Common Attacks by Anti-Catholics

[twopekinguys]

And on what do you base that assumption? I could give anecdotal evidence to the contrary, but that would just be anecdotal. And if it were true, how does that lessen the guilt of the Church in what happened? They were still priests, they abused children, and their bishops moved them on to new parishes once it started to become apparent what they were up to.

Whether it was a boy being abused by a homosexual Catholic priest, or a girl being abused by a heterosexual Catholic priest, it makes no difference, one is as bad as the other, and the guilty parties were, by and large, protected by local clergy and bishops.

You realize that just an allegation can ruin someone right?

It is/was the Church’s responsibility to protect priests from unfounded claims of abuse. Yes, sometimes they got it wrong, but, you can’t just automatically defrock someone because of an allegation.

Again, in the US, many cases were found to be non-credible. Those that were found to be credible, were dealt with in the courts.

Let me ask you this:

If a woman accuses **you **of sexually assaulting her, do we automatically take her word and throw you in jail and throw away the key? Or, would you rather there be an investigation to find out the truth of the matter?

Think about it.

I think we can all agree that any type of sexual abuse is wrong. That is not up for debate. However, there needs to be reason and just cause.

Common sense should prevail.

 

[Brendan_64]

You realize that just an allegation can ruin someone right?

Oh of course, but allegations need to be properly dealt with, not covered up in case it is false.

It is/was the Church’s responsibility to protect priests from unfounded claims of abuse.

And it is also the Church’s responsibility to protect innocent children from abuse by pedophile clergy.

Yes, sometimes they got it wrong,

Resulting in more abused children.

but, you can’t just automatically defrock someone because of an allegation.

And you can’t simply protect them just in case the allegation is false.

Again, in the US, many cases were found to be non-credible.

And many were found to be credible, yet those priests were protected by the Church at the time.

Those that were found to be credible, were dealt with in the courts.

But not at the time they weren’t. At the time the offenders were protected and moved to different parishes providing them with fresh supplies of innocent victims. If they had been dealt with at the time many children who were abused and had their lives ruined would not have been abused.

Let me ask you this:

If a woman accuses **you **of sexually assaulting her, do we automatically take her word and throw you in jail and throw away the key? Or, would you rather there be an investigation to find out the truth of the matter?

Yes, I would rather it was investigated to find out the truth, but this investigation should not take place 20 years later.

Think about it.

I think we can all agree that any type of sexual abuse is wrong. That is not up for debate. However, there needs to be reason and just cause.

Common sense should prevail.

You act as if the Church new nothing about what was going on. was it simply a coincidence that these particular priests, who have later been shown as pedophiles, were moved from parish to parish by their bishop.

If the bishop, or fellow clergy, had a concern that a priest was a pedophile, then they had a duty to inform to police about it, and a duty to protect children from the pedophile. But no, they kept quiet and moved the priest on to a new parish, where he could start again with a fresh set of victims.

 

[Lion_IRC]

Brendan64

The huge majority of alleged “cover-ups” consist of cases where neither the victim nor their parents reported the matter to police.

In those cases which were reported to police, many could not proceed to prosecution due to a lack of evidence. Do you accuse the police of a cover-up too?

What exactly was being covered up? Innuendo? Hearsay evidence? Allegations which the victims said they did NOT want made public?

It’s pretty shameful that we have to wait 20, 30, 40, 50 years to hear allegations that someone’s child was raped and nobody did anything at the time it happened.

If I suspected my child had been molested, I wouldn’t even wait 5 minutes to call the police.

 

[MaryT777]

Brendan64

The huge majority of alleged “cover-ups” consist of cases where neither the victim nor their parents reported the matter to police.

In those cases which were reported to police, many could not proceed to prosecution due to a lack of evidence. Do you accuse the police of a cover-up too?

What exactly was being covered up? Innuendo? Hearsay evidence? Allegations which the victims said they did NOT want made public?

It’s pretty shameful that we have to wait 20, 30, 40, 50 years to hear allegations that someone’s child was raped and nobody did anything at the time it happened.

If I suspected my child had been molested, I wouldn’t even wait 5 minutes to call the police.

Regretfully most children are molested by their fathers and their mothers instead of calling the police look the other way. Catholics do not condone pedophilia in any way shape or form.

 

[twopekinguys]

Oh of course, but allegations need to be properly dealt with, not covered up in case it is false.

And it is also the Church’s responsibility to protect innocent children from abuse by pedophile clergy.

Resulting in more abused children.

And you can’t simply protect them just in case the allegation is false.

And many were found to be credible, yet those priests were protected by the Church at the time.

But not at the time they weren’t. At the time the offenders were protected and moved to different parishes providing them with fresh supplies of innocent victims. If they had been dealt with at the time many children who were abused and had their lives ruined would not have been abused.

