And this relates to your previous post, how?
I have no idea of what this is supposed to say.
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1 in 14 priests accused of abuse
- Thread starter 9-10ths_Penguin
- Start date
And this relates to your previous post, how?
@Carlita
Whilst I respect you defending Catholics from being judged by the actions of a few bad apples, please be aware that is NOT what the Royal Commission was about, and not how it's being seen here (Australia) at all.
Rather, the RCC here was guilty of systemically covering up reported instances of abuse. Abusers, including people who were widely known to be abusers (based on internal memos) were moved to other churches, where...unsurprisingly...the abuses continued.
The only question is whether the scale of this systemic failing was large, or larger.
No group is free of abusers, and as an ex-male primary teacher I am fully aware of how much stereotyped jokes or assumptions can hurt. However, please be aware that the primary victims of this complete failure on the part of church administration were largely Catholic families (specifically their children). I also have sympathy for Catholic priests who were unaware of abuses.
Make no mistake, the church failed its duty of care to it's most vulnerable constituents time and time and time again. It is that organizational failure which must be responded to.
Whilst I respect you defending Catholics from being judged by the actions of a few bad apples, please be aware that is NOT what the Royal Commission was about, and not how it's being seen here (Australia) at all.
Rather, the RCC here was guilty of systemically covering up reported instances of abuse. Abusers, including people who were widely known to be abusers (based on internal memos) were moved to other churches, where...unsurprisingly...the abuses continued.
The only question is whether the scale of this systemic failing was large, or larger.
No group is free of abusers, and as an ex-male primary teacher I am fully aware of how much stereotyped jokes or assumptions can hurt. However, please be aware that the primary victims of this complete failure on the part of church administration were largely Catholic families (specifically their children). I also have sympathy for Catholic priests who were unaware of abuses.
Make no mistake, the church failed its duty of care to it's most vulnerable constituents time and time and time again. It is that organizational failure which must be responded to.
A liberal issue? We're talking about the systematic rape of children under the care of the church, with a LOT of evidence that church authorities not only failed to act, but actively helped to cover abuses up.
Can you PLEASE pull your head out of your arse for a moment and drop the pseudo-political bull****?
If you think the case is overstated, feel free to argue as much. But if you're here just sprouting generalist point-scoring crap, then I'd ask you to please desist.
This is flat out tripe. I'm hoping you were drunk, stoned, or joking when you wrote it.
BilliardsBall
Veteran Member
The Bible says a church elder can be married. Forcing celibacy--which the Roman church did not always do in history--makes the Roman "priesthood" a haven for homosexuals and sexual predators.
stevevw
Member
It's more than a reasonable bet. There were widespread cover-ups that went to some of the highest positions in the Catholic church.
“The data is an indictment on the priests and religious who abused these children. It also reflects on the church leaders who at times failed to take steps to deal with the abusers, failed to call them to order and failed to deal with them in accordance with the law.”
4,444 victims: extent of abuse in Catholic church in Australia revealed
This means that those at the top in positions of power and influence went about covering up the abuse to protect the reputation of the church. Abusers were moved on where some went on to abuse again. Those who were supposed to care for those children abused them and even went to the point of blaming the children and making them feel like they had done something wrong to cover up their wrongdoing.
Yes, this is a shocking reflection on Australia and the Catholic Church. There were 4,444 victims of child abuse between 1980 and 2015. In some churches, 40% of the priest were abusing children.
While this is shocking I don't think you can tar all priest with the same brush as many went in with a genuine heart and helped many. In fact, the churches have done some great work and saved many lives so we have to keep this in perspective. What I think is a problem is a system that the church has that allows a small group of very powerful men to control things which is not much different to any non-religious organisation that can become corrupt or mismanage things. Group think can set in where they begin to believe their own judgements are right and they don't allow outside influences to shed light on where they are at.
If you look at the types of organisations and situations where child abuse has happened it has been with institutions such as children's homes, Boy scouts, individuals who had access to children such as some of the entertainers who have been exposed and of course families. There was a lack of awareness about these issues but more so there was a lack of support for exposing people who did these things. People trusted men to care for their children and they pretended to be kind. Some may have suspected something was happening but were not sure and there was no support for dealing with this in the past.
