Score one for the Church. The Curt Jester makes an excellent find.
Irate Letter Writer:Comparing child sexual abuse in public schools with what happened in our church "borders on ridiculous."
Archbishop Harry J. Flynn: Your view is not supported by the independent facts and analysis. The Associated Press study makes this precise point, which I reported. Let me quote the CNN story describing the AP study:
"The findings draw obvious comparisons to sex abuse scandals in other institutions, among them the Roman Catholic Church. A review by America's Catholic bishops found that about 4,400 of 110,000 priests were accused of molesting minors from 1950 through 2002."
Clergy abuse is part of the national consciousness after a string of highly publicized cases. But, until now, there's been little sense of the extent of educator abuse.
Beyond the horror of individual crimes, the larger shame is the institutions that govern education have only sporadically addressed a problem that's been apparent for years.
A copy of the CNN article is also enclosed for your own review.
In May 2002, the National Public Radio program "All Things Considered" host, Claudio Sanchez, reported that "concerns about sexual abuse of children in the Catholic Church have disturbing echoes in the public school system. In some cases, school employees accused of abuse have been able to keep their jobs for years." Again, I have included a printout of this show from the NPR Web site. You can access this program by going to the Web site and listening.
Irate letter writer: When public school students are sexually abused at least "the family has their faith and the law for comfort and justice," and "can you guess what would happen to a couple of school principals that entered a conspiracy to pass perverted teachers from school district to school district?"
Archbishop Harry J. Flynn: Your opinion is not supported by independent facts and analysis. Only one in 10 public school students report sexual abuse. Again, to quote the CNN story on the detailed AP study:
"Most of the abuse never gets reported. Those cases reported often end with no action. Cases investigated sometimes can't be proven, and many abusers have several victims.
"And no one - not the schools, not the courts, not the state or federal governments - has found a surefire way to keep molesting teachers out of cIassooms."
….
". . . Another problem: Because teachers are often allowed to resign without losing their credentials, many never show up on the list. 'They might deal with it internally, suspending the person or having the person move on. So their license is never investigated,' says Charol Shakeshaft, a leading expert in educator sex abuse who heads the educational leadership department at Virginia Commonwealth UniverÂsity.
"It's a dynamic so common it has its own nicknames - 'passing the trash' or the 'mobile molester.'"
Irate letter writer: If the Boston Globe had not covered the sexual abuse crisis in Boston, would any bishop have had the moral courage to blow the whistle? Based on history, I think not.
Archbishop Harry J. Flynn: Responsible media coverage of the tragic issue of child sexual abuse within the church and within society at large has played, and continues to play, an important role. At the same time, we cannot forget the damage done by irresponsible journalism that has caused much harm to many innocent people.
For example, the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago faced public scandal by a false allegation of abuse that was widely reported in the media and subsequently debunked in its entirety. I trust you wrote letters to CNN and other media outlets that covered that story in an irresponsible manner.
Today, the U.S. Catholic Church is in the vanguard of protecting children from sexual abuse. It is a simple and stubborn fact that is indisputable. No other institution in the U.S. - public or private - has corrected its policies and procedures in any way, shape or form similar to our church. If you can identify such an institution, I would be pleased to learn of it.
No doubt, it has been a difficult journey for the victims and their families and for the vast majority of priests who are fine men who love Jesus and try to serve his people day in and day out. It has been a difficult journey for the whole church. I have said on many occasions that our church is mother to both sinners and saints alike.
And again, let's not let the fundamentalists have all the fun, shall we? Nothing much gets said about the fact that teachers are on the order of 100 times more likely to abuse a young charge than are priests. Equally, nothing ever gets said about the fact that evangelical pastors are on the order of 2 to 10 times more likely than are priests to be involved in acts of sexual impropriety. To hear fundamentalists talk about it, you'd think that nobody who wasn't a Catholic priest ever abused a kid.
They're kind of cute that way. Like atheists.