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Why I am a Catholic
NY Post ^ | April 4, 2010 | CAROLYN E. DAVIS

Posted on 04/04/2010 3:57:33 AM PDT by Scanian

Sure, it was explained to me when I converted that the gate would be narrow, but I had no idea. Born “nothing,” I completed my adult catechism and chose to become a Catholic in 2000, to the thinly veiled displeasure of people close to me. Archbishop Fulton Sheen put it right when he said, “There are not over a hundred people in the US that hate the Catholic Church, there are millions, however, who hate what they wrongly believe to be the Catholic Church, which is, of course, quite a different thing.”

Now the horrific replay of the 2002 clerical sexual-abuse scandals has again stirred up sadness, anger and the inevitable stream of negative postings on my social-networking feeds.

But there is zero tolerance for pedophiles in the Church today. And the test of moral credibility the Holy See is charged with really applies to the whole church — not just clergy but the whole mystical body of Christ.

(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...


TOPICS: Catholic; Current Events; Moral Issues; Religion & Culture
KEYWORDS: conversion; jesus; sin; spedophilia
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1 posted on 04/04/2010 3:57:33 AM PDT by Scanian
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To: Scanian; netmilsmom; thefrankbaum; markomalley; Tax-chick; GregB; saradippity; Berlin_Freeper; ...

Carolyn E. Davis

The Catholic Church is more than this scandal. I, for one, want to help serve with a church that has done more to help the sick, poor, hungry, suffering and forgotten than any other group in recorded human history.

Blessed Easter to Ms. Davis and all of you!

Catholic Ping
Please freepmail me if you want on/off this list


2 posted on 04/04/2010 4:11:23 AM PDT by NYer ("Where Peter is, there is the Church." - St. Ambrose of Milan)
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To: Scanian

One of the things nobody points out is that during the time the worst cases occurred, in the 1970s and 1880s, child molesting was punished in the secular world with virtually nothing but a few years of therapy. Even pedophiles who had murdered children were “treated” and released after 5 years or so, and of course went on to kill again.

And homosexual pursuit of adolescent boys by adult males (which was what most of the clerical cases were) was not punished at all and in fact people like Obama’s candidate for a schools administration post publicly expressed the opinion that it was just fine and even beneficial.

The Church should have held to its view of these things as sin and punished them firmly within its capacity to do so, which would have been immediate removal from the clerical state. But even then, the Church’s options for punishment are pretty limited and consist mainly in handing these people over to secular authorities - for what at the time would have been a trivial punishment, usually consisting of “therapy” at some lightly supervised residential place that was more like a resort. So we have to keep in mind that the secular world was not good on this issue, either, particularly when it involved homosexuals.


3 posted on 04/04/2010 4:12:09 AM PDT by livius
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To: livius

My standard answer to people who rail about the Church is that pedophilia is not a Catholic doctrine. It does, however, fall into that of homosexuality, which has to abuse children in order to create new homosexuals.

The Church has been infiltrated in order to bring it down from within. What is ridiculous though, is many of the people who attack the Church support such perversions as homosexuality and the lowering of the age of consent, as well as removing children from being under the care and responsibility of their parents.


4 posted on 04/04/2010 4:21:25 AM PDT by kenth
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To: NYer
God is all just and all merciful.

This means no matter your faith,behavior or station in life,your afterlife will be exactly what you deserve.

Some of these theological naval-gazing threads are interesting,yet they are still infinitely irrelevant.

Live a good life then have a good life.

Pithy and correct.

5 posted on 04/04/2010 4:47:52 AM PDT by Happy Rain ( "Tyranny's End In 2010--Delivered From Hell In 2012!")
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To: livius
"One of the things nobody points out is that during the time the worst cases occurred, in the 1970s and 1880s, child molesting was punished in the secular world with virtually nothing but a few years of therapy."

That is just flat out not true. Are there instances where that did happen? Probably. But it was certainly not the norm.

