The Priests who molested may be gone, but those who allowed it are still "in power."

  • Thread starter Thread starter luvlife
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
L

luvlife

Guest
I’ve been in a discussion with someone who left the church based on that.

He acknowledges that the Priests who’ve abused have since been removed from their duties, but he is angry that the Bishops who covered up their crimes & rotated them all over the place KNOWING they had this problem are still “in power.” He agrees that abusers come from all walks of life (school teachers, coaches, etc.) but none of those groups would knowingly allow the abusers the opportunity to hurt MORE children, like (he claims) the Bishops did.

How would you respond?
 
Maybe check out this thread?

You could certainly grant that abuse took place, but if this person is claiming he can’t find a church without someone involved in the scandal, he is just being dishonest, and probably intended to leave the Church anyway. If he believed the Catholic Church was the true Church in the first place, the sins of its members would not affect his belief in the Church. Instead he should express the outrage that many did and do what he can, by prayer or otherwise, to remedy the situation, instead of leaving the true Church of Christ, and abandoning true reception of Christ in the Eucharist. The only person who wins out in these situations is satan.
 
MarcoPolo said:
Maybe check out this thread?

You could certainly grant that abuse took place, but if this person is claiming he can’t find a church without someone involved in the scandal, he is just being dishonest, and probably intended to leave the Church anyway. If he believed the Catholic Church was the true Church in the first place, the sins of its members would not affect his belief in the Church. Instead he should express the outrage that many did and do what he can, by prayer or otherwise, to remedy the situation, instead of leaving the true Church of Christ, and abandoning true reception of Christ in the Eucharist. The only person who wins out in these situations is satan.
Click to expand...
I agree with you. I’ve tried to say that the sins of some do not change the TRUTH of the Catholic Church.

He’s been posting on my city’s newspaper’s public forum in response to a letter to the editor regarding the Pope’s visit. Alot of people read the postings so I felt I needed to say something - but he comes right back at me.

He said he could no longer support a church that looked the other way while children were abused. He said the abusers were sick - but those in power allowed it to happen & they are still Bishops. He believes they are more to blame.

I agree it’s a sad situation. I just read online that the Pope said he was deeply ashamed of the Priest sex abuse. I think it’s a sad chapter all around.

But as I said, it doesn’t change what I know is true.
 
I know of one Catholic school board which did just that. The man was left in position and later was made principal of an elementary school. That was the main reason I had for making sure that he lost his teaching credentials and will never again have that access to potential victims. It is not just the bishops who have behaved irresponsibly in this fashion although we now have procedures in place to keep such decisions from being in the hands of only one person. Good has finally come from all the suffering of those unhappy children whose innocence has be shattered.

Matthew
 
luvlife said:
I’ve been in a discussion with someone who left the church based on that.

He acknowledges that the Priests who’ve abused have since been removed from their duties, but he is angry that the Bishops who covered up their crimes & rotated them all over the place KNOWING they had this problem are still “in power.” He agrees that abusers come from all walks of life (school teachers, coaches, etc.) but none of those groups would knowingly allow the abusers the opportunity to hurt MORE children, like (he claims) the Bishops did.

How would you respond?
Click to expand...
I would ask him for the names of these bishops that are still in power who he knows for a fact knowlingly covered up these crimes.
 
Joe_5859 said:
I would ask him for the names of these bishops that are still in power who he knows for a fact knowlingly covered up these crimes.
Click to expand...
and what are you going to do after getting those names? 🤷
 
luvlife said:
He said he could no longer support a church that looked the other way while children were abused.
Click to expand...
Can you imagine if he lived in Jesus’ time and was a follower of Judas? He’d say, “I cannot be a part of this Church where the highest apostles do Satan’s bidding.”

And then he’d walk away from the Church.

His fallacy is saying “The Church” looked the other way when these bishops were hardly following Church teaching. It’s a common error of application among those who are predisposed to dislike the Church in the first place, which I am willing to opine that this person is.
 
AgnosTheist said:
and what are you going to do after getting those names? 🤷
Click to expand...
It’s hard to respond to such a claim when (a) you have only their word that the claim is even true at all, and (b) you have no specifics of the individual and/or situation to which they are referring. You have to know who they are talking about before you could possibly give any explanation to answer their question.

My guess is that most people make these claims based on second-hand information and could not even give you a name if you pressed them to do so (I, myself, can’t think of a specific bishop that fits the description in the OP).

Of course, I’m not advocating being uncharitably confrontational or trying to defend the indefensible. But people still need to be honest. If they’re making such a hefty accusation and using it as the basis of their leaving the Church, it should at least be based on more than hearsay.
 
Joe_5859 said:
It’s hard to respond to such a claim when (a) you have only their word that the claim is even true at all, and (b) you have no specifics of the individual and/or situation to which they are referring. You have to know who they are talking about before you could possibly give any explanation to answer their question.
Click to expand...
what if somebody was able to give you names based on a verifiable court conviction? what now?
 
MarcoPolo said:
Can you imagine if he lived in Jesus’ time and was a follower of Judas? He’d say, “I cannot be a part of this Church where the highest apostles do Satan’s bidding.”
Click to expand...
flawed analogy.

judas did not exactly molest anybody. and nobody actually covered for him.
 
luvlife said:
He agrees that abusers come from all walks of life (school teachers, coaches, etc.) but none of those groups would knowingly allow the abusers the opportunity to hurt MORE children, like (he claims) the Bishops did.

How would you respond?
Click to expand...
That’s not true. Transferring abusers, rather than reporting them to the authorities, is not unique to the Catholic Church. This has been reported in school systems as well. In fact, I think there is a term used for it, “passing the garbage.”
 
