Do you think all criminals of sexual abuse are Catholic priests or all Catholic priests have problem with it?

Theresa,

According to Romans 3 "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God". I do not believe the original premise at all. I am not a Catholic but I try never to throw stones at others because of my (religious) beliefs. Have a great week.

Thanks,

Eds

~~~

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You said it yourself......we are all human. I think the Catholic church needs to do away with the vow of celibacy. First off, I think you need to be little "off" to want to take such a vow in the first place. Sexual desire and the desire to love and be loved in return is some of the strongest emotional needs of being human. It's an outdated "rule" of becoming a priest. You don't see many other religions demanding such expectations and therefor hear very little about sexual abuse scandals in other religions.

The Catholic church has been getting away with this kind of thing because they're an age old religion. Could you imagine if the Scientology religion was getting accused of all these sexual abuse cases??? There would be a public outcry to shut the religion down.

I'm Catholic myself and it's hard to watch all these scandals happen frequently. Get rid of the vow and allow the priest to be able to get married and have a partner and I believe the sexual abuse cases would all but disappear.

So does that mean I think all priest are molesters??? No, I just think most have a sexual desire and unfortunately these children are becoming the victims of that.

Of course not.

The U.S. Department of health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families report "Child Maltreatment 2006" states that sexual abuse by Catholic clergy was less than one-half of one percent of all cases.

The report states that the perpetrators relationship to the victim was:

29.1% were Other Relatives

26.2% were Parents

24.4% were Others

6.9% were Unknown or Missing People

6.1% were Unmarried Partners of Parent

4.4% were Friends or Neighbors

1.8% were Child Daycare Providers

0.5% were Other Professionals

0.3% were Foster Parents

0.3% were Residential Facility Staff

0.1% were Legal Guardians

All clergy is a subset of Other Professionals and Catholic clergy is a subset of all clergy. http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/pubs/cm06/table...

Here is the complete document: http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/pubs/cm06/cm06....

The 2007 Annual Report prepared by the Catholic bishops identifies 15 allegations of childhood sexual abuse in the U.S. Catholic Church from 2000 to 2007. Please note that there were 64,800,000 Catholics in the U.S. in 2005. http://cara.georgetown.edu/bulletin/index.htm

The 2007 Associated Press investigation identifies 2,570 public school teachers who, from 2001 through 2005, had their teaching licenses "taken away, denied, surrendered voluntarily, or restricted" because of sexual misconduct with minors.

With love in Christ.

Of course not.

The thing we find especially outrageous about the Catholic abuse is the way the church has systematically covered up the abuse: slapping the pervs on the wrist when their activity could no longer be ignored, sending them off to out-of-the-way parishes where the pervs could continue with less press, and threatening the victims with lawsuits and eternal damnation for talking about it.

Everyone knows that only a minority of priests were perpetrators. But the church's hierarchy acted as enabler, tacitly encouraging the abuse. And that goes beyond despicable.

Yeah, teachers and Baptist youth ministers get caught too. The difference is, when they get caught the school board or church convention hangs the perverts out to dry. Not so the Catholic Church, which has for centuries been saying, "Look, if you can't control youself then just do it where nobody will notice."

First off, I have never sinned. But of course, you would likely disagree. The issue there is that I do not consider sin in the same context you do. In fact, I consider sin a religious concept.

Second, and in actual response to the main question, no. I don't at all think that somehow sexual abusers are all Catholic or vice versa. It simply doesn't make sense to think that an entire massive group of people all have the same flaw.

On the other hand, what I do think is that the Catholic church has been greatly protecting the sexual abusers instead of the abused. That is a flaw in their system that they need to correct if they wish to gain back the general respect of the world.

Of course we don't think ALL priests are molesters, or that all molesters are priests.

But do NOT sit here and defend them just because they are priests. Would you sit there and defend the guy next door to you if he raped your child? Would you say, "Awww...be fair, he's just human." Of COURSE you wouldn't. You are only defensive of these monsters because they are priests, and you have been conditioned to be defensive on behalf of them.

We ARE the ones being fair. Those who protect, cover up, and defend child rapists are the ones being "unfair".

