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Major redundancy now lower in the article

With the aim to reduce the lead, seen here and here, Travers introduced significant duplication/other redundancy lower in the article by moving the lead material there. I noted this to him, seen here and here, in the edit history. Just in case Travers does not remove the duplication/other redundancy he created lower in the article, I'm noting this here for others who may wonder why that duplication/other redundancy is there and/or may want to remedy this matter. Flyer22 (talk) 02:08, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

>> Pope seeks forgiveness over priests sex abuseLihaas (talk) 15:55, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Poland addition - unencyclopedic?

An addition to the Poland section I made has been reverted as "unencyclopedic". Could the user who did this please explain why? My addition was very well sourced primarily from a 2013 Financial Times article entitled "Polish Catholic Church rocked by sex abuse scandal", plus a secondary source. Without my addition the current Poland section carries a view different to this recent cite, giving an inaccurate impression of the situation. If anyone has a better phrasing than mine, could they offer a suggestion please. Rwendland (talk) 11:38, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

For the record, I was also baffled by the revert. However, I can't see that you have directly contacted the user who reverted (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong). If it was me, I'd want to be contacted personally first, in case the revert was a misclick or a mistake in some form. Bilorv (Talk)(Contribs) 12:53, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
I thought the explanation that it was unencyclopedic was quite clear. But if you want more, the value judgments that there was a poor response from the Church for one thing, is a statement that one would never find in a real encyclopedia. Opinions states as though they were facts have no place here.Farsight001 (talk) 14:56, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
Although talking about a different context, I think WP:UNENCYCLOPEDIC applies here. Some things might be explained by the summary "unencyclopedic" but this definitely doesn't seem like one of them to me. It seems to me like your only issue with the content added was that it was phrased in a way that violated WP:NPOV. If this is the case, why not try to rephrase the text yourself, rather than removing it?
But getting back to the original issue of what to do now, here's a quick draft of something I think would be neutral - it's really very similar to the original:
However, during 2013 a succession of child sex abuse scandals became a matter of public concern. The church resisted demands to pay compensation to victims; some were unhappy with this response.[refs]
Any problems/improvements? Bilorv (Talk)(Contribs) 15:24, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
Seems repetitive. Essentially the same statement is elsewhere in the article. Multiple times I think. I also find it inaccurate, as it was not in 2013 that the scandals became a matter of public concern. On top of that, the statement "The church resisted demands to pay compensation to victims" carries a negative connotation with it and has not clarification. Every organization of significant size resists demands to pay compensation to victims for whatever they do that's bad. Car companies who don't make a recall in time still try to resist paying to victims hurt by whatever fault their car had. Resisting paying is par for the course everywhere for everyone. It would be shocking and of note if the DIDN'T resist, not that they do. The statement just seems to be there to make the Church look bad or just to fill empty space at the very least.Farsight001 (talk) 20:10, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
Okay, fine. I've not read the article in its entirety, so I can't comment on that unless I have time to read it all through tomorrow. Would "Although some said the church should pay compensation to victims, they did not." be any better or would you be happy with the first sentence alone? Bilorv (Talk)(Contribs) 21:35, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
Not really any better because, for one, saying that "some said" is too vague. Who is this "some"? And second of all, the Church has paid a LOT of money to victims, so to say they did not is patently false.Farsight001 (talk) 01:23, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
I can't access the first source ([1]). I would assume that the "some" would be the authors of the references listed, or at least a person/group mentioned in the ref.
Has the church paid money to victims? Does it say that in the first source or have you found that somewhere else? When did the scandals become a matter of public concern, if it wasn't in 2013? Where exactly is the same(ish) statement "elsewhere in the article" (I can't find it)? You can easily pick apart my rephrasing because I can't access the first source and didn't originally introduce the text. But you haven't explicitly denied that this is a relevant incident to include in the Poland section. Can you try writing something yourself? Bilorv (Talk)(Contribs) 17:57, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Page moved to Catholic Church sexual abuse cases per discussion Ground Zero | t 12:33, 9 September 2014 (UTC)


Catholic sex abuse cases → Catholic clergy sex abuse cases – This article is about a rather narrow subset of sex abuse cases that involve Catholics. The only thing uniting these cases into anything like an article-worthy notability is the fact that clergy members are involved. Evan (talk|contribs) 04:16, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

How does adding "clergy" to the title make it less "commonly recognizable?" I also disagree that it's unnecessary length; the title as it now stands is both misleading and inaccurate as a description of the actual contents. Evan (talk|contribs) 04:26, 24 August 2014 (UTC)
I disagree, and WP:Common name is clear on what it (that policy) means. I have nothing else to state on the subject. Flyer22 (talk) 04:30, 24 August 2014 (UTC)
Does "clergy" include brothers in religious orders? Or even sisters of the same? Our Clergy article suggests not. Because at least in my country some of the sexual abuse has been perpetrated by such people. If clergy excludes brothers, this name change would be wrong. HiLo48 (talk) 05:02, 24 August 2014 (UTC)
Well, clergy defines the term as encompassing "some of the formal leaders within certain religions. The roles and functions of clergy vary in different religious traditions but these usually involve presiding over specific rituals and teaching their religion's doctrines and practices." If the monks/nuns in question meet any of those criteria (and, if they were in a position where they were instructing children, they certainly would), then, for Wikipedia's purposes, I think they would be considered clergy. A large number of Catholic monks are, of course, ordained priests as well. Evan (talk|contribs) 05:26, 24 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Support but see new comment below for an alternative I like better for precision. WP:COMMONNAME doesn't apply here, because "Catholic sex abuse cases" isn't a name or title of anything, it's a made-up descriptive phrase we came up with here at Wikipedia [and apparently some others did so independently, among many other phrases, per Flyer22's Googling note below]. The proposed rename is a less ambiguous and over-broad description. Also, if our Clergy article would somehow not include Roman Catholic brothers, then that article is hosed and needs to be fixed. It's normal, everyday English to refer to priests (and Protestant preachers/pastors/reverends) as members of the clergy. If there are more specific definitions that implies national or international leadership, they should be covered, with sources, in a subsection, but they're not standard usage.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:13, 25 August 2014 (UTC) PS: Catholic clergy sexual abuse cases would actually be better, but see also below. "Sex abuse" is telegraphic writing, and really should be "sexual abuse", and "Catholic" is also shorthand. But I wouldn't flip my !vote on the basis of this concern.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  07:01, 25 August 2014 (UTC) These insertions were added after User:Red Slash's "per SMC" below.
SMcCandlish, Google shows that "Catholic sex abuse cases" isn't simply a matter that "we came up with here at Wikipedia." For example, that title, and variations of it, such as "Catholic sexual abuse scandal," was often used in the news media. Flyer22 (talk) 01:19, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
Those are two different phrases. Google also shows all sorts of other phrases in use; you can't cherry-pick one or two of them to try to make a false point about those in particular. Note also (per WP:NOT#NEWS), WP is not journalism and is not written in news style, much less the telegraphic style of news headlines and ledes, which are written in a form of shorthand, such as that which can turn a specific reference to Roman Catholic clergy or Roman Catholic priests into something as vague and intentionally drama-mongering as "Catholic" (or "Catholics") by itself. It's plainly POV-pushing to emulate this baiting of Roman Catholic Christians here on WP just to slightly shorten a title.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  07:01, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
They are two different phrases that happen to have "Catholic sex(ual) abuse" in their titles. That's my point. That has been the predominant phrasing for this topic, whether including "Roman" in the heading like this article used to do, or not. The word clergy has not been in the phrasing nearly enough. This is not a WP:NOTNEWS matter. Articles are commonly titled by what name they are/were most commonly referred to in the media, if there are not yet scholarly sources to base the WP:Common name on. Even scholarly articles commonly use the wording. So I don't see this as a POV-pushing matter, and I certainly was not interested in engaging in any "baiting of Roman Catholic Christians here on WP just to slightly shorten a title." Flyer22 (talk) 22:01, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
Using "scandal" in the title is not optimal, according to some WP:Manual of Style discussions, so that's why "scandal" is no longer used in the title. Flyer22 (talk) 22:10, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
You may well be right. Clergy states that "unordained monks, friars, nuns, and religious brothers and sisters are not part of the clergy," though it lacks a source. Evan (talk|contribs) 15:57, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
I have no objections to Catholic Church sexual abuse cases. The main point here is to get a title that reflects the Church-specific nature of the events. Just "Catholic" is too overly broad. Evan (talk|contribs) 15:56, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
I too would support Catholic Church sexual abuse cases. HiLo48 (talk) 20:54, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
Hebephilia is generally pubescents. Ephebophilia is generally post-pubescents. And, pedophilia, like the Pedophilia article notes, is not the same thing as child sexual abuse. Flyer22 (talk) 22:01, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Problematic paragraph: Original research, unreliable source (fringe), and anti-gay propaganda.

Firstly why is there a section in pedophile priests about homosexual priests? Totally separate topic and very insulting to the LGBT community. The subheader should be removed/renamded and/pr the material be put in a different place. Secondly, this constitutes original research:

According to the John-Jay-Report, 80.9% of the abuse victims in the United States were male;[100] and a study by Dr. Thomas Plante found the number may be as high as 90%.[261]

The sources don't link homosexuality to the problem in the Catholic church. These two sentences are simply compiling statistics in an attempt to lead the reader to a conclusion, and the two sentences don't say anything about homosexuality. It is original research.

