Posted on 07/18/2007 1:48:09 PM PDT by topcat54
Cardinal Roger Mahony has announced that the Church will pay out $660 million to more than 500 victims of sexual abuse by priests. It’s the Catholic Church’s failure to act swiftly and decisively on the matter that has disillusioned and enraged church members and victims. No one likes a cover-up, especially religious devotees who believe the church is a means of salvation and priests are mediators between the people and God. But there remains a more sinister cover-up.
The Church must come to grips with reality and admit that the priesthood is so dominated by homosexuals that Paul Wilkes, who studied 600 parishes for his book Excellent Catholic Parishes: A Guide to Best Places and Practices, makes this telling observation, “If we drove all the gay priests out of the priesthood, our Masses would be on videotape.”1
I find it interesting that all the sexual abuse is done exclusively by pedophiles, seemingly a heterosexual malady. Are we to believe that not one case of sexual misconduct can be attributed to a single homosexual priest? There are anywhere from 8,000 to 22,000 homosexual priests. If the priesthood is made up of such a high percentage of homosexuals, then it stands to reason that at least a high percentage of the church’s so-called pedophile problem is really a homosexual problem.
The church’s unbiblical, illogical, and irrational policy that priests must not marry and remain celibate is being blamed for the sexual scandal. Such an argument is off the mark. Has anyone noticed that the priests aren’t, in 95 percent of reported cases, having sex with teenage girls? The male priests are having sex with young male parishioners. The problem of sex abuse is not because of celibacy; it’s homosexuality. Homosexual men are becoming priests because that’s where young, impressionable, and vulnerable boys are found. Of course, the idea that priests should remain unmarried is a religious fiction given that priests in the Old Testament were married and had children (Ex. 6:23), and Peter, the supposed first pope, was also married (Matt. 8:14; 1 Cor. 9:5; cf. 1 Tim. 3:4–5).
The Roman Catholic Church has had a difficult time recruiting men to the priesthood. Homosexuals see this as an opportunity. Why not go where there’s an almost unlimited supply of young boys whose parents consider priests to be god-like? Are we surprised that the Boy Scouts have also become a target of homosexuals? Once again, it’s where boys can be found for recruitment purposes. Liberals attack the Scouts for not opening its leadership ranks to admitted homosexuals, while these same critics attack the Catholic Church for giving “pedophile priests” easy access to children of the same age.
Catholics are taught that priests and nuns are spiritually special and set apart for God’s work. I can still remember sitting in my fifth grade class at St. Germaine’s Catholic School in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, when Father Hugo would enter the class. Sister Mary Josephine would always ask, “Who wants to be a priest when he grows up?” Only one boy, my best friend at the time, Salvatore LaMarca, refused to raise his hand. Of course we wanted to be a priest. Being a priest was a one-way ticket to heaven. It was like getting a “Get out of Hell Free” card.
Devout families—and predator priests frequently chose their victims from the most ardent parishioners—had been taught for generations to exalt, respect and trust priests. Who could imagine dear Father Tim—who came to dinner, played with the kids, counseled mom, acted like a dad—would do something so sinful? Doubting the priest would cost you your spiritual security.2
It’s no accident that early Hollywood designated the priest as the most trusted of film characters. Spencer Tracy, Bing Crosby, and Pat O’Brien made their careers with movies like Angels with Dirty Faces, Boys Town, Going My Way, and The Bells of St. Mary’s. Every parish dreamed of having a Father Flanagan for its priest or a priest who just looked like Pat O’Brien. Notice that almost in every case the priest was a friend and confidant to young boys. It came with the territory. Parents always knew their children were safe with a priest.
