bilby
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also 4) Religion often establishes a heirarchy, in which priests are held to be fundamentally better people than their parishoners, and questioning that superiority in any way is unspeakably profane.It's not just churches. How about the children's safety on the internet? Have you ever seen the many anti-predator groups who go out catching child predators as shown on YouTube, all the time?I saw that asshole interviewed on the news and he gave some bullshit excuse about not being "saved" at the time and the temptation of the evils of the flesh. But, this is nothing new. In fact sexual abuse of children, by both priests and pastors, as well as other church workers, like youth directors etc. is very common.
https://www.manlystewart.com/articles/how-common-is-clergy-sexual-abuse#:~:text=Clergy Sexual Abuse in California,abuse cases in the country.
If you have children, it's best to keep them out of churches.In the United States, more than 5,300 priests and other members of the clergy have been accused of sexually abusing children. California is the top state in terms of the number of reported clergy sexual abuse cases in the country.
According to a ProPublica data compilation, a total of 757 credibly accused perpetrators of clergy sexual assault had been named in California as of 2020. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles alone produced files that named 244 priests and other members of the clergy who had been credibly accused of abuse by 656 individuals.
Who Are the Most Common Perpetrators of Clergy Sexual Abuse?
Clergy sexual abuse is most often perpetrated by people who hold positions of authority within a church or religious organization. Perpetrators take advantage of the imbalance of power between themselves and their victims to convince, force, coerce or threaten them into complying with nonconsensual or unlawful sexual activity.
The most common perpetrators of clergy sexual abuse are:
- Religious leaders
- Priests
- Bishops
- Deacons
- Ministers
- Reverends
- Rabbis
- Imams
- Nuns or sisters
- Church staff or administrators
- Youth group leaders
- Camp counselors
The types of people who prey on vulnerable children range from right across a variety of predators who hold down various job role and positions that they may have. This list is much longer than the list quoted above. Quite shocking when you're adding all these evil things together.
(Just thought to mention, to give a little more perspective, should someone mistakenly be mislead to think this is a "unique" thing only to the "religious")
While it is not unique to churches, there are three things for you to consider: (1) positions/jobs/titles that get a person close to children is something that is attractive to predators and religion is filled with that; (2) organized religion sets up a hierarchy with authority figures and power can be corrupting or also attractive to people who already have corrupted minds; and (3) Organized religion sets up a defense of these predators, a network, if you will, covering for each other and spreading propaganda that they are being targeted merely because they are part of the one true religion--that's how you know all the priests are innocent, you see--because the religion is being targeted.