The next sentence following the two OR sentences is this:

A number of books, such as "The Rite of Sodomy: Homosexuality and the Roman Catholic Church", have argued that homosexual priests view sex with minors as a "rite of passage" for altar boys and other pre-adult males.[262]

It is sourced to Engel publishing, a fringe right wing Catholic publisher. From their website: 

“New Engel Publishing is a new kid on the publishing block specializing in Internet sales of traditional Catholic and pro-life books, e-books, and tapes. We are located in Export, Pennsylvania.”

Please do better, editors, and please fix this problematic anti-gay propaganda. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.91.107.206 (talk) 17:18, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Content added by 67.184.212.160 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) has been removed from this article for copyright reasons. In spite of warning, the individual using this IP has persisted in copying content from copyrighted sources without compatible licensing to Wikipedia. The individual is at this writing indefinitely blocked from contributing because of this issue, and content is being removed in accordance with Wikipedia:Copyright violation. Please do not restore any removed text without first ensuring that the text does not duplicate, closely paraphrase or plagiarize from a previously published source. Based on the editing pattern of this person, we cannot make the assumption that the content is usable. You are welcome to use sourced facts that may have been removed to create new content in your own words or to incorporate brief quotations of copyrighted material in accordance with the non-free content policy and guideline. See Wikipedia:Copy-paste and Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/67.184.212.160. Thank you. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:15, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Ordinarily, I revert such additions to older versions, but in this case I fear that the older version is an WP:NPOV violation. Accordingly, I have tried to retain high level information. I have no background in this issue, so of course have no objection to modification of that content. It was simply done because of the copyright cleanup and the neutrality issues with older content, which I could not restore. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:15, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Latest deletions

It are actually just two sources. The newspapers provide no sources and make sarcastic remarks about Catholic dogma while more celebrating the claim that church attendance drops due to abuse then providing proof. They also promoted extra judicinial violence against the church praising the illegal Belgian raids, they pretend that child abuse is unique to the church, and it is hurtfull anti Catholic bigotry. This makes the article unbalanced especeseally when there is no such article for Protestants nor contrary sources. Also the part on Polish church attendance contradicts the article Roman Catholicism in Poland which states that most decreases in church visits were due to Polish Catholics imigrating and attending mass elsewhere. 83.128.72.82 (talk) 19:14, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Note: The IP is referring to this. Flyer22 (talk) 13:49, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

I have indicated why I thought a few anti Catholic sections needed to be deleted, and I got no response here or elsewhere. The only response I get is when I redelete the biased sections but I get the response I need to discuss it but noone responds when I try to do so. 83.128.72.82 (talk) 15:06, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

I don't consider the IP's reason for exclusion very valid. However, I am against inclusion. For one, the grammar is poor and the writing awkward. For another thing, this feels like excessive detail. Why mention decline in the Church in Haiti? Why not the U.S.? Or some other country? And if we mention decline in Haiti, should we not also include the decline everywhere else too? And if including the decline, how about the increase? It just seems like too much and a bit WP:RECENTISM Farsight001 (talk) 15:08, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) For Poland: I can't view the FT article but I can read the Telegraph article and vouch for the reliability of both sources. Can't even see any sarcasm or much bias in the Telegraph article.
For Germany: The netzwerkB article is hard to track down — I found this vaguely relevant article but the homepage of site itself doesn't verify the facts that it was sourced. Both other sources look fine.
In general: I've found nothing particularly "sarcastic" in the articles; even if I had, bias is something we cannot have on Wikipedia, but reliable sources certainly can be — and are — biased. As long as the sourced facts are true, which they seem to be, then we can include it in the article. I've reverted the removal because until consensus can be determined, we should stick to how the article originally was.
What about the Protestants?: As for there being "no such article for Protestants", or more importantly, for Islam, Judaism, Sikhism, Buddhism or any other major religion, this is because that would be undue weight. There are reliable sources documenting notoriety of Catholic sex abuse, but I've never seen any for any other religious denomination. Similarly, we have an article on Islamic terrorism that is much longer than the article on Christian terrorism, due to a prevalence of Islamic terrorism (and a plethora of Western media coverage on it). To use reductio ad absurdum, there is more coverage on Wikipedia for the United States than there is for Belarus, even though both are classified as the same denomination of land mass: countries. — Bilorv (Talk)(Contribs) 15:30, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

@Farsight001: If you feel that the sections are badly written, would you like to suggest (or boldly edit) a better summary of the sources. I can't read the FT article, which I assume was the source of any mention of Haiti. And events being recent are no reason to exclude them if they are still significant. — Bilorv (Talk)(Contribs) 15:39, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

No, because, as you can see by my post, I gave other reasons to oppose their inclusion as well, making fixing the wording pointless. And since the subject is a 2000 year old Church with currently a billion members and its relation to a series of sexual abuse cases, I would have to argue that a 2 million member drop in one country in the world is anything BUT significant. Again, why include numbers for Haiti only? Why not every country? and wouldn't that make it problematic to include every country? This is just excessive detail, poorly worded, biased, and imo, apparently recentism.Farsight001 (talk) 15:46, 16 November 2014 (UTC)
I would argue that a 2 million member drop is significant. Not in terms of Catholicism in general, but in terms of notability. Relative to the United States, for instance, this random bridge is incredibly insignificant, but in terms of Wikipedia's notability standards, it still deserves an article. Same here. Within Catholicism, the sex abuse scandal in general isn't even mentioned, but the sex abuse cases are certainly notable enough to deserve their own article. Within this article or any sub-articles, anything well-sourced enough to be included should be.
I can't personally defend Haiti. I never wrote anything about Haiti. I can't view the Financial Times article I assume the statement comes from. If you want to remove it, I'd say you can as long as you've read the FT article and can still say Haiti is irrelevant, go ahead. As for "not every country", I actually addressed that before you wrote it with my "What about the Protestants?" bit above — we can't mention every country in the world everywhere if it's not relevant. — Bilorv (Talk)(Contribs) 16:07, 16 November 2014 (UTC)
Anything well sourced enough to be included should be included? No, not at all. Excessive detail is a real thing.
And yes, I know we can't mention every country. THAT WAS MY POINT. For consistency, we would HAVE to mention data for every country, but that would be very excessive. You have not really addressed this at all (since you misunderstood it), nor the matter of recentism.Farsight001 (talk) 16:37, 16 November 2014 (UTC)
The reason I said what I did was because WP:N states "We consider evidence from reliable independent sources to gauge [notability]". Notability correlates with reliable sources; if something is backed up by reliable sources, it usually doesn't count as "excessive detail", unless we're talking about due weight, in which case the content might not deserve to be included in an overview article, but does deserve to be included somewhere on Wikipedia. And to explicitly state so, I feel that the content being discussed here is not excessive detail and does deserve to be included; there are relevant reliable sources that can be (and was) used as a basis for content written here.
And my point was that "it's not relevant", and that mentioning every country would be undue weight to those who weren't a contributing factor. We don't have to mention every country whenever we mention one country. For instance, there's no section in this article about Belarus, not even under the "Prevalence" by country bit. If we accept your point as true, that means that if we want to discuss the topic of sex abuse scandals in any one country, then "we would HAVE to mention data for every country". Clearly that's not being applied, yet I doubt you would argue that Belarus deserves equal weight to the United States in this article, as there is less coverage (if any) on Belarus.
I briefly addressed recentism with this: "And events being recent are no reason to exclude them if they are still significant." Would you care to expand on your point here? — it's not immediately obvious with just a link to WP:RECENTISM. Something being new is not a reason for not including it, and I think that page (from a cursory glance) deals more with events unfolding as they happen, rather than a set event (e.g. 2013 scandal) that happened recently (and I would argue that 2013 is not recent relative to the WP:RECENTISM essay anyway). — Bilorv (Talk)(Contribs) 17:22, 16 November 2014 (UTC)
1) Again, excessive detail is still a real thing. NOT everything that can be sourced should be in an article. Simply re-asserting that because it has a valid source, it should be included does not make your assertion any less incorrect.
2) I get that mentioning every country would be undue weight. That's exactly WHAT I SAID. Please re-read my post more carefully. Collaboration is impossible if you continue to misread what I type.
3) I know events being recent are no reason to exclude them. I never said that they were. I merely pointed out that we should NOT include it just BECAUSE its recent. We're an encyclopedia, not a news source.Farsight001 (talk) 20:58, 16 November 2014 (UTC)
  1. Fine. Let's assume that notability and reliable sources have absolutely nothing to do with each other. I think that the facts are important enough to be included. "In January 2010, 62% of German Catholics said they trusted the Pope, but by the end of March 2010, only 39% did." That's a significant difference. It's backed by reliable sources and shows a large change in attitude towards the Catholic Church and the Pope.
  2. If you're agreeing that mentioning every country would be undue weight, what's the problem? Sorry for being thick — I've read the discussion again — but I thought your argument was that if you mentioned Haiti you had to mention every country for consistency, while I was arguing that you could mention Haiti alone without having to mention any other country, as mentioning every country for "consistency" would actually be giving undue weight to countries irrelevant to the discussion. But to get more to the point: are you able to read the Financial Times article that was cited and if so, could you please summarise what (if anything) it said about Haiti? Arguing about theoretical mentions of countries won't help anyone if the word "Haiti" isn't used in the FT source, and arguing about Haiti being insignificant is incorrect if the FT source gives a good argument for why it's a big cause of Catholicism gaining a bad reputation in Poland.
  3. I'm sorry. I was just asking for a clarification on your position. I would argue that the events are not important because they're recent, but because they're relevant and important to the article. I'd say that the response to sex abuse cases in Poland is more important than the Polish abuse cases themselves, as "the scale [is] very low", according to the Catholic Church, but that paragraph has remained in the article while the response paragraph has been removed. Germany, again, shows notable responses to the cases.

