Deliver Us From Evil

[Aasimar]

Heyas, I work in a video store temporarily and I get the opportunity to watch a lot of movies. One of the ones I recently rented was a documentary called "Deliver us from Evil." This move is about a catholic priest in California named Patrick O'Grady who molested countless children, boys and girls all over the state. One of the unique things about this film is that O'Grady himself admits to everything he has done and doesn't seem to be trying to hide anything. It also seems clear that he has a very strange view of morality, he doesn't seem to really understand the horrible things he has done. The interesting thing, and more the main focus of the film was the reaction of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the Catholic Hierarchy further on up. I strongly recommend this movie, to atheists and theists alike. Obviously this movie had an agenda and a biased view, like most documentaries do, but I'm curious on anyones take on the actions the Catholic Church took in film.

 

[gmelrod]

Well my take on the problems the Catholic church has been haveing stem from the restrictions they place on priests. If you say that priests cannot get married (a practice that only began in 1000 AD to prevent the rise of another aristocracy) then you will have a significant number of people who are not bothered by this requirement. Some are genuinly called but others have an aberant social makeup. I am not saying they are homosexuals, though there is a suprising number in the priesthood. My uncle was in seminary and got his Masters of Divinity but left before is ordination. The Catholic church used to have a rigerous screening process that was largly succesful in sorting those aberant individuals (pedophiles) from those truly called. But due to the rise in pluralism and decline in vocations the bar for admission was lowered. At least this is my understanding of the problem. You also have bishops who seem to be loath to admit the falibility of the church. This seems to be a historic trend (see Galileo)