Talk:Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

This article is awfully incomplete, inaccurate, and Vatican mind leaning

This article suffers heavily from incompleteness which is reflected in grossly neglected victims' experience and inability for decades to effectively counter the rapes (which are, in the Vatican parlance, called sexual abuse cases) and, on another hand, in "Vatican responses" which were actually coverup and obstruction of justice.

The Yahoo News Religion section is full (on the daily basis for the last 10 years) of horrible and never ending stories about children being raped by the Roman Catholic Church clergy.

Accordingly, to radically improve the content of this article, all "statistics" and Vatican responses (which were no more than ineffective and meaningless declarations) shall be unconditionally removed. The "statistics" is misleading and far from being complete and accurate. Any Vatican defense minded articles shall be scrutinized through independent reviews.--71.178.101.2 (talk) 18:19, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

You again? There is no "shall" anything. We are not here to cater to you and your desires for this article. This is an encyclopedia. That means we dispassionately report what reliable source say. We do not advocate for either side. We report what reliable sources say. Reliable sources call it sex abuse, and so we call it sex abuse, not rape. Reliable sources call them Vatican responses, and thus, so do we. Calling things coverups and obstruction of justice, which are precise legal terms, when they, legally, aren't those things, is a good way for wikipedia to get sued.

If you do not have a specific suggestion for article improvement, don't bother posting again. This talk page is for article improvement ONLY.Farsight001 (talk) 20:10, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

• I'd like to suggest removal of all Vatican based or Vatican affiliated "sources" for being out of We report what reliable sources say. ms/mr Farsight. What is really missing is a section about the grave consequences (to the Vatican and its church)of this scandal which still lasts and goes back 70 years in 20ieth century. Ireland removed her ambassador from Vatican, number of Germans who declared themselves Catholics slipped as low as 3.5%, number of the Catholic Church goers in the US dropped 25%, etc. It is too obvious that the Roman Catholic Church lost her moral ground and religious influence worldwide. All this shall go to the section called "The scandal consequences", for example. Ms/mr Farsight, the article advocates only one side, the Catholic Church, no matter how authoritative your response might sound. Please, be kind of not teaching what is encyclopaedia.--71.178.101.2 (talk) 02:12, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Good point! I would go further: remove completely Debate over causes for being pointless and out of touch with reality. Farsight, all media wrote and talked and is still writing and talking about the Church coverup and obstruction of justice. Don't see any ever sued by Vatican or someone else. --68.98.167.207 (talk) 02:17, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Cut the crap, IP71. You're the same IP hopper that has posted previously and IP68 is the same person. Sockpuppetry and meatpuppetry, even when using IP addressess, is still a blockable offense.

In addition, it is complete and utter bullshit to claim that the article advocates only one side. Simply glancing over the section titles, let alone reading the article itself, makes this abundantly clear.

Either way, you need a reliable source to include any of this information in the first place, and it has to be notable enough, as we are an encyclopedia, not a compendium of every little tidbit of knowledge on the subject. Your claims about membership decline (the numbers I've seen actually indicate growth, not decline) really mean nothing without a reliable source, as I already explained above. You can rant and rave and claim a thousand different things, but without a reliable source, nothing will change.Farsight001 (talk) 03:04, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Any of your multiple IP addresses, mysterious IP hopper, want to actually discuss your desired changes in the article like an adult instead of ignoring me and charging ahead blindly? Your refusal to discuss the issue and come to some sort of agreement first is a good way to lose editing privileges around here. At the very least, it's quite uncharitable.Farsight001 (talk) 14:23, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

balance in lead

Does anyone else see it as a problem that the lead spends more time justifying, alibing and "contextualising" on behalf of the Catholic Church than it does on the actual abuse the article is supposedly about? Haldraper (talk) 05:50, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

I would argue for removal of all of the lead from the words "In defending..." in the third paragraph onwards. It's not lead material. HiLo48 (talk) 05:55, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

As the lead makes accusations against the Roman Catholic Church (justified as they are), it seems reasonable to include a reply for neutrality. The extent and wording of that reply is tricky, but it does seem necessary to include something. - Bilby (talk) 07:29, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Something yes, but giving more space in the lead to the Catholic Church's defence of its actions than to the abuse itself is far from neutral. Haldraper (talk) 12:46, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure I would agree that it is more space per se - there are two lines on the Church's defence and two lines on the Church's response. Ideally, though, the lead should reflect and summarise the body - it might be worth hashing out something which better reflects the content of the article as a whole. - Bilby (talk) 00:57, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

How about this?

