Why Catholic now? Abuse reports getting worse, lost interest in Inquiry

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Neil_Anthony said:
Hi Lufty,

It’s because we who have been Catholics for a long time already went through this a decade or so ago, or more. We learned about the abuse, got really angry, felt betrayed, and were happy to see the church reform itself, at least here in North America. So it’s old news, that the press seems to be dragging up just to cause a crisis. We’ve been there, done that, and the second time around it’s very annoying.
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I agree. Well put.
 
People are much more PO’d than you think. I agree with Crumpy. Anyone found guilty needs to be removed immediately and anyone suspected should be placed on desk duty until a final determination is made. Any clergy who are so desperate should walk out the door immediately and find a brothel. It’s better to sin with a consenting adult than misguide a young life.

Another poster quoted only 2% of clergy as the offenders. Unfortunately, people listening to TV assume it’s much more than that. Even if the number is higher than 2%, I’m in favor of closing Parishes temporarily and packing the adjacent parishes like it’s Easter Sunday if need be. This lends more credibility to the Church with those unfamiliar. I’ve had family members leave the Church over this.

This is a horrible tragedy at a time when more and more people are searching for Grace and Guidance in these shallow times. The Catholic Church is the positon to grow dramatically if it is willing to truly clean up this mess.
 
Thanks for the thoughts, but I just don’t think blaming this on the secular media is making me feel any better about associating with a Church unwilling to properly address this type of issue. ManOnFire is right, parishes SHOULD be closed when investigations are started, or evidence is uncovered by Law Enforcement. But the Church is STILL shipping accused priests to other parishes, or paying retirement to those who have served time for abuses. That’s hard to swallow.
With folks like Bill Donohue out there in the media, regardless if he is not reciting Church teachings, for someone new to the CC like me, it makes it impossible to explain my journey of inquiry to non-Catholics, especially family and friends. I do not have the words to explain what is happening, and spending my time researching abuse, in order to defend a faith that I have not been baptized in, seem like a waste of religious study. I came here to become educated in being a Christian, a part of the CC, and live my life with Christ…I just don’t see how that is possible these days for a new comer, by ones self, with no guidance, RCIA months away (I already missed RCIA last “season” by 1 month), and this type of thing happening around the planet.

If someone else has some interesting suggestion, I’m all ears.
 
lufty said:
What keeps your regular Catholic going these day? Or how about those in RCIA or Inquiry as I am?

I find it disheartening that so little outrage from within the Catholic Community is present, nor are discussions regarding the Vatican’s lack of action to resolve this, and punish those Clergy that are guilty. Reading these forums, mostly I see allot of finger-pointing to the secular media for “attacking” the CC, yet many, if not most of these allegations on sexual abuse are a reality.

I for one have found it difficult to even consider attending Mass, or continuing with the Inquiry stage at this point, with so little (name removed by moderator)ut by the Catholic community present.
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When a person truly understands what the Catholic Church is, who she speaks for and what her mission is, a few wayward humans and sinnners do not even make a dent. Considering 25% or 3 out of 12 choosen by Christ, 1 betrayed Him by selling Him out, 1 denied knowing Him, 1 ran away and left his clothes behind. The vast majority of abuse cases have been of a homosexual nature, but yet we do not see an uproad in the media against homosexuality? We don’t see school boards being sued for millions of dollars over teachers who “abuse” children and teenagers?
 
lufty said:
I for one have found it difficult to even consider attending Mass, or continuing with the Inquiry stage at this point, with so little (name removed by moderator)ut by the Catholic community present.
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can’t give (name removed by moderator)ut until we know the whole story, so until news media decides to give accurate rather then sensationalized slanted stories, will withhold comment.

you are still searching for a church home if you have come this far, so if you reject the Catholic Church for the actions of a few people, you will have to keep looking until you find a church full of perfect, sinless people, and perfect sinless leaders. I can guarantee the Catholic Church is not that place, this is definitely the place where Jesus came to call sinners and heal the spiritually sick, as he said and where we will find pussilanimous, weak, vacillating leaders who are even capable of denying him, as he predicted.
 
lufty said:
Some good advice. However, it’s reports like the statements by Bill Donohues, who on CNN Live rationalized that some molested boys were post-pubescent, and same sex attracted so it wasn’t really pedophilia the priests were performing. Some of these kids are 14 years old.

What? And this from the President of the Catholic League? And STILL president?

videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/bill-donohue-child-molesting-priests-weren
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I have heard Bill Donahue, and he never said that it was “okay” for priests to be in same-sex relationships with boys under the age of 21 - he merely pointed out that these were not little children being attacked, but teenagers and young adults who appeared to be consenting to sexual activity.

