I just read that a survey of St. Louis University proved that 40 percent of American Nuns have suffered sexual violation at the hands of relatives, priests or someone related to the Church, how much of this is true? where can I get a well founded information about this topic?

Enrique

-- Enrique Ortiz (eaortiz@yahoo.com), January 09, 2003

Answers

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-- Enrique Ortiz (eaortiz@yahoo.com), January 09, 2003.

I have not heard anything about this, but my only question would be, since to be a nun, you have to be of age, are they even considering voluntary acts as violations?

-- Isabel (isabel@yahoo.com), January 09, 2003.

Hi Enrique, I, too, saw this on the secular news. My first reaction is 'it's just more persecution, more fuel to roast the Church' with. I don't doubt there may be another can of worms opened, why should we think the scandal hasn't touched the nuns also? Our attitude? Again, one of prayer for mercy. One of prayer for strength and perseverence in our loyalty to all that is good and upright in the Church. One of wisdom to know how to react, how to use righteous anger toward those who offend; and how to beg for mercy for the offender. Not an easy road for us, side by side we encourage each other.

JESUS IS STILL LORD.

-- Theresa Huether (Rodntee4Jesus@aol.com), January 09, 2003.

I would be most interested to hear how these "statistics" were obtained. You can prove anything you want to prove with a carefully biased poll. A few years ago the secular press reported the "astonishing fact" that 80% of Catholic priests responding to a poll claimed to know another Catholic priest with AIDS. This "information" was "discovered" through a poll conducted by a west coast newspaper. The obvious intimation was that an epidemic of AIDS existed among Catholic priests. Later, the details of the poll became known. The newspaper had mailed questionaires to randomly selected priests in one diocese. 80% of the priests who responded did in fact say that they knew a priest with AIDS - because at that time there was a priest in that diocese who had AIDS, and most of the priests who responded knew him. So much for polls.

This new ludicrous report sounds like something of the same ilk. Can you seriously think that thousands of intelligent women were sexualIy abused, and none of them ever reported it??? I don't believe a thing that is reported as the result of a poll unless they also publish the exact details of how the poll was taken - especially if it was conducted by the secular press, who have a known bias against the Catholic Church.

-- Paul (PaulCyp@cox.net), January 09, 2003.

A few other considerations - What kind of a category is "relatives, priests or someone related to the Church"?? Lumping several unrelated groups of people into one category is a typical way of biasing statistics, since a reader is likely to assume that all those included in the category are equally responsible, or at least substantially responsible. One might say "driving too fast, abusing drugs, and playing football" have caused the deaths of many teenagers. But what percentage of those deaths was due to playing football? How much of this supposed abuse of nuns was by relatives? How much by priests?

What does "someone related to the Church" mean?? Such vague terms leave everything to the imagination, and the people who use such terms know that clergy and religious will be assumed. Does this vague category include Catholic school teachers? Diocesan employees? All Catholics??

How much of this purported abuse occurred while these women were actually nuns? The report is worded in a way that would cause you to assume that the abuse took place while they were nuns. But it doesn't actually say that. How many of the incidents supposedly reported by these nuns took place in their childhood - and are therefore totally unrelated to the fact that they are now nuns?

These are the kinds of questions that have to be addressed before any statistical report can be taken as having any real meaning at all.

-- Paul (PaulCyp@cox.net), January 09, 2003.

I dunno ... most of the nuns I've encountered in the past 20+ years seem perfectly capable, and willing, to make a huge noisy stink if someone even looked at 'em crosseyed. American nuns tend to be pretty assertive these days. :-)

-- Christine L. :-) (christine_lehman@hotmail.com), January 09, 2003.

Here's a link to the story:

http://stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/News/263AD85EB409BD27862 56CA40076DBA4? OpenDocument&Headline=Nuns+as+sexual+victims+get+little+notice

To understand the perspective of the stats, here are the key findings:

"Nearly one in five nuns said she had been sexually abused as a child. While most of the abuse came at the hands of a male family member, about 9 percent of the cases were attributed to abuse by priests, nuns or other religious people."

In other words, 1.8% of the nuns reported abuse by religious people as a child (this may fall under the pedophile scandal category rather than any new one).

And another stat from the article:

"One in eight nuns said she had been sexually exploited. Of those, nearly three of every four maintained she was victimized by a priest, nun or other religious person."

Or 9.4% reported being sexually exploited by religious people.

And yet another stat:

"Slightly fewer than one in 10 nuns said she was the focus of sexual harassment at least once during her religious life. Almost half of those were reported to be at the hands of priests, nuns or other religious people."

Or .5% (about 1 in every 200 nuns) reported being sexually harassed by religious people.

So there's the stats in a hopefully more understandable fashion.

Hope that helps with the discussion.

Dave

-- non-Catholic Christian (dlbowerman@yahoo.com), January 09, 2003.

Really,dealing with this topic is a waste of time, in my opinion. Dominic.

-- Dominic Dowling (jddowling@iname.com), January 09, 2003.

I assume that "sexually exploited" might mean she was not allowed to become a priest??

-- Paul (PaulCyp@cox.net), January 09, 2003.

A statistic will confess to anything if you torture it long enough.

The weather reports: a 30% chance of rain-- Only means ten weather forecasters are asked to predict today's weather. Three of them forecast RAIN. Wow!

-- eugene c. chavez (chavezec@pacbell.net), January 09, 2003.

Statistics show that those people who celebrate the most birthdays become the oldest. ;-)

-- Christine L. :-) (christine_lehman@hotmail.com), January 09, 2003.

What is St. Louis University doing with this ''survey''? What objective is expected? Would you send your child to St. Louis University? Ugh.

-- eugene c. chavez (chavezec@pacbell.net), January 09, 2003.

Just checking back to see any responses to the information I provided at Enrique's request.

The first thing I noted from the article and my summary of the stats was that, as usual, the media has a way of framing things that are "true", but biased to the worst possible interpretation - because scandal sells.

While the reported 40% is really only 9-10% (a reason for some relief), it's still unacceptable from the church's perspective - how can any sexual abuse be acceptable? Is it a scandal on par with the pedophile/homosexual scandal? Clearly not. The nuns are adult and able to defend themselves and report the incident as a rape or whatever. Children are not able to defend themselves. Also, the main element of the pedophile problem that is truly scandalous is the cover-up and the way the bishops addressed the problem.

Most of you are so busy criticizing and attacking the report and belittling the findings (while somewhat justified for it's exaggeration) that it comes across as an act of denial or ignorance. As someone who attended a Jesuit college 20 years ago, reports such as this are not news (I was shocked at the time however). We know such things happen. It's tragic and should be addressed when it occurs.

I'm most impressed with Theresa's response, an example we can all learn from.

Dave

-- non-Catholic Christian (dlbowerman@yahoo.com), January 10, 2003.

I recommend a book called 'Sacred Silence.' I just started reading it so cannot give an opinion on it. But, I do like what I am reading thus far.

It is written by Fr. Donald Cozzens. The Liturgical Press, (Collegeville, Minn., 2002)

Father Cozzens focuses on the denial of what has been going on in the church, about the truth, and the changes that need to be made in the Church. However, he writes in a loving, compassionate way, not critical or harmful to the Church.

MaryLu

-- MaryLu (mlc327@juno.com), January 10, 2003.

I wrote a whole, lengthy, review by Brian T. Olsewski (Catholic Press) on the book mentioned above, but the post disappeared. Either it was too long, or I may have said something the moderator did not like...oh, well

All that time wasted. If there is one thing I hate, it is wasting time.

MaryLu

-- MaryLu (mlc327@juno.comq), January 10, 2003.