Catholics and Baptists Have Different Sacraments but Similar Child Abuse Scandals

Robert Parham
Posted: Sunday, April 4, 2010 10:33 pm

Addressing the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church, conservative columnist Cal Thomas wrote in a syndicated piece before Easter that the sexual scandals in Catholicism and Protestantism were different.

After rightfully acknowledging that Protestants have their own "blemished history" and listing examples of the "hall of shame," Thomas contended that the difference between Protestants and Catholics was that the sexual scandals in Protestantism were "between consenting adults."

He did not excuse such behavior, referring to it as sin.

Nonetheless, his framing of the differences is inexcusable. He has led his readers to believe that the sexual abuse of children by clergy isn't a Protestant problem. That, of course, is a tragic misunderstanding.

Perhaps Thomas is uninformed about the preachers who prey on children in the Southern Baptist Convention in particular and the Baptists in general, a scandal that has been exhaustively covered on EthicsDaily.com with well over 100 articles. He is certainly unfamiliar with Christa Brown, founder of Stop Baptist Predators and Baptist coordinator for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, who has tirelessly sought to rip off the cover of secrecy within Baptist life and to press Baptists to reform their practices.


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that shoves child rapists around from church to church as they get caught, exposing the maximum number of children to them while avoiding any prosecution. The Baptists haven't promoted any church officials out of the country to a city-state from which they can't be extradited. The Baptists don't consider themselves above civil law.

See, that's the difference, the Catholic hierarchy, with its anachronistic view of itself as the First Estate, turned itself into a de facto pedophile ring by not defrocking these guys and turning them over to civil law.

People in positions of authority are seen as "the last word." so to speak. There is no working, practicable means of redress of complaints about these people when they overstep their bounds. Witness all the victims groups that have sprung up in the Catholic laiety.

Now, abuse happens in all denoms and religions, but there are denoms where the process for addressing illegal and unethical behavior is much more accountable to the membership and legal authorities. When was the last time you heard about a big abuse scandal in the UCC or Quaker community?