I see. Your apology was insincere.
This is what I mean about leaving “no doubt as to your character.”
Go back and read my apology fuck nugget. It was most certainly sincere, I wish I had never posted the paragraph I quote.
In that quote I was trashing your faith, which is a terrible thing to do. I would like to think that was beneath me.
Maybe one day you will feel what you said on the first page was beneath you, I sincerely hope it is beneath you. Saying “I didn’t say that” is a cheap game, something a preschool child in the backseat of a car on a long trip would do.
It took me a while to figure out what bothered me about your hypothetical courtroom scene, Scylla. As written it’s a happy ending; the innocent priest is vindicated, and the juvenile waste of oxygen is revealed as such.
The thing is, the “Did you enjoy it?” part is utterly irrelevant to the happy ending. The things that enable the defense lawyer to show the plaintiff to be a liar are not questions, they’re pieces of evidence: a letter written to a friend, a record that the priest recommended the plaintiff for counselling. The question “Did you enjoy it?” has nothing to do with the defense at all.
Look at this slightly edited version of your scene:
As has been observed, “Did you enjoy it?” is an utterly worthless question if the defendant is innocent. It is, as we can see from Scylla’s example, unneeded where proof is available instead.
It is also, in my opinion, a morally reprehensible question if the defendent is guilty, but I can understand why others might disagree. Having said that, I will not discuss the moral aspects of the question any farther, as I know several people who were sexually abused as children and I doubt that I could discuss the issue with Christian charity.
This will be my last post to this thread (I can hear the cheering from certain quarters already). It has become clear that I will not change any minds, or even get certain people to think about the victims.
If Scylla and Zoff want to gloat, have at it. I will admit to being outclassed in a flame war. When faced with such blatant disregard for the victims I can’t keep my cool, it has been a struggle to remain as civil as I have. I doubt I am a match for either Scylla or Zoff intellectually, I certainly have no legal education.
I would like to inform Scylla that his rude comments to me are not what pissed me off, except insofar as they relate to what he called the victims. I’m just some anonymous idiot on the web, I don’t deserve the decency that would be expected in a face-to-face meeting- The “alleged” victims (I don’t see why we’re using the word “alleged” when there was a confession, but I guess I’m just dumb ol’ white trash with no legal education) do deserve better than his childish name-calling.
I do regret disrespecting Scylla’s faith, and hope he can find it in his heart to forgive me for that.
I have tried to sum up everything I wanted to say, but I guess I’m not doing a good job of expressing myself. Hopefully someone brighter than I will step in to set them straight if they don’t see it.
…submit…
:nitpick:
IIRC, the standard for proof in civil court is a preponderence of evidence, not ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’.
At least, it is in California.
I apologize in advance if someone already brought that up.
:nitpick:
At first reading, I must admit that I assumed a greedy, souless shyster for the church actually said the words, while leering, “Did you enjoy it???”. After re-reading the article, I now see that the article’s author has not quoted any particular lawyer or transcript, and appears to be paraphrasing. I would like to see how the question was actually phrased, and in what context.
And my point is that we don’t actually know the extent of the pain. I’d say that in the average case the pain of a 7 year old who adores a priest as an authority figure and doesn’t even know what sex is will be greater than a 17 year old who engaged in consensual sex.
I’m not saying the sex with the 17 year old is OK, I’m merely saying that the damages awarded could be less because less damage might have been done. Both sexual encounters are wrong, but this isn’t a binary decision between right and wrong. Do you really think a 17 year old who wanted to have sex should get as much as the hypothetical 7 year old? Isn’t that a bit of an insult to the pain suffered by the 7 year old?
I’m not saying that it is, in fact, a 17 year old who is suing. I’m simply saying that the facts of the case are very important in deciding the level of damages.
Taran:
Actually, the “did you enjoy it” is the whole crux of my little Perry Mason episode.
It’s like in a “Few Good Men” when Tom Cruise seemingly asks off the wall questions to Jack Nicholson, to disturb him.
When he’s not disturbed he’s cool and can argue away anything. Piss him off and the truth starts to come out.
