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Catholic commentators who complain that their Church is being picked on when it comes to child sex abuse have a point. What about Jews? And Muslims. Etc.

Rabbi Isroel Belski of New Jersey said of one sex abuse allegation: “My ears should have been spared hearing the horrific news...the Jewish law is undisputed that one who commits such an act has no share in the world to come.”
He was referring to a Jew who had reported abuse to the police.
“...hearing the horrific news that one of our fellow residents in town informed upon a fellow Jew to the secular authorities, may God spare us, for which the Jewish law is undisputed that one who commits such an act...”
An echo of Ireland there. But par, too, for the Judean course.
A spate of abuse allegations emerged from the Orthodox Jewish community in New Jersey and New York in the last five years after a number of victims came forward and gave others confidence to speak out. Eighty-three men and two women have been charged with sexual assaults on 117 male and female victims. Eighty-nine of the victims were 16 or under.
Fourteen abusers have been jailed for terms ranging from one month to 20 years. Another 47 cases are pending. Twenty trials collapsed as a result of victims withdrawing evidence – in almost all instances, according to prosecutors, because of pressure from religious leaders.
The Jewish community in Australia has been facing a similar surge of abuse claims. The Melbourne Age reports that a number of men named in victims’ statements have been spirited out of the country by Orthodox Jewish groups and are being looked after by co-religionists in the US.
We know that one, too.
Allegations against rabbis and other religious functionaries have also come to court or are pending in countries including Israel, Canada, New Zealand and Venezuela.
Eastbourne man Phil Johnson suffered a nine-year abuse ordeal at the hands of two Anglican priests. One died awaiting trial, the other was convicted in 2008 – 11 years after Johnston had first gone to the police. It wasn’t until another victim came forward that a serious investigation was launched. It then emerged that one of the vicars had had a previous conviction which had been known all along to the Anglican authorities.
One internal church report going back 40 years has never seen the light of day. Another by Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, published in 2010, detailed cases which had been reported to the Church but had never reached court. Butler-Sloss commented that Church leaders showed “a lack of understanding about the seriousness of historic child abuse”.
Manchester lawyer Richard Scorer, representing victims of both Catholic and Anglican clerics, says, “The one thing I’ve learned is that the churches only act on the issue of child abuse when they face external pressure. There is no internal momentum to deal with this issue.”
In the Muslim world, too, victims have begun to speak out.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan has reported on religious schools where children, mostly boys, have routinely suffered sadistic sexual assaults. Cases include a 12-year-old boy scarred with a hot iron for refusing a teacher’s advances, a 14-year-old drenched in acid for resisting rape by a cleric and a three-year-old sexually assaulted by a teacher.
When one imam was arrested for sodomising a 13-year-old, several hundred zealots stormed the jail and freed him. The imam then called on other Muslim leaders to protest to the government against police “interference” in a matter they deemed appropriate to the Mosque.
Allegations of Muslim clerical child abuse have also surfaced in Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, Indonesia, Malaysia and in Western countries.
Followers of the hip Hindu guru Sathaya Sai Baba have likewise been grappling with claims pouring in from countries where the Swami had been scattering his wisdom and seed before departing this earthly plane last April at the age of 84. Complaints of sexual assault have come from the US, Britain, Australia, India, Sweden, Germany, Pakistan, Venezuela and Argentina.
The Swami told believers that “our faith is being tested.”
Sathaya Sai Baba had grown fabulously rich from donations from devotees and sales of books of blissful sayings. “I have come to light the lamp of love in your hearts... I shall be with you, march on, have no fear... You are in the Light, then the Light is in you, you are the Light... Shed one tear, I shall wipe a hundred from your eyes... See good - Hear good - Speak good - Do good - Be good...”
Not since the glory days of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi has bone-headed superstition been presented with such aplomb. Or, alternatively, since 10 o’clock mass this morning.
All religions demand belief in fantastical explanations of the material world, occlude the transcendence which can come only from contemplation of the mind-dazzling majesty of nature and the irradiating beauty of art, twist the psyche by positing a being outside the realm of rationality with supreme authority to pronounce judgment on our actions, feelings and urges.
It fucks you up, religion does.
All religions must, moreover, hold themselves to be the manifestation of God on earth. To suggest they be made accountable to secular power is thus to disdain God. What’s the agony of a child when compared to the honour and glory of the Almighty?
So the Catholic complainants have a point. This is an equal-opportunities column. Religion? One’s as bad as the other.