Talk:Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

The word "scandal"

"Scandal" refers to the affect on listeners/consumers of media. We are supposed to be concerned here with reportable facts, not the affect that the revelations have had or are supposed to have had on anyone who was not directly affected. It is POV.

Having said that, IMO, the word "scandal" is legitimately used in a religious context to denote the possible affect on others. My opinion is to allow these reports which essentially are using canon law paraphrasing. Re-phrasing them would cause actual confusion. Student7 20:03, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Bishops not having wifes or Husbands of one wife

- "if they are to marry at all, >>Bishops, Presbyters, and Deacons, should be the husband of one wife<<". The "if they are to marry at all" is clearly an addition from wikipedian to the words of apostle Paul. Please notice that Pauls says that bishops, presbyters, and deacons, SHOULD BE husbands having one wife. 83.142.223.130 21:55, 28 October 2007 (UTC)dikkaios

Indeed...the terms "at all" do not exist in the Greek text...this is a Roman Catholic translation error, (intentional would be a good guess as it changes the meaning to read against Church leaders being married). The original text reads "husbands of only one wife" indicating marriage as a pre-requisite to leadership in the work o0f the gospel...not the reverse (as the Devil would have us read it in reverse). Who is the Devil here I wonder? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.3.202.150 (talk) 20:52, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Take your pick from Devil (disambiguation).86.42.204.140 (talk) 15:15, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Tone of article

Major parts of this article sound more like an essay than like an encyclopedia entry, e.g., "From a legal perspective," "whether it was a deliberate plot to conceal his behaviour...," "The council essentially directed an opening of the doors to meet the world," and many, many more. How about just the facts, ma'am? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.76.130.48 (talk) 01:41, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

It's very important to include the legalities as many have been accused and fewer convicted. Obviously only the convicted clergy can be mentioned, or those who paid off a victim to avoid prosecution. Criminal law exists, even if we have to avoid value judgements. As in most churches the clergy hold themselves out to be morally superior to their congregations, and so moral lapses and attempts to cover up abuse go to the very heart of the matter.86.42.204.140 (talk) 15:14, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

I know that its quite common on wikipedia for articles to be US-centric, but surely that's something that should be avoided. Surely an article on sex abuse cases in the Catholic church should devote an equal amount of attention to allegations made outside of the US and other English speaking countries, and in times past as well? Catholicism exists and has existed in many countries for thousands of years yet this article tends to focus largely on one country during one century. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.97.223.240 (talk) 19:57, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, one of the reasons is money. US laws favor the plaintiff and some litigants have made a little money; more attorneys have made a lot. This is due to something called "Deep Pockets" here - the church owner, the diocese, has been held financially liable for what clergy did in a parish someplace (or even outside the diocese in one case). This also results in publicity which enables editors to document the cases better. Tighter laws prevail elsewhere, or the church is protected (semi-protected?) as a non-profit or owner of church property is different or different liability laws prevail.

On the other hand, US public schools are mostly protected from financial liability (not in egregious situations however) and therefore result in fewer headlines though the cases are about triple church cases. Therefore there are no articles on individual sex abuse cases in US public schools.Student7 (talk) 23:47, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Forgot that in the US, the courts have held dioceses responsible for priests 24/7 and (as mentioned above) no matter where they are, even outside normal diocesan geographic boundaries. US school boards are only responsible for teachers only on school property, which means usually during the weekday. A lot less potential liability. Student7 (talk) 11:35, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Pope Benedict XVI

This article seems partly like a white wash. There is no mention of the pope's role in covering up the sexual abuse when he was Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The article about the pope does mention this very briefly, as part of a paragraph, which in itself doesn't even have its own heading but is only part of a section about his years having that position. But in this article there isn't one mention of it. There are however two different mentions of the pope's regretting these events and apologizing for them (i.e. the events themselves, not his direct involvement). The entire section "Church Actions in Dealing with Sex Abuse Cases" actually only covers the apology and the compensation, which the church was of course forced to do once it became public. The covering up and not reporting the sexual abuse are surely also "church actions in dealing with sex abuse cases." 193.91.181.142 (talk) 07:06, 24 November 2008 (UTC) (Nick)

1. As explained earlier, the church has its own procedures for investigating accusations which not only pre-dates most western judicial procedures, but on which most western judicial procedures are based. It goes much further than telling a witness or jury "don't discuss this with anyone until the trial is over" and tells everyone not to discuss it at all except before a church investigating organization. Why? Whether the accusation was true or false, the church considers gossip sinful. The western media, a virtue. Who wins the argument? The media. I don't believe the media is correct though. There is no really good reason for publicizing these people other than to feel "better than" they are. This is gossip at its worst. (This has nothing to do with Benedict per se. Just following church procedure, centuries, if not millenia, old).

