# Catholic Bishops can suck my ass **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 19, 2021, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-bishops-can-suck-my-ass/944594 "2021-06-19T00:43:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 16
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2021, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-bishops-can-suck-my-ass/944594/301 "2021-08-05T10:20:36Z")
What I’m hoping for is he’ll say “No”. That’ll do something to the universe, no doubt. ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2021, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-bishops-can-suck-my-ass/944594/302 "2021-08-07T02:18:05Z")
So, back to the OP, an interesting, current article from NPR > **[More Clergy Abuse Is Finally Being Prosecuted, No Thanks To The Church, A...](https://www.npr.org/2021/08/06/1025500190/more-clergy-abuse-is-finally-being-prosecuted-no-thanks-to-the-church-a-lawyer-s)** > > Over the years, Mitchell Garabedian has represented hundreds of survivors of clergy sexual abuse. His latest is a civil case against former U.S. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick. I do love NPR, since it tends to be more . . . in depth than most online resources. It includes an edited interview with the prosecution’s lawyer, and I’m quoting a snippet most directly related to the thread. > **On how the delay to investigate proves the Church’s commitment to itself over people** > > It took them more than 40 years to produce a report. Whatever happened to “Call the police,” send it to the police? They could have sent it to the police in [the] 1980s, 1990s. I believe, in a Vatican report, there are at least 17 reports, 17 individuals, sexually abused by Cardinal McCarrick. And Bishop [Edward] Hughes, Bishop [John M.] Smith, saw him sexually abusing children, and now here we are far more than 40 years later and they’re first talking about it? This shows you how the Catholic Church is concerned about itself and not about the safety and welfare of children. It speaks volumes. For what little it’s worth, the Catholic church _-did-_ defrock him in 2019… but it shows that even with the statement from the US Bishop’s conference in the same article > “The Catholic Church recognizes that prevention of sexual abuse is an ongoing effort that includes pastoral care and outreach to survivors, reporting allegations to civil authorities, background checks, education and training on keeping children and youth safe, and the implementation of child protection policies at the local level,” a spokesperson for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said in a statement to NPR. > > They went on to say: “We have made much progress, but we also know that the painful experience of survivors calls us to continual improvement.” That their definition of ‘much progress’ and our definition of the same phrase are worlds apart. ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Mouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mighty_mouse/32/7776_2.png) [@Mighty\_Mouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Mouse)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2021, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-bishops-can-suck-my-ass/944594/303 "2021-10-05T11:45:44Z")
> **[French Church abuse: 216,000 children were victims of clergy - inquiry](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-58801183)** > > The Church asks for forgiveness as an inquiry says it treated victims with "cruel indifference". A few bad apples in the French orchard too. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2021, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-bishops-can-suck-my-ass/944594/304 "2021-10-05T17:36:26Z")
Are there enough clean priests left to take their confessions? ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Mouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mighty_mouse/32/7776_2.png) [@Mighty\_Mouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Mouse)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2021, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-bishops-can-suck-my-ass/944594/305 "2021-10-05T19:50:24Z")
Well there are only 2900-3200 bad apples out of 115,000 priests and “other clerics” The staggering number is that the number of victims per bad apple is 80. The number of victims comfortably exceeds all the priests there have been in France in the last 70 years. If you assume as people earlier in this thread claim that catholic priests are no more likely to abuse children than other groups that have access to children, schoolteachers would have abused MILLIONS of French children since 1950. No doubt the anti-clerical deep state is keeping a lid on that scandal. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2021, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-bishops-can-suck-my-ass/944594/306 "2021-10-05T19:57:25Z")
> [@Mighty\_Mouse](#): > > Well there are only 2900-3200 bad apples out of 115,000 priests and “other clerics” How many estimated if you count the ones in on the cover-ups? ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Mouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mighty_mouse/32/7776_2.png) [@Mighty\_Mouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Mouse)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2021, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-bishops-can-suck-my-ass/944594/307 "2021-10-05T20:56:23Z")
What cover up? Are you one of those “Catholicism-hostile/ignorant people” who are willing to swallow any calumny about priests and the Catholic Church that anyone can dream up. ---
**Author:** ![Mundane\_Super\_Hero](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mundane_super_hero/32/6304_2.png) [@Mundane\_Super\_Hero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mundane_Super_Hero)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2021, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-bishops-can-suck-my-ass/944594/308 "2021-10-06T01:28:38Z")
> [@Mighty\_Mouse](#): > > who are willing to swallow any calumny about priests and the Catholic Church that anyone can dream up. “… the body of Christ…” ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2021, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-bishops-can-suck-my-ass/944594/309 "2021-10-06T04:15:59Z")
> [@Mighty\_Mouse](#): > > What cover up? The fact that you can utter this absolute crap at this very late stage of the game tells me that conversing with you on this subject would be a complete waste of time. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2021, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-bishops-can-suck-my-ass/944594/310 "2021-10-06T05:05:45Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > The fact that you can utter this absolute crap at this very late stage of the game tells me that conversing with you on this subject would be a complete waste of time. Pretty sure that post was sarcasm. Kind of ironic that you, of all people, couldn’t spot it. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Librarian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_librarian/32/402_2.png) [@The\_Librarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Librarian)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2021, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-bishops-can-suck-my-ass/944594/311 "2021-10-06T07:02:43Z")
I do not see a functional difference between the Catholic Church and a pedophile ring. I will rescind this assessment and make an apology if someone can show me one (1) instance of the church or an individual priest reporting abuse by one of its members to the authorities on their own initiative. Why this fucking club is not banned everywhere is completely beyond me. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2021, 8:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-bishops-can-suck-my-ass/944594/312 "2021-10-06T08:58:43Z")
