When growing up I was dedicated to the church. I attended a Catholic school and was an alter boy. I was lucky to have never been selected by one of these priest predators. I was probably lucky that most my contact was with the strict no nonsense nuns who ran the school (I can still feel the knuckle pain).

I was always led to believe there were two main religions; Catholic and non-Catholic. However, in my early teens I started to doubt that the only persons awaiting me in heaven were true Catholics. I had veered from the church for good by my middle teens.

I am sad for the thousands of youngsters who fell pray to these guys. I know that at age eight or nine priests to me were just one step over my parents in the hierarchy chain. They had complete control, and look what they did.

Whacking you on the knuckles is child abuse too, Jack.

ooops, sorry...Gibby

Jack, what is preventing the government (Federal, State, or local) from prosecuting the Church under an organized crime statute (such as RICO)? Is there a legal hurdle to overcome or is it just political expediency?

They want to make the old pervert who presided over all this a saint so bad they've moved him to the front of the line.

Saint John Paul II - only the good die young

OMG..that's just in the Boston Archdiocese? If so, it's obviously just a geographic AND date sample...How long has the Church been covering this up? In this light, you're not exaggerating to say it's likely the world's largest child abuse ring--indeed, whether the Church's entire history shouldn't be re-written with this in mind. How do you say "that bleep is really bleeped up" in Latin (since that's the only way the Vatican communicates about this "sensitive" topic).

Someone was watching over me when the local priest refused to baptize me and my brother (long and political) back in the 50s per my great-grandmother's death bed request to my father. I know the church belongs to the people (despite what the pope and his minions think) but the people have been loathe to stand up to clerical abuses of power for far too long.

And not having to attend Catholic school with crazy, abusive nuns.... PRICELESS

"How do you say "that bleep is really bleeped up' in Latin?"

Corruptio optimi pessima = Corruption of the best is the worst

Flaco, that is a succinct latinism that understates the enormity of the evil. The linked article below from Google Scholar states that in 1993 there were 150,000 confirmed cases of child sex abuse. The studies show no evidence of dramatic increases in numbers since WW II. There is little evidence of race or socioeconomic connections.

http://www.jstor.org/pss/1602522

The father of the owner's of McMenamin's was an attorney who said in a late 80's interview for the U-of-P magazine the sex abuse cases he was (or had been) handling for the PDX archdiocese were "tip of the iceberg..."

Fred, the numbers cited by the article you linked to are indeed staggering and I do not intend to understate the problem.

With the Latin phrase, I was trying to show that the Catholic Church hierarchy should know that they institutionalized the complete opposite of grace. That is horrific as is the suffering it visited on each of the victims.

Of these sex cases, what's the percentage of statutory rape and rape cases of total cases? The percentage of child molestation cases?

Flaco, thank you for another precise statement: "..they institutionalized the complete opposite of grace..." I think Aquinas would call that evil. The seminaries of the 60's may have bought into the notion that the evil was cured by psychiatry, not grace and sent offenders off for treatment. Has anything changed in the larger culture?

Mind boggling. 132 names from the Boston Archdiocese. How many world wide? How can people not take the church back?