power

pilgrim said -
The reason for referring to this study in this thread, was tied to an earlier statement by Benoit......'abuse of power by the clergy'.

This report would seem to support that claim.

I see your point now, and yes this is an abuse of power by the men who committed these abuses. But that is not the same thing as the Church abusing its power, which I think is Benoit's claim. Still i have to wait and see what it is he is complaining about because it has not been made clear.

In response to your point yes this abuse of power by the Priests is a horrible offense and should be dealt with as severely as possible by the civil authorities and the Church should assist these authorities in any way it can.

pilgrim said -
I guess from your comments it would be fair to conclude that churches which take the Name of Jesus Christ seem unable to determine which of their ordained clergy are child molesters.

I think that is a fair assumption since otherwise they would not ever place them in a position to commit these sins. Fortunately or unfortunately that is one aspect of sin men have no control over, that of being able to look into the hearts of others and determine who is sinning or will sin. That form of omniscience is reserved for Christ. I say unfortunately because it would come in handy in this type of situation and I say fortunately because is there any among us who would want to be burden with such knowledge of the souls of others? We are told not to judge others, I think, specifically because it is way to deep and terrifying an aspect considering we all are sinners and worthy of hell.

pilgrim said -
You seem to suggest that 'only' 4% is an acceptable number since it is the 'norm'.

If that is how it seems to you then I apologize because I find no level of this behavior to be acceptable. My point was that it being below the norm shows that it is not specific to the Catholic Church and so the problem is one of individual sin and not of an abuse of power by the Church, unless of course you want to accuse all denominations and the population at large of being culpable of abuse of power when its member sin thusly.

pilgrim said -
Neither Paul's thorn nor Peters sin, seem to be on par with child sexual abuse.

This is a particularly nasty sin, which uses the abuse of power to gain it's goal.

Again that was not my point. I made this comparison to show that men sin, even clergy and the fact that they do does not call into question the Church itself.