Catholic abuse investigations expand.

[The Grand Nudger]

It’s almost like there’s something fundamentally wrong with these religious institutions. Something that should be addressed by the legal systems that have jurisdiction in their areas.

What do I know though? God will handle it I’m sure.

Besides, they all feel real bad about it...and it won't happen again,  swear to christ.

[Mister Agenda]

No institution where the hierarchy has access to children...in fact, any organization that is hierarchical...is immune to this kind of thing. The instinct of members of an institution is to protect the institution, especially when it's their livelihood. It takes policies and safeguards and a willingness to follow through on them even if it hurts the institution and/or bucks authority, to root out predators. It strikes me that believing your organization is carrying out the will of an all-good deity presents an additional obstacle to due diligence in holding members accountable for sexual misconduct.

[Bob Kelso]

What’s the going rate for punishment these days in the Catholic church? A Hail Mary or two for each choir boy you bent over and a semi-permanent vacation to another hunting ground?

Edit: Sorry, said hunting ground when I meant another church. Damn autocorrect.

[Angrboda]

I think what really gets people is not necessarily the sexual abuse itself, that will and does happen anywhere, but the complicity involved in covering it up and facilitating further abuse by shuffling offendors around to different venues. If the UU church is doing likewise, then that's a valid complaint against the UU. But just finding abusive ministers within a UU congreagation is not really comparable to what the Catholic church is being accused of doing. Is there any evidence that the UU organizations are doing similar things? Is there any evidence for Episcopalians?

Granted, there is the charge that churches are being hypocritical about claiming a higher source of morality and then not living up to it, but that's a separate concern than the coverup.

[The Grand Nudger]

Yes, and yes.  A simple google search will disabuse anyone of the notion that this is a particularly catholic phenomena. As people have noted, the tendency of an institution is to protect itself and seek a situation where fallout is handled internally and minimized publicly.

[Angrboda]

Yes, and yes.  A simple google search will disabuse anyone of the notion that this is a particularly catholic phenomena.  As people have noted, the tendency of an institution is to protect itself and seek a situation where fallout is handled internally and minimized publicly.

You'll forgive me if I don't simply take you at your word, but a) I'm not finding specific citations of the Unitarian Universalists in general, and b) I'd like to see whether the institutional abuses of the UU and the Episcopalians actually compare to those of the Catholic church.

[The Grand Nudger]

The link I already gave details one such incident, and their own internal process (there that is again) figures that about 2/3rds of their churches have this problem of known abusers in the clergy.  

I would be incredibly surprised to find that the UU had engaged in -as many- of these sorts of shenanigans..on the basis of their relative infancy and reach alone...but I'm not the kind of guy who splits hairs on account of one smaller church (one we might even hope to be the outlier) engaging in a little less of the very same crime.

The monolithic hierarchy of the RCC makes them a more convenient target than smaller and more diffuse sects. IMO. You should see the self reported stats for evangelical leaders......

Personally, I'm tired of hearing about repentance and reconciliation. They can engage in their religious fetishes over some other issue.

[Angrboda]

[The Grand Nudger]

As much as the abuse she documented in her 2005 complaint pained her, Emily says she was “absolutely devastated” by what followed. “I was shut out of the process, treated like a bother by UUA staff, silenced and asked to protect the minister, and ultimately not told the findings of the Ministerial Fellowship Committee, the credentialing body for UU ministers,” Emily told trustees and top UUA staff earlier this year. “I remember hearing the words ‘closed door tribunal’ to describe what was happening in the [Roman] Catholic Church, and I remember that resonating.” She has not joined a church since.

INB4 "Just a few cases" and "The odd minister here and there".

[KevinM1]