South Africa: Kill the Whites!

We don't know enough of what's going on in South Africa. The media don't inform us because what happens there is exactly the opposite of what they want us to believe and Hollywood films portray: blacks are nice and victims, whites are horrible and perpetrators (even criminal statistics in the West, where black-on-white violence is much more frequent than white-on-black violence, can easily disprove that).

Songs and chants of "Kill the whites" by vast crowds in their native languages need to be translated, as they have been in these videos, before we can grasp the situation.

And here below are the effects.

Nelson Mandela, incredibly lionized when he was in fact responsible for commissioning terrorist acts at the time of the apartheid, is among those chanting these appallingly racist words.

As The Truth about South Africa says:

When did he [Mandela] become the messiah? It really irritates me. How many people are just bowing down to the man because the world's media is making him out to be the Savior of all people?

Truth is, the WHITES in South Africa voted to abolish Apartheid. The old terrorist was IN JAIL. HE didn't end Apartheid. In fact, he did very little to end it. He was chosen as a figurehead by the media, big business and the Nats.

But go on, have your hero. We all need a messiah.

Only a couple of months ago Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu said that South African society is now more violent than it was under apartheid.

These people are communist and don't know the meaning of the word "peace", let alone "tolerance".

In addition to the genocidal violence against whites, the latter have to face particularly bad economic hardship due to "reverse discrimination": reverse it as much as you like, it is still discrimination.

White poverty in South Africa has doubled since 1994.

Peter Tatchell and the Age of Sexual Consent

Peter Tatchell, the UK's most prominent homosexual activist, has done more than advocating the abolition of the age of consent, he has broken the age of consent law in Britain:

"As a gay 18-year-old Australian, anti-Vietnam war draft-dodger, he came to the UK in 1971 and set up home with a 16-year-old gay lover in Shepherd’s Bush. The pair despised the law and so defied it."

The homosexual age of consent in England then was 21, not 16. Later he campaigned for lowering it to 16, and now he wants it lowered again to 14. The trend is clear.

When the age of consent for homosexuals was lowered to 16, an Outrage - Tatchell's organization - banner was photographed saying "16 is just a start".

Mr Tatchell (or shall we call him comrade Tatchell given his militant Marxist background) criticises the concept of age of consent, as is obvious from this quotation from his own website:

"Nevertheless, like any minimum age, it is arbitrary and fails to acknowledge that different people mature sexually at different ages. A few are ready for sex at l2; others not until they're 20. Having a single, inflexible age of consent doesn't take into account these differences. It dogmatically imposes a limit, regardless of individual circumstances".

Peter Tatchell wrote the chapter "Questioning Ages of Majority and Ages of Consent" for a book openly advocating paedophilia and finding ways "to make paedophilia acceptable".

This book, published in 1986 and called The Betrayal of Youth (spelling BOY), was edited by Warren Middleton, then vice-chairperson of the now-disbanded Paedophile Information Exchange, Britain’s number one paedophile advocacy group.

Stephen Green writes: "The book was part of a campaign to abolish all ages of consent, destroy the responsibilities of parents for their children, deny any ill-effects on children of interference by paedophiles, and withal to make it easier for paedophiles to gain sexual access to children."

In The Betrayal of Youth Tatchell wrote that that the age of sexual consent is "Re-inforcing a set of increasingly quaint, minority moral values left over from the Victorian era".

He was not on his own in this crusade, far from it. Many of his comrades, socio-communists and homosexual activists thought the same (emphasis mine):

Campaign for Homosexual Equality chairman Michael Jarrett was identifying paedophiles as an oppressed group, and the CHE list of “demands” included the complete abolition of minimum ages for sexual activity. The Labour Gay Rights Manifesto of 1985 said ‘A socialist society would supersede the family household. … Gay people and children should have the right to live together. … It follows from what we have already said that we favour the abolition of the age of consent.’

Feminists like Beatrice Faust contributed to The Betrayal of Youth, as well as other homosexual activists besides Tatchell, including Jeffrey Weeks and Eric Presland, who "related his first paedophile experience with an Asian boy of thirteen, and boasted of interfering with a little boy of six".

The book is considered so toxic that Amazon doesn't sell it and you cannot search its content in Google Books. This is The Betrayal of Youth's list of contents and contributors.

