OF THE
TIMES
"One molester, who himself was a minister, said: 'I considered church people easy to fool ... they have the trust that comes from being Christians ... They tend to be better folks all around. And they seem to want to believe in the good that exists in all people. And because of that, you can easily convince, with or without convincing words.'
In interviewing victims in the growing number of cases involving priests, I have been surprised - although I should not have been - by how deeply religious many of the victims' families were. I have never before grasped that it was the most religious families who were thrilled to have a priest take an interest in their children, who wanted their children to be altar boys, who could not believe that a priest would do anything so wrong.
The growing crisis in the Catholic Church just underlines the fact that offenders can recognize ideal settings for child molesters even if the rest of us can't. In truth, a deeply religious and trusting group of people, plus the requirement of celibacy (an ideal cover for any man who has no sexual interest in adults), plus a hierarchy that doesn't report complaints to the police and simply moves the offender on to new and fresh territory with new potential victims, is the ideal setting for pedophiles."
Comment: We'd like to welcome Amazon, Microsoft, Adobe, and Netflix to the 21st century. According to Wikipedia, "In 2014, the International Labor Organization reviewed parental leave policies in 185 countries and territories, and found that all countries except two (the USA and Papau New Guinea) have laws mandating leave; laws vary in whether leave is paid by the employer or through social security." So while the USA still has no law requiring paternal leave, it appears some of the larger companies are now instituting their own policies, quite possibly only to avoid bad public relations, which of course hampers their profits.