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The Sins of Sexual Abuse

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Re “Cloak of Silence Covered Abuse at Jesuit Retreat,” March 24: Surely there must be a mistake! Can Fathers Thomas Smolich and Greg Aherne, current and former Jesuit superiors, really subscribe to the ethical position that they need not report to authorities molestations of mentally impaired human beings under their watch because the victims are not minors?

How can they ethically justify sending sexual predators to live at Bellarmine High School and Santa Clara University, where adolescents are the majority population? These actions fly in the face of the Jesuit training in ethics I received as a student at that same university. Compassion for members of one’s “family” cannot justify actions that are likely to harm those most vulnerable. Precisely this compassion makes it necessary to report all complaints of abuse to civil authorities, where more objective professionals can examine the evidence on both sides.

Ellen McCracken

Santa Barbara

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When are Roman Catholic clergy “abuses” and “mistreatment” of children and the mentally disabled going to be called what they really are? It is important--and ultimately beneficial to the victims and the church--that the truth be told. But let’s be sure that we tell the truth in no uncertain terms. These innocents weren’t simply abused or mistreated. They were raped.

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Morgan Schoerner

South Pasadena

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We are overlooking the most terrible irony of the pedophile-priest issue. As these priests were satisfying their sexual urges with children and mentally fragile adults, Catholic couples were being advised that the only non-sinful way to avoid having too many children was to abstain from sex. So these clerics were unable to “just say no” to sex, even as their parishioners were told to do exactly that.

Jean K. Moore

Los Angeles

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I have always admired Robert Scheer’s smooth flow of wisdom as long as it was in agreement with my own beliefs, but when he claims that humanity should abandon all efforts to rise above animal instincts, I have to object (Commentary, March 26).

For 2,000 years Christian priests have tried to stop massacres, pillage and the worship of pseudo-heroes who lead the way to destruction and death at home and abroad. If we lacked for a model, “the Prince of Peace,” it would be necessary to invent one.

Carleton H. Ralston

Los Angeles

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