Tatchell is well aware of how much all this is bad publicity for him and keeps rationalising and adjusting his positions, but only the ideologically blind or pathologically naive cannot see through his self-excuses.

He has prepared a standard self-defence which can be found on his own website and has been repeated verbatim on many outlets. It used to also be on the site of his friend militant atheist of the "Kill the Pope" brigade Richard Dawkins but it's not there any more. Maybe even Dawkins draws a line at what is morally allowed, even though his motto is "There's probably no God... now stop worrying and enjoy your life".

In this article that supposedly should serve to exculpate him, Tatchell has nothing better than this: "The critics also cite Warren Middleton’s 1980s book, Betrayal of Youth, to which I contributed a chapter. I had no idea that he was involved in child sex abuse matters when I was asked to write."

Considering that Warren Middleton was co-founder and vice-chairperson of the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE), a prominent group promoting paedophilia, it was impossible for Tatchell not to have known his propensities. In addition, both Tatchell and Middleton were part of the the Gay Liberation Front/Angry Brigade, a neo-Marxist revolutionary group of radical students at the London School of Economics, thus making Tatchell's protestations of ignorance verge on the ridiculous.

Our "gay" friend's self-defence begins with:

"Unlike many Catholic clergy, I have never abused anyone. Unlike the Pope, I have never failed to report abusers or covered up their crimes."

Bad start, Pete. These are blatant falsities. It wasn't "many" Catholic clergy, it was an extremely small minority. And, as shown in Lies about the Catholic Church Child Sex Abuse Scandal, there is no reason, except bigotry and prejudice, to single out Catholic clergy who in fact have committed fewer of these crimes than any other pedagogic institution, religious or secular.

Saying what he does about the Pope is a criminal act, it is slander. The Pope has never covered up for anyone; people like Tatchell and his pals/comrades in the mainstream media think that if you repeat a lie enough times your audience will start to believe that it's true.

But blaming the Church whenever you're in trouble is a good way to distract the public from your own, shall we say, deviations from the norm. It's worked so far, our friend thinks, so why shouldn't it work now? Maybe because people have started calling your bluff, Pete.

The above should tell you how trustworthy and credible Tatchell is, but there's more.

Look at his defence of another book:

My 1997 Guardian letter about the book, Dares to Speak, gives the wrong impression. It was edited...

Dares to Speak was an academic book published in 1997, authored by professors, anthropologists, psychologists, sociologists, a Dutch senator and a former editor of a Catholic newspaper. It discussed the age of sexual consent and whether all sex between young people and adults is necessarily unwanted and harmful, based on what it said was objective research with young people.

The book does not endorse or excuse sexual relationships with young people that involve coercion, manipulation or damage. The authors queried, among other things, the balance between giving young people sexual rights and protecting them against abuse. These are entirely legitimate issues to discuss.

Leaving aside the irony, probably lost on humourless Tatchell, about his using a "former editor of a Catholic newspaper" as a guarantor of the morality of a book while he constantly treats the Catholic Church like a den of abusers, the book Dares to Speak, that Tatchell praises so much as an academic achievement, was edited by Joseph Geraci, who was also the editor of Paidika: The Journal of Paedophilia. The book is a collection of articles from the journal.

Before it was tactfully removed, this was Wikipedia's entry for the publication (emphasis mine):

Paidika: The Journal of Paedophilia (1987–1995) was a journal published by the Stichting Paidika Foundation whose purpose was to promote the normalization of pedophilia. Its editor was Joseph Geraci and the editorial board included articles by writers Frits Bernard, Edward Brongersma, Vern L. Bullough, and D. H. (Donald) Mader, some of whom campaigned as pro-pedophile activists.

After the normalization of homosexuality, we'll have the normalization of paedophilia. Get over it.


Added on 8 December 2013. In fairness to Peter Tatchell, he has politely asked me to add that his real views on age of consent, in particular his four criteria of any change in the age of consent laws, are here:

http://www.petertatchell.net/lgbt_rights/age_of_consent/an-age-of-consent-of-14.htm

This doesn’t alter my opinions on this whole subject. It’s up to you to decide if it alters yours.

For Obama Some Religions Are More Equal than Others

Obama ‘Strongly Objects’ to Religious Liberty Amendment.

The amendment's sponsor, Rep. John Fleming, R-La., says that it would require “the Armed Forces to accommodate ‘actions and speech’ reflecting the conscience, moral, principles or religious beliefs of the member.”

