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buffalo
Guest
Maybe, maybe not. Throw out a few names if you care to.
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Orionthehunter
Guest
From Frommi: “I think the problem is that you and I would disagree about who the good bishops in this country are and have been.”
From Buffalo: “Maybe, maybe not. Throw out a few names if you care to.”
Does anyone think the Church is served by debating the relative merits of individual Bishops? **I beg you two to please not get into this discussion. ** The Bishop we are called to love and submit to is whoever is your current Bishop.
From Buffalo: “Maybe, maybe not. Throw out a few names if you care to.”
Does anyone think the Church is served by debating the relative merits of individual Bishops? **I beg you two to please not get into this discussion. ** The Bishop we are called to love and submit to is whoever is your current Bishop.
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buffalo
Guest
Agreed.
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Goldy
Guest
This may be a bad analogy, but I sort of compare this with how the media handled the whole Abu Graib (sp.?) situation in Iraq. They simply beat the issue into the ground. I feel the same way about the abuse scandal. The way I look at it, yes this needed to be reported. But now I’m upset because the media keeps pounding and pounding and pounding. Ok, WE GOT IT!!! There was a pedophile problem in the Church. Now, please stop the reporting and let us (The Church) take care of it and correct it. By the way, if you don’t the media is anti-Catholic then you are living under a rather large rock!!
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buffalo
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The media has not reported that 85% of the cases were homosexual in that the boys were post-pubescent. They will not because of their agenda.
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frommi
Guest
Depends on the definition of ‘anti-Catholic’…if anti-Catholic means reporting the bad news as well as the good…then they are probably anti-Catholic.
But think about when Cardinal Bernadin died…the media in Chicago went non stop from Holy Name Cathedral and carried the funeral LIVE.
Cardinal O’Malley’s elevation a week ago was covered by a large throng of reporters from Boston.
The death of one Pope and election of another received balanced and fair coverage.
The secular media does not exist to be an infomercial for the Catholic church. They are going to present multiple sides of issues…including dissent.
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frommi
Guest
I find your definition here pretty interesting…so if the boys are post-pubescent it should be reported as homosexual behavior…interesting.
Most psychologists would point out that abuse and rape are almost always about power and rarely about sex. So I think you’re off on that one.
And again, trying to turn this whole issue into a “root the gays out of the church” kind of thing is yet another way to deflect responsibility. It tears at the moral authority of the church. You can’t come across blaming an entire group of people for the actions of a few.
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fix
Guest
Are they the same psychologists who claim same sex attraction is healthy?
Or are they the ones that told the bishops these men could be cured and said it was ok to place then back in their positions?
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Orionthehunter
Guest
Frommi, nobody is saying that to not be anti-Catholic, one can’t report the facts. But it is very hard not to see bias. Now part of this bias might be based on ignorance, but like we should hold the Church to a higher standard of moral conduct, I don’t think it to much to hold the press to a higher standard regarding being factual, in context, proportionate, and with knowledge.
Additionally, televising a funeral is not being pro-Catholic. In fact, to some degree, it shows an ignorance of Catholic Teaching. We don’t have funerals just to pay respects for a life well lived like the Protestants. They present our funerals like one big Eulogy. We do it to come together to pray for the repose of hte departed’s soul. Furthermore, the MSM’s coverage of the Cardinal’s or JPII’s funeral or an ordination wasn’t an indication of endorsement of hte Church but an indication that there were big segments of their market interested in the funeral and ordination (partially motivated out of curiousity).
Finally, the MSM shouldn’t be presenting “sides” (even if they do both sides) as that is dueling editorials. There job is to just give us the facts.
In my state, there are no Priests in the penetentiary for sex crimes but three protestant ministers. But, observing the media coverage, you’d think there were 50 Priests in teh pen and no protestants.
P.S. Frommi, I do agree w/ you that the scandal could be more an issue of predation than about sex. Predators don’t discrimminate based on preference but on availability. The Report, while confirming that the preponderance of the acts were against boys, it did not probe deep enought to determine if the underlying issue was homosexuality or predation.
