As long as there are children, and adults in positions of authority and trust, there will always be child abuse. It would seem that making it legal to fuck children and encouraging the perpetrators out into the open, would be more beneficial to society.
That would be the rule of Priestly celibacy then.
Having sex only when one cannot concieve is un-natural, the intent is not to have a child at that time, and is not good for a married person’s relationship and is in a way just as artificial. If God is so weak He can’t make a condom or any birth control fail He isn’t too powerful. If he gave people the brains to figure out that they could prevent a conception by any means then it would be that this being is comapssionate not just for the parents but the child that could result! I would think a supreme being would want a person to act responsibly.
You mean like how one of them came out and said that this shuffling of priests was going on? Can you hook me up with who that person was, because I’m not familiar with any stories about whistle blowers. I’m familiar with stories of victims coming forward, not people in the RCC hierarchy (at least to get the stories started. Some did “confess” later). I’d be happy to be corrected.
Oh, stop this “other groups do it” shit. Other professions? Which ones? Pro wrestlers? Termite exterminators? Lumberjacks? Mafia hitmen? Mimes? WHO? Stop this shit. I don’t think ANY other organization or group has been caught up in as big a scandal, or been perpetuating it, and hiding it, for so long. I also think you really don’t give a shit, except to excuse and defend the RCC no matter what was done, and how big it turns out to have been (and it’s already been pretty damn huge). Some shit is just wrong. So stop the bull shit. Wrong was done. More and more, the police are finally investigating. It’s about time.
Um, yes. The coverup is THE distinctive here - I think pretty much all the critics here of the RCCC’s behavior relative to child molesting agree. If the RCCC had been doing its best all along to make sure that its priests were behaving in appropriate ways, and if it had reacted with anger when child abusing priests came to the attention of those above them, made sure that the perpetrators could never again work with children in the Church (and then defrocked them, ideally), and tried to do what they could to make it harder for priests to molest kids, then this thread probably wouldn’t be happening: they’d have resolved this a couple of decades ago, at worst.
Well, they DID condone it. Who was the whistle-blowing idealist?
I was meaning to come back to this:
Which artificial methods prevent even the possibility of conception? Seems they all have failure rates.
That seems to be the real belief, rather than this nonsense about “if the possibility of conception exists, then it’s OK.” The possibility of conception exists with any non-reversable means of artificial birth control. Condoms leak or slip off, women get pregnant while on the Pill or while using an IUD, etc. All you’re doing is changing the odds.
If it’s all about preserving the possibility of pregnancy, such means do it, unless the guys in the funny robes are really saying that a halving of the chance of pregnancy is OK, but reducing the probability of pregancy by an order or two of magnitude isn’t.
Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what bothers them: that pregnancy is still possible, but it just tilts the odds too much against unwanted pregnancies, as far as they’re concerned.
I would think that being a teacher, while giving the pedophile SOME access, comes with constraints and policies, procedures and an awareness of the liability of such accusations. I know when I did my one day orientation to be a substitute teacher (about a decade ago), the sexual molestation policy was covered. Basically we were told to never be in a classroom with a student alone. And for the most part, such a scenario is rare in today’s classrooms.
I doubt priests are even talked to about this–or at least they weren’t until quite recently. It was a huge deal when my liberal Protestant church initiated such a policy about 12 years ago. The policy was made known to all church members and they can obtain a copy at any time. I doubt this is the case for the Church.
None of this speaks to the ease of becoming a priest. I somehow doubt that a pedophile enrolls in seminary etc SOLELY to provide himself (or herself) with future access. I’m sure some of them are attracted to a celibate life out of the hope that it will prevent them from acting upon their impulses. We like to characterize pedophiles as monsters, but they’re people. If I understand things correctly, quite a few of them were molested themselves–a cycle of tragedy.
IMO, if one wanted to gain quick and easy access to one’s prey, becoming a camp counselor or summer day camp provider, children’s entertainer (John Wayne Gacy springs to mind), swim teacher or coach long before one would either become a teacher or a priest.
Oh, good, Catholic priests may in fact not be much worse than the average person who is not called to holy orders by God. Good to know. I’m so relieved.
Of course, there has been as much evidence to support that claim in this thread as there has been against it, to wit, none. Unless you were just about to present some, that is.
As for teachers, they in fact have far less opportunity to get a child alone one on one in a “safe” place, don’t they? Even none? And they can’t threaten abuse victims with eternal damnation if they talk, either.
Here’s more material for the indictment:
That so-called “canon law” was implemented by the “saintly” Popie Jopie, not Joey the Rat, though.
But there’s more:
They even had a standard euphemism for what they were doing to innocent children. Perhaps Bricker can explain that away as the actions of individual miscreants, not the holy RCC itself.
Fortunately, this is all in the past, as no less an authority on both “canon law” and child abuse than Bricker himself has assured us it “certainly” doesn’t happen anymore.
At present, we have reports of abuse mainly from a small number of first world countries, you have to think that this is just the tip of the iceberg, we are not coming across such stories from missionary abusers who were moved right out of first world countries, not a lot from former Iron Curtain nations, not a lot from South America.
Make no mistake, there is far worse tha has not yet been uncovered, and have you noticed the one consistant thing here? RCC has not yet been the reporter of any of these abusers, its hardly like they are making any effort at all to root them out, every move they have made has been either to cover up, or in such poor spirit of obstructionism that it really is systemic and wholly deliberate.
So what should be happening, well RCC should be reporting every single incident to secualr authorities, they should also be acting as witnesses in criminal trials, how much have we seen of this? Vanishingly little.
You see, for all the shite about other groups behaving like this, there is no cover up, and the tendency is to cooperate fully to obtain convictions.
