Agreed. Good point.
THAT was Catholic Church bashing.
And if I do, you’ll say what? OK, show me TWO others?
I, for one, would say that’s terrible, but there’s enough hate in my heart for everyone.
What kind of evidence would you expect to see?
Well, it depends what you mean by “lacking,” i guess.
If the above paragraph is the current policy, and the Church is following that policy, then i don’t have too much in the way of criticism. But, even if what you say is one hundred percent true, it still falls far short of changing my overall position about the Church on this issue.
While you have, in some of your recent posts (most notably, your recent response to elbows) drawn a fairly clear and firm distinction between past and present, i’m not sure that the line is as bright as you suggest. Even if we accept that your statement about current Church policies, and even though you concede that the actions of the past were reprehensible, it seems to me that a not-insignificant part of that reprehensible behavior has been allowed to bleed across the line you are drawing between past and present.
There are still people high up in the Catholic hierarchy who not only turned a blind eye to the actions of the past, but who were, in some cases, directly responsible for policies that covered them up, and for decisions such as declining to report criminal behavior to the civil authorities. The fact that some of these people continue within the organization means that the stain of the past behavior remains on the institution.
Furthermore, the fact that prominent members of the Church continue, even now, to compare criticism of the Church’s past policies and actions on this issue to anti-Semitism and other forms of prejudice, suggests that, for many of them, the biggest problem here is not what the Church has done to its victims, but the PR disaster that this has caused for the Church. When the CEO of BP devotes more time to covering his company’s ass than to addressing the consequences of his company’s oil spill, i tend to question the sincerity of any claims he makes about caring, but at least he has the excuse that his main job is a largely amoral obligation protect the interests of his shareholders. The Catholic Church is, at its heart, an organization founded on specific notions of morality, and if those ideals are truly important, they should come before PR concerns.
To be quite honest, i’m also inclined to wait a bit longer before accepting that actual Church practice has truly changed. Yes, the official policies enunciated in recent years are promising and somewhat reassuring, but the abuse itself went on for decades, covered up and hidden away by Church authorities who abrogated both their moral duties and their civic obligations as members of the broader society. Simple reassurances that policies have changed are not, by themselves, especially compelling when they come from people who have already shown a willingness to dissemble when it appears to be in the Church’s interest.
ETA:
It just occurred to me that my last sentence could be interpreted as a criticism of you specifically; it was not. I was talking about Church authorities who assure us that things have changed.
I see two relevant things here:
So, one, this isn’t detailed enough in what they mean by “inadequate oversight.” What it suggests, though, is not nearly the level of an *official *coverup by the organization itself. Negligence, while terrible, isn’t exactly equivalent.
And two, they’ve now banned coaches for life. I’m not actually sure what’s happened to the priests who had previously been given a blind eye. Were they all defrocked, excommunicated, and handed over to the secular authorities?
Yeah and the majority still believe in magic skypixies. It is part of the reason that this sort of thing can reach such proportions. No one believes that their particular superfriend would allow his representatives on Earth to do such things.
Lol! You’re the one who made the claim that it has stopped! Did the Pope wave his magic wand <snerk!> and the matrix was reset back to the ‘good’ setting so everything is now considered fixed?
There are two prpblems with this. If I takeyour meaning, it would be impossible to ever prove that it’s stopped. Once it happened, we must assume it has continued and will continue forever. This is why I asked what evidence would be acceptable.
In the wake of the scandal’s revelation, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops adopted new guidelines, to replace the individual discretion that bishops had previously had. They include, as I said above, the rule that every accusation is reported to the authorities, and even a single credible accusation requires the permanant loss of public ministry.
So my evidence is: there were no rules, the USCCB adopted new rules, and those rules are being followed.
So far as I am aware, every priest from the earlier scandals has been laicized and at least identified to the authorities.
Jesus was a Capricorn
and I look down upon the Pope.
I’m holier than a Cardinal,
and I post at the Dope.
And I ain’t nothin’ special
I give myself some rope,
But at least I don’t try
A boy or girl to grope.
If I did, I wouldn’t be
Promoted I hope.
To a special Roman See,
My chicken for to choke
I’d be put in prison
Careful to reach for soap
Not a Prada wearing queen
Like the fucking Nazi Pope.