2. Also, the church does not want witnesses "polluting" their testimony by sharing it with others. In American courts, witnesses are "rehearsed" by people hired by their respective attorneys. By the time they get to court, they have been able to "polish" their testimony so it "sounds good" to a jury, judge, and incidentally, to the media as well. The church prefers raw unrehearsed testimony.

3. There is the implication in the accusation that Benedict was not following some law. The Vatican is a sovereign state, antedating the US by millenia. They have their own laws and are not subject to US laws in any event. If an article construes something that is legal in one country as illegal because it doesn't follow the procedure of some other country, this is considered a violation of WP:YESPOV. User:Student7|Student7]] (talk) 11:13, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Updating request for footnote

I removed an unfootnoted section that read:

"Others disagree and believe that the Church hierarchy's mishandling of the sex abuse cases merely reflected their prevailing attitude at the time towards any illegal or immoral activity by clergy. Hierarchs usually suppressed any information which could cause scandal or loss of trust in the Church. {{Fact|date=September 2008}}"

Another editor changed something before this paragraph and updated the footnote request. The "new" paragraph now reads:

"Others disagree and believe that the Church hierarchy's mishandling of the sex abuse cases merely reflected their prevailing attitude at the time towards any illegal or immoral activity by clergy. Hierarchs usually suppressed any information which could cause scandal or loss of trust in the Church. {{Fact|date=December 2008}}"

Note that the two paragraphs tend to resemble one another very closely. After three months, still no substantiation for the material. Why not? And why the mickey mouse on pretending that the two paragraphs are different when they are identical? At this point they seem to be more WP:OR than merely unfootnoted. Please take care of this now or delete it! The burden of proof is on the editor that furnished this material. It is not up to the rest of us to "support" unfootnoted scurrilous accusations, month after month with no justification. Student7 (talk) 20:51, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Iraq War

When the affair broke out, I was surprised that it occured at the same time that the USCCB was struggling with the Bush administration over opposition to the Iraq invasion and conflict. It would be interesting to note whether there is a political element to this, and whether it happened at a timely moment. 69.157.229.153 (talk) 11:01, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Public schools, other religions

There are similar affairs that are very much under-reported when it comes to public schools, which have their own problematic issues. There should be an article on Pedophilia in American public schools. And too, there are other religions where similar events have occured, such as in the Haredi and Baptist communities. [1] [2] 69.157.229.153 (talk) 11:30, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't have the statistics on homosexual violations as opposed to heterosexual but US public school problems are 3 times those of the church(es) because of the huge number of students and length of time in school. Few headlines because of unions, vigorous defense, and (as in the church) "victims" who are unwilling to testify at the time. Also, financial protection for schools that well exceeds that of the church when it comes to suing 30 years later.

And non-church, non-school violations are four times higher than church and school combined. Parents, foster-parents, siblings, etc. Everyone sweeping that under the rug!!!!Student7 (talk) 13:50, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

These things are indeed underreported. That goes equally for the Catholic Church. No matter how you look at it, the Catholic Church is far ahead of the competition. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.253.73.146 (talk) 23:01, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

At risk population

There are about 67 million catholics in the US. I'm guessing but cannot find a good reference that at least 5 million of these are children 6-18 and are currently being educated in Catholic institutions, generally "Sunday school", much less frequently parochial school. Certainly the "at risk" population figure should occur somewhere.

