Sexual abuse within the confines of a religious organization, provide the perfect environment for predators. These institutions provide the opportunity for child sexual abusers to target, groom and abuse children who love and trust them because of the implicit trust given to these religious institutions. They are seen by the family, community and by the child as messengers of God. You obey God. Clergy abusers will often tell the child, pre-teen or teen, that it is “God’s will.” That “God wanted them to do it.”
Priests use the sanctity of the confessional to control, manipulate and sexually use and abuse children.
All child sexual abuse has painful, life altering impact on victims. When a servant, a perceived messenger or agent of God sexually abuses you in the name of God, under the guise of God’s love and protection, the impact can be even more devastating. Children should have the right to be safe in a House of God or House of Worship with? God’s servants, messengers, and God’s flock. If you can’t be safe and loved in a church, place of worship and place of spiritual healing, then where can you feel safe in the world?