BishopAccountability.org
	Martha Hill's Blog: Send Pervert Priests to Jail By Martha Hill The News-Press June 10, 2011 http://www.news-press.com/article/20110610/OPINION/110610029/1015/Martha-Hill-s-blog-Send-pervert-priests-jail?odyssey=nav|head In my view, the $1.8 million study released last month by New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice about sexual abuse of minors by Catholic priests was an effort to minimize the scandal. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops commissioned the study, and it was based on surveys sent in 2003 to all dioceses and religious communities in the U.S. However, researches did not have access to confidential Church files; on the contrary, steps were taken to protect the confidentiality of each priest and diocese. This is what makes this study dubious. Nevertheless, the study found that about 4.3 percent of all priests between 1950 and 2002 had allegations of abuse. Incredibly, 6 percent of those abused by priests were younger than 7, 16 percent of the victims were ages 8 to 10, 27 percent, ages 11 to 14, and 51 percent, ages 15 to 17. Males between 11 and 14 accounted for more than 40 percent of all victims. Church apologetics argue that this pedophilia crisis was time-specific, that the incidence of abuse hit a climax in the late 1960s and continuously decreased to the mid 1980s. They argue that seven credible cases of abuse in 2010 is not a crisis in a Church that numbers over 65 million parishioners. I’d say one case in a Church that proclaims the Word of God is one case too many. The researchers argue that the reason why the incidence of abuse spiked dramatically from the late 1960s through the mid-1980s is because of the moral decay in those years and that the “sexual revolution” played a role. Who of all people have the training to advice against a moral decay if not Church ministers? I’d say that clerical pedophilia (a sexual attraction to adolescents, often boys) continues to be a serious problem in the Catholic Church. According to the study, the bishops have tended to focus on the perpetrators of abuse rather than the victims, which led to psychological therapy and counseling for the perpetrators in the false belief that they could be “cured” and returned to active ministry. This belief continues today, as the Church has not taken radical measures to rid pervert priests from its ranks. If I were a parent with young children, I would never send them to a parochial Catholic school. Just imagine my teenage girl going to confession with one of these perverts. One simple solution would start clearing the Catholic Church of priest perverts: Place them all in the hands of the U.S. justice system and send them to jail.
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