Child trafficking, grooming, and abuse: What is going on?

Know our REAL enemy!

Normally I don’t post on Sundays, out of principle. But today I am presenting this article I’ve been working on this past week, as something that has been on my heart and mind for a while, but now spurred on to action by something that Brian Cates had written.
This is an important topic, and I ask you to prayerfully consider this, and pray for an end of child abuse, not just in the Catholic Church (that is where we have been trained by the media to think about first in association with that term), but also in your own circles and groups, and in our nation and in the world as a whole.

“The King will reply, 'Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.'” And “It would be better for him to have a millstone hung around his neck and to be thrown into the sea than to cause one of these little ones to stumble.”

How we treat the small and innocent, our own children, is not without consequence.

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It is time to expose another information war front.

These last few years, news about rolling up child trafficking rings and protection of children from abuse, and the topic of grooming has really come front and center. And somehow, this transcends any party divide, any ideological divide, and any religious divide. For good reason: DO NOT TOUCH OUR CHILDREN!

Children are innocent, and represent the future.

If we mess them up now, we mess up the future. This is a very serious issue.

You all know the constant stream of news reports about ’35 people arrests in child trafficking sting by US Marshals, and such. There is something seriously sick going on, and children are being preyed on for various reasons.

But for some reason, our moral outrage is directed in one, and ONLY one, direction. The Catholic Church. Catholic priests are pedophiles, and sick pricks, who prey on innocent children! EVERYONE KNOWS THAT!

Well, everyone ‘knows’ that because the media is doing all it can to drill it into our heads, and never make us forget it.

Even people like Joe Rogan lets himself be roped into this, without any critical thought, as the DailyMail reports:

“Podcaster Joe Rogan slammed the Catholic Church and The Vatican as being a 'country inside of a city filled with pedophiles”

And not just Joe Rogan, but any other media just loves to report such news, with big, fat letters in their titles. This example is from the AP:

“NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The FBI has opened a widening investigation into sex abuse in the Roman Catholic Church in New Orleans going back decades, a rare federal foray into such cases looking specifically at whether priests took children across state lines to molest them, officials and others familiar with the inquiry told The Associated Press.”

Now, before you stop reading, or continue reading: I AM NOT CONDONING, NOR DEFENDING, THE ACTUAL ABUSE THAT DID TAKE PLACE IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, BY PRIESTS WHO ABUSED THEIR POSITION OF TRUST AND AUTHORITY.

There, in fat and large letters, so you cannot miss it.

Each of those priests should be punished to the fullest extent of ecclesial and criminal law. I would even go so far as to want to invest in rope and millstone companies. And that includes the hierarchy that protected/protects any such criminal.

I am a Catholic myself, but I am NOT blind to this absolute disgrace. Even a single one such case would be a stain and blemish on the witness of Jesus Christ we are to present to the world. “The King will reply, 'Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.'” And “It would be better for him to have a millstone hung around his neck and to be thrown into the sea than to cause one of these little ones to stumble.”

There is no compromise on this. NONE.

Now, with that being said, we all need to be honest. If you are not a Catholic, resist the urge to gleefully pile on, as if this justifies any theological disagreement you might have. It doesn’t. There are times and places to bring up such differences, but this is not it. Instead, humbly look closer, and pray, together with all of us, for an end to this sin and disgrace.

Take a look at this news clip that Brian Cates shared:

But then look at this follow-up he wrote:

He is 100% right. He is not a Catholic, as far as I know, yet he understands exactly what is going on. I have been saying the same for years now, but recently, this is really becoming relevant again. And Brian and I are not alone. People like SpygateDown agree, and forward such messages, to spread the awareness that we need to be sure to aim our arrows at the RIGHT targets.

Here is the clincher to all this: At this point in time, it is safer for a kid to be with a member of the catholic clergy, than to be with a teacher, coach, scout leader, or even a family member! (In effect, it will be hard to find a priest willing to be alone with any child or group of children, with the protocols in place!)