I'd like a third opinion here. If anyone's reading this — including the original IP commenter — please weigh in. @Cfred: You reverted the removal a couple of times. Do you have an opinion? — Bilorv (Talk)(Contribs) 22:25, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

I didn't say that notability and reliability had nothing to do with each other. I didn't even say that it wasn't notable. I merely pointed out that there is such a thing as excessive detail in an encyclopedia where we are supposed to provide an overview, not every detail we can find, and that I believe this counts as excessive.Farsight001 (talk) 01:37, 17 November 2014 (UTC)
Bump. Does anyone have a third opinion? — Bilorv (talk)(contribs) 18:49, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Poor source

@Ryt78: you need a real source for your claims comparing Protestant priests' abuse to Catholic priests' abuse. Synthesizing claims from unrelated sites and adding your own personal commentary won't cut it, as much as you may want to downplay RCC sex abuse. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 17:39, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

I assume "Ryt78" is supposed to refer to me? I didn't add that section - look at the edit history before you make accusations - I was simply restoring it because I didn't see any legitimate reason to delete it. The first person who deleted it claimed it was "US-centric", which didn't make much sense given that it's just a couple sentences or so. A mere couple sentences dealing with the US doesn't make the article "US-centric". Your objections make very little sense either : comparing cases of abuse among different groups is normal procedure to provide context. It doesn't amount to "downplaying" anything. You constantly accuse me of things I haven't done. Ryn78 (talk) 17:49, 15 April 2015 (UTC)
Yes, screwed up your username, sorry. And it doesn't especially matter whether you were the first person to put it in or not; it doesn't belong and you shouldn't be restoring it. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 18:07, 15 April 2015 (UTC)
I left that section of text out while restoring the necessary spelling corrections and other copyedits which you and Black Kite keep chopping out along with the text you don't like. Kindly only remove the part you don't like from now on. As for the text under dispute: I agree that the source - an anti-Baptist website, evidently - isn't exactly neutral, but I've seen similar comparisons of child abuse rates in media sources which would qualify as RS. I could look it up again and reword the disputed text for better neutrality, but I suspect it'll be removed anyway because you seem to object to any comparison. I think comparisons are normal procedure for something like this: it puts the issue in context rather than treating each group in isolation. Ryn78 (talk) 18:57, 15 April 2015 (UTC)
A reliable source would have to make that connection, not you. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 20:24, 15 April 2015 (UTC)
You mean the source has to explicitly tell us that sex with a minor by a Catholic priest is essentially the same act as sex with a minor by anyone else? Ryn78 (talk) 21:48, 15 April 2015 (UTC)
If that's what you want to include in the article, yes. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 00:44, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
So you're really claiming that an RS containing comparative statistics would only be usable if it patiently explains to the reader that sexual abuse is sexual abuse no matter who does it? Really? That's not how Wikipedia works : we don't have to have an explicit statement explaining the obvious before we can use a source for something like this. We're allowed to use common sense. Ryn78 (talk) 01:07, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

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"Graffiti" photo

What evidence is there that anyone knows exactly what this is meant to be depicting? Without any such evidence the caption seems to be merely POV speculation. If so then I suggest it needs to be removed. Anglicanus (talk) 13:06, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

I doubt if there is a reliable source. The photo seems to have been taken by a Wikipedia user, so it's very much open to interpretation. I agree that the caption needs to be more neutral, but I'm not opposed to retaining the photo. Sundayclose (talk) 14:03, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
Thanks. I've removed the speculative commentary since we do not seem to know anything about what it is trying to actually depict. Anglicanus (talk) 14:10, 5 October 2015 (UTC)


Pope Benedict and cover-up allegation

Under the "2005" section the second sentence alleges "Some have claimed that this immunity was granted after intervention by then-US-President George W. Bush." The citation [169] is to a movie "Deliver us from Evil" which has nothing to do with the Juan Carlos Patino-Arango case, the request for the Pope's immunity as head of state, nor any intervention by former President Bush and thus falls under #13 of wikipedia's section "links normally to be avoided" as it is an example of "Sites that are only indirectly related to the article's subject". Ergo 1) this is not a valid citation for this allegation 2) If this allegation were to stand we would need to see some valid source for the allegation as well understand who these "some" are and if there is any substance. As is "some" could mean a bunch of people in tin-foil hats. Trinacrialucente (talk) 23:25, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing this out. There are numerous policy issues here, not the least of which is WP:BLP. Citing a Wikipedia article is WP:CIRCULAR. "Some" is a commonly used WP:WEASEL word. I have removed the statement. It can be restored with adequate sourcing and specific wording. Sundayclose (talk) 00:56, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Defrocking

The Catholic Church has no process called "defrocking". The correct term is (usually) laicization, however, the actual meaning of "defrocking" is more closely reflected by "canonical suspension" which is a temporary, rather than permanent, measure. Elizium23 (talk) 03:13, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

(talk) Hello! You are indeed correct; there is no procedure (formal or otherwise) called "Defrocking". It's a term used by the media simply a "catch-all" term they use to mean a priest taken from duty. In the church, this can come in the form of suspending certain activities (i.e. giving a sermon, speaking publicly), laicizing, removing a priest's faculties or even complete excommunication. As I was quoting a secular mainstream news source (I've been taught a very nasty lesson here never to quote from sources straight from the Vatican on what they do or believe as that has been deemed "unbiased") I had to use their verbiage as it was in the title. Very open to elaborating on the subject matter if it makes sense.Trinacrialucente (talk) 05:23, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

At the end of the "criticism of church responses" section, two sentences have been added. Together, they give the impression that Pope Benedict made sweeping changes to prevent abuse, when the reality is that the vast majority of our sources don't say that, but instead say the precise opposite. If there is controversy, we can document the controversy, but we cannot express a minority viewpoint as though it is "the real story, evidenced by these numbers". Let's discuss here first before reintroducing this content, please. We might be able to find a place for those sources, but this isn't the way to do it.   — Jess· Δ♥ 13:57, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
Although Pope Benedict did not make sweeping changes, it is not a "minority viewpoint" to state the number of priests he laicized. That's not a viewpoint; it's a fact. Please restore that part of your revert. That's twice that you've removed it, and at least three editors want it to stay (the editor who added it, Trinacrialucente, and myself). If you think it should go elsewhere, that can be discussed, but in the mean time please restore that section of your revert that you unilaterally decided doesn't belong. Thanks. Sundayclose (talk) 14:02, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
An accurate summary of the source is not that he "laicized more priests than any pontiff in history". An accurate summary is that he laicized X in 2008, Y in 2009, Z in 2010, etc. The numbers indicate his efforts were reduced significantly in later years, and all fell short of the number of priests accused in outside venues. I don't see a problem with placing these numbers in the specific year sections we have above, but we should not be providing this kind of undue commentary on how the numbers mean that Benedict made sweeping, unheard of changes.   — Jess· Δ♥ 14:12, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
Again, you reverted the factual information. It doesn't matter to me whether you divide it up by years, but please restore the facts. That's your responsibility since you removed sourced, factual information. If you want others' opinions about where those facts ultimately should go, that's fine. But in the mean time, please restore the facts. Thank you. Sundayclose (talk) 14:15, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

I have to agree here with Sundayclose. Jess, by using WP:WEASEL words like "sweeping" (i.e. unquantifiable) you are showing your bias to the topic. Pope Benedict did in fact enact changes which you can read in detail here [2]. In 2010 abuse ALLEGATIONS (note: not convictions nor substantiated events) against Catholic clergy numbered just 8. I would invite you to use scientific method to grasp a cause and effect here.Trinacrialucente (talk) 15:58, 28 October 2015 (UTC)


Islam and sexual abuse cases?

