Birmingham, Ala., Jun 10, 2019 / 09:01 pm (CNA).- While the Catholic bishops of the United States convene in Baltimore this week, with the addressing of clergy sex abuse scandals high on their list of priorities, another religious group will convene to discuss the same issue, from their side of the pew – the Southern Baptist Convention.
In their annual convention, which begins this week in Birmingham, Ala., leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention will discuss policies, such as the expelling of churches that fail to report abuse, for handling sex abuse allegations against leaders in the ecclesial community, the AP reported.
In February, in the wake of nearly a year of high-profile Catholic clergy abuse scandals, two Texas newspapers published a three-part investigation into the SBC, uncovering at least 700 cases of child sexual abuse at the hands of church leaders and volunteers.
The joint investigation by the Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News revealed that since 1998, around 380 SBC leaders and volunteers have been accused of sexual misconduct – some resulting in lawsuits and convictions, others in personal confessions and resignations.
“For years, there were people who assumed abuse was simply a Roman Catholic problem,” Russell Moore, who heads the SBC’s public policy arm, told the AP. “I see that mentality dissipating. There seems to be a growing sense of vulnerability and a willingness to address this crisis.”
According to the AP, clerical abuse within the SBC was already a priority at the annual convention in 2018, but the recent investigative report has made the topic all the more urgent.
While the sex abuse scandals in the SBC resemble those within the Catholic Church in many ways, there is one notable difference – a lack of centralized authority, which makes the handling of abuse across the 47,000-some churches that belong to the community all the more difficult, as multiple SBC members have noted.
“It’s a perfect profession for a con artist, because all he has to do is talk a good talk and convince people that he’s been called by God, and bingo, he gets to be a Southern Baptist minister,” Christa Brown, an activist who wrote about her own experience being molested by an SBC pastor, told the Houston Chronicle in February.
In an essay about the abuse scandal published on his website, Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, called for a third-party investigation of all cases of abuse within the SBC. He also lamented that “the SBC ecclesial structure directly contrasts with the edifice of the Roman Catholic Church,” making reforms difficult to enforce. SBC churches are united only by “friendly cooperation with and contributing to the causes of the Southern Baptist Convention,” he noted.
In response to the abuse crisis, J. D. Greear, President of the SBC, commissioned a Sexual Abuse Advisory Group, which last weekend released a report after examining how the SBC can “at every level can take discernable action to respond swiftly and compassionately to incidents of abuse, as well as to foster safe environments within churches and institutions.”
The 52-page document includes testimonies from survivors of abuse by SBC leaders, as well as recommended protocols for the handling of abuse allegations within congregations, which includes establishing “care teams” that will accompany sex abuse victims through steps such as reporting abuse and seeking psychological help.
“We must filter every decision with this question: How does this decision protect and care for the alleged victim?” the report states.
“Only when sin is exposed to the light of truth, true repentance, healing, and change can begin,” Greear told the AP.
According to the AP, the SBC anticipates several protestors at their annual convention, in part due to the sex abuse crisis, and in part because of an ongoing debate about the all-male leadership of the ecclesial community.
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Well, that’s a big fat lie.
Thankfully he addresses one subject at a time! One cause of divisive results! Typically journalists love to water down the affected subjects by drawing attention to other events!
Snort. Consider the source.
A source of scandal??? The Latin Mass? REALLY?? Can this guy exaggerate even more?? The opinions from the nest of vipers which is Germany hold no water for many in any case. .
Okay, Boomer.
Can you explain your cryptic comment? To whom is it addressed?
As I understand it, the phrase is a way to avoid substantial discussion by dismissing the opinions of any persons born from 1946 to 1964 (so, some 71 million people in the United States) as valueless because of when they were born.
Kasper has dedicated his life to fostering division by undermining and contradicting Church teaching on the Virgin Birth, Resurrection, the Real Presence etc. and by deliberately undermining Pope’s St John Paul Ii and Benedict XVI as a member of the Sankt Gallen mafia. Pot, meet kettle.
From Cardinal Kasper: “As far as I know, none of the bishops wants any schismatic act and there is a slowly growing number in the bishops’ conference who are resistant.”
About the German Synodal Way(ward) we have only “worries” and wishful thinking from Kasper. Perhaps the possibly shifting results of Kasper’s nose count of German bishops can be made as public as could be the also undocumented results of the Vatican survey regarding the Latin Mass?
The “slowly growing number” of resistant bishops rests on an originally small handful. I recall a reported 13 out of 69 bishops against the directions taken early by the synodal way. The schismatic and invalid blessing of homosexual unions is already a well-known “schismatic act”. From Rome, case-specific corrections would be most welcome, as such an approach could have been made against only those alleged traditionalist enclaves who reportedly reject the Second Vatican Council. Unlike the theology of Aquinas, for example, a similar precision in policy making is too-often vastly undervalued (but how to do this without being duped into creating photo-op martyrs and seemingly triggering the full-blown schism?)
As for the German Catholic laity: “The Catholic weekly newspaper Die Tagespost reported Sept. 17 [2020] that 53 percent of German Catholics said they were not interested in the Synodal Path” (https://cruxnow.com/church-in-europe/2020/09/cologne-cardinal-warns-german-churchs-synodal-path-could-cause-schism/).
On the other hand, also in 2020, “conservative clerics were repeatedly outvoted by 80% to 90% when they tried to change the [unstructured membership] rules governing the [eventually “binding” synodal] talks” (https://www.ncronline.org/news/world/reformers-ideas-gain-momentum-german-synodal-way).
Apart from any future results, is the synodal-path process itself, in Germania, already schismatic?
This is the clerical equivalent of “You are a racist because you don’t agree with me.” EVERY single person who attends a Latin Mass rejcts Vatican II??? What world are these people living in? And he is a cardinal? So much for mercy and dialogue.