Yes, I would rather it was investigated to find out the truth, but this investigation should not take place 20 years later.

You act as if the Church new nothing about what was going on. was it simply a coincidence that these particular priests, who have later been shown as pedophiles, were moved from parish to parish by their bishop.

If the bishop, or fellow clergy, had a concern that a priest was a pedophile, then they had a duty to inform to police about it, and a duty to protect children from the pedophile. But no, they kept quiet and moved the priest on to a new parish, where he could start again with a fresh set of victims.

The reason some weren’t investigated until 20 years later is because that is when the accusation was made. Kind of hard to investigate beforehand isn’t it?

You are also ignoring what I said previously about what the medical community thought and said about people who did this. Believing they could be treated/cured.

You have to look at the whole picture, and not just a snippet.

I also think it is unfair of you to think you should be viewed as innocent in that scenario, but, you want to condemn those in a similar situation.

Again, you have to look at the whole picture. 1. Why did people wait 20+ years to make an accusation? 2. How many wanted their 15 minutes of fame? 3. How many were looking at the Church purely for money.

Again, I am not saying the Church was completely right in how they handled it. I have said that multiple times. However, I do apply logic to the whole situation.

Based on what you have said so far, I can see that you have formed an opinion (whether it is right or wrong), and have no intentions of looking further, so, my discussion on this matter is finished. I also don’t want to derail this thread any further.

 

[twopekinguys]

Brendan64

The huge majority of alleged “cover-ups” consist of cases where neither the victim nor their parents reported the matter to police.

In those cases which were reported to police, many could not proceed to prosecution due to a lack of evidence. Do you accuse the police of a cover-up too?

What exactly was being covered up? Innuendo? Hearsay evidence? Allegations which the victims said they did NOT want made public?

It’s pretty shameful that we have to wait 20, 30, 40, 50 years to hear allegations that someone’s child was raped and nobody did anything at the time it happened.

If I suspected my child had been molested, I wouldn’t even wait 5 minutes to call the police.

Bingo!!! We have a WINNER!

 

[Miriam1947]

You act as if the Church new nothing about what was going on. was it simply a coincidence that these particular priests, who have later been shown as pedophiles, were moved from parish to parish by their bishop.

If the bishop, or fellow clergy, had a concern that a priest was a pedophile, then they had a duty to inform to police about it, and a duty to protect children from the pedophile. But no, they kept quiet and moved the priest on to a new parish, where he could start again with a fresh set of victims.

Yes it was horrible what happened. Those bishops and priests will answer to God as well as the law.

I remember the day when it first hit the media. I felt so sorry for the parishioners who were blindsided by the whole revelation of what their bishops and priests had done. Many of the victims had told family and church officials and were not believed. That was awful as well.

I came into the church after the whole scandal hit.

It is important to have the language correct in what actually occurred and who it happened to.

pedophilia

psychosexual disorder in which an adult’s arousal and sexual gratification occur primarily through sexual contact with prepubescent children. The typical pedophile is unable to find satisfaction in an adult sexual relationship and may have low self-esteem, seeing sexual activity with a child as less threatening than that with an adult. Most pedophiles are men; the condition is extremely rare in women.

**pederasty **
sexual relations between two males, especially when one of them is a minor.

How many of the abused children were prepubescent and how many were young adolescents? How many were girls?

They moved around gay priests and protected them. These were predominately homosexual acts.

 

[Brendan_64]

The reason some weren’t investigated until 20 years later is because that is when the accusation was made. Kind of hard to investigate beforehand isn’t it?

You are also ignoring what I said previously about what the medical community thought and said about people who did this. Believing they could be treated/cured.

You have to look at the whole picture, and not just a snippet.

I also think it is unfair of you to think you should be viewed as innocent in that scenario, but, you want to condemn those in a similar situation.

So you’re trying to argue that since some in the medical community believed that pedophilia could be cured then that was OK to not turn over any suspected offenders to the law? Even though pedophilia was clearly against the law? This scandal is only a couple of decades old, it isn’t as if we’re talking about the 50’s or 60’s (although no doubt it was going on then too).

A public investigation into pedophilia amongst the Irish clergy stated that, “The Dublin archdiocese’s preoccupations in dealing with cases of child sexual abuse, at least until the mid 1990s, were the maintenance of secrecy, the avoidance of scandal, the protection of the reputation of the Church, and the preservation of its assets.”

This is quite a good article and one that the Catholic Church in Ireland hasn’t refuted.

dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1231180/Irish-Catholic-Church-covered-sickening-catalogue-child-abuse-paedophile-priests.html

And yes, this topic is relevant to the thread, as this is probably the most common attack made on the Catholic Church by non-Catholics. The thread title does not say ‘Common Attacks by Anti-Catholics (but let’s not talk about when the Church is attacked for protecting pedophile priests)’.

