This Just In...
Kevin Fischer is an award-winning veteran broadcaster who has been seen and heard on Milwaukee TV and radio stations for nearly three decades.
Kevin, who is a legislative aide to state Sen. Mary Lazich (R-New Berlin), can be seen offering his views on the news on the public affairs program, “INTERchange,” on Milwaukee Public Television Channel 10. He lives with his wife, Jennifer, in Franklin.
Is there a priest scandal or not?
By Kevin Fischer
Tuesday, Apr 15 2008, 08:00 PM
“It is a great suffering for the church in the United States and for the church in general and for me personally that this could happen. It is difficult for me to understand how it was possible that priests betray in this way their mission ... to these children. I am deeply ashamed and we will do what is possible so this cannot happen again in the future. We will absolutely exclude pedophiles from the sacred ministry. It is more important to have good priests than many priests. We will do everything possible to heal this wound."
Traveling from Rome to Washington on his first papal journey to the United States, Pope Benedict XVI, April 15, 2008.
On April 7, while filling in for Mark Belling on WISN, I asked listeners if they thought there was a serious sex scandal today in the Catholic Church and to rate the seriousness on a scale of 0-10.
Some callers thought a problem remains, but more thought the problem is being addressed by the Church as it attempts to settle with victims. Many felt the crisis isn’t as rampant as it was in the past.
I then quoted a March 31 news release by Bill Donohue, the president of the Catholic League. Donohue correctly predicted that with the Pope set to visit the United States, “Some will try to slam the pope for the sex abuse scandal, as if he somehow approved it (he actually used some of the most condemnatory language of anyone when he called molesting priests ‘filth’).”
Donohue then fired this shot:
“What will not be reported is the fact that for the year 2007, .01 percent of the more than 40,000 priests in the U.S. had an allegation made against them for violating someone under the age of 18 (want to compare that with public school teachers anyone?).”
I decided to take Donohue up on his invitation to compare. I found this, from Worldnetdaily.com:
“An estimated 5 million students in United States schools have been assaulted sexually by teachers, according to a congressional report. But no one is calling for investigations or law enforcement crackdowns, there have been no campaigns to ban the offenders from schools, and in many states there aren't even any requirements such predator attacks be reported to education licensing agencies.
Terri Miller, who runs probably the only organization in the nation that focuses specifically on assaults by educators on students, (said) ‘This is an epidemic.’
She said the problem easily could be many times larger than the scandals involving Catholic Church priests molesting children, and the hundreds of millions of dollars in civil liabilities already determined in those cases.”
Here’s more.
All practicing Catholics decry the sins of priests who’ve assaulted, However, the overwhelming majority of Catholic priests are good, decent men who should not be unfairly judged or painted with a wide brush just because the Pope has landed.
