The Pope Covered Up Pedophile Priests
 

Source: New York Times

I remember having a conversation with Strangler about religion way back in 2004 or so. We were going through the definitions of "deist" and "theist" and "atheist" and so on when he casually dropped the line, "Catholic = corrupt."

I thought he was being pretty harsh at the time. Sadly, it seems I was too optimistic. I honestly don't know how the Catholic Church recovers from this or how regular ground-level Catholics who weren't involved in any of this can rebuild the institution.

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The infallible pope, everyone. Oh, but this wasn't about Catholic teachings, so he's still infallible.

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This has been a long time coming. Even late last year there was significant criticism pointed at the Pope for not intervening in Ireland when they specifically asked for help.

I don't think Catholicism is corrupt, so much as Catholic tendencies lead to corruption. It's unfortunate, but I think it may become necessary to do personality testing and background checks on new Priests. As much as you'd like to think they choose such a difficult path to bring religion to others, many choose it because it is an easy way to gain both prestige and access to victims.

I also think this would never have happened under Pope John Paul II. Benedict is exactly the sort of Pope the Catholic church doesn't need. He's completely set in his ways and has shown no ability to adapt the church to fit in the 21st century.

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This is quite litrally a top-down problem, with no fault put to 99.9% of Catholics, but all falling on the church itself. The Catholic Church believes that it is not beholden to any secular laws of any nation where it teaches, and is only beholden to their own dogma. Quite literally, the church covers up these things because they don't feel it's anyone's business but their own.

Meanwhile, the church's civilian population must follow the laws of the nation where they live, AND live by Catholic dogma (to be considered a "good" Catholic.

This kind of separation of rule/double standard is bound to create such corruption and scandal.

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Since I don't think anyone will argue the Catholic Church's case here, I'll bring up an argument I have read before. It comes from a letter written to Tulane's student-run newspaper, The Hullabaloo, in response to an article or editorial about one of the latest Catholic sexual abuse scandals of the time. (This was a few years ago.)

The crux of the argument was that the Catholic scandals are overblown, because the rate of Catholic priest molestations is similar to the rate of molestations by other regular men, such as grandfathers. What do you think?

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The rate of molestation isn't the cause of the problem, its the fact that a trusted and presumably moral organization has gone to great lengths to cover it up and harbor felons.

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People should be smart enough to blame those involved, and not the religion as a whole.

I mean, it's an easy fix. All you have to do is not molest children. It's not splitting an atom or anything. It's just self-control that a select few people don't have.


This situation reminds me 100% of the South Park episode though. Good times.


Anyways, like I said - I don't think the "Catholic Faith" will have to recover from this. Not in the eyes of Catholics. In the eyes of everyone else, sure. But what do they matter to Catholics - they aren't part of Catholicism. Catholic parents need to not be so trusting of their priest just because he's a priest. People are still people, regardless of how close they want to be with God.

100% agree.
The Pope should immediately be de-Poped.
But since he's the pope, and everything he does is considered the will of God, maybe God wanted him to harbour felons.
I'm clearly joking, for the record.

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Wait wait wait wait wait! You mean you all molest children?

LOL.

This is a sticky situation though. Dirty old priests.

Of course no one wants to protest this by leaving the catholic church, because being catholic is a sweet deal. Oh I fucked up, but I told my priest, now all is forgiven.

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Good old religion.

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How can you live with yourself if you're the priest doing these things? I mean, serious question. Either you're a pedophile or a believer, I cannot believe that some priests are both. If you are a believer and you're raping little boys, I can only imagine how terrified of death you must be.

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That's what the Priests said.

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Religion doesn't make people molest children. It would be ridiculous if that's even what you're insinuating.


Because I can confidently assume that the ones who molest children probably wanted to be a priest just for the sole fact they are attracted to little boys - and what better way to get close to them and gain the trust of the family other than being a priest.

