# Fuck the Motherfucking Pope **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 20, 2010, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182 "2010-05-20T21:15:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 46
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2010, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/901 "2010-06-13T02:38:30Z")
> [@tagos](#): > > [Ask and ye shall receive](http://timescolumns.typepad.com/gledhill/2010/03/text-of-letter-showing-rc-child-abuse-subject-to-the-pontifical-secret.html) > > [Commentary here](http://timescolumns.typepad.com/gledhill/2010/03/feeling-a-bit-sorry-for-the-irish-bishops.html) > > Anyone? Bueller? Not that it will change the minds of anyone on either side, but these claims have never been demonstrated to have a foundation, probably for the reasons presented when they were first lodged: [Explanation of _Crimen Sollicitationis_](http://www.nationalcatholicreporter.org/update/bn080703.htm) [ol] [li]So you start with a 1962 document intended to ensure that priests abusing penitents in the confessional are not permitted to get away with it.[/li][li]The document addresses the violations of church law, only, and are not applicable to civil law.[/li][li]The document is so limited in scope and intended to remain private that few bishops even know of it.[/li][/ol]And now it is waved about as though points 1 and 2 are completely reversed. From the NCR article: > [@](#): > > Canon lawyers told NCR that secrecy in canonical cases serves three purposes. First, it is designed to allow witnesses and other parties to speak freely, knowing that their responses will be confidential. Second, it allows the accused party to protect his good name until guilt is established. Third, it allows victims to come forward without exposing themselves to publicity. The high degree of secrecy in _Crimen Sollicitationis_ was also related to the fact that it dealt with the confessional. > > Those motives for confidentiality, experts say, must be distinguished from a widespread “mentality” that sought to protect the church from scandal by not reporting sexual abuse by priests to the police. As a matter of canon law, the obligation of secrecy in canonical cases does not prohibit a bishop or other church officials from reporting crimes to the proper authorities. > > Conflicts may arise, however, if civil authorities seek access to the secret acts of canonical procedures. > > That _Crimen Sollicitationis_ was not designed to “cover up” sex abuse, canonists say, is clear in paragraph 15, which obligates anyone with knowledge of a priest abusing the confessional for that purpose to come forward, under pain of excommunication for failing to do so. This penalty is stipulated, the document says, “lest [the offense] remain occult and unpunished and always with inestimable detriment to souls.” Some of the recent allegations regarding then Cardinal Ratzinger and the situations in Milwaukee and Vienna are very troubling, but this particular document is simply not what its champions want it to be. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2010, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/902 "2010-06-13T03:48:29Z")
> [@Cumberdale](#): > > For an organization that teaches that all people are sinners, are wretched etc, the fact that anyone can speak on any issue without error is laughable. If someone can speak without error on one thing, why can’t others do likewise on other topics? I hear you and I agree. I’m just trying to point out that papal infallibility isn’t what most people assume it is. ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2010, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/903 "2010-06-14T14:39:00Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > but this particular document is simply not what its champions want it to be. Yes it is. ---
**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:** [June 14, 2010, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/904 "2010-06-14T14:45:07Z")
> [@tagos](#): > > Yes it is. No it isn’t. ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2010, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/905 "2010-06-14T15:00:41Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > No it isn’t. Until I see the Rat Letters telling Bishops to go to the police, yes it does. That is how the thing was received and acted upon. Your turn. ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2010, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/906 "2010-06-14T15:29:21Z")
> [@tagos](#): > > Until I see the Rat Letters telling Bishops to go to the police, yes it does. That is how the thing was received and acted upon. > > Your turn. And just to point out - pretending that this is about the 1962 Letter, explicitly superceded by the 2001 one from the future Pope, which does not mention - ‘go to cops or else’ is dishonest. And to further point out - claiming Para 15 says ‘go to cops’ when it does not is also dishonest. > [@](#): > > 1. Since the crime of solicitation takes place in rather rare decisions, lest it remain occult and unpunished and always with inestimable detriment to souls, it was necessary for the one person, as for many persons, conscious of that [act of solicitation], namely, the solicited penitent, to be compelled to reveal it through a denunciation imposed by positive law. > > Therefore: > > 1. “According to the Apostolic Constitutions and especially of the Constitution of > Benedict XIV Sacramentum Poenitentiae of June 1, 1941, the penitent must denounce the accused priest of the delict of solicitation in confession within a month to the Ordinary of the place or to the Holy Congregation of the Holy Office; and the confessor must, burdened seriously in conscience, to warn the penitent of this duty.” It’s purely about internal Magic Sky Pixie shit. I know it’s the Pit but we still expect posters to not make false claims in the hope others won’t bother [checking](http://www.weirdload.com/crimen.pdf) So I repeat - where are these letters from the future Pope releasing the Secular Hounds on one of the hundreds of child-abusers? ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2010, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/907 "2010-06-14T18:10:21Z")
