A couple weeks ago I wrote a couple articles on the issue of convicted sex offenders attending church and the response was very good from many of you.

But are we missing the point of where we should be focusing?

The finger pointing continues against the Catholic Church regarding alleged sexual abuses by Catholic Priests.

I grew up in the Catholic Church in the Chicago area and knew many Priests who were good, Christian servants, who gave up much to serve our Lord. I never witnessed any suspicious behavior.

Now, do not get me wrong, there is little doubt that most of these allegations against the Priest are most likely true and the Catholic Church has not handled this issue very well in my opinion (see this week's newsletter article link written by CSN Advisory Board Member Dr. Kathleen McChesney).

But given the fact that there are over 400,000 Catholic Priests worldwide, there are bound to be pedophiles in that number.

But that doesn't make all of Priests pedophiles.

Recently in the Cincinnati area, two Pediatrician doctors, twin brothers, were arrested for sex crimes against their juvenile patients over a period of years. The first doctor to go to trial was convicted and sentenced to 21 plus years in prison this year.

There are over 28,000 Pediatricians in the U.S., but this doesn't make all Pediatricians pedophiles.

But pointing the finger at a particular group and not taking measures to protect our own churches is, well, just not Christian.

The Bible is very clear that we are all sinners and subject to temptations. As a church, we have an obligation to keep our flocks safe, yet most are not taking appropriate measures inside our own churches.

One security measure we talk about a lot at the Christian Security Network are background checks; yet we see over and over again churches who are not doing background checks on all staff and volunteers.

There is some strange misconception in churches that the only people who are a threat to our children are those people who work with our children, such as Sunday School Teachers, Day Care staff,  youth group volunteers, etc. So these people have background checks on them, yet dozens (or in some churches, hundreds) of other staff and volunteers do not get a background check.

You have to ask yourself do church leaders really believe the only people who molest children are just those who work directly with the children?

There was a case earlier this year on the east coast where a part-time maintenance worker in a church molested an 11-year-old girl in the church (not during a service). If a background check had been completed it would have shown he was a convicted sex offender. But I am sure the thought probably was he was part-time and didn't work with kids.

Last year a Michigan church volunteer kidnapped an infant during a Sunday Service from a Church's Nursery, but she wasn't assigned to Sunday School or Child Care, she was just a volunteer.

Churches worry about the convicted sex offender attending their church, yet how many church staff and volunteers have something in their background that would raise question whether they should be in that position?

The sad fact is, according to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, there are over 700,000 convicted sex offenders in the United States Including the District of Columbia and Territories of American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and St. Croix, St. John and St. Thomas, VI.

Is one working in your church?

In Christ,
Jeff Hawkins
Executive Director