We as a society have a RESPONSIBILITY to protect our children, and we have been complacent and silent about this problem for TOO LONG. We have NO excuse to not come down on every single person involved like a ton of bricks. These are people who are and have been raping CHILDREN, and who have been protected and hidden for decades. When you defend, cover up, and protect a rapist, and then they rape again, you are every bit as responsible as the rapist themselves and should be prosecuted to the FULLEST extent of the law. You do not get an "out" because you are a priest.

No, it's a problem throughout society. Most Catholic priests are doubtless not perpetrators. In Ireland, though, the clerical abuse is regarded as the biggest paedophile ring ever, as detailed by the official government Murphy Report.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8381119.st...

The critical issue is not about their abuse, bad as it is but no different from others' abuse, but the systematic covering up by the hierarchy of their organisation, thus preventing justice from being done.

If some non-religious organisation carried out the same level of covering up, and continued even now to obstruct legal investigators, I believe there would be just as big a fuss about that, if not more.

What's more, the non-religious organisation would be unlikely to blame "gossipers" or "satanists" for the the criticism of their continued obstruction.

The victims need justice, as well as all society.

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/angry-abus...

So please think again and be fair.

No. If that were the case then All Teachers, Married Man and Women, Uncles, Aunts.... well gee about everyone.

It cant be blamed on Celibacy either because Married Female Teachers are offending more and more and the most likely person to offend is a Married Man.

Peace be with you

<<<Devout Catholic>>>

They are priests, they hold a high position in an institution that claims to be morally sound and have a direct link with god. 10,000 children have been abused by thousands of priests within the walls of this institution and their crimes are being covered up.

No one claims only Catholic priests have done this, everyone knows this happens other places, but that doesn't make what they have done any less heinous.

I know someone will "violate" this post in seconds because the coverup by Catholic laity is in full swing on Y!A, but I'll post it anyway.

The Roman Catholic Church has criminally aided and abbeted the raping of children by actively moving known pedophiles from one jurisdiction to the next. I personally became aware of one case where the Monsignor of a diocese in Illinois, after molesting a deputy sheriff's son, was flown out of the country to Italy when a devout file clerk in the DA's office warned the Bishop that an arrest warrant had been issued for the Monsignor. That Monsignor was supposed to officiate at my wedding that weekend, and a junior priest was substituted at the last minute, and the laity were already busy making excuses for the Monsignor and the Bishop that smuggled him out of the country. That was in 1979.

Events since have shown beyond debate that the church has as a matter of policy and practice concealed these crimes, protected these criminals, acted to frustrate justice and provided these predators with fresh opportunities again and again, without any concern for their victims, as though the rape of a child is of little importance next to the authority and reputation of the church.

You can try to blow this off as the acts of a few bad priests if you want, but it is nothing less than organizational corruption, and it reaches all the way to the current Pope who as head of the Congregation of the Faith (Inquisition) responsible for removing these priests, gave written instruction to the church hierarchy to conceal these crimes, and as recently as two days ago had his propagandists dismiss all the criticism as a conspiracy by pro-abortion and gay marriage advocates. He may not be the anti-Christ, but he has a lot to answer for.

Jesus said, "Suffer the little children to come unto me, and do not forbid them, for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven." Your priests are not Jesus, and you need to quit letting them have at your children. You and the rest of the Catholic laity need to get your heads straight about who you should be protecting, i.e. your children instead of your church. Until the Catholic laity quits making excuses for crimes, the criminals and cardinals covering it all up, the laity must share the blame.

Clealry at least one apologist below has no shame, quoting the church itself on the number of cases? Since 2002, approximately 10,000 individuals have identified themselves as victims of priest abuse. Some of these victims have received compensation for the suffering they endured. In fact, the church has thus far paid about $2 billion to victims of priest molestation, with more than $600 million being paid to victims in 2007 alone. Quoting a Catholic church official report as though it is factual? Why not quote the Colombian cartels on the prevalence of cocaine trafficing?