Religion
Related: About this forumCatholic Church Covered Up Child Sex Abuse in Pennsylvania for Decades, Grand Jury Says
Bishops and other leaders of the Roman Catholic Church in Pennsylvania covered up child sexual abuse by more than 300 priests over a period of 70 years, persuading victims not to report the abuse and police officers not to investigate it, according to a report issued by a grand jury on Tuesday.
The report, which covered six of the states eight Catholic dioceses and found more than 1,000 identifiable victims, is the broadest examination yet by a government agency in the United States of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. There have been ten previous reports by grand juries and attorneys general in the United States, according to the research and advocacy group BishopAccountability.org, but those examined single dioceses or counties.
The report catalogs horrific instances of abuse, including a priest who raped a young girl in the hospital after she had her tonsils out, and another priest who was allowed to stay in ministry after impregnating a 17-year-old girl, forging a signature on a marriage certificate and then divorcing the girl.
Despite some institutional reform, individual leaders of the church have largely escaped public accountability, the grand jury wrote. Priests were raping little boys and girls, and the men of God who were responsible for them not only did nothing; they hid it all. For decades.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/14/us/catholic-church-sex-abuse-pennsylvania.html
Just a few bad apples.
edhopper
(33,579 posts)of such gross depravity and criminal activity, it would have been abolished.
But religion gets a pass.
Pope George Ringo II
(1,896 posts)"If kids got raped by clowns as often as they get raped by preachers it would be illegal to take your kids to the circus."
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)Which essentially subsidizes child rape.
BigmanPigman
(51,592 posts)losing members in droves (especially those under 30)?
Act_of_Reparation
(9,116 posts)So doesn't count.
Voltaire2
(13,033 posts)identifying child molesting religious officials by their religion. Apparently it is unfair.
Act_of_Reparation
(9,116 posts)If not, this place is gonna get really boring, really fast.
MineralMan
(146,308 posts)worldwide for centuries. It is the poorly-hidden shame of the Roman Catholic Church worldwide. Since the hierarchy's response has always been to shuffle offenders around to new places, the entire hierarchy is guilty.
The only solution, really, is to disband the entire thing as a cosmic mistake, in my opinion. I see no possible way for the RCC to atone for the damage it has caused during its history.
I'm serious about this.