The Catholic sex abuse cases are a series of convictions, trials and ongoing investigations into allegations of sex crimes committed by Catholic priests and members of religious orders. These cases began receiving public attention beginning in the mid-1980s. There have been criminal prosecutions of the abusers and civil lawsuits against the church's dioceses and parishes.

Sexual abuse of minors by priests has received significant media attention in Canada, Ireland, the United States, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Belgium, France, and Germany, with cases reported throughout the world. In addition to the abuse, much of the scandal has focused around members of the Catholic hierarchy who are alleged not to have reported abuse to the civil authorities and reassigned those accused to other locations where they continued to have contact with minors.

Haldraper (talk) 15:11, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

All in all very well, but this is a view of the things, that could be seen as biased by other parts of the discussion on the sex abuse cases. So I think, we should keep also the church reactions:

Though recognizing the moral defy of the abuse cases and the demand for an appropriate reaction by the roman-catholic church, handling and presentation of the abuse cases caused also critique by Catholics and others. Media coverage in relation to abuse scandals in non-catholic institution for example has been criticised as excessive. On the other hand the majority of cases date back over 30 years ago. Accused bishops defended their actions on abuse cases as appropriate due to the prevailing psychology of that time suggesting that people could be cured of such behavior through counseling. --Ricerca (talk) 11:34, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Here you have added text claiming that most offenses date back 30 years or more as an excuse while here you argue that history dating back more than 60 years is important enough to precede the section on actual events. I fail to see the logic. Regarding the German history, perhaps you could better explain how you think it influences current thinking. However from my impression it has extremely little impact today, after war people in Germany had many other worries and the episode is completely forgotten by anyone but historians. Richiez (talk) 22:17, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

The 30 years are the average of most cases according to the John-Jay-Study. But you're right, perhaps this should be added.

The Third Reich importance is given by the relation which was established by bishop Müller of Regesburg in 2010. Form my point of view, we can also do an historical section. But I think the paragraph is important and should be kept. --Ricerca (talk) 11:04, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

I am not aware that the bishop of Regensburg established anything. Not within Germany and much that anyone noticed outside Germany. When German sex abuse cases are discussed I have never heard someone to take the recourse to third reich. Furthermore this is not about real abuse cases and this article is about "Catholic sex abuse cases", not political processes in the third reich. There is an separate article about that and absolutely no need to duplicate it here. Richiez (talk) 22:31, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

I've opened a new section to discuss that matter below. --Ricerca (talk) 08:54, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

I've cut the third para which to be honest didn't even reach the level of comprehensible English. It might be best if people who want to add things to the lead discuss them here first. Haldraper (talk) 09:16, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Feel free to make a better proposition. But I agree, that things should be discussed here first. Because of that I brought the article back to its original version.

I think a lead should include the following points: 1. What happend (I think your proposition is o.k.) and 2. the reactions of the church. In my opinion, these are the most interesting points for the majority of the readers. On the other hand, this is needed to get a neutral version. Simply repeating the point of view of some medias seems to fail the neutrality standard of WP. Nevertheless we have to keep in mind, that the sex abuse cases are still developing and no one can give a final judgement on it. --Ricerca (talk) 11:10, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Third Reich

Hi Richiez, lets open here a new thread to seperate this topic from the discussion on neutrality: First: I don't want to make you angry or something like that. I simply think, there should be discussions and consensus before changes. So I brought the article back to its original version.
To the topic:
My point is not to overemphasize the role of the events in the Third Reich.
But in my opinion there are several arguments to keep that section:
1. This article is on the sex abuse cases in generel. It's not only a case list. We can (after a long an thorough discussion) change the nature of this article. But at the moment it focusses also on how sex abuse cases are handled, discussed, etc. That's why there is a section on media inaccuracy or on causes.
2. It is not clear whether the cases discussed in the Third Reich where real, exaggerated or invented. That's the problem. Nevertheless the discussion in Germany also referred to these events. (Here is one link) I think this is also caused by a long tradition of let's call it "sexual discrimination an calumniation" of catholic priests in Germany in the aftermath of Reformation and Enlightement. There is e. g. the "Pfaffenspiegel", etc. and this, as it seems to me, caused the special role of sex abuse by priests in German debates.
3. Several Wikipedias refer to the Third Reich abuse cases. The french WP for example brings it a one of the early mentions. And I think also that it should be kept, perhaps in another section of the article. Perhaps we should also establish a historical section or something like that.
Finally, there has already been a debate on this section not long ago. It resulted in no changes. So I don't think you can't decide that on your own and your preferences. It should take place only after having found consensus here.

