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Rascalking
Guest
This is sad. I feel sorry for everyone invovled.
Another black eye for the church. Let’s never forget that you can stand by the church and still be very, very angry at behavior like this.
Another black eye for the church. Let’s never forget that you can stand by the church and still be very, very angry at behavior like this.
manygift1spirit
New member
A very good reminder, for all who would love the Church.
I do concur with some sentiments above that, other than a PR debacle, this is not a big deal: as some may have said, with demographics being what they are, God knows some in similar places have such transgressions. To put a name to it does not change the big picture.
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JReducation
Guest
I was responding to the post that said that the Church should explore the private lives of people before hiring them, not to the choices that people make. The Church upholds people’s right to privacy. For the Church to explore what is private is in conflict with her own policy. That’s the righ that I’m speaking about. The document that I’m citing speaks about different rights, including the right to choose a state in life. A state in life is a theological phrase that means: marriage, clergy, religious life or single life. Activity in accord with the upright norm of ones conscience refers to religious practice. This part of the document was written to address abuses against human rights.
As far as human rights go, everyone, regardless of whether he is a homosexual, prostitute, murderer, saint or other, has human rights. Those cannot be violated. One of those is the right to privacy. There is a difference between a person commiting a public sin and a person who has a fault or weakness that is not in the public forum. In the case of the latter, no one has the right to bring it into the public forum. The rule of the Church is that what is private must remain private on a need to know basis. The need to know is determined by the rules of justice.
I hope this helps.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
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Greg27
Guest
I think this just shows the need to have checks and balances and accountability when it comes to ministers and employees. I think unfortunately sometimes Christians underestimate the power and ability of sin to infect those in roles of responsibility and the ability people sometimes have to hide them even if they are in positions of trust. Unfortunately in Catholicism people have a lot of trust and faith in their church and its ministers to the point they believe their leaders are infallible and their policies and decisions beyond question. As we saw though in the child sex abuse scandals, church leaders at the very highest level as well as those in positions of immense influence and trust over their charges (i.e. priests) can turn a blind eye to situations of incredible evil in their midst or abuse those positions of trust and power to sin in the most henious way imaginable.
The Vatican and Catholics should take care to ensure accountability and responsibility on the part of all employees and ministers, especially those in roles of leadership and influence.
The Vatican and Catholics should take care to ensure accountability and responsibility on the part of all employees and ministers, especially those in roles of leadership and influence.
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Zoe_Brain
Guest
No question. Between 19 out of 20 and 59 out of 60 are not paedophiles.
But… I think that if 1 in 20 in the hierarchy of any organisation rape children, or even 1 in 60, then yes, that’s rather worse than gays as a whole. A whole lot worse.
I have no figures for the proportion of priests who have broken their vows of celibacy. I suspect that that figure is rather higher than 1 in 20 though. Could you please give me any statistics you have?
I also don’t claim that the Church is any worse than several other sects, and demonstrably better than many.
For one thing, the Church has the courage to commission a survey, and to publish the results. Rather than my being anti-clerical, I consider them to be a paragon of integrity in that regard.
Just less chaste than gays who wish to marry.
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pnewton
Guest
Of course. Who isnt’t angry at anyone in power who abuses it to satisfy his greed and his lust. Kudos to the police for the bust. We can also be angry at those who seek to smear the Catholic Church by tying the two together as if there is any sort of casual relationship. That is downright stupid. The man’s main power for his corruption stems from his public job as an engineer. That is why he was being tapped. He is accused of extorting bribes. The logical connection would be to consider this a scandal on the Department he worked for, but where’s the news in that if one can sucker-punch the Catholic Church.
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Zoe_Brain
Guest
Agreed.
If one in 20,000 priests raped children, well, there are sinners everywhere. Some will manage to get into the Priesthood.
If one in 2,000, well, that’s no better than in the general population, a bit disappointing. Only 1 in 1000 of the US population are guilty of one sex offence or another, so it’s a bit high.
If one in 200 - that’s comparable to the PRISON population. Thieves, Murderers, Rapists.
But it’s not 1 in 200: it’s closer to 1 in 20.
To shrug it off as “well, some bad apples are in every barrel” does not appear to be appropriate.
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FightingFat
Guest
I constantly amazed at the way in which people seem sure that this is something that only happened in the Church. It happened pretty much everywhere it could have happened Zoe, and was dealt with the same way in every institution, largely because society had little understanding of it at the time.
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pnewton
Guest
I will not shrug anything off, but there was no indication of this being a case of being a sexual predator. It was prostitution.
The other issue and the problem with your statistics are another discussion, but child sexual abuse is far more prevalent than you think.
darkness2light.org/knowabout/statistics_2.asp
My own anectdotal stat is that about 1 in 12 behind bars is a sexual predator, or has a prior such crime. That is just what shows on the criminal history.
