Philadelphia priest and former teacher guilty of child sex abuse

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

Philadelphia priest and former teacher guilty of child sex abuse

By Dave Warner
PHILADELPHIA | Wed Jan 30, 2013 5:51pm EST

(Reuters) - A priest and a former parochial school teacher were found guilty on Wednesday of sexually attacking a former altar boy, the latest chapter in the child sexual abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

Rev. Charles Engelhardt, 66, faces the possibility of 37 years in prison, and Bernard Shero, 50, faces a maximum sentence of 57 years in prison following the guilty verdicts by a jury in Common Pleas Court in Philadelphia.

Engelhardt and Shero were accused of molesting an altar boy who was 10 years old at the time at St. Jerome's parish in the Northeast section of Philadelphia.

A grand jury report in 2011, which detailed child sex abuse in the archdiocese, the nation's sixth largest with 1.5 million members, said the altar boy was "in effect passed around" from one molester to another in 1998 and 1999.

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Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/30/us-usa-philadelphia-priest-idUSBRE90T1GI20130130

[Laochtine]

1. Why?

Would any parent trust their kids alone with a priest? Hasn't there been enough of this to be a cautionary tale?
Like smoking or Pit Bulls, you might not get cancer or lose your throat, but why take the chance.

[nessa]

3. Why?

would any parent trust their kids alone with any man?
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2010/04/07/mean-men.html
or any teacher?
http://www.cpiu.us/statistics-2/
The Statistics of Teacher sexual abuse to Students
The best estimate is that 15% of students will be sexually abused by a member of the school staff during their school career.
Though, when the American Association of University Women Foundation surveyed more than 1,600 students in eighth through 11th grade, 25 percent of the girls and 10 percent of the boys who said they had been harassed or abused said the harasser was a school employee.
The number of K-12 public and private school students in 1996 who have been or will be sexually abused by a member of the school staff is nearly 7 million of 51,331,000.
Between 1% and 5% of teachers sexually abuse or harass students.
At least a quarter of all school districts in the United States have dealt with a case of staff sexual abuse in the past ten years.
Most cases of sexual abuse of students by teachers are never reported.
In nearly half of the cases, suspects were accused of abusing more than one student.
Only two cases were cases of false accusations; less than 1 percent of the cases studied.
No type of school was immune to abuse: public or private, religious or secular, rich or poor, urban or rural.
Responses to Allegations of Sexual Abuse of Students by Staff
38.7% of the teachers resigned, left the district, or retired
17.5% were spoken to informally
15% were terminated or not re-hired
11.3% received a formal verbal or written reprimand
8.1% were suspended and then resumed teaching
7.5% were cases where the superintendent determined that the teacher hadn’t meant to sexually abuse
Of the nearly 54% of abusers who resigned, weren’t rehired, retired, or were terminated, superintendents reported that 16% were teaching in other schools and that they didn’t know what had happened to the other 84%. All but 1% of these teachers retained their teaching license.

[zellie]

2. This is shocking... Not

The only shocking thing is that were a tag team. Sheeeeesh.