Public School Sexual Abuse is far worse than in Catholic Schools

[Rendia]

I wouldn't be surprised if about half of all the recent accusations of child molestation within public schools were false. It seems that every other day you hear of it. It can't be happening that much. I feel it is more likely that students are using it to get back at teachers they don't like.

That's not to say it hasn't happened, just not as prevalent as the accusations make it seem to be.

[poser765]

I wouldn't be surprised if about half of all the recent accusations of child molestation within public schools were false. It seems that every other day you hear of it. It can't be happening that much. I feel it is more likely that students are using it to get back at teachers they don't like.

That's not to say it hasn't happened, just not as prevalent as the accusations make it seem to be.

While I think your sentiment may be right i would be leary about assigning such a high percentage of cases as just being petty kids getting back at teachers.

I'm sure it happens and happens often, but we run the risk of victim blaming going in this direction.

[oblivionx]

The Catholic Church has a lot of assets and a lot of money.

The state of California owes everyone under the sun.

[Deleted]

Interesting thoughts, but the Catholic thing is more controversial, from my UK perspective and the half-heritage (Irish) I belong to. We do hear cases of Public school (or Private school in the UK) sexual abuse cases, but less so in the state school sector, probably because there are so many rules regarding teachers behaviour around students nowadays.

[Crissi]

It is propaganda of the protestants what caused the hoax in the first place?

Countries where Catholicism is not the main religion tend to antagonize them, and still blame them for stuff that happened on medieval times.

err...what? Thats not true at all. After Kennedy was elected, a lot of the "Pope will run the US!" crap died.

and...pretty sure priests molesting children isnt a hoax. it did happen.

[chadwix]

Is it always homosexual abuse? Priests and little boys, i hear it all the time. priests and little girls, never heard it once. Sandusky and other high profile cases are always male on male.

Is my view limited or is there some correlation here?

[Rendia]

While I think your sentiment may be right i would be leary about assigning such a high percentage of cases as just being petty kids getting back at teachers.

I'm sure it happens and happens often, but we run the risk of victim blaming going in this direction.

Of course. I just think that the people accused should be kept confidential until they are proven guilty of something like this. It ruins reputations when it is false just as much as if it were true.

---------- Post added 2013-02-03 at 01:06 PM ----------

Is it always homosexual abuse? Priests and little boys, i hear it all the time. priests and little girls, never heard it once. Sandusky and other high profile cases are always male on male.

Is my view limited or is there some correlation here?

No, it isn't always homosexual in nature. It may be more prevalent, however.

[poser765]

Of course. I just think that the people accused should be kept confidential until they are proven guilty of something like this. It ruins reputations when it is false just as much as if it were true.[COLOR="red"]

That I can stand behind. Even the accusation of sexual misconduct carries repercussions ALMOST as bad actually being found guilty.

[Jarion]

No. You, or the report, I did not read it, are not comparing the same percentages. The first percentage is the percentage of priests that have been accused of molestations, the percentage of perpetrators. The second if the percentage of students that have been molested, the percentage of victims. I'm surprised no one has caught it yet.

[Melanieshaman]

That's interesting..i went to catholic schools for 12 years, and by the time i was in 8th grade all of the nuns and priests were gone. that would have been 85/86-ish?
I hadn't heard of it in school, but rather church/parish/rectory.

Prolly just more publicized because people look to religious leaders for guidance.

[Underverse]

Is it always homosexual abuse? Priests and little boys, i hear it all the time. priests and little girls, never heard it once. Sandusky and other high profile cases are always male on male.

Is my view limited or is there some correlation here?

Nothing's ever 100% but you're right to say that it is mostly homosexual, and mostly male perpetrators.

[semaphore]

4,400 of 110,000 priests were accused of molesting minors from 1950 through 2002.

the federal report said 422,000 California public-school students would be victims before graduation — a number that dwarfs the state's entire Catholic-school enrollment of 143,000.

Without commenting on the actual size of the problem, the evidence here is flawed. You're comparing the number of accused offenders with the number of victims. A single offender can have many victims. You might be correct, but this is not very adequate.

[Powerogue]

A stereotype turns out to be wrong, what a shocker.

Though it's still worrying just how much this is going on at all, between both types of schools.

[v2prwsmb45yhuq3wj23vpjk]

I wasn't aware that accusations were more than accusations. Also, comparing the entire record of victims of sexual abuse to the projected amount of students enrolled in school in a single year does not give you an accurate rate, nor does including the total number of sexual abuses rather than teacher-specific abuses.

Not linking your source also doesn't help.

Without commenting on the actual size of the problem, the evidence here is flawed. You're comparing the number of accused offenders with the number of victims. A single offender can have many victims. You might be correct, but this is not very adequate.

There's also that.

[gnomergon]

They key point you're overlooking in the comparison is that the Catholic Church is being accused of widespread and systematic cover-up of countless other cases. You number includes only those cases which have been actively put forward. The actual number is expected to be much, much larger. It tends to get significant media attention because the institution itself has protected the abusers.