As a letter to the Catholic Herald pointed out:

“According to Dr Thomas Plante of Stanford University and Santa Clara University, “available research suggests that approximately two to five per cent of priests have had a sexual experience with a minor” which “is lower than the general adult male population” – in which the percentage of those who have interfered with minors “is best estimated to be closer to eight per cent”. In other words, children who have anything to do with priests are between 1.6 and four times LESS likely to be abused by them than by anyone else.”

Blogger Paul Anthony Melanson suggests that “the media are not so much concerned with the welfare of children as they are with unfairly portraying the abuse of children as a ‘crisis in the Church’”.

And even non-Catholic Media are picking up on this, as well. Newsweek, of all places, wrote in an article titled “Catholic Priests Commit No More Abuse Than Other Males”:

“Experts disagree on the rate of sexual abuse among the general American male population, but Allen says a conservative estimate is one in 10. Margaret Leland Smith, a researcher at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, says her review of the numbers indicates it's closer to one in 5.”

There are plenty of other sources that back up such statistics:
CBS reports “Has Media Ignored Sex Abuse In School?”, and wrote "Think the Catholic Church has a problem?" she said. "The physical sexual abuse of students in schools is likely more than 100 times the abuse by priests."

And in a moment of clarity and honesty, it points out: “The media have left many with the impression that sexual abuse is a Catholic problem — as if Catholic beliefs and customs make sex abuse inevitable. Church teaching for its part is clear: Sexual abuse of minors is always wrong. A more likely culprit would be a non-religious ambivalence about the pedophilia, as seen, for instance, in the media's refusal to broaden its scope to include teachers when considering the issue.”

Boz Tchividjian, a grandson of evangelist Billy Graham and executive director of Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment (GRACE) is similarly very clear: “Evangelicals ‘worse’ than Catholics on sex abuse”.

It isn’t just schools and Christians. Jewish communities are not exempt, either. A law firm wrote about this, as well, in typical no-nonsense style. They present, among other things, a list of examples of such cases within the Jewish community.

And even Vice reports on such, in this article.

I could add similar stories from Russian or Greek Orthodox cases of child abuse, or from any other religious church or group. Same story.

Really, I did not even get going on the majority of cases of child abuse in the United states, that take place every day at the hands of Boy Scouts leaders, coaches, schools, doctors, volunteers, neighbors, friends, and families!

Just today I saw on TruthSocial the hashtag #ThePedophileDisclosureProject, with this image:

But I already posted enough, you get the drift. Notice that I have no joy in posting any of those other stories. That I am NOT using this as some sort of grotesque ‘tu quoque’, as if abuse in other churches, religions and societal groups makes the inexcusable abuse at the hands of priests any less! I weep, seeing how pervasive this has become! But we need to look past a carefully created and curated image that the media has spent decades now creating.

Contrary to what we are led to believe, child abuse is in the first place a problem among family friends and family members. (Schools a close second).

The Hunter scandal that is erupting, as chronicled by Kanekoa and others, is proof of that.

Keep in mind:
“According to federal studies, three quarters of abuse occurs at the hands of family members or others in the victim's "circle of trust." The fundamental premise here is that those who abuse children overwhelmingly seek out situations where they have easy and legitimate access to children.”

And again: NO, THIS IS NOT TO MINIMIZE THE SIN OF THOSE PRIESTS. On the contrary!

Since the scandals in the Catholic Church fully erupted, first in Boston, then everywhere else, a lot has happened. Deep and very open studies, (the John Jay study, for example), as well as very effective protocols to prevent abuse from being possible in the first place. And not just for priests, but for everyone who works with children in a Catholic parish or organization. Never be alone with children: if you have a meeting, always have another adult present, as well, for example. To that end, the program ‘Virtus’ was set up.