That’s fair.
But at the same time, I can hardly concede an accusation that they have failed to act, or that they are NOT following their procedures now. You absolutely have cause to regard this representation with suspicion, but what else can be said, except “Time will tell?”
Your personal awareness is irrelevant. You are not a percipient witness.
:rolleyes:
I can’t find any reference to any priest from those earlier scandals not removed from the clerical state.
I don’t have any personal knowledge of any such priest.
You asked me if there were any. How else can I answer?
Prediction: Bricker will spring gleefully to answer your last question saying that that is precisely why his first example was youth swim coaches. Of whom a few were in fact given good recommendations by the national certifying body despite persistent allegations of abuse. Of course, the article I read was able to document 20 instances of abuse, of which less than 1/4 were covered up – be generous and say five instances. Nationwide. Total.
In the Brickerverse, though, this proves something, and our insistence that there is something radically wrong with a system that for years covered up such abuse and facilitated it by simply moving the priests to [del]new harvests of young victims[/del] new parishes, including hundreds of documented cases, and which is still loath to cooperate in investigating and prosecuting abuse and the coverup, is simply “Catholic-baiting, because [we] hate the Church” – because he belongs to the real Church, the sole repository of the Sacraments (my church, which does the same things with the same elements using pretty much the same formulas, doesn’t – because one of the past Popes told Catholics they have to believe our sacraments are null and void.
This may be a good place to put in one of the nastiest jokes I’ve ever laughed at: Know the difference between an Episcopal priest and a Catholic priest? If the Episcopal priest fucks another male, he’s probably married to him, he’s above the age of consent and freely consenting to the sex.
Bricker, if you actually do have any influence in the Church you so fervently defend, you will stop posting pettifogging ‘justifications’ of what it did that strain out gnats while swallowing camels whole, and report back for action the depth of outrage that exists, particularly on this issue. (Harsh as your fellow Dopers have been, they are nothing like the real Catholic-bashers who don’t believe you’re even Christians and who have been having a field day denouncing your Church for both the boy-rapes and more especially the cover-up. When millions a month are dying of AIDS in Africa, and nearly 2% of priests are proven pedophiles, for Benedict to proclaim that one of the major threats to the world is gay marriage is nothing short of staggering. Can you get through the insular shell insulating them from the rest of the world? If so, please do it – in all sincerity, your Church is counting on you.
You’ve gone on to say there’s no way to be sure, true. But only under duress. But will you, Mr. Defense Counsel, stipulate a pattern of behavior by your client that places the burden of proof on you?
That was unusually childish even for you.
Talk lawyer to me, baby!
Now, y’see, therein lies the rub for thinking beings.
And seriously, Catholic bashing? In a thread titled Fuck the Motherfucking Pope, who’d have thunk it? I am shocked, I tell you, shocked!
Seriously? How about the Pope himself. He was absolutely complicit in covering up the crime of child abuse. And, against the advice of people beneath him, he is completely, 100% responsible for inflicting the perpetrator of the crime on another parish without so much as warning them. Where he went on to reoffend.
This isn’t Catholic bashing, just so you’re aware. This ‘conspiracy to commit child abuse’ bashing.
Is the official Catholic church position that a woman really should elect to die if she’s in danger from a pregnancy rather than have an abortion?
:eek:
Because that’s right up there with the Taliban in terms of pure evil.
In other words: The people who covered up the mess in the first place are now saying they are no longer covering things up and have made self enforced changes that they say they will follow. You don’t see a problem with this? As a lawyer you don’t see a problem with this? If an adversary in a court case made this statement you’d be okay with it and call the matter settled?
If so, I’ve got a bridge to sell ya, too.
What external impartial auditors are making sure that the ‘company’ is doing what it says it is doing?
Life is sacred, you know. Just not hers.
I’m shocked this is a revelation to so many. Straight from the pony:
See post #217. And this: http://www.socialistdemocracy.org/Reviews/ReviewDeliverUsFromEvil.html
Ratzi, Mahoney, their attorneys, and others did their damndest to cover up or transfer offending priests and then refused to give up information. God knows how many molesters were allowed to run amok because their superiors wanted it hushed up and used/abused their power.