# Small blessing that Pope Benedict resigned **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 11, 2019, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-blessing-that-pope-benedict-resigned/832417 "2019-04-11T23:50:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2019, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-blessing-that-pope-benedict-resigned/832417/1 "2019-04-11T23:50:50Z")
[He has declared](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-47898562) that sexual abuse by Catholic clergy did not exist before the “all-out sexual freedom” of the 1960s. Sexual abuse of kids is ancient and still pervasive today. The Catholic Church has no monopoly on it, either. One of the bonuses of living in the most cosmopolitan city in the world where more than half the population was born outside Canada, is seeing how no ethnic/religious/cultural group has a monopoly on anything. There’s abuse by Imans, Rabbis, Pastors, you name it. But Ben makes it seem so simple and so blamable on others. And this was a brilliant scholar? ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2019, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-blessing-that-pope-benedict-resigned/832417/2 "2019-04-11T23:54:34Z")
Those damn hippies ruined everything! ---
**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:** [April 11, 2019, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-blessing-that-pope-benedict-resigned/832417/3 "2019-04-11T23:58:03Z")
> [@KarlGauss](#): > > [He has declared](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-47898562) that sexual abuse by Catholic clergy did not exist before the “all-out sexual freedom” of the 1960s. > > Sexual abuse of kids is ancient and still pervasive today. The Catholic Church has no monopoly on it, either. One of the bonuses of living in the most cosmopolitan city in the world where more than half the population was born outside Canada, is seeing how no ethnic/religious/cultural group has a monopoly on anything. There’s abuse by Imans, Rabbis, Pastors, you name it. > > But Ben makes it seem so simple and so blamable on others. > > And this was a brilliant scholar? Seems like morally opposing the Nazis was maybe low-hanging fruit… ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2019, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-blessing-that-pope-benedict-resigned/832417/4 "2019-04-12T00:21:45Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > Those damn hippies ruined everything! Nobody asked you, **Starving Papist**. ---
**Author:** ![DirtyHippy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dirtyhippy/32/107_2.png) [@DirtyHippy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DirtyHippy)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2019, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-blessing-that-pope-benedict-resigned/832417/5 "2019-04-12T00:27:04Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > Those damn hippies ruined everything! Hey! ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2019, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-blessing-that-pope-benedict-resigned/832417/6 "2019-04-12T00:27:54Z")
Damn you! \*shakes fist ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2019, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-blessing-that-pope-benedict-resigned/832417/7 "2019-04-12T00:58:00Z")
What a fuckhead. Like he always was. Die already, Ratze, so you can’t embarrass yourself no more. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2019, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-blessing-that-pope-benedict-resigned/832417/8 "2019-04-12T04:48:26Z")
And nobody even thanked us. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2019, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-blessing-that-pope-benedict-resigned/832417/9 "2019-04-12T11:22:59Z")
Can Italy just annex the Vatican already and be done with it? ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2019, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-blessing-that-pope-benedict-resigned/832417/10 "2019-04-12T11:26:04Z")
He’s a leader of the catholic church, what would we expect? The average person in the street has a far better moral compass than anyone occupying such a position. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2019, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-blessing-that-pope-benedict-resigned/832417/11 "2019-04-12T20:36:59Z")
Well, if he had only checked Wiki… > [@](#): > > Sexual abuse has existed in the Catholic Church since at least as far back as the 11th century, when Peter Damian wrote a scathing treatise, Liber Gomorrhianus, against such abuses and others. In the late 15th century, Katharina von Zimmern and her sister were removed from their abbey to live in their family’s house for a while partly because the young girls were molested by priests.[22] In 1531, Martin Luther claimed that Pope Leo X had vetoed a measure that cardinals should restrict the number of boys they kept for their pleasure, “otherwise it would have been spread throughout the world how openly and shamelessly the pope and the cardinals in Rome practice sodomy.”[23] ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2019, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-blessing-that-pope-benedict-resigned/832417/12 "2019-04-12T21:14:00Z")
> [@Typo\_Negative](#): > > Well, if he had only checked Wiki… “Well, it was always because of the libertinage of the mundane world. We saw how much fun they have and couldn’t help fucking children instead.” ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2019, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-blessing-that-pope-benedict-resigned/832417/13 "2019-04-12T21:46:40Z")
Wow, sexual freedom not only forced priests to rape kids, it also forced their superiors to cover it up. If only Nixon had thought to blame Watergate on hippies. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2019, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-blessing-that-pope-benedict-resigned/832417/14 "2019-04-13T01:38:20Z")
> [@KarlGauss](#): > > [He has declared](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-47898562) that sexual abuse by Catholic clergy did not exist before the “all-out sexual freedom” of the 1960s. I blame the Kennedys. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2019, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-blessing-that-pope-benedict-resigned/832417/15 "2019-04-13T02:22:53Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I blame the Kennedys. Well, this bunch were only fisher-ring-kissing, ass-licking good Catholics fucking a bit around. It all started exactly in 1968, with those Rock’n’Roll a-hearing and a-shaking, pinky-commie-peace-loving unwashed heathen hippies. Especially the German ones, they dared to be intellectual and question the authorities. And had the better arguments, derived from history and not from a twisted view of millennials old scripture and hundreds of years of mental masturbation called “theology”. ETA: I didn’t want to single out the German part of the cultural revolution of those years, but of course Benni still holds a grudge especially against the German left after all those years, Hey, take a look at the numbers: around 50 % percent of the population was Catholic in the 60s. And today? Around 28 % percent I guess, and falling, and not recovering. Heh! ---
**Author:** ![Lare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/53a042/32.png) [@Lare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lare)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2019, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-blessing-that-pope-benedict-resigned/832417/16 "2019-04-14T18:12:54Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > Can Italy just annex the Vatican already and be done with it? Technically, no, as it’s part of “an independent city-state enclaved within Rome, Italy. Established with the Lateran Treaty (1929), it is distinct from yet under ‘full ownership, exclusive dominion, and sovereign authority and jurisdiction’ of the Holy See.” -Wikipedia ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2019, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/small-blessing-that-pope-benedict-resigned/832417/17 "2019-04-14T21:54:32Z")
> [@Lare](#): > > Technically, no, as it’s part of “an independent city-state enclaved within Rome, Italy. Established with the Lateran Treaty (1929), it is distinct from yet under ‘full ownership, exclusive dominion, and sovereign authority and jurisdiction’ of the Holy See.” -Wikipedia Maybe they can build a wall around VC and then jam the cell towers and cut off internet and other communications. And then put a plastic bubble over the whole thing. To replicate the virtual bubble that’s already there.