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12 Wm. & Mary J. Women & L. 761 (2005-2006)
A Brief Examination of Pedophilia and Sexual Abuse Committed by Nuns within the Catholic Church

handle is hein.journals/wmjwl12 and id is 769 raw text is: A BRIEF EXAMINATION OF PEDOPHILIA AND SEXUAL ABUSE COMMITTED BY NUNS WITHIN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH INTRODUCTION As a child, my father was a little hellion.' He's told my sisters and me countless stories of his early years, which were mostly spent tormenting his younger siblings. He would, however, occasionally take a break to torment instead the nuns who ran his Catholic school. One of my favorite stories concerns my father's practice of putting massive amounts of Butch Wax2 in his hair. On one par- ticular day, he was acting up in class. A nun grabbed him by his flat-topped hair and slammed the back of his head into a black- board. His hair product left a grease spot that never came off the board, rendering it unable to be written upon ever again. Though my father's point in telling this story was to make fun of how much wax he used to put in his hair, it always disturbed me. As a child, I was the opposite of my father: a very quiet and obe- dient girl growing up in the age of political correctness. Acting up in class was unthinkable, and the thought of a teacher hurting one of her students was beyond my wildest nightmares. So my Dad's story of nuns impressed upon me at an early age that perhaps nuns were not to be trusted. Fast-forward to the current era, when the allegations of child abuse by the clergy of the Catholic Church are so widespread, they are caricatured.3 Not only priests, but the bureaucracy of the Church itself is accused of enabling child abuse by shuffling priests from diocese to diocese without any thought about the dangers of keeping them near children.4 1. This note is dedicated to my father, William, for growing up into a big hellion. It is also dedicated to my uncle, Robert, for leaving through the window when the nuns told him he couldn't leave through the door. 2. Butch Wax is a thick and greasy hair care product that was most popular in the 1940s and '50s. Boys of that era (my father included) used Butch Wax to hold their flat- topped haircuts straight up. Reference to Butch Wax may be found in vintage hair care discussion forums throughout the internet. See, e.g., The Fedora Lounge Discussion Forums, http://www.thefedoralounge.com (last visited Mar. 15, 2006). 3. See, e.g., Daryl Cagle, Professional Cartoonists Index: Pedophile Priests, http://www.cagle.msnbc.com/news/PedophilePriests/main.asp (last visited Mar. 15, 2006) (displaying numerous political cartoons on the subject of sexual abuse by priests). 4. ELINOR BURKETr & FRANK BRUNI, AGOSPELOF SHAME: CHILDREN, SEXUALABUSE AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH 19-20 (1993). 761

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