> [@Stratocaster](#): > > Sorry, that’s not defending the cover-up or defending the actions of the pedophile priests. Or I missed it. Can you provide a cite where Bricker defended the cover-up? I heard him do the opposite. I think the disconnect here is that a lot of folks see the prior actions as something that would be a deal-breaker for them, regardless what corrective actions the RCC may have taken (at least until the corrective actions had been in place and demonstrably effective for several decades). That **Bricker** (along with quite a few others) does not take the same view seems to strike them as evidence of a defect in his moral compass. So he’s being attacked, not for defending the actions of the pedophile priests or the ecclesiastical cover-up, but for defending his own continued affiliation with the organization. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2010, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/908 "2010-06-14T18:43:18Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > IThat **Bricker** (along with quite a few others) does not take the same view seems to strike them as evidence of a defect in his moral compass. No, the evidence for that is his refusal to consider the possibility that the problem, of institutional support for child rapists and therefore of child rape, still exists, as ample evidence shows it does, along with his obstinate pettifogging “defense” of it as being in accordance with the institution’s own rules. > [@](#): > > So he’s being attacked, not for defending the actions of the pedophile priests or the ecclesiastical cover-up, but for defending his own continued affiliation with the organization. He’s being attacked, again, not for his continued affiliation as such, but for his blind loyalty to it, and for his hypocrisy in continuing that affiliation even though he has told us he would leave it if a fact were ever demonstrated to him, which it now has. That is indistinguishable in effect, btw, from defending both pedophilia and the cover-up. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2010, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/909 "2010-06-14T20:24:36Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > I think the disconnect here is that a lot of folks see the prior actions as something that would be a deal-breaker for them, regardless what corrective actions the RCC may have taken (at least until the corrective actions had been in place and demonstrably effective for several decades). That **Bricker** (along with quite a few others) does not take the same view seems to strike them as evidence of a defect in his moral compass. Bullshit. The problem almost everyone here has with the RCCC is the systematized cover-up by the cardinals and bishops of the Church, and the failure of the Church to sanction the participants in that cover-up in any meaningful way. Hell, they haven’t even tried to figure out just how bad the child sexual abuse and associated cover-ups were, and genuinely come clean about the extent of the past crimes. Instead, every few years, they get surprised (and defensive) when the story breaks loose in yet another country. > [@](#): > > So he’s being attacked, not for defending the actions of the pedophile priests or the ecclesiastical cover-up, but for defending his own continued affiliation with the organization. No, he’s being attacked for defending the cover-up, and for his continued association with an organization that has yet to come clean about its sins or punish its high-level cover-uppers. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2010, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/910 "2010-06-14T20:50:12Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > the RCCC Every time you type that, FWIW, I picture some 34 year old college dropout typing furiously in his parents’ basement wearing an “AMERIKKKA NO BLOOD FOR OIL” t-shirt. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2010, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/911 "2010-06-14T20:52:53Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > He’s being attacked, again, not for his continued affiliation as such, but for his blind loyalty to it, and for his hypocrisy in continuing that affiliation even though he has told us he would leave it if a fact were ever demonstrated to him, which it now has. That is indistinguishable in effect, btw, from defending both pedophilia and the cover-up. I don’t know about you, but for me, continued affiliation can only be plausibly attributed to blind loyalty. So I don’t think I’ve said anything substantially different from what you said. > [@RTFirefly](#): > > No, he’s being attacked for defending the cover-up, and for his continued association with an organization that has yet to come clean about its sins or punish its high-level cover-uppers. Potato, potato.\* “Continued association [despite] coverups” is close enough for me to “continued affiliation [despite] deal-breaker actions.” Anyway, I was only trying to offer a plausible explanation to **stratocaster** for why **Bricker** is getting pinged on, even when **stratocaster** doesn’t see evidence of **Bricker** defending the RCC’s cover-up activities. I’ll stop trying to speak for anyone else, now. I gave up on the RCC over twenty years ago, on a far more fundamental issue, so if there’s anyone who doesn’t have a dog in the “canon law” fight, it would be me. \*yes, I know it’s usually spelled “potato, poTAHto.” I just feel that this way makes it more clear that in my opinion, the distinction is inconsequential. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2010, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/912 "2010-06-15T01:41:07Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > Every time you type that, FWIW, I picture some 34 year old college dropout typing furiously in his parents’ basement wearing an “AMERIKKKA NO BLOOD FOR OIL” t-shirt. If that makes you feel good, by all means don’t let me discourage you. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2010, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/913 "2010-06-15T01:49:16Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Potato, potato.\* “Continued association [despite] coverups” is close enough for me to “continued affiliation [despite] deal-breaker actions.” Maybe I should have bolded the difference in conjunctions: “So he’s being attacked, **not** **for** defending the actions of the pedophile priests or the ecclesiastical cover-up, **but** for defending his own continued affiliation with the organization.” v. “No, he’s being attacked **for** defending the cover-up, **and** for his continued association with an organization that has yet to come clean about its sins or punish its high-level cover-uppers.” You’re right that it’s potato v. potato (nicely played, btw) after the conjunction; all I did was add a bit more clarity. Our real difference is about whether Bricker is being attacked for defending the ecclesiastical coverup. > [@](#): > > if there’s anyone who doesn’t have a dog in the “canon law” fight Damn, now I’m envisioning a dog getting shot out of a circus-style cannon. ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2010, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/914 "2010-06-24T13:15:52Z")