Fleming points to evidence that Christian service members and chaplains are being penalized for expressing their faith. Examples:
•The Air Force censored a video created by a chaplain because it include the word “God.” The Air Force feared the word might offend Muslims and atheists.

•A service member received a “severe and possibly career-ending reprimand” for expressing his faith’s religious position about homosexuality in a personal religious blog.

•A senior military official at Fort Campbell sent out a lengthy email officially instructing officers to recognize “the religious right in America” as a “domestic hate group” akin to the KKK and Neo-Nazis because of its opposition to homosexual behavior.

•A chaplain was relieved of his command over a military chapel because, consistent with DOMA’s definition of marriage, he could not allow same-sex weddings to take place in the chapel.

The Obama administration evidently thinks it important that such actions continue to be taken.

There’s a tension between this policy–arguably suppressing expressions of Christian faith–with the White House’s assurance, according to Investor’s Business Daily, that FBI surveillance not including any investigation of mosques.

So, it appears, Christian religious expression must be suppressed, while Muslim religious expression cannot even be monitored. Yes, government can appropriately limit the conduct of members of the military in ways that would be inappropriate in the case of civilians. So there’s not necessarily a contradiction between these policies. And perhaps there’s a need to restrict servicemembers from offending colleagues in a way that would not be appropriate outside the military (and is not on college campuses, where it often occurs). But it sure looks like a double standard to me: Christianity, bad; Islam, good. I seem to remember, from some ancient reading, the phrase, “or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

But we know that Obama is Islamophile. Some of his politics, like helping the Islamist ethnic cleansing of Christians in Syria, would otherwise be difficult to explain.

About Iraq, he inherited it from Bush. About Egypt and Lybia, you can say that he gambled, not exactly knowing what was going on.

But now he knows. And he does the same.

Lesbian Breaks the Rules of Her College but Does not Want to Pay the Consequences

Christian College Expels Lesbian, Bills Her $6,000 to Recoup Loans Because She Didn’t Finish Semester.

What I like most about this article are the comments:

1. I guess she should have followed the rules. Lady Gaga or somebody will pay her debt no doubt. She will get a degree from some other school and be done with it.

2. There is no one so blind as those who will not see.

In a liar’s universe, there is no truth.
Professing to change her behavior to meet the school’s minimum requirements and then taking, and living with a same sex spouse in an out of state union is deceitful.

How can anyone purportedly intelligent enough to earn a scholarship not be intelligent enough to understand a few simple rules?… Oh yeah, that’s right, she has the Nobel Peace Prize winner Barak Hussein Obama Jr., the worst ever president of the United States, for an example of how to live an honest life.

Never trust the MSM.

3. Hmm lets see, she applied to a conservative school likely under affirmative action rules due to title IV requirements. She more than likely used her race to advance her qualifications over other more qualified, Asian, Native American, Eskimo, and White Competitors. Then while she was reciving her free education she proceeded to violate the schools code of conduct, and more than likely was promoting homosexuality on campus, through the internet and social circles. Imagine if a White Male was given grants and scholarships to a traditionally black college, and then promoted the KKK in the local community, it would be no less vile and offensive. Liberals only like morals so long as they are working in their benefit.

4. Everyone here gets it. This is a homosexual version of Sandra “Professional Student” Fluke. These people get in there specifically to disrupt and discredit an organization, then get them to bend to some agenda. Ms. Powell and her “spouse” are prime examples. Then, on cue, the trolls (in this case, atheists} come out and start smearing “so called Christians” with stuff like “if God existed, he/she would not be so intolerant”. Really? Read the Bible sometime. God is VERY intolerant of rebellion against His will. He is long suffering, but has limits.

5. gee if the 35,000people had only given/sent her 1.00 dollar each..then the poor disinfranchised woman would have her bill paid..but seeing she is laying the professional victim card…she didn’t stop and consider that..did she ?

6. “I shouldn’t have this debt hanging over my head “…..meet the next Housing Crisis brought to you by the same group that brought the original housing crisis : Democrats playing the Discrimination Card to enable people to avoid their financial responsibilities. The Democrats are now trying to use the student loan obligations to torpedo the economy by encouraging irresponsible behavior on the debtor end. This individual owes the school for services rendered which she voluntarily agreed to. Grow up. Pay up. And shut up, girl.

