*** g94 1/8 28 Watching the World ***
Church Insurance Against Abuse Claims
“The Australian Catholic Church has taken out a multimillion dollar insurance policy to protect itself against claims of sexual abuse by priests,” reports The Sunday Telegraph of Sydney, New South Wales. “We admit it goes on,” said a Catholic bishop in Melbourne, Australia. He asserts that such extensive insurance coverage is normal “for that kind of offence.” According to a support group for the victims, sexual abuse by the clergy is more widespread than the church admits. A spokesman for the group said he believes the church’s focus is more on protecting the clergy than helping the victims. He added that the message “at the very core of the church’s documents is, don’t tell the truth.”*** g93 4/8 31 Victims of Pedophile Priests Speak Out ***
Victims of Pedophile Priests Speak Out
“DURING the past decade, some 400 Roman Catholic priests have been reported to church or civil authorities for sexual abuse of children,” according to U.S.News & World Report. Recently, a national gathering of survivors of such abuse was held near Chicago, Illinois. Many spoke openly of how they had been victimized by pedophile priests.
But NCR (National Catholic Reporter) notes that speakers sounded another theme repeatedly throughout the conference: “The first abuse is sexual; the second and more painful, is psychological.” This second abuse occurs when the church refuses to listen to victims of abuse, fails to take their accusations seriously, and moves only to protect the offending priests. “Fairly or unfairly,” NCR reports, “they portrayed Catholic clergy as belonging to an unhealthy and misguided group more bent on preserving privilege and power than in serving lay needs.” Several speakers made ominous comparisons to the Reformation, which split the church wide open in the 16th century.
According to Richard Sipe, a former priest turned psychotherapist and expert on sexual abuse by Catholic clergy, all this institutional denial reveals “a deep, desperate and knowing personal involvement in the problem.” He added: “The church knows and has known for a long time a great deal about the sexual activity of its priests. It has looked the other way, tolerated, covered up and simply lied about the broad spectrum of sexual activity of its priests.”
Not surprisingly, then, many abuse survivors are suing the church. NCR quotes one attorney who specializes in such cases as saying that there are pedophile-priest cases in each of the church’s 188 dioceses in the United States. He says that out-of-court settlements have run as high as $300,000 per case. U.S.News & World Report says that such suits have already cost the church $400,000,000, a figure that could surge to $1 billion by the year 2000. And the Canadian Press reported recently that some 2,000 survivors of childhood sexual abuse in 22 church-run orphanages and mental institutions in Quebec are suing six religious orders for $1.4 billion in damages.
Interestingly, though, the aforementioned U.S. attorney, who represents 150 victims of pedophile priests in 23 states, says that he has never yet had a client who was eager to go to court. Each one first tried to seek justice “within the pastoral context of the church.” NCR concludes: “Survivors go to the courts, it appears, not as a first resort, but as a last resort.
*** g93 3/8 28 Watching the World ***
Dark Side of United Church
“Most of us come from a rather naive assumption that such things as sex abuse would not occur in the church and would never be committed by clergy,” said United Church minister Sylvia Hamilton. However, Hamilton suggests that “it is a major problem.” According to Canada’s Toronto Star, sexual abuse “ranging from jokes to forced sexual activities—is as prevalent, if not more prevalent, in the church as in society as a whole.” Peter Lougheed, a United Church task-group member, confessed that “the church is a less safe place for the parishioner and for women than the secular workplace.” The Star report adds: “After years of denial and cover-up, the problem is only now percolating to the surface like bubbles in a swamp.”
*** g93 11/8 29 Watching the World ***
Trouble in the Churches
“The problem of sexual abuse in the church is not going to go away,” reports The Toronto Star. Sexual scandals among church leaders are widespread. They are not limited to television evangelists and the Catholic Church. Abuse also “happens in the Salvation Army, in the United Church, in the Presbyterian Church,” noted a Salvation Army officer. Anglican Primate Archbishop Michael Peers said that such abuse is a “deep-rooted and dark” problem in the church. According to the Star, Archbishop Peers admitted that in the past this church’s response to charges of sexual abuse “has been denial and control.” Timothy Bently from the Toronto Centre for the Family reportedly stated that if “the churches do not face up to what is essentially a spiritual crisis openly and honestly their authority to preach on sexual ethics will crumble.”
*** g92 5/8 26 What Should Be Done if a Minister Sins? ***
Also, a 1990 news report about a number of Canadian priests convicted of sexually abusing children says: “Church leaders had either ignored, dismissed or responded ineffectively to complaints of sexual abuse, even though they had received such complaints from victims, parishioners, police, social workers and other priests.”