There is no proportion here. Reporting 100 murders seems terrible. And if all committed in Agatha Christie's tiny "Cabot Cove, Maine" within one year would still seem terrible. But if committed in California over (say) ten years, it might not seem quite so bad comparitively speaking. Student7 (talk) 02:49, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Forgot to add that the church counted 12 "credible" cases of abuse in 2007.Student7 (talk) 02:51, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

1990s / 2000s

There appears to be strong opinion in American media that the abuses ceased after the 1970s. Summaries of reports from various sources even on this page shows that the abuse cases have continued since then. Would there be any objection to the addition of a table that would collate and summarize abuse cases on this page? Suggested format:

Eras	Perpetrator	Aider/Abetter
1960s - 1990s	Eugene Kennan	Superior Nicholas Postlethwaite
1960s - 1992	John J. Geoghan	Bishop Bernard Francis Law

Neutralaccounting (talk) 20:09, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

The offender needs to be tried under some recognizable legal system, not just in the media. If there is an "abetter," he too, needs to be "certified" as being an abetter, which BTW, is a felony, and should not be used to casually describe someone who made a bad decision in the opinion of the media. Student7 (talk) 19:57, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Traditional catholics

I tried to discuss this earlier but was censored by another editor. I changed the "traditional" Catholic, intended as a pejorative, to "ultra-conservative." The church is "traditional" in its very nature. The intent of the council (all councils) was too enunciate what everyone already knew. The ultras, "more catholic than the pope," did not think so. That is fine and their right, but calling them "traditional" suggest that the council was automatically wrong WP:YESPOV. Perhaps this will be allowed to remain here for a few minutes for anyone with any question about the change. Student7 (talk) 19:15, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Frequency of sexual abuse events in public schools

I think the wording for the section legislation and media coverage is incorrect, specifically referring to the sentence which is sited with link 18. It reads "some commentators, such as journalist Jon Dougherty, have argued that media coverage of the issue has been excessive, given that the same problems plague other institutions such as the U.S. public school system with much greater frequency." The part about the frequency being higher is not necessarily true based on the article sited. In the article it says "To support her contention, Shakeshaft compared the priest abuse data with data collected in a national survey for the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation in 2000. Extrapolating data from the latter, she estimated roughly 290,000 students experienced some sort of physical sexual abuse by a school employee from a single decade—1991-2000. That compares with about five decades of cases of abusive priests." However, in the Wikipedia article for "Education in the United States" it says "Of those enrolled in compulsory education, 5.2 million (10.4 percent) were attending private schools." However, although Shakeshaft may have found that amount to be equal to five decades of abuse by priests, private education (which also would include other privates schools besides catholic ones) only made up approximately 10% of compulsory education children. Thus, when you do the math the rate of frequency is at least double for catholic schools.

Based on Shakeshaft's calculations lets do an example. Lets say there have been 1000 abused children in public schools in the decade between 1991-2000. According to her 1000 children would have been abused in Catholic schools in five decades. However, this does NOT mean the rate of abuse is higher in public schools because public schools make up roughly 90% of children whereas ALL private schools make up about 10% (this figure doesn't even have just the amount of children in catholic school alone which is undoubtably lower than 10% and thus makes the frequency even higher in catholic schools versus public).

If someone can find more data on this it would be much appreciated.

I sort of follow you. Shakeshaft intended to compare priest abuse with public school abuse. Abuse of catholic students has been trivial or minimal. Abuse by priests of (say) altar boys or in other situations (when the priest was alone), is another matter. Public school abuse is truly huge if you try to research it yourself (never mind the pros and cons here. I have done this and it is "around" 3 x as large in volume and probably in percentage as well). I agree that we need apples against apples, or, if not, to make it clear that it is not apples vs apples. Not sure how to change but Shakeshaft is a key reference, and should be preserved. For the record, priests have seldom instructed students in parochial schools. Student7 (talk) 21:30, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Media exaggeration

Most of the reporting on these issues reflected media annoyance with Catholic positions on political issues. The nomenclature that was assigned was picked up by all the media and rebroadcast so much that everyone takes it for granted now. But, there was never an "institutional" cover-up. As the article indicates, the parents, with second-hand information, told someone in the church, wbo now had third-hand information, about the alleged violation. About 15% of all accusations are untrue regardless of whom they are made about. For a first offense, the "Church" had knowledge of nothing. After repeated allegations, one would wonder, but repeat offenses (or reports of offenses) were relatively rare (and well-publicized since, of course).

There was seldom a "cover up", since the law didn't know about it in the first place. Where the law required a allegation to be reported, that is another matter, but in many cases, that wasn't true either.