“Did you enjoy it?” is really just accepting the false premise that it happened, while introducing the concept that this was something that the plaintiff actually desired.
It is also a way of denying that a forceful molestation occured, and a way of shifting the blame from the defendant to the accused.
People object to it, because it does all these things. It is precisely because such a difficult and uncomfortable question that it might be worth asking.
The really hard ones usually are.
But, I see your point. Even in my hypothetical it’s possible to construct an argument that doesn’t ask that particular question, and still arrive at the same place, but without the question and it’s connotations is the plaintiff stesses enough to confess?
We’re talking plot now, not realistic court technique, so who knows.
I guess the way I’d figure it, is that if I was that innocent priest, I’d want my lawyer to examine the particular circumstances, and how he felt the defendant would respond, and in his judgement take the best tack possible to get the plaintiff to confess he made it up. I wouldn’t want his professional judgement hamstrung.
I don’t tell Doctors how to operate. I don’t tell Lawyers how to interrogate. I simply insist they do it well.
Another way to look at it:
If a lawyer wants, he can ask that question. I think he better damn well be able to go somewhere with it, though. It better lead to something.
If that road doesn’t go somewhere, then what I think he’s doing is morally repugnant, unethical, and unprofessional. It’s also simple cruelty and incompetance, and he’s likely to damage his case.
Scylla,
Do you think that there is any difference between being a good lawyer, and acting as the Representative of Christ, on Earth? The Roman Catholic Church has reached a fork in the road, and you are cheering them on, as they choose the one that defends their wealth, and abandons their spiritual responsibility. Yes, it’s entirely supportable in civil court. But would you ask that same question if the case was held before the Throne of God?
Who does the Pope want to be? The CEO of Christ Incorporated, or the Shepherd of God’s precious flock? It’s an mutually exclusive choice, and gold doesn’t weigh much, in some balances.
Tris
**
I don’t see any more problem with it than say, being a carpenter and the Son of God.
So you keep saying. I think you’ll have a tough time trying to show that discouraging fraudulent claims, and testing the veracity in court of potentially valid ones is an abandonment of spiritual responsibility.
Quite the contrary, they have the moral responsibility to do so. That money should be doing good works; building ministries, supporting charity and mission work, etc.
It’s not the Church’s money. It’s the money worshippers have entrusted to the Church to do God’s work. The Church’s role is really that of custodian.
It is the Church’s moral responsibility to ensure that that money is not wasted in civil cases where a payout is not clearly merited.
**
It’s a moot question. It’s not being asked before the Throne of God. It’s being asked in a courtroom where SOCAS is the law, and, in a civil case it’s not being asked for justice, but for the $ of worshippers who have given it freely so that it be used appropriately.
You don’t give that away lightly, or to appease public outrage.
Total bullshit. It’s not mutually exclusive at all. In fact, you can’t be one without being the other.
It’s easy to live a spiritual life without blame if you have no responsibilities.
An ascetic hermit living in the woods has little opportunity to cause harm.
He also has little opportunity to do good.
His questions are simple, his answers easy. He has nobody to worry about helping or harming other than himself.
However, the more you take on, the more complex your responsibilities, the bigger the reach and power that you have…
The harder it gets. The questions aren’t simple. The considerations are many. There’s great power to do both good and harm.
But, turning away from those responsibilities only to focus on a single aspect ultimately destroys your ability to do anything.
That the Church is a huge Bureacracy, conglomerate, and even sovereign entity is a fact.
To ignore those facts in managing it is asinine.
Scylla, is it possible that these accusations represent only the tip of the iceberg, that in fact a significant percentage of all priests have molested at least one member of their congregation? Is it possible that celibacy and constant self-denial can’t help but turn most priests into drooling sexual predators who would take any chance they could to molest someone if they thought they wouldn’t be caught? Is it possible that Catholics are more prone to rape and molestation in general, on account of being so much more repressed than normal people?
Note that I never said I think these things are true. I just asked if they were possible. However, it’s insane to think that I can mention these purely hypothetical possibilities without (very reasonably) infuriating all the Catholics who have ever known a priest they admired and respected, who was not just harmless but selfless.
