Catholic finger-pointing unfair

For the past year, the Catholic Church has been in uproar concerning their priests and allegations of sexual abuse with minors. It is a sensitive topic which has rightly received major attention from the press and the concerned public. But how accurate are the figures portrayed in the media? Or more importantly, are such figures really mind-blowingly out of proportion to normal figures of child molestation which occur in all corners of our society?\nMuch of the data on this controversy ignores other factors such as the number of pedophiles roaming through the general public. There have been numerous occasions of pedophile behavior being exposed in the past but all this has been pushed into the shadow of the numerous cases of Catholic priests and their pedophile tendencies.\nFingers are being pointed at the Catholic priest who is more likely to be predisposed to having pedophile tendencies than other male groups in society. Where is that evidence? The scandal gripping the Catholic Church has dwarfed other child molestation issues such as incest, child prostitution, child pornography and worldwide pedophilia rings. Worryingly enough, the latter is on the rise due to the advancements of the Internet and the ease of communications and file-sharing capabilities that almost everyone has access to in their own homes. This sad and terrible issue is wide-spread in all classes, religions, vocations and of course does not remain within the realms of the U.S. Catholic clergy either. I was horrified to find an Internet site which attempted to explain how to discern the difference between the "two different worlds" of sexual abuse of children and pedophilia with erotic sexual contact with "consent." \nAnd this Pedophile Association is by no means exclusive. \nThe media would almost like you to believe at present that pedophilia is limited to the Catholic Church. As stated in the book Pedophiles and Priests by Philip Jenkins, actual pedophilia, which is the sexual abuse of prepubescent children, afflicts only 0.3 percent of the whole clergy population. And it further states that in most cases of child sex abuse by priests, it concerns "ephebophilia," the attraction to adolescent boys and not young children. Even though the total number of sexual molestations in the clergy involves more than just pedophiles, the figure, which is just under two percent, reflects statistics similarly found among the married men of our society.\nOther institutions and religions have acknowledged comparable problems with child molesters within their ranks. Until now, there is no verification that there are more child sex offenders to be found in the Catholic Church than in other positions of influence over children such as coaches, doctors, teachers or other religious leaders outside the Catholic denomination. \nWhat remains a problem is the lack of data available for a true comparison, I will admit. This is not a topic of research people, who are predisposed to molesting children, are willing to publicize.\nThe way this scandal is being portrayed by the media is almost like a present day witch hunt. The more you see and hear of it, the more prevalent it appears to be. I do not believe that by being Catholic and a priest, a person is suddenly predisposed to pedophilia. There is no evidence that the Church is by any means a more pedophile proliferating environment than say the neighborhood back home.\nI say give them a break and stop defaming the Catholic Church.