In 2018 in the US state of Illinois, when confronted with the repulsive crimes of pedophile priests, the Roman Catholic Church via its dioceses in Illionois estimated that between 1950 - 2018, 103 children had been sexually abused and raped by Catholic priests in Illinois.
Based on an investigation conducted by the office of the Illinois attorney general, which was released today, the Roman Catholic Church is lying. The investigation found that 1,997 children had been raped and sexually abused by Catholic priests, not 103.
The unnecessary horrific problem of ungodly and unnatural sex-crimes against children in the Roman Catholic Church is a long-running and ongoing catastrophe. It has probably been going on since the start of Christianity and the Roman Catholic Church. One of the highest-profile cases in the US was centered in the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, Massachusetts. It involved pedophile priests and the cover-up of their sex-crimes against children by the Catholic Church. In 2001 the Boston Globe released articles about their in-depth investigation into the sex-crimes and cover-ups by the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston. Subsequently a powerful film, Spotlight, was released, which covered the victims bringing information about what was going on to Globe reporters who investigated and who wrote the articles exposing the truth. One of the victims, while explaining to the reporters what happened to him, pointed out that he saw the priest as a representative of God and asked, "How do you say no to God?"
Pedophile priests are not limited to the US. One case in point is the ongoing crisis in Bolivia. The Catholic Church prefers to investigate sex-crimes against children committed by their own clergy itself. This article makes this clear. It states, "Pope Francis has sent one of his top sex crimes investigators to Bolivia at a time when the Andean nation is being shaken by an escalating pedophilia scandal involving priests."
Deism offers a way to protect children from pedophile clergy (pedophile clergy are found not only in the Roman Catholic Church, but in other religions, too). Regardless of which religion is involved, one thing they all have in common is the promotion of the false and irrational belief that the clergy are closer to God and have a better understanding of God than the rest of us. As the victim of the Catholic pedophile priest mentioned above pointed out, he looked at saying no to a Catholic priest as being the same as saying no to God. This false belief regarding the clergy being representatives of God is destroyed by reason-based Deism!
Deism teaches that none of the "holy" books/"sacred" scriptures are anything more than what they really are: the writings of ancient clergymen - God had/has nothing whatsoever to do with them. This, in and of itself, destroys the leverage pedophile clergy have over children. Any child who is aware of this fact would have a much better chance of protecting themselves from pedophile clergy.
In The Age of Reason, Thomas Paine pointed out the true Word of God when he wrote:
I believe it is only in the CREATION that all our ideas and conceptions of a Word of God can unite. The Creation speaks a universal language, independently of human speech or human language, multiplied and various as they may be. It is an ever existing original, which every man can read. It cannot be forged; it cannot be counterfeited; it cannot be lost; it cannot be altered; it cannot be suppressed. It does not depend upon the will of man whether it shall be published or not; it publishes itself from one end of the earth to the other. It preaches to all nations and to all worlds; and this Word of God reveals to man all that is necessary for man to know of God.
We owe it to the children, and to The Supreme Intelligence/God and to ourselves, to do our best to promote what is true and to expose what is false. This will truly give us a wonderful new beginning!
