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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Bilby (talk | contribs) at 23:43, 13 August 2011 (→Disputed: Comment). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Australia section

I have been removing the recent Australia section comments because they are unreferenced commentary and - therefore - considered as original research. The comments also refer in a misleading way to accusations against Cardinal Pell which were not in fact sustained. As far as I am concerned it is a BLP violation to refer to such accusations without also mentioning this fact. Therefore I have removed all the recent Australian comments due to their policy problems Anglicanus (talk) 06:45, 26 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Christopher Jarvis

Christopher Jarvis recently admitted to 12 counts of making, possessing and distributing child pornography, ironically he was a child protection official for the Catholic church. Here's a source: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2011/07/31/church-child-protection-chief-caught-with-child-porn-pictures-115875-23308972/

I think it's worth mentioning in the 2011 section of the article.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.37.24.56 (talk) 14:19, 7 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Dr. Thomas Plante quote issues

A Perspective on Clergy Sexual Abuse by Dr. Thomas Plante of Stanford University and Santa Clara University states that "approximately 4% of priests during the past half century (and mostly in the 1960s and 1970s) have had a sexual experience with a minor" which "is consistent with male clergy from other religious traditions and is significantly lower than the general adult male population which may double these numbers".

1.) Dr. Thomas Plante is a full professor at Santa Clara University (a Catholic school), and only a clinical associate professor (volunteer role) at Stanford -- he is not on their academic staff. I propose removing "Stanford University" as he does not represent Stanford academia or research. See his CV.

So we can change to "professor at Santa Clara University and clinical associate professor at Stanford" 194.76.232.147 (talk) 09:43, 10 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

2.) Additionally Dr. Plante is a practicing, active Catholic himself and serves on the Diocese Review Board for Diocese of San Jose among other functions. I believe this possible conflict of interest should be mentioned, at the least. Thoughts on that?

The only thing that is important should be his qualification. As long as no one disputes his remarks from a scientific point of view, there should be no mention of other highly disputable "factors". 194.76.232.147 (talk) 09:43, 10 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

3.) What is the Wikipedia-worthy significance of this quote, as there is question to his impartiality and is not a notable expert on the topic? Also the percentages he mention don't match up with Wikipedia's own article on pedophilia. Can we remove this controversial quote or at least write-in the appropriate caveats? aerotheque (talk) 03:11, 8 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

He is an expert on the topic as are a lot of other psychologists. If there are contradictions, they should simply be mentioned. The importance of the quote derives from his estimation on the scope of sexual abuse. 194.76.232.147 (talk) 09:43, 10 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
In the WP-article on pedophilia it's written:
The prevalence of pedophilia in the general population is not known,[1][2] but is estimated to be lower than 5% based on several smaller studies with prevalence rates between 3% and 9%.[1][3]
So the ratio is estimated at 5% or lower based on smaller studies who showed a prevalence of even 9 %. That seems to be consistent with Plante's estimation.--Ricerca (talk) 15:41, 12 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  1. ^ a b Seto MC.(2009) Pedophilia. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology 5:391-407.
  2. ^ Seto MC (2004). "Pedophilia and sexual offenses against children". Annu Rev Sex Res. 15: 321–61. PMID 16913283.
  3. ^ Ahlers, C. J., Schaefer, G. A., Mundt, I. A., Roll, S., Englert, H., Willich, S. N. and Beier, K. M. , How Unusual are the Contents of Paraphilias? Paraphilia-Associated Sexual Arousal Patterns in a Community-Based Sample of Men. The Journal of Sexual Medicine. doi: 10.1111/j.1743-6109.2009.01597.x

Disputed

Sections covering statistics and accuracy are far from being accurate and up-to-date. The complete information about the abuse scope (abuse?! - why not about rape and sexual assaults?) is not known nor ever will be known, on one side. On another side, we have a huge amount of information not covered by this article. There is, also, excessive use of another bad word: alleged.--71.178.110.201 (talk) 23:42, 9 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think that you are right by criticizing the lack of information in that article. Feel free to ad. On the other side, this is not a documentation and reliable scientific literature on these cases is until today very rare. So there is at the moment a little problem with WP:RECENT and consequently good reason to take the time to better estimate the importance of certain facts. Apart from that: "Alleged" is a very precise word for things, that are only alleged. And that is the case in a lot of abuse cases concerned by this article. So the word is not bad at all, if it's well used. Ricerca (talk) 17:12, 10 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The statistics comes from a report commissioned by Roman Catholic Church and based on incomplete and selective data. It shall be removed completely and just mentioned in this article within a single sentence. As to the media coverage, it shall be reduced to two or three sentences just used to illustrate the Church attempt to divert public attention to somewhere else i.e. to make the Church crimes of lesser severity. 'Alleged', as used here, is far from being precise. Apparently there are many who wants this article written in the Church line. The Church crimes shall not be obscured by extensive use of this word (alleged) in the article.--Eleven Nine (talk) 13:18, 11 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
"based on incomplete and selective data" is the reason why it is inaccurate to talk about "cases", if there are in fact allegations. Presumption of innocence applies also to priests and other catholics. And the problem on the abuse cases and the John-Jay-Report is very simple: there is no other data. Even bishopaccountability works with it.
Concerning the media article I think there are also well based criticisms to the media on the handling of that issue. These criticisms should be mentioned like all the other stuff. Ricerca (talk) 13:31, 11 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It is laughable that evidence about those heinous crimes committed by RCC priests are just marked here as 'allegations'. "Presumption of innocence" lasts more than a half of century testifying only about lies and obstruction of justice. The article is chocked by the "church responses" which is in the line of the above "presumption". So, the way to improve the article is to completely drop the "Church responses" replacing it by what was the real church response: self defense based on lies, deception, and obstruction of justice.--Eleven Nine (talk) 12:43, 12 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No one wants to rename committed crimes. But for good reason there is a difference between proven and alleged (or accused and convicted). So it is the best to distinguish and name the things according to what they are. --Ricerca (talk) 15:30, 12 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
'Alleged' is not alleged at all. Many of those who committed that horrible crime of raping innocent and helpless children remained at large for the widespread coverup and obstruction of justice committed by the RCC and Vatican. The cash settlements were used to force the victims to give up their legal rights to name those criminals and have them brought to the court and punished. Especially in Ireland where in this coverup is involved even the Irish prime minister Enda Keny. Bottom line: shall we name the crime covered up by the cash settlements just "allegations"?! Read here more about this man: http://www.swp.ie/news/cloyne-report-kenny-still-covering-clergy/4748--71.178.110.201 (talk) 23:38, 13 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Settlements don't confirm guilt. They may suggest it, but there are other reasons why someone might choose to settle instead of going to court. Generally, we need to use alleged until the crimes are proven in court, especially where living people are concerned. - Bilby (talk) 23:43, 13 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I did read in another section about the Catholic church about the increased numbers of Catholic church members. I was wondering if there have ever been any decent/accurate surveys of how many members have actually left the church becuase of the sexual abuse scandals??Mylittlezach (talk) 23:15, 13 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I found some articles proving the opposite. There is a large number of people in Germany, Austria and Ireland who legally abandoned the RCC. Also, there is a huge dropout in the number of regular churchgoers in the USA. I remember that a couple years ago that dropout was about 25%. The RCC never gave a true account about losing her position in the West. I assume they got some gains in underdeveloped world, especially in Africa.--71.178.110.201 (talk) 23:38, 13 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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