@izzythepush,
Izzythepush I don’t think you have any idea how bad the child molestation problem was in some of these religious cults. When I was looking through my library for my original source Psalm 137.9 I came across that statement saying that they believed that the unmolested children were a minority in Irish parochial schools. Some of the books I bought for the argument with the preacher had detailed information about the widespread problem of child molestation in religious cults. Do I believe it? In America one in four women is raped in her lifetime many of them as adults. An adult woman has a far better chance of warding off a rapist than a child. Rape is not about sex it is about power. Religious cults are power structures where the power is almost entirely invested in the cult leader. Priests would simply go take a child out of class and take them back to their office. They had unlimited access to children and the child was not likely to report the priest and if he did the child was not believed in most cases.
It was like setting up a personal harem for a Sultan. If for some reason the child was believed the church talked the parents into not taking it to the authorities and the priest was simply transferred to another parish to continue molesting.
I watched a crime program where an entire family was gunned down except for the son. When it was investigated they found that the son had killed his mother, father and sister. The reason was when the mother went up to tell her son breakfast was ready she opened the door and saw his former scout master in bed with her son. He had climbed through the window. The scout master a pillar of the community and church elder had been molesting his scout troop for many years. He would take them in the woods and have them dig graves and tell them if they ever told he would bury them there. He had molested this boy since he was 5 and at the time of the murder he was 18. The mother didn’t say anything at the time but later told the boy she would have to tell his father. The boy told the scout master that he had been seen in his bed room. The scout master told him it was his problem and if he couldn’t solve it he would need to kill his parents.
Power and molestation go together like a horse and buggy. Religious cults are the perfect storm for child molestation, the molester is often beyond reproach he is god’ proxy on earth. Whether one believes that the unmolested Children are in a minority in Irish parochial schools or not children are the ideal victims powerless and weak while the cult leader is there to teach his flock morality.
The fact that both rape and child molestation are about power should tell us to closely monitor situations where vast differences in power naturally exist.
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“There were plenty of people educated by priests that didn’t suffer a sore bottom.”
Izzythepush
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Do you think they would have told you? The first thing they are instructed to do is not to tell anyone under the penalty of not only their death but the death of their family. Not mention there is always a stigma of shave involved. I had a conversation with a close family member who in fact did go to parochial school, she was in her late 40s and I made some remarks about a difficult childhood and the number of time she ran away from home and I had a hard time believing what I was told however it didn’t take place in school. I know of children on both sides of the family tree that were molested. Until recently these were secrets that were not spoken of by most people.