From their website:

“The National Catholic Risk Retention Group, Inc. (National Catholic) created the programs. Monsignor Kevin McCoy, past board chairman of National Catholic, asked whether child sexual abuse could be prevented and, if so, how? In March of 1998, National Catholic invited prominent national experts—experts in many disciplines—to discuss these questions at a forum in Washington, D.C. From those discussions, the initiative for the VIRTUS programs was created.”

This model includes an attitude of zero tolerance, and is proven to be very effective, but of course only insofar it is implemented and followed to proper standard, as with every program.

That it is effective, can be seen on this graph:

 It shows that the number of accusations has dropped dramatically, even when attention about such scandals, and the lure of high payouts (with over $1.2 billion being paid out in the US to date!), at an all time high. It isn’t zero yet, unfortunately, but it shows that currently the Church is protecting a very safe environment. Much safer than anywhere else.

But it is easier to attack the Church, for several reasons:

1) The Catholic Church is very visible, well organized, present all over the world: it is a much easier target than much smaller and local protestant Churches that no one has ever heard about and has no connection to (and thus also a great target to shake down for damages!)

2) The Church is a major obstacle to the progressives, for example in her opposition on abortion and a slew of other important social issues (even if on other issues she is seen as an ally, where such in most cases is to be nuanced, too). Any attack that damages her moral credibility is a win for those progressives.

3) It creates a knee-jerk reaction and identification that has kept all other child abuse cases out of the public eye and awareness. The media literally jumps on any scandal involving the Church and loves to draw it out as long as possible, and is virtually silent on everything else.

Another observation is this:

Looking at that above graph, you see a sudden increase in abuse cases in the beginning of the Sixties. The era of free love. Not by coincidence. Several things contributed: on the one hand, the Church was accused of being backwards, and ‘not with the times’. But when certain members of the clergy DID get ‘along with the times’, and practiced ‘free sex’, even, along the lines of groups such as the decidedly non-Catholic NAMBLA (North American Man-Boy Love Association, a pedophilia and pederasty advocacy organization in the US), they got merciless attacked (for good reason, don’t get me wrong).

But there is a double standard there that bears pointing out. On one hand Catholic moral rules were attacked as ‘medieval’, unjust, and wrong, but when some of her own members joined into the sexual liberty movement of the modern days, they got attacked by the same people who just before had attacked the Church for being prudes and ‘out of touch with modernity’, using that same ‘obsolete moral teaching’ as the guide to really condemn the level of wrongdoing by such priests. Can’t have it both ways: either you accept that morality as valid, and you attack not just those priests, but everyone else who breaks it (!!), or you attack that morality, and stop attacking those who don’t follow that morality.

Next, we see this number of cases decline rapidly in the 80s and 90s, before the major scandals broke out. This points at a reflex within the Church to counter this sinful evil, to their credit: the improvement was not just ‘because they got found out’. Credit where credit is due. (Even if I am aware this sadly does not extend to ALL dioceses within the church, as some bishops still continued their attempts to muffle away such cases, or were part of that themselves!).

To make that point more starkly clear: in 2019, there were 8 cases of abuse by clergy that were deemed credible. In that same year, there have been 60,927 reported cases of child sexual abuse in the United States, but what do we talk about? The Church behind those 8 cases as the personification of child abusers.

Another important point about the sudden peak in pedophilia cases in the 60s and 70s, was that the bishops listened to the ‘experts’, who claimed that sexual offenders could be ‘rehabilitated’ by treatment. So instead of sending such priests to the police, they were sent to retreats and treatment camps, and then back to their schools or parishes. Just like ANY OTHER big corporation or organization did at the time, based on the same recommendations. Even if they were sent to the police, the criminal system did the exact same: sent the offenders to treatment, not to prison.

A clear majority of the cases of the abuse in the church is male on male (homosexual) ‘ephebophilia’. This is sexual attraction to post-pubescent adolescents and older teens. But obviously, in a time that gay sex and love were to be celebrated, and the Church to be maligned for throwing stumbling blocks between ‘people who just wanted to love each other’, such could NOT be pointed out! It STILL can’t be pointed out!

