Iowa sexual abuse by priests and brothers

Three more priests have been named to the Diocese of Davenport’s list of credible cases of child sexual abuse by a priest. Two of those are dead; the third was a brother in the Franciscan Brothers of Christ the King.  According to the report the two that died are William Kerrigan and James Lawrence.

The list is four pages long and can found through the Diocese of Davenport home page.

List of Credible Allegations Against Priests and Brothers.  Of the 31 names 11 remain alive and one’s whereabouts appear unknown so his death can not be reported.  The list includes the name of the living as Francis Bass, Paul Deyo, Daniel Emrich, James Janssen, James Leu, Frank Martinez, Mark Quillen, Brother Francis Skube, Eugene Smith, Lawrence Soens and Gerald Stouvenel. For more detailed information see the list by following the link. You can download the list as an Adobe Acrobat file.

As a person born and raised as a Catholic I have to wonder if those guilty of abuse are burning in hell or banished to purgatory.

The story is covered by KCCI News.

Sex, sex, sex, sex, sex, sex, sex, sex, what the Molly are you talking about?

Let me start with a question: How can any adult be experienced enough to legally kill a person but too immature to know who they should have a sexual relationship?

After writing mega Sex No-No Number One I got more interested in knowing what other states have done when an 18-year-old student, an adult, has sex with another adult that is his/her teacher. I read something on another blog that gave me a laugh for the day because I couldn’t believe the justification I read from the writer who stands behind this societal puritanical hypocrisy. Look what the writer states on Parentdish when the State of Washington ruled the law was not clear whether adults, when one was a teacher, could not have a sexual relationship.

“If I was a parent living in Washington, I'd want this law changed now. Yes, 18-year-olds are technically adults, but they are very, very new adults, and that teacher/student relationship puts them in a vulnerable position. I mean, if it's true love, can't you wait a few months until after graduation? (But not with my kid, buster!)”

Teacher-Student Sex - Legal at Age 18?, by Bethany Sanders Jan 15th 2009 4:00PM

Let me put this in perspective for these hypocrites. What these folks propose is a new idea in legal-illegal behavior norms in society; one that is completed unworkable and full of hypocrisy.

TEACHER STUDENT SEXUAL RELATIONSHIPS

First we have children, then teenagers, followed by new adults and lastly at some unknown age finally, FULL-FLEDGED ADULTHOOD. So during the new very, very new adulthood period you can quit school, go out into the workforce, move out of your parents homes, enlist in the armed forces, get drafted if the very, very old adults decide they want conscription and have you sent home in a body-bag. But, and this is a big butt, you can not have sex with another adult, even a very, very new adult if that person is your teacher. It is illegal to have sex with another adult because these very very new adults don’t know what’s best for themselves between the sheets but when it comes to signing yourself up for the armed services where you very well may get killed you’re level of maturity is sufficient.

Old Army basic training chant: Bang, bang, this is your gun, this one’s for pleasure and this one’s for fun.

The reasoning goes like this, if we need your body to protect whatever it is we prize, oil maybe, you can sign up to be killed but don’t think about having sex with another adult because you’re not mature enough. Once enlisted, the miracle occurs and you can now have sex with your C.O. but never your high school gym teacher. One day you’re too new to this adult game but even on the same day you aren’t too new to this game. Sign up for enlistment in the morning you’re mature; have sex with the English teacher in the afternoon and you’re too new of an adult to know what is right for you.

Bang-bang your dead! Bang-bang she’s pregnant! Bang-bang you sex partner is a criminal.

