JS Onlie: "View sex abuse cases in the proper context"

[baylee]

Because before we can apologize we need to know and decide on what we are apologizing for.

If you believe the secular media we would be apologizing for promotion of peadophilia, for having a pervert Pope, for teaching that peadophilia is okay, for letting all our priests molest children.

And if you deny the above is what people (after the most recent media reports) believe you live in La-La Land. Go to any secular message board with a Religion section and see the accusations from people who constantly cite news reports as their proof.

We have to acknowledge the wrongs - which people will persecute us for anyway.

Unfortunately for the Catholic Church we have a kind of catch 22 situation:

The media distorted so much that we had to go on the defensive and do damage control for the lies and truth distortions - which came across as insensitive and evil and the media portrayed as even more proof of cover ups. But at the same time if we just ignored the distortions and often outright lies, we would not only be doormats and people would persecute us even more, we would be accepting what is false and letting it exist in the world - which is the antithesis to Catholic teaching which is promotion of truth.

So either way in the situation, we were going to be nailed.

Had the media been honest, fair and truthful in their reporting this whole issue would not have been an issue. But as we all know that is not good for selling newspapers.

I recognize mistakes were made and that members of the clergy did evil, evil things. But I will not sit back and let people accuse my Church of promotion of peadophilia, calling the Pope a pervert, calling all priests Satan worshiping kiddie fiddlers. No. It’s wrong. This is my family. Imagine someone in your family robbed a bank and suddenly everybody, from brother to 2nd cousin living 1000miles away, was put in jail and beaten for it. Makes no sense.

And this post has entertained the media lie that the scandals were all based around peadophilia - in my research in fact the ages of the abused was around 12-16 which is not peadophilia it is hebephilia. But imagine what goes through peoples heads when the media gets away with saying “Priest Peadophile” - people suddenly see a man with sharp teeth and a snake tongue doing evil things to a toddler.

If the media was honest, and if people like you was honest and actually did your research (and citing a BBC report does not count as research) Catholic apologists wouldn’t need to focus on the damage control from the lies.

Unfortunately, it’s not just non-Catholics on secular message boards who are making those same accusations.

 

[irishpatrick]

No, it doesn’t. The only thing that matters is that it happened. Not but x is worse or y does it more as if you’re proud of it. Why can’t the apologetic figures come to terms with it without pointing a finger at someone else or some other religious sect?

Of course context and numbers matter. If Hitler had put one Jew to death in a concentration camp for a non-religious reason, no-one would even know it happened and it certainly would not have had the infamous reputation the Holocaust carries through history (and rightfully so obviously). Even if 10,000 had lost their lives there, it would not carry the same historical weight as 6,000,000 slaughtered.

 

[irishpatrick]

That was never the direct or implied context on the part of the media. What the media criticism focused on was how these cases were handled not how many there were. Raw numbers, percentages, and comparrisons were brought into the discussion by the apologists not the media. The overwhelming response to the media criticisms of how the Catholic Church handled sexual abuse cases was to throw Protestants under the bus by pointing a finger at how they handled sexual abuse and tossing out related percentages from those sects. Why can’t there be an acknowledgement of the gross mishandling of sex abuse cases without a “but?”

That is utter nonsense. The media reported not only that abuse happened, but how many and how much was being paid out in lawsuits…Catholics were hammered by the media for several years with those numbers. As someone else said, it does not remove the guilt of what was done.

 

[EmperorNapoleon]

Of course context and numbers matter. If Hitler had put one Jew to death in a concentration camp for a non-religious reason, no-one would even know it happened and it certainly would not have had the infamous reputation the Holocaust carries through history (and rightfully so obviously). Even if 10,000 had lost their lives there, it would not carry the same historical weight as 6,000,000 slaughtered.

You’re missing the point. Whether it was 1 case of sex abuse or 1 billion cases it should be handled in the same way. The numbers don’t matter. The only thing that matters is how the crime and criminal are handled by those in a position to provide comfort and justice. Is anyone here willing to step up and and admit that the handling of sex abuse cases on the part of the Catholic Church was atrocious without throwing Protestants under the bus and without a “but”?

 

[NewsTheMan]

You’re missing the point. Whether it was 1 case of sex abuse or 1 billion cases it should be handled in the same way. The numbers don’t matter.

Riiiiiiight. Give me a break. Not even you believe this. The numbers do matter for those on the attack.

The only thing that matters is how the crime and criminal are handled by those in a position to provide comfort and justice.

Agreed. So can you provide proof of ‘cover ups’ and ‘mishandling’ or are you using words that the media uses to paint a broad stroke over the entire Catholic Church without any backing up information? In my research, I found that cover ups - which have been our main accusation i.e. protection of peadophiles - were not widespread. Perhaps mishandling was more widespread but mishandling implies hindsight of what we know now. 40 years ago things were treated differently. It’s the context of the time the world was in. This hindsight attack is the same kind that people use when attacking the Church throughout history- applying modern standards to older times. It just cannot be done. Any coverups that did happen have been sorted out and apologized for. What else would you like? Don’t answer that - I know the answer. You are just arguing for the sake of it because you hate the Catholic Church. And this time, the media has your back.

Is anyone here willing to step up and and admit that the handling of sex abuse cases on the part of the Catholic Church was atrocious without throwing Protestants under the bus and without a “but”?

Is any media institution willing to admit that their reporting was dishonest, untruthful, distorted, hateful and inciteful?

Is any attacker willing to back up their claims without refering to mysterious ‘cover ups’?

Is any attacker able to prove that the handling was atrocious? I myself cannot comment all that well because I do not have the full detals - and I did my research. Not many people know the full story. There is only 1 Bishop I know of that really, really did I horrible job.

 

[irishpatrick]

You’re missing the point. Whether it was 1 case of sex abuse or 1 billion cases it should be handled in the same way. The numbers don’t matter. The only thing that matters is how the crime and criminal are handled by those in a position to provide comfort and justice. Is anyone here willing to step up and and admit that the handling of sex abuse cases on the part of the Catholic Church was atrocious without throwing Protestants under the bus and without a “but”?

I will state clearly that in some cases the abuse was handled terribly. However, I will also continue to disagree with you on context and numbers, especially considering that a great many charges were 30-40 years old, were against Priests that had either retired or were dead, and had little to no real evidence outside of a person’s own testimony. Never before in my life have I seen so much money taken from an institution based on such incredibly small and almost non-existent evidence of any wrong-doing. So yes, context, facts and numbers mean an awful lot, yet in the cases where there were known abuses the Church often acted horribly to it all. Yet, in truth, if we are to consider both sides, one can see why the Church acted as it did in many cases…it felt there was no wrongdoing, yet lawyers told them to settle anyway. In places like Boston and LA there is little doubt of what happened, yet the numbers are still arguable and yes the numbers matter a lot!

It seems no-one thinks of the parishes and Priests condemned for things they did not do and how that has ripped their lives apart…this thing has painful tenacles that stretch quite far on both sides. In the cases in which real abuse happened there is no moral defense at all and it is a gravely sinful reality that has stained the faith and the Church. Yet, it is also quite possible (maybe even likely) that vultures saw the weakness created by the few abusers and decided to go after the entire Church carcass for as much as they could get–it was a nasty feeding frenzy.