7. What an evil world we live in. Political correctness (LIES) and lack of personal responsibility rule. I’m sure Grace College is private and this lesbian was not forced to go there and she must have volunteeringly signed an oath to abide by the college’s rules. But that doesn’t matter anymore does it? It’s all about selfishness anymore, right? Barf! America is such a disgusting country. And now watch, Grace College will be vilified and the lesbian will be the victim. Right is called wrong and wrong is called right.

8. America is not a disgusting country.
America is a beautiful country.
But there are certainly some vile disgusting cretins who will not tolerate anyone who disagrees with them. Unfortunately this PC BS has been crammed down our throats for so long now the haters think they have the right to demand that they be not just tolerated but celebrated.

9. What she isn’t telling the media is that a school in Illinois agreed to take her in as a student AND agreed to pay off her debt to Grace University because they support her lifestyle. She also isn’t telling the national media that the University President on a local radio station (with her on the line) agreed openly and publicly to give her any transcript that she needed to move on. She promptly replied that the situation still has “other options” and hung up the phone. Check with KFAB in Omaha for the details. She is another one in a generation of childish adults who think the world should cater to their every desire and lust.

10. There is a limited time period one can drop classes and not have to pay for those classes. She knew the rules, she broke the rules, had to leave the school before the semester was finished, payment is her responsibility.

11. She knew the rules when she applied to the university or shortly after acceptance. Behavior has consequences and she made an informed choice to violate the schools rules of conduct. If she wanted a non-Christian education and lax honor code she should have attended a different school.

12. this was no accident…this has been used on americans and Christians for decades…devide and rule anyway possible..she didn’t just suddenly think she was gay and she knew what kind of school she was at…this was a planned attack. wake up america

13. Here we go again.
Homosexuals only go to this places to destroy Christianity.
If you don’t agree with the rules GO ELSE WHERE!
Let your money and participation show your ideology.
Personally, I am a live and let live Conservative.
I do not judge other’s actions, UNLESS they directly involve me and mine.
If you are a Homosexual, BE ONE, but don’t try to force me to participate in any manner. I WON’T.
They CAN’T do that, they CAN’T leave well enough alone, their mental problems won’t let them. so they have lost my heart, mind, and financial support.
If you want an abortion, HAVE ONE, but don’t make me pay for YOURS, nor your birth control.
The pro Abortionist have lost my heart, mind, and financial support.
Leave RELIGIOUS based schools, businesses, churches, and organizations (BSA) ALONE!
There are plenty that don’t care, so WHY go after the ones that do, a SMALL %.
But, the hate filled knuckle heads JUST CAN’T do it.
This is all becoming an issue for normal people BECAUSE it’s being forced down our throats.
Things are about to change, and not in a good way for these insane dolts.
Watch and see. Pass the popcorn.

14. heathen, that’s a straw man. And you know it.
Too many other options out there than be all whiny because the school, organization, business, or church doesn’t agree with your lifestyle. But no, YOU have to force your crap on everyone else when just using other options would suffice.
This is about to become a big issue in America. CHRISTIANS are waking up., and that’s who you mean, don’t deny it. You darn sure won’t put Islam in that category, and they KILL you for not being Islamic.
God nor Christ never said to not defend you and yours. NEVER.
Watch and see lil’ buddy, watch and see.

15. Here we have another case where another homosexual person lies or deceives their religious employer/school to either stay employed or to continue to receive payments and or academic credentials.

A religious school has first amendment rights to protect their faith from non religious violations.

Just like with the kaitylun hunt cultists, the gay left just wants to glom on to this story and make it about homosexual civil rights (civil privileges actually) when its really about constitutional religious rights.

This Woman should pay back every dime.

Arrested 14-Year-Old Faces Jail for Wearing NRA "Protect Your Right" T-Shirt

Whatever you think of the gun debate in America, this goes too far.

Marcum, a 14-year-old-boy from West Virginia got into an argument with a teacher for wearing his NRA (National Rifle Association) T-shirt with the image of a firearm and the words “Protect Your Right” printed on it at his school.

He was arrested for disturbing the education process and for obstructing an officer — the latter, according to court documents, because Marcum refused to stop talking, thus hindering the arresting officer from doing his job.

Marcum was suspended from school, after which he returned to class wearing the exact same shirt, as did other students in a show of solidarity.

