Posted on 03/03/2013 5:07:33 PM PST by Mrs. Don-o
The publication last week of the Irish government's McAleese Report on the Magdalene laundries has proved kind of awkward for Catholic-bashers. For the thorough, 1,000-page study found not a single incident of sexual abuse by a nun. Not one. Also, the vast majority of its interviewees said they were never physically punished in the laundries.
As one woman said, "It has shocked me to read in papers that we were beat and our heads shaved and that we were badly treated by the nuns… I was not touched by any nun and I never saw anyone touched."
The authors seem to have been taken aback by "the number of women who spoke positively about the nuns".
And yet, some are wondering out loud if it was nonetheless legitimate and good to have produced so many embellished stories about evil nuns in recent years, as a way of highlighting the broader culture of abuse in the Catholic Church.
[snip]
When the Irish government published its Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse for the period 1950 to 2002, newspaper headlines declared "Thousands raped in Ireland's Christian Brothers schools". But actually, the commission heard allegations of 68 rapes, not thousands.
Anyone who points out that reports and depictions of abuse in Catholic institutions have been overblown risks being denounced as an abuse apologist, peskily committed to historical accuracy rather than to the grander goal of making the Catholic Church appear as rotten and warped as possible, regardless of the facts.
Yet those of us, even atheists like me, who are genuinely interested in truth.
Catholic-bashers frequently accuse the Catholic religion of promoting a childish narrative of good and evil that is immune to factual evidence. Yet they do precisely the same, in the service of their fashionable and irrational new religion of anti-Catholicism.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.telegraph.co.uk ...
Did I say all of them were perverted homosexuals? No!
You do not like it because it is the truth.
Th truth just angers the people attacking the church.
Regardless, True pedophilia is the attraction to children, pre-pubescent children. It is and always has been.
The Liberals will always try to push the envelope. They are all sick souls who are Godless. They use God for their own desires and toss him when they feel they know better. It is only a matter of time until our society rivals the worst aspects of Rome in the time of Empire.
Home Run. Exactly the point.
you obviously know nothing about confession....a priest would NEVER give absolution to a child rapist without ordering him to go to the authorities with his confession.
That is why the Bishops moved all the known child molestors around from parish to parish to protect them from exposure to the congregations and authoities....
You are a tad out to lunch on what happened with the Catholic perv operation. Cardnial Law of Boston had to be hidden in the Vatican as it was discovered by Boston and State authorities that he was no better than a madam for child molesting perv ring for years.
I quite agree. Just pointing out that attitudes towards attraction to pubescent and adolescent children have changed in recent decades.
and this original post is in the religion forum about the catholic church not about schools....reminds me of when I was young and tried to deflect attention by saying my brother did worse
I have no ‘story’....The catholic church has a particular structure. Not all churches have the same structure. Much of what happened in the US happened because no one could imagine that their parish priest would ever do anything wrong.
Moreover it is the roman church that prevents their priests from marrying and was more than willing to allow homosexuals into the priesthood.
Do other churches have problems? Sure they do but this article was about the roman church. Don’t be mad at me for that
see post number 48
"Cardnial Law of Boston had to be hidden in the Vatican as it was discovered by Boston and State authorities that he was no better than a madam for child molesting perv ring for years."
Straight out false, and easy to document as well: no criminal charge has ever been lodged against Cardinal Law ---regrettable as it may seem. He was fully investigated by the (MA) state attorney general and the district attorneys in the 5 counties of the Archdiocese, and he gave evidence before two grand juries. All of these attorneys general, after years of horrible press and intense scrutiny, nevertheless concluded that Law had not tried to evade investigation and had not broken any laws.
Do you want to put him in jail? Frankly, there are at least four bishops who ought to be sitting in jail, in my opinion. But actual criminal investigators have found that what bishops did was not indictable crime, but serious, repeated lapses in pastoral judgment.
If there were a warrant out on Cardinal Law, they could have picked him up at any time on the street in front of Sta. Maria Maggiore, which is not in the Vatican but in the state of Italy, with which the US has an extradition treaty.