Sexial crimes were and still are also commited by Islamic clerics.--Anders Longholm (talk) 19:19, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Are you requesting that something should be added to this article? Abuse by Islamic clerics is not relevant to this article. If you are simply making an observation about sexual abuse by Islamic clerics, this talk page is for improvement of the article, not for general discussion of the topic. Sundayclose (talk) 22:17, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Donahue Sensationalized the Scandal

Here is at least one source to back this claim.[3]Theists and atheists have both engaged in child molestation and I am not saying there weren't any victims. However, the truth has to come out.2601:447:4101:AE6:F006:3624:C4E2:45BD (talk) 23:29, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

You obviously have a personal agenda in your edits on this article. The issue is not whether Donahue played some role in revealing the sex abuse cases. The issue is that you are misrepresenting sources. The sources do not state or even imply that Donahue alone "popularized" Catholic Church sex abuse cases. You have stated this very boldly in the lead (and obviously you never bothered to read WP:LEAD) as if it is indisputable fact. Single purpose editors with a personal agenda in their Wikipedia edits don't last long here. Your comments that "the truth must come out" and "the truth hurts" are very revealing about your motives. You're not interested in building an encyclopedia; you are only interested in pushing your point of view into a Wikipedia article. You have been given more than adequate warning. If you don't remove your misleading edits very soon you are on your way to a block from editing anywhere on Wikipedia. Sundayclose (talk) 23:41, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

It is hypocritical of you to say I have a personal agenda when I am quoting scientific facts. If you have a grudge against the Catholic Church, and I am not accusing you of having one, don't take it out on people like. I am a Lutheran, the Branch of Christianity which regards the Pope to be the anti-Christ, but I like the facts. This website should be neutral and not one-sided. Did you read the cite I referenced?2601:447:4101:AE6:F006:3624:C4E2:45BD (talk) 00:09, 31 December 2015 (UTC)



Alien comparison

An IP user has repeatedly reinserted WP:OR content comparing abuse accusations to space alien claims. This has been reverted by multiple users; the IP user should follow Bold, Revert, Discuss guidelines, using this talk page to gain consensus for the material before reinserting. --Nat Gertler (talk) 15:39, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

From edit summaries and user talk page comments, this IP is here to right great wrongs inflicted by "anti-Christians". Sundayclose (talk) 15:41, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

% out of date?

According to bishopaccountabilty.org, the % of priests who have been accused is 5.9%. bishop-accountability.org/AtAGlance/data.htm#accused_priests

The article says it's approximately 4%. This should be updated. I would, but I'd probably mess something up. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.238.45.113 (talk) 20:49, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

What is bishopaccountabily.org? The Guardian reported an estimate of 5,000 priests(see 'Criticisms of church responses' in this article'. A quick google search turns up a count of 414,313 priests in the US(this count is from a Wikipedia article.) Supposedly CNN did a report of the national percent being around 1-5% in a CNN Specials Transcript[#454] called Thieves of Childhood but I couldn't find it. Vaxine19 (talk) 21:05, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
That 414,313 number is number of priests in the world, not just the US. It comes from this data, which puts the US figure at 37,578. --Nat Gertler (talk) 22:04, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

BLP violation

User JaijetJasmin has repeatedly put unsourced, controversial information about a living person in the article. Sundayclose (talk) 03:50, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

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Inadequately named

Per the archived move request, above, I'm also dissatisfied with the present page name. My own solution for my personal wiki was Catholic Church sexual-abuse coverup scandal, to which I now link this Wikipedia page as reference material. — MaxEnt 18:08, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

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Alleged, allegations

This truth distortion adjective/noun is used 101 times in the article even though references are not using the same adjective/noun. It's more about a widespread crime than about allegations. The article shall be combed of these distortions.--178.221.172.132 (talk) 06:13, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

The article is not about widespread crime. It is about the cases, many of which are ongoing, and most of which are lawsuits - civil, not criminal cases. This actually requires us to use the word "Alleged" so much. It is very well established that being found culpable in a lawsuit and having to pay out is NOT the same thing as being found guilty of the crime. As such, simply stating that those successfully sued actually did what they did could get wikipedia sued by those people. We, as many news sources also do, MUST include that they are allegations, if for no other reason that wikipedia's own protection.Farsight001 (talk) 16:37, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
You are here on-duty to deny the RCC crimes for years. A paid job?--178.221.134.32 (talk) 21:19, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
Making personal attacks against other editors is against the rules, so why don't you retry your reply.Farsight001 (talk) 17:36, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

Jay report - please, remove it

The reasons are

The Jay Report received substantial coverage in third-party sources and is thus part of the story. It is one of the better statistical sources we have. And our article is up front about who commissioned it and when it was. --Nat Gertler (talk) 14:06, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
Statistics based on incomplete data is not a statistics, not a source. Biased and of undue weight. --178.221.172.132 (talk) 17:03, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
There is no method of getting complete statistics on how many were abused. This is source widely reported and relied on, so there is substantial weight involved. --Nat Gertler (talk) 18:16, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
Not that I believe the source is biased (it was requested by the CC, but not controlled by it in any way), but even if it were, that alone is not reason for exclusion. And since, as previously mentioned, it is very widely relied on, it is in no way undue weight.Farsight001 (talk) 16:24, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Hmm, let's see:

Negative side of the John Jay report

from Mary Gail Frawley-O'Dea: Perversion of Power: Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church Vanderbilt University Press, 2007 ISBN 0826515479, 9780826515476 page 16
The principles of criticism (John Jay College, 2011) refers to the lack of knowledge on the part of the research team of the internal workings of the Church hierarchy or of the dynamics of the Catholic Church and report's failure to include the substance and conclusions of Grand Jury reports and to take account of the structure, pattern and practice of ...
However since the study was completed, many more Catholic priests or bishops in the United States have been named in relation to child sexual abuse allegation for the relevant period. Other studies and reports have estimated that between 2% and 8% of Catholic clergy in the United States have been involved in sexual abuse of minors (Goodstein, 2003; Greely, 1993; Sipe, 1995)


The Causes and Context study (John Jay College, 2011) also suggests that the pattern of deviant sexual behavior by Catholic Clergy is consistent with several other behavioral changes in American society between the 1960s and the 1990s, including the use of drugs and an increase in divorce and criminal behavior. This is a finding that has already proven to be quite controversial.
Ibidem, p 177
According to the John Jay Study, 55.7 percent of credibly accused priests had only one victim; 26.9 percent had two or three, 13.9 percent had ten or more. These are probably the least credible findings of the study. First, these statistics convey only the number of victims who came forward to accuse a priest and whose allegations were recorded and turned over to researchers. We know that many victims never disclose their abuse, or at least never report it to the Church, and we can be sceptical that all accusations indeed were recorded and submitted to John Jay.
from Chris Gillion, Damian Grace: Reckoning: The Catholic Church and Child Sexual Abuse, ATF Press, 2014 ISBN 1921511362, 9781921511363 p 85 -86
Professor Patrick Parkinson of the University of Sydney insists that abuse in the Catholic Church is disproportionately high compared with other denominations: "I would say conservatively that there is six times as much abuse in the Catholic Church as all the other churches in Australia combined, and I would regard that as a conservative figure"

Positive side of the John Jay report

from Kieran Tapsell: Potiphar's Wife: The Vatican's Secret and Child Sexual Abuse, ATF Press, 2014 ISBN 1921511451, 9781921511455 p 335
The 2004 John Jay College survey shows that the American bishops were well aware of the problem as far back as the 1950s, and consistently mishandled it.
from James T. O'Reilly, Margaret S. P. Chalmers: The Clergy Sex Abuse Crisis and the Legal Responses, Oxford University Press, 2014 ISBN 0199937931, 9780199937936 p. 291
Factors identified with the sexual abuse allegations included several common themes: failure by the hierarchy to grasp the seriousness of the problem, overemphasis on the need to avoid a scandal, use of unqualified treatment centers for clergy removed for rehabilitation, a sort of misguided willingness by bishops to forgive sexual misconduct as a moral failing and not treat it a crime, allowance of recidivism upon reassignment of the priest, and insufficient accountability of the hierarchy for inaction.--178.221.134.32 (talk) 17:04, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
So what you're saying is that all these other sources on the topic talk about the John Jay Report... but we shouldn't? --Nat Gertler (talk) 17:32, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
Delete complete Jay Report section as face valued, inaccurate, and biased. Mention only Report's positive side in a single paragraph of one or two sentences. --178.221.134.32 (talk) 19:37, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
You're not exactly in a position to be giving orders to other users. Might I recommend you participate in discussion instead of issue commands?Farsight001 (talk) 17:40, 25 December 2016 (UTC)
So you're asking that the article give a biased description of the report? I could see adding criticisms of the report, but not only covering positive spin of the report and neither the content nor the criticism. --Nat Gertler (talk) 18:47, 25 December 2016 (UTC)
Also, I should note that the last item you're putting forth as the negative side of the John Jay Report not only doesn't mention the Report, but is specifically talking about the situation in Australia, which (unless there's been some secret rearrangement that I'm not privy to) is still outside of the United States, which was the region that the Report was about. --Nat Gertler (talk) 19:04, 25 December 2016 (UTC)
And then looking at the other parts of the negatives that are bolded (I assume the bolding was yours to emphasize the point): one is merely noting that other studies came to both higher and lower percentage. One is calling one of the report's statements the least credible, which is not an inherent diss of the report, because any set will always have on that is the least (we don't assume that the shortest person on the basketball team is short, nor that the worst Pixar movie is bad), and that one finding was controversial, which a) does not mean that it's wrong, and b) it refers not to the John Jay Report, but to the "Causes and Context" study of years later. And looking at our article in its current state, the only time that the "Causes and Context" study is mentioned is in a context where the controversy over its findings are being addressed. --Nat Gertler (talk) 20:52, 25 December 2016 (UTC)
@Farsight001 I'm not giving orders here. You are not in position to speak on behalf other users, too.--109.92.171.133 (talk) 10:55, 26 December 2016 (UTC)
Dude, you literally gave an order. "Delete complete Jay Report section..." is the epitome of an order.Farsight001 (talk) 22:16, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

POV concern

I undid the recent (re)addition of 

The John Jay Report points at: failure by the RCC hierarchy in the USA to grasp the seriousness of the problem, overemphasis on the need to avoid a scandal, use of unqualified treatment centers for clergy removed for rehabilitation, a sort of misguided willingness by bishops to forgive sexual misconduct as a moral failing and not treat it a crime, allowance of recidivism upon reassignment of the priest, and insufficient accountability of the hierarchy for inaction[1].