He is now facing a $500 fine and a year in jail.

From The Blaze:

WOWK-TV reported Jared Marcum saying he never thought there would be a problem with his pro-Second Amendment apparel.

“I never thought it would go this far because honestly I don’t see a problem with this. There shouldn’t be a problem with this,” Marcum told WOWK-TV.

Police confirmed that Marcum had been arrested and faced charges of obstruction and disturbing the education process after getting into an argument over the shirt with a teacher at Logan Middle School, which is south of Charleston.

Logan Middle School’s policy regarding dress states:

"A student will not dress or groom in a manner that disrupts the educational process or is detrimental to the health, safety or welfare of others. A student will not dress in a manner that is distractive or indecent, to the extent that it interferes with the teaching and learning process, including wearing any apparel that displays or promotes any drug-, alcohol- or tobacco-related product that is prohibited in school buildings, on school grounds, in school-leased or owned vehicles, and at all school-affiliated functions."

The student’s father, Allen Lardieri, told WOWK that the shirt didn’t violate this policy, nor did his son become aggressive when confronted about it.

“I will go to the ends of the earth, I will call people, I will write letters, I will do everything in the legal realm to make sure this does not happen again,” Lardieri said.

It doesn't sound like Marcum's shirt violated the school's policy. It looks more like the school and police violated Marcum's right to free expression.

HuffPo Shows How for the Left "Hate" Applies only to Preferred Victims

The Huffington Post, that wonderful Leftist outlet, has shown how hate-free it is by posting the video of a spoof made in response to negative comments for the Cheerios advertisement featuring a mixed-race couple and their daughter.

The ad "generated such a strong racist backlash on YouTube that the comments section had to be closed", laments the staunch guardian of morality and enemy of all hatred HuffPo.

Pity that, under the "Most Popular" column (screenshot above), just below the video response to reprehensible haters, there is a photo labelled "This Dog's Butt Looks Like Jesus".

Of course, offending the world's 2.18 billion Christians (a third of the global population - an astonishing figure, considering how much they are persecuted and killed for their religion in Asia and Africa, and discriminated against in the "developed", soon to revert to underdeveloped, world) for no good reason, not, say, involuntarily in the course of a well-argued discussion with the intention of making some valid points but just for the - quite appropriately - hell of it, to make fun at their beliefs without provocation or motive is OK. But maybe there is a motive: could it be, wait for it, hate?

Since the similarity, in this case, is evidently very much in the eye of the beholder, why did The Huffington Post not find or invent another likelihood?

If the photo had been "This Dog's Butt Looks Like Martin Luther King", would HuffPo, which knows everything about questions of ethics, first of all bigotry and racism, have considered it offensive to the black civil rights movement and not published it?

And what about a photo "This Dog's Butt Looks Like Muhammad"?

That is out of the question. In primis, the HuffPo staff value their lives and limbs more than moral and political integrity and avoidance of double standards and, unlike Christians, Muslims don't take insults gracefully and, what's more important for the HuffPo personnel's incolumity, peacefully, as we've had myriad opportunities to see during the last, well, 1,400 years.

In secundis, the political editor of the UK version of The Huffington Post is none other than our old Mulism friend Mehdi Hasan, who on more than one occasion was caught on video calling non-Muslims "people of no intelligence" and comparing them to animals and cattle, showing to be speciesist as well as Muslim supremacist.

He would not have taken this insult lying down, especially coming from infidels, in his esteemed opinion animals and people of no intelligence.

Lies about the Catholic Church Child Sex Abuse Scandal

If I say "Catholic Church", does the idea of sexual child abuse instinctively form in your mind more often, or more intensely, than if I say "BBC"?

If so, why do you think that is?

Do you instinctively associate the Catholic Church with sexual child abuse? And do you immediately associate the BBC with sexual child abuse?

If you answer yes to the first question and no to the second, why do you think that is?

Because these kinds of associations are created, or not created, as the case may be, in the minds of people by the mainstream media, which are for hours every day talking and showing images inside people's living rooms, being read by commuters on trains or buses, listened to by people in their cars. One of these media, indeed a very prominent one, in fact the world's largest broadcast news organisation, is the BBC itself, which has been found out to be involved in the cover-up of extensive and prolonged children sex abuse in its midst.