Like I said, I think there is a handful of bishops who are guilty as hell --- "filth," Pope Benedict said --- but almost every time, criminal investigation turns up, not indictable collusion on the part of various bishops, but naivete, inertia and jaw-dropping neglect.
If I had the power, there would be millstones handing around approx. four bishops' necks, and they'd be thrown into the sea. But since I don't, I guess we'll have to wait for the ultimate judgment, and the fiery verdict to come.
It's true, for at least two reasons: first, because most priests were genuine, God-loving and sacrificed themselves for the sake of their flocks. And second, because he offenders were charming, skilled liars, and sociopaths. Almost always, when the SHTF, parishioners' first reaction was "I can't believe it. Not Father Kevin! He's so good with the kids!"
However you'll have to explain to me what being married has to do with it. Is marriage cure for pedophilia? (Who knew??) How'd that work out for Jerry Sandusky? Or Roman Polanski?
The fact is that a marriage vow -- like a priestly vow --- is the perfect cover for an abuser. Think of Oscar Wilde, married, father of two children, and out all hours &#$%ing stable hands, young guys in pubs, and the rent boys of London.
Like I said, I think there is a handful of bishops who are guilty as hell -— “filth,” Pope Benedict said -—
There were never charges lodged against him, neither by victims nor by the legal authorities.
I understand the disgust, which I fully share (though I don't live in Boston, this hit me hard) -- but we judge by facts. The facts were "no criminal indictment".
According to the Associated Baptist Press, for the past 6 years the Southern Baptist Convention has refused to implement any of the following:
I'm not posting this to disrespect my Baptist brethren. I'm posting it because it's not likely to be reported in the mainstream news anytime soon. Catholic news items may be more fashionable but they don't go very far in protecting kids in churches, schools or other institutions that haven't come close to implementing the kind of safeguards you'll find for kids now in Catholic dioceses across the country.
Sincere question then, and not offered in a spirit of snark: Why, then, did two grand juries, one state attorney’s office, and five county (district) attorneys say that, despite mountains of evidence against individual predator priests, they did not have evidence that their ecclesiastical superior, Cardinal Law, broke the law or obstructed justice?
Ole Madam Law did not hang around to find out if the trap would close on him in Boston as the crimes, victims and prosecutions added up. He fled to the Vatican and has not returned to the scene of his many crimes.
If the church confesses it’s sin and repents, it will be forgiven and it will flourish again. If it continues to embrace sin and make excuses for it, good luck with that “religion.”
The article was about roman catholics not baptists....had it been about baptists I would have commented on them. Secondarily baptists do not have the same organizational structure that the roman church has.
I am done now.
However. It is still actually puzzling to the that they didn't bust Cardinal Law, if anything Law did was provable and indictable, since all classes of people were against him, including the Ruling Class: the Globe, the other media, non-Catholics and particularly Catholics, who rightly detested his role as excuser, enabler, almost accessory. If he'd been indicted there would have been a robust roar of "throw the book at him" all around, and understandably. At the end, he had no protectors.
So why didn't they?
I am not "in the know," I haven't an inner ear for this. But what I suspect, is that his lenient handling of abusers was the universal modus operandi at the time. Due to "therapeutic" and "protect the institution" priorities, for decades police didn't arrest, prosecutors didn't prosecute, victims were told to "move on," seek counselsing and "move toward healing", not "re-traumatize" themselves pursuing prosecutions or giving testimony in court.
Not only weren't pederast clergy prosecuted: on-the-make judges, touchy-feely younth counselors, sex-seeking juvenile corrections officers, politicians with a penchant for under-age entertaiment, rich philanthropists with alcohol problems, addiction problems, "sexual boundary issues," etc. were also not prosecuted.
So if they opened that can 'o' worms, there would be more prosecutions than the system could handle.
So they "came to an understanding" and let the top people slide.
That's my guess.
Yours?
Yours?
I really do.
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