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No, that's not what I'm insinuating. I'm just saying it's one more of a multitude of reasons why we would be better off without religion.

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Ok...

How does that statement NOT insinuate that religion causes child molestation?

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Without religion you wouldn't have had these people in this situation. You wouldn't have people being tricked into thinking that living a celibate life is somehow moral, and you wouldn't have people trusting their kids to some stranger who has no legitimate reason to be trusted with them - other than that they are supposedly close to some invisible guy in the sky.

Religion didn't make them molest children - but it presented a scenario which shouldn't exist: child molesters who are deemed trustworthy because they believe in something non-existent (or at least say that they do), and a huge, powerful organization which is also founded on something non-existent that protects them.

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These people would molest children regardless of religion.
That's like blaming Marilyn Manson's music (or even music in general) for the Columbine shootings.

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Even though I don't agree with Vamp.. I'd say his example is more like blaming public/private schooling for the shootings at columbine.

If there were no public schools, there would be no place for these kids to do such an insane act of terror.. And if there was no religion, there'd be no pedophile priests that people trust their kids with.

So with that said... I don't agree with Vamp. lol

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The reason I said what I said is because people did blame Marilyn Manson's music for the shootings at Columbine.

But yes, yours is much more apt than mine is.

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Good points. Your criticisms were more aimed at the organization of religion rather than the belief structure, and that is surely a valid argument.

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Yes, they probably would, but a huge difference is that one of the most powerful organizations in the world wouldn't be helping to cover up for them, nor would they have such a ready supply of victims being practically handed to them.

I wouldn't really carry it that far - there is risk associated with everything. I think the world benefits from having public schools far more than it would without them - even though it provides a venue for crazy people to hurt others. Not only that, but officials have begun to realize the dangers of having a lot of helpless kids and teenagers in a centralized location with other possibly mental and easily influenced children. The result is better security, metal detectors, etc.

Organized religion, on the other hand, I don't see how the world has benefited from it more than it has suffered.

I don't think religion is innately evil - if I did I would have very few friends and hate my parents. But for whatever reason people are inspired to organize around things they find important, so it happens with religion as well. I was talking to a friend at work about it the other day - he's a very religious person, but he hasn't been to church once in 2010, and he was talking about how he's happier than he has been in a very long time.

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I wish more things had the power to draw people together like religion does, but things that don't rely on faith and belief.

As in, I see good in the video game culture and specifically what Penny Arcade has done with PAX and Child's Play.

I see good in Wikipedia, Firefox, and other such coming together of people for a common good.

But these in the end don't have the same numbers that religion draw.

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So here's a question for you: would this have happened if Catholic priests didn't have to be male and celibate? What if priests were allowed to marry and have families? What if some of them were women? If Cardinal Ratzinger had been a father, do you think he could have condoned the cover up of child rapists?

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Do we not have any Catholics here? I don't formally consider myself Catholic, but I have been strongly influenced by and benefited from the Catholic / Jesuit tradition of education and culture. I'll post my thoughts from inside and outside the Catholic church when I arrive home.

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No, I don't think it would have happened if Catholic Priests didn't have to be celibate men. But that's part of a much bigger problem. Would it have happened if Catholicism wasn't so stagnant? So utterly and completely incapable of changing with the times? I mean, the Catholic church practically ignores the outside world entirely, It's almost entirely turned inward; a circle of priests wearing mirror's on their backs, reflecting the world back at itself and never looking at it for what it really is.

If a widely accepted scientific belief is suddenly called into question, do we ignore it or cover it up? No, we adapt or find a new theory that fits better. But in the church, if something happens that might cause doubt it's usually covered up or glossed over.

I was baptized Catholic and attended a Catholic church fairly regularly until I was 9 or 10. But that was before I thought for myself a lot and I stopped going around the time that I did. I eventually tried Lutheranism with the ELCA and was confirmed Lutheran, but it was more because the church was next door and we had an absolutely stellar Pastor that was willing to openly discuss theology and its various merits/flaws with me.