--Ricerca (talk) 08:52, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Nice article that you have linked here. As far as I can tell it says:

• Bishop Mueller tried to use alleged persecution by nazis to excuse current sexual abuse and alleged media are persecuting the church like nazis did in the third reich
• Bishop Mueller created a public scandal by this and was rebutted by "Kurienkardinal Walter Kasper" (presumably his superior), many others and received zero approval except from you.

It would be nice to summarize that in the reactions of the Catholic church but the story of the third reich is off topic here as are the witch hunts and exorcists. Richiez (talk) 19:25, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Richiez calm down please and stop your POV-led attacks.

1) You forget, that the linked article is from an liberal newspaper giving its point of view ("public scandal") and citing statements of people going along with that. Catholic blogs and also parish-magazines in Germany reacted in far different ways. The very interesting point in that matter is, that Müller never linked abuse to III. Reich (it was a hoax), but that was the first interpretation of one his speeches in the media. (because the events are still known to German Catholics and gloomed in the background and were discussed beneath the level of national medias)

2) Most important: With concentrating on the link and its fast interpretation according to your worldview, you answered to none of the arguments.

Finally we still can say: The historical events in the III. Reich belong to this topic and should be mentioned here. (As have decides multiple other WPs) What we have to discuss is 1) Where to put it and 2) How to bring the sections on Germany in a balance.

I would be pleased to get a constructive proposition from you.

--Ricerca (talk) 08:22, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Dear Ricerca, please be advised that I interpret all attempts to interpret the state of my mind as a grave sin against WP:CIVILty. Please refrain from personal attacks.

Regarding your arguments, I am perfectly fine to summarize this article under reactions of the church if you agree. However we can only say what to the article says which is the only reliable source that I can see.

Replying to "1. This article is on the sex abuse cases in generel." that may be true but it contradicts your edits where you insisted that something was largely irrelevant because most of the cases were older than 30 years.

Again - you have not replied to my question why you think something that happened 70 years ago should be so emphasized as to become the lead of the German section while there were thousands of real cases less than 30 years old. We could start with 18th century events as well but that would be somewhat contrary to the whole structure of the article.

Replying to "is not clear whether the cases discussed in the Third Reich where real, exaggerated or invented." Your argument contradicts the [wording] which you have several times reinstated that does not allow any doubt that the cases were false and fabricated to malign the CC.

Replying "3. Several Wikipedias refer to the Third Reich abuse cases." It would be best to use the reliable sources from other wikipedias as far as they have something that this article does not. Otherwise those are independent articles that may well have a very different scope.

Replying "Finally, there has already been a debate on this section not long ago". I fail to see how [this] debate should be interpreted as a consensus to keep the current placement and wording as it is. -- Richiez (talk) 21:25, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Hi Richiez,

I set back the article to the original state. I hope you agree, that consensus is needed before making changes.

To your arguments:

1) Your POV: I refered to formulations as "witch hunts" and imputations as "you insisted that something was largely irrelevant"

2) An article is not as such a relevant source. We also have to carefully be with the source as such. Especially if it about only one-side interpretating sources presented by others. And if you want to, i have additional sources: Link1; Link2

3) "you insisted that something was largely irrelevant because most of the cases were older than 30 years" - That is your a bit deviant interpretation. I cited the John-Jay-Report to describe the situation (as I told you already above). In stating the fact that the majority of cases date back to the 1970ies, I say nowhere something on the importance of these cases. Contrary, we even cite reports, that refer even to cases from 1920. But 1920 was simply not the climax of the development of the number of cases in the 20th century. But your critique shows once again, that it is motivated by a certain POV, that you want to see expressed in this article.

