Yeah, and?
The OP started with a blast at “The Catholic Church (thorugh its highest authority in the US)” then went on to ask how “this group” could be permitted to exist legally. While he may have meant only the RCC in the U.S., he was certainly not limiting his claim to the hierarchy. All of his “They” sentences were directed toward the church as a body (“through” the hierarchy).
I am not sure that it is worth arguing over; he got a substantial number of his facts wrong in any event.
No, it’s fair because by everything I’ve ever heard of, Catholic priests have a much worse proportion of child molesters ( IIRC there was an Australian study that said more than half of their pedophiles were either priests or had been molested by them ), and because they systematically shielded them for decades.
Yep, it’s totally unacceptable to call the Catholic Church a haven for pedophiles, but just fine to claim that nearly all men are pedophiles. :rolleyes:
That sort of rhetoric is one reason why I despise those who defend the Catholic Church. Nothing will convince it’s defenders that it is anything but wonderful, while they are quick to fling the worst of insults with utter abandon.
I take umbrage at that remark. I’m ashamed at the disgrace this scandal has placed the RCC in. I may fling insults, but they are usually harmless and are certainly not flung with ‘utter abandon.’
In the end, I am just one person and I have no way of verifying my claim either, but please dont treat Catholic people as a single entity in such a way…
Well now you’ve just labeled myself as evil, and possibly hundreds of thousands of other employees. Funny how you seem to have everything figured out. Your problem is that you assume everybody has an agenda with just about every piece of glurge you write on the subject of religion and so called “evil corporations” on these forums. Get real and grow up dude.
I’m not fond of religion either, but the common people who ascribe to it are in it for their own personal development and for the better good in general, I realize that. A few nut cases like to push their agenda on others (and they are generally the loudest), but most are not like this. If you think they are, you are seriously misguided on the understanding of your fellow man.
As for working for what you assume to be an amoral company, tobacco, well a lot of people are just working for them to fulfill their needs; paying mortgages, mouths to feed, general needs all around, and can really care less about the business in general. Their business is to survive economically and get by. Yes, people have a choice, but when the opportunity arises that a tobacco company will pay you for your time, and no one else will hire you, and you need to fix up the car, feed little Johnny, and pay for the roof over your head, you take it because that’s what you do. Nobody is evil because of that.
Do you put gas in your car? One could say how evil you are for supporting Big Oil. So all 200 million Americans that fill up their tanks are amoral? Some pretty stupid logic isn’t?
Let’s not let this get (more) personal, please.
[ /Moderating ]
Sorry, won’t happen again.
That is totally rediculous thinking,The whole intent of the Mafia and Al Queda is destruction of another culture. No church condones rape, child molesting or any other crime. Because some one in that religion goes against what is taught is not the fault of the religion. I am sure there are Atheists who rape etc. but it isn’t because they are Atheists but just people who act bad toward others.
Monavis
As a person who was born and raised in the catholic church. I can say that within my experience. the church has been actively involved in covering up crimes of their priests. Every time a nun or priest got transferred from a parish from another state we watched him or her carefully. Hiding them, covering them up and pa6ying them off has been policy.
In my sons last year in grade school a nun knocked a kid off his feet with a punch. We found out that she had been transferred from state to state to avoid the consequences of her actions. This is one of many . The priests that buggered children were known. Parish people would give other members advice of what priests your children should avoid because we knew the organization was going to cover up. It is not just about individual bad apples. It is about an organization that was actively involved in cover ups for years.
I’m pretty sure that the rape of children isn’t an official doctrine of the RC church, so I can’t think of any reason why the church would be censured. Priests who molest and rape children should go to prison. Bishops who obstruct the law to prevent that should also go to prison. It is, however, nearly impossible for that to happen in a world in which the faithful – not just the clerical heirarchy but the people in the pews themselves – protect the priests and obstruct the investigators. The overwhelming majority of Catholics in America believe that the molesting of children by priests is overblown and largely fictitious. In this kind atmosphere, there won’t be any justice.
Actions speak louder than words monavis. If a diocese knows a priest is molesting boys, and not only does nothing to stop it, but places them in a position where they can do it again, they are condoning it. No matter how loudly they speak out against it on Sunday.
Thank you for saying this. It’s what I’ve always thought in terms of this scandal, but said much better.
It was an official doctrine to assist in the rape of children. Priests were moved to new positions after having raped children and the Catholic Church would help cover up the past crimes. The Catholic Church has still not released all the information they have on past crimes. Thus the conspiracy continues until today. We don’t know if there are still rapists out there. Why won’t they open all their files?
This is not about outlawing the Catholic religion but the Catholic Church which engaged in criminal conpiracy to rape children. The highest officials in the Catholic Chruch were involoved.
