# Santorum - Boston liberalism cause of priest scandal. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 13, 2005, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/santorum-boston-liberalism-cause-of-priest-scandal/312333 "2005-07-13T13:58:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2005, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/santorum-boston-liberalism-cause-of-priest-scandal/312333/81 "2005-07-13T21:04:34Z")
Me notipe3 goood todaay. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2005, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/santorum-boston-liberalism-cause-of-priest-scandal/312333/82 "2005-07-13T21:07:03Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > By the way, is it true that the real reason for forced celibacy was so that priests could not build large power bases with which they could tip the balance of power to their favor? I’ve heard someone make this claim, but I never got a goof cite. Here is a quick review of [Catholic celibacy in history](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=5924372&postcount=15) from an earlier thread. Note that while the author of **EddyTeddyFreddy** ’s _first_ quote is technically correct, he is putting a bit of Orthodox spin on it by concentrating on the decree by Pope Gregory (1070) and by emphasizing Nicaea (325) while ignoring the various local decisions that occurred throughout Western Europe. Note, also, that the flow direction of the money and power was not one of priests and their families acquiring too much, but of the use of patronage _with church property_ to establish the power of the nobility. The priests were not bringing property to the church that the church wanted to confiscate (which is how some people like to twist the event); rather church property was being doled out to court favorites and their families as a reward for political loyalty, impoverishing some church districts and the people who had supported the church there. ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2005, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/santorum-boston-liberalism-cause-of-priest-scandal/312333/83 "2005-07-13T21:23:59Z")
Thanks, **tomndebb**! I knew what I’d found was too simplified but couldn’t come up with better stuff in my Googling, even with a six-word search term, and my college textbooks have long since escaped my custody. ---
**Author:** ![Spavined\_Gelding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/958977/32.png) [@Spavined\_Gelding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spavined_Gelding)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2005, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/santorum-boston-liberalism-cause-of-priest-scandal/312333/84 "2005-07-13T21:51:24Z")
According to Josh Marshall’s _Talking Points_, The 2:54 PM, July 13 item, both Senator Kerry (the man who should be President) and Senator Kennedy have unlimbered and commenced counterbattery fire at Senator Sanctimonious, pardon me, Senator Sartorum. This looks like pretty severe language for members of the world’s most exclusive club. I suppose however that the people who are carrying the torch and beating the drum for the Pennsylvania Senator will regard the fact that both Mass Senators are offended as a point in Sartorum’s favor. It is worth noting that there is now a law suit in Fayette County, Iowa claiming that the priest serving the Catholic church in Oelwein, Iowa, was engaged in the non-consensual diddling of alter boys in the 1950s and 60s. If there is a place in the Western world farther removed in social and political thought from Boston than Oelwein, Iowa, I can’t imagine where it might be. Some place in Idaho maybe? Like others I’d like to know how this poster boy for demagoguery was ever elected in the first place. Did he promise to resurrect Jones-Laughlin and US and Bethlehem Steel? ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2005, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/santorum-boston-liberalism-cause-of-priest-scandal/312333/85 "2005-07-13T22:08:59Z")
> [@](#): > > claiming that the priest serving the Catholic church in Oelwein, Iowa, was engaged in the non-consensual diddling of alter boys in the 1950s and 60s This is another aspect of the church scandal that gets played oddly by the Right wing. (When I first saw this thread, I wondered if Santorum, a Catholic, was making the claim that “liberal Catholicism” was responsible for the problem–extremely ironic in that the centers of American Catholic Liberalism of the last 40 years have never included Boston (and that other notoriously Conservative diocese such as L.A. and St. Louis _have_ had noted scandals).) One claim by people on the Right has been that it was the “liberal” seminaries that turned out all the pedophiles, yet the priests who have garnered the most notoriety for prolonged abuse were all ordained before the Second Vatican Council was convened, indicating that they had to have been educated in the “good old ways.” (Of course, the Left wing is just as eager to distort history and facts to make their case, claiming that it is Church repression that “forces” these men into their perverted lifestyles. Both sides should be ordered to shut up and study and pray for actual knowledge before shooting off their mouths.) ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2005, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/santorum-boston-liberalism-cause-of-priest-scandal/312333/86 "2005-07-14T02:20:55Z")
