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| Attack of the Church Apologists
By Mike Bryant
Legal Examiner
October 24, 2012
stcloud.legalexaminer.com/property-owners-liability-slip-and-fall/attack-of-the-church-apologists.aspx?googleid=304726
Writing the here at the Legal Examiner often comes with anonymous comments that come from people with their own agenda. The hide behind initials and rant about this or that. Funny, when they attack they gloss over the fact that each of us put our name and contact information on everything that we do. So even if it is an incorrect opinion, each of us are standing behind it.
There is the usual stalking that takes place on each malpractice piece. That is always good to drive up the comment numbers.
However, one I got recently was with contact information and a link to a piece that especially raised my interest..
Are the Catholic Church Leaders' Reactions Really About the Big Money?, Mike Bryant | October 01, 2012 9:13 AM
Now to be fair, the posted comment originally came as a email, so maybe the writer didn't want to be out in the open, but I figure if you take the time to send some feedback, let's talk about it.
The link took me to this page:
http://www.themediareport.com/fast-facts/
That had a list of myths or "facts":
1 IT'S NOT ABOUT CATHOLIC PRIESTS
FACT: Catholic priests abuse at a rate far lower than that of other males in the general population.
Not sure what the point of this one is. They're Priests, this shouldn't happen. What if the quote was that Police beat up less people than the average person or that meat slicers cut their hands less than the average person? The point is that we have put these pedophiles in an position of trust. We have allowed them around children because of that trust and they abused it.
2 THE GRAND CONSPIRACY THAT WASN'T
FACT: You would never know it from the media's frenzied coverage, but the bulk of reported stories of Catholic sex abuse stem from a historical anomaly as the vast majority of allegations occurred only during a narrow band of time of cultural tumult from the 1960s to the early 1980s. And despite media intimations of dark conspiracies and cover-ups, the Church merely followed the then-prevailing view of experts that offenders could be successfully rehabilitated and sent accused priests off treatment, rather than reporting them to police, which then resulted in a high rate of recidivism.
This is entirely false. What is going on in Milwaukee? What happened in Philadelphia? How about California? This it was a old time problem makes you wonder why the Church fights so hard in many of the court cases. If it was truly the case that the problem is limited and old, it really doesn't matter because it's over. I wish that was true.
The graph that comes along with this "fact" seems to say that there were zero reported cases of priest abuse in 2009? Huh, I wonder what the survivors of of the 2000s think about that. Considering that almost none of the reported abuse has been reported when it happens, the claim seems outrageous. Clearly, there continues to be large numbers of survivors who come forward each year and identify their abusers.
3 THE REAL NEWS: CURRENT ACCUSATIONS AGAINST CATHOLIC PRIESTS ARE EXTREMELY RARE
FACT: Almost all accusations against Catholic priests date from decades ago, and indeed nearly half of all abuse accusations concern priests who are already dead. In an institution of 77 million people, contemporaneous accusations of abuse against Catholic clergy in the United States are very rare, recently averaging only 8.5 allegations deemed "credible" each year.
OK , so what? Hasn't the issue always been about the credible accused? How many of them continue to be hidden and names of survivors are not disclosed? Look through all of the new names that came out of the Milwaukee Bankruptcy. That was a great example of how horrible the Church has been in disclosing this information.
4 THE STORY THE MEDIA WON'T REPORT: THE EPIDEMIC OF ABUSE AND COVER-UPS GOING ON TODAY IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
FACT: The incidence of sexual abuse by teachers in public schools today has been estimated to be "more than 100 times" that by Catholic priests, and there is alarming evidence of school officials covering up abuse and failing to report suspected cases to authorities. Yet the mainstream media has largely ignored this shocking story while still rehashing decades-old allegations of abuse by Catholic priests.
This is always my favorite excuse. It is a criminal saying, "Hey other people rob banks and they take more money than me". Much is being done to deal with each and every abuse case. Follow what is being done in dealing with Penn State. Pointing the finger somewhere else does nothing to deal with the questions here.
5 THE CATHOLIC CHURCH TODAY: A MODEL FOR THE PROTECTION OF CHILDREN
FACT: The Catholic Church is likely the safest environment for children today.
I hope so and there is good reasons for them claiming this. However, it's clear that they still hide priests and fight every single case to the bitter end. That they fight laws to expand the statute of limitations, overturn questionable bankruptcies, and refuse to release names of the abusers and the survivors. It is clear that they fight to be required to mandatory reporting of abusers.
Looking at a lot of these items and the "read more" support and it's clear that the hope is that much of this were true. That zero tolerance was truly the way things were handled. And I would have to assume that all of this is written with a blind eye to what is happening outside the United States.
The Church could prove they believe in zero tolerance by coming forward and taking responsibility. Stop the protection and the hiding.
They needed to use the zero tolerance doctrine to shine light on what happened and to ensure that it would never happen again. They need to not move priests around and to quit putting them in situations which allow great access to kids. They needed to stop hiding.
Abuse of children and the continued silence by the offenders needs to be prevented. If you suffered, saw, or suspected such events, it is important to know that there is help out there.
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