The men who took advantage of their youthful naivete need to be removed from active duty in the priesthood and imprisoned for inappropriate sexual conduct with minors, obviously. That’s not in question. But people are getting an image in their minds of priests going after little children, which is not anything like what happened, at all.
 
lufty said:
Thanks for the thoughts, but I just don’t think blaming this on the secular media is making me feel any better about associating with a Church unwilling to properly address this type of issue. ManOnFire is right, parishes SHOULD be closed when investigations are started, or evidence is uncovered by Law Enforcement.
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And in the meantime, how are the spiritual needs of the people who belong to that parish supposed to be met? A parish is not just a community centre with a whole bunch of optional activities going on - Mass is essential to the Catholic life, and so is Confession. If you shut down the parish, those people will have no place to go for Mass or for Confession. Why should they be punished, for actions that one of their priests may or may not have committed? 🤷
But the Church is STILL shipping accused priests to other parishes, or paying retirement to those who have served time for abuses. That’s hard to swallow.
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As far as retirement benefits, what do you propose? It’s not like a priest can get a job working at McDonald’s - he doesn’t have the resume for it. But I doubt that priests are still being moved around from parish to parish. My understanding is that, once they have been found guilty, they are suspended from duty, and go to jail. Under English common law, they are to be considered innocent until proven guilty, so we can’t actually punish them before they have had their day in court.
If someone else has some interesting suggestion, I’m all ears.
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I don’t know why you can’t start going to Mass, interacting with real Catholics, and praying for the Church, and especially for your priest, before you start RCIA. Ideally, you should have been going to Mass for at least a year before you start your formal RCIA classes, anyway.
 
Br.Rich_SFO said:
When a person truly understands what the Catholic Church is, who she speaks for and what her mission is, a few wayward humans and sinnners do not even make a dent. Considering 25% or 3 out of 12 choosen by Christ, 1 betrayed Him by selling Him out, 1 denied knowing Him, 1 ran away and left his clothes behind. The vast majority of abuse cases have been of a homosexual nature, but yet we do not see an uproad in the media against homosexuality? We don’t see school boards being sued for millions of dollars over teachers who “abuse” children and teenagers?
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Yes, exactly. The Church is the only visible means given to us by Christ for our salvation.

It’s bad enough that we could potentially lose our salvation for our own sins, but it would be sad beyond words to lose your salvation over someone else’s sins.
 
jmcrae said:
I have heard Bill Donahue, and he never said that it was “okay” for priests to be in same-sex relationships with boys under the age of 21 - he merely pointed out that these were not little children being attacked, but teenagers and young adults who appeared to be consenting to sexual activity.

The men who took advantage of their youthful naivete need to be removed from active duty in the priesthood and imprisoned for inappropriate sexual conduct with minors, obviously. That’s not in question. But people are getting an image in their minds of priests going after little children, which is not anything like what happened, at all.
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“Some sources have asserted that most of the victims were between the ages of 16 and 17 making the sexual abuse instances of hebephilia rather than pedophilia. These sources argue that, by failing to make this distinction, the media has fostered a misconception of the problem. In fact, 15% of the victims were 16 or 17 years of age, while 51% were between the ages of 11 and 14. The John Jay Report determined that just under 6% of victims were 7 years of age or younger. 16% were between 8 and 10”

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_sex_abuse_cases
 
CMatt25 said:
“Some sources have asserted that most of the victims were between the ages of 16 and 17 making the sexual abuse instances of hebephilia rather than pedophilia. These sources argue that, by failing to make this distinction, the media has fostered a misconception of the problem. In fact, 15% of the victims were 16 or 17 years of age, while 51% were between the ages of 11 and 14. The John Jay Report determined that just under 6% of victims were 7 years of age or younger. 16% were between 8 and 10”

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_sex_abuse_cases
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Oh yes - that Paul somebody, who was involved with NAMBLA - I can’t remember his last name. He was killed in jail more than a decade ago, already.
 
Br.Rich_SFO said:
When a person truly understands what the Catholic Church is, who she speaks for and what her mission is, a few wayward humans and sinnners do not even make a dent. Considering 25% or 3 out of 12 choosen by Christ, 1 betrayed Him by selling Him out, 1 denied knowing Him, 1 ran away and left his clothes behind. The vast majority of abuse cases have been of a homosexual nature, but yet we do not see an uproad in the media against homosexuality? We don’t see school boards being sued for millions of dollars over teachers who “abuse” children and teenagers?
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We are talkng about the church proclaiming itself to be the one and only true Church of Christ, infallible in teaching morals. against which the gates of hell will not prevail. Not a school board or the scouts or even a Protestant church. I’m sorry and don’t get me wrong. These heinous acts, the act of molestation and then the cover up are awful no matter where. But folks we do a disservice to “pass the buck”, deflect the issue, or sweep it under the rug by siting other organizations.
 
CMatt25 said:
We are talkng about the church proclaiming itself to be the one and only true Church of Christ, infallible in teaching morals. against which the gates of hell will not prevail. Not a school board or the scouts or even a Protestant church. I’m sorry and don’t get me wrong. These heinous acts, the act of molestation and then the cover up are awful no matter where. But folks we do a disservice to “pass the buck”, deflect the issue, or sweep it under the rug by siting other organizations.
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Your child is one hundred times more likely to be assaulted by his coach than by his priest. Yet, people are running away in suspicion from priests, but still sending their kids out for sports. 🤷

The holiness or secularness (that’s not really a word, but you know what I mean) of the organization where the abuser works would not be a factor in the amount of hospitalization your child would need, if he were ever attacked, whether it was by his priest or by his gym teacher.
 
