You would think that after what seems like non-stop revelations of Catholic priests abusing children, parents would not let their children be alone with a priest. And yet, when the priest of a parish in Oregon told the parents of a 12-year old boy that he would like to take their son on a trip to the mountains, they not only agreed but let the boy spend the night in the priest’s house.
You can probably guess what happened and it was disgusting.
It ended with the terrified boy running away down the street followed by the priest in his underwear. Fortunately for the boy a nearby resident took him and returned him to his family.
I was reminded of this story about film director Alfred Hitchcock.
Hitchcock was a lonely, imaginative, obese child, raised Catholic and trained to give his mother the day’s confession every night.
As an adult, driving in Switzerland one day, Hitchcock pointed out the window and told a friend, “That is the most frightening sight I have ever seen.” The friend looked out with alarm and saw only a priest with his arm around a young boy. But Hitchcock leaned out of the car: “Run, little boy! Run for your life!”
All parents, and young children, would be well advised to follow Hitchcock’s advice.
(Via Gawker)
I’d like to add that Catholic priests don’t have a monopoly on child sex abuse by religious leaders. There have been a lot of the same going on in independent fundamentalist Baptist churches -- since those churches aren’t part of a larger national or worldwide organization, they have a much lower profile.
Hitchcock had been a pupil at St Ignatius College, Stamford Hill in North London -- a notorious flogging establishment run by the jesuits who were determined to spoil no child. I spent a miserable year there. In my time there kiddie fiddling was not at all unknown; all the kids knew which priests to avoid. I imagine it was much the same in Hitchcock’s day, if not worse on both counts, explsining his telling the young boy in Switzerland to run for his life. My reaction would be the same.
Such a pity that (sfaik) Hitchcock never made a film about The Church™.
Grooming can be very powerful. Likely this preist had been manipulating the parents for a long time to convince them he could be trusted. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyr26buJQrg&feature=youtu.be This video really opened my eyes and taught me that more so than telling children to “say no and tell someone” there are things a child can do before it gets that far. For example, tell your child that if any adult, ever, tells them to keep a secret from their own parents, to tell the parents. Often grooming involves testing the child by seeing if they can keep small secrets and then working upward. And of course it’s not just the child who is tested and manipulated, but parents as well. They can spend years working up to the offense.
As crazy as it sounds to us about what the parents did, let’s not take the blame away from the offender. This only enables them. These predators are highly manipulative. I found this report fascinating- http://www.missingkids.com/en_US/publications/NC70.pdf
There’s no end to these stories, is there?
Less than a month ago, a Polish priest was arrested in Boston for possessing child pornography. He had been moved from Poland to Boston to “service” the immigrant community. It makes you wonder what he was up to in his own country that they had to send him across an ocean.
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-08-01/news/sns-rt-us-usa-priest-pornographybre87014m-20120801_1_boston-priest-boston-police-department-archdiocese
What kind of organisation, other than a religious one, could have behaved in the way that the RCC has and still had as much as a single member remaining? Without the protection gained from pretending to be a religion, the leaders of the RCC would have been rounded up, tried for crimes against humanity, and locked up for life.
Despite what ~G~ says, any parent who hands their kid over to be abused by a Catholic priest has been criminally negligent.
Ah, but this archdiocese is a model for the Roman Catholic church — why, it’s been 30 years since the last time they were caught.
Ultra-orthodox Jews make the catholics look like rank amateurs. They’ve managed to ensure that child rapists get off with short probations and no entry on the sex offenders registry.
That was supposed to be a reply to smrnda.
Oddly enough, that is less than 50 miles from my home but no news coverage that I’ve seen.
Shocking but such incidents don’t seem to be uncommon. It is the parents’ responsibility to avoid sending their children with a stranger, priest or not.