The false attack on the RC church

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The massive attack on the RC church these days reminds of the Nazi-strategy: blaming an entire religion and group of people for the mistakes some of them made.

I can only assume that this poster is somehow an agent of the Vatican. The facts of the Vatican covering up many cases of priesthood pederasty and reassigning priests to continue their criminal activity are totally clear and disgusting in an organization supposedly devoted to decent morality.

See http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2010 ... _revea.php

Ah yes, the usual ploy. Invoke the Nazis.

The pedophile priests are selected by the Church therefore the management of the Church is responsible for what these pedophile priests do you youngsters.

A general principle: The empolyer is responsible legally and ethically for the doings of employees on company time using company facilities. It is the Church that gives access to vulnerable young victims to these perverts.

ruveyn

Sorry, that is absurd. You're comparing the attempted extermination of the Jewish race with some people bad-mouthing the church in the press??? Are you being paid to write this utterly offensive crap?

Sex abuse in the RC church is not isolated. There are thousands of cases - most of them are systematically covered up. The church consistently protects its priests instead of it followers - offenders are often simply relocated to other parishes. The Pope is a heartless bastard who instead of sympathizing with the victims goes on a PR compaign to blame the media for the negative publicity this has generated. And of course the real heart of the issue is the outdated and utterly idiotic idea of celibacy : sex drive is a normal human urge, and in an environement where it is supressed, it _will_ find ways to come out. The RC church will always be plagued with abuse of children as long as children are the easiest option for priests. With the massive number of abuses, the RC church simply has to be declared a hazard to children, and children must be barred from it. Were the church a social club or a website, it would already have had these safeguards imposed on it by governments, but instead we leave it up to the Pope to fix it, on the foolish assumption that he actually gives a crap.

Jews do not constitute a race. They are a cultural/ethic group. Jews come in all sizes, skin tones and hair styles.

ruveyn

I don't really follow headlines attacking one church or another. But you have to be living under a rock not to pick up on some nasty stuff going on in the Catholic church.

I get the impression the poster is more referring to how contemporary believers are still being blamed for the sins of the past. The Inquisition comes to mind, as well as atrocities committed during the Crusades. The Crusades were more of a "will of God" kind of thing that were initially effective, if one were to draw parallels between the Church and the Holy Wars of early Israelite history (post-Exodus). I think it's clear NOW that the people who actually carried out the later Crusades acted contrary to proper Biblical understanding, what you might call the "Law of Peace." God expects that nations will wage wars to protect themselves and their interests. But "taking the Lord's name in vain" (misusing God's name) clearly has real-world consequences as we can see in Church or Church-related abuses such as Holy Wars/Crusades and Inquisitions/Witch-Hunts.

Most Catholics, I'm sure, will acknowledge that "the mistakes some of them made" constitute an embarrassing blot on their history. It took Martin Luther and others taking an incredible risk on their social status and possibly their lives, basically saying, "What? You gonna kill ALL of us?" to effect a crisis within the church and begin the Counter-Reformation. The Catholic church did make significant strides towards reform with the Council of Trent, though it probably shouldn't have taken that long! By then, of course, the damage had been done.

I do think that reports of abuse in the Church are exaggerated. True, but exaggerated. In my former life as a public school teacher, I got to hear a lot of stories about school district policy of "passing the trash." It's a no-win situation. If you make allegations against ONE person and firing them is a big, public affair with little actual evidence, than the teacher can sue for defamation. If there IS evidence, then parents might try to make a case against the district, saying that the district knew what was going on and failed to act. If the district DOES act quickly, it still reflects poorly on the district. The only way to handle it is keep things quiet and PRAY that it never happens again, or that it happens in a different district.

Sounds to me like the same kind of thing is going on in the Church. My opinion is this arises out of the demands placed on priests, especially that whole celibacy thing. To my recollection, Paul was the main proponent for celibacy, and even he said it wasn't for everyone. I was researching a related topic for a WP women's issues thread and discovered a verse I'd not seen before--basically saying that it's better for men to never marry if it carries the risk of unfaithful partnership and unfair treatment of wives, a conclusion the disciples drew on their own based on Jesus' teachings. Beyond that, the Bible offers overwhelming support in FAVOR of marriage and family. I say a priest who can effectively lead and manage his own family is a better example than a celibate one. But, as I said, that's only my opinion. Paul's reasoning was that marriage and family was a distraction from total obedience to God. I think that accusations of abuse in the Church, which no doubt is exaggerated by the media (not untruthfully reported, just blown out of proportion in the amount of reporting it has received) are symptomatic of a condition perpetuated by (maybe) a misunderstanding of Biblical qualifications for pastorship. I think the whole celibacy thing is designed to avoid both marital stress and adultery. Unfortunately it opens the door to other problems, which is what we're seeing now.