If it was sarcasm, I apologize. ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Mouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mighty_mouse/32/7776_2.png) [@Mighty\_Mouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Mouse)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2021, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-bishops-can-suck-my-ass/944594/313 "2021-10-06T10:12:51Z")
Well with some of the apologists posting earlier in the thread, I can see how my message could have been mistaken for one from The Faithful, The Martyr or even the Shit-Picker. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2021, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-bishops-can-suck-my-ass/944594/314 "2021-10-07T05:21:41Z")
> [@Mighty\_Mouse](#): > > If you assume as people earlier in this thread claim that catholic priests are no more likely to abuse children than other groups that have access to children, schoolteachers would have abused MILLIONS of French children since 1950 I hold no brief for the abominable toleration and concealment of child sexual abuse on the part of the Catholic church hierarchy as a whole, but saying that Catholic priests don’t have a worse child sexual abuse problem than other males in general [is not just an “assumption”](https://www.newsweek.com/priests-commit-no-more-abuse-other-males-70625). > [@](#): > > Priests Commit No More Abuse Than Other Males […] > > Since the mid-1980s, insurance companies have offered sexual misconduct coverage as a rider on liability insurance, and their own studies indicate that Catholic churches are not higher risk than other congregations. Insurance companies that cover all denominations, such as Guide One Center for Risk Management, which has more than 40,000 church clients, does not charge Catholic churches higher premiums. “We don’t see vast difference in the incidence rate between one denomination and another,” says Sarah Buckley, assistant vice president of corporate communications. “It’s pretty even across the denominations.” It’s been that way for decades. While the company saw an uptick in these claims by all types of churches around the time of the 2002 U.S. Catholic sex-abuse scandal, Eric Spacick, Guide One’s senior church-risk manager, says “it’s been pretty steady since.” […] > > Limiting their study to plausible accusations made between 1950 and 1992, John Jay researchers reported that about 4 percent of the 110,000 priests active during those years had been accused of sexual misconduct involving children. The French numbers of 3200 abusers out of 115,000 clergy, or about 3%, are right in the same ballpark. The main scandals here IMHO are: 1. The Catholic Church as an institution, due to its secretive policies, recklessly facilitated and enabled the activities of abusers, thus driving up the victims-to-abuser ratio. 2. An appallingly large percentage of adults, especially males, commit sexual abuse of children. The abusers and enablerrs in the Catholic Church deserve all the vitriol being thrown at them, but I think a lot of their denouncers are succumbing to a bit of obliviousness about the extent to which this is not just a Catholic problem. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2021, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-bishops-can-suck-my-ass/944594/315 "2021-10-07T06:34:11Z")
> [@Mundane\_Super\_Hero](#): > > “… the body of Christ…” You know, add a “not” in front and those would make some great lyrics… [![](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/iihiZDcB-0o/hqdefault.jpg "Christian Death -This is Heresy") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iihiZDcB-0o) although for this thread I prefer “your church makes me vomit into the vertiginous abyss” ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Mouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mighty_mouse/32/7776_2.png) [@Mighty\_Mouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Mouse)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2021, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-bishops-can-suck-my-ass/944594/316 "2021-10-07T10:50:37Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > 1. The Catholic Church as an institution, due to its secretive policies, recklessly facilitated and enabled the activities of abusers, thus driving up the victims-to-abuser ratio. This was the entire point! If every priest who abused one, two or three children was investigated, defrocked and prosecuted, this wouldn’t be a story. The whole scandal is that known abusers were served up more victims on a platter. So a child is much more likely to be abused by a priest than by the average man, yes or no? ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2021, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-bishops-can-suck-my-ass/944594/317 "2021-10-07T11:02:33Z")
But remember - if you’re worried about being molested by a priest, you can always flag down a bus…no, wait, wrong sexual abuse by authority figures story… ---
**Author:** ![Mundane\_Super\_Hero](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mundane_super_hero/32/6304_2.png) [@Mundane\_Super\_Hero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mundane_Super_Hero)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2021, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-bishops-can-suck-my-ass/944594/318 "2021-10-07T13:32:25Z")
The Knight Bus stops at parishes? ( Oh, JK Rowling… you really Were brilliant!) { _Alarte Castratum_! } “Seat for one, please…” ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2021, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-bishops-can-suck-my-ass/944594/319 "2021-10-07T16:26:32Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > if you’re worried about being molested by a priest, you can always flag down a bus… If the bus driver then molests you, then wave down a passing taxi. Oh wait… > **[Former Halifax taxi driver gets 2-year sentence for sexual assault | CBC News](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/former-halifax-taxi-driver-handed-sentence-for-sexual-assault-1.5845514)** > > Bassam Al-Rawi was sentenced in Nova Scotia Supreme Court on Thursday for sexual assault. The former taxi driver was convicted in August for assaulting a woman eight years ago. > **[Oxford taxi driver jailed for raping passenger](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-58560752)** > > Asif Khan attacked the woman after collecting her from Oxford's Atik nightclub. > **[Jail for Victorian taxi driver who covered camera before raping female passenger](https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/jul/21/jail-for-victorian-taxi-driver-who-covered-camera-before-raping-female-passenger)** > > Shibu Paul asked the 23-year-old woman if she ‘liked it’ after assaulting her in his taxi in Melbourne ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Mouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mighty_mouse/32/7776_2.png) [@Mighty\_Mouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Mouse)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2021, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-bishops-can-suck-my-ass/944594/320 "2021-10-07T16:37:42Z")
Notice how all these offenders have been arrested and are facing prosecution? Someone in a cassock who is buggering a boy right now is going to be really sorry when the story comes out in 2046 and he’s in an Alzheimer’s care facility. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-bishops-can-suck-my-ass/944594.md?page=15) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-bishops-can-suck-my-ass/944594.md?page=17)