This is the fundamental difference between the RCC and everyone else in the world. This is what condemns the Pope and everyone down, becuase they are not making the efforts to reform, investigate and pursue the abusers, quite the opposite.
Since medieval times 
The church has always caused problems, but if the ignorant masses didn’t have some sort of imaginary divine consequences to believe in, maybe crime rates would be higher. I’m sorry if I offend, but it realy pisses me off with what these crooks can get away with.
Thank YOU for settling the issue with your extensive resarch.
Teachers.
http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=20437
http://www.catholicleague.org/research/abuse_in_social_context.htm
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/08/24/opinion/main1933687.shtml
http://www.rd.com/your-america-inspiring-people-and-stories/sexual-predators-being-allowed-to-teach/article31756.html
http://www.ncregister.com/site/article/7970
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21393280/ns/us_news-education/
http://www.passenlaw.com/blog/premises-liability/school-officials-liable-coverup-sexual-abuse-students
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/news/local/coaches/news/union.html
And this is what many of us have been saying. Exactly this, each in our own way, but consistently. Each of these cases, from the very beginning, should have been brought forward to the police and the courts. These are criminal matters. They are not "inconvenient internal church administrative matters. Once again, for the apologist, these are criminal matters.
So your argument is still “but others do it too”? Are you still thinking that gets the RCC a pass?
No. My response is that these other people should go to prison too. You commit a crime, you go to jail. You cover it up, you go to jail. No matter WHO you are.
What research is necessary? What organization currently in existence would even have the opportunity to cover up after hundreds of perpetrators of this particular kind of crime in several different countries?
Sorry, you lose. You don’t even get a lousy copy of the home game. But thanks for playing.
I don’t get this approach, either. Since child molestation exists in other “venues”, this give the RCC some kind of pass or excuse? WTF?
“The Church is full of bad people doing bad things.”
“But there are bad people everywhere doing bad things!”
“So?”
“So, it means people are bad! And because they’re everywhere, the Church shouldn’t be picked on–yeah, that’s it! Stop picking on the poor Mother Church. It’s only one of the wealthiest, most powerful global institutions there is. It can’t withstand the scrutiny! Meanies.”
I think I may speak for all of those in here that are condemning the RCC for their tacit allowance of child molestation over decades, if not centuries, when I say that we’re against child molestation in any institution. That said, we are discussing the entrenched culture of pedophilia within the RCC and their intriguing, arbitrary and misogynistic approach to excommunication. What teachers behaving very badly (or swim coaches or summer camp counselors or fill in the blank) has to do with the uniquely Catholic response to this issue escapes me.
I like how there are now 9 investigators (they’re being called something else, but the title escapes me) from US, UK and Canada, all convening on Ireland to help make all tidy. Oh, but they won’t be arriving until late fall. And the reason for this delay is because… (pick one):
the ash from the Iceland volcano has obscured Ireland for all air traffic;
Ireland in summer means tourist rates and the Church can’t afford that;
the Church sees no reason to speed up its agenda, whatever that may be.
(and one has to also wonder how much Ireland likes UK et al coming in to clean their house, but that’s another thread…)
No, my argument isn’t that.
Prison for criminals? Perfect. Who’s said otherwise here in this thread?
“I don’t need no stinkin’ research” is a beautiful answer.
Almost all of the shameful coverup has been done by local authorities.
Anyway, your argument is a bit like “most crimes are commited by right-handers”.
Poor you.
No pass at all. It is only a dishonest reading of all this thread to even remotely come to this conclusion. Criminals belong in prison.
The whole it-is-not-just-catholic-priests thing is simply the truth and to dispel the myth going around that catholic priests are an abnormally-high risk group or that the catholic church has an abnormally-high level of coverup.
“They did/do it too” is never an excuse. It simly says “don’t be so blind to only look in one direction”, “don’t devote 75% of your resources in 5% of the cases”.
Man, if you thought the* RCC *had a code of silence…
I think the sad part is: men of the cloth were portrayed in movies etc. as being beyond fault, the RCC for some reason didn’t want people to know that the clergy are no better than an average person, there are priests who have relations with women, are Alcoholics, and who also have break downs. Children were taught that they are safe to be with, it makes it easy for a child molester, to take advantage of that situation, Sex for some reason, is played down in the RCC, and virginity held as the proper norm, yet it is unnatural, most ,if not all human beings have a sex drive, some more some less. I believe the RCC church and some other denominations( or religions) need to teach a healthy sex course, teach the responsibility of looking out for the rights of others, and harm it can caused when used for a self satisfaction only.
Trying to save the church from scandal over the harm to the child makes it difficult for people to regard the church with any respect.
Sometimes all you need is common sense. Again, what other organization is capable of a coverup of this scale, of the crimes of child molestation and rape? I suppose there would be the governments of China and India, but that would be about it. Really, what’s there to research, here?
I think the burden of proof is overwhelmingly on you to demonstrate that some other organization is even in the freakin’ ballpark with respect to the ability to do something like this, even if they didn’t come remotely close to doing anything like it.
It’s as if someone with an elephant moved onto my street, and we were debating whether or not it was the biggest pet in the neighborhood. No, I don’t need to do any freakin’ research, of course it’s the biggest damn pet in the area. If it’s not, we’d already know about the family with the blue whale.
Funny how ‘local authorities’ (never heard bishops and up described in that manner) in many different localities all wound up running very similar coverups. One might get the impression that their roles in a very hierarchical, top-down worldwide organization had more to do with their responses than did their individual latitude to make their own decisions.
So you still don’t get a lousy copy of the home game.