Christian Priests Rape Yet More Children, and again their church helps them

[DominiConnor]

\link{http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6594439.stm\Church of England rsponsible for yet more rapes

But it's all right, honest. No doubt the CoE will say "sorry".
Of course Bishop David Wilcox who smugly talks of acting in the "best interests of the church", will walk free. The police won't even interview him, let alone bang him up.

David Wilcox is worse than any paedophile. Rather than annoy his friends, he covers up for rapists.

Would any other group get away with being accomplices ?
In other threads supporters of the CoE smugly talk of child rape as a purely Catholic issue. They know that to be false, and come Sunday will put their hands in their pockets and fund the rape of children.

but 'thinking' an incident is not isolated is not quite enough to persuade me that paedophilia is more rife in the CofE than it is elsewhere where things are run as equally pompously and idiotically [eg possibly public schools]

Ruty, I accept it happens elsewhere. And ?
But what seems pretty much unique to the major Christian churches is they way their members band together to protect paedophiles.

I am not sure what you mean by my "selective" moral indignation. Which other major organisations have had senior staff assisting paedophiles ? Tell me and I'll be morally indignant at them ?
If this was McDonalds, and it transpired that their senior executives spent the firm's money on hiding paedophiles from the law, would anyone be defending them ?
Would anyone be attacking me if I said McD's were bad people ?
Would anyone be saying "if my local McD's raped children, I'd go to antoher one", like some here ?

The police are at least equally at fault. Why was Cardinal Cormac O'Connor not banged up years ago ? Why haven't the police even arrested him ?

Lots of blame to go around here.

but i think it does happen elsewhere. Certainly it did up to the eighties. I knew professors at Oxford who were known for sexual abuse and of course nothing happened to them [ok we were 18 but the university was run in a similar way tot the Cof E]. And a friend of mine tells me what happened at his boarding school and nothing was done. And yes things have changed hugely in child protection policies and awareness since the 80's, maybe not for lawyers, but for the way groups run things. And boy scouts anyone? Lots of child abuse there. And the medical system? You don't think there were gps who abused women or children and got away with it? I know the doctor who forced me to stand in AandE as a 13 year old on a shattered pelvis as i screamed in pain and put me thru hours of derision and extreme pain was protected by his seniors in the NHS. That is not sex abuse buti still have nightmares about it. I don't have evidence that child abuse was as rife in these places as the Cof E but you don't have evidence that it was more rife in the CoE. You hate the church. So you pick up on these articles and talk and behave in a way that you only do when talking about Christians. So it is my guess that you are being both subjective and selective.
Am going out now.

Good post Ruty

I can certainly confirm that child protection policies in our CoE church are very stringent - anyone who has anything to do with children has to be CRB checked, there are adults specifically appointed for any child to regard as a 'safe pair of ears' if there's ANYTHING they want to talk about (church related or non-church related). I am not allowed to be in the building with children unless another CRB checked adult is present. I would be very very surprised if anything untoward could happen.

Something that non-Christians find intensely frustrating is the almost total lack of remorse or apology from the organised church about these matters, which could not really be more serious. This jars particualarly because the church does claim moral and ethical superiority over the rest of us. OK, I don't necessarily expect sackcloth, ashes, prostration and flagellation, but a sense of GENUINE horror, remorse, acceptance of culpability and the removal of apologists and facilitators of child abuse from the church hierarchy would seem basic starting points.

i want to knwo why DC gets so het up

i expect expect sackcloth, ashes, prostration and flagellation.

He gets upset because he is a Atheist fundamentalist.

ALoha, I agree - they should certainly apologise, be horrified, attempt to make amends financially(?). I was very frustrated when our church issued a statement of regret for the slave trade (our city is very much built on the back the slave trade, as it was the number 2 slaving city ), whereas I thought a good robust 'We're very sorry' would have been more appropriate, and would have been a stronger statement from the church. Although I am a churchgoer, I do feel frustrated at the weak approach to issues like this.

Marina, I too was very optimistic about RW, but I think his tenure has been hijacked by the threatening break up of the church over gay priests - the Americans on the one hand appointing gay bishops, the Africans threatening to leave over it. And unfortunately this seems to have preoccupied RW to an extent where he can't be a true 'leader' with a vision for the church.

The Church is good at "saying sorry", especially if it's got a BBC TV crew tasked with making them look good, like with slavery.
Note however that the Church hasn't actually done anything like give up the huge amount of money it made out of slavery.

I've no doubt that we'll see an apology.
What we will not see is the people who helped the paedophiles being sacked.

It's a predictable pattern now.

well does it matter to him then?

in his opinion itd be like me gettign het up abotu what a witch said

It is clear that they should be sacked. By simply moving this man on, he has caused untold misery and lifelong suffering. I honestly don't think this is a subject for big smiley faces.

"like give up the huge amount of money it made out of slavery."

what do you propose it does - close down all it's churches and halls and sell them - MANY of which are used for the community as a whole - so we'd pay back the money (to who???) but then leave current communities without vital meeting places??

Me too tortoiseshell
The way the C of E is governed though, at a personal level we have as much control over how Bishops and other clergy conduct their affairs as we do over our MP's actions. Less in fact as unfortunately we have no vote in selecting Bishops and even PCCs have limited rights as to who they accept as Parish Priest.
Much governance is devolved to Diocesan and even Deanery level and I know that in Southwark abuse is dealt with by involving the police and the Social Services.

They can't sack David Wilcox, he is no longer a Bishop. I'm not sure what they can do. I would have thought the police can arrest him if there is a case for prosecution.

why is everyone so hard on DC..I agree that the church has a very poor history of protecting child abusers, not just the COE but the Catholic church too.

Sorry, but that's like saying you shouldn't care if children in care are abused if you aren't in care yourself.

I admit I didn't realise he wasn't still a Bishop. Does he have any role in the church today? The police should certainly pay a visit.

And I have to say, I think the none-too subtle attempts to 'out' DC as a victim of child abuse are somewhat distateful. What's the deal? If he was abused, does that make his views less valid or something?
Reminds me of Margaret Hodge trying to smear that poor bloke who suffered under her regime at Islington as 'unbalanced'.

I hope they do aloha. I really do hope that anyone who can be prosecuted for covering up for a child abuser, is prosecuted and feels the full force of the law.

I bet they could strip him of the title, also he gets a nice pension. They could sue him as well.
But they won't.

The police won't arrest a senior cleric, and even if they did the charges would be dropped "in the public interest".

That's part of why I'm pissed off,and why I hold rank and file Christians responsible.

If this was a local social services department, there would be arrests, seizures of records and sackings.
Reckon any non-religious charity could keep it's status if it not only employed paedophiles but helped them ?

I did check the C of E website btw aloha, which has a good search engine and includes Synod papers and other committee reports, and found no reference to him.
I think how it works is that he retains a courtesy title of Bishop but it doesn't look as though he plays any active role now.

do you htink they wont arrest?
haevnt seen story did he abuse?
i wonder if thereis a law fro aiding and abettign abuse of minors?