This seems to have been the mentality that society had in the past and still has today where people hide abuse and certain things were just not talked about. But the church should have known better and led the way. Just applying the teachings of Christ would have prevented this so there was obviously a token following of the Christ which was consumed by something that was created by those who had the control. As many have said Churches like the Catholic Church have fallen away from Christ's teachings and have created a man-made religious institution that is mixed with power, control, and selfish intent that is justified in the name of God. This is seen in other ways by the amount of wealth that is hoarded in some churches which could feed thousands of starving children and in some ways is also an abuse of a higher duty of care.
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capumetu
Active Member
Catholics do not teach child molestation is an acceptable practice. and anyone practicing it is sinning, violating God's laws as well as mans. What kind of a moron would believe that the Catholics would think that appropriate?
I am not a Catholic, and definitely against the faith, but even I know that is bull butter.
I am not a Catholic, and definitely against the faith, but even I know that is bull butter.
For real? Even if it is off topic?
Catholicicica
New Member
I have to say... you don't need to have lived in a dorm to understand that in youth many males cover for their friends less than honest liason's with girls outside their relationship.. Women however are no different in this regard.
What I do find quite shocking however is that you seem to equate two timing to being no more serious than blatant child abuse. I think the vast majority of of people see sex with minors for what it is and by what name and would have no hesitation of making others not least the authorities aware if they knew a close friend was engaged in such activity.
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
That's complete nonsense, and you either are ignorant of the church's teachings, disingenuous about them, or both.
Catholic charities are extensive, with the largest single charitable organization in the world being Catholic Relief Services that is also considered one of the most efficient in the world, even to the point where some other faiths, such as the Mennonite, contribute to them And then there's Catholic hospitals, Catholic orphanages, Catholic adoption agencies, Catholic soup kitchens, etc. Even though I'm not Catholic or even Christian (I'm Jewish), my wife and I contribute to a couple of Catholic charities.
I never said otherwise. There's a difference between pointing out institutional problems in an organization and saying that everyone in the organization is evil. Even the mafia has some kind-hearted people working for it.
And Hezbollah runs some of the biggest aid and social programs in Palestine. The positive side of an organization doesn't mean that the negative side doesn't exist.
It's worth pointing out, though, that a lot of "Catholic" good work would happen even if the Catholic Church wasn't involved. For instance, here in Ontario, our Catholic hospitals are funded by the government just like the secular ones. Catholic and secular hospitals compete for bed and funding allocations. If the Catholic Church decided to get out of the hospital business, secular organizations would take over and continue to provide the same level of service.
If you're implying that the doctrine of Apostolic Succession necessarily leads to an out-of-touch, mismanaged Church, then you're condemning the Church at a more fundamental level than I am. All I'm suggesting is that they get tougher on child abusers in their ranks; this wouldn't violate any Church doctrine.
There are some major differences between the Catholic Church and these other organizations:
- the Catholic Church has used its influence with law enforcement to shield predators from prosecution.
- the Catholic Church has relocated predators (and their protectors) to other jurisdictions to take them out of the reach of law enforcement.
- when elements within the Catholic Church tried to implement strong chuld protection policies, the Vatican stopped them (and I'm thinking of what happened in Ireland, specifically).
- if these Australian stats are to be believed, it may very well be that a greater percentage of priests in the Catholic Church (at least in Australia) are child predators than, say, Scout leaders are.
In general, the organizations that have done worse than the Catholic Church at shutting down child abuse - and many that have done better - have been either completely gutted and rebuilt because of the scandal or ceased to exist entirely.
OTOH, not only has the Catholic Church experienced both a startlingly high percentage of pedophile priests (along with many other priests and bishops who have enabled and protected them), but the Church has also been implicated in human trafficking and modern-day slavery... to say nothing about its many abuses over its more distant history.
Short version: on the issues of abuse and the tradeoff between good and bad, the Catholic Church is not like the Boy Scouts. It isn't even like other churches.
Again: you seem to have more fundamental problems with the Catholic Church than I do. Getting tough on the problem of abusive priests might cause short-term shame and embarrassment for many in the leadership of the Church (and prison for at least a few), but it wouldn't represent the kind of rejection of the Church's doctrines and ethos that you're describing.
I don't equate the two; I thought I made that clear.
What I'm saying is that when people live in close quarters - as priests typically do - they can't help but find out details of each other's lives, so not only should we be condemning the priests who carried out the abuse directly; we should also condemn all the priests who knew about - or strongly suspected - the abuse and did nothing.