Using media terminology without basis (citation) for this tends to reflect their WP:POV bias. (my sign-in expired. Sorry) Student7 75.76.105.240 (talk) 03:07, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

You've managed to pack in several blanket assertions and accusations there without even one specific and without any references or citations at all. While you seem to believe the issue to be a media witch-hunt, someone else seems to feel the USCCB was the victim of a dirty tricks tactic by the Bush administration. Neither of you have bothered to back up your statements in any way, so they perhaps deserve equal weight (i.e. very little). Similarly, it is pointless raising contrasting issues of paedophilia rates in US public schools, other religions etc on this page. This page deals with the notable issue of Catholic sex abuse. If there is no page on Sex abuse scandals in US public schools, then if that is also notable, then somebody could always start the relevant article.

If I understand you correctly, you seem to believe that a 'cover-up' occurs only when a felony has occurred or reported to have occurred, and no legal action results. This is not so. If some serious incident occurs that should be dealt with in a generally acceptable manner, and it is not, and/or it seems that the overarching priority of the relevant authority is protecting the image of the accused, or the image of the authority itself (in this case the Catholic Church), then it will be seen as a 'cover-up', whether the newspapers deem it so or not. Even the erstwhile Cardinal Law didn't seem to agree with you - in his statement on the Boston priest/sex abuse incidents just before he went to the Vatican, he referred to 'our significant mistakes', and said the sex abuse crisis is not just a

“media-driven or public perception concern in the United States, but is a very serious issue undermining the mission of the Catholic Church.”

Nor is this just a Boston or even a US-only Catholic issue more issues, and even more issues. If you wish to defend the Catholic Church around sex abuse, then you will have to gather some facts together. Centrepull (talk) 10:51, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Bush administration??? Hmmmn.

Anyway, I did document teaching abuse. It was immediately jumped on by the unions and fellow travellers. That was the end of that. But the experience in putting them (thousands of cases BTW. I barely scratched the surface) was very illuminating. There was a huge number which the media consistently fails to note. Public schools have legal (financial) protection not available to non-governmental institutions. While there is no "institutional" conspiracy, there are few convictions for the same reason that everyone else has in this regard: the minor either refuses to testify or the parents don't want them to or (worse) nothing can be proven because there is no evidence, just the child's word (which is sometimes false, just as in the church).

Pretty much like all statutory rape since the 1970s, in or out of school, prosecution has been a joke. Depending on age differences, officials just shrug. So felonies don't get prosecuted with equal intensity. Today's yawner is tomorrow's headline, I guess, just as it has been throughout media history. When they need a headline, they can find one. Student7 (talk) 23:16, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

This is pure apologetics

"The Church was widely criticized when it was discovered that some bishops knew about allegations and reassigned the accused instead of removing them,[1][5] although public school administrators engaged in a similar manner when dealing with accused teachers,[6]."

What does public school have to do with what probably is the greatest sexual abuse case in history? The magnitude and continued cover-up put this in a league all to itself. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.253.73.146 (talk) 22:57, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Again, reader is taking the media exaggeration at face value. Public school cases are about three times larger than religious, if only because children spend so much of their time in school and their are a lot of children and teachers. But both of these are totally eclipsed by sexual abuse at "home" (usually home) of children by mostly parents, guardians, relatives, other children, etc. That abuse is about four times the abuse in the church and schools, put together. The media can't think of any way to headline the latter abuse. As a result, the public seldom hears about it at all! Student7 (talk) 13:48, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

• So, we have another relativisation of this terrible crime committed by the Roman Catholic clerics around the world. Public school cases 'statistics' comes from nowhere. We have to continue removing this shameless eclipse of the crime throughout this article.--138.88.103.233 (talk) 02:29, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I don't think "nowhere". Try [3].

