I expect simple behaviours here. Friendship, and love. Any advice should be from the perspective of the person asking, not the person giving! We have had to make new membership moderated to combat the huge number of spammers who register
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13806
There is one difference between the church and a youth movement, and it is a huge one, and that is that a youth movement exists for youth at all times, whereas a church exists for the entire relevant populace of all ages.
It is clear that a youth movement will always attract child abusers, whereas a church will attract those with a vocation to a deity. A youth movement seeks to occupy time and guide some of your life, a church seeks to control your every waking and sleeping moment.
So it is obvious to me that a youth movement has paedophiles in positions of trust, and it is obvious that it should protect against that. A church ought simply to be an employer of those with a vocation to the deity. Access to youth is not expected in any particular way, and the person is "expected' to act in a godly manner, whatever that means.
I agree that media whips up a feeding frenzy and makes those who accepted or even enjoyed the attentions that were illegal feel the guilt of the victim, but those who reported the abuse should have been listened to and their reports should have been investigated. So this all coming out now, today, can make it worse for them. Some have ben made to feel that they caused the abuse anyway and are this greatly ashamed.
Yet I am convinced that the time is right, with proper regard to the victims who wish to forget the incidents, or who enjoyed, even hoped for the incidents, to prosecute the perpetrators and to reveal the truth behind those who acted as accessories and concealed the wholesale, widespread, industrial scale abuse.
Beng stupid and falling in love with one child and acting out of misplaced love is quite different from abusing 200 deaf kids, pretty much on a conveyor belt. Concealing that abuse when it is reported, and letting the evil old goat off because he is old an dill is quite another.
Your "even" is misplaced, though I see it more as a conjunction that a justifier. The Boy Scouts are a trivial organisation compared with the might of the Roman Catholic Church. The boy scouts are a youth group, the church is an enormous, powerful and formidable institution with vast hidden power.
Location: United States
Registered: April 2008
Messages: 195
I understand that the institutional power of the church is a primary source of concern in the issue. People who are raised in a church are still more likely to forgive the church as an institution rather than have massive attempts at reform that backfire terriblly. It takes years to have institutional reform of generational entities. The fact that the Catholic Church is continuing to say that this is an attack on their leader and their faith rather than a corruption of power issue is irritating. The institution of the church has garnered too much scrutiny in recent years to be left completely intact. The worst part is that people in positions of power are always more willing to try to conceal corruption rather than be "embarrassed" by having to admit that it was in fact their fault in the first place. Any who seek absolute power will eventually be corrupted by that power. The leadership of the Catholic Church may actually believe itself outside the bounds of reality or just unable to cope with the real cost of their failures. If the corruption in the leadership is the problem; then the Church will not get new leadership as easily as the Church needs. We are only at the beginning of a long and terrible road. Using morality as a way to justify corruption is always a problem it makes morality seem fleeting and biased. I hope people stop trusting leaders of institutional religion blindly and actually start thinking about the real problems at hand. I don't know what it will take to get people who are religious to actually resolve the problems with the church but massive reform may be the only way now nothing else seems to be working.
He who joyfully marches in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake since for him a spinal cord would suffice. Albert Einstein
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13806
Gonna have to use some para breaks, Pat, just for readability on the screen! I almost went into your post and edited it so I could see white space!
I think you have highlighted something that very few people have realised - that the RC Church is a body that is self electing, self policing and self perpetuating. In many ways it resembles a totalitarian régime. The ability to change such a régime from within is limited. To see that you simply have to look at the old USSR ad the current Russia and the time taken to make even that small progress.
There also seems to be too much invested in "the person" and not in the role the person inhabits. "The Pope" may be infallible (Ok, but you know what I mean), but the inhabitant of the role may be highly fallible. That almost makes an argument for a pontiff which is a panel of three of the senior chaps!
Even so, the fact that the RC Church is huge and powerful is unimportant to me. My parents were huge and powerful, but they never once apologised to me when I was a child. The RC Church has started at least to speak apologies. The second stage of speaking apologies is to mean them and the third stage is to change its ways based upon true morality.
I know that the sexual abuse of kids by those in power over them will never stop. I accept that. But what I cannot accept is the protection, sometimes even the promotion of the perpetrators.