...because at least given the snippet that's been quoted on the talk page, that reads as O'Reilly and Chalmers' reading of the situation as described in the Report, rather than the Report's analysis of its findings, in which case such terms as "the seriousness", "overemphasis", "misguided", and "insufficient" are their POV and should not be in Wikipedia's voice. If it is instead simply restating or rephrasing views that are in the Report, then this would need rephrasing anyway, as "points to" is vague, indicating something that could possibly be interpreted from the report rather than something that the report actually says. --Nat Gertler (talk) 14:45, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

What are you talking about? Please, read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Jay_Report#Factors_contributing_to_the_abuse_problem

Factors contributing to the abuse problem

The John Jay report identified the following factors contributing to the sexual abuse problem:[2]

  • Failure by the hierarchy to grasp the seriousness of the problem.
  • Overemphasis on the need to avoid a scandal.
  • Use of unqualified treatment centers.
  • Misguided willingness to forgive.
  • Insufficient accountability.--109.92.171.133 (talk) 17:10, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ James T. O'Reilly, Margaret S. P. Chalmers: The Clergy Sex Abuse Crisis and the Legal Responses, Oxford University Press, 2014 ISBN 0199937931, 9780199937936 p. 291
  2. ^ Robinson, B.A. (2009-08-30). "Independent survey of sexually abusive Roman Catholic priests". Kingston, Ontario: Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance.
@Nat Gertler So, how it might be POV if O'Reilly and Chalmers are quoting the John Jay report?--178.221.148.19 (talk) 17:15, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
Had you actually read that edit before you undid it, you would've seen that I did not delete that material. Really. -Nat Gertler (talk) 17:21, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
Apologies. Still that "statistics" should not be mentioned together with the contested replacement.--178.221.148.19 (talk) 20:02, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

Other pages

Does sexual abuse happens only in Catholic churches? There are no articles about Protestantism, Anglicanism, Eastern Orthodoxy cases. --Marvellous Spider-Man 16:05, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

If you can find substantive sources categorically discussing such things, then go ahead and make those pages! -Nat Gertler (talk) 16:56, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Argentine

I'd like to add a new subsection under Prevalence section based on Argentina investigates alleged sex abuse at school. Any comment?--178.222.190.19 (talk) 16:04, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

The coverup is half the story

I think there needs to be a reorganization of the article to give a lot more weight to the coverup of the sex abuse cases by bishops and other members of the church hierarchy.

If you lived under a rock and came to this story completely unawares, you could read hundreds of words deep into the article before you had any idea that a cover-up of sexual abuse committed by priests by their superiors occurred, and is at least half the story.

The repeated reassignment of offending priests by bishops and large payouts by the church to victims (inevitably with gag clauses in the contracts) permitted offending priests to be moved to other parishes and to find new victims. This, to many, is the real focus of the scandal, that it was repeatedly covered up the church hierarchy, in a way that similar offenses in schools, Boy Scouts, other religions, etc. have not been.

Half the lede or more should discuss the coverup, as should half the article. Mathglot (talk) 10:46, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

The article is titled sexual abuse cases not sexual abuse coverup. The second paragraph of this article states that there is a coverup so anyone entering unawares will see that immediately. There is an entire section dedicated to the criticisms which focuses on the coverup and delays in removing priests. If you would like there to be more details about how the Church covered up these cases, that would be the place to add them along with sources.
This isn't a news site, so it isn't so important what the story is as much as what transpired. As an encyclopedia, Wikipedia includes seeks to include all the important details, not just the ones that will interest the most people. Vaxine19 (talk) 20:41, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
@Vaxine19 Your response makes no sense to me. The coverup is yet another part of the sexual abuse, or better - the widespread rapes.--178.221.172.132 (talk) 06:18, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
Don't know why it doesn't make sense to you. The article is about the cases, not the coverups. That's very self explanatory and clear. They may be related, but they are not actually the same thing. This article is about one of them and not the other, so it would be silly to include the other in any great detail.Farsight001 (talk) 16:26, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
This response is actually a spam.--178.221.156.230 (talk) 16:54, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
So, if this article is only about the cases and not the coverup, then in what Wikipedia article(s) does the story about the coverup belong? Mathglot (talk) 11:19, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

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Requested move 27 April 2017

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Not Moved.(non-admin closure) The nominator is not clear as to the intention of the move, as the proposed title significantly changes the scope of the topic. The nom has not responded to request to clarify and without further information it is difficult to see how this move can proceed. — InsertCleverPhraseHere 06:26, 8 May 2017 (UTC)


Catholic Church sexual abuse cases → Sexual abuse in the Catholic Church – More simple reading of title, more neutral. Chicbyaccident (talk) 10:35, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Comment: That would change not only the name but the scope of the topic as well; is that your intention? Currently, the topic covers only the cases themselves, and not, for example, the coverup which is probably half of the larger story if not more. I'd actually support your proposed move, as long as the latter is your intention. However, if you intend only a simpler, more neutral title without altering the limited scope of the topic, then I don't think this proposal works. Mathglot (talk) 11:12, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Well, I don't see it as any worse. It's not any better either. It's not simpler or less simpler, it's not more neutral or less. So I don't see the point. It does change the scope of the article. Is this the intent? Maybe it would be better to write a separate article? "Sexual abuse in the Catholic Church" could cover centuries and continents, I suppose. Herostratus (talk) 06:11, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

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Cynical and immoral

Please remove this

Some studies claim that priests in the Catholic Church may not be any more likely than other men to commit abuse.[12][16][17][18]

from the introduction paragraph.--178.221.172.132 (talk) 06:27, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Its extremely well sourced and not exactly uncommon knowledge. In fact, the only way in which it is misleading is that it doesn't come out and point out that they're LESS likely than other men to commit abuse, a well-established statistical fact. In what way is stating factual information "cynical and immoral"?Farsight001 (talk) 16:35, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
Not sourced at all. All "sources" are repeating some claims from the John Jay report. "cynical and immoral" for being inaccurate and used to relativize the crimes of the RCC.--178.221.134.32 (talk) 21:15, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
It has four sources behind it. That is 3 sources more than needed. So where you got the idea that its unsourced is beyond me. And the John Jay report is the most well known and most often referenced report on the issue. If you think you have a more credible source, then post it here and we can discuss it.Farsight001 (talk) 17:39, 25 December 2016 (UTC)
So where you got the idea that its unsourced is beyond me. !? I told you: All "sources" are repeating some claims from the John Jay report. Repeating lies doesn't make them truth.--178.221.152.71 (talk) 10:26, 26 December 2016 (UTC)
The sources stand for themselves. That they all reference the John Jay report does not exclude the fact that they are four separate sources, and all of them perfectly usable on wikipedia. Do you have some reason we should ignore all sources that reference the John Jay report? Personal claims of bias do not qualify. There are rules here on wikipedia regarding the inclusion or exclusion of sources. You seem to be completely unfamiliar with them. You may not like the John Jay report, but user's personal opinions don't matter here. The source's respect from other credible sources is high, and thus, it is usable. Period. You have literally zero grounds based in the rules for removing any of this.Farsight001 (talk) 22:21, 26 December 2016 (UTC)
John Jay report is already refuted by many, many scholars. There was a lot about John Jay report on this talkpage in the past. The "sources" repeating commissioned by RCC report are even less worth than the commissioned report itself.--109.92.171.133 (talk) 06:06, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
In no way is the John Jay report refuted by anyone, let alone "many many scholars". If it had been, it would not still be the most widely used source of information on the abuse scandal. You are better than lying. Don't make it worse for you. If you don't think we should consider these sources credible and of use on wikipedia, then there is a noticeboard to take your claims to. Your personal opinion on them is 100% irrelevant here. It is utilized copiously by many reliable sources, and therefore, it is usable. PERIOD. That's how the rules work here. If you don't like that, go to the relevant rule pages and argue to have them changed, or open your own wiki with your own rules. Ignoring them here, however, is not welcome.Farsight001 (talk) 00:13, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
Strong, big words = no facts. In all those "sources" the John Jay Report is just advertised. See WP:NOTADVERTISING. "... most widely used source of information on the abuse scandal." - yes, by the Roman Catholic Church as a part of regular advertisement of their "innocence". "You are better than lying. Don't make it worse for you."?!?! Are you ok?--109.92.171.133 (talk) 07:09, 31 December 2016 (UTC)
I'm doing fine. You don't seem to be understanding the rules, though. If you don't believe the John Jay report should be usable, you're going to need a really REALLY strong evidence that its not, as well as a better alternative. And "the Catholic Church commissioned it" is not evidence at all.Farsight001 (talk) 14:43, 31 December 2016 (UTC)
I agree that this claim should be removed from the wikipedia page. Firstly, it is a singular study (not "studies" plural) even if the poor quality linked articles used the word "studies". Secondly, I can't see anywhere in the original John Jay study that it actually makes this claim. The study asserts that 4% of priest and deacons are accused of child sex abuse, however it also clearly states there is no data available about the incidence of abusers amongst the general public. It lists various statistics about victims of abuse in the general population, but not about the rate of abusers. When talking about the Catholic church it switches to talking about the rate of abusers, but not the rate of victims. This is comparing apples to oranges. Option 1) is to delete the sentence. Option 2) is to amend it to say "Some people claim..." (i.e. not "studies") and add something like "however there is no data about the incidence of abusers amongst the general population to be able to make an accurate comparison."Powertothepeople (talk) 07:11, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

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Wide publicity in the 80s—Not!