How about Cardinal Law?

catholic-hierarchy.org/bishop/blaw.html

This story, about Law’s role in the funeral Mass of JPII, sums it up pretty well: (to read the complete story, please use link)

nytimes.com/2005/04/08/international/worldspecial2/08cardinals.html

*By permitting Cardinal Law to take the limelight in Rome just when the church is mourning the death of John Paul, the cardinals have reminded American Catholics that their most painful recent chapter barely registered in the Vatican. “It’s yet another example of the gap between how the Vatican sees things and how the U.S. church sees things,” said the Rev. Keith F. Pecklers, an American Jesuit who is a professor at the Gregorian, a pontifical university in Rome. “This kind of thing can open the wounds for people just when the healing was beginning.”

Cardinal Law resigned after a judge decided to unseal court records that included a letter from the cardinal commending priests even though he knew they had been accused at one time of abusing children. After saying for a year that he would not resign, he finally stepped down and cloistered himself for a while in a monastery until his appointment in Rome.

“He never lost power, even though he stepped down from Boston,” Mr. McDaid said. “In any other corporation if you lost your rank and left, you’d lose your power and you’d be stripped of your title.” But, “here he is in Rome, still as powerful as he was before.”*

:mad:
 
luvlife said:
I’ve been in a discussion with someone who left the church based on that.

He acknowledges that the Priests who’ve abused have since been removed from their duties, but he is angry that the Bishops who covered up their crimes & rotated them all over the place KNOWING they had this problem are still “in power.” He agrees that abusers come from all walks of life (school teachers, coaches, etc.) but none of those groups would knowingly allow the abusers the opportunity to hurt MORE children, like (he claims) the Bishops did.

How would you respond?
Click to expand...
Dear luvlife.

I for one really quite understand your friend.
There can be no covering up. The Church has payed thousands
and thousands of dollars to the victims… because the Church has been guilty as charged.
One of the early church fathers said the Church is where the bishop is… and so it is still today. The covering up and moving around with pedofile priests is one of the quite valid reasons I have heard from people who leave.
“By their fruit you shall know them”, it is written.
At the time of Paul I think these priests would have been “handed over to satan” immediately…

Its all very tragic.
Now I see the Pope is on his way to America and the journalists bothered him with the question so much that he said he certainly will make sure that the situation is dealt with…
But I dont like the taste of that… it reminds me too much of politicians.

Truth should not need to speak… It would have already acted… 😦
 
I was listening to a journalist on the plane with the Pope. Apparently he made much ado about how ashamed he was, and the church was, of these paedophile priests. He was pressed and pressed by this particular english journalist, but he absolutely would not say the word sorry. The journalist reported that was as close to an apology as you’re ever going to get from the pope. He reported at the same time, many of the victims groups in the usa are up in arms over this reluctance to properly apologise to the victims.

What is so hard about saying a heartfelt and meant apology directly to the victims??
 
CreatioNova said:
I was listening to a journalist on the plane with the Pope. Apparently he made much ado about how ashamed he was, and the church was, of these paedophile priests. He was pressed and pressed by this particular english journalist, but he absolutely would not say the word sorry. The journalist reported that was as close to an apology as you’re ever going to get from the pope. He reported at the same time, many of the victims groups in the usa are up in arms over this reluctance to properly apologise to the victims.

What is so hard about saying a heartfelt and meant apology directly to the victims??
Click to expand...
I read something about this in the the New York Times (just go to their site and look at the front page if interested). He talked about how it had hurt the Church but said nothing about how it hurt the victims and the comments from victims and their families are really upset. US cardinals had urged him to go to Boston and meet with some of the victims and he refused, which many see as a slap in the face to the victims. It just looks like the Vatican wants to do everything it can to ignore the problem in the hope that it will just go away. This is, IMO and the opinons of many, just poor leadership. 😦
 
luvlife said:
I’ve been in a discussion with someone who left the church based on that.

He acknowledges that the Priests who’ve abused have since been removed from their duties, but he is angry that the Bishops who covered up their crimes & rotated them all over the place KNOWING they had this problem are still “in power.” He agrees that abusers come from all walks of life (school teachers, coaches, etc.) but none of those groups would knowingly allow the abusers the opportunity to hurt MORE children, like (he claims) the Bishops did.

How would you respond?
Click to expand...
Does he have kids?

He doesn’t let them go to public school, right?

Is he against property taxes?
 
When I was a child, I was victimized by a child molester (not a priest). This has given me a great sensitivity to those who were also molested, regardless of who did the molesting.

In my view, a religious figure who molests children has got to be the most reprehensible type of pedophile, because in the eyes of a child, that person represents God, and is someone a child will especially feel led to trust…and then that trust is horribly betrayed.

And for a Catholic child, this is especially acute, since Catholics are taught that the priest represents Jesus, or is an “alter Christus”.

I cannot IMAGINE how any Catholic boy who was molested by a priest could stay in the Catholic church. I know if it had happened to me, I could not.

Just seeing a man in a Roman collar would bring about horrible flashbacks, I am sure. I know that as a molestation victim, I sometimes have flashbacks of my molester when I see someone who bears a resemblance to him.

The molestation of an innocent child by a religious figure the child has been taught to love and trust has got to be the most despicable thing I can think of.

People who commit such a crime deserve to be in the lowest, most fiery depths of hell.
 
HashemEchad…
I am so sorry for what you have suffered.
I hope the person who did that to you is
in prison 😦
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top