We know that Ratzinger is fallible. We knew that anyway in the same way that any person is fallible. That does not stop him being a suitable Pope, but his failure to acknowledge fallibility makes him a pope that one finds impossible to respect. His was the role to discipline Father Lawrence Murphy, and his was the hand that rejected that task. And 200 deaf kids had to suffer production line sexual abuse at the monster's hands.
Location: Canada
Registered: December 2003
Messages: 869
... on this issue other than to post the occasional link to continuing news coverage as they have surfaced; but, through your commentary here at A Place of Safety and at your blog Marketing By Permission, I sincerely believe that maybe, just maybe, you are beginning to hit at the heart of the matter.
Several significant, and noteworthy, factors, time and time again, keep emerging in the media whenever Pope Benedict XVI is mentioned either directly, or juxtaposed to articles, related to Priestly Child Abuse:
1) In 1981, Cardinal Joseph Alois Ratzinger was appointed "Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith", one of the most important offices of the Roman Curia, and more importantly the Office which administers the Vatican Jura or Papal Courts, and in particular the Office charged with the responsibility of adjudicating all cases of reported (whether substantiated or not) abuses of persons by the clergy.
2) At the time of his election as Pope, Cardinal Joseph Alois Ratzinger in addition to his position as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, also held the position of "Dean of the College of Cardinals", and as such the primus inter pares among the cardinals.
Given the above, and the likelihood that Cardinal Joseph Alois Ratzinger had to have known about all, or any, reports of Child Abuse arising since his appointment 1981, and probably the whole kit and caboodle of cases reported in years prior to that, I ask:
Why, in God's name, was this man elected Pope?
The only possible answer to that, and the only reasonable conclusion, must be that by doing so he would be afforded Diplomatic Immunity, and could not be prosecuted for his actions.
The Conclave had to have known, in 2005, that only the tiniest corner of veil of secrecy that blanketed all that we have been hearing about since 1992 had been lifted, firstly with media coverage in American, then Canada, then Ireland, and now just about everywhere else. It was only going to be a matter of time before the extent of the cover-up was going to be known; only, we could never have fathomed its' likely breadth and reach. Never in our wildest imagination could we have believed what we are now only just truly hearing for the first time.
As a Roman Catholic (albeit lapsed wouldn't even cover it) I find it absolutely unconscionable that a person in the name of Cardinal Joseph Alois Ratzinger, and other persons unknown, could have firstly condoned, and by their sanction, orchestrated the cover-up on such an incredible scale, and thereby perpetrated such disgraceful, and criminal, behaviour in the name of The Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith.
Cardinal Joseph Alois Ratzinger (I refuse to call him Pope) must be held accountable, as too should all or any of his Office who could reasonably be assumed to have been involved.
A very broad broom must sweep through The City-state known as The Vatican, and it must start with Office of the Bishop of Rome, and Cardinal Joseph Alois Ratzinger himself resigning, and his then being charged with criminal negligence (at the very least) for his part in this travesty. A new Vatican Council needs to then be convened, and changes made to the governance of Roman Catholic Church. Without both, neither the Vatican or the Church are going to recover from this.
Warren C. E. Austin
The Gay Deceiver
Toronto, Canada
Location: Israel
Registered: October 2004
Messages: 1367
The media here report that the Pope is "anguished" by the abuse situation in Ireland (only in Ireland??) and sees this as "a test for himself and for the Church". Hmmm. As an erstwhile teacher I would say that his grade so far is somewhere between a D and a Fail. I think that His Holiness should also bear in mind that it is not the testee who gets to decide on the grade.
J F R
The paradox has often been noted that the United States, founded in secularism, is now the most religiose country in Christendom, while England, with an established church headed by its constitutional monarch, is among the least. (Richard Dawkins, 2006)
With that logic neither was Adolph Hitler or Saddam Hussein. By delcaring that the Pope is the head of state that would make his cardinals and bishops ambassadors, but it is denied that they are to be considered "employees" of the Vatican. I contest that.
For a long time I have ranted about the Catholic church interferring with politics here in the US. The Vatican is considered a separate country, the Pope it's Emperor, so much more flamboyant then a mere King. Thus why should we accept his minions raising funds to defeat gay rights, it's our laws not theirs being contested.
Would we stand by and allow Putin to send his KGB (yeah buddy, they still exist no matter what he says)into the US to spread funds around to defeat a congressional race? What is there about churches and their political motivation? We have laws that keep the government from interferring with them, that ought to be a two way street.