I don't want to pick a nit about a single word, but use of the word 'wide' in this sentence in the lead is really not correct:

The accusations began to receive wide publicity in the late 1980s.

In fact, initially reports were few and far between, and even though the accusations and reports which were reported were stunning, they tended to be buried on inside pages in regional papers (such as in Arizona in the 1980s) and simply did not get picked up and widely reported. In fact, one of the things that was interesting about the whole scandal, is how many isolated, individual reports popped up over the years in different regions, without the press connecting the dots and recognizing the major scandal for what it was.

That didn't mean that nobody recognized it early; certainly Thomas P. Doyle did, but it was like shouting in the wilderness, nobody really paid attention, least of all the Church, but neither did the press, except for those isolated reports. It wasn't till much later that it came to be recognized for the major scandal that it was. I would change that sentence to something like:

Initial press reports began to appear in the 1980s, but they were isolated and not picked up or widely reported. Although sporadic reports continued to appear through the 1980s and 90s, it wasn't until attention was focused on it starting in 2002 by the Boston Globe Spotlight team, that it began to receive broad coverage in the U.S. press.

Thoughts?

Sources

Mathglot (talk) 23:35, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

I've got little issue with the clarification that it wasn't that widely known. However, if I may quibble about style... "but they were isolated and not picked up or widely reported" feels "off" to me somehow. Basic redundancy with the following sentence perhaps? I can't quite put my finger on it. It just doesn't seem like it should be there. If I remember my grammar minutia, I think removing that phrase would allow said following sentence to say "80s and 90s" instead of "1980s and 90s" too, which makes it look more natural, IMO. And last quibble, I might go with "...until attention was focused on the issue starting in..." instead of "...on it starting in...".Farsight001 (talk) 07:14, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
  • "that it began to receive broad coverage in the U.S. press." This page is not just about the US, so I have to object if you are basing your perception purely from an American angle. Consider what was happening in other regions of the world too: Ireland, Canada etc.
I expect online citations may be difficult to find as the major newspapers only really began publishing online in the late 90s, and this is why it is easy to find more recent coverage but you might need to dig into microfiche at a library to find earlier stories. I did find this reference to a report by the US catholic church in 1985 about child sex abuse that commented "The men also warned that television and newspaper reporters -- NCR was cited by name -- were already on to the story"[4] A more recent article says of a 1985 catholic child sex court case "The case made headlines around the country, especially after freelance reporter Jason Berry dug into the details and found a cover-up. "[5] and an article by Jason Berry summarising the sex scandals of the times "The June 7, 1985, NCR, with my long report on Fr. Gilbert Gauthe's sex crimes, Arthur Jones' piece on cases elsewhere, and NCR's editorial calling for lay review boards, laid the issue before a national media that held back for years." "I broke stories on four more priests" "In January 1986, I reported that the diocese had recycled seven predators over many years through a map of outlying towns." There was also push back from other media trying to back the catholic church.
In Australia we have a website called Trove that is in the process of digitising old Australian newspapers and I found this article from 1986 discussing a prominent radio host who faced jail because he publicly named a priest as a child abuser on radio at the same time as the priest's trial was going on - so presumably the issue of catholic sex abuse was being discussed on the radio and in newspapers at the time in a "wide" enough manner for the courts to worry that what the radio host could influence the trial. In 1989 a book was published and related documentary detailing child abuse in the child migration scheme, a lot of which at the hands of the catholic church, some of it was sex abuse, and it had coverage in the Australian newspapers.[6][7][8] Also need to be aware that in earlier decades they may not have used the words "sex abuse" - as an example, here is an article from 1920s where it says "Brother Carmody is accused of having indecently dealt with boys at the Clontarf Orphanage."[9] so any search for evidence will have to look for other phrases.
I think in the 1980s sometimes the focus was "child abuse" with lots of reporting on child neglect, violence, cruelty, sex abuse, etc without emphasising "sex abuse" as its own separate category. Past decades also perhaps made the mistake of thinking that when the victim was a male adolescent that it was an issue of "homosexuality," cast the victim as a participant rather than it being considered "child abuse. As it tends to take about 30 years for people to come forward with abuse accusations, everything is always retrospective: the 1980s were primarily critical of the 1940s-60s. This makes people assume that the problem is in the past, and not still happening (people today continue to make this mistake in assuming that this abuse is no longer occurring, but we won't know for another 30 years whether that is true.) "
I don't pretend to know how widespread the "publicity" was - perhaps "publicity" is the wrong word? I think by the 1980s it was widely "known" that there had been a problem with child sex abuse in the church however the general public were perhaps naive/optimistic to think that it was in the past. From memory there were several tv shows and movies out in the late 80s and 90s that depicted past child sex abuse in the church. The full extent of the coverup had not yet been revealed, and it was still ongoing. I don't think people realised all that the "church" was doing, so they didn't see it necessarily as "the church" so much as individuals. But as this article is about "catholic church sexual abuse cases" rather than the coverup by the catholic church it doesn't really matter whether the media knew in the 80s that everything was linked versus writing about individual cases.Powertothepeople (talk) 04:21, 9 June 2017 (UTC)
I am not considering this "purely from an American angle" but from a worldwide angle. Your objection is invalid for numerous reasons. First, because this was reported and received publicity, whether widespread or not, first in the United States, before it was reported anywhere else. Indeed, most other countries, and especially Vatican City, regarded this as a strictly "American problem". Cases of abuse in Ireland, Canada, and other locations, only occurred after the first American revelations were published abroad, and local news sources wondered if this was truly only an "American problem"[1][2][3][4][5][6] or had possibly occurred in their own countries, and launched their own investigations, with the results we now know.
Secondly, it was certainly *not* widely reported in the U.S. in the 1980s, that is pure fiction.
Thirdly, it is not at all true that online citations are difficult to find. The point at which newspapers began to publish online is irrelevant, because their archives have been digitized. I can find you any story you like in the New York Times, for example, going back to 1851. Want the story about President Lincoln being shot? No problem. It's online.
"I don't pretend to know how widespread the "publicity" was..." that's good, because I do know how widespread it was, because I was there, and the answer is: zilch. No publicity. Isolated cases, here and there. Buried in inside pages. Not picked up by other outlets. Ignored. History is full of examples of *huge* stories actually being reported by some local news outlet, but for numerous reasons, it simply doesn't make a huge impact at the time. Years later, everybody looks back and says, "Omg, so-and-so reported this way back when in 19xx--why didn't we know about this back then?" The burglary of the Democratic campaign HQ at the Watergate complex *was* reported in June 1972; it was just ignored by other outlets and received no particular attention at the time. It was only later that its significance was realized, and began to receive attention by other news outlets.
"I think by the 1980s it was widely "known" that there had been a problem with child sex abuse in the church..." Nope, it was completely unknown to the general public. Not one in 10,000 people had any inkling of this, and if you even suggested such a thing, you would be shouted down as some kind of anti-Catholic maniac. The only people who knew, were those in the church itself, and a handful of people trying to investigate it, mostly from within the church, and hitting a brick wall again and again.
One area where you got it right, is where you talk about the time lag involved, before many victims came forward. But like with many crimes that flew in the face of societal expectations, such as incest in America which was not reported at all, even though widespread, until it was, and then all of a sudden "it was everywhere" as if the problem was new and exploded everywhere simultaneously, once some victims of church sex abuse started to come forward, it encouraged others to do so as well. At some point, critical mass was reached, and those who were formerly afraid to come forward started to do so, and a trickle became a flood, and suddenly there were hundreds, then thousands of cases. Mathglot (talk) 09:05, 14 September 2017 (UTC) updated by Mathglot (talk) 06:37, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Reese, Thomas (2014-02-07). "UN committee report on Vatican abuse a missed opportunity". NCR Online. National Catholic Reporter. In the early days of the crisis, Europeans thought sexual abuse was an American problem. Then when it hit Ireland and England, it was labeled an "English-speaking" problem. Then it hit German-speaking countries. It was tragic to watch all of these countries' bishops repeat the errors of the American bishops.
  2. ^ Terry, Karen J (2015-02-15). "Child sexual abuse within the Catholic Church: a review of global perspectives". International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice. 39 (2): 139–154. doi:10.1080/01924036.2015.1012703. Reports of abuse proliferated in the US in 2002, giving the appearance that it was an American phenomenon. However, by 2010, it was clear that abuse in the Catholic Church had affected countries around the world.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  3. ^ Doyle, Thomas P (March 2011). "Sexual Abuse of the Vulnerable by Catholic Clergy" (PDF). Les Cahiers de PV: 64–68. The steady stream of reports was not limited to the southern United States. It was soon apparent that this was a grave situation for the Catholic Church throughout the United States. Although the Vatican at first claimed this was an American problem, the steady stream of revelations quickly spread to other English speaking countries. Reports in other countries soon confirmed what insightful observers predicted: it was inevitable that sexual abuse by clergy would, in time, be uncovered in countries throughout the western world.
  4. ^ Goodstein, Laurie; Stanley, Alessandra (2002-03-17). "As Scandal Keeps Growing, Church and Its Faithful Reel". NY Times. Part of the reason the Vatican has kept its distance is that it has seen sexual abuse as largely an American problem, church officials say. That perception may change.
  5. ^ Sipe, Richard (2002-05-11). "Catholic Clergy Sexual Abuse In The U.S.- Context And Causes". Clergy abuse is not an American problem as proposed by Pope John Pau[l] II, although it is remarkable here.
  6. ^ Pullella, Philip (2013-02-05). "Vatican official thanks media for uncovering Church abuse". Reuters. ince the abuse scandal erupted in Boston in 2002 and spread around the world, some Church and Vatican officials have accused the media of irresponsible journalism and exaggeration. One Latin American cardinal once famously said sexual abuse was 'an American problem' in part 'invented' by the media. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |url= (help)

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Inflammatory, non-neutral source

Footnote [7] in the article cites https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/sep/28/sex-abuse-religion-vatican which is an article from 2009 that uses language such as, "The Vatican has lashed out at criticism of its handling of its paedophila crisis..."; and "...Catholic priests and nuns for decades terrorised thousands of boys and girls...".