4) I replied to your question on relevance. I told you the content of the section describes historical facts, that are important to understand reactions in Germany on sex abuse cases until today. That is proved by the media discussion on a misinterpreted speech of a German bishop in 2010.

5) "to become the lead of the German section" - if you read my answers above, you will find, that I am not voting for making the Third Reich section the lead. I am only convinced, that an article on catholic sex abuse cases in Germany should also give the necessary background details of the situation in general. The Third Reich sex abuse cases belong to these details as shows the debate in 2010. Moreover keeping the Third Reich section does not decrease the important of sex abuse cases happened later. I trust in the readers to be able to see the difference.

5) "We could start with 18th century events as well but that would be somewhat contrary to the whole structure of the article." Why? Open up at the beginning a historical section (like in the French WP) and everything is fine. By the way, I was critized once by another author to be careful not to concentrate the article to much on the U.S. In this way the Third Reich section is important,too.

6) "wording" - I don't see the contradiction. The section describes the campaign of the Nazis and emphazises that also innocent people were accused. There is no statement on sex abuse allegations in general.

7) "how [this] debate should be interpreted as a consensus to keep the current placement and wording as it is" I never interpreted it as such. I only see, that there is no consensus to simply delete the whole section. That's for me the point.

--Ricerca (talk) 01:29, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Ricerca, please fix your comments so that they are readable and in English. You can ask for help at Wikipedia:Local Embassy.

Also, this is the last warning to avoid personal attacks. Richiez (talk) 15:11, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Introduction is unclear, hazy, and doesn't represent true nature of scandal

The intro doesn't address at all the main problems with the scandal; it wasn't the scandal itself that causes shock but the reaction to said scandal. The intro is very incomplete and would mislead any new users of Wikipedia into thinking that the scandal WAS a past problem that has been addressed and now everybody has moved on. This is totally not the picture that we want to send out. Truth is the scandal is ongoing and is only widening as the reach of the Catholic empire continues to expand. Catholics do not view this scandal as a book that is closed, in fact many court cases are pending and every month lawyers for the Church manage to cover up scandals, settle with the involved parties, and defend new scenarios of child sexual predators in the Catholic Church. This Wikipedia article is a pathetic attempt to inform the public of what has happened and needs to be cleaned up. We need to start off with the introduction.

In the introduction we want to focus on the scandal and the aftermath of the scandal. While the article does do a satisfactory job of describing the scandal, it focuses little to none on the reaction to the scandal by the public and the papal hierarchy. Most of the attention itself isn't on the scandal anymore. Much of the general populace has accepted that X percentage of the church's clergy is you know what. So the public has moved on and that river has been crossed. What is now the current point of contention is if the Church acted as strongly as it needed to, to punish and persecute those responsible for the scandal. While most of the Papal leadership in the top rungs is not implicated in the scandal (as of yet), their response to those lower in the organization has been pathetically underwhelming. The focus is on this and why it happened. By this I mean the reaction from the top. The article needs to have at least an opening paragraph stating what I just have stated. At a minimum 1-2 paragraphs need to state what is perceived as a lack of responsiveness to the crisis and a public disgust of the handling of the scandal. While the few church supporters say the crisis was handled well the vast majority of the unaffected public disagrees.

In the next few weeks more research will be cited and the response and the reaction from the Catholic Church and the wide perception of a betrayal or a lack of urgency will the expanded and expounded upon.

12.129.87.3 (talk) 16:36, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

And just so people are clear we are not talking about Curial response to Catholic sex abuse cases we are talking about the public's response to the Church's reaction to the scandal. The facts are that the church was ineffective and largely swept the scandal under the rug for many years. It is known that the Church denied the scandal right until the last minute and tried to cover it up in any way possible. So the public was rightly incensed at the response and this article while mentioning it in the body does not even give a little bit of a starter or introductory thesis into said controversy.

12.129.87.3 (talk) 17:18, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

New section needed on internal criticism of the handling of the scandal

While it may seem that way, not all members of the Catholic hierarchy are/were complicit in covering up the prior/continuing scandals. We need to have a section that addresses some of the criticism from inside the papal hierarchy and the groups closely affiliated with them (i.e. Catholic Review, National Catholic Reporter, etc...) There is a plethora of evidence available that shows that not all the members were satisfied or even partially satisfied by the actions that the church and its leadership took. I am going to talk about these in the following paragraphs. I am hesitant to add a new section to the article by myself but I first wanted to discuss this here before I start changing the article and some nut starts yelling at me.

