Catholics child abuse settlements July 2007
Report all allegations of abuse to authorities
Reveal internal church records about abusers
Compensate victims
Allow settlement victims to speak about their abuse
Apologize to victims for church mistakes
Jehovah’s Witnesses child abuse settlements May 2007
Report all allegations of abuse to Watchtower Legal Department
Destroy or prevent church records about abusers from being revealed
Only compensate victims after spending millions in attorney fees to exhaust all possibilities otherwise
Make compensated victims sign gag orders to prevent them from speaking
Leadership makes no acknowledgement of wrongdoing or apology
As thousands attend the ‘Follow the Christ’ District Convention of Jehovah’s Witnesses, thousands of sexual abuse survivors from the same religion are learning something new. Leadership (Governing Body) authorized payment in May 2007, of the largest settlement in church history to sixteen victims of the church child abuse policy. This is certainly good news as it will allow thousands of JW victims to understand that they too might be able to be compensated for their abuse as well. As you can see above the Catholic Church has made adjustments force/funded by lawsuits to require adjustments in their child abuse policy. Now Jehovah’s Witnesses are starting the billion dollar process of discovering how to change policy or get sued out of existence. Thankfully Jehovah’s Witnesses are one of the wealthiest religions on earth and even though they continue to spend the bulk of their ‘Worldwide Work Donations’ protecting the religious rights of child molesters they are learning the hard way. Please do not give Jehovah’s Witnesses money until they start following the example set by the Catholic Church, otherwise you will be funding the freedom of pedophiles.
So as Jehovah’s Witnesses at the ‘Follow the Christ’ District Conventions are taught to sing loudly, only look at the speaker, and clap every time the speaker pauses: victims and advocates hope Jehovah’s Witnesses learn even more quickly about changing their policy on child abuse thus leaving more money for victims’ compensation instead of attorney pockets.
Other religion guilty of abuse
(Created: )
To the editor:
http://www.kpcnews.com/articles/2007/07/25/features/opinion/letters_to_the_editor/news_sun/doc46a7562c717ab982889619.txt
In recent days, as was reported in this newspaper, the Catholic Church paid out a record $660 million to compensate victims of sexual abuse.
Not many months back, a lesser known evangelical group, Jehovah’s Witnesses, also paid a settlement to 16 unnamed alleged victims of sexual abuse within the religion.
The longtime alleged coverup of these sins within that church make it, at least in some ways, even more heinous than that of the Catholic Church. Dateline broke the news on television with a program called “ Witness for the Prosecution” in May 2002. That program is still available to doubters via the Internet.
Several alleged victims of child-rape within the religion exposed the coverup. They were quickly silenced by being excommunicated from the faith. Their only sin was pain and anguish from sins left covered and hidden. The director of a non-religious organization devoted to giving these children (or adults later in life) a voice, Bill Bowen, also a Jehovah Witness at the time, was quickly expelled also. His sin? Protecting the children. His organization, Silentlambs, is prominent in the fight against these horrific attacks and rape of children within religion, particularly within Jehovah’s Witnesses, which he is intimately familiar as a long time elder.
Not long ago, Jehovah’s Witnesses distributed a major flyer to the public in which they decried the hypocrisy of religions that hide pedophilia within the church. It’s likely you got that little flyer in your door. In it, they picture a Catholic priest, intimating a disgust with religion that would tolerate such hidden practices within. Interestingly, they are now found to be precisely like the church they condemn and have condemned for decades. Yet, among the rank and file of this group, most continue to be unaware of the hypocrisy that has ended in hundreds of its members being expelled and “shunned.” The sin for which they have been expelled was a desire to protect others from monsters hiding in the shadows of this religion.
The panoramic depth of this problem has been well documented. It is just a mouse click away on any desktop computer from within the privacy of your own home. Please make yourself aware. Protect your family, some of whom may someday think that they might join one of these insular groups. While no one wants to imply that all churches have the same level of problem in this regard (there is likely some of it in all of them), the uneducated are always the victims of the pseudo-religious groups that cover up such crime.
By the way, in the case of the Catholic settlements, there was no restriction placed on the compensated victims. In the case of Jehovah’s Witnesses, the recipients of the settlements, were “gagged” to make sure they did not write books, or place simple letters in the local papers like this one. In so doing, I hope to be at least a small part of a large voice for those who must remain silent. These isolationist evangelical groups, many of whom believe that God is using them exclusively as the “TRUTH,” are unfortunately covering the sins of their leaders with the tears of their children.
Jeffrey A. Kline
Kendallville
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