In addition, the author of the article rejected the use of the proper psychological term, ephebophila, and further, mis-defines the word (the term refers to adult attraction to adolescents, not, as the article's author asserts, strictly adult male homosexual attraction to adolescent males).

It may be my subjective view, but overall the wording and order of argument in the article seems to suggest that the Vatican was saying, basically, "It's not that big a deal, because ephebophilia is not as bad as paedophilia." The author's rejection of the use of precise terms contributes to my view. Furthermore, the author chose to present the Vatican statement's exhortation that we all must protect all children as a deflection -- i.e., "Oh sure, I do this bad thing, but someone else is doing it too, so I'm not that bad."

I do recall the Vatican statement in question, and could dig it up at another time, but it's sufficient to read the selected passages from the statement that are included in this article, and consider that the Vatican's use of precise terms indicates a focus on addressing the problem specifically (any psychologist can tell you that it's useless to treat a patient with bipolar disorder as if he suffered only from monopolar depression; just the same, it's grossly inappropriate to treat a patient with ephebophilia as if he or she has paedophilia -- it would seem as if a cure has occurred when the patient doesn't demonstrate attraction to prepubescent children, when in fact no cure has taken place because the patient is still attracted to adolescent children). I also recall -- and, as a public school teacher, agree with the Vatican's point that we'd better not focus on a single entity at the expense of the victims of people in other entities (including the public schools I work in!) -- it is a gross injustice to child victims of sexual abuse who aren't "privileged" to be abused in the entity that is a larger, more accountable target.

All in all, the message of the article sourced is, "Catholic Church bad." It isn't neutral in the slightest. For that reason, I suggest that it be removed as a credible source.

KiAnCaFleur (talk) 04:19, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

It looks like you don't like The Guardian source, hence you want it removed. Also, please read WP:NPOV before asking for a credible source to be removed.
  • the author of the article rejected the use of the proper psychological term, ephebophila, and further, mis-defines the word - You are right, ephebophila is the correct psychological term; however, pedophilia is the common name for such actions (hell, pedophilia/ephebophilia doesn't even define actions, only the sexual desire). Besides, you're arguing with the source, which could be either WP:OR or WP:SYNTH. Do you have any reliable source that criticizes the Guardian article? Maybe it could be possible to acknowledge the other PoV in that case.
  • It may be my subjective view - It may...
  • I do recall the Vatican statement in question, and could dig it up at another time" - That's a primary source, it could be used for quotation, but not for interpretation. Dig it up, post it here, and we'll see what we can do.
  • it's grossly inappropriate to treat a patient with ephebophilia as if he or she has paedophilia - We're not treating them - we're reporting on the incident.
  • All in all, the message of the article sourced is, "Catholic Church bad." - Yep, regarding this incident, you are right - Catholic Church bad. I may have crossed the line here
byteflush Talk 04:41, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

This is technically off-topic but please consider helping to create a 'Hasidic Judaism Sexual Abuse Cases' page

Like this page back in 2002, any attempts to discuss this issue are being squashed here on Wikipedia. (for one such case, see: "The Child-Rape Assembly Line" https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qbe8bp/the-child-rape-assembly-line-0000141-v20n11 ) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 104.175.58.192 (talk) 02:08, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Introductory sentence

The way the opening paragraph reads at present -- "Cases of child sexual abuse ... have led to many allegations, investigations, trials and convictions" -- seems like a bit of a non sequitur. Wouldn't it make more sense if it was "Allegations of child sexual abuse ... have led to many investigations, trials and convictions"? After all, "A legal case is a dispute between opposing parties resolved by a court, or by some equivalent legal process." ['kɔbɹa]☠ 23:36, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Alternatively, the first two words could be dropped entirely. ['kɔbɹa]☠ 23:45, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
It's too obvious and documented that allegations are not allegations rather the truth hidden and supressed from being public for long, long time. My suggetion is to remove word allegation from the article. --24.135.31.180 (talk) 04:41, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
I don't think that "allegation" necessary implies that there's no truth to it but that it is merely an objective claim regarding the presence of something, which as the sentence states, leads to investigations, trials and convictions. However, I agree that removing the word from the sentence altogether would be more suitable since it currently seems contradictory. ['kɔbɹa]☠ 21:49, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

What about "There have been many allegations, investigations, trials and convictions of child sexual abuse (and of the subsequent cover-ups) by Catholic priests, nuns and members of religious orders in the 20th and 21st centuries". And why the specific chronological limitation (i.e. can we drop the last 6 words)? Clean Copytalk 07:23, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

August 17 2018 edit

I've removed a portion of the article introduction for finding it not relevant, or inaccurate, or being not a core point of the whole article.--178.222.134.221 (talk) 09:29, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

You have to elaborate on your reasons first. The paragraphs you removed were sourced, including to catholic sites that discuss on the topic. You also deleted large amounts of information without reaching consensus.CommanderOzEvolved (talk) (contribs) 09:43, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
Which consensus? I do not see any consensus justifying the removed information which is for sure not large. The article introduction should be reworked radically respecting the recent news related to this scandal. See
First, you should always be cautious about removing text that has citations to back it up. Major changes such as you introduced should always be discussed on the talk page first, as any article is the result of many people's work (thus a product of consensus, if you will), and ripping out a huge piece of this is a slap in many people's faces.
Second, there is a tradition in Wikipedia: you may introduce a bold edit, but if this is reverted, which is perfectly acceptable, it is time to discuss the situation calmly: See WP:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle. Now it's time to discuss. Please avoid an WP:Edit war.
Third, it is my impression that removing the text you did is completely unjustified in this situation. There is nothing wrong with it: it is relevant, well-supported, and cogent.
Finally, I agree with you that the introduction needs work, especially in light of the rapidly evolving situation. Do you want to propose a new wording? (I recommend opening a new section of the talk page to discuss this first: it is more harmonious to come to a consensus here than to go back-and-forth with edits on the actual page.) Clean Copytalk 11:01, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
Please, stop lecturing me. The next two sentences (taken from the article introduction) are not relevant, not well-supported, not congent -- rather cynical and disgusting for which I can find easily a great number of referenced well-supported opinions:
Diocesan officials and academics knowledgeable about the Roman Catholic Church say that sexual abuse by clergy is generally not discussed, and thus is difficult to measure.[16][17] Some studies claim that priests in the Catholic Church may not be any more likely than other men to commit abuse.[18][19][20]
Please, add some morality to the WP:rules,rules,rules... you are referring to.--178.222.134.221 (talk) 09:01, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
So, there is a lot of WP:gaming here in this article and its talk page. More and more we read about this scandal every day
Not only the introduction shall be rewritten, the whole article shall be rewritten too. Makes no sense to extensively cite opinions, "researches" coming from the RCC and "experts" paid by the same church.--178.222.134.221 (talk) 08:14, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
I have added a section to the introduction emphasizing recent events. I hope this meets some of your concerns. Clean Copytalk 14:27, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
I reverted because this is clearly being debated above. Some editors (including me) are against broadening the scope of this article, per WP:Due weight. The RfC is still going on. So the discussion should not be bypassed by going ahead and adding the contested material. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 17:49, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
And in any case, per WP:Lead, the material should be covered lower in the article before it's covered in the lead, and the lead typically should be no longer than four paragraphs. And not everything gets a mention in the lead. How much weight, or any weight, it gets in the lead depends on our WP:Due policy (including what its subsections state). The overwhelming majority of Catholic Church sexual abuse cases material is about child sexual abuse. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 17:57, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
Okay, I see that the above in this section is not about nuns and other women, but rather about children. So I struck part of my above post. But what I stated about the lead is still valid. Also see WP:Recentism. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 18:20, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
No, this is not being debated above. What is being debated above is the inclusion of adult abuse. The material I added was simply more contemporary cases of child abuse. Clean Copytalk 19:10, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
Did you miss my "18:20, 20 August 2018 (UTC)" post? The RfC is about adult abuse. This discussion section is not. Per WP:Due and WP:Recentism, the more recent child sexual abuse stuff does not automatically get a position in the lead. There will be cases and cases and cases, it seems. That doesn't mean we mention every case in the lead. When it's a prominent case, though, a brief mention may be warranted in the lead. Doesn't need its own paragraph, though. What you added to the lead was more detailed than what is in the United States section about 2018. Extensive detail goes below. The lead summarizes. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 19:37, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
Yes, which it wasn't doing before. I hope the current version is satisfactory Clean Copytalk 21:44, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Lead

The lead wandered back and forth between topics (e.g. abuse reports and Church responses) and stopped in 2010. I have tried to unify it thematically and structure it more chronologically, bringing it up-to-date with recent events (material which is also represented in the article's subsections by country). Feel free to improve this further! Clean Copytalk 19:34, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Raped, pregnant nuns

Sock created discussion. Sock still being disruptive. Merge discussion is happening below.

