Anyone else care to comment on the Watchtower's Media Site response to the pedophile issue? I know this has partially been covered, sorry. :-))
Randy
Barbara Anderson says,
What a misleading and lame statement offered by the Watchtower. The issue is not how many "elders" have been sued, but how many children have been molested by JW molesters over the past 100 years and reported to the authorities. The fact is that in my area alone there were 18 Witness molesters accused and who admitted what they did to a JW judicial committee. All expressed repentance. They were secretly reprimanded but the authorities were not notified.
About 25 miles from my home, there was a sensational case. A ministerial servant molested two children and years later when one of them went to the police, the Witness was arrested and sent to prison. If the elders had reported him to the authorities, he would not have later molested the second child.
Reporting abuse to the authorities along with supporting the victims in their distressful state is something that the Watchtower Society has not been doing for the past 100 years and the facts prove it. Fear of disfellowshipping and being shunned has kept literally tens of thousands of victims of child abuse at the hands of Witness molesters from going to the authorities.
Barbara