So this is how the Catholic Church shows compassion to the victims of the child abuse it facilitated

The BBQ Pit
1

Canada has a long history of physical and sexual abuse of children by priests and nuns of the Catholic Church. The horrific abuses at the Mount Cashel orphanage, run by the ‘Christian Brothers of Ireland’, first came to light in 1975. However, as a result of the Church’s delaying and obfuscating tactics, the crimes weren’t fully revealed until over a decade later. And even then, egregious practices such as “leaders of the Christian Brothers at the Vatican conspir(ing) to transfer ownership of the order’s assets out of Canada to prevent court-ordered liquidation to pay compensation to sexual and physical abuse victims”, were going on.

Indeed, the Mount Cashel horrors were but one part of a much larger, systemic pattern of abuses perpetrated on Canadian children by members of the Church. I will not detail them, but here is a list from Wiki and here is a representative article on the ‘bigger picture’.

So, when Pope Benedict announced that victims of such abuse were now to be treated with compassion, I’m sure I was not alone and that many in Canada looked forward to this long overdue change in approach. Alas, it looks as if nothing has changed.

Here is an article from the Toronto Star (May 30). In it, one learns what’s happened to the victim of yet another instance of sexual abuse of a young boy by a priest. Note that this is not an ‘alleged’ incident of sexual abuse - in 1999, the priest was convicted of sexual assault on the child (fully fifteen years after the crime occurred).

What is the Church’s “compassionate” approach to the suit launched against it by, and claiming compensation for, this boy (now a man, of course) and his family? A countersuit! Get this - the Church is claiming “the parents were negligent in failing to get counselling and medical help for their teenaged son and that his father regularly beat him, compounding his psychological troubles”. My gawd! Blaming the victim! This is “compassion”?

I doubt anyone will be surprised, therefore, to find that similar tactics are still being used by the Church in its defense against other law suits. I won’t recite them here, but the Star article describes other cases where, under the guise of the defendant’s right in such cases to conduct independent medical assessments, the victim is made to endure what can only be called psychological torture. More than once, this tactic has led to the victim “breaking down” and requiring psychiatric hospitalization. First raped physically and then raped emotionally decades later. There’s compassion, eh?

It goes on and on. Nothing has changed. If there was a will for change, it could happen in an instant. In an instant. But there is no will. Instead, there will be years of anguish and lifetimes of despair. Shame on those who abuse, and then abuse again.

2

Pretty sick stuff, but not surprising. The Church’s mishandling of this mess tells me that compassion and justice are mere abstractions to be debated in their view, not real things with consequences.

3

Well if the Catholic church is going to behave like a commercial enterprise in protecting vulnerable assets from lawsuits, perhaps the Canadian government might look at that and tax them according to the rules for any corporation, instead of a charitable one.

They might also sequester assets held overseas, just as they would for ay errant company that fails to honour its debts.I’m pretty sure that a few other nations might want to assist them, and it might just give these arseholesa pause for though - this would not be religious persecution, after all no organised religion would behave in such a manner now would it?

4

After all the facts that have come out so far, facilitating is a bit mild. I would go so far as to say the Catholic church ENCOURAGED the activity of the priests, brothers and nuns. The church has become a place where sexual perverts of every kind are welcomed as long as they can perform their mediocre chores associated with the function of the church to perpetuate itself and collect donations. They never needed to advertise what they were. The perverts gravitated towards them and they sought potential candidates early in the educational process. A boy who lacked social skills, for example, became a prime recruit.

5

At this point, nothing is a surprise anymore.
And, in before the apologists. equivalencies. tu quoque and hair splitting legalistic bullshit starts.

6

How can such a blatantly evil organization still have members and supporters? I don’t get it.

7

You know, I can think of lots of words to describe the Catholic Church. Compassionate is not one of them.

I’ve met lots of individual Catholics that could be considered compassionate, but i’ve never once met someone actually associated with the church in an official capacity that was anything other than a power hungry asshole.

8

It really is remarkable. Further, these revelations really hit the fan when the Boston GLobe published stories everyone else only whisper. That happened only ten years ago. Remarkable what a difference a decade makes.

9

Please search keyword “abortion” and membername “Bricker”. This is not in intention a slam of Bricker; he does, to the high extent he’s capable of, justify why anyone would do such a thing as defend Catholicism in the light of such abuses.

10

Church? Compassion? I’d laugh with derision if I wasn’t so disgusted.

11

Because it’s a religious organization. People’s moral compass seems to shut off whenever religion becomes involved in an issue. If a company acted like the CC does it would have long ago been dismantled; if the Vatican was treated like the independent nation it claims to be and not a center of religion it would long ago been economically strangled by sanctions or flattened by cruise missiles. Worse has happened to other countries with less provocation.

But it’s a church, so it gets a pass.

12

I wonder, how many police departments, worldwide, would beg to differ with you. The problem is, the “code of silence” makes it hard to file charges and make them stick.

13

How many police departments run a worldwide child molestation ring? And still get respect as moral arbiters even after getting caught at it?

14

You gotta remember, the Catholic Church has a long proud tradition of being sick fucks. For example, they burned Joan of Ark alive for wearing pants, after her only dress was stolen and probable prison rape.

15

Police departments? None, but that isn’t what I was saying (obviously). It has to be frustrating as hell for them, when they can’t even get arrests, let alone convictions. There is a quote about “render unto Caesar”. While it was an answer given to a question about paying Roman taxes, it also applied to other laws too. It has to do with not setting ourselves up above the law based on any religious pretense - and that includes secular, civil law (Caesar’s law). I believe SOME of the laws every police dept enforces cover rape, abuse, torture, suppression of evidence, and conspiracy. Maybe?

The law (secular law) has certain protections for the accused, It also tries to have certain protections and avenues of redress for victims. It has mechanisms for determining guilt, if there is any. Under the church “law”, the law seems to have failed. It seems to have been more interested in protecting church image and keeping things quiet. How else do we explain the constant stream of ever MORE failures in the news? And many of those are about repeat offenders? Hell, it failed there too, having sacrificed fairness on the altar of appearance. Apparently Pope Benedict and the Cardinals are now telling the church that it is OK to go to the police. GOOD. Apparently now, repeaters are being placed under some sort of “keep you under my thumb where I can watch you” form of church arrest. GOOD. It’s about time. It’s overdue. I seriously doubt any of this would have happened, until and unless, the whole mess had come out in the news, and had become such a widespread and huge thing that it could no longer be waved away or covered up.

16

The guy went to the priest, whose job is counseling, and now the priest’s employer is complaining that he failed to get counseling?

17

Yeah, ain’t that some shit.

18

It’s shit like this that makes me think that somewhere, somehow, some way, Der Trihs might just have a point.

19

That’s never been at issue. His problem is that he takes his point and dresses it up in such over-the-top cartoonish terms that it(the point)'s lost amid the too-purple-to-be-taken-seriously prose.

20

In fairness, that policy sounded much better in Latin.