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FAQ ABOUT THE ISSUES IN RABID

Q. Rabid states that six percent of Catholic priests may be pedophiles. Is that true?

A. It's probably conservative. There are probably more.

Dr. A.W. Richard Sipe, who was a Benedictine Monk and a Catholic priest for 18 years, studies priest sexual abuse and other cultural problems within the Catholic Church. He says that the six-percent figure is at the low end of probability. Most likely, it is higher, perhaps much higher. Since there are 50,000 active Catholic priests in the U.S., there are probably at least 3000 Catholic priests abusing children, and the number may be substantially higher. Considering that pedophiles abuse multiple children over their lives, sometimes hundreds of children each, the number of victims is staggering, probably hundreds of thousands.

Visit Dr. Sipe's website at www.richardsipe.com for more information about the problem of abusive priests and the culture of sexuality within the Catholic Church in general. Dr. Sipe's research was instrumental when I was writing Rabid.

Q. But not my priest.

A. Yeah. Right. I'm sure your priest is just fine.

Pedophiles are charming. A pedophile is often the last person you suspect of raping children because a pedophile must seem above suspicion in order to succeed. Bad pedophiles, the creepy guys hanging around parks, are quickly weeded out. It's the successful ones who you would never, ever suspect. The pedophile often plays head games with the kid so that the child will not tell, even in a safe atmosphere, even after the abuse is known.

Do not leave your kids alone with other adults. Do not allow them to go into bedrooms and close the door. Do not let them go on overnight trips with adults. Do not let them stay for unchaperoned tutoring at school or church. Groups confer some safety, but only some.

If someone is found with child pornography, they are a pedophile. The most common defense is that they were "doing research" into child abuse or pedophilia. I did hundreds of hours of research on these subjects to write Rabid and never, ever saw a picture of an abused child. Not even one. I have megabytes of text about the horrors that survivors endure for years after the abuse, however. The "research" defense defines the classic pedophile. He was trying to help children, and you have a dirty mind. This turns the accusation back on the accuser. It's false. It's a lie. And he's a pedophile. If he isn't already raping children, he will. Pornography, especially child pornography, is the gateway and rehearsal for pedophiles.

This said, I have found there seem to be two distinct classes of very, very nice men who work with children or young adults: pedophiles and veterans. Pedophiles cultivate an image of kindness and charm to gain access to children to abuse them. There is, however, a definite sub-group of veterans who, in my humble opinion and experience, work out their war trauma by becoming perfectly kind, perfectly sweet, perfect people, and they tend to work with children or young adults. These two groups should not be confused.

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