Maybe, you should base your Christian - Catholic - Jesus walk on your personal spiritual needs.

I’m not Catholic because I need anyone else’s approval. I stand on my own - in the responsibility of my relationship with God

I’m not Catholic because I plan to defend / explain / excuse anyone else’s sins - shortcomings - failures. We all fall short - this I know - I’m not that naive.

I am a Catholic because I’m a sinner.
I am a Catholic because I need the Body of Christ, not just Spiritually, but humanly, in my life.

You started out on a Spiritual Journey…how you end it or define it - You have to determine. 🙂

“Dear God, you know I wanted to find out about you - I heard my soul crying out to find you …but you see there was this scandal and…hmmmm…well I didn’t want to look bad by association donja see? I mean…what would people think? How would I explain it to them?”

As always, just my thoughts
 
jmcrae said:
Your child is one hundred times more likely to be assaulted by his coach than by his priest. Yet, people are running away in suspicion from priests, but still sending their kids out for sports. 🤷

The holiness or secularness (that’s not really a word, but you know what I mean) of the organization where the abuser works would not be a factor in the amount of hospitalization your child would need, if he were ever attacked, whether it was by his priest or by his gym teacher.
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Didn’t I say it is just as heinous no matter where it occurs. If people are as you put it running away from their priests, it’s because the CC is supposedly the one and only true Church with infallible moral teachings. But doesn’t always act like it. We have had supposed apostolic successors preaching to us the sanctity of life but did not know enough not to protect innocent children from abuse. We aren’t talking about some little lesser venial sin. People are fed up. They might have just confessed their sins to someone who earlier in the day had molested a child. Or listened to a bishop preach the sanctity of life, who secretly had been covering up child abuse. I’m not judging eternal salvation. But as hard as I try I can not fathom that disobeying a bishop who may have covered up child abuse, disobeying by missing Mass on some prescribed weekday Holy Day is a mortal sin meriting eternal damnation. But with Catholic clergy child abuse and cover up, we say oh lets just chalk it up to sin.
 
CMatt25 said:
Didn’t I say it is just as heinous no matter where it occurs. If people are as you put it running away from their priests, it’s because the CC is supposedly the one and only true Church with infallible moral teachings.
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The fact that people are sinning doesn’t make the teachings of the Church to be wrong. Nobody in the Church is teaching that these things are okay.
But doesn’t always act like it. We have had supposed apostolic successors preaching to us the sanctity of life but did not know enough not to protect innocent children from abuse. We aren’t talking about some little lesser venial sin. People are fed up. They might have just confessed their sins to someone who earlier in the day had molested a child.
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Their sins are still absolved.
Or listened to a bishop preach the sanctity of life, who secretly had been covering up child abuse.
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And yet, he is still teaching correctly. Maybe I’ve just been lucky, but I have never encountered any of these priests or Bishops in real life. I once went to Confession with a priest who was accused of embezzling money from the Church. He went to jail. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with my Confession, just because it turned out that he was a sinner.
But as hard as I try I can not fathom that disobeying a bishop who may have covered up child abuse, disobeying by missing Mass on some prescribed weekday Holy Day is a mortal sin meriting eternal damnation.
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That someone else has sinned, does not give us permission to sin, also. It’s like kids in the playground yelling, “He did it first!” or “But he did something worse!!” You know that both of those kids will be punished; not only the one that did something first, or worse.
 
CMatt25 said:
We are talkng about the church proclaiming itself to be the one and only true Church of Christ, infallible in teaching morals. against which the gates of hell will not prevail. Not a school board or the scouts or even a Protestant church. I’m sorry and don’t get me wrong. These heinous acts, the act of molestation and then the cover up are awful no matter where. But folks we do a disservice to “pass the buck”, deflect the issue, or sweep it under the rug by siting other organizations.
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The Catholic Church is the Church of Christ, it does teach Infalliably on matters of Faith and Morals. It does not in the least fail in it’s mission to proclaim the Gospel of Christ because of a few wayward humans who fail to listen to and follow the teaching of the Church.
 
lufty,

It is fortunate that the number of bad apples is “only” 2%. If the Church dealt harshly with this problem, we would have far more members.

The way I explain it is this: if your adult child sinned in this way, would you give them away, write them off, or disown them? I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t trade away my Church either. We are all sinners and will unfortunately always have a few bad apples. It would be nice if the problem were handled more decisively, but I think the hierarchy is afraid of the media fest that would ensue if they dealt with it in this manner. Admittedly, the media fest would be very damaging, which needs to be weighed against those who believe that not enough is being done. So, they’re taking baby steps, and it’s not fast enough for some of us.

As far as Mass, we could drive to other parishes or watch EWTN if we consider ourselves to be shut out.

I hope and pray that you will join us. The Church is still well worth it. Peace.
 
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