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Other_Eric
Guest
Since most Protestant, Jewish and pagan denominations lack the hierarchical structures that allowed the bishops handle the abuse cases in the Church in the way that they did, it is unlikely that we would see in very many the type of ethical lapses we saw in the Catholic Church. I think that what you may be attempting to point out is that the per capita numbers of sexual abusers were the same accross denominations.
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Fitz
Guest
I don’t mean to be a pessimist, but homosexual relationships have been with us from day one of mankind-onve we had original sin. They will be with us even at the end. I think the most important thing is that the church reacts to it and does not look the other way.
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Fitz
Guest
You make a very good point, one which our MSM rather ignores. They like to publicize problems in the Catholic Church but they rarely follow up with what percentage of abuse the priests actually did as compared to the population as a whole. Of course, it IS much more horrifying when a priest abuses, because they rob the child of so much more than just their faith in adults. They portray a horrid picture of our church in the body of Christ.
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Melvin
Guest
What saddens me…regardless of whether these charges are eventually substantiated or not, is that we cannot justify ourselves by pointing out the failures of others, either in our personal lives or as the Body of Christ. It smacks of rationalization, denial, and obfuscation. This scandal hits too close to the Successor of Peter. It is very, very disturbing.
Hiyas
What saddens me…is your statement.
Why so?
Sex sandals aren’t limited to the Catholic Church as you would want us to believe. Your own denomination has been racked…guardian.co.uk/world/2005/feb/19/religion.uk
Along with our Lutheran …icenews.is/index.php/2009/06/28/sex-scandals-shake-church-of-sweden/ …Baptist snapnetwork.org/news/baptist/baptists_confront_scandal.htm …Jewish religion.lohudblogs.com/2009/12/22/influential-ultra-orthodox-rabbi-from-monsey-caught-in-sex-scandal/ Friends etc et al
What is disturbing, to me, is a rush to judgment.
As always just my thoughts
K
kimmielittle
Guest
Hiyas
It was not my point to justify or rationalize. If you can make this point, I await it.
I am addressing the rush to judgment only.
I hope this helps
S
Sailor_Kenshin
Guest
I’m at the point where I understand a certain faction of the media will use any excuse to bash Holy Mother Church. They are crying wolf, and will have to reap the rewards.
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pnewton
Guest
Geographically, yes. The man was not even a clergy man. He was an* usher* and an engineer. Some people will be be duped by the title Papal Gentleman, but he is not related in the least to the Successor ot Peter any more than the janitor that cleans the restrooms.
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donanobis
Guest
In the US, a criminal background check is needed to teach catechism,work with kids or assist the elderly, along with a mandatory how to course. I wonder if they do that for all that work at or for the Vatican?
Also, there may be more scandals on the horizon.On a very recent internet program, there were claims made that a former Cardinal and another Cardinal were involved in some dark ceremonies in 1985. It is ludicrous on the face of it but many will believe it and as stated above, it gives more ammunition to those that do not believe and are hostile to the faith.
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JReducation
Guest
I believe that we must be very careful in reading these reports, as should those making the report. There is a problem here, because the sanctity of the Church is not necessarily a guarantee of the sanctity of the individuals. That is something that cannot be guaranteed. Even the successors of Peter have included some unsavory characters, but they took nothing away from the holiness of the Church or the office they held.
These reports have a patina of moral indignation, but in reality they are opportunistic sensational journalism when they fail to report that the weaknesses and failures of the employees of the Church, including religious and clergy, do not mean that the Church is failing or falling apart. The same thing has happened with the Regensberg child sex abuse scandal. All of a sudden poor Father Ratzinger is on the hot seat and someone has gone as far as questioning how much the former Bishop Ratzinger knew. This is not moral indignation. This is mean-spirited, pure and simple. In a court of law you would never be allowed to put the parents on trial for the crime of the child or vis a vis. But journalists feel that they have the right to do this to Catholicism, even though they do not do it to any other faith. If they put Islam on trial for the crimes of terrorists, they would have their heads blown off by other Muslims. But Catholics are a safe target, because we don’t have the violent reaction to attack.
The truth is that the Church is doing quite well given the Culture of Death in which we live. Recently, there have been reports in the news forum right here on the increasing number of converts to Catholicism, because people are convinced of the Truth taught by the Church. There is an overwhelming number of people (lay, cleric and religious) who have brought to the Church many new and fruitful ministries and ways of life, which is unprecedented. However, this is not reported. To my surprise, the only person who actually paid attention to it was Oprah, of all people.
So, what do we have left here? We have here an opportunity to be very creative in how we deal with problems, rather than try to defend, justify or apologize for being Catholic. The truth is that as long as man walks the earth, there are going to be individual weaknesses and failures. We cannot naively believe that a stricter pope or bishop is going to be the solution. It’s not. Popes and bishops have no more control over individual weaknesses than parents do over those of their children, no matter how well they raise them.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
These reports have a patina of moral indignation, but in reality they are opportunistic sensational journalism when they fail to report that the weaknesses and failures of the employees of the Church, including religious and clergy, do not mean that the Church is failing or falling apart. The same thing has happened with the Regensberg child sex abuse scandal. All of a sudden poor Father Ratzinger is on the hot seat and someone has gone as far as questioning how much the former Bishop Ratzinger knew. This is not moral indignation. This is mean-spirited, pure and simple. In a court of law you would never be allowed to put the parents on trial for the crime of the child or vis a vis. But journalists feel that they have the right to do this to Catholicism, even though they do not do it to any other faith. If they put Islam on trial for the crimes of terrorists, they would have their heads blown off by other Muslims. But Catholics are a safe target, because we don’t have the violent reaction to attack.