> [@NurseCarmen](#): > > So Moto, these things only happen in such liberal bastions as Boston, [North Dakota](http://www.snapnetwork.org/news/otherstates/usa_apsurveys_page2.htm), and [Wyoming,](http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?id=1&display=rednews/2005/04/23/build/wyoming/60-priest-abuse.inc)right? You obviously missed the part where I said this couldn’t be blamed on a geographic area, whether the inhabitants of that area or its Catholic churches are liberal or conservative. Blame for this rests on the priests responsible. They alone have to account for their crimes, and their sins. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2005, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/santorum-boston-liberalism-cause-of-priest-scandal/312333/87 "2005-07-14T03:07:15Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > I think you’re still off base. Catholic priests have never enjoyed sexual license and moral relativism. AFAIK Catholicism has always preached moral absolutes and priesthood celibacy. Isn’t that what makes it ten times worse. Somebody, no several somebodies should have gone to prison when this crap all came out. Now we have a religious conservative {is he catholic?} blaming a crime and moral deprevation, not on the failure of the individuals and the church in general, but on liberalism. It’s quite possibly the most ignorant thing I’ve ever heard a politician utter. Although in the last few years there 's been a lot of competition. ---
**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:** [July 14, 2005, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/santorum-boston-liberalism-cause-of-priest-scandal/312333/88 "2005-07-14T03:11:28Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > Well yeah, by “always” I meant for hundreds of years. I didn’t include the 1070 decision because a) it was a gratuitous fact, and b) I had no idea what the date was. > > By the way, is it true that the real reason for forced celibacy was so that priests could not build large power bases with which they could tip the balance of power to their favor? I’ve heard someone make this claim, but I never got a goof cite. It had to do with primogeniture, or the right of the first born son to inherit his father’s property. There was concern about the offspring of priests inheriting church land. ---
**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:** [July 14, 2005, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/santorum-boston-liberalism-cause-of-priest-scandal/312333/89 "2005-07-14T03:17:25Z")
> [@cosmosdan](#): > > is he catholic? Yes, yes he is. He also calls Pittsburgh (or the tony suburb of Mount Lebanon) home, which sucks. Damn, the late H. John Heinz III is just spinning in his grave that this asshat now holds what was once his own seat. > [@Mr. Moto](#): > > Blame for this rests on the priests responsible. They alone have to account for their crimes, and their sins. Not according to Rick Santorum. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2005, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/santorum-boston-liberalism-cause-of-priest-scandal/312333/90 "2005-07-14T03:31:36Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > the late H. John Heinz III is just spinning in his grave that this asshat now holds what was once his own seat. Oh, the Widder Heinz is fixin’ to make sure that situation doesn’t hold after November '96, I’m led to believe. It seems to me to be the most wonderful thing the lovely Teresa can do for her late husband’s memory. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2005, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/santorum-boston-liberalism-cause-of-priest-scandal/312333/91 "2005-07-14T03:32:48Z")
And can I just note that roughly 1988-ish or thereabouts, when I first started to notice politics in general, you could have had me helpless laughing on the floor if you’d told me that I’d someday miss folks like Goldwater, Heinz, and George H.W. Bush… ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2005, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/santorum-boston-liberalism-cause-of-priest-scandal/312333/92 "2005-07-14T03:34:24Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > And can I just note that roughly 1988-ish or thereabouts, when I first started to notice politics in general, you could have had me helpless laughing on the floor if you’d told me that I’d someday miss folks like Goldwater, Heinz, and George H.W. Bush… Yeh. I know just what you mean. Hell, even Nixon is looking better by comparison. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2005, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/santorum-boston-liberalism-cause-of-priest-scandal/312333/93 "2005-07-14T04:05:44Z")
> [@](#): > > **Mr. Moto** : …some priests have committed sexual indiscretions and exen sexual crimes, despite their training and even their own teaching to their parish. > > Isn’t this the very definition of moral relativism and sexual license? It would be _moral relativism_ only if they believed that molesting children was not immoral. I haven’t heard such a defense or protestation from any of the priests. Apparently they did it even though they knew or believed that it was immoral. (But I’m no authority on what they were thinking.) ---
