the Oregon Supreme Court upheld his decision.

In January 1983, when Lewis was 10, Dykes confessed to Gordon McEwen, the bishop of a Southeast Portland ward of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In a videotaped deposition, McEwen said he individually met with parents of the 17 Scouts whom Dykes said he molested. Lewis was not one of them, and Clark and attorney Paul Mones claim that Dykes went on to molest Lewis.

Dykes was allowed to continue associating with boys through the Scouting program, the attorneys said. They pointed to Scouting rosters that list Dykes' name in 1983 and early 1984. A file that the Boy Scouts eventually created banning him from Scouting states that he was registered as a volunteer until 1985.

But Smith and Paul Xochihua, an attorney for the Cascade Pacific Council, said Dykes was booted out of the Scouting program almost immediately after his confession to McEwen in 1983. The attorneys said the troop rosters are inaccurate. Smith said the file that showed Dykes left Scouting in 1985 was clearly a clerical error.

Smith and Xochihua said McEwen was acting in his role as a bishop, not also as a Scouting coordinator, as Lewis' attorneys contend.

Smith said it was "inappropriate" to suggest that Boy Scouts volunteers didn't have the best interests of boys in mind and that they would allow pedophiles to hurt children in the name of protecting membership and money flowing into the organization.

"For 100 years, the Boy Scouts of America have been entrusted with the safety of millions of boys and young men," Smith said. "They are the most precious asset we have."

Many of those volunteers, Smith said, were parents.

"We rely on the knowledge of volunteers," he said. "That's what we count on. ... That's kind of our first line of defense."

Clark faulted the organization for failing to train volunteers about sexually abusive Scoutmasters and other volunteers, even though it knew it had long had a problem. Clark said the organization warned volunteers, parents and boys about all sorts of other potential dangers, including those posed by campfires and axes.

Clark said the organization was worried that if news of its pedophile problem got out, it would hurt the organization's public image. During the trial, Lewis' attorneys pointed to a 1984 memo circulated to Scouting administrators that described heavy media coverage of an Ohio Scoutmaster's indictment in the rape of an 11-year-old Scout. The memo contained a hand-drawn illustration of a firefighter dousing a fire.

Xochihua, the attorney for the Cascade Pacific Council, said the number of volunteers suspected of molesting children was minuscule. Of more than 1 million volunteers, perhaps 0.003 percent were believed to be pedophiles, he said.

Lewis' attorneys said the impact of pedophile volunteers was much greater than defense attorneys want jurors to believe. They said each child molester had potentially abused at least several victims, and that maybe 6 percent of child molesters are reported. That means tens of thousands of Scouts were potentially abused by Scouting volunteers, they said.

 

[Lord Gay]

Finally, some solid evidence! Since we know that the BSA doesn't allow gays or atheists in as members, all of these pedos are clearly hetero Christians.

I'm sure that scoutleaders and Bishops will come out denouncing heterosexuality and Christianity as causing these horrible things. Yup. I'm sure they will. Any day now...

*cricket*

 

[NBAfan]

What do the Boy Scouts and the Roman Catholic Church have in common?

You forgot schools.:suicide:

Do you honestly think that if Muslim organisations were abusing kids in Europe or North America it would go unreported?

Are you high/drunk/biased? All three?

Google Islamburgs in America and see what has gone unreported.

 

[holy king]

i dont get how the crimes of others relativize one's own.
i cant do the holocaust and then defend myself by proving pedro maschetti in argentina raped and killed a girl in 1932.

 

[MobBoss]

Finally, some solid evidence! Since we know that the BSA doesn't allow gays or atheists in as members, all of these pedos are clearly hetero Christians.

How do you know they are not simply closet atheists pretending to be hetero christians simply in order to infilitrate the group to get close to the kids? I mean if they are closet gays, why not closet atheists as well?

I know you like making assumptions on those books based on their covers...but if they are lieing about one facet of their life, couldnt they be lieing about more?

 

[nonconformist]

How do you know they are not simply closet atheists pretending to be hetero christians simply in order to infilitrate the group to get close to the kids? I mean if they are closet gays, why not closet atheists as well?

I know you like making assumptions on those books based on their covers...but if they are lieing about one facet of their life, couldnt they be lieing about more?

I can honestly say I've never laughed so hard at a post in my life.