Your hypothetical gave me the impression you think most of the victims are probably just greedy liars, and deserve to be treated as such. I never thought you said they were definitely greedy white trash. But I was still left with the impression you thought it was as strong a possibility as molestation actually having occurred.
Giraffe:
Yes, those things are possible. We can even discuss them reasonably because some facts or information is available from which we might be qualify or further examine them.
IMO if one were to make a case for those possibilities, one would be revealing himself as ignorant at best, and potentially bigoted.
That would be the case because there is already information available which would strongly suggest otherwise.
In the case in which I asked the possibilities, we had basically zero information, and yet some people were jumping to conclusions as if we actually had enough information to form anything approaching a valid judgement.
But, we don’t know shit about those actual circumstances, and jumping to conclusions about them based on ignorance is a mark of either stupidity or prejudice.
I raised other possibilities which were equally unsupported by the lack of actual information to point that out.
Since we don’t have any real information that would help us discern in this particular instance, there is no reason to prefer one possibility over another.
The point of bringing up such an unsubstantiated possibility was to show that the contrary view was equally unsubstantiated.
Because, the fact is, we don’t know shit. We can’t form a valid opinion.
And, the fact is, in such a circumstance, when you chose to support one unsupportable possibility and stridently object to another equally unsupportable one, all you are doing is revealing information about your own personal prejudices.
Do you see?
I’m not Scylla, but I’ll answer: Yes. It’s possible. However, I find it extremely unlikely that a significant percentage (say 25% or greater) of priests molested someone.
Now one for you.
Is it also possible that we’re going through the same sort of hysteria that we had in the late-80s/early-90s with the aptly named “Satanic Panic”* where day-care providers were being similarly targeted?
Fenris
*“My children were forced to partcipate in evil Satanic Rituals, they were forced to eat the flesh of dead babies, they were forced through rebirthing ceremonies and they were molested” --and before you laugh, people went to jail, had their lives and careers ruined because of this sort of hysteria. Do a search on Google for more information.
**
I think that this is the key difference in our thinking. I don’t think that the lawyer’s job is, or should be, to place enough stree on the plaintiff, or defendent for that matter, to cause him/her to confess. The lawyer’s job is to present evidence supporting his client. IANAL though, and I’d be interested to hear from someone who is.
We don’t know a whole lot about the question or its circumstances. Since most of these lawsuits have been filed fairly recently my best guess is that the question was asked in a deposition during the discovery phase of the lawsuit. The whole purpose of discovery is for the parties to uncover information that might be useful to them in the lawsuit. So, in the context of discovery, the question could be quite relevant to establishing a defense of consent.
I realize I didn’t address this in earlier posts.
In any civil case an attorney is going to argue (1) my client is not liable, but (2) even if you find him liable the damages are very limited. It’s standard to develop, and present at trial, arguments about both liability and damages. Even if an attorney thinks his client is not liable, he realizes that a jury might not agree. If an attorney isn’t prepared to argue damages, he’s doing his client a great disservice.
A good example of why an attorney should be prepared to argue damages is the Texaco v. Pennzoil case in 1985. The attorneys were so confident of their liability argument that they didn’t even present a damages case. The jury found the client liable and awarded something like $10 billion because the only damages argument they heard was from the plaintiff who asked for $10 billion.
The attorney would ask this question in a deposition to see if there is a possible consent defense. Asking the question wouldn’t harm his case, because it’s not an admission of liability since the attorney is not the one being sued.
Triskadecamus:
Scylla,
Do you think that there is any difference between being a goodlawyer, and acting as the Representative of Christ, on Earth?
Scylla:
I don’t see any more problem with it than say, being a carpenter and the Son of God.
Oh, gimme a break. There’s nothing adversarial about being a carpenter. Being adversarial is inherent in being a lawyer. Christ regarded no man as an enemy, and the same charge is laid on us.