The truth is that the Church is doing quite well given the Culture of Death in which we live. Recently, there have been reports in the news forum right here on the increasing number of converts to Catholicism, because people are convinced of the Truth taught by the Church. There is an overwhelming number of people (lay, cleric and religious) who have brought to the Church many new and fruitful ministries and ways of life, which is unprecedented. However, this is not reported. To my surprise, the only person who actually paid attention to it was Oprah, of all people.
So, what do we have left here? We have here an opportunity to be very creative in how we deal with problems, rather than try to defend, justify or apologize for being Catholic. The truth is that as long as man walks the earth, there are going to be individual weaknesses and failures. We cannot naively believe that a stricter pope or bishop is going to be the solution. It’s not. Popes and bishops have no more control over individual weaknesses than parents do over those of their children, no matter how well they raise them.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
E
Ecoclimber
Guest
Cardinal Walter Kasper, a senior German prelate and the Vatican’s chief ecumenical official, said in an interview in La Repubblica that priestly sexual abuse must be punished and the church must take responsibility.
“Enough! We need serious housecleaning in our church,” he said, adding that “the pope is certainly not standing idly by.”
He called the sexual abuse of minors on the part of clergy “a criminal, shameful act and an inexcusable mortal sin.”
Cardinal Kasper said “the Holy Father is right in seeking clarity and demanding zero tolerance toward whoever is stained by such grave sins.”
The leadership of the German bishops’ conference will be meeting with Pope Benedict March 12 at the Vatican. The visit was scheduled previously, but the rapidly developing sex abuse scandal was sure to be discussed.
The pope met in February with Irish bishops to discuss the problem of widespread sexual abuse of minors in Catholic schools after a scathing independent report accused the Irish church of maintaining a culture of secrecy for many years.
The pope was to write a pastoral letter to Irish Catholics regarding what he called the “heinous crime” of priestly sexual abuse.
Cardinal Kasper said that while the question of the pastoral letter was up to the pope, he felt that because “such a difficult problem has emerged not only in Ireland, but in Holland, Germany and the United States, perhaps it deserves a more general analysis that applies to the universal church and not just a single nation.”
The 2004 John Jay Report commissioned by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops was based on surveys completed by the Roman Catholic dioceses in the United States.
The report determined that, between 1950 and 2002, 10,667 people had made allegations of child sexual abuse. Of these, 3300 were not investigated because the allegations were made after the accused priest had died. After investigating the remaining 7700 allegations, the dioceses were able to substantiate 6,700 accusations against 4,392 priests in the USA.
In reply to another post
The moral authority and teaching of the Church is impugned and diminish within the world especially when the Church takes a moral stand on abortion. The world says clean up your own house before coming to us and saying that abortion is immoral.
“Enough! We need serious housecleaning in our church,” he said, adding that “the pope is certainly not standing idly by.”
He called the sexual abuse of minors on the part of clergy “a criminal, shameful act and an inexcusable mortal sin.”
Cardinal Kasper said “the Holy Father is right in seeking clarity and demanding zero tolerance toward whoever is stained by such grave sins.”
The leadership of the German bishops’ conference will be meeting with Pope Benedict March 12 at the Vatican. The visit was scheduled previously, but the rapidly developing sex abuse scandal was sure to be discussed.
The pope met in February with Irish bishops to discuss the problem of widespread sexual abuse of minors in Catholic schools after a scathing independent report accused the Irish church of maintaining a culture of secrecy for many years.
The pope was to write a pastoral letter to Irish Catholics regarding what he called the “heinous crime” of priestly sexual abuse.
Cardinal Kasper said that while the question of the pastoral letter was up to the pope, he felt that because “such a difficult problem has emerged not only in Ireland, but in Holland, Germany and the United States, perhaps it deserves a more general analysis that applies to the universal church and not just a single nation.”
The 2004 John Jay Report commissioned by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops was based on surveys completed by the Roman Catholic dioceses in the United States.
The report determined that, between 1950 and 2002, 10,667 people had made allegations of child sexual abuse. Of these, 3300 were not investigated because the allegations were made after the accused priest had died. After investigating the remaining 7700 allegations, the dioceses were able to substantiate 6,700 accusations against 4,392 priests in the USA.
In reply to another post
The moral authority and teaching of the Church is impugned and diminish within the world especially when the Church takes a moral stand on abortion. The world says clean up your own house before coming to us and saying that abortion is immoral.
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