Next time I hear a holy man in a black robe say something about gays I'm going to yell out: "Hey, no one interferes with your desire to f**k little boys. Leave my adult relationships alone." Anyone think that will work? ;-D
[Updated on: Thu, 01 April 2010 17:54]
Age appears to be best in four things; old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read. (Sir Francis Bacon 1561-1626)
Location: Canada
Registered: December 2003
Messages: 869
I seem to recall that at the height of the controversy surrounding The Supreme Court of Canada's controversial ruling in favour of "Same-sex Marriage" upholding two separate Provincial Supreme Court rulings, one in British Columbia, the other in Ontario, Paul Martin's then Liberal government was faced with either having to formally draft legislation for Parliament to enshrine Law that would outlaw same-sex marriage or tacitly accept the Supreme Court's capability to, in effect, enact Law. He, and his government wisely chose the former; but, this was not without its' own problems, the greatest of these being The Vatican and it's constant interference in our affairs, with the then Pope and his staff blatantly lobbying Canadian Parliamentarians to force Paul Martin, and the Liberals, to legislate.
Paul Martin was apparently left with little recourse but to instruct the Canadian Ambassador to The Vatican to deliver an ultimatum to The Vatican that if it did not cease and desist in its' interference in our Sovereign Affairs, Canada would have little choice but to petition the International Court in The Hague to censure The Vatican for that interference, the end result being that The Vatican did eventually back off and finally shut up.
The "Abuses against persons" by the Roman Catholic Clergy should no longer to be considered an isolated occurrence, or aberration, as it was once thought to be, especially in light of emerging evidence to the contrary on its' being of a global scale.
I see no earthly reason why a "Crimes Against Humanity" Brief couldn't be raised, and filed, with the International Court, citing The Vatican, its' Head of State, The Curia and whichever other body (bodies) within their organization is (were) deemed accountable.
Warren C. E. Austin
The Gay Deceiver
Toronto, Canada
As I've said before, this whole affair has simply become unbelievable; not, the victimization's, nor the enduring hardships faced by the victims themselves; but, the Church's intractability in its' response; and, its' continued "burying of their collective heads in the sand" approach to any lasting, and palliative, resolution.
Warren C. E. Austin
The Gay Deceiver
Toronto, Canada
When is The Vatican going to have a "Reality Check" and actually say something meaningful about this whole boondoggle? And by meaningful, I want to see REAL regret and anguish; and, positive affirmation of the true nature of the victimization from the hierarchy at The Vatican; and, pro-active (and remedial) measures to ensure the likes of this tragedy never, ever, occurs again; and, all surviving victims receive whatever palliative care they may require.
I really, really, want to have faith in the Church I was born into; but, regardless of the present (and very lapsed) condition of my belief in The Roman Catholic variety of a God, The Vatican, through it' ever continuing waffling on this issue, is making it damned near impossible for me to ever again have faith in the Institution.
Warren C. E. Austin
The Gay Deceiver
Toronto, Canada
Location: U.S.
Registered: August 2003
Messages: 565
Thousands of children in the United States and Europe have been molested by their pastors, who, when their crimes were found out, were shuffled from parish to parish by their bishops who hoped the whole problem would somehow magically disappear without anyone noticing. But not all the bishops — some of them (Archbishop Weakland in Milwaukee, and now we learn also about the late Bishop Moreno in Tucson) begged the Vatican office headed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (today’s Pope Benedict XVI) to have those monster priests defrocked, except now we discover that Ratzinger either dragged his feet or refused outright to allow the canonical trials against the priests to proceed. And those revelations come on the heals of other credible allegations of Ratzinger having covered up similarly abominations when he was bishop of Munich.
Molesting girls may not be as common, we don't know, we won't be told. But here we have those in church management defining the problem and becoming complicit in a cover up.
To place a priest in administrative duties isn't the solution. Telling him to stay out of the country when he has been charged with a crime is a violation of the law. He will not be questioned about the accusations and another child will suffer.
Calling this issue "petty gossip" will not bering about resolution, these are sick self serving men who claim to be god's messingers.
Age appears to be best in four things; old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read. (Sir Francis Bacon 1561-1626)
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13806
The John Jay report is interesting here:
Even though about 80 percent of victims were boys, the John Jay researchers and other experts on sex offenders say it does not mean the perpetrators were gay. Priests had more access to boys, which likely explains the high percentage of male victims, researchers say.
