Reacting To Abuse

In my religion inquiry, I stumbled across a frightening case that just recently occurred right here in Chicago. I'm referring to the court case regarding the sexual abuse allegations on priest Daniel McCormick. The anonymous victim, or John Doe, was abused from eighth grade until he was junior in high school, or from 2001-2005. For the ten claims made by Doe, there was a 3.15 million dollar settlement made after five years of deliberation. In my opinion, money can't make up for the emotional trauma that would ensue from a trusted mentor, priest, and teacher preying on you and violating your rights and trust. 

Unfortunately, this was not some rare, isolated event. In fact, in January of this year a group of lawyers released about 6,000 pages of reports of sexual abuse involving 30 other priests. In fact, in a personal interview with Bradley Malkovsky, religion professor at Notre Dame, he pointed to these sexual scandals as a cause for the loss of following. This seems like a very realistic allegation considering no parent would want to put his or her child in the dangerous and harmful position that John Doe was stuck in for many of his teenage years.