[Belgian Raid on Catholic Offices](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/10403961.stm) > [@](#): > > Belgian authorities have raided the offices of the country’s most senior Catholic prelate as they investigate child sex abuse claims. > > A spokesman for the Brussels prosecutors’ office confirmed that the palace of the Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels had been sealed off. Good for them. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2010, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/915 "2010-06-24T13:32:04Z")
> [@tagos](#): > > [Belgian Raid on Catholic Offices](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/10403961.stm) > > Good for them. Wonder if Joey is using the word “Belgium” very gratuitously this morning. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Cumberdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8c91f0/32.png) [@Cumberdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cumberdale)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2010, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/916 "2010-06-24T22:10:11Z")
[http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2010-06-24-fraud23\_ST\_N.htm](http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2010-06-24-fraud23_ST_N.htm) And here is another story about the catholic church and its support and apparent approval of child rapists over its flock and victims. Honestly, does the catholic church have any sense of decency? ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2010, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/917 "2010-06-25T10:03:17Z")
> [@Cumberdale](#): > > [http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2010-06-24-fraud23\_ST\_N.htm](http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2010-06-24-fraud23_ST_N.htm) > > And here is another story about the catholic church and its support and apparent approval of child rapists over its flock and victims. > > Honestly, does the catholic church have any sense of decency? Note that: > [@](#): > > A 2008 letter from a church attorney to law enforcement indicates Newell was ordained in 1990, a year before the alleged victim reported the abuse, IOW, the Church found out about this then-relatively recent instance of sexual abuse in 1991. And apparently did nothing. This doesn’t seem to fall within **Bricker** ’s “everyone believed therapy could cure child molesters” time window. By the 1990s, that idea was long dead. Wonder what his excuse for this one would be. ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2010, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/918 "2010-06-25T14:50:53Z")
And here’s Roger Baloney again: [http://www.presstelegram.com/news/ci\_15304171](http://www.presstelegram.com/news/ci_15304171) ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2010, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/919 "2010-06-25T16:21:05Z")
> [@vivalostwages](#): > > And here’s Roger Baloney again: > > [http://www.presstelegram.com/news/ci\_15304171](http://www.presstelegram.com/news/ci_15304171) Cardinal Mahony, from the link: > [@](#): > > It is impossible to talk about 1986 without understanding all that has gone on since and look back. I just can’t do that. OK, by 1986, Mahony was the Archbishop of Los Angeles, and his episcopal career had been spent almost entirely in California. One of the watershed events affecting Americans’ perception of child sexual abuse was the [McMartin preschool trial](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMartin_preschool_trial) and the allegations surrounding those legal proceedings. The indictment in that case was handed down in March 1984. The McMartin school was in Manhattan Beach, CA, which is in Los Angeles County. The facts of the McMartin case aren’t at issue here. The point is that, even assuming that none of the alleged abuses in that case happened, it laid down a huge marker that Americans were now taking child sexual abuse allegations extremely seriously, that they could no longer be ignored or treated as a triviality. And this all happened in Mahony’s back yard. He was most certainly aware of it. Any claim that we’re judging 1986 through the lens of 2010 is irrelevant; the lens hasn’t changed that much since 1984. He was on notice in 1986 that the secular world now considered this sort of crime to be all but a lynching offense. If he chose to protect priests who committed such crimes, the least he should have been able to do in 1986 was to explain his rationale for believing that these crimes were less serious in God’s eyes than in the eyes of the secular law. Even if he continued to treat priestly child sexual abuse as a triviality, he had no moral right to do so mindlessly, as a simple carry-forward of the policies of the past. McMartin closed that door forever. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2010, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/920 "2010-06-25T16:27:55Z")
According to Wikipedia (and the [Archdioces of Los Angeles](http://www.archdiocese.la/archbishop/index.php) website), Mahony is still a cardinal in the RCCC, as well as still being the current Archbishop of Los Angeles. So: those who cover up child molesting get to keep their high positions indefinitely. Good work, Pope Joey. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182.md?page=45) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182.md?page=47)