Comments

1
Ignoring the guy from last week who said he got all molesty on whatever kid sat in his lap, regardless of their gender?
2
Also ignoring the fact that a Catholic priest who has been criminally charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in Minnesota six years ago is still working in his home diocese in India despite warnings to the Vatican.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/06/world/…

The conflation of homosexuality with pedophilia makes my blood boil. Most pedophiles are heterosexuals, because a.) heterosexuals out number homosexuals and b.) pedophiles are less interested in the gender of their victim but that their victim is pre-pubescent. A pre-pubescent boy has qualities that make him physically more feminine than masculine. Making a boy just as likely to be a target as a pre-pubescent girl is.

"Homosexuality and homosexual pedophilia are not synonymous. In fact, it may be that these two orientations are mutually exclusive, the reason being that the homosexual male is sexually attracted to masculine qualities whereas the heterosexual male is sexually attracted to feminine characteristics, and the sexually immature child’s qualities are more feminine than masculine. . . . The child offender who is attracted to and engaged in adult sexual relationships is heterosexual. It appears, therefore, that the adult heterosexual male constitutes a greater sexual risk to underage children than does the adult homosexual male."

From: A. Nicholas Groth is a pioneer in the scientific study of sexual offenders against women and children, who has treated over 3000 child molesters over the course of two decades. A former director of the Sex Offender Program at the Connecticut Department of Corrections, Groth is the author of Men Who Rape: Psychology of the Offender, a work widely regarded as a classic textbook on the psychology of sexual violence.
3
Are the gays responsible for the cover-up too?
4
Dan: You should really link to Rob's actual site, so he gets the traffic. www.wakingupnow.com

Rob's awesome. Hired me for my first job out of college.
5
The link between homosexuality and pedophilia is precisely identical to the link between heterosexuality and pedophilia.
6
Stereotyping gays this way based on anecdotal evidence, faulty memory, confirmation bias and a distorted picture from sensationalistic media reports is wrong. Any generalizations they make about which groups or sub-groups are or are not a disproportionate threat to children should be based on sound scientific reasoning. This sort of witch hunt will only make the problem worse, leaving more children vulnerable to further attacks of this kind.
7
Rob is teh awesome. Bertone is an evil motherfucker.
8
I guess it was your fault, Dan.
9
Lets just blame pitbulls!
10
Of course the Church's linking of pedophilia and homosexuality is fact free, or as we call it in the real world: a lie.

http://www.robincmiller.com/gayles4.htm

"In 1978 psychologist Nicholas Groth screened 175 men who had been convicted in Massachusetts of sexual molestation of children and referred by a court for psychological evaluation. He found not a single gay man in this sample. Every one of the perpetrators was either an exclusive heterosexual, a bisexual with a predominantly heterosexual orientation, or a fixated pedophile with no sexual interest in adults.[4]

His conclusion? That "the adult heterosexual male constitutes a greater risk to the underage child than does the adult homosexual male."

...researcher David Newton reviewed the scientific literature and found no reason to believe that anything other than a "random connection" existed between homosexual orientation and child molestation.[5]

Later research has confirmed these findings:

In 1988, renowned sex researcher Kurt Freund at the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry in Toronto studied two groups of paid volunteers and found that gay men responded no more to male child stimuli than heterosexual men responded to female child stimuli.[6] He later described as a "myth" the notion that gay men are more likely than straight men to be child molesters.[7]

In 1992, alarmed over claims made during a campaign for an anti-gay state constitutional amendment in Colorado, two physicians reviewed every case of suspected child molestation evaluated at Children's Hospital in Denver over a one-year period. Of the 269 cases determined to involve molestation by an adult, only two of the perpetrators could be identified as gay or lesbian. The researchers concluded that the risk of child sexual abuse by an identifiably gay or lesbian person was between zero and 3.1%, and that the risk of such abuse by the heterosexual partner of a relative was over 100 times greater.[8]

Child abuse, including sexual abuse, is a terrible reality in this country. According to the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System, established by the federal Department of Health and Human Services, nearly 90,000 children are sexually abused every year.[9] According to some researchers, the true number may be five times this.[10]

Approximately 80 percent of these sexually molested children are girls.[11] Persons focusing only on the remaining 20 percent of molestations--and, even then, only on the small fraction of these crimes committed by gay men--are not authentically concerned with combating sexual abuse of children. Their primary interest lies in perpetuating fear.

The source of the right's statistics linking gay men with child molestation is discredited psychologist Paul Cameron, who operates the Family Research Institute in Colorado Springs, Colorado.[12] Cameron is responsible for many of the right's most bizarre allegations about gays and lesbians, such as that gays constitute 44 percent of sexual mass murderers, that two-thirds of gay men "ingest biologically significant amounts of feces," and that being a gay male takes 30 years off one's life.[13]

But Cameron is hardly a credible source. He was dropped from the American Psychological Association back in 1983 for a violation of its Ethical Principles of Psychologists.[14] And he's been censured by four other professional associations and a federal court.[15]"
11
I don't think heterosexual molestation gets turned in as often, either. its kind of brushed off as "well, they would've had sex eventually anyway. shucks." whereas when its homosexual everyone freaks because it may change the kid's orientation
12
The thing that I think is missing from this conversation is the (thankfully) fading tendency in Catholic culture that one of the boys is destined for the clergy.

Too many boys (and usually the meeker boys because the stronger willed ones wouldn't put up with it) were told at a very early age that they had "the calling" and were railroaded into some dreary seminary, where they were basically infantalized into the role of perpetual Eunuch For Christ.

I was an altar boy for almost ten years, and many of the old biddies at our parish thought I was going to be a priest - and pressured my parents accordingly (especially my Mother, because being the mother of a priest was a big deal).

