Wow, Humbert Humbert has nothing on this guy.
While I agree with you in principle that we need to keep calm, and allow our systems of justice to do their jobs, I would like to point out a very important difference between the Satanic daycares and the RCC. The “Child molesting Satanic Daycare centers” accusations of the eighties were brought by recovered memories, which as been shown to be shoddy science at best. Most of the accusations against the RCC has been substantiated by the RCC’s own records.
Some other Catholic-bashers who thought priests who molest children should be dealt with more harshly than the Church in their day was doing: St. Basil of Caesarea, Pope Gregory IX, and Pope Benedict XIV.
St. Basil said that clerics who molested boys should never again be allowed unsupervised contact with minors.
Were they modern liberals who were in favor of abortion and gay marriage, and not true Catholics?
In the case of Gregory IX, he’s the same pope who established the Inquisition and codified the second-class status of Jews into canon law. Those hardly seem like liberal ideas to me.
Yup, to my mind at least the outrage lies not in the fact that priests molested children - any org as large as the Church will have some criminals and psychos mixed in, that cannot be helped and certainly the Pope etc. can’t be blamed for it - but rather, in the Church’s reaction, as an organization, to the situation: which appears to have been, from the evidence available, to cover it up, to protect the abusers and to silence the victims.
I’m not a Catholic, but my wife is and her relations are quite religious - this whole situation has been a staggering blow to them, in their trust in the Church. Even assuming that the Church org is a completely amoral group dedicated to nothing more than keeping a hold on their power and privileges, they would do well to change their collective tune - from what I’ve seen, it is not working on the faithful who are the backbone of the Church: rather, it is pissing even them off (perhaps more accurately, breaking their hearts to see the Church hierarchy exposed as so selfishly focused on covering up and denying wrong-doing, blaming others, invoking martyrdom and conspiracies, etc.).
Now, none of this is to deny that other large organizations haven’t done the exact same thing … but few I think on anything approaching the same scale. There simply aren’t many organizations that have the same scale.
Frankly they’d have more success if they cut it out with the Jesus and Holocaust analogies and just cut to the chase:
“Pope compared persecution to that of Nixon.”
“Sure, he was a liar and a crook, but he opened up China and was a Quaker…he wasn’t all bad…and except for that one thing that brought shame and distrust to the institution of the President, he was a pretty good president. Besides, it wasn’t like Harding hadn’t pre-sullied the institution. I’m nothing compared to the corrupt reign of the Borgias.”
It doesn’t matter. “Everybody else was doing it” is not a good defense, legally or morally, when you’ve been doing something wrong. It doesn’t matter who else was covering up for child molesters, it’s still wrong when the Catholic Church does it. You can’t even get out of a speeding ticket by claiming that “everybody else was speeding, I was just keeping up with traffic”.
It is an especially bad defense when everybody else isn’t doing it. What other organization has a decades long practice of shielding people abusing children?
Jeebus on a stick. There’s everything in there–women deserve the pain of childbirth; she is merely a vessel; and women who get abortions consider their babies “playthings” to dispose of as they please.
I wouldn’t consider my labor pains “noble suffering” in the least. Nor do I consider pain an “awesome privilege” . In my time as a nurse, I’ve seen the emotional, physical and psychological damage pain can do to a person. IOW, this guy’s a clueless asshole. But I do like the phrase, “the sweet siren song of secularism” Sing it to me, baby!
Vatican blasts anti-Catholic ‘hate’ campaign
AFAIK, the pope is not forbidden by God to contact the local law enforcement authorities.
Actually, the way I read that passage (pause for another bout of vomiting), the writer is saying that a woman’s body is not her plaything to do with as she pleases. No, nope, it must be dedicated to the uses approved by the Church, and only them, it belongs to God (as defined by the Church) and not to the woman inhabiting it; and the woman has no right to do anything with her body that the Pope don’t like.
While the Church plays victim here, they’re bleeding adherents. The very old who can’t imagine not being Catholic won’t leave, but I’m betting that another month of this and you’ll start hearing about it from younger Catholics. I’ve heard and read enough anecdotes from other people about their relatives getting angry about the whole thing. I actually haven’t talked to my mother (a lifelong Catholic) about the situation yet…she’s supposed to call me tonight. I may bring it up. Knowing her, she may change the subject just so as not to talk about something uncomfortable. But I may be surprised.
This is, possibly, the worst crisis the Church has faced in modern times (since the mid-19th Century, at least). And they’re dropping the ball in an absolutely abominable way.
[double post]
Even worse if you’re a driving instructor or manage a DMV.
How convenient that they can now compare themselves to other groups and people when it comes to their failings – We’re no worse than secular pedophiles! – but how dare anyone expect them to evolve or adapt to reality, or admit that they then may not have ultimate moral authority (the very authority they’ve wielded to pressure and silence victims and their families)? This is an institution that feels it’s okay to excommunicate the people who helped a raped nine-year-old get an abortion, but feel her rapist deserves forgiveness.
Bingo.
And the Church and its defenders have yet to lift a finger to hold the bishops and archbishops and cardinals accountable who covered up the sins of the abusive priests, who transferred them to fresh pastures, and who pressured victims and parents to shut up rather than press charges.
As long as the Church treats this as a ‘few bad apples in the priesthood’ issue rather than one of a massive institutional coverup on the part of its hierarchy, it will fail to regain its trustworthiness.
It’s like Nixon trying to blame Watergate on the seven burglars who broke into DNC headquarters.
You are being far too indulgent of Paul in Qatar’s disgusting crap. First he wades into this thread to lecture us about the Boy Scouts, and then it becomes abundantly clear that he hasn’t even done the most cursory of research into the Boy Scouts (he admits as much in post #104). His whole goal in this thread has been to shut down discussion of what is going on at the Catholic Church, and he has been trying to do this by side-tracking the discussion. So, first we get the BSA. Now we get Audis and Iraqi WMD!
In Paul’s twisted world-view, if you express concern or disgust over actual child molestation, you are merely “smearing the church.” But trying to derail a discussion about child abuse into a discussion about Iraq WMD is perfectly acceptable behavior! He doesn’t give a shit about justice or fairness. He certainly doesn’t give a shit about child abuse. All he cares about is stopping people from discussing what is happening over at the church.
I just did a quick search of Paul in Qatar’s posting history. Here’s a quote of his from the thread Do you think the U.S.A. should go to war with Iraq?:
Man, that certainly was some sober, reflective thinking. Thank god you were there to argue against rushing into Iraq the way you are trying to prevent us from the possibility of making hasty decisions about the Catholic Church. You certainly are the person to be lecturing us on both the Catholic Church and Iraq.
Of course, whether or not we should have gone into Iraq is irrelevant to a discussion about child molestation. Unless, your goal is to shut down a discussion of child molestation.
This argument of Paul’s sounds remarkably like the Vatican’s… Hmm…
And has ANYONE seen Paul in Qatar and Pope Benedict in the same place at the same time? I rest my case!
ETF–I can read it as both ways. Either way, both ways, it’s still disgusting and twisted. But keep in mind that this is the same church that finds death for a woman preferable to rape. I cannot recall the name of the poor unfortunate girl who died while defending her “honor”, but she was lauded in the Church for doing so (apparently her death was not grieved). IMS, this happened in Italy in the 1950s or 60s (it may have been more recent).
St. Maria Goretti, at the beginning of the 20th Century.
OK, but I feel I must warn you, you are really breaking a supervillain tradition here.