Make no mistake: Any clergyman of any stripe guilty of sexual interference with the underaged deserves harsh treatment. Do not take these words as an attempt to excuse the inexcusable.
(Side note: I believe that the Vatican should sell Laocoön, perhaps to the Getty, in order to help pay reparations for abuses committed by American priests. The work could conceivably fetch as much as a quarter-billion dollars.)
What I object to is the presumption of collective responsibility in one instance and personal responsibility in the other.
Fortunately, we now have a web site devoted to tracking the growing phenomenon of Baptist sexual predation. We find that the Baptist power structure has engaged in high-level "hush-ups." The pattern is all-too familiar:
So many Baptist clergy could not possibly get away with so much abuse unless many others were complicit in turning a blind eye. Why do Baptist leaders tolerate the presence of ministerial colleagues who sexually abuse the young and vulnerable? Why do people in the pews not rise up and demand that their leaders be held accountable? Where's the outrage?I wonder if the Baptists have any statuary they might care to unload in order to pay for these outrages...
In my own case, the church finally made a written apology, but only after first threatening me and then seeking a secrecy agreement and finally being forced into an apology by a lawsuit. An apology extracted in a lawsuit doesn’t carry the feeling of any genuine remorse, but it does constitute an acknowledgement of the truth. Their ministerial staff knew all along that this man had molested me as a kid. Yet, they tried every means possible to avoid owning up to that truth. And they didn’t bother to warn people in the pews of other congegations - people whose kids were at risk.
7 comments:
could it be that the Baptist church has more influence, money and congregants than the Catholic church in the mid-west, South and Southwest parts of this country?
Catholics have been a minority ,and they were ostracized back in the first half of the 1900's in those areas. I remember hearing for example that Oklahomans hated Catholics and burned their cars back in the early fifties on a few occasions and it was a taboo to marry a Catholic (my mother married one and she got hell for it).
Perhaps the Baptist Church has more influence with the current administration and with large mainstream media conglomerates than the Catholic church. So these types of stories never make it to the front page of the newspaper and get buried in the back.
Only a scandal such as former preacher ted haggart being outed by his paid callboy made the frontpages.
also, I think after big blowup with all the lawsuits against Catholic church for sexual abuse claims were publicized in the media, most likely the Baptist church is loathe to publicize the breadth of the problems it has with sexual abuse by its ministers.
I think pedophilia is a much bigger problem in our society than is currently recognized. The folks who are pedophiles are true psychopaths who will go to any lengths to cover up their vices and abuse of young children and teenagers.
joe, there really exist good reasons for the difference between blame directed at the baptist ministers and the catholic church: in the latter, the hierarchy actively and repeatedly, over many decades, worked to keep all these incidents hush-hush, and - worse - simply moved the perps around to unwitting parishes where innocent victims were just waiting to be raped.
i just this weekend watched the power documentary, 'deliver us from evil,' which tracks the abuses of just one priest in CA, and then the amazing coverup that went all the way to the top, ratzinger. when he was named as the defendant in a lawsuit (filed in TX), bush granted him immunity.
in the documentary, it's pointed out (by an amazingly inspiring priest, tom doyle, who took up this issue and tried to warn the church of the extent of the problem twenty years ago!) that pedophilia has been a problem in the church since the early centuries of its history. in fact, the film suggests some connection between the shift toward celibacy, which was never in the early church, and was likely a move on the part of the vatican to retain property and estates when priests died. (a jesuit friend of mine - who has left the priesthood and is quite happy - pointed out that the vatican simply didn't want to pay for priests' families; big surprise, it was about greed).
all that being said, it's telling that there is now a shift toward a hierarchy inside the baptist church (my suspicion is that this began emerging around the time carter left it, which he did for obvious reasons), and that this hierarchy - designed to maintain power - has participated in covering up such crimes, in much the same way the catholic church has for so very long. the catholics have just been at it for much much longer, and their crimes extend far beyond pedophilia. i mean, consider the magdalene launderies, just as one example. and then there is of course the inquisition (which actually still exists by a different name in the vatican, and ratzinger was its head till he became pope, if i'm not mistaken), the 'holy' wars, and on and on.
i think there is more than ample reason out there for the tendency to direct blame at the catholic church, whereas baptists get individual blame. once upon a time, the baptist church was pretty independent in this country. and fairly respected as pious. no more; carter saw that one comin'.
It's easy to hide, and easy to look the other way, when the most important things in life are 'mystery' and doing what you're told.
Anon 2:16--I agree that pedophilia is a much bigger problem in American society than many would believe believe (well, excepting those who have experienced it or who provide professional treatment services to those who have). In my eyes, it's the ultimate example of the elephant in the proverbial (or perhaps in this case, literal) living room.
That the Catholic clergy claim to be totally celibate does add more weight to their level of hypocrisy.
Joseph,
you have not said a word about 4-year old Madeleine McCann's abduction in Portugal. More and more from the news articles it is looking like she had been spotted and taken by a pedophile mafia type ring and smuggled into Morocco after passing through Spain.
the portuguese police appear to have royally bungled the crime scene investigation and didn't alert the ports/borders until 12 hours later, given the abductors plenty of time to get away.
It is really distressing that she has just literally disappeared into most likely a very unsavory circle of sick thugs.
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