There are professions where the danger of falling into sin is greater than others. If you’re a soldier, you may be ordered to shoot people that God doesn’t happen to want you to kill. And if you’re a lawyer, your client may expect you to use perfectly legal courtroom hostility and intimidation as part of a winning strategy.
I think it’s possible to be true to the Lord, and to be a lawyer. But I can’t see Jesus being that sort of lawyer: how could He put winning a courtroom battle above His love for every human being?
And if the Catholic Church is asking its lawyers to be that sort of lawyer, then the lawyers are sinning at the Church’s direction - and the Church’s sin is even greater in that it demands that others sin in its service.
For the individual priests, absolutely. But for the Catholic Church as an organization, at this point, no.
How many cover-up cardinals does it take before we can say, “something’s rotten with this organization”? (We’ve got one more today, if anyone’s keeping score.) If it’s just “a few bad men” in an otherwise wonderful organization, it’s kinda shocking that they’re all cardinals, don’t you think?
Throughout this whole thing, I have not been talking about the priests. When they defend themselves in a criminal court of law, they can pull out all the stops. That there might be bad priests, just like there might be bad schoolteachers, is no surprise. And I’d have the same outrage if a school district covered up allegations of molestation on the part of its teachers. But I have already heard of more such archdioceses in the past few months, than of such school districts in my entire life.
I am upset about organizational sin, institutional sin, not individual sin. And where what’s at stake is the Church and its money, yes, quite frankly, I do think the rules are different, due to what the Church is supposed to be in the first place, and to how often we already know it’s quietly paid off victims to keep things quiet, how often we already know it’s moved molesting priests from one parish to another, how often we know it’s been a bit too willing to take the Institute for Living’s word that a priest is parish-ready despite his history, how often we know that a Pontiff finds these coverups so deplorable in a cardinal that he apparently backs him to the hilt. (Is the Pope infirm? Let him delegate to Ratzinger. He’s tough enough - if he’s so inclined.)
Ah well, enough for now. Back to work.
**
Very reasonably so, because of the way the “questions” were phrased. They were expressions of a biased preference toward a certain side, regardless of the actual facts.
To me, this exactly how your initial comments came across. You were angry that the church was being attacked, and you raised the hypothetical possibility that the victims were greedy white trash and the priest 100% innocent.
Now, if this was a discussion of the case of a single isolated molestation accusation, that wouldn’t be such a big deal. But this case is part of a much larger pattern of unreported molestation accusations, with a good deal of evidence to support it. Of course any single accusation may be potentially false, but in light of the evidence and confessions that have already come out, it is almost impossible for all of it to be a fabrication designed to make money.
So your comments, to me, came across as irrational anger toward the victims, due to strong pro-church feelings on your part. Your vitrol in later parts of the thread didn’t help change that impression. It may just be my own poor reading comprehension, but that’s how it read to me. That perceived readiness to point the finger at the victims rubbed me (and others, I suspect) the wrong way.
I couldn’t bear reading the whole of this thread as I am shaking with anger.
Another day I’ll share with the Board just why this question is so upsetting to me.
But for now I MUST say how disgusting I find Scylla’s hateful words in this thread. It is jarring to read such hateful tripe coming from someone who I have held in such high esteem.
It’s been, since well into the first page, much more than an apologia for a church’s legal position, and more like a gleeful joy in debasing people he doesn’t even know with a nasty, slimy invective.
I find Scylla disgusting, and repulsive, scum that I wish to scrape off the bottom of my shoe, and (the worst curse I can summon up) ugly in his soul. Gone for ever!
Redboss
What happened next is Redboss tells us how he or his was abused by a priest.
And somehow because the experience was very difficult, we must not doubt those who make such asccusations, or cause them any further discomfort in the legal process.
Which sounds good to me, except that there is another life involved. That of the priest. And again, he has the presumption of innocence on his side by law. No matter how difficult, such allegations need to be proven in each and every individual case before you destroy a life.
[quote]
I find Scylla disgusting, and repulsive, scum that I wish to scrape off the bottom of my shoe, and (the worst curse I can summon up) ugly in his soul. Gone for ever![/God]
You’ll still send me my Christmas card though, right?