Dear Still,
You raise good and valid points.
You're right about the problems counting gays, especially in countries where there is significant persecution. You can't tell in the case of youngsters, they're just not counted. As far as my understanding of the percentage goes, I looked in three places, Centers for Disease Control, Census Bureau, and a Wiki answer that referenced five different studies. All of the numbers I saw were between 0.6% and 5.4% I'm just picking 3-4% as a convenience. If you'd like I'll get those links to you.
The only reason I brought up the homosexuality figure was because it was the only other human behavior I knew, off the top of my head, that was about 4% of the population. If 4% of the population wore mullets, I would have used that. And the purpose of all that was to try to show that relatively few priests were accused of sex abuse, not a "rampant" situation.
Some of your questions I'm having a hard time answering, I know what I want to say, I think, but I'm having trouble with the words. Here are your points I'm talking about:
I am talking about an organization that facilitates and covers up and illegal sexual act.Part of my problem is that there is the Church, the Vatican, National Bishops Conferences, individual dioceses, and something called "The Pink Mafia." All different.
OK, try it this way. If people molest children in the US and people molest children in Zimbabwe, then it would hardly be fair to just leave the comparison at that and only look at child molesters.
But.
If Company XYZ turned out to be molesting children in the US and in Zimbabwe, would it not be fair to take a look at company XYZ?
The Vatican knew all too well what was going on and took part in the priest swapping that was the main crux of the coverup. There is a reason THE CATHOLIC CHURCH has paid out over a billion dollars in restitution to victims of sexual abuse. I can hardly find any other single organization to even dream of coming close to that.
Of course, the Church, as the teachings and principles of Catholicism would never accept or approve of any of that behavior.
The Vatican might be compared to the White House, or maybe Washington D.C., back in the early 1800's. The dioceses (the area that a bishop has under his control) might be compared to the States. There was a lot of State's Rights talk back then and The Federal government pretty much left the states alone. Believe it or not, the abuse problem had gotten pretty significant before the "States" let the Vatican know what was going on. Mostly it was hushed up in the diocese and never got out. "The Pink Mafia" was kind of an unofficial secret network or club for gay priests, going as high as Archbishops and possibly Cardinals, who would look out for each other in various ways. It had no boundaries. I don't know to what extent it still exists.
Some of the transfer of priests was part of the 'hushing-up" process, but part of it also was that at that time the best medical course of action was a change of situation and extensive therapy for the offender. Criminal proceedings were seen as a poor choice by the psychiatric community.
Anyway, I see I'm writing a book. I suppose it is both tiring and boring so I'll get off. One good thing to come from this is that the number of abuse incidents (not the number of reports of past incidents) fell to a very low level in the mid '80s and has stayed there since. It looks like the Vatican has got it under control.
With respect,
Charles1952
