fayfreethinkers.com

By RACHEL ZOLL, AP Religion Writer

WASHINGTON - The nation's Roman Catholic leaders received 783 new claims of sex abuse by clergy in 2005, with most of the allegations involving cases that are decades old.

The new claims, reported Thursday, bring the total number of accusations against Catholic clergy to more than 12,000 since 1950.


the whole article at: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060330/ap_ ... use_audits

[fundy mode] And the victims will burn in hell for ratting out the men of God! [/fundy mode]

The only religious leaders I personally have known who were into sex abuse were Methodists. Statistically, the largest category of sex abusers of children are one or more of their parents, and the second largest are other relatives (uncles, grandparents, etc). That doesn't mean the RCs don't need to clean up their act - big time - but right now they are being used to hide the severity - and the family connection - of the child sex abuse problem. But then, the pretence that natural parents are perfect is one of the fundies' biggest myths.

Betsy wrote:The new claims, reported Thursday, bring the total number of accusations against Catholic clergy to more than 12,000 since 1950.

DOUG
And of course for each reported case there are probably several unreported ones.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) is a much-needed organization. And there are others.

http://www.snapnetwork.org/

Barbara Fitzpatrick wrote:The only religious leaders I personally have known who were into sex abuse were Methodists.

DOUG
I have known at least two Roman Catholic priests who were child abusers.

Known them not in the Biblical sense, I should add.

Doug wrote:
Known them not in the Biblical sense, I should add.

It's okay Doug, we're all friends here. You don't have to hide your pain from us.

Barbara, I agree that sexual abuse is more common within families (these days its more step parents, I think) but the point is that these are religious leaders, whose sexual repression - by being forced to not marry due to their religion's dogma - have led to this widespread abuse.

DAR
The problem has been aggravated with the Catholic church for two reasons:

1) Celibacy, as Betsy pointed out

2) The organized, top down efforts to cover it up (and thus actually make it worse)

Go here to see a list of just the Bishops who have gotten the boot:

http://ffrf.org/fttoday/2002/may02/oustedbishops.php

Lots more here:

http://ffrf.org/timely/pedophilechurch.php

D.
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So far, that list [of Roman Catholic officials who knew that an area priest was molesting and raping children for years] includes a cardinal, five bishops and several parish priests.
In the real world, we send guys who rape children to prison. In the world that is the Roman Catholic Church, guys who rape children get transferred to another parish. Again and again and again.” --Columnist Regina Bretta, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Jan. 31, 2002
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