Past introduction page and past user page. I propose adding a section to the article adressing this issue. More from

24.135.31.180 (talk) 05:50, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

The nominator has been blocked for sockpuppetry. -The Gnome (talk) 20:04, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

Comments

Jzsj: I don't think so. We have to add a new section related to the abuses of nuns and other women then adjust the introduction accordingly. Then completely remove Contemporary history of child sex abuse section and reduce Vatican responses to just a few sentences. --24.135.31.180 (talk) 18:37, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure about the due weight question. The AP/Fox News article cited above states "cases of abused nuns have emerged in Europe, Africa, South America and Asia, demonstrating that the problem is global and pervasive". Clean Copytalk 07:29, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
As someone who is very familiar with the literature, I'm sure. The overwhelming majority of Catholic Church sexual abuse cases material is about child sexual abuse. A simple Google search shows this. I don't think that this article should or needs to be hijacked with nun material, but I'm not vehemently opposed to it as long as it doesn't get undue weight. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 18:08, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Jzsj. I'm not opposed to this content being added somewhere, and I get it—the phrase "Catholic Church sexual abuse cases" would seem to describe those too. But the first sentence of this article makes clear that it's about child abuse. And as Flyer22 Reborn points out above, there might be a case of renaming if there's enough prominence given to this nun issue. In the meantime, a hatnote is probably the first step, assuming we get the content in place. (Ping me if needed—I'm responding to a Legobot message and don't plan on watching this page.) --BDD (talk) 01:47, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
BDD, I wasn't taking the nun aspect into consideration with regard to a clearer title. I rather meant something like whether "child" should be in the title. But, yeah, I agree that this article isn't the place for the nun material. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 19:53, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Include or fork. To have an inclusive title while being exclusive about the content seems willfully misleading. SO:
  • Either space should be made in this article for other relevant themes, and the lede rewritten to indicate this inclusiveness ("while the majority of sexual abuse cases by Church officials have involved children, some have involved nuns, seminarians, [other categories] or []". This would be my recommendation. Or
  • The title should be changed to Catholic Church child sexual abuse cases and a second article created called something like Catholic Church adult sexual abuse cases, with cross-links. (This seems unduly complex and also leads to categorization problems; a significant number of cases began when the victims were underage and went into adulthood; what age is adulthood anyway; etc.) Clean Copytalk 07:20, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
I understand what you are getting at, but it's the media and other literature that chose to be vague with the title as far as child sexual abuse goes, although enough sources also include "child" in the title. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 18:08, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
I'm of the opinion that article titles are descriptive, not prescriptive, of the scope. We should focus this discussion on What would we like this article to cover? and then find a suitable title that will direct readers to the topic. –dlthewave ☎ 17:23, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
Also, to Jzsj's point, we have the Catholic Church abuse cases article as well. Notice that it's mostly about sexual abuse (especially child sexual abuse) and that it notes "sex abuse cases of adults and cases of non-sexual abuse have also been reported." I don't see why the nun material should not simply be placed there instead. BDD, Clean Copy, Byteflush, Dlthewave, and Zezen, thoughts on covering the nun material there instead? And if still wanting this article to cover the nun material, I ask why, given that the literature on Catholic Church sexual abuse is overwhelmingly about children? It is the literature using titles such as "Catholic Church sexual abuse cases" while being solely about children. This is why readers who visit this article will usually be looking for material specifically about child sexual abuse. It's also where WP:Principle of least astonishment comes in. So do you want us to give false balance to the minority of cases that are not about children? I mean, should this article be just as much about the minority cases even though doing so would be a WP:Undue weight violation? Would you rather this article be renamed to include "child," even though the term is commonly excluded from titles on this topic while being solely about children? And if covering the nun material here, do we really need both the Catholic Church abuse cases article and this article? Do we really need both articles anyway? Personally, I would rather rename this article to include "child" than have it include abuse of adults as well and confuse the topic. Depending on how this RfC goes, I might start a WP:Requested moves discussion. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 17:02, 25 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Thanks, this is very helpful! I didn't realize that there was a second article on nearly the same topic. In fact, there seem to be at least three articles with very parallel material
  1. Catholic Church sexual abuse cases
  2. Catholic Church abuse cases
  3. Roman Catholic sex abuse cases by country
That raises major questions: why 3 articles? Should some or all be merged, and if not, how can they be meaningfully distinguished? Clean Copytalk 18:24, 25 August 2018 (UTC)
I understand merging the first two. But the last one is a "by country" article. We have a lot of "by country" articles and they are essentially list articles or list-like and should remain separate. They are specifically about the topic by country. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 04:03, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
@Flyer22 Reborn: Recent contributors and participants above 24.135.31.180 (talk · contribs) and 178.222.134.221 (talk · contribs) are the same sock. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:57, 26 August 2018 (UTC)
David Eppstein, thanks. I figured. Should we cross out 178.222.134.221's vote? Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 04:03, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
Maybe but since this whole section and RFC was started by a block-evading sock then maybe we should just close the whole thing. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:11, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
Before closing, we should at least figure out what the correct article would be for abuse cases that involve young adults and adults. Clean Copytalk 06:23, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
We can close and still discuss the matter, like we are doing below with regard to the merge discussion you started. Even if this RfC closed as consensus for inclusion, it's still the case that other aspects (like renaming the article and merging the above aforementioned article) are being considered. Per WP:Evade, I'm not keen on letting socks have their way. For the time being, I have struck through the sock's second vote. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 20:31, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Cynical, immoral or false or all of the three

From 2001 to 2010 the Holy See, the central governing body of the Catholic Church, considered sex abuse allegations involving about 3,000 priests dating back fifty years.[11] Cases reflect worldwide patterns of long-term abuse as well as the church hierarchy's pattern of regularly covering up reports of alleged abuse.[note 1] Diocesan officials and academics knowledgeable about the Roman Catholic Church say that sexual abuse by clergy is generally not discussed, and thus is difficult to measure.[12][13] Members of the Church's hierarchy have argued that media coverage was excessive and disproportionate, and that such abuse also takes place in other religions and institutions.[14].

In a 2001 apology, John Paul II called sexual abuse within the Church "a profound contradiction of the teaching and witness of Jesus Christ".[15] Benedict XVI apologised, met with victims, and spoke of his "shame" at the evil of abuse, calling for perpetrators to be brought to justice, and denouncing mishandling by church authorities.[16][17] In 2018, Pope Francis began by accusing victims of fabricating allegations,[18] but by April was apologizing for his "tragic error"[19] and by August was expressing "shame and sorrow" for the tragic history.[20]

The truth is:

Bottom line: remove the cited sections from the article introduction.--178.222.134.221 (talk) 08:42, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Not that I don't agree with you that RCC, SOC (СПЦ) and other sects are criminal syndicates (I know, I'm showing my own PoV here), but what you're doing is WP:SYNTH and WP:OR. It could be incorporated into the article, but I don't see why portions should be removed because of conflicting sources. byteflush Talk 00:06, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
Your response not only WP:POV but false also: Nothing in my comment is WP:OR nor WP:SYNTH. There is a huge number of fererences supporting my comment, given in the comment or available in the internet. There are no conflicting sources; sources justifying RCC actions, defending its immorality, relativizing the crime etc are used in the text I want to see removed. There is noting in the article about "SOC (СПЦ) and other sects" nor the references I provided ever mentioned the "other sects", nor I ever mentioned the "other sects". Please, avoid distortions of such type if you want your comments to be taken serious.--178.222.134.221 (talk) 05:44, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
I have added text (and citations) to the end of both paragraphs that makes the treatment more even-handed. Clean Copytalk 10:04, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
Why not to add Pope Francis Says Sex Abuse Crisis Has Driven Young Catholics Away From The Church, Pope Francis admits abuse scandal is turning people away from Church, 'We need to change': Priest sex abuse scandals driving Catholics away, pope admits, or this “We are facing a crisis in the life of the Church, a crisis at the level of leadership of bishops, and also to a certain extent of rebellion,” the Canadian Cardinal and Archbishop Emeritus of Quebec said. ?--178.222.213.210 (talk) 05:08, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
IP, how many times does David Eppstein have to block you? I'm going to start removing any new comments you make on this talk page. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:02, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
I'm too busy today with other stuff. Someone else will have to do it, I guess. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:03, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
David Eppstein, after this, I closed the above section. Was created by the sock anyway. And the existence of an additional article is now a part of the discussion. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:06, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
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