I haven't seen Richard Dawkins or Peter Tatchell demanding the arrest of BBC heads. Is it perhaps because they don't give a fig about child abuse half as much as they care about attacking the Church under any pretext (true or false it doesn't matter)?

Peter Hitchens, at the time when these nutcakes who included his own brother Christopher Hitchens, fundamentalist atheists that we call "professor" and militant homosexual activists that declare to be "human-rights advocates" called for the arrest of Pope Benedict XVI, wrote:

But the Vatican doesn’t actually tell its priests to abuse children. The vast majority of them do not so do. And it has tried to stamp out the problem and to offer genuine apologies to the victims.

I (as a non-Roman Catholic) have examined some of the main charges levelled against Benedict XVI by his attackers, and found that several of them are simply untrue, whereas others have been crudely distorted.

I have also examined the record of one of the main critics of the Papal visit. This is Peter Tatchell, prominent in the ‘Protest the Pope’ campaign.

...But this does not cancel out what I believe is the hypocrisy of his attempt – and that of the Left in general – to wage war on the Pope by employing the charge of condoning or failing to act against paedophilia (it is No  5 in the charge-sheet set out by ‘Protest the Pope’).

For on June 26, 1997, Mr Tatchell wrote a start­ling letter to the Guardian newspaper.

In it, he defended an academic book about ‘Boy-Love’ against what he saw as calls for it to be censored.

Tatchell defends under-age sex in his own website too, and advocates the removal of age of consent. He claims: "Nevertheless, like any minimum age, it is arbitrary and fails to acknowledge that different people mature sexually at different ages. A few are ready for sex at l2; others not until they're 20. Having a single, inflexible age of consent doesn't take into account these differences. It dogmatically imposes a limit, regardless of individual circumstances".

In this, he is in good company: his comrades of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) want the same, so much so that Wikipedia is having a discussion about listing the entry for the CPGB in the Pedophile Organizations category.

Why do I say that these are Tatchell's comrades? Because Tatchell has a history of militant Marxism, although he keeps quiet about it.

The Left, with its atheist bent, has consistently been in favour of "free love" for everybody, children included. In France, as an example, the petition for the removal of the age of consent was signed by a veritable group of socio-communists, which comprised Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Louis Althusser, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Roland Barthes, the novelist/gay activist Guy Hocquenghem and many others.

Now, the above leads us to the two main points of this article.

The first is that those who are and have been most vociferous and aggressive in their condemnation of the Catholic Church over the abuse episode, starting from the BBC and finishing with Peter Tatchell, have done so not for the sake of children's welfare but for their own political goals, in which the destruction of the Church, Christianity and indeed the sense of decency and morality are central. This is evident from their hypocrisy on the matter.

The second point, which will now be demonstrated by studies and statistical evidence, is that paedophilia is rampant in this day and age NOT because of the Church and the sexual ethics of self-restraint it believes in, BUT exactly because of the opposite, because Christian and in particular Catholic values in the sexual sphere have been eroded, and children are those who are paying the greatest price, not just due to the increase in the incidence of paedophilia cases, but also due to the breaking-up of families and progressive destruction of the institution of marriage.

Here I'll introduce to you the Canadian author and broadcaster Michael Coren and his book Why Catholics Are Right (Amazon USA) , (Amazon UK) , from which I will quote, since he has made an extensive, thorough and accurate research which should be read by anyone who has even the slightest urge to make pronouncements on this subject.

From page 12 and following [all emphases added]:

The rates of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church were in the past exactly the same as those in other Christian Churches and within other faith communities, though they may well be lower now. More than this, they were on a par with the abuse rates within any institution involving a power ratio between adult and young person, such as education, sports teams, and so on. All these incidents are deeply tragic. But to single one of these bodies out for particular venom seems strange. Of course, the Church speaks with a moral authority not claimed by a sports club or a school, so in this regard it is right that the Church should be particularly exposed, but the condemnation went much further than justified criticism and became dishonest, libellous, and hysterical. Horrible as it is to contemplate, the most dangerous place for a young person with regard to sexual abuse is the family, often with young women being abused by stepfathers or stepbrothers. Today the Catholic Church is probably the safest place for a young boy or girl because of what the Church has done to make it so. This is in no way to adopt the odious "it's not just us" approach but to show that abuse is not peculiar to the Church and says nothing specific about Catholicism.

