Abuse scandals in context

Dolphinarium has done something I have been pondering for a few days now. I was thinking of suggesting that the media should have taken OFSTED to task for giving Haringay Council's Children's Services a "good" inspection rating just months after the death of Baby P. Should OFSTED have been investigated for trying to hide incompetence in child protection? Did they fail to act when they should have acted? But such an investigation didn't happen, did it. 

Dolphinarium has done a much better job at putting the scandals in context. And it will not make comfortable reading for the secularists.

See here, here and here.

Another point worth making. Whilst abuses occurring within the Church are particularly reprehensible because of the moral responsibility of the Church and her particular interest in education, there are abuses occurring in other areas. The recent Vatican note cites the following statistic, (but, from its wording may be comparing the number of proven cases in ecclesial contexts to the number of allegations in other contexts - even if that is the case, I think the general point remains valid):

Certainly, the errors committed in ecclesiastical institutions and by Church figures are particularly reprehensible because of the Church's educational and moral responsibility, but all objective and well-informed people know that the question is much broader, and concentrating accusations against the Church alone gives a false perspective. By way of example, recent data supplied by the competent authorities in Austria shows that, over the same period of time, the number of proven cases in Church institutions was 17, while there were 510 other cases in other areas. It would be as well to concern ourselves also with them.

And the numbers of priests and religious guilty of abuse against those entrusted to their care remains a small proportion, perhaps less than 1%, of the total number of priests and religious in the Church, though, again, that should not lead us to underestimate the gravity of the actions of that minority. See the figures cited in the Avvenire interview with Mgr Scicluna, published online in English translation by ZENIT.