IMHO, anyone who asserts it is either exclusively or even primarily an issue of sex are speaking from a congecture point of view (one that might be proven in the future) and not from the facts as currently available.
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buffalo
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Study the John Jay report - you will see it and you will also find something rather surprising. Molestations have been reported, investigated and prosecuted in many cases.
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buffalo
Guest
Pederasty - ( P ) Pronunciation Key
n. A man who has sexual relations, especially anal intercourse, with a boy.
Pedophilia - ( P ) Pronunciation Key
n. The act or fantasy on the part of an adult of engaging in sexual activity with a child or children.
n. A man who has sexual relations, especially anal intercourse, with a boy.
Pedophilia - ( P ) Pronunciation Key
n. The act or fantasy on the part of an adult of engaging in sexual activity with a child or children.
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buffalo
Guest
Catholic Church Must Face Its Homosexual Child Molester Problem
Washington, DC – According to Father Charles Fiore in a recent interview in WorldNetDaily, the Catholic Church isn’t facing the exposure of a network of pedophile priests. It is facing a crisis of homosexual priests who are repeatedly abusing teenage boys under their care.
As Father Fiore notes: “Strictly speaking, pedophilia is the sexual molestation of a pre-pubescent child of either sex. More than 90 percent of the cases involve the clerical molestation of teen-age young men.” Roderick MacLeish, a Boston lawyer who has defended nearly 400 sexual abuse victims, says that 90 percent of his clients were boys and 75 percent of those were teenagers.
Rev. Donald B. Cozzens, a seminary rector in Ohio has estimated that 90 percent of “priest abusers targeted teenage boys as their victims.”
more…
Washington, DC – According to Father Charles Fiore in a recent interview in WorldNetDaily, the Catholic Church isn’t facing the exposure of a network of pedophile priests. It is facing a crisis of homosexual priests who are repeatedly abusing teenage boys under their care.
As Father Fiore notes: “Strictly speaking, pedophilia is the sexual molestation of a pre-pubescent child of either sex. More than 90 percent of the cases involve the clerical molestation of teen-age young men.” Roderick MacLeish, a Boston lawyer who has defended nearly 400 sexual abuse victims, says that 90 percent of his clients were boys and 75 percent of those were teenagers.
Rev. Donald B. Cozzens, a seminary rector in Ohio has estimated that 90 percent of “priest abusers targeted teenage boys as their victims.”
more…
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Orionthehunter
Guest
I apologize to contributing to what may become a hijacking of this thread. This thread isn’t about whether the scandal was predation or homosexuality.
Buffalo and I have debated this issue on many threads. While he has linked to numerous sites in an effort to prove his opinion, we have had to agree to disagree as I interpret the same information differently.
Buffalo and I have debated this issue on many threads. While he has linked to numerous sites in an effort to prove his opinion, we have had to agree to disagree as I interpret the same information differently.
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frommi
Guest
Fair enough…I certainly get distracted by endless commentary during catholic services on TV…and who will ever forget Cher’s “eulogy” that was allowed at Sonny Bono’s funeral.
That being said…
The secular media is not supposed to have a ‘faith’, so it is not anti-Catholic to report things like the priest shortage and then point out the number of married men and/or women who would be willing to be priests if it were allowed.
What the media does POORLY, in my opinion, is that they manage to find extreme examples and protray them as the norm on an issue. When the Boston stuff broke, it was made out like there was an American church. The reality was that what was happnening in Boston had very little effect on what was happening in say, Tulsa. But no one had a good answer for the media on why the Pope wouldn’t do something…the media thought it was a corporate situation…when it truly wasn’t.
Lack of understanding of how the church is set up leads so often to misreporting and misunderstanding.
And yes, there is an acceptance of homosexuality, in the mainstream secular media. Again, where we don’t help ourselves in making our statements on the issue is that we allow the extremists to do the talking for the Catholic church. Instead of forcefully making the case that the church loves everyone and welcomes everyone in, we allow others to equate our staunch defense of one man/one woman marriage with homophobia. This makes it hard to evangelize, and even harder to dialogue openly about.