I can't really comment on the stats relating to the abuse in the California school system. The link you provided only has graduation rates. I'd be tempted to see how they are defining sexual abuse (eg, is a 18 year old football player sleeping with a teacher part of the definition) and whether teachers are the only source in the statistic. eg, if an 18 year-old sleeping with a 15 year-old mean the 15 year-old is labeled as a victim of sexual abuse.

On an unrelated note, I'm not sure how any of this relates to "liberalism".

also, he skewed the statistics by presenting the aggressor statistic for catholic schools, and the victim statistic for public schools. If the average number of priest victims was 1.5, then it would match that of public schools at 6%.

[Nayelie]

I love how people still associate Catholic priest with sexually abusing kids. It's a very grave matter when ANYONE does that to a child. But alas, the church is made up of humans. And humans aren't perfect. There is going to be a blemish or two. I am friends with many, many priest and nuns. None would ever touch a child inappropriately. Same with general educators. I wish people would stop srereotypinf that way....

[Deleted]

You are mixing two different categories: Percentage of abusers (when talking about priests) and percentage of abused (when talking about students). One abuser is going to abuse several kids, not only one. So the percentage of abusers will become a much greater percentage of abused.

What made the abuse in the Catholic institutions hit the press was not the abuse per se, it was the fact that the Church had systematically attempted to hide those cases, discredit the accusers and try to use their own laws to deal with crimes that should be dealt with using the countries' laws. The Church was systematically minimizing a crime and helping the criminals get away with it, just to avoid bad PR.

---------- Post added 2013-02-04 at 07:58 AM ----------

It is propaganda of the protestants what caused the hoax in the first place?

Countries where Catholicism is not the main religion tend to antagonize them, and still blame them for stuff that happened on medieval times.

Like Ireland? a country that has been non-Catholic for a while now, and where the Church has no power whatsoever.

[Belisarius565]

Doesn't shock me in the least, Every girl i've known who has been in a Catholic school was a complete whore.
But yeah I guess you can't sexually abuse those who are willing, unless it falls under the category of statutory rape.

Then again knowing the views of the catholic religion I am quite surprised they are not in favor of statutory rape simply because god created the female body the way he did so it would be breeding by 14-15 and by outlawing it until 16-18 it could be viewed as religious persecution.

And if I recall the bible correctly "it's been a few years since I took it seriously" their is a passage that states that it is less of a sin to deposit your seed in a whore than on the floor so by that ideology sex should be 100% legal for males regardless of the age as long as they have hit puberty because apparently wasting your seed be it on the floor in a sock or condom is a major sin

Come to think about it I should get back into religion as all of them seem to be written with male prosperity in mind.

If you would take the bible seriously then you would not omit things to fit how "stupid" the bible is.

Genesis 38

8 And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother's wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother.

9 And Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother's wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother.

10 And the thing which he did displeased the Lord: wherefore he slew him also.

God requested he do something, and he decided to disobey God. His purpose was so Onan would have a child with her, after they married, and he choose to do the act, without the reproductive part, being the most important.

If you are going to use a source then bash on it, at least give all the details other then your biased opinion.

Also look at all the time that sex is acceptable in the bible, and it will say only in marriage, between a man and a woman, out-side is of fornication.

[Slybak]

Within any given population, a small percent will be sexual predators. That there are sexual predators among the ranks of the Catholic priesthood, which includes 400,000 people worldwide and around 41,000 in the United States, should not be surprising. Not should it be surprising that there are sexual predators among the ranks of America's teachers, which include over 6 million people.

The issue at hand is how the institutions through which sexual predators operate, be they private churches or public schools, deal with this fact. What measures do they take to ensure that sexual predators do not join and, if they manage to join anyway, what measures do those institutions take to deal with those predators once they are found.

The Catholic Church covers up their predators, as a matter of institutional self-defense. Predators in the priesthood have routinely been shielded from law enforcement, the Church's methods for dealing with predators in their ranks has been routinely hidden from public scrutiny, and victims of predators in the priesthood have routinely been pressured or harassed by senior members of archdiocese around the world into not pressing charges against those who have victimized them. Report after report in nation after nation confirms this.

America's public schools do none of these things and, when they have occurred, have not occurred to the scope and scale of the Catholic Church. Sexual abuse is treated as a serious accusation by school administrators, as it should, who by law are required to involve law enforcement from day one. This ensures a far higher degree of accountability to the public and to victims of sexual predators, and its something that the Catholic Church should itself adopt as a practice.

[Deleted]

God requested he do something, and he decided to disobey God. His purpose was so Onan would have a child with her, after they married, and he choose to do the act, without the reproductive part, being the most important.

If you are going to use a source then bash on it, at least give all the details other then your biased opinion.

That's just your liberal, revisionist interpretation of it. Like the people who say that the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was rape and lack of hospitality... liberals!

Any proper theologian will tell you that the sin of Onan was not to disobey a direct order from God, but to use neglect the reason God created sex for, which is reproduction, only. Same as they will tell you that the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah is homosexuality. Rape and harassment are alright, as long as you keep it heterosexual.