I suspect this is exactly why people such as Vice President Kamala Harris, when she was still the District Attorney in San Francisco and then California, are involved in covering up certain cases of abuse within their local Catholic Church.

AP reported on this, and wrote ““Of all the DAs in the Bay Area, she [Kamala Harris] was the only one who wouldn’t cooperate with us,” said Rick Simons, an attorney who was the court-appointed coordinator for clergy abuse cases filed in Northern California, as well as Piscitelli’s personal lawyer.” And ”after Harris was elected California attorney general in 2010, she continued to avoid taking a stand on the Catholic Church’s abuse problem.”

No one is going to accuse Harris of harboring any sympathy towards the Catholic Church. On the contrary. When Brian Buescher was nominated in 2018 for a position as District Court Judge, it was Harris who brought up his membership of the Knights of Columbus, as a decidedly negative factor.

First Things chronicled her anti-Catholic stance in an article titled ‘Kamala Harris’s Record of Anti-Catholic Bigotry’, and relayed her questioning of the nominated Buescher:

”Since 1993, you have been a member of the Knights of Columbus, an all-male society comprised primarily of Catholic men. In 2016, Carl Anderson, leader of the Knights of Columbus, described abortion as “a legal regime that has resulted in more than 40 million deaths.” Mr. Anderson went on to say that “abortion is the killing of the innocent on a massive scale.” Were you aware that the Knights of Columbus opposed a woman’s right to choose when you joined the organization?”

She went on to ask Buescher if he had “ever, in any way, assisted with or contributed to advocacy against women’s reproductive rights” and if he “opposed marriage equality,” not so subtly implying that adherence to staples of orthodox Catholic moral life is disqualifying for a federal judgeship. And she has asked similar questions of other nominees to the federal bench.

So why then would she take such protective stance towards abuse in the Catholic Church in her own jurisdiction as DA? Likely because top clergy in that diocese were linked with child abuse of other members of the CA elites, and could not be compromised. Or because she did not want to draw attention to the gay character of the abuse. Or fill in with your own suggestion.

Fact is that she showed a strange hypocrisy.

To support this false narrative of Catholic Abuse as a rampant, pervasive evil, a conspiracy even of bishops and cardinals to protect their own depraved appetites, the media and prosecutors did not hesitate to cook up stories. Case in point, the Pennsylvania grand jury report. Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro lied and deceived those who read his report, when he claimed that the Church "did nothing" about abuse cases, and when he accused the Church hierarchy of showing a "complete disdain" towards the victims. Fact is that almost always, a priest accused of any abuse was immediately removed from his position, in many cases they were stripped of their priestly faculties. Bishop Wuerl stated in response to this report that he met with every victim that had come forward, in an interview with CBS.

And as The Media Report, a Catholic group formed to be an “educational cooperative to chronicle and monitor the mainstream media's coverage of the Catholic Church sex abuse narrative” (see their Fast Facts Sheet here, worth a closer look, as are the rest of their resources), basically to combat the MSM tactics as they ‘covered’ cases where the Church was involved. Having seen how the Tea Party, and then Trump and his base have been treated, we should be able to sympathize with those against who the media unleashes their ‘reporting’.

As a historian/archeologist myself, I really like this next argument: pointing out textbook observation basis, and/or survivor bias. We know so much more about the Church’s faults, because she scrupulously kept and keeps records of everything (with exactly the possibility of being found out in mind: it is a measure to prevent errors from being hidden and quietly spreading!).

”The Catholic Church's practice of retaining its personnel files for centuries continues to gratuitously expose itself to scrutiny by secular authorities.

Do you ever wonder why you never see a "grand jury report" about abuse by public school teachers from the 1960s, 70s, or 80s like we do from the Catholic Church?