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snoopy
Guest
As the friend of someone who committed suicide after being raped by a priest, I can tell you for sure that it doesn’t matter whether you call it pedophilia or ebopilia. (spelling may not be correct), or whether the child was pre or post pubescent. I personally think that both terms are disgusting, horrifying and equal rape of a child. One term is not better than the other. Hopefully we can move past the correct term as it really doesn’t make any difference whether a child is 7 or 11 or 13. They are all children and molesting an underage child, whatever the age, is illegal and immoral. I also personally think that the media has a responsibility and a right to report each crime of molesting by a priest as it comes to light. Maybe if it had been reported sooner, thousands of children would have been spared this abomination. Ignorance is not bliss. Knowledge is power, and the more knowledge we have on this subject, the more we can protect our children, especially if names of the abusers are given out. I applaud the media for reporting the cases as they occured. If it weren’t for the media, the abuse would never have been stopped.
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buffalo
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As a victim it doesn’t matter what we call it. Agreed. I am working from the solution side. To solve the problem correctly identifying it does. Hiding the truth serves no one, by either Church authorities or the media.
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Orionthehunter
Guest
I disagree. They are to report the facts. There is a Priest shortage. But your last point is editorial comment- their suggestion of a solution. A solution that JP2 permanently foreclosed as an option. Fairness would require them to articulate other options as well if that is the essence of the story. I’ve never seen them even infer there is a different solution than married or female Priests. That my friend, is simple-mineded bias.
If it is not bias, it is, at best, what you describe below:
I call it laziness.
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frommi
Guest
You’re correct…hiding the truth doesn’t help anybody.
However, it was hiding from the truth that got us in the mess in the first place.
There are ways to have a strong moral presence in the world.
But lets be realistic here…many of our bishops have a nice view from million dollar mansions…not exactly something the common man identifies with.
I fear that was happened is that the bishops have built up such a wall of seclusion around themselves, they can’t know that there are major issues going on in their diocese.
Take the McCormack case in Chicago…just this one fact…it was 3 days after the priest was arrested before the archbishop was informed. 3 DAYS!!!
Until many things are adjusted…the ability of the church to speak with a clear moral voice that is pastoral in nature, is severly impeded.
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Strider
Guest
I can only speak for myself, but from what I read, I think I’m safe in saying that every poster on this thread ( and probably all members of this forum) would agree that each and every incident of abuse of a minor by a priest is an inexcusable moral and physical crime.
My point is that, in my opinion, the majority of the mainstream media have an agenda which is completely secular, pro-homosexual and anti-Catholic. They are using the instances of this criminal and disgusting abuse by Catholic priests, which is a much, much smaller perecentage of priests than public school teachers, coaches, ect, and even Protestant ministers than we are told.
They are skewing the data, under-reporting some things and over-reporting others in order to further their own agenda. They would like to see maried priests, female priests, openly homosexual priests. I believe this is because they think such a situation would further the rest of their agenda: unrestrained abortions, euthanasia, same-sex “marriage,” embryonic strem-cell research.
Given this, the sex and age of the victims of the priests is of critical importance. If most of the abusive priests are homosexual, the agenda I perceive of the MSM would suffer; therefore the state of the priest is ignored.
In my opinion, most of the MSM is completely secular after the French Enlightenment tradition and, therefore has no use for the TRUTH. Reason is all. That’s the point I’ve been trying to make.
I will pray for your friend.
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frommi
Guest
I would agree that fair reporting would offer the points of view of multiple solutions, and should point out the current theological problems with advocating for women priests (for example). And most do…the problem of course is that for many people who aren’t Catholic, some of the cases we make don’t come across as convincing, they come across as stubborn.
And please, I’m not saying the church is being stubborn, nor am I trying to open up a debate on women’s ordination. I’m just trying to provide some kind of example for why I don’t think a huge amount of bias exists.
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