This is misplaced and unreferenced of course and most likely will have been removed by the time you see this. Another site which covers Catholic abuse as well, is [4], [5]. And a rather comprehensive (over the past few years only) blog of US offenses at blog.Anyway any search will turn up huge volumes. Not in the media cause there is no money in it - can't sue the school district.Student7 (talk) 12:48, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

• • Right, nowhere. I cannot see anywhere that the abuses in public schools are three times larger than the religious one--138.88.103.233 (talk) 16:49, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Why does this article appear at all? Why does a police blotter mentality appear here but is illegal elsewhere in Wikipedia? That is the substance of the discussion. Why when Catholic clergy abuse is measurably less than the rest of society: teachers, home, Protestant and Jewish clergy, etc. That is what the discussion is about. Student7 (talk) 01:46, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Media attention

A large court case, which was lost in California, was national news in 2001 or so. Even though it was "national news", it was "no big deal." Not featured nightly as it is today. The following year, 2002, the cases of Shanley and Geoghan were publicized extensively by the Boston Globe. It was their series that propelled the sex abuse cases to the top of the national charts for media attention, replacing (what? OJ Simpson? Monica? I forget. Anyway). That same year, the Bishops, realizing for the first time how serious it was, produced a "Zero Tolerance" policy at their national conference. While this was not implemented in all dioceses until at least the following year, it deserves mention. However, when I tried to insert it, an editor removed it, saying that was the year the church began winning cases! Ha! Student7 (talk) 14:10, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I can agree with you where you say that the media is not even-handed in the way they address the different sources and institutions that might be involved in this kind of abuse. It is my sad duty to point out (in case you were unaware), that unevenness is a notorious point on which the media is subject to much justified criticism. Example. However, you are still complaining with no relevant point regarding this article. You didn't address any of the points I raised in reply to you. You have still failed to make your case on how the media's bias should affect this article - which is not about the media, nor even about what the media said, but about sex abuse in a Catholic setting. If you have a point to make other than '...but schools are even worse!', then please make it.

Your statement on the relative financial resources available to schools as governmental institutions (actually local government, and not always even that) seems to imply that the Catholic Church is too poor to afford good legal representation - demonstrably untrue. There seems to be a statement in the article already regarding the Catholic Church's zero tolerance policy from 2002. This page is about Catholic sex abuse, so the doubtless terrible goings on in public schools have no place here either. Why don't you use your 'documentation to start pages on 'public school' sex abuse, and 'domestic sex abuse'?

I would venture that the unusually high-level media attention that has been a feature of Catholic sex abuse reporting is a result of the breach of traditional respect and trust accorded to clergy, the contrast to the moral precepts that are assumed to flow from 'principled' clergy to the laity, extra angles such as the Catholic Church as a world-wide body (Boston->US->World->Pope) and the potential for internal division in the Church; and last but not least, the clear evidence that the Catholic Church repeatedly exposed young Catholics to child-molesting priests for decades (perhaps centuries) by defending and 'redistributing' such offending priests rather than acting to defend their young church-members. This point could be made in a media section of the article, while mentioning some of the major media investigative journalism that has been significant in flagging Catholic Church sex abuse, and the results of such investigations.

Off-article, don't worry about the size of the headlines. When sex-abusing priests become as run-of-the-mill as the evil swim-coach or dangerous candy-man two doors down, then there will be fewer splashes. I must point out though, that you are mistaken in your beliefs that those paedophile/sex abuser stereotypes don't get reported. Fortunately, they still do. Centrepull (talk) 01:15, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

But that is just it, teacher incidents are three times more common than clergy indidents were. Many fewer incidents since 2003 and implementation of Zero Tolerance. The media (and Wikipedia) essentially ignore it. The point being, since an article about teacher abuse is not allowed, why should this one be? Not to be completely rhetorical, it is because of bias against the church. Nobody "hates" teachers and is "out to get" the public school system. The raison d'etre for this article is institutional (to copy a word) WP:BIAS. The same with "removing all evidence of a discussion about bias, as well."

And, unlike the school system, the church has often gone into cases admitting that there was abuse, but the administration wasn't responsible for it. Where has ever a school system (with a teacher union looking on) ever admitted abuse up front? The abuse is triple, the admissions are not honest. The plates are stacked all wrong here. So there is a robust article on abuse in the church which is far less than schools, and nothing except a vague article on schools. Student7 (talk) 13:29, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Your emotions appear to be overcoming your reasoning, and you are coming off as if you wish to defend the Catholic Church at all costs, and would rather this article did not exist. I'm sure that isn't your actual stance, but:

• This is not the place to argue about whether the school system deal with their own allegations honestly or not.
• There is plenty of evidence of church denial/covering up of their own allegations - those allegations being the subject of this article
• Can you support your broad statement "Nobody "hates" teachers and is "out to get" the public school system"?
• Can you support your similarly blanket statement "The raison d'etre for this article is institutional (to copy a word) WP:BIAS"?

