A moral dilemma - donate to an organization that protects child abusers or not?

I made a few donations to Salesians Missions - it seems caring & helpful. A more thorough search on Brave search engine quickly found they have a long history of protecting pedophile priests.

It feels good to help, but it feels confusing to help organizations that provide hiden harm among the help. One Salesian school in California had a class of 20 boys and 15 of them had been abused. A legal case of abuse against one priest was attempted to have thrown out of court when it was revealed the boy had also been raped by two other priests - the case was not closed for that reason thankfully. *I’m not sure which link I read.

Photo by Josh Applegate on Unsplash

Salesian Missions are a Catholic based mission that is huge, with aid sites in ~130 nations around the world. Abusive priests were found to be moved from location to location to protect them from allegations of child abuse.

• New Orleans, US,, paywall: 'Sinister forces at work': 8 Salesians accused of abuse at Hope Haven and Madonna Manor campus, (nola.com).

• Australia: Sins of the brother: How a nun who was raped by her father and sexually abused by a cleric exposed her beloved TWIN as a paedophile priest, (dailymail.com).

• Belgium: Belgian Salesians defend decision to send convicted pedophile to Africa, (ncronline.org).

• California, US: Pedophile priests operated at a California school for decades, (cnn.com); video. *This video mentions a class reunion that revealed about a third to half of the graduates had been abused while students.

  • This news story has the survivor’s story in text. Pedophile priests operated at this California school for decades. This is the Catholic order that covered up their abuse, by CNN, (cbs58.com)

  • An article written by the survivor: Salesians Hold World Record for Pedophile Priests -- Guest Writer Joey Piscitelli Lists Their Names and Connections to William Levada, (bishop-accountability.org).

• London, UK: Exposed: The sick priest who posed as a psychotherapist to abuse children, (davidhencke.com).

• Australia-based: List grows of abusers moved from parish to parish, By Barney Zwartz, November 12, 2012, (theage.com.au). “They were moved from parish to ... as the Salesians, the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart and the Pallottines, she said. The placements gave them access to primary and secondary schools, hospitals, orphanages and other care institutions, church community and welfare organisations, missions to indigenous Australians and an education centre for the sight and hearing-impaired.”

• The Netherlands: This case was dismissed - citing the advanced age of the priest and ‘small amount of material from years ago’ Dutch police question dismissed head of Salesians on possession of child porn, (irishtimes.com). The head of the Dutch Salesians had been dismissed because he had made a comment that was in support of sex with children.

  • “Father Herman Spronck, the leading Salesian priest in the Netherlands, was removed from his position following the publication of comments in which he stated that “pedophile sex could be accepted,” in the words of the Reuters news agency.” Salesians remove Dutch delegate following pedophilia comments, May 24, 2011, (CatholicCulture.org)

  • The response in this case was rapid and protective of children rather than speech supporting sex with children. ““Herman Spronck is no longer the delegate from the Salesian delegation in the Netherlands,” said Father Jos Claes, leader of the Salesians in Belgium and the Netherlands. “We fully distance ourselves from the words we find in your interview with Herman Spronck.”

    Father Spronck made his comments after a Dutch news agency discovered that a Salesian priest had served on the board of an organization that seeks to legalize pedophilia. The priest, identified in news reports as Father Van B., “can longer perform any pastoral duties as of today,” Father Claes said.” (CatholicCulture.org)

Clearly there is a problem with Salesian Missions history of protecting children from their priests. Is the problem still present? still being covered up? or has some exposure helped to bring it to light for removal? Hard to know.

It is sad that human children are so vulnerable - it is the price humans pay for the larger brain - being born with a smaller body that will still fit in mom for 9-10 months. Our infants need protection and training for many more years than infants of other species. While they are young they are at risk for being preyed upon,

bad pun - even while being ‘prayed’ for. We need to recognize when our ‘do-gooders’ aren’t doing good. Many of the accused priests tend to say they didn’t do wrong. There really seems to be a fairly large percentage of people who think just becaue children are vulnerable it is okay to manipulate or abuse them. Reminder - manipulative ‘love’ is abuse. Someone who is hungry, scared and feeling unloved or unlovable is very vulnerable to someone who seems nice and helpful.

I am not going to feel bad about the money I have donated, but I may not make more donations to this organization. I am sure they include many wonderful people who don’t abuse children, but the history of cover-up makes them part of the problem rather than just hero priests helping starving children.

I don’t like funding organizations that promote themselves as super great but who are secretly predators using the funds as a cover story and a shoo-in for desperate communities and families.

I am not sure what a ‘correct solution’ might be to the moral dilemma of trying to help others without supporting predators in disguise as helpers.

‘Jakarta shoot,’ Photo by Robert Collins on Unsplash

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