YOUNGSTOWN (OH)
Canton Repository [Canton OH]
March 5, 2025
By Paul A. Crowley
[Note: The most recent clergy abuse article in the Canton Repository is about a Seventh Day Adventist pastor: Stark and Wayne County pastor accused of kidnapping, sex abuse of a minor, February 25, 2025]
In response to the Canton Repository story of a local pastor sexually abusing a minor, I feel the need to respond. I am 100% against child abuse of any kind in any church or organization. I pray for this minor and her family and that this pastor gets what he deserves.
With that being said, I must also note that I am a strong and unworthy devoted Catholic. So much that in my youth, I considered a vocation to the priesthood and religious life before deciding my vocation was somewhere else. It brought me closer to God, and the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church is not the reason I didn’t enter the seminary or religious life.
With all that being said, it does irritate me that when we hear of sexual abuse by clergy members, it is always the Catholic Church that gets the most attention. Prior to this story, if there were sexual abuse in any Protestant church, it went uncovered or the media didn’t cover the story as if it happened in a Catholic church.
Sexual abuse happens in every church and every organization. It is not just the Catholic Church, although they get the most attention from the media. This has been irritating me for 20 years. Now we see that sexual abuse of minors can happen at anytime, anywhere, and any place with any church or organization.
The media needs to be fair and honest when these unfortunate events happen. I feel it is now with this happening in a Protestant church, but why does the Catholic Church always seem to get the most attention when unfortunate events like this do happen? We need to protect our children no matter what.
Paul A. Crowley, Bolivar