Please elaborate on why (you think) there is nothing except a vague article on schools. Which article is that anyway? 82.4.184.157 (talk) 20:14, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually, it is linked in this article: Sexual_harassment_in_education. But that is pretty much it. There are dozens (maybe not hundreds yet) of articles on individual priest cases. The only teacher cases are those poor women who were definitely guilty of harassing teen males and deserving of punishment but not deserving of everlasting infamy in Wikipedia, if you can call that "equality," though it serves to illustrate a point I am attempting to make here. Again, the stories of those four came on a slow news days. Everyone was titillated; ho ho-es about "lucky boys" (studies have shown they are as traumatized as anyone and I am not sticking up for the women). But there are hundreds of these cases, if not thousands. The media stopped when 1) they got hold of some other topic and 2) realized it was far more pervasive than just four cases. While this was fine with me (I don't hate teachers), it shows a media (and therefore a Wikipedia since editors seem to think they have to echo biased media) WP:BIAS in handling abuse for either schools or church. When I complained about the obvious inequity when the teacher abuse articles were deleted, they suggested complaining here. See how much good that does? Student7 (talk) 02:30, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree: I can't see why you shouldn't be able to start an article about sexual harassment in schools, but it seems ingenuous for you to complain here about your deleted article somewhere else. In fact, you are being ingenuous in several ways. Your deleted article was actually about sexual abuse cases in public schools in one US state. This article is about sexual harassment in the Roman Catholic church, a single worldwide organisation. Where are the parallels or the connection between the two? Surely the truth is that you have an interest in the Catholic church?
I disagree: did you seriously expect us to be discussing teacher sex abuse on this page? The people who suggested complaining here tricked you. Furthermore, you haven't supported your view that Wikipedia editors echo 'biased' media with even the slightest example or proof - apart from your original complaint that some people have written an article on Catholic sex abuse cases, while some other people deleted an article you wrote about something else entirely. Again, no connection.
Nor is your reasoning on why the media aren't interested in teachers' misdeeds particularly convincing. Try again with your teacher sex abuse article. There are plenty of egregious cases to mention. If you write it with less of an obvious axe to grind, and fewer ridiculous and unsupported generalisations, you might have better luck. Centrepull (talk) 23:48, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Doesn't need me. Anyone with a web page can find hundreds, if not thousands within the past three years in the US alone. They are mostly plea bargained away to "misdemeanors," the usual pigeonhole for cases where the victim refuses to testify or where there is scant supporting "evidence" like DNA. The difference is the union and teachers vigorously combat accusations (maybe 15% of which are false BTW as they are in Catholic abuse cases as well). Catholics generally admit them when true and are encouraged to do so by the bishop. This little factoid seems to be missing as well.

School abuse is mostly missing in Massachusetts (& a few other states) since laws or media practice refuses to publicize cases unless their is a felony conviction which is rare. So there is a news blackout conspiracy there. )

Oh, and there were four articles on four states. I had rough drafts of most of the others, except Massachusetts, for the reason I mentioned. Plus having to split California in two because it greatly exceeded suggested maximum article length. Student7 (talk) 00:35, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Student 7, per WP:Article, please remove your discussions of the issue

It does not follow guidelines. It is POV and Original Research and has no place in Wikipedia. Please go the the SNAP or a Catholic site for your discussions of the issue. They simply have no place here. Sturunner (talk) 00:32, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

The Priest and the Showgirl

Removed this link, as it seems dead, couldn't find it elsewhere on ABC site, nor anything like it on google (except recursive links back to WKP):

• "Priest wanted for attempted murder of showgirl arrested"

Centrepull (talk) 02:19, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Scandal in Boston

Part of the article on Bernard Law might deserve to be split in an different article on the Boston chapter of the sex abuse affairs. Similar forking could also be done for the Los Angeles diocese, with relevant content being on the Roger Mahony article. The reason that I am proposing a fork is that I always felt that it was inappropriate to blame all the sex abuse cases on just a few bishops, since individual priests are theoretically responsible for their actions, and that there is a general and institutional American sex culture that is unlike anywhere else on Earth. Also, it is a bit un-Christian for the laity to refuse to acknowledge its part in the affairs, what with all the reconciliation and sin that the Church talks about. ADM (talk) 00:49, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

With some obvious gross exceptions, most of these cases were handled in the following manner: parent reports it to another priest. He reports it to the bishop. The parent is not too wild about "pressing charges" since it potentially places his kid on the witness stand. Alternately, the child cooperated or appeared to cooperate, which made both the child and the parent feel "funny" about the whole thing. The parent deliberately does not report it to the police for that reason.

