The findings of the Australian royal commission show that over 63% of the sex abuse cases that occurred in religious institutions over the 50 year period covered happened in Catholic institutions. This has been discussed on this forum but to a lesser degree than the problem with Jehovah's Witnesses because, unlike with the Jehovah's Witnesses, no Catholic here in this community has ever tried to defend the covering up of sex abuse cases in their denomination's institutions or argued that covering them up leads to less sex abuse.
To put the Jehovah's Witnesses abuse cases in Australia into perspective, though, they made up 1.8% of those investigated by the commission while Jehovah's Witnesses make up less than 0.5% of the Australian population. This means that an Australian JW was more likely to be abused by someone in their institution than a Catholic Australian.
This kind of statistical reality is all the more stark and ghastly when it comes to the Salvation Army whose members make up only 0.2% of the Australian population - and yet they accounted for an extraordinary 7.2% of the sex abuse cases looked into by the Australian royal commission.
Originally posted by @fmfNot checked your info. but I trust you are correct.
The findings of the Australian royal commission........ .
Seems the various religious orders are arguing over who is least evil.
Originally posted by @wolfgang59To be fair I crunched the numbers that demonstrate, for example, that if an Australian person were a member of the Salvation Army, the probability of that person being sexually abused was massively higher than if that person were a Catholic - for example.
Not checked your info. but I trust you are correct.
Seems the various religious orders are arguing over who is least evil.
And I meant that as a bit of perspective and not to make light of the Catholic church's dreadful chronic problem. Indeed, more to the point now, some of those denominations shamed by the commission's findings are, to varying degrees, sticking their proud and prickly heads in the sand.
I went to check if the Unitarians have any internal concerns for Child sex abuse too. Apparently they do:
"If Our Secrets Define Us”
Gail Seavey,The First Unitarian Universalist Church of Nashville
Berry Street Essay, 2016
Delivered at the Ministerial Conference
June 22, 2016
Columbus, OH
http://www.uuma.org/mpage/BSE2016
-Removed-The Internet is something else, isn't it?
Just out of curiosity I went to see if UU had any skeletons in their closets. I don't gloat and have no glee.
Unitarians sometimes have had to wrestle with misconduct of their clergy as well.
I became a member of the UUMA guidelines committee from 1996 - 2000. During those years we repeatedly responded to requests to facilitate collegial conversations to explore the differences between confidentiality and secrets: confidentiality requires protecting someone else’s story; keeping secrets involves hiding our own stories. In 1999, I served for both MSUU and the guidelines committee to be liaison to The UU Women Federation’s Advisory Task Force on Ministerial Sexual Misconduct, which they originally formed as Task Force One in response to the Service of the Living Tradition incident. There, I quickly discovered that many of our congregations and our Association kept secrets both large and small. For instance, several women reported that Forrest Church had had affairs with them when they were members and that the congregation essentially exiled his DRE wife and children from the church he served. A wider circle of colleagues started to confide in me their painful stories such as - a past minister ran off with the seventeen year old daughter of a pillar of the church, and, even though they got married, her mother responded by donating millions of dollars to the local evangelical college. The UUWF Task Force entrusted our convener, Deborah Pope Lance, to report to the UUA concerns we had stemming from complaints we had received from survivors. They complained about alleged sexual misconduct by UUA staff members who were involved in an official response to clergy sexual misconduct. These allegations made survivors feel unsafe and the Task Force look complicit.
From If Our Secrets Define Us
http://www.uuma.org/mpage/BSE2016
Originally posted by @romans1009Anything substantiative to add to the Jehovah’s Witnesses update on child sex abuse?
The medicine I give you to cure your hangover and upset tummy, tiger. Remember how I mix the medicine in PB so you’ll enjoy taking it? I know you wanted me to mix it in a pint of ale, but the pediatrician said, “Absolutely not.”
What is your view, in general, of the JW faith?
Originally posted by @ghost-of-a-dukeFrom the little I know of the JW’s, they deny the deity of Jesus Christ and therefore contradict the Bible.
Anything substantiative to add to the Jehovah’s Witnesses update on child sex abuse?
What is your view, in general, of the JW faith?
I had a JW come to my door once, before I became a Christian. At the time I wasn’t interested in any religion, though I still believed in God and have since childhood.
We had a short conversation and she left. If a JW came to my door now, we’d have a much longer conversation and a lot of it would be about the first few chapters of Hebrews as well as the Gospel of John and Messianic prophecies from the Old Testament.
I have also heard/read disturbing reports of how JW leaders treat underlings as far as controlling them that remind me of Scientology but have no idea if the reports are true.