There are a lot of people out there who believe in religion but don’t believe in God. These are the churchgoers and church-leaders that are the least criticized and least taken to task in most religions. One reason is, they have most of you fooled.
The Irish Catholic Church has been revealed as having covered up cases of child sexual molestation from 1975-2004. Given the far-famed and infamous history of the Irish as a bunch of drunken brawlers just looking for a reason to fight, I am mystified as to how they could pass this up. Is there any better reason for Danny Boy to smash his way into his church’s office and take Bishop O’Reilly to task? A lot of you look upon that guy seen carrying little Shanyia Davis away as being despicable, but will remain silent when this happens in your very building of worship. Churches are the original promoters of "Image is Everything" and the direct result is something I call RSM (religiously sanctioned molestation).
According to the BBC, "Archbishops turned a blind eye to child abuse;" John Charles McQuaid, Dermont Ryan, Desmond Connell and Kevin McNamara. Churches over the decades successfully used threats of expulsion and excommunication as penalty for reporting child sex abuse with members of their congregation. Not a bad deal, actually. Let me see now, you want me to trade in my manhood and sense of right and wrong by protecting an innocent child, in favor of preventing mandatory police and medical assistance from access to the child... and remain a member in good standing. You lose!
More facts and figures on the complicity of the Irish Catholic Church come from the "Report of the Commission of Investigating into the Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin." The BBC states in order to simply avoid public outrage and high-profile prosecutions, the church’s leaders and state officials created a "culture of concealment" from the persistent cover up of "vulnerable children in their care."
It wasn’t just the bad publicity they feared, chief on any Clergy’s mind is having his services interrupted by civil authorities or law enforcement with himself being escorted out of God’s building in handcuffs, or his mugshot plastered on TV. As of now three of those Archbishop’s are deceased. They are noted in the report for their constant refusal to hand over their information about child sexual abusers to the authorities even though the four were considered highly educated. Their success in this had much to do with certain key police (senior officers) actually believing the Church was higher than themselves on some "reported abuse complaints to church authorities instead of carrying out their own investigation."
Strange that some members of the Irish Police were returning letters of complaint back to the Church. In the Jehovah’s Witness faith any letter of complaint regarding congregational or inter-religious issues sent to their Watchtower headquarters was immediately sent back to that congregation’s body of elders in the form of a copy and shown to the individual in question or a family member, with nothing being addressed about the issue. But though still wrong, it was understandable because it was all in-house. What excuse does the Irish Police have? They’re not officially tied to the church. Education is also important here. How do four men of such learning and position allow this to happen to children of their followers? This isn’t like Mario McNeil (Shaynia’s alleged rapist and killer); a repeat violent offender of probably very limited schooling or the Phoenix AZ parents of an eight-year-old girl who shunned her after she was gang-raped by four boys. The Phoenix girl had extremely dim-witted parents who shunned her in part because they are from Liberia where ignorance and superstition rules and kids have had limbs cut off just to protect the diamond industry.
Of course this is nothing new with the Catholic Church, the US Catholic Churches (since 1/02) have their own cases of abuse and cover-up. The Jehovah’s Witnesses seem to be the 2nd leading child sexual abuse friendly religion though smaller and more skilled at cover-up and more visible due to door-to-door evangelizing. This would probably still be a well-kept secret were it not for the revelations of an actual member of their writing staff in New York, Barbara Anderson. During an interview she once gave two reasons why the Watchtower Society covers up these cases 1-Their distrust for the outside world. 2-Elders follow instructions that are conveniently dated; "They basically use a scripture-1st Timothy 5: 19 that states you’re not to make an accusation against an older man unless there are 2 or 3 witnesses. What are the odds there are going to be 2 or 3 witnesses to an older man molesting an 8-year-old girl?" Anderson, who wrote many articles and was a top researcher for the JW organization stumbled upon the discovery of thousands of unreported cases of molestation throughout many of their 11,000 American congregations. She then took it upon herself to seek out and aid some of these victims and was excommunicated from that organization. Her findings are online an easily accessible.
Personally if proof of such unspeakable behavior within a church comes from one of the writers of probably the world’s most famous religious literature and it’s members still refuse to speak out, then it’s a foregone conclusion they are attending worship every week to follow their faith, not their God. The same holds true regarding the Irish Archbishop disclosure. My point is, think about your power; your financial investment to your church and have the stones to unite and demand accountability and changes. Don’t worry about being labeled an "Apostate" or "Heretic," the real apostasy was already committed by the Clergy or Elders who failed to protect the children.
The plain truth is neither secular nor theological education should prevent you from picking up your phone and calling the authorities when you have a strong suspicion this is occurring with members of your place of worship. Yes praying to God is important, but don’t think it’s the only solution. God’s answer is to call your local Police or Sheriff’s Department and child protection agency.
