Catholic Bishops can suck my ass

The BBQ Pit
161

Speak for them? They can do that for themselves.

I will say that I’m thinking of men I’ve known most of my life and theirs (since we know each other from high school) and in one case for my entire life (he’s about my father’s age).

I am confident that none of them are child molesters, if that’s what you’re asking. And I’m confident that they would act appropriately if an allegation of abuse were made to them. In the case of one of them, I know this for a fact, since he has done that. We talked about that.

162

Every bad priest that has been found out to date has had numerous people testifying on their behalf.
By the way, what happened to that priest your friend turned in?

163

What are you talking about?

No doubt. Is your point that that proves that every priest is bad? Or even most of them?

164

I am talking about this quote of yours:

If you mean by “act appropriately” that the allegation of abuse was passed on to the proper civil authorities, what happened next?

165

I see.

I don’t know. How would I know? I don’t know the name of the priest who was alleged to have abused someone, or who he was alleged to have abused.

I know a friend, with whom I went to high school more than forty years ago, said, in a conversation with me and another old friend (not a priest) that he’d had to report all the way up the line an allegation he’d received. This must have been ten years ago, if I remember right.

I don’t know if the allegation was ever substantiated, or if it was, what the outcome was. I don’t know if there were criminal charges, or if there was a civil lawsuit.

Again, how would I know? Obviously my high school friend couldn’t give me the details to follow up on his story.

166

Nooooo…it is my point that a molesting priest would have to be pretty fucking stupid to tell you about it.

167

Why did he give you any details at all?

168

Because old friends talk. And they talk about things that are tough for them. Or even just how work was that day. Or how they’re disappointed in everyone and everything around them. Or about how faith comes and goes. Or about how good things happen, like when this priest christened one of my children.

169

Well, I suppose that’s true. Certainly. It’s undeniable, in fact.

170

So you have a heavy emotional investment in believing that your friend can’t be bad, because if it turns out that he is bad, you would have to take responsibility for the fact that you trusted your children with him. This is why it is hard to expose bad priests, btw. The emotional investment is extremely high for parents, parishioners and the higher ups that placed the bad priest in that position of authority.

171

Do you have children? Do you trust your old friends with them? Then you’re doing exactly the same thing, right?

We trust our friends. Once in a while, we’re proven wrong to have done so. I hope that never happens to me. I hope it never happens to you.

And yes, I trust this friend, and the elderly relative I mentioned above, around my children. I absolutely do. In the case of the elderly relative, my parents trusted him around me and my siblings, and a bunch of our cousins, too.

172

Oh, and I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make, but I absolutely do take responsibility for the fact that I’ve trusted, and will trust, my children with him. Absolutely. I have no problem with that.

173

Leviticus 18:21

174

I had to look that one up. You’re coming awfully close to truly unacceptable (even by the standards of the Pit) personal attacks there.

175

Every priest a molester? No, though the number is outrageously high. Every priest “bad” in regards to the sex abuse process? Absolutely. The number of career priests who could survive a full background check without ever being found to have concealed an allegation against another priest is negligible. Every cleric who has become a public figure (by being named in a lawsuit or just by rising to a rank where they are inherently newsworthy) in recent decades has been found to have been involved in concealing abuse. All of them. Your position is that this is a nonrepresentative sample and that this 100% rate is exclusive to the priests who have been investigated so far? Please.

Look how much I care about the moral judgments of someone who is performatively handing his kids over to Catholic priests to prove his loyalty to the group. What you do and don’t find “truly unacceptable” is totally upside-down.

176

“Performatively?” You think that the fact that I had an old friend baptize one of my kids, and that he’s a welcome guest in my home, and that an elderly relative who’s officiated at every wedding in the family (including both of my father’s) and baptized me and just about everyone else in the family, is also welcome, and is a beloved family member, is a “performance?” You think I’m doing that to virtue-signal or something?

Get a grip.

177

Yeah, at this point, it does seem to just be trolling. I actually was going along at first: it does seem quit unlikely that you don’t know anyone who has been molested, and you really need to stop adding the word “all” to people’s posts. But this is utterly ridiculous.

And he is one of those “provocative” posters.

178

AKA on my ignore list.

179

The number of priests who are sexual abusers is roughly the same as the number of male non-priests who are abusers. The problem is not that they are more likely to abuse at all, but that the small proportion who are get the opportunity to molest far more people that the average non-priest does.

The proportion, both in and out of the church, is around 5% of men. You, me, and everyone on this board know some people who are abusers. I can think of three people I considered friends at one point who have been convicted of it, and that’s not an unusual amount.

It happens in schools, sports clubs, the boy scouts, churches and other religious institutions. More commonly than that, it happpens with families and family friends. The Catholic Church deserves condemnation for many things, but it’s flaws are not unique, or even unusual for a powerful organisation.

Saintly_Loser is probably wrong when they say they know no one who’s been abused by a priest. But both you and he would certainly be wrong if you claimed you didn’t know anyone who is an abuser, let alone someone who’s been abused.

In short, the number of people, especially men, who are abusers is outrageously high. Whether or not they are priests.

180

As I said above (more than once, I think), it may be unlikely that I don’t know anyone who’s been abused. It’s not impossible.

This seems obviously true. Priests serving in parishes, especially parishes that also operate a school, have more opportunity to offend. As do lay teachers, counselors, ministers, rabbis, imams, etc.

What the Catholic Church, as opposed to other Christian churches, offered to abusers was a structure that protected them. If the pastor of your local [insert denomination here] Christian church is a pedophile, there’s no structure to hide him, hush it up, and move him to another church. His church is a free-standing entity, so to speak.

And the Catholic hierarchy was all too willing to do this. Boston may have been the worst, but it happened in plenty of other dioceses too. Those bishops are every bit as evil as the offenders themselves, arguably worse. The offenders are sick people (don’t jump down my throat, I’m not justifying or excusing pedophilia), whereas the bishops were just making a cold-hearted calculation setting the welfare of children against the prestige of the Church, and coming out on the wrong side of the equation.

But I don’t understand one thing. You say I’m “probably wrong when [I] say [I] know no one who’s been abused by a priest. But both you and he would certainly be wrong if you claimed you didn’t know anyone who is an abuser, let alone someone who’s been abused.”

Surely the number of abused people is greater than the number of abusers? So it’s more likely that I wouldn’t know an abuser than that I wouldn’t know a person who’s been abused.

I’m not rejecting what you’re saying, I think I’m just not grasping your math here.

Also, as I posted above, I may or may not know an abuser, depending on how you’re defining that, but I did (he’s dead now) in fact know a priest who was caught possessing child porn. Did he ever abuse anyone? I don’t know. Nothing came to light in that parish. I must have been alone with him any number of times, as an altar boy, but nothing ever happened to me.

So he was certainly a potential abuser, given that he obviously was a sick man. Did the potential become actuality? I don’t know.