People just need to stay home on Sundays; their children are safer at home than in church. I think God will understand.
Recycled from the Sandusky era: What do Pennsylvanian priests and Campbell’s have in common?
They both come in little cans.
Has any priest ever been arrested and convicted and sent to prison?
Then let’s get moving. Bring the whole sordid mess down.
According to Wiki, he was “diagnosed with homosexual pedophilia.” It’s a disease now?
The much larger problem is that Pennsylvania wasn’t a breeding ground for catholic priest rapists. It’s just one of the places that’s dug deeply into the mess. There’s not a doubt in my mind that any state or country which did similar digging would turn up the same horrors.
Apparently they misread that “suffer the little children” quote.
I think we need to rethink the statute of limitation on crimes against minors. It needs to be at least long enough for a child to reach adulthood, as it’s possible the child will never fully understand how bad/illegal some actions by adults can be until that child becomes an adult himself/herself.
I actually do agree. 100%.
Well, pedophilia is considered a mental disorder, correct? The ‘homosexual’ part is troubling, unless they also diagnosis ‘heterosexual pedophilia’.
And the Pope leads the way…
Pope Francis Silent About 1,000 Children Abused by Priests in Pennsylvania
To be fair, he would probably want to read the Pennsylvania report (1000+ pages long) and do some investigation of his own before addressing the issue.
If he’s still quiet in a month, then it’s worth complaining.
I’ll also add that the lack of most people to remember anything much past 2 weeks ago is the second great evil of humanity.
After another story broke, I saw an interview with a late-middle-aged man and his very elderly father, who had both been molested by the same parish priest. The shame this carries was well described by the father, who said, “I was married to your mother for (50-plus) years, and I never kept any secrets from her, except for this.” 
On a related note, has anyone heard about the alleged abuse going on in the Shambhala Buddhist community, specifically the one in Halifax? While most of it seems to involve adults, if it’s true, it’s just as terrible.
Normally, I would agree. But do you think the Pope was ignorant of this issue until the actual report was released?
We have a Cardinal who tried to get out in front of this.
He should have the Church Police investigate. Nobody expects them.
There is one archbishop sentenced to prison, but who is now serving the sentence under house arrest: Philip Wilson. He wasn’t convicted of doing the child abuse himself, but of concealing child abuse while working in the Diocese of Maitland (now Maitland-Newcastle). Several priests from that diocese have been convicted of child abuse, and are serving or have served prison sentences.
I don’t know how well the left hand talks to the right hand in the Catholic church.
If you follow political news, for example, it’s not uncommon for politicians to make the point that they discovered things through the media reporting that, one might niavely think, would have been general knowledge among their clique.
The Catholic church spans every continent on the planet and is dealing with wars, famines, and political diplomacy across hundreds of countries. I could reasonably see the goings-on of one city in America - in an organization that is institutionally constructed to hide misbehavior - not having had the reports that the police were all over and talking to everyone about child molestation make its way up the ladder all the way.
I may be wrong, but so far Francis has seemed pretty trustworthy so I’m reasonably inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.
My brother was molested by one of the priests on the list. Another was the headmaster of the seminary high school where my brother also attended. So this hits home to me. The attitude was, we all know this happens just watch yourself and stay clear from the offenders. Nothing was done, nothing.
A combination of:
Victims that don’t realize they were actually victims.
Those that do realize it think too much of the good things the priest does to make it worth their while to bring up.
When it is brought up to the pastor or bishop, the offender is reassigned and the victims can be told they were taken care of because there is a massive shortage of priests. It’s not something that need be agreed upon by anyone, but that everyone is well aware of anyway. The church can’t let go of anyone who actually was willing to become a priest and went through the training, because it’s becoming impossible to find replacements for them. That’s not to say that’s the response of the very first person in charge of the priest, but at some point some Bishop or Archbishop decides they can’t lose the priest and finds a new home for them. None of these people dare tell their superior about what they did. Bishops and Archbishops get their post by generally being good administrators, not by being the holiest. Most of them were like Cardinal Ratzinger, who as far as I am concerned was never Pope, and less were like John Paul II and Francis. Ratzinger probably resigned when he realized that the church needed someone more like his predecessor and successor than people like him as figureheads.
Well, it makes sense why the Catholics are so anti-abortion.
Sorry. Too soon.