Bishops seldom had first hand knowledge of this. Priests have their own parish. Bishops are not omni-present.

Church figures that it was "treatable" (obvious with Shanley that this wasn't true, but anyway). This seemed true in the 70s and later. There was no reason to think otherwise. Bishops are not necessarily talking to each other about this. They are individually horrified and yes, they are trying to keep it out of the papers. This is a requirement of canon law to "avoid scandal or the appearance of scandal." While this seems self-serving now, it is still true for all reported sins, regardless of who commits them, lay or cleric. Gossip is a sin, contrary to what the media believes and thrives on.

The suggestion that anyone other than the culprit is guilty is preposterous and malicious. Lucrative for lawyers though, isn't it?

Schools did the same for similiar reasons-no testimony from alledged victim. In their case, no confession from perpetrator only concealment with active help from teachers union. Suspicious principals or superintendents forced resignation or reassignment elsewhere where the perp did the same thing with the same result. Not liable under the same law used to sue the church.

The public has almost always concealed statutory rape (male over 18 or 21 having sex with girl under 18). How often does that happen? How many "convictions" do you get each year from that? Probably not even one percent? Depends on whose ox is gored, right? Student7 (talk) 01:51, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Irish and Irish-Americans

Has anyone ever written about why a disproportionate amount of abusers were of Irish ethnicity or Irish ancestry ? It has already been said that many abusers were gay, but how about being gay and Irish at the same time ? Are Irish clerics more susceptible to deviant, pedophile sexual behaviour than clerics of other ethnicities ? Why have comparatiely few Italian-American, Hispanic-American, African-American, Asian-American (etc) clerics been caught engaging in illicit or illegal sexual behaviour ? The ethnic and cultural element in this is interesting because it tends to indicate that some cultures are more prone to being sexually deviant than others. ADM (talk) 18:12, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't know about writing. Priests are Irish for two reasons: they had a disproportionate number of vocations to the priesthood in Ireland. They were a "feeder" to American parishes, as other nationalities were not (there were many fewer percentage of Italian, Puerto Rican, etc. vocations, for example). I suspect a non-abnormal number of those were homosexuals. Part two would be the same for the descendants of immigrant Irish=Americans in the US. Same caveat. I doubt that the proportion is out of line with the very high percentage of Irish priests. I wouldn't be surprised if someone found that the percentage was actually lower. They tended to be more conservative. Student7 (talk) 22:47, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

It would be strange if Irish priests had

'a disproportionate number of vocations to the priesthood in Ireland'

as they would already be expected to make up the vast majority of priests in their own country. Or did you mean something different? To come to any conclusions, one would have to show that Irish priests are represented in the statistics on sexual abuse statistics differently to their proportional numbers in the priesthood overall, adjusting for many factors. To what end? Centrepull (talk) 20:07, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Inner cities

Are you saying you suspect a non-abnormal number of Irish clerics were homosexual men? I wonder on what grounds you think this. Due to traditional discrimination and disapproval of active homosexuality in Catholic-dominated cultures, I would suspect that more Catholic homosexual men might be willing to accept celibate priesthood than Catholic heterosexual men, as many of them might already be celibate in line with Catholic doctrine. I certainly can remember reading that gay priests are more likely to remain in the church, as in the past they would not have been able to marry. Perhaps irrelevant, but I believe that there are issues under discussion within the Anglican church also regarding their reliance on gay men as clerics in difficult parishes such as inner-cities that are regarded as unsuitable for families. Centrepull (talk) 11:48, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

