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 | Pedophilia (sexual abuse by adults of pre-pubertal children) is lower among Catholic clergy than among the general male population. |
| Hebephilia (sexual abuse by adults of post-pubertal children) is much more common among Catholic clergy than in the general population; it is a major concern. |
| Sexual abuse of children could probably be almost halved if women were allowed to be ordained in the church. |
Quotations:
| "While the moral panic of Salem's witches may be over, an equally pernicious panic continues to grow -- that of the pedophile priest." Anne Hendershott. 1 |
| "Nothing much can shock us in today's world, but in the past weeks we've seen things, heard things, and read things that we never would have dreamed of." Father Raymond Mann, St. Anthony Shrine, Boston, MA, on Palm Sunday, 2002-MAR-24. 2 |
| "The far right will tell you the reason we have this problem goes back to Vatican II. We made too many reforms. They blame everything on the reforms. The far left says the problem we have today is we didn’t make enough reforms. ... Both sides greet the bad news about the Catholic Church, particularly regarding matters sexual, as good news because they feel vindicated." William Donohue, president of the Catholic League. 3 |
| "We would be naïve and dishonest were we to say this is a Roman Catholic problem and has nothing to do with us because we have married and female priests in our church. Sin and abusive behavior know no ecclesial or other boundaries." Rt. Rev. William Persell, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago, Good Friday Sermon, 2002. 4 |
Topics covered in this section:
This is a moral panic with roots that extend back for many decades.
References:
- Anne Hendershott, "A perfect panic," San Diego Union-Tribune, 2002-MAR-20, Page B-7. Professor Hendershott is a sociologist at the University of San Diego. She is the author of "The Politics of Deviance."
- Jennifer Peter, "Abuse scandal shrouds beginning of Holy Week: Catholics asked to take solace from Easter message of victory over evil," Associated Press, 2002-MAR-24. Published in Toronto Star, 2002-MAR-25, Page A2.
- Deborah Caldwell, "The Catholic church's Watergate," an interview of William Donohue, at: http://www.beliefnet.com/frameset.asp
- "Bishop of Chicago warns that no church is immune from scandal of clergy misconduct," Episcopal News Service, 2003-APR-04, at: http://www.dfms.org/
- Scott Simmie, "Victim abused by priest: 'Floodgates will open'," The Toronto Star, 2002-MAR-24, at: http://www.thestar.com
Resources:
| BishopAccountability.org maintains a database of publicly accused Roman Catholic priests in the U.S., sorted by state and diocese. See: http://app.bishop-accountability.org/ |
| Pointer.org "is a non-profit school for journalists, focused on helping journalists get better at what they do." They maintain a Clergy Abuse Tracker at http://www.poynter.org/ It consists mainly of articles on clergy abuse extracted from newspapers and news services from around the world. An amazing resource. |
| Reformation.com maintains a list of hundreds of instances of alleged sexual molestation scandals among Protestant denominations. As of 2002-SEP-3, these included 147 by Baptist ministers, 251 by other Fundamentalist / Evangelical leaders, 140 by Episcopal, 38 by Lutheran, 46 by Methodist, 19 by Presbyterian, and 198 by other church leaders. See: http://www.reformation.com |
| The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) "is a self-help organization of men and women who were sexually abused by spiritual elders (Catholic priests, brothers, nuns, ministers, teachers, etc)....SNAP was founded by Barbara Blaine of Chicago in 1991." It has "several local chapters in the United States and Canada." See: http://www.survivorsnetwork.org |
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Home page > Religious Info. > Basic info > here |
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or Home page > Religious Violence > here |
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or Home page > Christianity > Roman Catholicism > here |
Copyright © 2002 to 2007 by Ontario Consultants on Religious
Tolerance
Originally written: 2002-MAR-25
Latest update: 2007-NOV-13
Author: B.A. Robinson
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