By Carole Stephens
[minor edits by JTO]
Even Nathan is being attacked for trying to bring abuse within the church to light. I communicated with both SNAP and pokrov.org years ago to get support. I also went to attorneys, even a female attorney, who pointed out how church hierarchs do circle their wagons.
In my personal investigation, speaking with a district attorney, I was told that there were six priests on their [rolls] facing prosecution for child abuse. I am a former missionary wife in Mexico and Central America, who had small children with me on the mission field. I remember such complaints from local girls being assaulted by catholic priests. That is why SNAP exists. With all of the child trafficking being allowed worldwide, with the U.S. being the biggest patron of such, how can you defend the position of anyone who would hurt a child?
All of our children are at risk for being snatched and sold just for trying to live. "Amber Alert" was created in memory of a 10-year-old girl named Amber who was out riding her bike and was raped and killed, her body dumped in a lake. What are you EVEN defending? Children are coerced in schools and the perpetrators are fired and prosecuted. All school personnel have to be fingerprinted and investigated before entering teaching programs and before hire, yet some do still emerge.
To my understanding, the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia was founded as a refuge for the persecuted underground church in atheist regimes. How can it now cover up [the abuse of] the most innocent over whom we are to be stewards? Our children are not our possessions. We are gifted with the stewardship over their welfare, and their souls. It would be better for a millstone to be hanged about our necks and we be cast into the depths of the sea than to permit that any harm be done to these little ones, as states the scripture:
"Matthew 18:5-7 KJV. And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me. But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea."
This is not a GAME. There is no END GAME! The church needs purification. Even the [Apostle] Paul was constantly warning the Church.
Children need good stewards, good guidance and protection in churches, in schools, and in their homes. There are enough predators running loose to hurt our kids. Can the church not be a refuge? I lost my home and had to sleep in a car over this. My children have to question the validity of the church they were raised in. Looking through history, apostolic succession means nothing if the heart of the priest is corrupt. What is your game?
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[JTO Editor's Note: Does this sound like the rantings of a "crazy woman?"]
The people ingrained to defend anyone who had a modicum of power within the hierarchy are not going to listen.
ReplyDeleteNathan, I believe that the people who are willing to listen already.
The Lord knows the good work you are doing to help clean the infection from the church.
Ironically, the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church is probably one of the reasons ROCOR has tried to cover up the same problem in their churches, but by doing so, they have proven themselves no better than Catholics. It also proves that celibacy isn't the cause of sexually abusive clergy. It exists in protestant churches too.
ReplyDeleteThe misogyny, abuse against women and children, and the silence of the hierarchy is deafening. Last month we heard of an alcoholic ROCOR priest who abused and neglected his wife and children for 1.5 years before the hierarchy stepped in (despite pleas from the Matushka), this sad incident that could have been prevented, and another ROCOR priest in Texas publishing a "hot/holy" scale where he publicly rates his own wife's "hotness" for the world (https://youtu.be/Ub8xr3EWaGY?si=YzSj1jo8oQ3h6qhW). Where is the hierarchy in all of this? Silent.
ReplyDeleteOne point of correction -- Fr Moses's bishop asked him to take that video down. He did. The account you linked to uploaded again, without permission. In this case, the hierarchy actually did something for once.
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