And as shocking as the number of abusive priests is, the number who enabled the abuse with their silence is many times more than that.
Yes: the vast majority of people would report it if their friend was abusing a child. However, countless priests didn't do this; what do you think this says about them?
Reggie Miller
Well-Known Member
7% were accused. But how many were found guilty? What ever happened to innocent until proven guilty?
dianaiad
Well-Known Member
I see a few things that really should be said here.
First, it doesn't surprise me at all that child abuse is higher among those who are trusted with children and who have a greater level of institutional imputed trust than others. There WILL be more child abuse among priests, etc., than among, say...teachers. Not because there is anything intrinsically evil about priests; quite the opposite. It's because "lions hunt where the prey is."
Pedophiles WILL seek positions which give them access to children. Pedophiles WILL seek jobs as social workers, teachers, religious leaders and priests. Why on earth would you expect differently? Someone out to satisfy his urges isn't going to move to a mountain and be a hermit.
BECAUSE of that, the institutions involved must be far more careful in vetting those who want to serve, and far more willing to deal, very publicly, with those who betray the trust of both the institution and the children to whom they have access.
My problem with the Catholics, both here (USA) and elsewhere, isn't that active pedophiles choose to masquerade as priests (and 'masquerade,' I think, is the proper word, even if they do earn the degrees and get the ordinations). It's that the church tried to cover it up and handle it 'in-house.'
That said, I also remember something that happened fairly close to where I live. Does anybody remember the McMartin case, where the owner of a pre-school and the entire staff was accused of the most horrendous acts against the children who went there? The owner spent years in prison, as did her son, and the lives of the teachers and staff were utterly ruined.....and it turned out that there was absolutely no abuse of any sort going on, at all. It was a witch-hunt of global proportions.
..............and some people are STILL accusing the McMartins of being Satanists who sacrificed children at the dark of the moon in obscure and horror-movie style. So....1 out of 14 priests accused of child abuse? I can believe that. That the incidence of such abuse is higher than it would be in, say...a group of college professors? I can believe that, too. That the ACTUAL incidence of child abuse in the Catholic priesthood is as high as the accusations hint?
Nope.
oh....and that the church brought this all down on itself because it had no clue how to deal with this, was trying to solve it internally, and was attempting to cover it's own behind? Absolutely.
lostwanderingsoul
Well-Known Member
The Bible says a bishop should be the husband of one wife. So why does the church insist that priests and bishops be unmarried. Perhaps married men with families of their own would be less likely to abuse children. This is just one more example of how the church does not follow what the Bible teaches.
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
Paul taught that the ideal situation was to not marry and dedicate one's life to God.
Secondly, the church made to move to celibacy because to many bishops were accumulating wealth and power to pass down to their children.
I agree that marriage should be an option for priests, especially to ameliorate problems in this area. The Orthodox church, for example, allows it for priests but not bishops
No, this is one example of a person who jumps to a conclusion without doing their homework.
.
lostwanderingsoul
Well-Known Member
So too many bishops were getting wealth. Don't you think the church is wealthy today
"Innocent until proven guilty" is the standard for convicting an individual. It isn't necessarily appropriate for other purposes, such as identifying systemic problems in an organization.
Probably something less than 7% will be convicted, but:
- lack of conviction doesn't imply innocence. Plenty of priests eacape having their day in court because of a statute of limitations or because they die before their case goes to trial.
- it's useful to use accusation rate as a comparator. Apparently, 5.6% of US priests have been accused; why are the Australian stats so much higher?
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
Not like it used to be whereas it was estimated to own about 1/3 of arable land in Europe.
Secondly, much of the church's wealth was donated and/or paid for by people who belong to the church, so I would suggest that this is their business, not yours.
Thirdly, if you do your homework, you'd find that the RCC is very charitable and in a variety of different areas.
And finally, I am not a Catholic.
Reggie Miller
Well-Known Member
Personally, I con't care how many people get accused. I only care about how many get proven guilty.
JustWondering2
Just the facts Ma'am
I have an idea, if priests knew the penalty for sexually abusing children was to be imprisoned w/ men who had been sexually abused as children themselves by priest I bet that would change things! Care you say an eye for an eye. I was hit on by a "so called man of the cloth" when I was a kid, but I was not raised religious. So I was not taught to automatically trust them by my patients. At 64 today, if I ran into the BasTurd I'd punch him in the face.