jws: Boston is a very Catholic town. According to PEW research, Catholics make up 20.8% of the population while Jehovah's Witnesses make up 0.8%.
Yeah...but the JWs who are there have a lot of influence
Reibling hangs his hat in Boston occasionally
Why isn't the Boston Globe doing a better job?
by Londo111 21 Replies latest watchtower scandals
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OrphanCrow
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Simon
Very few newspapers are like the old days. It's all about selling ads, which is all about drawing people to your articles (print or online) so they see the ads.
I agree. Too much journalism descends into "click-bait" headlines (and often the grammar and spelling is atrocious).
JW Elder calls on flock, you'll never guess what happened next!
One weird trick to get rid of salesmen, JWs hate him!
etc...
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Giordano
There is a real danger for the public however if the J.W knocking on your door is an active pedophile who is willing to make return visits and will work hard to gain the trust of the parents and child.
The public also needs to know that a person like that is protected by the two witness rule.
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smiddy
It`s been a while since I watched the movie Spotlight , wasn`t the abuse brought to their attention many years before and nothing was done about it ?
So , while the end result was satisfactory , in the meantime , many more abuses occurred ruining many children`s lives.
If the journalists had acted upon this information they received back then much suffering to children could have been averted.
Maybe we should be more active in writing to newspapers , contacting TV stations , Radio stations ,about the cover ups of child sexual abuse in Congregations , Elders not reporting these crimes to the authorities when brought to their attention.and their shunning of family members who no longer want to be known as a Jehovah`s Witness.
smiddy
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Listener
You're right Smiddy, we should be more active in making our voices heard.
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Vidiot
Londo111 - "Why isn't the Boston Globe doing a better job?"
Meh.
Takes too much effort.
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Mad Irishman
The Catholic Church has had over 15,000 priests molest over 1 million kids, some in my family, and they hid and reassigned all of them over and over and over for 50 years and did nothing in almost every case.
That isn't exactly the same story as JW's.
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OrphanCrow
Mad Irishman: The Catholic Church has had over 15,000 priests molest over 1 million kids, some in my family, and they hid and reassigned all of them over and over and over for 50 years and did nothing in almost every case.
That isn't exactly the same story as JW's.No, it isn't exactly the same.
The Catholic Church has over 1.2 billion members worldwide. The JWs have (apparently) around 8 million. Big difference. The JWs make up less that one percent of that size.
And here is another thing that is different - not all of the JW pedophiles were/are "priests" or persons in a clerical position. Many of the cases in the JWs involve incest. In the case of the Catholic Church cover-up, I have yet to hear of incest being part of the scenario. Incest is what separates the Catholic Church scandal from the JW child sex abuse scandal
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Vidiot
To follow up OrphanCrow's comment, the WTS has also - up until recently - had a much better success rate keeping it secret from the public and the majority of the membership (probably a factor in their decision to not change their policies).
Also, unlike the WTS, I'm pretty sure that you won't find (on average) one offender per congregation in the RCC.
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OrphanCrow
And some more about the numbers you posted, Mad Irishman.
You say that the RCC has 51,000 priests who offended. Well, compare that to the JWs who, it is claimed, have a list of pedophiles that they keep secret at the WTS headquarters. And then do the math.
51,000 priests out of a 1.2 billion membership
20,000+ JW pedophiles out of an 8 million membership
And we have no idea how many victims there are in the JW population.
It looks to me that the problem is really magnified in that little isolated cult of the JWs. Really magnified.
Another difference: the Catholic faith does not restrict their parishioners from reporting child abuse to the authorities. They are not stopped from doing so. The WTS says that parents can report...but they don't say they should report. And we also know that taking another congregation member to court is highly frowned on in the JWs. The WTS doesn't like it
On a related note, the WTS could so easily fix the reporting problem. So easily - they just have to tell their congregations that child abuse is a crime and to encourage all parents and others to first report to police and then go to the elders for support and counselling. So easy. You know...the way everybody else does it...police first, church second. The elders should be there for backup - not first line reporting. The JWs themselves have to step up to the plate and bypass the elder system by going to the police first