**Atheists bent on painting Pope as a rape-happy ogre **Apparently the British state is rolling out the red carpet for a seriously evil rape facilitator. Pope Benedict XVI is the boss of a church that acts as a ‘‘patron, protector and financier of child rape’’, says one secularist writer. The Independent has reported that in America more than ‘‘10,000 people have come forward to say they were raped as part of this misery-go-round’’ overseen by his holiness and his lackeys. In Ireland alone, a tiny country of 4.5 million people, ‘‘Thousands were raped in reform schools’’, said a British broadsheet headline last year, ramming home the ugly truth of how many children have been raped by the Catholic Church’s army of paedophile priests.
But how true is this ugly truth? Were 10,000 children in America and thousands more in Ireland really raped by Catholic priests? No. In the increasingly caliginous, almost inquisitorial mindset of sections of the New Atheist anti-Pope lobby, every allegation of abuse against a Catholic priest - whether sex talk or fondling or actual penile penetration - has been lumped together under ‘‘rape’’, and every allegation described as a proven ‘‘rape’’ - regardless of whether it resulted in a legal trial, never mind a conviction.
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These people don’t know what they’re talking about. They are trying to end all religion, so their goal is to paint all religious people in the worst light possible, by exaggerating claims, etc.
It’s common for a totalitarianist regime to exaggerate numbers against its enemies. The New Atheists are fabricating a false image of moral superiority. I have to read The Godless Delusion. When Dawkins and his cronies found out, oooohh, were they MAD!
I agree that even one rape is too much but to my mind the Church is not as much guilty of malice here but of negligence. Child abuse has been a taboo subject since the beginning.
In Victorian England laws protecting animals were introduced before laws protecting the exploitation of children. The author of Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll, is himself suspected of being a pedophile now because of his close relationships to little girls and nude photography. Back then few people would consider a refined gentleman spending many hours with non related little girls to imply anything sinister. It has also been largely ignored by law and psychiatry not to mention that child pornography was LEGALLY produced in Europe and America until the 70s or even the 80s. Japan only banned child pornography production in the 90s. Likewise if we look at child abuse figures in secular school systems cover ups and mass child abuse also occurred there, yet few people rage against teachers as much as they rage against the Church. Now understandably for emotive reasons we’re all upset but thinking about it logically the Church was just behind the times in dealing with pedophile priests. This was wrong and shameful but I think most of the Bishops involved had no idea what child abuse was and that grown men could molest these little boys and young men so much. Nowadays we hear of child abuse constantly in the media but only 10-20 years ago it was hardly spoken of. Older people I know, who are in their 80s and 90s scratch their heads when they hear of child abuse, it boggles their minds that adults would find children or adolescents sexually attractive.
I’m not condoning any cover ups but I generally think that the Church authorities were not trained to handle them properly and underestimated the problem and consequences on the individual children involved. There was a belief that suspected priests should be given the benefit of a doubt and given psychotherapy but as to the benefits of such treatments and measures to protect children from these mentally ill people the authorities were deficient in concluding that such treatments usually did not work. This is a tragic situation nevertheless and the atheist brigade is using the suffering of these poor kids to promote their agenda and it’s not as if they have these victims best interests at heart.
Saying this I think all people suspected of child abuse, priest, Rabbi, protestant pastor or secular teacher or boy scout leader, should be investigated by the police. Those guilty should be punished by secular law and rehabilitated in some way - depending on their crime. Locking them all up will help protect children but we should be weary of punishing these mentally ill people again with prison rape and torture. Children should be protected and parents and everyone involved in their care should teach children what child abuse is, how to avoid and report it.
Can you even name one “RAPE” that happened in the last 20 years.
SInce 2000, THe church has been all over the abuse issue and has done everything it can to curb abuse. There is no place for abusive priests to hide anymore.
of course Rapists should be in prison and if they could be placed there they would be. Don’t blame the Vatican for not prosecuting priests back in the 50’s & 60’s. That is the polices job as it is today!
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