Why does the Catholic church continue to allow pedophiles to serve in children's ministries?

Maybe they should conduct background checks of their staff and volunteer help.

I agree with you.

2 things though....

1) This article the person is not a Priest, but a Catechism teacher.

2) Who says that the church DOESN'T conduct background checks and that this guy had a clean record?

Your question makes it very difficult to answer honestly and thoroughly discuss the matter because you start off with the assumption that they ARE protecting and knowingly allows it, which this article doesn't mention at all. Therefore it would assume that you are either using outside information which none of the answerers know what you know, OR you are making large assumptions about the contents of this article that you did post. i.e. that the Catholic church knowing knew about it and protected this guy.

Ask yourself this.. WHY are you soo quick to condemn the Catholic church and not see it as a tragedy against his potential victims and to a lesser degree to the Church? Why aren't you feeling bad about the church itself? Why do you immediately assume the Church is in on this and a co-defendant? A perpetrator?

The fact that you have tried, judged and sentenced the church based on 1 internet article, likely will make actual open discussion all but impossible.

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Since the atrilce only says he is a "religious teacher" that means he is a Catechism teachers. Catechism teachers are VOLUNTEERS, yes, they are Catholics, but they are NOT employed by the Catholic church. They are not "protected" by the church no more then people who volunteer to act as ushers at church or sing in the choir are "protected" even leaders of the church.

In either case. Most churches DO require background checks. They can't prosecute what they don't know. They aren't a legal institution so they can't perform search and seizures of every Catechism teacher's personal computer. NOR are they in a position to hire private detectives to watch each and every volunteer.

The kids this guy might have preyed upon are the real victims, but the Catholic church is ALSO a victim of sorts in this situation.

So yeah.. BOOOO the Catholic church for having a small margin of faith that a guy without prior convictions and who VOLUNTEERED to teach religion isn't a pedophile. BOOO! them for assuming people are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Yeah.. man, you got the church dead to rights on this one...wow!, good job!

So I guess if you expect the Catholic church to do background checks and IF they come up clean, assume the person is a pedophile simply because they are Catholic and volunteered..right? Guess they should go get some Atheists to teach Catechism,. because God knows, Atheists are NEVER Pedophiles....right? I mean ONLY Catholics are pedophiles..right?

For just a minute, ignore the jobs of the pedophiles, and treat them as if they were scout leaders, teachers, or coaches- other professions that have more than their fair share of them. The organization has a problem- someone is accused of pedophilia, but there is rarely any proof at this stage. Both the parents and the organization are reluctant to drag this into court- costs, embarassment, accusations, spotlights into private lives- a real problem... even for the assaulted child. The act is bad enough, the trial often just makes things worse. If the accused is innocent, they can easily counter-sue for defamation or libel, loss of the job and wages, etc. and if the child comes across as having exagerated or even confabulated, the child will be branded as will the parents. This whole thing tends to exist in a shadowy grey area- fear, embarassment, shame, humiliation... Organizations often shuffle the person around- quietly dismiss them without anything in their records (that might come back to bite the organization) or shuffle them off to a new location with a sanitized past. Most groups want to play the ostrich game- pretend it did not happen or it was a one-time thing or it is an exageration or, or, or... The Catholic Church is basically a human organization. One would wish to hold them to a higher standard, but that is not fair to the human side. It is also a really, really big and very, very visible group. Easy to accuse, easy for them to ignore troublesome issues and shuffle them away. We need to be pointing fingers, blowing whistles, and shouting out about abuses, but to pretend that the Church is the biggest offender is also dangerous and foolish. Never forget that far more children are abused by family members than have ever been abused by priests, teachers, coaches, and youth leaders combined.

My position: Fundamentalist Christian

1) Why does the Catholic church continue to allow pedophiles to serve in children's ministries?

They don't. Official Roman Catholic Church policy disallows such. That is not to say that pedophiles cannot successfully become priests and gain such positions - it means only that, **once discovered**, pedophiles are not permitted to hold such positions. If you know some sure-fire way to detect a pedophile before they are caught committing a crime, please let us know.

Besides, the events described in the article occurred in 2002.

2) but you all know the Catholic church has been covering this mess up for a very long time

No, I don't know that. What I know (and I admit, I am not Roman Catholic, so maybe they know more) is that certain officials of the Roman Catholic Church with local authority have covered up specific instances of pedophilia that have occurred in their jurisdiction. That is quite a bit different than saying "the Catholic church has been covering this mess up for a very long time". That's like saying of a certain Senator from Idaho, "The U.S. Government has been secretly availing itself of homosexual prostitutes for a very long time".

3) The church is not a victim, it has been an accomplice.

No - *individuals* have been accomplices. The Roman Catholic Church has *not* been an accomplice - any more than the U.S. government is an accomplice of the criminal actions of one of its Senators.

Jim, http://www.bible-reviews./ com/selector_rc.html

I'm not a member of the Roman Catholic church, but this seems like an easy answer. In the U.S, we call it "innocent until proven guilty."

If they a person has proven guilty of committing the vile acts you speak of, they would be serving a sentence.

Once convicted, these people can't ever be near children. It is part of their probation, or parole, when released from jail.

Everyone in society has the job of keeping wackos off the streets and away from our kids. Not just the RCC. If people are in church, we have to assume they have a right to be there...or else their parole officer should have stopped them from entering.

You seem to believe that this only happens in Catholic churches. This mess has been happening at other churches as well.

I wonder why you are singling out the Catholic Church on this.

Welcome to a collection of news reports on ministers who have sexually abused children:

ALL Protestant denominations - 838 Ministers

147 Baptist Ministers

251 "Bible" Church Ministers (fundamentalist/evangelical)

140 Anglican/Episcopalian Ministers

38 Lutheran Ministers

46 Methodist Ministers

19 Presbyterian Ministers

197 various Church Ministers

http://www.reformation.com/

The Catholic church DOES do background checks on anyone over 18 years of age that volunteers in any ministry. We are also required to take a class on preventing child sexual abuse.

Do you have a source for this information?

Where is the Catholic church mentioned in this article?

Because the Catholic church IS a bunch of greedy pedophiles.

Because they believe all they need for redemption is to speak to a minister do a few hail marys and they are absolved of anything.Then if things can't be explained they say god spoke to them and told them to do it.

Man made laws and traditions