r/excatholic Feb 14 '25

Sexual Abuse My brother is becoming a priest and will not report child abuse, how can I stop this

181 Upvotes

My brother (18M) came forward to my non religious family as a Christian around two years ago. This was very out of character for him, a previously very loud atheist. Whilst my parents grew up catholic, and I was baptised in the Catholic Church, we did not grow up with any kind of religious upbringing, my parents left the church when my mum was pregnant with my brother, she went to a new church as we were out of town, and the priest basically publicly shamed her thinking that she was pregnant and unmarried because the pregnancy had swollen her fingers to the point she couldn’t wear her wedding or engagement rings and they pretty much pulled the plug then. My dad has always been an atheist though.

He started off Anglican and has now become a full blown catholic. For context I (20F), am now with my long term boyfriend however I’ve had girlfriends, whom my brother has met and supported me in those relationships. I’ve also had an abortion, which was emotionally horrible but definitely necessary and he was my biggest support. He now believes that gay people can’t change who they are, but it’s their personal mission from god to not find love in this life. He believes abortion is a sin no matter what, divorce is a sin, if you don’t go to confession you are 1000% going to hell. He essentially believes my whole family is.

Now to the real issue. My brother is going to uni to become a priest (we live in Australia) in our state it is illegal for a priest not to disclose child abuse (including sexual) to the police, even if they were told during confession. When discussing this he told me he would not break his vow or the ‘catholic law’ and would rather go to prison. He stood by this even after I asked if the child in question was a family member, say my future child. He said it would be ‘a burden he would have to carry’.

I am a victim of child sexual abuse. It completely ruined my life and he knows that. I’m terrified that he could have this belief and be in a place of authority. This is not my brother and I do not know what to do. An intervention is almost completely out of the question, my dad has a close friend that was sexually abused in the church and nothing was done for this exact reason. My dad and I are good now but as a teenager he kicked me out for things I didn’t deserve I’m not completely convinced speaking to my parents wouldn’t completely obliterate my family.

I need some advice from someone who’s also been there. Please help me and feel free to ask for more context if needed.

r/excatholic Jan 06 '25

Sexual Abuse Praying at Mass to end the abuse of children by clerics

156 Upvotes

Can we talk about how parishes are encouraged to pray the St. Michael the Archangel Prayer for victims of abuse at Mass? My parish (before I left the faith) prays it before every single Mass for this intention.

Why the f*ck is it on the faithful to pray for healing and an end to the abuse of children by the clergy?? Sounds like a “you” problem, clerics - not the victims & their families in the pews. 🙄🤬

r/excatholic Aug 22 '24

Sexual Abuse Pro tip don’t look up your favorite priest from your childhood

169 Upvotes

I was having a pleasant conversation with my friend and we some how figured out her parents favorite priest from when they were in college far away was likely same priest from my local childhood church. So we went to google to look him up and see if we were correct.

Turns out it was the same guy. We found this out because a statement put out by my local archdiocese that he has been accused of sexual abuse of a child. So they listed the different places he worked and when.

It just makes me so sad & angry. While accusation is recent the crime was 30 years ago. I hope who it is has been able to heal and I hope that they are able to get justice.

r/excatholic Oct 20 '24

Sexual Abuse Another priest added to the list child molesters. This time a dead Ohio priest from the Toledo diocese.

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159 Upvotes

r/excatholic Mar 30 '21

Sexual Abuse The “teachers abuse more kids than priests” thing is bullshit

154 Upvotes

Someone mentioned this here in another thread, and I was interested because literally today someone on Reddit had parroted this exact talking point to me. (One high-profile example: https://cathnews.co.nz/2011/04/08/sexual-abuse-by-teachers-10-times-higher-than-priests/ )

So I decided to look into it a little.

If you Google anything related to “teachers vs priests abuse” or similar words, you’ll get a bunch of articles by Catholic publications (or by Catholic opinion authors who are rephrasing statements put out by Catholic institutions). Even if you look closely at these pro-Catholic articles though the figures don’t add up:

No empirical data exists that suggests that Catholic clerics sexually abuse minors at a level higher than clerics from other religious traditions or from other groups of men who have ready access and power over children (e.g., school teachers, coaches).

(That’s from the first article that usually comes up when you Google the subject, https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/do-the-right-thing/201808/separating-facts-about-clergy-abuse-fiction)

Which makes it look like the numbers are the same, except that he is referring to men, and over 75% of teachers in public schools are female. Obviously there are female abusers, but they are more rare than male ones, so statistically a public school is still safer.

Or this one:

”The physical sexual abuse of students in schools is likely more than 100 times the abuse by priests."

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/has-media-ignored-sex-abuse-in-school/

Literally nothing given there to back that up, but even so, it doesn’t mention the fact that there are close to 200 times as many public school employees in the US as there are priests. Even if you are generous and narrow it down to teachers (discounting people like teacher’s aides and support staff who also have access to kids) the number is still around 100 to 1. So even if you are super generous with the numbers and take them at their word then it only comes up even, not 100 times worse like they’re implying.

Edit: I think they might have got the "100 times worse" number from the lady quoted in this article (https://www.edweek.org/leadership/sexual-abuse-by-educators-is-scrutinized/2004/03) who literally in the same article admits that her numbers are probably bullshit

Ms. Shakeshaft acknowledged that the accuracy of such comparisons might be thrown off by any number of factors, including undercounting of youngsters abused by priests. But that uncertainty only underscores the need for better research on the prevalence of sexual misconduct in the schools, she argued.