**Author:** ![waterj2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/858c86/32.png) [@waterj2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/waterj2)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2005, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/santorum-boston-liberalism-cause-of-priest-scandal/312333/94 "2005-07-14T05:02:06Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Which he owned up to, straight out. Told it like it was, to paraphrase “Well, that’s what I get for thinking with my dick. Man, did I screw the pooch that time!” And of course you knew, before you posted this libel, that he didn’t “run” anything. But why let facts get in the way of a good bit of liberal bashing? > > The man has stones, God bless 'em! Wouldn’t be the first time I considered moving to Mass. just to have the honor of voting for him! Any man who can stand there and say “Yep, queer as a blue horse, now, about the issues…” and win elections! gotta be doing something right. I certainly appreciated the tag line on his campaign ads, “I’m Barney Frank, and I approve this message… who else would?” ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2005, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/santorum-boston-liberalism-cause-of-priest-scandal/312333/95 "2005-07-14T13:48:17Z")
> [@cosmosdan](#): > > It’s quite possibly the most ignorant thing I’ve ever heard a politician utter. Although in the last few years there 's been a lot of competition. I don’t really consider it ignorant as much as childish. “Oh yeah? Well, well, um, You’re a pervert! So there!” I do, however, agree with you that there has been a lot of competition. ---
**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:** [July 14, 2005, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/santorum-boston-liberalism-cause-of-priest-scandal/312333/96 "2005-07-14T22:22:51Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > Oh, the Widder Heinz is fixin’ to make sure that situation doesn’t hold after November '96, I’m led to believe. It seems to me to be the most wonderful thing the lovely Teresa can do for her late husband’s memory. What, does she have a time machine? See if she can do something about 9/11/01 and 11/07/00 while she’s at it. And I could use the winning numbers for this Saturday’s california Lotter drawing, if it’s not too much trouble. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2005, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/santorum-boston-liberalism-cause-of-priest-scandal/312333/97 "2005-07-14T22:45:05Z")
[hijack]My favorite Barney Frank moment came when Richard Armey attributed calling him “Barney Fag” to “a slip of the tongue” Frank commented “It’s very odd. My mother married my father more than sixty years ago. Not once in that time has anybody ever called her Mrs. Elsie Fag.”[/hijack] ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2005, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/santorum-boston-liberalism-cause-of-priest-scandal/312333/98 "2005-07-14T23:46:56Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > What, does she have a time machine? See if she can do something about 9/11/01 and 11/07/00 while she’s at it. > > And I could use the winning numbers for this Saturday’s california Lotter drawing, if it’s not too much trouble. GAH! ‘06, obviously. You can tell I’m pinin’ for the better days, can’t you? ---
**Author:** ![Barely\_Adequate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/58956e/32.png) [@Barely\_Adequate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barely_Adequate)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2005, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/santorum-boston-liberalism-cause-of-priest-scandal/312333/99 "2005-07-14T23:53:56Z")
> [@Eve](#): > > I’ll get right on that. > > (Let’s see . . . I’ll need a cat o’ nine tails, a Baby Snooks outfit, a jar of Lawry’s Seasoned Salt, and an elderly Pekingese . . . ) Add in a trampoline and a gallon of Mazola Oil just to be safe… 😃 -Richard ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2005, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/santorum-boston-liberalism-cause-of-priest-scandal/312333/100 "2005-07-15T00:23:32Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > I don’t really consider it ignorant as much as childish. “Oh yeah? Well, well, um, You’re a pervert! So there!” > > I do, however, agree with you that there has been a lot of competition. Childish for sure. I called it ignorant because there is no logical or rational connection like the one he’s trying to make. What do you call it? He seems totally ignorant of any rules of reason and logic, to make this kind of connection. I just hope the media in his own state put this BS in front of the public and call it for what it is. Nobody that stupid and irrational should be a paid public servant. {as if that hasn’t happened before} :rolleyes: [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/santorum-boston-liberalism-cause-of-priest-scandal/312333.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/santorum-boston-liberalism-cause-of-priest-scandal/312333.md?page=6)