Re Catholic Church & Abuse

As a victim of sexual abuse by Catholic Clergy I have spent significant time studying the issue of sexual abuse within the Catholic church in an attempt to understand why it happened and its impact on myself and my fellow victims. The church has had horrific problems with this issue through cover-ups, a real lack of understanding regarding the dark nature of pedophilia and an inability to be decisive with offenders.

One point that I feel is important to note is that there are over 42,000 Catholic clergy in the USA church with approx 250 offenders, that is priests who have committed one or more offenses of child abuse( most pedophiles who molest children are multiple offenders with some ranging into the hundreds of victims.)

The reason I say that is that most Catholic priests as well as the vast majority of Catholics are horrified with these abuse cases. After communication with a Canadian Archbishop and meeting with his staff regarding abuse I was asked to review the sexual abuse standards the Catholic church in British Columbia has had in effect for approx 10 years. Since that time the Archdiocese has had two cases that it dealt with very quickly and decisively. The great irony to me is that these standards were widely published and the American church, as well as churches in other countries, had opportunity to adopt these standards and most decided not to.

From my perspective I felt the policies I reviewed were quite detailed and in line with child protection standards and the rule of criminal law in regards to reporting and dealing with abuse. I do not feel the average priest in 99% of Catholic churces is an abuser. In reality the abuse issue is a terrible burden for most Catholics to deal with.

It is very distressing to know that solutions were available and were not followed up on. That for me is a failure of the political forces within the Church and not the fault of honest priests and Catholics in general. Sad and painful for me to see and feel the cost of it all. Many of my fellow victims are no longer with us or are in prisons around the country for long years of their lives.