You know who covers for pedophiles? Women. Millions of wives and mothers do that for their husbands, brothers, fathers. For reasons. The scandal in the church has a particular flavor of bureaucratic evil, but the abuse of children is everywhere. Pedophilia has nothing to do with religion per se, and neither does the denial of it. The church has a specific burden of betrayal of trust peculiar to its role in people’s lives, but there is nothing whatsoever about the Catholic church that is unique vis a vis child abuse. It’s universal. And that is why I find it so distasteful when anti-religionists use this particular scandal as an argument against all religion. Eliminating religion would do absolutely nothing to prevent child abuse.
Who here has proposed the elimination of religion?
BTW, do you think the BSA is also unfairly persecuted?
Yeah, the good old “They do it all, so we are cool” excuse 
.
I am not excusing the Catholic church in any way whatsoever. NONE. I cannot say that more strongly. All I am saying is that religion is not responsible for child abuse. And before you repeat that of course you didn’t say that, it is at minimum implied in the whole thread.
You know who is responsible for child abuse? Men. Not priests, men. I will guess that the percentage of men who commit it, in the general populace, is rather similar to that within the Catholic priesthood. No, they don’t have a protective bureaucracy, but they do pretty well anyway, with an enabling society that discounts children and their voices, and elevates men and gives them power over women and over children. Just think how much child abuse would be reduced if we just got rid of those men, huh? Of course all the innocent men would also be eliminated but small loss, really, compared to the harm they do as a group.
Reducing complaints about “child abuse by Catholic priests” to “complaints about Catholicism” and then dismissing them as “complaints about religion” (which, for some reason known only to you, are Not Allowed) is, definitionally, excusing the Catholic church. The fact that you don’t know what a word like “excusing” means isn’t helping anyone.
The percentage of abusers in the Church hierarchy is not the same as the percentage overall, and the fact that the people in the hierarchy who are not abusers themselves are all enablers of it is a problem with no parallel in any institution the size of the Church. The Boy Scouts had 2 million members at their peak and immediately lost 40% of them in their abuse scandal. The Church has 1.3 billion members who don’t seem to give a shit about what happens to their kids. It’s completely not comparable. I know you want to look for any excuse possible to avoid stating the conclusion, but: the Catholic Church is the worst, most voluminous abuser of children on Earth and nothing else comes remotely close. If they don’t want people making “anti-religion” conclusions from the fact that they, a religion, are the worst, most voluminous abuser of children on Earth then they are free to continue being a religion but stop being the worst, most voluminous abuser of children on Earth at any time.
Prove it. I mean, obviously you can’t, as it’s not true. Yes, the Catholic church is awful for covering up and abetting abuse, but it’s neither unique nor even unusual in doing so. Governments do it, TV networks, Hollywood in general, the boy scouts, schools, athletic organisations, and families pretending to be oblivous to it. The church isn’t some sort of haven for abusers because it doesn’t need to be. Society as a whole manages that quite well enough.
Oh, what an utter and complete crock of shit. I’m done here.
Ah, more people excusing Catholic abuse with this numerical three-card monte talking point.
The rate of Catholic priests who are credibly accused of abusing children to the point that their names are publicized as the result of a legal process is equal to the rate of males in the general population who are believed to be abusers by sociological estimates.
Unless every priest who abuses is exposed (which of course they are not) and every sex crime in the general population is against a child (which of course they are not) then the rate of Catholic priests abusing children is higher than the rate of a random sample of men.
Furthermore, the rate of “people who cover up sexual abuse” in the Catholic hierarchy is nearly 100%, which is not true of the population at large.
Well, I’m convinced.
Still putting out the questions until I find one person who is excusing and defending Catholic sex abuse willing to answer them:
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Why have the revelations about the extent of abuse that have come to light in the last 20 years made no impact whatsoever in your decision to participate in the Catholic Church and allow priests access to your children?
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What is the percentage of priests exposed as abusers at which point your decision to participate in the Catholic Church and allow priests access to your children would potentially change?
You#re wrong on every count, and I really don’t get why you are trying to minimise the amount of child abuse that happens. I do understand that it’s unpleasant to think about, but to pretend it only happens over there not in organisations and communities you are part of is sheer wilful ignorance.
This is almost clever, except it brings us back to the point that when the BSA was exposed as rife with abuse the organization collapsed immediately. There’s only one group where revelations about top-to-bottom tolerance of child abuse doesn’t seem to matter to its members, and it’s the group that has access to 100x more children than any of the others mentioned.
Last time I checked the BBC, for example, still exists.
Once again, a great example of how the Church’s behavior doesn’t compare to that of other organizations.
Following the Saville revelations, the BBC put into place a policy stating that any person under 18 must be accompanied by a paid professional chaperone at any BBC event, even if they are merely an audience member. This is in addition to any parental involvement, since the chaperone is designed to protect the child not only from potentially abusive BBC staffers, but from economic exploitation or sexual favor-trading by an abusive parent.
If the Catholic Church would like to put in a similar policy for contact between children and priests then I will applaud them and retract all my comments. Do you see that happening?
You’ve already been told in this thread about the changes the church has made, so that’s a stupid argument.
Reality: There was a three-post discussion of a new “policy mandating reporting” that I wasn’t involved in, which ended after it was pointed out that this “policy” has no meaning and is not enforced, just like the toothless paper nonsense coming out of the Vatican the last thousand times the media took an interest in what happens behind the altar.
The Church has changed nothing, there is no reason to think it will change or that it believes it has to change if there were no consequences the last thousand times, and the members of the Church seem quite okay with that.
And remember, “there’s no problem anymore because abuse is inevitable in every organization and we have a Policy now” isn’t excusing the abusive priests, why would you ever think that?
They have at least on paper. You seem quite uninformed.
Problem for me is that compliance is poor and the mentality of a priest turning in another priest to lay authorities is still seen as a betrayal.
This is from my personal experience with the local parish, the local Catholic school and talking with priests in my family.
The answer to “Would you turn in a priest to the police if you knew or suspected they were abusing a child?” has never been an unequivocal “Yes”. It’s always some deflection or the counter “Would you turn in your brother or child?” They seem to be unwilling to believe that for most people the answer is an unhesitating “Yes”
What exactly do you mean by
Lots of women have abused children. Even murdered them. Some have been in the news.
The problem with the Priests, though, was that is was systemic. It was institutional .
What separates them from other groups it that they pretend to be the voice of goodness and morality.
And now I see I used the word ‘was’, as if it was over.
Yo, ZosterSandstormfront; that’s not why the Boy Scouts of America collapsed, and their collapst certainly wasn’t immediate.
Seriously, “friend”; in your entire tenure here, have you ever been right about anything?
When he says “Yes”, will that simply prove your point?