So this the first article that talks about the lack of a response. It is done by editor Dennis Coday an esteemed figure in the American Catholic arena. Here is the exchange between David Gibson, who covers the Catholic Church for Religion News Service, and Dennis Coday, editor of the National Catholic Reporter.

Coday: I think the main problem is that, despite what Cardinal Dolan says, there is no accountability. There is no punishment mechanism for bishops. There's a one strike {against papal response/leadership}.

Gibson: Right. Exactly.

This goes to show you that most people even those heavily involved in Catholic circles consider the response to be meager and some of the criticisms come from inside the church and church-affiliated groups.

Here is an another article by the Columbus Republic stating that church clergy gave mainly negative reviews of the church's handling of the crisis.

"Some priests were angered at diocesan leaders for their lack of action, and others felt shame for the church and for themselves as its representatives. There was paranoia they could be accused falsely, and many said the incidents made them wary of interactions with congregants, especially kids. Some even stopped wearing their collars in public for fear of heckling."

More significance needs to be given to the response of "innocent" bishops and lower level clergy and their repulsion with the scandal engulfing their church.

Fraud claims and opposition to statute of limitations changes

I've reworded two additions which have been added a few times by an IP editor. The first was:

This along with the fact that the church has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in fighting lawsuits and proposed changes in child sex abuse reporting laws casts doubt on whether or not the Church truly apologizes or even cares about the sadistic actions of its priests.[1]

The source supports the statement that the church has been opposing changes to the statute of limitations in regard to child abuse laws, but it doesn't give a figure, nor does it provide a reference for "...casts doubt on whether or not the Church truly apologizes or even cares about the sadistic actions of its priests", which appears to be very much POV. As the statute of limitations opposition was already covered in the lead, I've added the new reference to the existing statement.

The second was:

While there have been few if any responses from the Pope to the scandal, many have been criticizing the slow and careless nature of any actions taken to mitigate the crisis.[2]

The reference here is about a fraud case against the church, where it is argued that the Church misled an abuse victim when it claimed that the accused priest would never work again. It is a serious complaint, but is unrelated to whether or not the Pope has responded to the scandal, and it isn't clear that it supports the claim that the church was "slow and careless". At any rate, the wording presumes that the church was slow and careless, which is probably true, but would need a source providing better support. Accordingly, I've reworded it to focus on the fraud claims. - Bilby (talk) 23:31, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

I'm sure you can find a source with a quick google search online to see how much the C.C. is spending in lobbying efforts to fight more lax child sex reporting laws. Tons of info on it. Isn't that despicable. If you don't put that in the edit, then you didn't at all read the news in the past couple of days. This is a watershed moment for the C.C. and wikipedia should be bold enough to report on it and the consequences for all those involved. 108.70.61.233 (talk) 02:56, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

If you can find a source then that would be great. Except that the lobbying efforts on the statue of limitations were already in the lead, and the other claims you insist on adding are personal opinions not supported by the sources. I may well share your opinion, but that doesn't mean we can drop them into the lead. - Bilby (talk) 03:03, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

I've raised this on the NPOV noticeboard - hopefully some assistance will help move this along one way or the other. - Bilby (talk) 14:31, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Support that. Wikipedia is for summarizing what is in reliable sources and not for sticking in one's own ideas about things. For 108.70.61.233 there is a short summary of the principles of WIkipedi in WP:5P and the appropriate policies here are WP:Neutral point of view and WP:Verifiability. Dmcq (talk) 18:27, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

I looked at both references and I do not see the information stated in numbers 1 and 2 in either reference. It's just not there in those references. I agree it might very well be that other references exist that present that information. When reliable secondary sources are located that present those points, that would be the time to include the information in the article. I did hear a piece about this on NPR some months ago. If that is considered a reliable source, the IP might check their archives.Coaster92 (talk) 06:01, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

