“Shame and guilt”

adminonNovember 10, 2021January 5, 2022Leave a Comment

Symbol image abuse © Harald Oppitz (KNA)

The Catholic Church in Poland has for the first time provided accurate information on the extent of clergy sexual abuse. Bishops wrapped up their spring plenary meeting in Warsaw on Thursday.

Alleged 382 priests and religious abused minors, according to church files created from January 1990 to June 2018. This was announced by the Polish Bishops' Conference in Warsaw at the end of its spring plenary session. According to the statement, the files include reports on cases dating back to 1950. Of the 625 victims, 345 were under 15 years old, he said.

Poland's Primate Archbishop Wojciech Polak, referring to all those affected, said, "Each of these victims should awaken in us clergy pain, shame and guilt that this situation has occurred." He said it was "a shock that hurts the whole communion of the Church".

Ten percent of the clergy acquitted

58.4 percent of all victims are reported to be male, 41.6 percent female. Three-quarters of the 362 known ecclesiastical trials against the clergy have already been completed, he said. In the process, one in four priests had been dismissed from the clerical profession. Another 40 percent have been suspended, admonished, or banned from working with minors, according to the bishops' conference.

Ten percent of the clergy have been acquitted, he said. In 42 percent of cases, the minors would have reported the abuse to the church themselves, and in 21 percent their relatives would have reported it. In six percent, the church learned about it from state organs and in five percent of cases from the media.

Film "Clergy

The Polish Bishops' Conference had inquired about the cases of abuse among the dioceses and religious congregations in the past months. The church's statistics institute and the child protection center established by the bishops' conference analyzed data for the study.

In Poland, in the fall of 2018, the motion picture "Clergy" had increased prere on the Church. He denounced child sexual abuse by priests and its cover-up. More than five million viewers made it the most-watched movie in Poland since 2000.

The church apologized to abuse victims several times on public occasions. At a penitential service in 2014, Bishop Piotr Libera said in the name of the Bishops' Conference: "Ashamed and remorseful, we ask for forgiveness"."

It's a topic with a future – and yet it's anything but sexy. 2.2 million people in Germany are in need of long-term care, and the number is increasing. Demand for care services will therefore rise sharply in the coming years, according to scientists.

Nursing care is already a job engine, as a study published on Monday by the "Frankfurter Rundschau" shows: With 1.12 million employees, the sector employs more people than the automotive industry, the electrical industry or mechanical engineering. According to the Wifor Institute of the Technical University of Darmstadt, the number of people employed in the sector rose by a total of 50 percent between 1996 and 2008, or an average of 3.7 percent per year. "On average, the industry hires six times more workers than the overall economy," said study author Dennis Ostwald. But it is clear that this will not be enough for the future. Care providers and social associations talk of care collapse. There was already a shortfall of 300 by 2020.000 care workers, warns the Federal Association of Private Providers of Social Services (BPA). Because Germans are getting older and older, and care workers are also getting on in years; 23 percent are already over 50 years old. And the new generation threatens to stay away because of the poor image and increasing prere. Twice as many nursing homes by 2050 According to estimates by the Freiburg-based financial scientist Bernd Raffelhuschen, the number of people in need of long-term care will almost double to 4.1 million by 2050. Because more and more women are going to work and are therefore not available for family care, because household and family structures are changing, the scientist expects an increased use of professional home care and outpatient care services. Already, the percentage of those who are cared for at home is falling: from 77 percent in 1996 to 68 percent in 2004 and just over 50 percent in 2007. For elderly care alone, the Bundestag's Commission of Inquiry on Demographic Change anticipates an increase in personnel requirements of 220.000 in 1998 on at least 570.000 by the year 2050. Difficult growth market A difficult growth market. Because the job description does not seem very attractive so far. Back problems, stress, burnout and frustration about a lack of career opportunities and little scope for decision-making: the Hamburg-based Berufsgenossenschaft fur Gesundheitsdienst und Wohlfahrtspflege (BGW) sees clear alarm signs. Nurses are more likely to be in poor health than other employees, she stresses. Thoughts of leaving the profession are often not far away. Raffelhuschen recommends instead a combination of better pay, academic training, higher social recognition, more flexible and family-friendly working hours, and attractive training and preventive health programs. For the Paritatischer Wohlfahrtsverband, it is also clear that there is no way around putting more money into the system, says the association's chairman, Eberhard Juttner. "Society must decide what good care is worth to it." Closing gaps thanks to Eastern Europe? It is unclear what the impact of opening the care market to workers from Central and Eastern European member states will be. As of May 2011, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Poles, Slovaks, Slovenians, Czechs and Hungarians have free access to the German labor market. Two years later, this also applies to Bulgarians and Romanians. They could fill the nursing workforce gap. Some German providers are already looking at this potential, placing advertisements, offering German courses. For Eastern Europeans, possibly an attractive earning opportunity – caregivers in Poland, for example, earn between 270 and 600 euros; in Germany, 1.800 to 2.500 euros paid. Rates for German caregivers, however, could come under prere. Already working – in a legal gray area – between 80.000 and 90.000 so-called housekeepers from Poland in Germany, who often take on care tasks

The Baptist Union in the USA faces hundreds of abuse allegations against pastors and volunteers. Members of largest Protestant church in U.S. call for reforms.

The information service "Religion News Service" quoted the president of the Baptist Union, J.D. Greear, saying it is now time for "profound change". Abuse is not only a sin, but also a crime, he said. Greear called for prayers for the 700 abuse victims and the "many other victims" who are not yet known.

In the information service "Baptist Press", Baptist counselor Dale Johnson demanded on Tuesday (local time) that churches should in principle report sexual abuse to the police in the future.

Never before there was greater crisis

Former church president James Merritt says on Twitter short message service that never before has the church faced a major crisis. The Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News newspapers had reported over the weekend on numerous allegations of abuse in the 15-million-member Baptist Union.

In the past two decades, he said, 380 pastors and church workers have been credibly accused. The newspaper articles reported incidents in which church officials had not taken allegations seriously and had covered up for accused persons.

The founder of abuse charity Grace, Boz Tchividjian, said church leaders must examine whether they have contributed to the emergence of a culture that "ignores, marginalizes or demonizes" victims. On the NPR radio station, Tchividjian complained that children don't stand a chance when they accuse someone in a leadership position.

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