Thankfully, my parents were not those type of Catholics, and I was never pressured to do anything remotely like that. God only knows what sort of neurotic mess I'd have ended up as if I'd been forced into some seminary.
13
Their only chance now is to blame the Space Aliens. Quickly, before they implement Plans 8 through 14 from Outer Space!
14
Pox @3 has the pertinent question.

Covering up child molestation is a worse crime than child molestation.
15
and on the "let's try to change the subject" front:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100412/ap_o…
16
I like your new spring look, Catalina.

And I agree with you completely. I grew up catholic, in a very catholic neighborhood, about 10-15 years after Vatican 2. Though my parents were devout, fortunately, there was none of this pressure in my family either.

I did work in my late 20s though with a woman who decided a couple years later, at at age 35, to join a convent. Needless to say, she was quite bizarre...
17
only to happy --> only too happy
18
There are people--probably even some guys--who don't want sex, period. The Church should advertise for those guys since there's a good chance they wouldn't rape boys OR girls. But no, I guess the Church wouldn't do that because celibacy's supposed to be a sacrifice for Jesus or something and if you don't want something to begin with, there's no sacrifice. Just like if you don't believe in original sin or hell, you don't need the Church. It all fits together quite nicely.
19
venom@13

There's still the gypsies!
20
This deflection is troubling. I think it needs to be taken head-on, and in mainstream outlets that Catholics (and others) who may be vulnerable to believing this kind of garbage (if only not to have to believe how messed up something they love really is) will see.

Who is writing the op-eds for the NYT, but also for the more modest regional papers that more people read? Who is going on the Sunday political-talk shows? Who is sending press releases dispelling these lies (with excellent citation, of course) to the local TV, radio and papers in dioceses across the country in the simple way this Rob guy does?

Dan? Rob? Someone???

21
This a shout-out ABC News for a job well done. Tonight on World News they ran a soundbite with that quote. The next thing the reporter did was to say in reality pedophilies are almost always straight men. It just amazes me that the Catholic Church thinks they can continue to lie, lie then lie some more and think that people are too stupid to figure out they're LYING.
22
It's desperation, pure and simple.

And yes, to whoever said it above, the instances where priests molest boys probably are reported more than the ones where they molest girls. I know that in typical parishes, the parishoners look the other way when Father has a "special lady friend," but if he has a male "friend?" They want him removed immediately.

The cover ups, misdirection, and outright lying make me sad that I ever called myself Catholic, and that I worked for the church.
23
I challenge Cardinal Bertone before God to tell us with his hand on the bible, exactly where he was "recently told that there is a relationship between homosexuality and pedophilia"-

Was it from the same " unnamed Jewish friend" who wrote to what's- his-name that the attacks against the church reminded him of attacks against Jews? ( not like the anti-semitism the church heaped on them).

Where do these clowns get their information?
24
I have no clue if the percentage of molesters among priests is higher or lower than the general population. Speculation about that is useless without facts.

The scandal is the *protection* of these molesters within the Church, not that some priests molest. If the church had done the moral thing and turned in these evil people, or at the very minimum had put them into secluded orders where they'd never see a child; then it would simply be a case of "in any sufficiently large group of people" someone will be evil. But they didn't do that. They hid these people and put them into contact with unsuspecting kids over and over again.

You know, the way to get across that mostly straight men molest boys wouldn't be do work on the newspaper thing; but to get CSI or Criminal Minds or some other popular show to do an episode about it. Popular culture is the way to really disseminate information.
25

Well, since you brought it up -- isn't it true that 99 percent of the pedophilia cases in the Church are Men on Boy?

Q.E.D.
26
I'm so pleased to have had the opportunity to get to know Rob on a forum at another site; he's smart as a whip and I've had a number of great conversations with him on threads about all kinds of different topics. He's bright across a number of different topics and areas (and also incredibly good looking). Glad to see him getting so much recognition for his good work and his smarts.
27
First and foremost they were priests.
28
To "Et tu, doofus":

Since _you_ brought it up, have you never noticed that there are no female altar"boys"? Have you never noticed how the Catholic Church treats women? There are way more opportunities for the "men" of the Church to prey upon boys. Quod erat demontratus ignorance.
29
@25

I don't know, do you?
30
At this point shouldn't we be treating statements from the Vatican like we would statements from Michael Vick & Tiger Woods? A long history of lying to cover a double life leaves one completely devoid of credibility.

We should assume that EVERYTHING the roman catholic church says is a lie, since they have lied about everything to everyone at some point, and then denied the lies when caught.

Now, when can we storm the Vatican compound and steal back all that art?
31
Ya know, I hate that my first comment on Dan's blog is this vapid, but I'm just gonna say it:

Rob is freakin hot. I'd be in love if I could only hear his voice and logic, but damn.

I'll think of something more in-depth next time, Dan, promise.
32
Molesting the Bible, molesting the children, does the molesting ever stop
33
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/opinio…

Someone named Ross Douthat puts forth the "defense" that Ratzinger is a better pope than John Paul II because the latter actually covered up more stuff than Ratzinger.

That's the latest defense. I think they're running out of stuff.
34
The "study" cited in the linked video is pathetic beyond words- nothing but a very small sized sample review of hospital charts.
If this is the best Proof Rob can find he should just not bring the topic up.

Half of the "Youth Pastor" perverts Dan posts are gays abusing teenage boys....
35
Candalebra, you must have seen that he referenced several studies on the video. Did you not see that? Or did your homophobia blind you to what was happening on screen?
36
@35

You'd better test your reading comprehension. Most of those pastors preying on teenages go for teenage girls.
37
Sorry, that was supposed to be @34

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