• I'm here from the NPOV noticeboard. I agree that the content that the IP added is per se problematic because of the wording and so on, but the lead really needs to reflect the basic fact that this is an institutional problem. At present, it reads as though it's a problem of individual priests and bottom-tier officials misbehaving while the church hierarchy as a whole works against abuse, which is not reflected in the sources - we would indeed do well to add material about the church's institutional resistance to accountability. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 22:23, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

I certainly agree with that. There should be some good papers on the issue that have discussed the wider issues, and would be solid for sourcing. - Bilby (talk) 01:38, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Introduction idea

I suggest that a sentence or two be added about the very large cash settlements these cases have been generating over the past decade or so. These are always a point of news stories and the amounts are in the millions. To me this would illustrate the divisions between the laws of the country vs how the church views these crimes. A multi-million dollar settlement is pretty clear. Insomesia (talk) 22:50, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

If you can summarize something about that and fit it in the lead then try doing so, it does sound a reasonable point that very large sums have been paid out and some places have had to declare bankruptcy. The thing that worries me is that I don't understand what you are saying and I don't see what you said would be clear. I get the feeling you want to prove some point and I have to advise that Wikipedia is about summarizing what is in reliable sources and not pushing one's point of view. Dmcq (talk) 23:39, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

I'll have a look to see if I can form something. My point is that in my experience this is one of the more interesting facts about these cases, that lately there have been some extremely large cash settlements because of the lawsuits. An example is the case of Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston resulting in $157 million awarded to 983 claimants. It speaks to the enormity of some of the cases Insomesia (talk) 00:10, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

A few points come to mind. One, it would definitely be worth noting as well whether these were settlements or court awards, and, if the latter, whether they were awarded by judges, who tend to give smaller awards, or juries, which can be and often are chosen at least in part for their potential for giving large awards. It would also be worth noting how much emphasis in the trials the various attorneys give to allegations of "deep pockets" of the Catholic church, particularly considering most of their monetary worth is in the buildings they own. And, of course, individuals are also probably equally interested in the Canadian Anglican diocese which was dissolved because it went bankrupt as a result of losses from such suits. Also, it might be worth noting what the awards or settlements for sex abuse by teachers are, considering a recent report seems to indicate such abuse is much more common among teachers than among clergy. John Carter (talk) 00:24, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

These are good points, the teachers information seems a red herring, that some other profession is worse. Although on a different article that may may be relevant. Insomesia (talk) 00:28, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

The information about teachers was in response to your statement about the "enormity of some of the cases". There are published studies, I think from an academic in Virginia, that sexual abuse of minors is much more common and widespread in the teaching and academic professions. If there are other professions where the circumstances are worse, that might reduce the comparative "encormity" of such abuse among clergy. Also, if you could find any notable and significant instances of abuse by clergy in South America, Africa, Southeast Asia, and other parts of the world which were not involved in the sexual revolution, that would also be very welcome. So far as I can tell, the cases are more or less confined to Europe and the English-speaking world, and I remember earlier discussion that there were few if any cases noted in those areas. John Carter (talk) 01:01, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

That a multi-million dollar settlement included hundreds of claimants speaks enough about the enormity. I'm not signing on to do a worldwide census and given the lack of transparency in most religious groups combined with the lack of free media in many countries, i don't think a worldwide comparison makes a lot of sense. If someone else want s to take that on they certainly can. I'll look into what is easily accessible and if any news reports details major cases in the past decade or so. Insomesia (talk) 01:05, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

No one is askking you to "sign on to worldwide census." All that is being asked of you is that you not try to use wikipedia to "push a point," as someone else put it. It is unfortunate that I myself, given the nature of your comments to date, find it hard to not believe that at least part of your motivation in trying to develop this article is perhaps to push a point. If that were to be the case, then WP:POV would perhaps enter into play. John Carter (talk) 01:27, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

I don't think anyone looking to push a point would had bothered to post a suggestion here at all. That being stated I'll look into what the sources state rather than talk about what could be done. My statements to date have been about the lack of what I observe to be the most newsworthy covered aspect of these cases - that courts have found reasons to side with hundreds of claimants with monetary figures in the millions. This is newsworthy and I only know what I know by reading what news sources state. I have no motives but to helping the article be better. Insomesia (talk) 14:32, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Careful Now.

Down with this sort of thing.