The reason is simple: Under federal law, organizations only need to retain personnel documents for one year after an employee departs the organization. Then off to the shredder they go.

Meanwhile, the Church preserves documents dating back to the first century, and at the same time it is accused of secreting evidence and obstructing justice.”

Interesting, isn’t it? I bet you haven’t taken that aspect of things into account, either.

Still, and it absolutely bears repeating: None of this defends or takes away from the enormity of the abuse of the priests involved. NONE OF IT. Not even of a single case.

But it is time to point out the fuller story.

When there is real abuse in the Church: absolutely, DO point it out, and support those who aim to eradicate such evil behavior. But be mindful to NOT fall into the trap to focus only or even mostly on the Catholic Church. That is the goal of these concerted media efforts to highlight and drag out every such case, while silencing all the rest, and keeping their own friends in the elites and upper echelons of society out of reach. Just as you want your country cleaned from this filth, I want my church cleaned from it, too. It has no place in a civil society.

The attacks on our children is going on in full force. Twitter and other social media are even banning the word ‘grooming’ and ‘groomer’, in a futile attempt to stem the growing and bipartisan backlash. Drag shows are being held everywhere. Books and programs for our children, even the youngest, contain what can only be described as filthy pornographic material, with zero educational value. And this is only the tip of the iceberg. We all have read the many different stories, we KNOW.

Now that this has been pushed to absurd extremes, people all over the political spectrum are waking up: DO NOT TOUCH OUR CHILDREN!

As contrary to ‘common knowledge’ this sounds, the Catholic Church is a huge ally in this fight, even if many on the right are not Catholics themselves. It is absolutely possible to attack the specific evil of child abuse within the Church, without attacking the Church as a whole, ESPECIALLY WHEN THAT EVIL IS SPECIFICALLY AND STRONGLY CONDEMNED BY THE CHURCH HERSELF AND BY HER OWN TEACHINGS! That only plays into the hands of the groomers and their enablers. And no, this does not mean you then suddenly ‘support’ or even ‘condone’ all of Catholic theology and history, either! People want you to believe that, so they can separate the religious/Christian conservatives with a deep distrust of each other. Divide and conquer, this is nothing else but a textbook example of such attempt.

Keep in mind the message behind this quote by C.S. Lewis:

“Suppose one reads a story of filthy atrocities in the paper (about your enemy). Then suppose that something turns up suggesting that the story might not be quite true, or not quite so bad as it was made out. Is one's first feeling, 'Thank God, even they aren't quite so bad as that,'

Or is it a feeling of disappointment, and even a determination to cling to the first story for the sheer pleasure of thinking your enemies are as bad as possible? If it is the second then it is, I am afraid, the first step in a process which, if followed to the end, will make us into devils.”

-C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

I will end with what Brian Cates, just as Lewis also NOT a Catholic, sharply and wisely pointed out:

“And one of the biggest things they do to hide the organized grooming/abuse that goes in US public schools is to give a different villain to hate:

The Catholic Church.

Don't @ me about it.  You can't even argue it.  The evidence is overwhelming.  Whatever the level of abuse there is in the Catholic Church here in America, it's dwarfed by the elephant in the room.

There's a reason they want you focused on Catholic priests that abuse children, because it means you're not asking them why they're not exposing all the public school teachers doing the exact same crimes.”

This is not about the Catholic Church. It is not even about the public school teachers. It is about a worldview that is being promoted, where this is acceptable. That turns a blind eye to such abuse. The who and how of that, is for another exploration, but we all already have some idea, looking at the elites who are pushing this on us all, to cover up for their own disordered appetites.

The media has been trying to divide us, also on this topic. After they finished destroying the Catholic Church, who will they come after next, you think? But we need unity. We need to turn this around, and think about the elites FIRST when hearing about child abuse.

Stop the groomers. Stop the child abuse. Stop the trafficking.

Know who the real enemy is.

We are in this fight together, and we are winning.

All is well.