Only if you think that these abuse cases make up a large percentage of “things the Church is handling”. You don’t see why people can think that, all things considered, the Church handles things pretty well?
Well, all things considered, I would say of course not, don’t be ridiculous.
If only the Pope would say something like this to the victims of sexual abuse -
or to the abusers
Regards,
Shodan
Talk is cheap.
None of that looks like they’re actually doing anything but trying to keep people in the church.
“Ooh it’s so awful what you did/have gone through. My is our face red - now that we were found out. Everybody be penant and god will take care of you”. It’s so far from not good enough I can’t believe people take it seriously.
No, this issue is huge and it is symbolic of the rottenness that is at the core of the Catholic Church. They don’t care about their parishoners, society and the culture. They only want to keep their wealth and priviledged position. They will do whatever and stoop to any depravity to shield the church at the expense of anyone who dares to question it.
It is a vile organization and should have been tossed into the trash heap of history a long time ago.
Unless it’s an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie role.
What’s the German for “I’m sorry, I forgot that Bavaria isn’t part of Ireland. Here’s a letter you might want to read – just substitute ‘Bavaria’ wherever you see ‘Ireland’ in it.”?
“Hey, where’s everybody going? Have some punch! It’s not THAT big of a turd…”
“No really, look: I fished it out and put it in the other bowl. This one’s fine now!”.
As one who had an inside look at how the Catholic church handled the abuse cases in the Boston archdiocese, I can assure you: Their handling of the scandal was morally bankrupt and stonewalling to the bitter end. What made it into the media was not the whole story, which was even worse.
Actually, I’d prefer to see something like this:
“To the victims, we made grievous errors in handling the issues. To you, we apologize, and the Church is committed to subsidizing your therapy fully. In addition, every priest, bishop, archbishop, and cardinal who had anything to do with mishandling these incidents and pedophile priests will resign or be fired. Up to and including myself. Any canonization procedures underway for any of the aforementioned are to be immediately stopped.”
Actually, I’d prefer to have seen something like actually removing any priest found to be abusing children from any position of trust with children. Ever. And handed over to the police with the full diocesan investigation dossier. Every. Single. One.
This would work for me. I have no idea why anything less than this would be considered acceptable, by anybody. Priest molests children, priest is immediately removed from having contact with children and is turned in to the authorities. It seems like a pretty obvious course of action.
I beg to differ. OFFICIALLY, the Church may not condone the sexual abuse of children. Their actions in these cases, however, show that they do, in a practical sense. Otherwise, there would have been no priest-shuffling. There would have been no transfers to distant parishes without any warning to the congregation or, apparently, to the local hierarchy that this priest is a danger to children. Silence and inaction are equivalent to condoning in this situation, when only warnings and a willingness to limit the opportunities for contact with children can prevent more incidents.
In other words, what they SAY and what they DID are two different things. Two things that are not in any way in harmony with each other.
I hate that it’s come to this, truthfully. I was raised Catholic. Most of my family is still Catholic. I went to Catholic school for 13 years (1-12 + 1 year of Jesuit college). I’m a former altar boy! (Never was molested, though) I have a huge soft spot in my heart for the sights, sounds, smells and memories of the Church.
But that soft spot is in my heart, not in my head. I can still enjoy my memories of the Church I knew without insisting that that Church was perfect and you can’t criticize it. I love the memories, but I’m not going to whitewash what went on and what’s GOING on for their sake.
It seems like a no-brainer to me, but I am not a Christian.
I don’t see how faith can trump simple and obvious justice.
How can it EVER be right to protect someone who abused his position of trust?
This applies to all positions of authority, secular as well as religious.
If only people would realize how badly they have been duped and demand that these people be held accountable. I suppose being taught one’s entire life that the Church’s hierarchy is beyond reproach makes something like this extremely difficult to deal with.
This is yet another time when I am very glad I escaped Christianity when I did.
Strikes me that this is a RICO type situation. Wealthy and powerful organization involved in a conspiracy to commit and cover up felonies. I’m not sure, though, how the sovereign nation status of the Vatican would play into this, and what impact that has on the legal culpabilities of the national Church organizations.
I’m sorry, but unless there is some sort of action, it’s just a bunch of words, and doesn’t mean shit to me. Ireland, Bavaria, Boston, whatever. “We’re sorry”, probably as in “we’re sorry we got caught”? Forgiving, just like Jesus? Wasn’t he also the one who cleaned house at the temple in a rather direct and violent way?
Can you sue the Pope?