What a bunch of hypocrites. The Courts are pandering to the legislatures untrained and immature legal reasoning by allowing them to pass any laws no matter how absurd the result and ideas behind them. In the long run the reasoning used in this sexual predator law will lead to more and more absurd results as this concept of gradating adulthood takes hold in other laws.  It should stop and the Courts should find this law unworkable, leading to an absurd conclusion and full of unsound reasoning. Just because some mother and father don’t want their kid sleeping with the blonde headed English teacher doesn’t good law. Adults are adults and if they can sign up to shoot a rifle and die for their country then they should be allowed to sleep with whomever they choose; including the teacher. Simply stated, if these 18-year-olds aren’t mature enough to decide about having sex with adult teachers then are they mature enough to work under supervisors who may be older, or commanding officers who will be older or for that matter college professors.

The more we treat young people like idiots without a brain the more we have to dumb-down the cash registers at McDonalds. The truth is children, teenagers and young adults have to make mistakes to build good strong character. Without good character you become a weak link in society. With enough weak links we get a barrel full of rotten apples. Mommies and daddies can’t follow junior onto the battle field of life. If you want junior to be able to right for your oil then start treating him like the man he is.

These are what I call Molly Laws. Molly is our dog. She’s very good about barking when anyone walks by, but whenever we have a thunderstorm she runs and sticks her head under the bed; as if just hiding her eyes from what she thinks is bad will somehow protect her. It's the laws of physics and reason according to Molly.

You want strong armies; then you need strong young men and women. This reasoning that allows enlistment but not sexual engagement is self-serving. It’s the same reasoning that is used to hand out participation trophies. Enough already let the school districts deal with these relationships between teachers and students. Society has more important things to worry about.

Let us not forget WWI, WWII, the Korean War, Vietnam, Iraq I, Afghanistan and Iraq II.

Wrong is wrong, but not everything that is wrong should be a crime.

Should everything that is “wrong” be a crime?

Society decides what is right and what is wrong. Society has now decided that consensual sex between adults is wrong. A 28-year-old woman and an 18-year-old man had sex and now she is a sex offender. She was an Iowa teacher at the time of their relationship.

Shocking isn't it.

How much are we spending prosecuting this woman?

So now a 28 year old female teacher who had a relationship with an 18-year-old student is a criminal. Something is wrong with this picture. Not everything society might think wrong can be a criminal act.

A teacher that used to pay taxes now is a tax burden.

If I were the judge I would have sentenced Erin M. Rohwer, 28 to write on the blackboard 500 times, “Good people do stupid things and that doesn’t make them a criminal; just stupid for a minute, but not a lifetime. In the future I will strive to be a better person; and I will remember students are off limits.”

And the boy, I would have sentenced him to washing teacher’s cars in the parking lot without the pleasure of an iPod and a cold shower. I would have called the football coach and asked him to design a physical education program that would have taken the legs right out from under him and making him too tired to be chasing his English teacher.

The boy’s mother and father I would have sentenced to confession. Give the teacher and the boy a break for God’s sake; do you think your boy had no part in making this happen?

Iowa needs to grow up and get over their aversion to anything sexual. Get over it, this is an adult man-boy who society can register and send to war where he can be shot to death and sent home in a body bag. If he wants to sleep, with what I’m sure is about 90% of the young men’s dreams at Dowliing, then let him.

He’s 18 and she’s 27. Get over it they are adults. The real criminal act is not the doing of the teacher. The criminal act is the act of society in trying to make every conservative’s hang-up about sex a crime.

The Court’s then compound the ridiculousness of making this a criminal act by ordering the woman to stay away from the boy. What if they are really in love? Can society and the courts order hold their loving hearts in contempt? The Courts have enough to do without managing a teenager’s love crush.

Does the fact she’s a teacher mean she controls the boy’s raging hormones?

Is every sexual relationship between a teacher and student always a bad thing?

Consider the following.

Yesterday morning I was talking to a colleague who I’ve known since law school. We are good friends. I know his wife she’s a wonderful woman. They have been marred since law school and have raised some wonderful children. Today on the phone we weren’t talking about this Dowling situation, but he reminded me that Beth is ten years his senior. It was scandalous at the time they met and started going out together, because he was only 18. Scandalously beautiful I’m sure.