Hello All,
I heard an interesting show on KABC AM talk radio today, ( 790 west coast ). This was the Al Rantel Show. Al had a guest who had just published a book. The guest's name was Kevin E. Gallagher and the books title is "Divine Lunacy". The book had to do with the pedophile and ephebophile problem within the Catholic church and other religions.
Even though there was no mention of the problems JW's are facing within the org., practically everything the guest and callers were discussing were related to the orgs problems.
Kevin, the guest, related how he used to do pro bono work on maritial issues on behalf of the Catholic church. In time he came to encounter a disturbing number of pedo related issues. In his book he makes a distinction between pedophiles- adults sexually attracted to prepubescent children, and ephebophiles- ( I hope I spelled that correctly), adults sexually attracted to children entering puberty,11,12,13years old. Some of the points I remember from the broadcast were
1) Since 1960, new priest enrollment has been down by 50%
2) An avarge pedophile will molest between 200 to 250 victims in a life time. (Dept. of Justice stats.)
3) There is or will be over 1 million victims at this time.
4) Some figure that there is 50% priest who are homosexual.
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NOTE! I am just repeating what I heard on the broadcast. I am NOT Catholic-bashing. I hate it when JW's Catholic bash and I won't do it either. When I was a child I remember the local church bringing food and furniture to our home when we needed help. Those acts of kindness are not lost on me, I'm just relating this info because of it's relationship to the JW problem.
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So, Kevin related to the listeners legal issues, like the state of California has no statue of limitations concerning pedo cases. That may interest some. He believes that the Pope does not want to see the problem the church is facing besides the paying of money in judgements in civil cases. He relates how the local parishes are just following a set of rules and proceedures sent down from Rome to handle the problem. Hmm, sound familiar? Word of mouth elder proceedures from Brooklyn mabey? Pope of Rome/GB of the WTS, old men who don't want to see the problem, just let the underlings handle it. Not take a personal interest in the safety of our most vulnerable of society, our children. Judge for your self.
Kevin also related that due to the low enrollment of new priest they might be less selective about who they ordain. He mentioned that those who entered their training at a young age, their sexual "urgeses" were repressed to a "teenage level". And since marriage is a problem due to doctrine and lack of controll, that "coiled spring" is released "unnaturally" onto the very young. He also brought out how Rome has issued stricter standards in regards to the interaction between priest and children. One new rule is that priest and alterboys/altergirls cannot be alone together. There must be an adult with them at all times.
Even though the GB has come down with "new rules" on dealing with pedophiles and ephebophiles within the congregations, does this all seem like so many band-aids, one ontop of another? It seems that if the GB were really concerned about the wellfare of it's children it would admit there is a problem in Jahovahs' clean organization, endure the public shame of confronting the problem by its peers,(oops,I forgot, the org. has no peers, every other relegious org. is from Satan.)and set up a plan of intervention to help all individuals involved before there is a problem. Now I know that you can't stop every pedophile from victimizing a child, but you can reduce the risk signifigantly. As with most problems an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
Well, if you want to get hold of the book it is available at Amazon.com "Divine Lunacy" by Kevin E. Gallagher. It is somewhat humorous because few people want to read about such a troubling subject his publicist said. But people will pay money to go see Hannable Lector eat someones brains for dinner. Go figure.
Al Rantel Show kabc.com 10-1 pm pst USA
CornerStone