The Chuch is not releasing the information about all the past crimes. They should wait until the prosecutor asks for the information. They should release all the information now. They continue to protect rapists. Are any of these rapists still working with children? We don’t know because the Church is still protecting them.
Do you have something to support this statement?
Do you have something to support this statement?
I suspect what was meant is the prior to sometime in the 1980s, child sexual abuse was regularly covered up by families and by communities. The Catholic Church isn’t the only “community” that had “everyone knows he’s the weird uncle, don’t let him babysit the kids” going on. The shift we’ve had in public thinking on this manner is really significant, and therefore it isn’t fair to hold the Catholic Church’s (or anyone’s) behavior regarding actions that took place 30 years ago up against current standards.
I graduated from high school in 1984. One of my neighbors was a well respected doctor. Each of his five daughters moved in with either the school vice-principal or a teacher when they were 14. Everyone KNEW the man sexually abused his own daughters. He is still living in the same house down the street from my parents - none of his children talk to him or his wife. At that time, “quietly” removing the girls from the house as they reached their teenage years while leaving the family intact for the younger girls was seen as a “more stable solution.”
Yeah, fucked up beyond belief by today’s standards - maybe we should prosecute all those teachers and close down the district. But one of their girl’s was my sister’s best friend, and everyone at that time believed this to be the best way to handle this.
You mean besides the fact that it was (then) Cardinal Ratzinger who was charged with approving the Dallas conference decisions? So the same person who republished the 1960s declaration later published the specific orders to report criminal activity?
Here is the text of the decision: ESSENTIAL NORMS FOR DIOCESAN/EPARCHIAL POLICIES DEALING WITH ALLEGATIONS OF SEXUAL ABUSE OF MINORS BY PRIESTS OR DEACONS (.pdf)
It includes the following order:
Additionally, here is Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People. As I have already noted, the primary reason why the church has not turned over more information is that it does not, necessarily, have it in forms that are easily discovered. Each diocese handled the situations differently, with many diocese conforming to the decisions of 1989 and 1992 to remove priests who were caught and to collect their information. Other diocese, unfortunately, did not. However, no diocese ever maintained a file of pedophiles. Each incident was treated individually, often reported only in private correspondence, and sometimes sealed. In order to “open the files,” each diocese must first wade through every written document in the files of every priest in the diocese (living and dead) along with all the private correspondence of every bishop who had served in that diocese over the last 20, 30, or 40+ years. Many diocese may not even know where much of that correspondence had been stored.
I am not claiming that the church has no obligation to make sure that every victim is treated and every pedophile is isolated and subjected to the law. I am pointing out that this is not a case of simply whipping through a computer file scanning for the word “improper” or the appropriate Canon Laws that have been violated. (Because pedophilia has, indeed, been a matter of Canon law–perhaps for longer than it has been a matter in Civil Law–a fact that makes the actions of Cardinal Law and his co-conspirators more reprehensible.)
The church does not just have only a legal obligation to protect children . If they are truly a religious order and not just a business , they have a moral imperative to make things right. To protect one pervert disavows their entire reason to be. Do not tell about a righteous life if you do not do it yourself. It is far more than a legal problem. It deals in dishonesty and not following their own rules. Sheer hypocrisy.
Am I alone in thinking that this thread belongs in The Pit? I have a couple of things I would really like to get off my chest…
First, they are “in religion” for the benefit of the religion and those who control it; that’s why so many people went along with the cover up of molestation of their own children. Second, if you think it’s just a “few nutcases” who try to push their religion on other people, then you are living in a fantasy world.
If they don’t care about the business and it’s effects, that’s amoral. At best.
Millions have died horribly because of tobbaco. That is evil. From a moral perspective, feeding their children by almost any other method would be morally superior, including mugging.
Garbage. They protected the pedophiles, they hid them and covered up the crime. That’s condoning. That’s their usualy response to crime by priests.
You are, of course, free to open your own Pit thread blasting whomever you believe needs to be upbraided on their conduct.
As long as sufficient posters in this thread are expressing actual questions and answers regarding the topic (even if heavily weighted toward their own prejudices rather than documented facts), this thread will stay here.
(Attempts to turn this thread into a thread that needs to be moved to the Pit will result in formal Warnigs to those posters and if it really gets out of control, it will be closed rather than moved.)
I encourage those posters who have facts and logic that counter posts made by other posters in this thread to employ them. If one is simply too worked up, emotionally, to do that, one may employ the Pit to vent one’s spleen.
(And yes, I agree that there are a few doofusses, here, who should be posting their cant in IMHO or the Pit, but the topic is worthy of consideration and there are also responsible posters participating, so here it stays.)
Gotcha, grateful as always for the clarification Tom.