Film-making in the early years was nearly dominated by Jews, as Neal Gabler describes in his highly informative book An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood. Even so, Catholic clergy were almost universally depicted as decent and caring spiritual leaders. Louis B. Mayer “was a close friend and a great admirer of New York’s Cardinal Spellman, with whom he dined every time he visited New York, and a large portrait of Spellman in his red vestments was the first sight that greeted visitors to Mayer’s library.”3 It was the church’s “respectability” that impressed Mayer. “If a character appeared on screen wearing a clerical collar it served as a sure sign that the audience was supposed to like him.”4
Toby Westerman reports, “A gay culture is growing among clergy of the American Catholic Church that receives support from members of the hierarchy as well as from those directly involved in the training of priests, according to a Catholic priest-theologian.”5 The Vatican has found it nearly impossible to police its seminaries. Much of the problem is a lack of will and fear of a backlash from an already depleted clergy.
There has been a redirection of focus from a discussion of homosexuality to pedophilia, a nearly universally despised predatory behavior. The charge of pedophilia is being used as a smoke screen by homosexuals to fly under the sexual radar. While the general public excoriates the pedophiles among us, the homosexuals go merrily along debauching young men in the name of sexual tolerance.
In the April 1, 2002 issue of U.S. News & World Report, homosexuality was mentioned only once in the eight-page article on the Catholic sex crisis. Rev. Joel Garner, pastor of a Catholic church in Albuquerque, New Mexico, is quick to point out in the article that “the pedophilia problem has nothing to do with celibacy or homosexuality.”6 Throughout the article, the sex scandal is called a “sex-abuse scandal,” “youth-sex-abuse,” “sexual misconduct,” “predatory sexual behavior,” but never a homosexual problem. Author Marianne Szegedy-Maszak, confuses the readers of U.S. News even more (on purpose?) when she reports, “Despite the common image of a priest sodomizing a 9-year-old altar boy, most of the priest abusers are technically ‘ephebophiles’—that is, they abuse adolescents rather than children.”7 In any other dictionary, the description of an ephebophile would be a practicing predatory homosexual.
The article begs the question. It’s not just “adolescents” who the priests are abusing, it’s adolescent boys. If pedophilia is the problem, then why aren’t the priests having sex with young girls in the church? The church is covering up its crisis to save its reputation, and it’s no less true that thesereporters are covering up for the homosexual rights movement. John Leo, an editorial writer for U.S. News, touches on the real issue when he writes that true pedophiles are rare, and the super majority of the priests involved in this sex crisis are not pedophiles. “But the church is reluctant to mention the distinction,” Leo writes, “most likely because opening up the issue of sexually active gay priests is itself explosive, even apart from charges of abuse.”
The homosexual lobby is so powerful and intimidating that almost no one wants to suffer from its unbridled wrath. So for cover, the priests are charged with pedophilia in order to hide the fact that homosexuality is the real culprit.
2. Johanna McGeary, “Can the Church Be Saved?,” Time (April 1, 2002), 31.
3. Neal Gabler, An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood (New York: Crown Publishers, 1988), 285.
4. Michael Medved, Hollywood VS. America: Popular Culture and the War on Traditional Values (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 51. Roman Catholic and Episcopalian clergymen (e.g., Life with Father and The Bisho’s Wife) were most often chosen to represent the church because they were easily identified because of their clerical garb, most specifically a special collar. Most Protestant clergymen wear no special attire. They generally look like businessmen.
5. Toby Westerman, “Suffer the Children: ‘Gay’ culture in Catholic Church grows Priest says scandal really about homosexuality, not pedophilia,” World Net Daily (March 24, 2002).
6. Angie Cannon and Jeffery L. Sheler, “Catholicsin Crisis,” U.S. News & World Report (April 1, 2002), 57.
7. Marianne Szegedy-Maszak, AChastity and lust: Is there a psychological link between sexuality, celibacy, and predation?,” 55.
8. John Leo, “Of rage and revolution,” 12.
hahahahahaha... Thanks. I needed the laugh!
Is that all he or she did? Wait to you receive one of his or her profanity laced freepmails. I had to hide the children. :-)
Of course, it is NEVER personal when they accuse ALL Catholics of worshipping Mary.
post them now or retract your statement.
