Why Many Protestants Are Twenty Years Behind American Catholics As to Sexual Abuse

I post on this topic last week but a few articles have come out that makes me want to visit it again.

Stop Baptist Predators has two posts that should be read in tandem. First a very good piece she highlights that came from the Huff Post. See Twenty years behind . Also to get a feeling how this applies to Southern Baptist see here post right after that Independent Baptist Eddie Long .

Let me add a few observations to the Huff post piece that is linked.

There is something rather "American" about the system or system in theory about how the Southern Baptist and in fact many other Protestant groups govern themselves. Americans because of history have a strong distrust of centralized hovernment and hierarchy. The Baptists on the other hands and others believe in local Church government. The local Church and the Local Priesthood of the believers reign supreme. Again very American!!

The problem is in essence to point out flaws in this structure which is claimed to have a strong biblical foundation and that it might have enabled problems such as sexual abuse gets problematic real fast.

Add to that that a considerable amount of lay folks would have to be involved with the problem and LAY people do not want the finger pointed at them.

For example a local Baptist or whatever faith community quitely gets rid of a child abusing Pastor or "Lay Person "involved in ministy or in education. The problem is this person resurfaces at another protestant Church or school or Mission. Well that is not our problem!! We the local Church did our job. Well the result is the same for all practical purpose where a Bishop transferred a Priest that had issues of misconduct. One is demonized and the other is not. Why?

However there is a another problem. "Priests" are viewed as different. It should be recalled that in most of these Protestant groups we are looking at there is no Sacrament of Holy Orders. In the Baptist context the distinction between "minister" and a lay person " that has been called" is mighty thin.

I have discussed this before but one crucial mistake the Catholics at SNAP have made is to focus almost entirely on Catholic Priests and Brothers as to sexual abuse. One would think for the last 40 years there has been no Catholic Lay involvement in the Church. Pure stats alone must show us within the Catholic school system alone there must have been some abuse by Lay folks. What about CCD and CYO leaders. What about Catholic lay folks in Missions? I have no doubt that in order to protect against lawsuits, scandal, and also the related topics of "forgiveness" that much of this was hushed up. Yet no one seems to be complaining about that.

I partly think the reason for that is the Lay folks in the Church might not want to be held to the same standards and procedures as Priests and Religious.

This almost obsessive focus on these mysterious celibate Catholic men have created a atmosphere where abuse in other faith communities is pretty much ignored. That is because the distinction between "Lay" and the "ordained" again gets hazy. In news reports you will often notice that an abuser at a local protestant Church will be called "a man at Church x" Though on the Church Web site just weeks before he was a Deacon , a "Minister" of Music or Youth, or had some "Minister" title.

You might not agree with everything that Stop Baptist Predators says but out of all the people involved in SNAP I have seen she does point out the "Lay" abuse scandal and how well that is covered up too. That is not occurring elsewhere and indeed is not happening in Catholic circles either.