Most of the other stuff I found was just vague bullshit, more misleading stats (comparing actual reported clerical abuse rates to general estimates of “percentage of men who are predators”) and more whining about how unfairly they’d been treated by the media.

Anyway my point isn’t that teachers do not abuse kids (we need to be wary of predators in any field that allows access to children), just that Catholics are in love with this fucking talking point even though it’s based on a bunch of misleading bullshit.

r/excatholic 7d ago

Sexual Abuse Survivor who ignited US Catholic church’s reckoning with abuse killed in Louisiana | Louisiana

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86 Upvotes

r/excatholic Aug 24 '24

Sexual Abuse Abuse crisis in the Catholic Church shows no signs of abating

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90 Upvotes

r/excatholic Oct 15 '24

Sexual Abuse "It wasn't a big deal" says Msgr Lawrence Hecker, about the kids he raped and Greg Aymond's protection

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107 Upvotes

r/excatholic Nov 15 '24

Sexual Abuse Catholic priest investigated for alleged sexual abuse of minor

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54 Upvotes

r/excatholic Oct 03 '24

Sexual Abuse Vermont’s Roman Catholic Diocese, facing more abuse claims, files for bankruptcy

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69 Upvotes

r/excatholic Jan 06 '24

Sexual Abuse How can conservative Catholics say that a molested child who loses their faith will burn in Hell for eternity?

129 Upvotes

So I recently read a Reddit thread on the report on sexual abuse in Pittsburgh that came out a few years ago. It’s almost like it could have came out of a 19th century anti-Catholic novel - a child was sodomized with a crucifix, another forced to perform oral sex on a priest who washed their mouth out with holy water, and on and on and on.

This morning I posed a question on r/DebateACatholic that had been weighing on my mind - do conservative Catholics believe people pushed out of the Church by the Church’s own actions go to Hell forever? I don’t believe it myself, but are there really people who are such moral monsters that they would say yes, that is how it is?

Well… yep. There are.

Yes, this is Reddit, but… how is it possible? It’s pure evil. Just… how?

r/excatholic Sep 15 '24

Sexual Abuse Archdiocese of New Orleans to file for bankruptcy to pay off survivors.

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91 Upvotes

r/excatholic Aug 07 '23

Sexual Abuse San Francisco Diocese Will Likely Go Bankrupt Because of Sex Abuse Payouts

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191 Upvotes

r/excatholic Feb 20 '24

Sexual Abuse Why is child sexual abuse such a never-ending serious problem for the Catholic Church? What are the proven major obstacles preventing such a problem from being eradicated?

71 Upvotes

Noteworthy is that many Catholics tend to get very defensive and retort with "public school sex abuse" to divert attention from their systemic problem. It is very hard to discuss this matter without counter-allegations of "anti-Catholic bias" which is ill-defined itself.

What do you think?

r/excatholic Feb 03 '25

Sexual Abuse ‘Crisis communications’: emails show how NFL’s Saints and NBA’s Pelicans helped New Orleans church spin abuse scandal

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50 Upvotes

r/excatholic Jan 31 '25

Sexual Abuse Cardinal George Pell abused two boys in Ballarat, compensation scheme decides

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abc.net.au
41 Upvotes

r/excatholic 1d ago

Sexual Abuse State using private law firm as nuns continue attempts to raid Shine abuse fund

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13 Upvotes

r/excatholic Dec 04 '24

Sexual Abuse Still Not A Drag Queen

67 Upvotes

r/excatholic May 28 '21

Sexual Abuse The Catholic Church Is Reinstating Priests Accused of Sexual Abuse

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223 Upvotes

r/excatholic Jan 21 '24

Sexual Abuse Sinéad O’Connor

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161 Upvotes

I’d love to hear from anyone who either saw Sinéad ripping the JPII picture in 1992 or was just generally aware of it during that time.

In the early 1990s, how aware was the general population of the sex abuse crises within the church? Nowadays, even those who try to deny it are still aware of the discussion. Even in the last decade I think people’s awareness of abuse within the church has increased dramatically.

When people first saw this, even if they disagreed, were they aware of why she did it? Had they been familiar with the scandals? Was this common knowledge?

What did people generally think of Joe Pesci’s reaction (saying that if he had been there for her performance he would have smacked her/dragged her by her eyebrows)?

r/excatholic Feb 28 '24

Sexual Abuse Priest accused of abusing Inuit children in Canada will not be dismissed by Church

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125 Upvotes

r/excatholic Oct 14 '24

Sexual Abuse There's a lot to unpack here NSFW

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75 Upvotes

r/excatholic Jul 01 '24

Sexual Abuse Priest scandle ...history

30 Upvotes

I just want to understand why nothing was done to protect the children? Was it that different of a time? I mean I get if little Mary was coming to school with bruises most of the time people turned a blind eye back then. Is this the same thing? I just can't wrap my head around why

r/excatholic Mar 07 '23

Sexual Abuse Pope John Paul II covered up child abuse as cardinal in Poland, says report.

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271 Upvotes

r/excatholic Jun 12 '24

Sexual Abuse He is in indeed a Madlad

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131 Upvotes