*** g91 8/22 29 Watching the World ***
Shielding Pedophile Priests?
“Some dioceses still shield priests accused of pedophilia,” ran a recent headline in the U.S. newspaper National Catholic Reporter. The newspaper interviewed Jeffrey Anderson, a lawyer who specializes in cases of sexual abuse. He estimates that since 1985, when priestly pedophilia came under increased public scrutiny, there have been over a thousand cases in which priests molested children. Anderson had some harsh words for the church’s response to the ongoing crisis: “It is a continuing saga of avoiding responsibility,” he charges, decrying the church’s focus on protecting the accused clerics. “As a general rule, the institutional response of the church has been willfully inadequate both in tending to victims and dealing with risks.”
*** g90 11/8 31 'Our Shame Is Clear to the Whole World' ***
And even worse, the church hierarchy failed to act decisively. They were accused of being more concerned about the offending priests than about the victims. Yet, what does the Catholic Bible say about such immoral practices?
*** g90 12/8 31 "A Sexual Crisis" Among the Clergy ***
The Providence Sunday Journal of Rhode Island states: “Bishops in 29 states . . . have faced claims of damages by victims of sex abuse by Catholic clergy, and the Church has paid at least $60 million so far in judgments and settlements.” In Louisiana a priest admitted to molesting 35 boys and was sentenced to 20 years in prison, although, the Journal says, it was clear that he “had assaulted at least 75 children over 10 years.” And a Rhode Island priest pleaded guilty to 26 counts of sex abuse involving young boys.
An investigation of Covenant House, a shelter for runaway youths in New York City, revealed that the priest in charge had engaged in sexual misconduct with a number of young men and boys. And the Roman Catholic archbishop of Atlanta resigned after it was acknowledged that he had carried on a two-year sexual relationship with an unmarried mother.
A conference of U.S. Catholic bishops received a report on the “catastrophe” of priest pedophile litigation. The 100-page report, states the Journal, “detailed a strategy for limiting the Church’s liability from civil lawsuits to $1 billion [$1,000 million] based on the 30 suits then pending.” The lawsuits are being brought by the Catholic parents of the children involved. And psychiatrists who treat the young victims of these crimes report long-term, often permanent, damage.
*** g89 1/22 10 Christendom Walks in the Way of Canaan ***
“At a time of heightened national awareness of the problems of child abuse, the Catholic Church in the United States continues to ignore and cover up cases of priests who sexually molest children, according to court records, internal church documents, civil authorities and the victims themselves.
“Church officials insist that a notorious 1985 Louisiana case in which a priest molested at least 35 boys has taught them to deal firmly with the problem. But a three-month Mercury News investigation reveals that in more than 25 dioceses across the country, church officials have failed to notify authorities, transferred molesting priests to other parishes, ignored parental complaints and disregarded the potential damage to child victims. . . . Millions of dollars in damages already have been paid to victims and their families, and one 1986 church report estimated that the church’s liability could reach $1 billion over the next decade.”
*** w90 2/1 25 Exposing "the Man of Lawlessness" ***
Even now the Catholic Church in the United States is paying millions of dollars in damages to compensate for priests guilty of sexual abuse of children.—Romans 1:24-27; 1 Corinthians 6:9, 10.
20 Such wrongdoing cannot be ignored by God’s servants but must be exposed for the benefit of others.
*** w94 8/15 11 This Good News Must Be Preached First ***
Contrast With Christendom’s Clergy
3 In stark contrast, news reports have time and again revealed many of the clergy in some lands to be pedophiles, immoral swindlers, and frauds.
*** g93 10/8 5-6 How Can We Protect Our Children? ***
Tragically, adult society often unwittingly collaborates with child abusers. How so? By refusing to be aware of this danger, by fostering a hush-hush attitude about it, by believing oft-repeated myths. Ignorance, misinformation, and silence give safe haven to abusers, not their victims.
For example, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops concluded recently that it was a “general conspiracy of silence” that allowed gross child abuse to persist among the Catholic clergy for decades. Time magazine, in reporting on the widespread plague of incest, also cited a “conspiracy of silence” as a factor that “only helps perpetuate the tragedy” in families.
However, Time noted that this conspiracy is crumbling at last. Why? In a word, education. It is as Asiaweek magazine put it: “All experts agree that the best defence against child abuse is public awareness.” To defend their children, parents must understand the realities of the threat. Don’t be left in the dark by misconceptions that protect child abusers and not children
*** g93 10/8 9 If Your Child Is Abused ***
Some legal experts advise reporting the abuse to the authorities as soon as possible. In some lands the legal system may require this. But in other places the legal system may offer little hope of successful prosecution
