Little Faith in Catholic Hierarchy

[SinnersAnonymus]

Either way one looks at it, the Church is not represented by these people who commit these acts. These are heinous acts violating trust and committing moral sins. There have been and still are those who believe such acts are allying oneself with the evil-one. I am sure that the evil-one and his minions have been after the faithful since the Church’s inception. However, we should not see these acts as representing what it is to be a Catholic member, Priest, or a Bishop.

People in these positions may not act accordingly at times, but they are not representing Christ or his Church when they fail to live up to their position. St. Augustine was a great Bishop, Padre Pio was an amazing priest, there are many such examples of such people throughout History. Our current Pope is one such example of a man who was a Bishop during these times.

As I stated previously, I firmly believe that this whole trial was cooked up by the evil-one to try to break the Church. The enemy is not flesh and blood but principalities and powers.

God Bless

 

[manualman]

I really do question whether the pedophilia crisis had anything to do with any sexual revolution, whether in the 1920s or 1960s.

Sinful sexual behavior has existed throughout history, including pedophilia I believe.

I think though that really until the past 30 years or so ( give or take) there was no knowing about pedophilia because the victim was often too sad and confused to talk to anyone about it.

I hear that even if they did try and talk about it in the olden days, no one really was sympathetic or tried to help them that much . Even as it is pedophilia is a notoriously underreported crime.

So how can anyone be sure that there was less pedophilia in 1800 as opposed to today?

Your reasoning still is based on an underlying assumption that behavior has nothing to do with social mores. This is the same reasoning that underlies condom handouts as proposed solution to STD’s and unintended pregnancy. Funny how there are far MORE unintended pregnancies and STD cases today than there were 100 years ago even though virtually every American right now with within 0.5 miles and $2.00 of a condom.

The answer, of course, is that morals and culture DO affect behavior. When the culture began to reject Christian understanding of the meaning and purpose of human sexuality (starting around 100 years ago), they also began to change their behavior. Has sexual sin always been with us? Of course. Is there 1,000% more of it today than 200 years ago? Clearly. Morals and culture matter. We’re nowhere near the independent individuals we like to think we are.

It’s amazing that this needs saying, but values predict behavior. Not with 100% conformity, but quite reliably at the population level. A culture that adopts a permissive attitude towards human sexuality uncoupled from its conjugal meaning is idiotic to expect anything less than increases in ALL sorts of perverse uncouplings of sex from its conjugal meaning. But here we are.

 

[michaelhager]

I’m certainly not a sociologist and I have no statistics and studies to back me up, but regarding behavior and social norms, my take on it is that there has always been sexual sin, probably at similar levels of population to percentage as is clearly evident by the necessity of our God to command against it.

My personal belief is that in the last 100 years or so, it has simply been more normal to talk about it then it was before. It was public knowledge that John Kennedy was a womanizer and an unfaithful husband, but the knowledge was whispered and secretive and even the press held him up as a great man of morals and dignity and never spoke of his private failures.

Today, they go after anyone in the news with ferocity, celebrities speak openly of their current relationships and the topic of sexuality is wide open. When I was drafted in 1969 there was an open question, “Are you a homosexual?” With the unpopularity of the war, and young men looking for any way out of service they could find, checking yes to that question would have been an automatic escape hatch. Yet at that time, homosexuality was not an open subject, and checking Yes to that question was not even an option. While today, it’s almost a badge of honor.

I don’t think our sexual misbehavior has necessarily increased as much as it is now simply openly talked about. And that includes the statistics that we point to. Just fifty years ago, people would not have been so open as to answer a surveyors questions. Young sexually active teens would certainly deny having sex, (While young virgin males might be eager to claim sexual conquests) married people would never admit to having had an affair, and the subject of any deviant behavior was highly guarded.

But these are just the observations of an old guy.

 

[manualman]

I’m certainly not a sociologist and I have no statistics and studies to back me up, but regarding behavior and social norms, my take on it is that there has always been sexual sin, probably at similar levels of population to percentage as is clearly evident by the necessity of our God to command against it.
…

But these are just the observations of an old guy.

If this is so, then explain why 100 years ago when virtually no STD was curable, the incidences of them were rare. Today when we can cure syphilis or gonorrhea with antibiotics, not only are they as widespread as ever, but there are dozens MORE STDs flying around.

Similarly, today modern contraception is available nearly everywhere. Yet we’ve had 50 million abortions in the last 40 years. For perspective, that’s about 1/6 of our entire current population. By the numbers, abortion ALONE is responsible for the drop in birth rates over the last 50 years. If sexual promiscuity rates haven’t changed, then contraception must be about 0% effective. Since in reality, it does prevent pregnancy the vast majority of the time, the only reasonable conclusion is that people are sleeping around far more than they ever did previously in history.

To be clear, sexual sin is nothing new. It’s always been with us. But it’s beyond willful ignorance to assert that the rates of adultery and fornication haven’t zoomed astronomically higher in the last century. On the subject, sin begets sin in any regard. Once the moral fences are torn down, it’s naïve to expect no increase in the incidence of OTHER sexual depravity.