Martin, to quote your own advice, before you post, look at what you are posting. It would appear that your maths is almost as bad as your argument! 69% of 2,869 is not 1,079. It's 1,979. I suppose I could give you the benefit of the doubt and say that it was a typo, but you have quoted the figure twice, so at the very least it shows poor attention to detail, which, I have to say, is consistent with the rest of your argument.
Let's be a little clearer about the figures you are quoting. Yes, the report states that, "Very few children (less than 1%) experienced abuse by professionals in a position of trust". However, what you have failed to mention is the preceding text, which further classifies this figure into a smaller subset of children. This figure is actually 1% of "children who experienced sexual abuse outside of the family", which is far removed from the figure of 1% of all abused children that you cited. To quote the full text -
For the children who experienced sexual abuse outside of the family, the most common perpetrator was a boyfriend or girlfriend.
70% of penetrative/oral acts of sexual abuse outside of the family were by a boyfriend/girlfriend
17% were perpetrated by 'someone I recently met'
10% were perpetrated by a fellow student/pupil
6% were perpetrated by a friend of their parents
6% were perpetrated by a friend of their brother/sister.
Very few children (less than 1%) experienced abuse by professionals in a position of trust, for example a teacher, religious leader or care/social worker.
In fact, looking at this report and others available on the Internet, boyfriends / girlfriends and siblings are far more likely to commit acts of sexual abuse than Catholic priests or other Catholics in a position of trust. So, based on your suggestion that we remove our children from high risk groups, should we just keep them in a medically induced coma and lock them in a cupboard until they are 18!?
Unfortunately, none of the quoted references provide strong enough evidence to create a solid argument. The NSPCC figures are, at best, fuzzy, but the articles you have quoted are no better. Nobody is denying that these crimes against children carried out by members of the church are heinous beyond belief and that the cover up by the Catholic church is disgusting, but it is incredibly unfair to tar every member of the Catholic community in a position of trust with the same brush.
The biggest issue I have with your original email and follow up comments is that all of your arguments are presented in isolation. At no point have you compared any of your 'figures' with other groups, so they show a clear case of bias against the Catholic community. I'm sure that, if there were statistics available, you would find a large number of allegations of abuse against non-Catholics in a position of trust, so do we suddenly insist that all our children are educated in Catholic schools because they now seem safer!? Without having a proper control group and comparative figures from various cross sections, this discussion is worthless.
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