If we look at the situation in the United States within other religious groups and various secular bodies, we see a revealing if disturbing picture, and the United States is entirely typical of the international experience. In Protestant circles, for example, a 1984 survey showed that 38.6 per cent of ministers reported some sort of sexual contact with a member of the Church and 76 per cent claimed to know of another minister who had had sexual intercourse with someone who attended the Church. Nor is this confined to one particular branch of the Protestant Church but seems to pervade liberal, mainstream, and orthodox denominations. The highly respected Fuller Seminary conducted an extensive survey of 1,200 ministers and concluded that 20 per cent of conservative pastors admitted to a sexual relationship outside of marriage with a member of the Church, with the figure doubling to an extraordinary 40 per cent for self-identified moderate ministers - the numbers rise to a staggering 50 per cent for so-called liberals. How much of this behaviour concerns minors is uncertain but the number is likely to be relatively low. Professor Philip Jenkins estimates that between 2 and 3 per cent of Protestant clergy have abused minors, but he puts the figure for Catholic priests at less than 2 per cent. Jenkins, remember, is a former Catholic who is now an Anglican and is far from being a Roman Catholic apologist. In 2002, the Christian Science Monitor, not a particular friend or supporter of Catholicism, reported on the results of national surveys conducted by an organization called Christian Ministry Resources and stated that, "despite headlines focusing on the priest paedophile problem in the Roman Catholic Church, most American Churches being hit with child sexual-abuse allegations are Protestant, and most of the alleged abusers are not clergy or staff, but Church volunteers".

Beyond the Christian faith, Rabbi Arthur Gross Schaefer, professor of law and ethics at Loyola Marymount University, believes that sexual abuse among rabbis within organized Judaism is roughly the same as that found within Protestant clergy. "Sadly," says Rabbi Schaefer, "our community's reactions up to this point have been often based on keeping things quiet in an attempt to do damage control. Fear of lawsuits and bad publicity have dictated an atmosphere of hushed voices and outrage against those who dare to break ranks by speaking out." In the field of education, the American Medical Association found in 1986 that one in four girls and one in eight boys were sexually abused in or out of school before the age of 18. In the city of New York alone, at least one child is sexually abused by a school employee every day! in 1994, Hofstra University professor Charol Shakeshaft conducted a study of 225 cases of educator sexual abuse in New York City and found that although every one of the accused admitted to sexual abuse of a student, not one of the abusers was reported to the authorities, and only 1 per cent of the abusers lost their licence to teach.

In 2001, the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System developed by the Children's Bureau in the United States found that approximately 903,000 children were victims of maltreatment, and 10 per cent of them (or a little more than 90,000) were sexually abused. It also found that 59 per cent of the perpetrators of child abuse or neglect were women and 41 per cent were men, statistics that reflect international findings. In the same year, clinical child psychologist Wade F. Horn wrote a report on the work of researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, where it was shown that nearly 20 per cent of low-income women in their study had experienced sexual abuse as children, with family friends constituting the largest group of abusers, followed by uncles and cousins, then stepfathers, and then brothers.

Which is all pretty depressing stuff and, again, must not be used to somehow explain away the Catholic scandal just because evil, exploitation, and abuse is a theme in almost every area of society. What this does show is that those critics who seemed to be so morbidly eager to prove that abuse was all about Catholicism, about Catholic teaching, and about Catholic sexuality were completely wrong and never made a worthy attempt to put the horror in any sort of valuable context. So at its most clinical, we need to describe the abuse crisis that happened within the Church primarily but not exclusively in the 1960s and 1970s. In this period, between 1.5 and 4 per cent of Roman Catholic clergy were involved directly or indirectly in the abuse of young people under their authority. The figure includes those who may not have physically abused anyone but were aware in some way of the abuse and by not stopping it enabled it and allowed the abusers to repeat the offence. Most informed commentators think that the 4 per cent figure is far too high, but we will never know the exact number of victims because not every victim has come forward, for a variety of entirely understandable reasons. Most of the abused were boys between the ages of twelve and sixteen, but younger boys and girls were also molested. Although the term "paedophile priests" was and is commonly used, it is misleading and sometimes appears to be intended to mislead. A crime, of course, is a crime, but if we are to deal with the perpetrators properly and try to stop the crime being repeated, we need to understand its precise nature and stop dealing in tabloid terminology and sensational headlines. Alliteration is no substitution for accuracy.

Photo of Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome: Pixabay