Location: Canada
Registered: December 2003
Messages: 869
... I cannot say that I am!
In those comments where I've editorialized to one extent or another on this topic, and specifically those mentioning Cardinal Joseph Alois Ratzinger, I've made it a point to refer to these "Vicimizations" in generalized terms as being either "Priestly Child Abuse" or "Abuse against persons by the Clergy".
I'm supposing now that subliminally I may (must?) have at least half-heartedly considered the possibility, even though my conscious mind likely couldn't have put its' head around it.
Warren C. E. Austin
The Gay Deceiver
Toronto, Canada
The template expands, but you can read it as easily by scrolling down the page. It is designed as a navigation al aid between all the articles created there so far about cases of abuse. Many of those cases are multiple cases!
This is not "malicious gossip", nor is this akin to anti semitism as the black cloaked abusing bastards have said. This is widespread, industrial scale, production line massive and brutal abuse.
"Bless me, father, for I have sinned, but not as much as you have! You abused, or concealed the abuse, or were complicit in the abuse."
Location: U.S.
Registered: November 2009
Messages: 630
Excellent, Timmy, a valuable research tool.
I say this without a smile, the subject matter is disgusting. Thousands of victims and yet from what I see the perpetrators of these crimes were slapped on the wrist. The church should be ashamed for the way they dealt with these criminals. Instead they sit on their pile of gold and hope we all just go away.
I guess I am just astounded that the laws in various countries seemed to have been ignored. No matter what a person wears on his back, clergy or not, they are subject to the laws of the land. As I recall not too many decades ago homosexuality was a hanging offense in the UK. I wonder how many clerical molesters were strung up? None I am sure.
The law has never been impartial when faced with a clerical person, in the cases of child molestation that makes no sense. It's pure evil at work in their minds, bring back the Inquisition >
[Updated on: Tue, 06 April 2010 23:14]
Age appears to be best in four things; old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read. (Sir Francis Bacon 1561-1626)
Location: Canada
Registered: December 2003
Messages: 869
... and, the house of cards constructed to hide this whole mess will not come crashing down around everyone involved until that "one" case, so heinous in its' execution does see the light of day; and, this case is still lurking out there somewhere in the shadows; and, it will, God help us, eventually be uncovered.
Unfortunately, until it does, the toll in terms of "real" human cost is only going to continue to escalate, and The Vatican's version of events will prevail by virtue of it's exceptionally proficient "Smoke and Mirrors" damage control team. There's only at best two, possibly three, companies in the World capable of the managing "threat" on the scale we see being manipulated here. You can be certain, The Vatican has one of them on retainer, if not their having outright ownership.
Not since the Banco Ambrosio scandal in the late 1970's has The Vatican's very existence been so threatened; and I suspect, if truth were ever to be told, we probably only ever really learned about ten per-cant of the carryings-on and skulduggery that that imbroglio entailed.
I sincerely hope that that will not be the case this time.
Warren C. E. Austin
The Gay Deceiver
Toronto, Canada
Location: Israel
Registered: October 2004
Messages: 1367
I came across this report from a French TV station (in English) about the sex abuse scandals in Germany.
J F R
The paradox has often been noted that the United States, founded in secularism, is now the most religiose country in Christendom, while England, with an established church headed by its constitutional monarch, is among the least. (Richard Dawkins, 2006)
The paradox has often been noted that the United States, founded in secularism, is now the most religiose country in Christendom, while England, with an established church headed by its constitutional monarch, is among the least. (Richard Dawkins, 2006)
Location: U.S.
Registered: November 2009
Messages: 630
An interesting history of popes, although considering the source is the church itself I wondered if they were being honest.
In trapsing around the internet I came up with this, a different take on Pope Benedict IX (1012-1056), the three time winner in the posted article. This view of him is quite different. The Catholic version mentions nothing about the homosexual orgies he held in the Vatican...do we wonder why?
Age appears to be best in four things; old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read. (Sir Francis Bacon 1561-1626)
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13806
Interesting section here:
Of sodomy and murder: (1012- 1070’s): That Pope Benedict VIII also known as Pope Benedict IX did commit upon the altar of St. Peters and other churches of the Roman Catholic Empire the ritualistic sodomy of children followed by their cruel and brutal murder.
At least we have been spared the use of the altar and the murder. I hope.
