The Catholic Church has had many problems involving sex abuse, causing some dioceses to go bankrupt. Jehovah's Witnesses are not without some cases as well, but I have not heard of any congregations going bankrupt because of it and the Watchtower Society seems to remain unscathed. Someone argued that such activity proves that neither group can represent God. Any comments will be appreciated.
Child abuse is most often perpetuated by two types of individuals. Both of them are male. The first is the male homosexual who over the eons has preyed on young men so as to raise a new crop. The second has been the divorced man with a step child; this tends to be heterosexual in nature and is a result of the weakening of the taboo, in these situations, against sleeping with your own young.
In both cases the Catholic Church and the Jehovah’s Witnesses officially oppose both behaviors. In the case of homosexuality the rejection is complete. All homosexual acts are considered by both bodies to be manifestations of grave sin. In the case of divorced men both are looked down upon. Priests generally will not be chosen in most orthodox communions (Eastern, Traditional Anglican, conservative Lutherans, etc.) if they have been divorced at any time (though this is becoming unforgivably lax). Elder’s, while not receiving the same amount of scrutiny, are generally not previously divorced.
Both of these act to help prevent cases of child abuse. Child abuse is far more common, for example, among teachers than among the clergy. We, however, attribute a higher moral standard to clergy. This is as it should be. Clergy should be chosen from among godly men. Failure to do so causes all sorts of late blooming problems.
The Witnesses suffered scandal because they actively avoid usage of secular courts. Cases of incest and other forms of child abuse (by far the most common that I saw were “nearly-legal” affairs of the sixteen with post eighteen sort or homosexual) were handled entirely internally prior to 1994 (if memory serves). After that the elders were advised to call legal and, depending on the state/country, to suggest that the wronged party contact law enforcement.
Actual abuse by elders is statistically low. This doesn’t make it less heinous, just uncommon. In addition each congregation is legally a separate legal entity. Therefore a law suit is usually limited to targeting the individual congregation, or in order to gain more funds, the corporation that hold title to the Kingdom Hall.
The situation with the Catholic Church is a bit more complicated. First, most priests have never married or are currently bachelors. Unfortunately, a rather large population, especially in the United States and Western Europe, is homosexual. Seminaries have not been robust in screening these actively homosexual men out. The result is that starting in the late 70’s some began experimenting with their desires amongst their parishioners. The Catholic Church, being an extra-territorial polis, took much the same stance the Witnesses did and attempted to handle the situation themselves.
For both bodies this was a horrible mistake. Neither body understood that this was likely not a condition that the sinner was going to recover in any meaningful way from. Christianity as a whole is not a religion that can deal very well with pedophilia since it is constantly hopeful of the reform of the sinner. Men in both bodies received temporary banishments of one sort or another. Men in both bodies repeated their crimes. Both bodies, after far too long of a period, wised up to the problem.
The Witness reaction was by far the swiftest. I believe, by evidence of the letters received by the elders from Brooklyn, were beginning to figure out the scope of the problem by the early 90’s. By the mid-90’s the Witnesses had put into place enough safeguards that the problem had for all effective purposes died. Pedophiles could no longer serve in any capacity (including giving anything *but* a student talk). They had to be monitored at all times by elders while in a religious setting. Contact with children of any kind (even a pat on the head) resulted in, to borrow a phrase, A Church of the Authentic Back Room. However, people hate the Witnesses with an amazing passion generally when they leave. So, the real brouhaha started in the late 90’s for the Witnesses as the Catholic situation bubbled over and started getting serious press.
The Catholic church began to react in about the same period. This was fantastically slow since Bishops are given an enormous amount of leeway. They are, in the Catholic Church, princes in the old German sense. That is, they are largely independent and can only be brought to heel with amazingly serious crimes. What was worse, some pedophiles were either bishops themselves or given active protection by them. Pope Benedict the XVI was one of the chief men responsible for hunting down this plague. During his tenure in the once named Office of the Holy Inquisition (now the Congregation of Doctrine and Faith) he unseated at least one prominent Bishop in South Africa for a case linked to both homosexuality and pedophile pornography and was likely responsible for the early resignations of a few more. We have now seen additional guidelines posted to seminaries (causing the storm of controversy last year) and additional pastoral letters, that if read with an eye to the Scandal are pretty strongly worded.
Because the bishops hold so much power no individual parish is ever a separate entity. It always belongs to the diocese. A diocese has much bigger pockets and therefore is a much more tempting target for a law suit. This is driven by the greed of lawyers and the rightly harmed feelings of the families of the victims. Human life, when destroyed, is worth more than any monetary reward. Having a natural human affinity for divine justice the families attempt to right the scales by driving the institutions that harbored the monsters that hurt them into the ground.
Does this make either body any less holy? No. Christianity has long recognized its human nature and understands that the various men and women who make up the Church on Earth will fail; spectacularly at times. The claims of both the Witnesses and the Catholics must be seen in light of their theological value (of which the Catholics have by far the better case) not in the individual sins of its members.
Remember I pointed out that teachers have a higher rate of abuse? Does this mean we must (even though I would like it to happen) burn the schools to the ground? No. We must evaluate whether they fulfill their mission. If they are found wanting in that mission then we must pull them down.
Hopefully that helps. Feel free to ask about anything you might be curious about.