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Jehovah's Witness criticised over sexual abuse claims

Jehovah's Witness criticised over sexual abuse claims

Spirituality

divegeester
watching in dismay

STARMERGEDDON

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The continuing saga of the Jehovah's Witness organisation attempting to protect itself from the law, exposure and disgrace. How long can this pernicious organisation be permitted to protect the guilty within their ranks.

From the Guardian article linked below:
"The Jehovah’s Witnesses organisation is under increasing pressure to address its handling of sexual abuse allegations as it faces legal setbacks, bills of over £1m and a fight to prevent the Charity Commission examining its records of abuse claims.

Last month a judge upheld a ruling against the UK’s leading Jehovah’s Witnesses charity, the Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society of Britain (WTBTS), that the Jehovah’s Witnesses had failed to protect a woman, known in proceedings as A, from sexual abuse starting when she was four years old.

Now the supreme court has rejected a highly unusual attempt by the WTBTS to block a Charity Commission inquiry into how the Jehovah’s Witnesses charity handles allegations of abuse.

The extent of the charity’s challenges and the length of time they have gone on for are unprecedented in recent times, a spokesman for the Charity Commission said.

In A’s case the high court awarded damages and the WTBTS have been left facing legal fees totalling about £1m after attempting to appeal against the judgement three times. The decision in A’s case sets a precedent that could expose the organisation to further claims. It (the Watchtower) continues to fight Charity Commission orders to provide documents on sexual abuse allegations, as well as other aspects of the inquiry, in lower courts.

Fay Maxted, chief executive of the Survivors Trust, a national sexual assault charity, said: “These are cases where someone has been sexually violated and had their whole trust in the safety of their religious community blown away.

“It’s deeply disappointing that a faith-based organisation appears to be so determined to try and avoid answering questions about its own behaviour …"


https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/aug/12/jehovahs-witnesses-under-pressure-over-handling-of-sexual-abuse-claims

F

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Originally quotted by divegeester
“It’s deeply disappointing that a faith-based organisation appears to be so determined to try and avoid answering questions about its own behaviour"
The JWs are not the only faith-based organisation to have been imbroiled in this kind of scandal over and over again. This has been a problem in the Catholic Church too.

We shall see if any Catholics turn up here on this forum and try to defend the Catholic Church's atrocious handling of the sexual abuse issue, or downplay the seriousness and extent of the problem, or call into question the motives of those who are seeking to tackle it, or call into question the motives the victims of the abuse. I've never interacted personally with any Catholic who did, but we shall see.

Kewpie
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The ongoing Royal Commission into institutional abuse in Australia has unearthed a lot of horrific stuff. Like the pedophile priest bounced from parish to parish, reoffending every time, and they just let him do it again and again. The organisation is in total disarray in Australia now. The latest claims are against Cardinal George Pell, who is "medically unfit" to travel back from the Vatican to defend himself. Pell presided over the group who passed pedophile priests from parish to parish, so his credibility here is already zero.

T

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Originally posted by Kewpie
The ongoing Royal Commission into institutional abuse in Australia has unearthed a lot of horrific stuff. Like the pedophile priest bounced from parish to parish, reoffending every time, and they just let him do it again and again. The organisation is in total disarray in Australia now. The latest claims are against Cardinal George Pell, who is "medically ...[text shortened]... oup who passed pedophile priests from parish to parish, so his credibility here is already zero.
Highly recommend the documentary "Deliver Us from Evil" from 10 years ago. Not about Australia, but sheds much light on the RCC and it's handling of the issue.

“Deliver Us From Evil,” Amy Berg’s important, hard-to-watch debut feature, is not the first documentary about the sexual abuse scandals in the Roman Catholic Church — Kirby Dick’s “Twist of Faith” was nominated for an Oscar last year — and it will probably not be the last. Pedophilia is not a subject most are eager to think about, but these days it seems impossible to avoid. Neither sensationalistic nor sentimental, Ms. Berg’s film is clear-sighted, tough-minded and devastating, a portrait of individual criminality and institutional indifference, a study in the betrayal of trust and the irresponsibility of authority.