6 posted on 04/04/2010 4:55:06 AM PDT by circlecity
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To: Happy Rain

Happy Rain going to be man who is guest columnist for NY POST next week. Happy Rain be Happy Writer.


7 posted on 04/04/2010 5:04:52 AM PDT by campaignPete R-CT ("pray without ceasing" - Paul of Tarsus)
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To: circlecity
Dear circlecity,

It is quite true.

Sure, folks whose crimes became public would be prosecuted, but most of these cases were hushed up by most segments in society, whether it was church (not just the Catholic Church), law enforcement, the medical establishment, the therapeutic establishment.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, I was studying to become a clinical psychologist. Laws were just then changing to require that psychotherapists report confessions of child sexual abuse on the part of clients to law enforcement. This was very controversial. I remember that my professors were pretty much all universally horrified at the idea that they would be required to report these cases to the police. Previously, this sort of thing was usually handled therapeutically.

The Catholic Church actually ran a center in suburban Maryland in part to treat molestor priests. This was out in the open. No one was hiding this fact. Everyone in the community knew what was the subject of therapy at St. Luke's. Including the police. I promise, the police never raided the place to gather up all the molestors in residence who were being treated.

I remember at the time that it was the universal opinion of folks that this was the best, most effective way to treat molestors. I remember that the views in my then-chosen profession were just beginning to change. Previously, it had been thought that pursuing criminal charges against molestors was damaging to the VICTIMS. It was often concern for the VICTIMS that caused different institutions in our society to come to confidential agreements, to avoid open, public criminal trials, to divert offenders to therapy.

Remember that it wasn't so long ago that to have been sexually assaulted was to have imposed on oneself a great mark of deep shame. Even today, newspapers don't usually publish the names of folks who have suffered sexual assault. It was a common belief that it was best for the victim to put the abuse behind him or her, and not expose victims to publicity or long, drawn-out proceedings that would daily remind them of their abuse.

That was the norm.


sitetest

8 posted on 04/04/2010 5:14:59 AM PDT by sitetest ( If Roe is not overturned, no unborn child will ever be protected in law.)
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To: sitetest

Well, during the 70’s and 80’s I both prosecuted and defended child molesters and what you say was NOT the norm in Indiana. When convicted they generally went to jail for a long time. I don’t have to rely on what “my professors” said, I was there in the trenches and I know what you say is not true.


9 posted on 04/04/2010 5:23:03 AM PDT by circlecity
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To: circlecity
Dear circlecity,

I didn't say that no one was prosecuted.

I merely said that most cases never became matters of law enforcement.

And in many jursidictions, law enforcement didn't exactly actively pursue every suspicion of child sexual abuse.

Otherwise, places like St. Luke's couldn't have existed.


sitetest

10 posted on 04/04/2010 5:25:52 AM PDT by sitetest ( If Roe is not overturned, no unborn child will ever be protected in law.)
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To: circlecity

There are many instances. If you look at sentencing, particularly in California, parts of the Pacific Northwest, and some of the Northeastern states, you will find totally trivial sentences for pedophiles who had even gone so far as to murder their victims. In the Idaho case of a few years ago, where a man kidnapped and sexually assaulted two children, torturing them and killing one before he was caught, it turned out that he had already raped and killed another child only a few years before. He had received “therapy” and a trivial sentence for this.

It is hardly the only case. It is only in recent years that even therapists are acknowledging that therapy does not cure pedophiles; and nobody is even discussing the real problem in most of the cases in the Catholic Church, which is not pedophilia but the pursuit by homosexual men of adolescent boys - something that is not even punished if the boy is technically over the age of consent, and generally ignored even if he isn’t. Remember Obama’s recent candidate for a schools position, who had even come out endorsing male adult/child sexual engagement. This was his public position during the 1970s, and was the position of many others at that time.