That's absurd. When the Presbyterians or the Lutherans or the Methodists in Los Angeles pay out $774 million to settle sexual molestation lawsuits, then you might have a point.
Have you seen this? Report: Protestant Church Insurers Handle 260 Sex Abuse Cases a Year
Insurance provided for years as a means of dealing with a problem acknowledges that the issue does indeed pop up, and is subsequently proven or not. And if you read the article, settlements are paid out every year.
There are plenty of Roman Catholics on this forum rightly castigating these licentious, sociopathic priests who don't feel compelled to resort to the lame and fraudulent excuse that "everyone does it."
Neither lame nor fraudulent. Sadly, predators and pedophiles are not confined to the Catholic Church. Predators and pedophiles will go where they think their victims are - teachers, janitors, coaches, clergy. I know - all that goes without saying. I am pleased that the problem is being addressed (in the Church) and those poser-priests (and let's be clear, they are posers) and those who protected them are being rooted out and punished. At one time there was a psychological screening to try to prevent unsuitable candidates from entering the priesthood (such screenings were in place until the 60's I believe - something they ought to retry/revamp, just as other employers like the postal service and teachers use(d). But the problem is two-fold as far as I see it. The abuse problem in the Catholic Church which I am a member of and which is a horrible thing and is being dealt with (at last). And the larger problem of pedophiles and predators in our society as a whole, sickos looking for an 'in' to any group who will have them. Because one is naive if one believes that 'it is a Catholic Church' problem or that it somehow, and sadly I've heard this, a 'proof' of the belief by some anti-Catholic folks that the Catholic church is somehow false.
Everyone doesn't do it.
Everyone doesn't do it? I beg to differ. And to find any solution to the issue for the Catholic Church and for our society, we need to acknowledge that it does and that we can work together to find solutions.
"...no one lets their kids go into the confessional booths any longer."
That is patently false and I believe she knows it.
While I certainly agree with that assessment, I did not make the statement. Harley did.
Private Freepmails and emails are not to be posted onthread. However, they can be sent to me by Freepmail or included in an abuse report.
lolol.
I insist that he either produce the freepmail, to you if necessary for verification, or retract his statement.
Petronski incorrectly attributed that statement to me, but Harley made the post in #192, and I wholeheartedly agreed with him. I added that this might be one reason why the RC confessional booths were being used less and less.
When Petronski asked for proof of this assertion, I linked him to the following FR thread...
No word yet on Petronski's reaction to that proof.
And while I'm not attributing motives to Petronski, I wish he would post more carefully and accurately in the future.
Thanks for the link. Interesting article.
I’ve been reading the posts in order and did not see this one. Of course I will abide by your instructions.
We know from independent insurance reports which are released, that abuse cases are reported and settlements paid out each year among Protestant denominations. Is the number 1 percent? A half a percent? There should be zero tolerance for abuse by clergy on any person in every denomination.
We really have to remember this post because this ludicrous garbage is what the RCC is telling its members.
Curiously, when my local church discusses the issue with us, or mentions the comments of others in the church, the abuse numbers in Protestant churches doesn't come up.
I saw it on CNN initially. It seems to be an independent (non-denominational) source which routinely makes public it’s results.
On the third allegation, your posts 122, 130 and 227 attribute motive to the other poster which is "making it personal" - but fall short of a direct accusation.
On the allegation by Invincibly Ignorant, there will be consequences one way or the other whether evidence is forthcoming by Freepmail or not - unless I see an apology right now.
To all of you and everyone else watching this thread:
I would just like to point out that, when speaking of Roman Catholic priests, this is not about "predators and pedophiles". It about repressed homosexuality. It about men who would prefer to be having sex with other men, but it is against their official code of conduct. Most adult males would be shocked if a homo-priest made a pass at them. So they are forced to prey on younger (>90% of the victims have been male) men who are more naive and less likely to out the homosexual priest ... or so they thought.
And it's about a hierarchy that does not want to admit it has a homosexual problem in the ranks.
Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures." -- James 1:17-18"Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
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