Seventy Years of Child Sexual Abuse in Lansing, Michigan





The Attorney General of Michigan is working with the Diocese of Lansing to unravel 70 years of sexual abuse. According to the report, some cases were horrific. There are 56 named abusers. Among them 48 priests.

Every other month I receive a publication from the Freedom From Religion Foundation. This organization, in Madison, WI, is the largest atheist organization in the world. The publication has pages of tiny print listing charges and convictions of clergy. An alarming thing is the frequency of youth pastors who are caught abusing young people. In the Protestant denomination these are usually not ordained clergy but young males. Perhaps the job of "youth pastor" is low paying and not supervised in some churches as it should be. It is obvious Catholic Clergy in past times were not watched carefully either, This included Bishops who transferred accused priests from one parish to another instead of turning the issue over to law enforcement. 

There is an irony in the way Christianity works that does not help matters. The people with the most money in any church setting are those whose children are grown. One can assume this demographic has less at stake and less interest in young people and their safety and wellbeing. The money and attention go to what older and wealthier people want. Yet, the future of the faith lies in those young people. 

Crime by clergy is not something isolated in the past. While probably it is no worse in the church than in society at large it has a different meaning when in the church. The church is supposed to be a place that corrects bad moral behavior, not the place where it originates.  

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