The real problem was that the Church ceased to rely on its defnition of sin and and substituted psychological definitions of morality. And at the time that most of the worst of the cases happened in the Church, it was governed by the psychological approach to child molesters (and no approach at all to homosexual males who chased teenage boys).


11 posted on 04/04/2010 5:34:12 AM PDT by livius
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To: sitetest

Now you are changing what you said. In your original post you said “child molesting was punished in the secular world with virtually nothing but a few years of therapy.” And I pointed out this is totally wrong. The secular punished child molest severely. Perhaps in the very narrow confines of the clinical acedemic world it was not reported to police, but then and now that was never how most child molesters where caught in the first place.


12 posted on 04/04/2010 5:34:15 AM PDT by circlecity
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To: circlecity
Dear circlecity,

“Now you are changing what you said. In your original post you said ‘child molesting was punished in the secular world with virtually nothing but a few years of therapy.’”

I didn’t say that.

I said some folks were prosecuted, most never went through the criminal justice system.

I also said that many were treated therapeutically with full knowledge of law enforcement, who did not attempt any criminal prosecution whatsoever.


sitetest

13 posted on 04/04/2010 5:46:46 AM PDT by sitetest ( If Roe is not overturned, no unborn child will ever be protected in law.)
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To: sitetest; livius

Very interesting. Thanks.


14 posted on 04/04/2010 5:53:31 AM PDT by bronxville
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To: Scanian; informavoracious; larose; RJR_fan; Prospero; Conservative Vermont Vet; ...
+

Freep-mail me to get on or off my pro-life and Catholic List:

Add me / Remove me

Please ping me to note-worthy Pro-Life or Catholic threads, or other threads of general interest.

15 posted on 04/04/2010 6:04:12 AM PDT by narses ("lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi")
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To: livius

“One of the things nobody points out is that during the time the worst cases occurred, in the 1970s and 1980s, child molesting was punished in the secular world with virtually nothing but a few years of therapy.”

Sentences served for homicides in the US averaged slightly more than 2 years in the late ‘90s.

The indulgence of criminals is not limited to the pedophiles. It is general and it is entrenched policy.


16 posted on 04/04/2010 9:31:32 AM PDT by Psalm 144 (What is a slave, but someone robbed of his labor to sustain the idle?)
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To: sitetest
"I said some folks were prosecuted, most never went through the criminal justice system."

Please show me one shred of objective evidence that shows "most" people caught child molesting never went through the criminal justice system. I would very much like to see this and how that number is quantified. Who counted them and how did they do so?

17 posted on 04/04/2010 10:17:01 AM PDT by circlecity
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To: Psalm 144

I will say that things began to change in the early 90’s - after many people had been killed by repeat offenders.


18 posted on 04/04/2010 10:41:53 AM PDT by livius
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To: circlecity

Why don’t you go do your own research, since you are making these off-the-wall charges.

The problem is that many of these people DID go through the criminal justice system - which gave them a slap on the wrist.

I knew an older Spanish priest once who told me that if anybody had done anything like this prior to the 1960s, he would have spent most of the rest of his life in a monastic jail, and if he had gotten out before he died, he would never have considered doing anything like this again. The problem was that the Church handed over its justice system to the civil authorities.

The US may have been more lax than Spain, but the problem was that after Vatican II, the Church adopted the secular justice program of whatever State it was in. Once that changed and the Church stopped disciplining its own (which was met with cries of joy by the New York Times), the entire structure collapsed.


19 posted on 04/04/2010 10:46:46 AM PDT by livius
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To: livius

There where’s the proof? My experience as a prosecutor and defense attorney shows just the opposite. I don’t have to rely on anecdotal and second hand evidence. Did some get off easy? Sure and those make the news but for every one of those there are dozens who went to jail for a long time. I know because I sent many there. Why can you cite nothing to back up your overarching claim? I need more authority than your own imagination.


20 posted on 04/04/2010 10:53:19 AM PDT by circlecity
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