For quite a few years now, it seems that every few months or so another archdiocese of the church is implicated in a case of sexual abuse by some priest or another. The latest one was in Iowa, where the local archdiocese settled with over 150 victims for $37 million dollars. With all of these cases costing the church (and subsequently church-goers donations) into the billions of dollars, what are they to do?
Well, perhaps coloring books might solve the problem:
NEW YORK -- A new coloring book being distributed by the Archdiocese of New York uses a cartoon guardian angel to warn kids against predators in what is apparently the first such effort by a Roman Catholic diocese in the United States.
But the head of an advocacy group for victims of abuse by priests said the book should say explicitly that trusted adults -- including priests -- may be the abusers.
In the coloring book, the perky guardian angel tells children not to keep secrets from their parents, not to meet anyone from an Internet chat room and to allow only "certain people" like a doctor or parent to see "where your bathing suit would be."
Oh wait, this addresses the problems of trusting strangers. Of course, the largest problem when it comes to sexual abuse is that most of the time the victim knows their assailant. Unfortunately the book barely addresses this, except in one small part of the book.
The closest the coloring book comes to directly addressing the church abuse scandal is a picture of a second angel -- not the guardian angel -- grinning at a priest and an altar boy through a wide open door. "For safety's sake, a child and an adult shouldn't be alone in a closed room together," the text reads. "
If a child and an adult happen to be alone, someone should know where they are and the door should be open or have a big window in it."
Don't be surprised to see continuing charges against these priests. As long as the church does not appropriately address the problem, it will continue.
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