I think I meant abnormal, not non-abnormal. I don't think the inner-city explanation is really enough to explain the whole phenomenon. One interesting theory however is that the priesthood is sectarian by nature, and that homosexual and pederastic groups are also very sectarian. Therefore, since both have this sectarian character, there is a good chance that they will end up encountering each other, something that would eventually cause the kind of damage that we've seen. ADM (talk) 13:09, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Alleged connection to Satanic cults

There have been books written about alleged Satanic infiltrations within the clergy, some of which are said to be tied to the pedophilia scandal. It's maybe difficult to verify it, but at least some prominent authors have written about the subject. [6] ADM (talk) 04:15, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Okay. I grant you the author is prominent. But testing out the logic here, we are talking abusers with theology degrees. The book title appears to suggest a cult that would normally appeal to those who have been deprived of education. A bit hard to believe. Maybe not relevant here since the article uses specific cases. Also, it seems to me that the prosecution or defense would have to raise the issue to give credibility to the claim for a specific case. (Having said that, some of these abusers were most likely alcohol and drug abusers as well. Who knows?)Student7 (talk) 11:56, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Red Herring?

It seems to me that the introduction to this article is pointing to other cases of institutionalized child sexual abuse in an attempt to decrease the responsibility of the Catholic Church. It makes references to how other organizations have also committed similar acts; it list the Scouts, the Jehovah's Witnesses, and the public school system. These comparisons do not fit within this section of the article since firstly, this article is about the Catholic Church's sexual abuse cases and not about the Scouts/Jehovah's Witnesses/public schools sexual abuse cases, and the article should reflect this. And secondly, as I have already mentioned, these comparisons are attempts to water down the blame on the Catholic Church. selfworm^Talk) 04:28, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

So then, the article is not about reporting the facts, it is supposed to be about "blame?" Student7 (talk) 21:37, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

The introduction immediately introduces two red herrings, is unsuitable and poorly constructed. While it should in no way be about 'blame', the introduction to this article certainly reads as an attempt to defend the Catholic Church before detail is mentioned, invoking the concept of blame by implication. The beginning is ridiculously off-topic, and I've changed it:

Allegations of sexual abuse of children have been made against public school teachers and a variety of religious groups

The article is about sexual abuse by Catholic priests. Why does it mention public schools twice in the opening paragraph? Is there someone editing this who has a been in his/her bonnet about them? It has been mentioned before on this discussion page that the sexual offences of public school teachers need to be in a separate, relevant article and have no place here. Perhaps Student7 could oblige? It is likely that domestic abuse by friends and relatives is more prevalent than either public school teachers or priests, but that would have no place in this introduction either.

End of first paragraph and start of second paragraph:

Some commentators, such as journalist Jon Dougherty, have argued that media coverage of the issue has been excessive, given that the same problems plague other institutions, such as the US public school system, with much greater frequency.

That same year, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops adopted a "zero-tolerance" policy for accused offenders.

Both reasonable points to make, but out of logical order. John Dougherty's argument is already in the Legislation and media coverage section, the correct place for it. The Bishops' Conference "zero-tolerance" policy belongs in the Church Actions section, as it was a reaction to the allegations and court cases, and the article hasn't yet detailed those. Centrepull (talk) 12:02, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Alleged Jewish conspiracy

Cardinal Oscar Maradiaga, in a May 2002 interview with the Italian-Catholic publication 30 Giorni, claimed Jews influenced the media to exploit the current controversy regarding sexual abuse by Catholic priests in order to divert attention from the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. This provoked outrage from the anti-Defamation League [7] ADM (talk) 23:39, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

"Irrefutable"

An unregistered user persists in using inflammatory words in the lead, with "irrefutable" evidence being one of them. Either the cases were being filed, and were (then) debatable, or the cases were concluded, and their facts were adjudged as the plaintiffs had indicated. Most people who use exaggerated pov terms like "irrefutable" usually have very refutable facts at their disposal. Why not word it in a WP:NPOV manner and let the reader decide. Inflammatory language is not mandatory in this encyclopedia. It is actually discouraged. Student7 (talk) 01:30, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

• US courts were very clear in many of these cases. In the above 'explanation' I see only an attempt to enforce doubtful phrases insertion which are not supported by the references given. Nothing is inflammatory here except your attempt to contradict to many of us.--138.88.103.233 (talk) 02:20, 25 May 2009 (UTC)