If our response is to say that the Church did acted reasonably at the time, and that anyway it is all over-exaggerated, then we will have done nothing to convince the person making the attack. It happened, it was wrong, pedophiles were protected (in order to protect the Church’s ‘reputation’) by their fellow clergy and bishops. Trying to defend what happened is trying to defend the indefensible. Better to plead guilty, and that the Church is made up of humans, humans are corrupt and sinful, and that what happened is not representative of the vast majority of bishops and priests today.

 

[Brendan_64]

Yes it was horrible what happened. Those bishops and priests will answer to God as well as the law.

They may have escaped the law, in many cases, and they may still be serving as clergy (at whatever level) but they won’t escape having to answer to God for carrying out such acts, or protecting those that carried out such acts.

They moved around gay priests and protected them. These were predominately homosexual acts.

I could give you anecdotal evidence to the contrary. There were heterosexual priests involved as well.

But either way, it really makes no difference whether it was children getting abused by homosexual priests or children getting abused by heterosexual priests. Their acts were covered up by their fellow clergy and they were moved on to ‘pastures new’ by their bishops.

When faced with this accusation against the Church by non-Catholics, we simply cannot pretend that either it didn’t really happen, or that the Church acted properly (and in the interests of innocent children) in how it was handled at the time. We simply cannot say this.

 

[Michael_Francis]

***14 off topic posts have been removed.

Please stay on topic and do not focus on only one.***

 

[Goya]

One not covered yet: *Catholics teach/believe that you can work or merit your way into Heaven; *

A tweak on one already mentioned: Catholics don’t read the Bible; they read the Catechism;

My personal [least] favorite: Catholics aren’t Christians.

 

[MaryT777]

One not covered yet: *Catholics teach/believe that you can work or merit your way into Heaven; *

A tweak on one already mentioned: Catholics don’t read the Bible; they read the Catechism;

My personal [least] favorite: Catholics aren’t Christians.

Yep, I’ve been asked are you Catholic or Christian? @@
Mary.

 

[adrift]

You only believe what the Catholic Church teaches because you mindlessly follow the parish priest

 

[paseo]

We chant mantras/spells (referring to the Rosary).

 

[LegoGE1947]

we banned the bible for centuries. No one was allowed to read it until the brave monk Martin Luther and the Protestant reformation rescued The bible from the Catholic church and put in the hands of the ordinary people.

Catholics hide behind their robes and their stained glass windows
They don’t know, see, or find reality
Their thinking is 2000 years old and know nothing of modern times.
They dress up funny and “play church”

These are from an early contemporary “Christian” song “Reality”

 

[Nacho45]

Catholics don’t know their history and what they do know they twist to fit their agenda.

 

[LegoGE1947]

Or Tyndale.

One of Tyndale’s contemporaries said “Trying to find errors in Tyndale’s bible is like trying to find water in the Ocean!”

 

[Markie_Boy]

I am still working on common ground with Catholicism.

As a growing Christian - I don’t even care for this topic any longer. Anyone that attacks another Christian faith does not seem to be acting in the Love that is Christ.

Our deacon did the homily this past week at mass, and someone in the congregation said to their child - See, this is what you get in a protestant church. Our deacon is a little less-traditional, but loves God, and reaches some people that the “old school” approach does not so much (me included).

One thing I learned recently - Christians that attack other Christians, are not acting as a Christian should. I have seen it on both sides of the Catholic/Protestant fence.

You wanna help Satan? Keep attacking each other. One of Satan’s greatest weapons is to get us to fight each other.

I say this as someone that may or may not be confirmed this year, but loves God, and wants nothing more than to serve him.

 

[JohnR77]

we banned the bible for centuries. No one was allowed to read it until the brave monk Martin Luther and the Protestant reformation rescued The bible from the Catholic church and put in the hands of the ordinary people.

I updated my FREE pamphlet refuting that so that the pamphlet is more easily printable and I added a link to pictures of Catholic German Language Bibles before Luther (see late 1400’s section)

One of Tyndale’s contemporaries said “Trying to find errors in Tyndale’s bible is like trying to find water in the Ocean!”

Yes! I love that quote

This web site gives the quote:
“Sir Thomas More, Lord Chancellor of England, found it necessary to write a treatise against it, and asserted that to ‘find errors in Tyndale’s book were like studying to find water in the sea’.”

And as to the Church being opposed to science, they basically have one argument, and a bad one at that, Galileo.

See Free Pamphletrefuting that.

John
.

 

[fallow_spirit]

Anything that has to do with Mary.

Mary is really the goddess Isis
Catholics believe that Mary died for the sins and not Jesus
Catholics believe that Jesus is mean and cruel while Mary is loving and gentle, which is why they spend all their praying to Mary and not to her Son

The list goes on and on

Or maybe just anything that comes out of that Jack Chick’s mouth