Not that marriage is the be-all and end-all solution to immorality. I think Jimmy Swaggart embodies the guilt that the Catholics initially sought to avoid, and Swaggart represents only one of many other incidents in the Protestant world concerning adultery. Something I personally witnessed in my college years was when I'd bring my girlfriend to church (the one I eventually married). That's when I began to notice how touchy-feely he was with the ladies, and my wife is a naturally affectionate person anyway. I pulled her aside after church one Sunday and suggested she just "give him the shoulder." Those full-on body hugs lasted a little bit long for my comfort.

There are worse things that go on in Protestant churches than big hugs (see Swaggart reference)--whole families and churches splitting up because Bro. Jimmy likes Aunt Sadie's peach cobbler a little too much. Funny how you don't really hear about that so much as you do about what Father David's been doing with the altar boys. I mean, come on, is that really anything new?

As a Catholic, I do get tired of people who want to paint the entire church with one bold brush stroke. The church, per se, is bigger than the pope, bigger than the beaurocracy in Rome, and bigger than any one opinionated faction within it. I see far more good than bad, and that good tends to go quietly about it's day to day work without making any headlines.

But I have to agree the current pope is mishandling the PR on this one, and many church leaders before him made poor decisions.

Remember that the church is not it's leaders, and it should not be solely defined by it's many mistakes.

And will the leaders basically change? Not likely. It's not a PR problem its a basic moral problem and that's a fundamental problem not to be lightly brushed away.

I was raised a catholic but have left the church, I won't be a part of such an evil church run by pedophile priests and popes.
My mom and aunts were in residential school and were all sexually abused by these monsters as children, so I have absolutely no sympathy for the popes troubles, I don't think people wanting their church to own up to their indiscretions makes them nazis.
Are the children who were molested by these perverts nazis?

I don't think it's right to judge all Catholics by a few wayward priests, but said priests should be held accountable for their actions, rather than be reassigned to another congregation. What's equally disturbing is that they would do this, while at the same time diligently crusading against abortion.

Texas' legal system is probably why we haven't had as many cases with such priests. The DPS did arrest and prosecute an Orthodox priest in a sex abuse scandal near San Antonio, and of course, there was the YFZ polygamist raid a couple of years ago (they were already escaping prosecution in Arizona).

Last edited by Tim_Tex on 06 Apr 2010, 2:29 pm, edited 3 times in total.

People tend to remember others by their mistakes more than they remember them for any good they do. Especially if verbally assaulting others on the basis of association helps them to feel more secure in their ideological position or otherwise benefits them emotionally. In this case, the actions of crappy leadership are being blamed upon all members throughout all generations past, present, and future... it is the asymptote of absurdity for the fallacy of composition.

The Catholic Church is responsible for some of the most notorious atrocities in world history. People were literally burned alive (and tortured while incarcerated) simply because they wrote the Bible in english, etc, etc, etc. Most Catholics, secretly, have disdain for the Church.

They freaked out about an English Bible? I assume they don't know about the LOLCat Bible then.

http://www.lolcatbible.com/index.php?title=Main_Page

Whether the laity of the Catholic Church is "sinful" is not what's at issue, and the problem isn't merely one of publicity. Pope Benedict XVI's mistake was in trying to cover up the pedophilia. Child molestation and rape is a crime, not a mere sin for the Church to handle internally. Keeping these priests exposed to vulnerable children exacerbates the problem. The Church hierarchy is definitely culpable. This isn't even getting into the Church's stance on consensual adult sexuality.

Yes, the Church may also engage in charitable acts, but that doesn't make pedophilia/pederasty and the cover-up thereof okay.

Had the priests been held accountable for their actions, this whole thing would be a non issue. Since the church management obstructed justice, criminal law and ethics they are being held to task. And by all current indications, they refuse to be held accountable for their actions. Give them no sympathy.

When you hide dirt, you get dirt on yourself.

NERO WASN'T ROME.
ROME IS BIGGER THAN THE EMPEROR (But what is he wearing?)
Hitler wasn't Germany
Germany is bigger than Hitler
The Holy Roman Empire was bigger than Germany
The original Roman Empire was bigger than that
You live in Rome but you are not Nero.
Who cares, he's just fiddling!
Wake up!
What's Cooking? Who cares?
Lets just roam around Rome.
Smells like fire and brim stone.

The pied piper saved you from rats. Hooray!
The pied piper has returned! Yay!
The pied piper has left, oh,
green grow the rushes go... or something like that.