this is one of those "don't get me started" issues. i think i've discussed this previously here, but for those who may not have read what i saw in New Mexico......here goes.

i lived in NM for about 10 years. the Spanish culture there is heavily Catholic. i started reading, and seeing on t.v., about the Catholic priests that were being abused of sexual abuse of say, altar boys, in the Northeast. i had noticed some sort of "rehab" center about ten miles from my house. out of curiousity, i asked around about it and found it to be a "major" rehab facility for pedophilic priests. lo and behold, NM was receiving these priests that were being "spirited" away in the dead of the night to rehab and guess what happened after the priest was "cured"? he was given a parish in NM, where he picked up right where he had left off in the Northeastern part of the US.

one of these "rehabilitated" priests got a young man, aged 15, from _______New Mexico drunk and sodomized him. when the child got away from the man, he made it home and told his parents. they were Catholic. they were absolutely crushed. they finally notified the police. the priest was charged. THE FIRST DAY OF COURT, HE WAS PICKED UP AT THE JAIL, ALLOWED TO CHANGE OUT OF HIS ORANGE JUMPSUIT (THAT EVERY OTHER PRISONER HAD TO WEAR) AND DRESS IN HIS VESTAMENTS. (right word?) COLLAR AND ALL.......

so we sit in a courtroom, watching a Spanish/Catholic jury stare at their priest and listen to a young 15 year old child cry and stammer and finally identify "father_____" who had molested him. my little Spanish neighbor, aged 85, had asked me to go to the trial because she didn't believe that a priest would ever do what he was charged with.

he got probation and community service. the young child had a nervous breakdown and ended up being hospitalized, about a mile from the rehab center where the priest had been "cured"........

i agree with everyone who believes that if an adult soliticts a minor to do ANYTHING untoward, it is illegall, immoral and down right prosecutable.

those people who were caught on Dateline deserve about as much pity and understanding as someone who gets into a car, drunk, and drives head on into a car with a family of five in it......killing them all. that also happened that same year in NM and i'm sure you all read about it or saw it on the news. he went to jail for life.

i applaud and "shout out" for every person who sits down in front of a computer and works to catch one more adult who is trying to have sex with a child. they deserve my respect and i am proud that we still have people who will go to bat for a youngster and catch a predator.

i am very appreciative of all that those groups do. i certainly don't want any of my grandchildren exposed to anyone like these perverts on a computer, on the corner, in the library or in their classroom.

i do understand that a few pedophiles do quit attempting to trap youngsters, but they are few and far between. obviously, the Catholics don't have a handle on it yet. every priest that they "rehabbed" near my village ended up going out and doing it over and over until they were caught again. you have to want to get well, to get well.........

and, as far as "taunting" someone with a mental illness to "act out" against the government or some such fantasy......we're talking about adults who have sex with children.......we aren't talking about adults who topple statues in front of the IRS building. having sex with a child in no way can be compared to anything that was alluded to above. no way, no how........

p.s. a Chancellor was appointed to "handle" the dozens of abuse cases that came out in New Mexico and the first thing that the man did was run a two page ad in the New Mexican advising the Spanish parishioners that they had to up their tithes to pay for all of the settlements that "their" church was having to make to these "so-called "victims of abuse.

NM had the first Hispanic Bishop, in the Catholic Church, and three women in their thirties went on 60 Minutes and exposed the fact that he had taken them camping during their teen years and had slept in their "communal sleeping bag" that he had made especially for them. to this day, no one knows where Bishop Sanchez is. the Vatican, perhaps?

i am not picking on the Catholic Church. it happened here in a Baptist Church. it was only one man.......not hundreds....but he fostered 40 young boys before he was caught. he is a pediatrician.

and, yes, i loved it when Dateline caught the Rabbi on one of the shows. he had the nerve to sniffle and weep about being caught......embarrassment, my ---.......

the pattern seems to be that if you are an authority figure of any sort, male or female, you'll more than likely, if you are so disposed, be able to lure your victims right to you. look at the female school teachers that have been caught recently.

an adult doing anything sexual with a child is wrong. no pity, no second chances, straight to jail.....pass go.........