What gives the film some of its unnerving power is that, in addition to giving voice to some of the victims of abuse, it spends a lot of time with a perpetrator. Oliver O’Grady is now a silver-haired, twinkly-eyed resident of Ireland, where Ms. Berg often films him in parks and near playgrounds, with children nearby. In the 1970’s and 80’s, while serving as a parish priest in several towns in Central California, he molested children over and over again, both boys and girls, including, it is reported, a 9-month-old.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/13/movies/13evil.html?_r=0

HandyAndy
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Originally posted by ThinkOfOne
Highly recommend the documentary "Deliver Us from Evil" from 10 years ago. Not about Australia, but sheds much light on the RCC and it's handling of the issue.
Also recommended is the 2015 biographical drama "Spotlight" in which a team of investigative reporters at the Boston Globe in Massachusetts uncovers widespread child sex abuse in the Boston area by Roman Catholic priests, eventually leading to the fall from power of Cardinal Bernard Law.

s
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Originally posted by HandyAndy
Also recommended is the 2015 biographical drama "Spotlight" in which a team of investigative reporters at the Boston Globe in Massachusetts uncovers widespread child sex abuse in the Boston area by Roman Catholic priests, eventually leading to the fall from power of Cardinal Bernard Law.
So the Law fought the law but the law won.....

HandyAndy
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Originally posted by sonhouse
So the Law fought the law but the law won.....
Law (the Cardinal) is living high off the hog in Vatican City.

rc

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Wow another Lapdogjeester Jehovahs witness criticised over sexual abuse claims thread. Please someone poke this guy with a stick to see if he responds, he's so brain dead that he thinks he can pass his religious bigotry off by feigning a sincere interest in child abuse. He has NO interest in child abuse, he is only interested in vilifying Jehovajs Witnesses. This must be possibly the third or fourth thread he has started on the issue, predictable, unoriginal and transparent. If he ever gets an original thought please let me know.

Ask him for his churches child protection policy, last time I asked him he didn't even have one.

F

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Originally posted by robbie carrobie
Wow another Lapdogjeester Jehovahs witness criticised over sexual abuse claims thread. Please someone poke this guy with a stick to see if he responds, he's so brain dead that he thinks he can pass his religious bigotry off by feigning a sincere interest in child abuse. He has NO interest in child abuse, he is only interested in vilifying Jehovajs W ...[text shortened]... Ask him for his churches child protection policy, last time I asked him he didn't even have one.
Never mind attacking the person who posted the OP. What about the actual content of the OP? It's a serious topic robbie and not suitable for your hackneyed banter.

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Originally posted by Kewpie
The ongoing Royal Commission into institutional abuse in Australia has unearthed a lot of horrific stuff. Like the pedophile priest bounced from parish to parish, reoffending every time, and they just let him do it again and again. The organisation is in total disarray in Australia now. The latest claims are against Cardinal George Pell, who is "medically ...[text shortened]... oup who passed pedophile priests from parish to parish, so his credibility here is already zero.
Not a documentary, but a compelling Australian TV drama called Devil's Playground from 2014. It has a key story element involving'a pedophile priest bounced from parish to parish, reoffending every time, and they just let him do it again and again'.

"The year is 1988. It is 35 years after the events of Fred Schepisi’s classic film, The Devil’s Playground. Tom Allen, now in his 40s and recently widowed, is a respected Sydney psychiatrist and father of two children. A practising Catholic, Tom accepts an offer by the Bishop of Sydney to become a counsellor of priests. During these sessions and other events, he will uncover a scandal that embroils him through a personal hell hole and the Church’s various attempts to cover it up. Tom’s quest for justice will push him to his limits, but it reveals a dark-side of the Church's power and the extent of official corruption, which he could never have envisaged." wiki.

divegeester
watching in dismay

STARMERGEDDON

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Originally posted by robbie carrobie
Wow another Lapdogjeester Jehovahs witness criticised over sexual abuse claims thread. Please someone poke this guy with a stick to see if he responds, he's so brain dead that he thinks he can pass his religious bigotry off by feigning a sincere interest in child abuse. He has NO interest in child abuse, he is only interested in vilifying Jehovajs W ...[text shortened]... Ask him for his churches child protection policy, last time I asked him he didn't even have one.
How does your claim that the Jehovah's Witness organisation is the "one true voice of God on earth", sit with the evidence presented in the OP?

Specifically that the WatchTower tried to use the law to prevent the Commission's investigation into the sexual abuse by JW leaders (which was overturned), prompting the Commision to say that it found it "deeply disappointing that a faith-based organisation appears to be so determined to try and avoid answering questions about its own behaviour …"

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