I'm surprised, all this talk about pedophilia and no one seems to have mentioned Catholic priests! Of course, I could be wrong, there are 9 pages of replies, and I may have missed it!
Or perhaps, stigmatizing priests is not as fashionable as it once was?
A neighbor of mine told me that people seemed horrified when she tells them that she sends her children to a Catholic school. Some will ask "aren't you worried after all that happened with those priests?"
Yet, many people don't seem to have a problem with gay teachers, even though many studies suggest that gays seem to be more prone to molesting children. A quick look at ancient history, e.g. the Greeks and Romans, shows that much of the expression of homosexuality throughout the ages has been, euphemistically speaking, "cross generational".
Now, here we have a case of a gay man, who molests a kid and some posters insist on splitting of hairs by claiming that the offender wasn't gay, he was a pedophile instead. I wonder, why priests aren't afforded the same latitude, that the "priests" that molested all those young boys weren't priests, they were pedophiles, and gay ones at that?
Furthermore, many posters (me included) feel that the Catholic Church should have done more to out pedophile priests and turned them over to the authorities. I now will suggest that the gay community at large has to admit that, it too, has a very large pink elephant in the living room that it doesn't want to acknowledge or deal with. That is, many of its members are sexual predators who prey on children, and furthermore, that the onus is on the gay community to out these persons, turn them over to the authorities and disassociate itself from them. I do believe that the majority of gays aren't pedophiles, but at the same time, that the gay community won't admit that it has a problem that it doesn't want to deal with.
If I were a gay man, I'd be concerned and angry, that the gay community isn't admitting to this problem and doing something about it, because, in the long run, ignoring it will only stigmatize the rest of the gay community.
Back to the "Catholic Church should have done more about those pedophile priests" issue. During the 1960s and 1970s, the psychiatric profession believed that pedophilia was a curable disease that could be dealt with using talk therapy. That was an accepted approach to the problem at the time. Many priests who molested children were put in programs that were run by professional psychiatrists and then certified "cured" before turning them back over to the Church with their stamp of approval. So, the psychological profession, also had a hand in this mess (although, strangely enough, you don't hear much about psychiatrists and psychologists being sued or impugned in the papers about it. Isn't that odd? No, actually it isn't, it follows, but that's another can of worms). So actually, the Church probably was doing more about the problem that is now generally admitted, and at the time, it was believed it was dealing with the problem.
It is also becoming very evident that people who molest children continue to do so and pose a grave threat to society, specifically to its children. Yet the law of the land, in its infinite wisdom, sees fit to release pedophiles back into society after 2-5 years. So, after a break of 2-5 years, these individuals are given another chance, not to reform themselves, but to molest yet more children. Yet, the law doesn't want to admit its role in this problem either, that it isn't effectively protecting children from pedophiles when it releases known, convicted offenders back into society when the chances are very high that they will commit the same offenses again.
What is needed for these individuals, is lifetime confinement, in an institution or in a prison without exception. And I hear all the excuses why this should not be done, that the offenders have rights, that there are too many prisons, there are not enough prisons, there is too much money being spent on prisons, that there isn't enough money being spent on prisons, that there aren't enough police or that to undertake such an approach would require a legion of prison guards. Society has a compelling interest to protect its children that supersedes the rights of pedophiles.
Molested children oftentimes grow up to be damaged individuals and a burden on society. They also grow up and repeat the same offenses that they, themselves, suffered. In my opinion, incarcerating/institutionalizing convicted pedophiles for life is a price that society has to be willing to pay in order that assure the safety of children and to break the vicious cycle of pedophilia.