Location: Canada
Registered: December 2003
Messages: 869
... and perhaps most revealing of all, is that Cardinal Joseph Alois Ratzinger should have assumed the name "Benedict" in the first place; especially given the rather murky (should I dare say, 'funky') history of those predecessors of his who sported the moniker before him.
Warren C. E. Austin
The Gay Deceiver
Toronto, Canada
Location: U.S.
Registered: November 2009
Messages: 630
As time goes on we learn more and more about the current Pope Benedict and his early years as a cardinal. When he became elected pope I think he chose the wrong name. He should have been Wimpie the First for his indecisive actions which allowed further harm to children.
The attached article speaks to his years of denial, the way he allowed pedophile priests to continue working with children even as the bishops yelled for attention to have them defrocked. It seems Pope Wimpie is still at it, and that makes me wonder what he is hiding.
Age appears to be best in four things; old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read. (Sir Francis Bacon 1561-1626)
Again, nothing more than sophistry and bland apologies.
It's absolutely amazing (and downright disgusting) how "The Song Remains The Same" press-release after press-release.
It WILL BE newsworthy, if and when the damned old fool ever actually gets down on his hands and knees and begs forgiveness; but, I don't see that as ever likely happening any time soon.
Warren C. E. Austin
The Gay Deceiver
Toronto, Canada
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13806
Giving out rosaries is obviously a great help! Perhaps he has done some good for the few individuals he met, but nothing at all for his church and the reputation of the black cloaked abusing bastard priests.
DEBATE is nothing more than what is essentially a "Letter To The Editor", in this instance "AOL News", and is published under that slug, as have been numerous others over the years. Theoretically, anyone can write a letter to the editor at opinion@aolnews.com, and be a potential candidate for having that letter selected and published under DEBATE.
My apologies to Brody; but as a Gay man who also happens to be a journalist (kindly note the reverse emphasis) you have somewhat a vested interest in the story, and while you've written extensively about the scandal, and fairly I might add, I can't consider you to be impartial, whereas the author of this article addresses the issue strictly from the point of view of what should be, and NEEDS TO BE, The Vatican's response and solution to bringing closure for all concerned.
This mornings missive is written by Frank K. Flinn, adjunct professor of religious studies at Washington University in St. Louis and author of Encyclopedia of Catholicism (2007).
Warren C. E. Austin
The Gay Deceiver
Toronto, Canada
Location: U.S.
Registered: November 2009
Messages: 630
Thank you, Warren. Professor Flinn sounds like a man with some common sense answers. I can understand from his position that many Catholics just wish the Pope would go about admitting his errors and offering these solutions.
The church as a whole needs to look at the dogma as it stands and realize that they set themselves up for this pedophile scandal. What they teach is unnatural.
Having been thru the indoctrination myself as a child I can look back and realize the point at which I rejected the church was due to the teachings that felt unnatural and absurd. I could not accept the idea of heaven, a god that offered condos in the sky someplace for an afterlife of boring adoration. Hell was even a more obscure thought.
But at the same time a priest might be telling me that masturbation was a sin I knew it was a most natural human urge. I also didn't get the no sex rules for priests, that came across as even more unnatural.
The old line about just having faith rubbed me the wrong way as well, what about logic? The dogma of the church seemed illogical to me then just as it does now. A confusing state to a child, something I see as brainwashing today.
No matter what this Pope or any other chooses to do I cannot accept the message they preach. I have read the Bible cover to cover several times in my life, viewing it as a historical document, especially the Old Testament. But nothing in there convinces me that the Catholics have the answer to a question I don't even ask myself anymore.
Religion is a fascinating human weakness, it exists in all cultures. The message one gets from the Koran and the Bible conflict even as both struggle for a little mind control over the supplicants to those religions.
Buddhist teachings, Shinto rites and Hundu mysticism all have a greater attraction to me for they speak of logic and the natural order of things. The simplicity of the Native American creation myths, specfically the Navajo legends, all speak to a society of people seeking to explain the unknown in terms that they can understand.
The beauty of those early attempts to put cohesive thought and understanding about the majesty of nature and the universe are compelling. For those early humans the gods were more divine than any modern religion can imagine a god in our time of knowledge.
I will always believe that the concept of god is beyond human grasp, it sure does get in the way of understanding one another. For societies to war over what I see as a non-entity is absurd, excuse me while I go hug a tree.
Age appears to be best in four things; old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read. (Sir Francis Bacon 1561-1626)
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