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I went to Catholic school all my life until university, and went to Saint Thomas High School in Houston, established by the Basilian Fathers in 1900. We had some odd rivalry with the other all-guys Catholic high school in Houston, Strake Jesuit. (Dear Bond: Damn Jebbies!)

But I don't ever remember talking about the sex scandals much in high school. Maybe the scandals weren't yet blown wide open by 2002? I've always wondered since then if any of the priest teachers I had committed any sexual abuse... there's at least one I wouldn't be surprised at all if he had. He was just... creepy sometimes.

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First off, Bond - I'm not personally Catholic, but a large section of my family is, and my mom was raised it.

Now, just something I want to touch on:


That's because Religion doesn't exist to help the masses as a whole. It exists to help a person. Religion is a great thing.

Do priests molest kids? Yes. Is it wrong? 100% undoubtedly sickening.
Is it terrible that the Pope covered it up? Again - completely. However if you were the Pope, would you want to tarnish your entire religion, or would you want to do what you can to try and save face. Obviously it's wrong, and it didn't work out in the end. But I can see where the Pope was coming from. Just because he covered it up doesn't mean he's defending the people, or their actions; he's defending the religion.

This is from a post I made on another forum to do with a different topic, but the thread was on religion:

"Fathers shouldn't beat their children, and people shouldn't kill kittens.
Shit happens.
Religion isn't to blame.
People who let various things control their entire emotions are to blame.
If those people who 'hardcore' follow religion, were into something else - the world would be a shittier place.
Are there Zealots and Extremists? You bet.
But there are fucking marijuana extremists who riot in order to get it legalized.
There are people rioting and killing people for next to no reason.
So to say most of it rests solely on religion is fucked up.
Religions are old, and outdated. Completely.
They help people who need help, and they give hate to people who need hate.
But people are fucked up, and will do fucked up things. "

Now obviously I know that doesn't pertain to child molestation. I wasn't posting that as a defense to it, I was posting that as a defense to the existence of religion as a whole.


Edit:

I do think priests should be able to marry and have families. We're not meant to be celibate. Our entire purpose is procreation. Hell, even the Bible says that. Give everyone the freedom to procreate with human females of near the same age, and move on.

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I would suggest that he's not defending a religion in that case. He's just defending a human institution, and it would be a mistake to confuse the institution of the Catholic Church with the Catholic faith.

Everyone? Even human females? Duuuuuuuuuude...if we gave human females the freedom to procreate with human females, the world would become a very interesting place very quickly.

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I was raised Catholic but I have rejected it for years. I think the institution is silly and the pedophile cases growing by the day.. well, that's quite sickening.

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Change you can believe in. amirite?

Seriously, though, I have a couple girl friends that are don't lean to the bisexual end of the spectrum that would love to have each others children if it were possible.

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I was raised Catholic too but that definitely started getting looked over in the high school years. If I felt it at all, it was kinda gone. I haven't been to church in forever unless it was a funeral and I just...

I dunno. Organized religion is a joke most of the time.

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And now the Vatican suggests that the Pope has immunity because he's head of state. He can't even be called to testify. Talk about cowardly.

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I honestly wouldn't call a man who knows the media would tear him 18 new assholes and then purposely fuck each one of them with a microphone 'cowardly'.

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Pretty sure that will be happening regardless.

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I think you should all go check out the newest episode of south park :D

It's entitled "Medicinal Fried Chicken"

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I like how the Pope admit that they have inadequate methods of selecting candidates for priesthood. :)

I read an article on why people still stay Catholic. Many of them are 100% inactive, but they're too lazy to withdraw themselves. That seems to be a bit of a hassle.

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It's hard to get out of any religion.

People need to stop singling out Catholicism just because they might not like/agree with it's views.

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I think people are singling out Catholicism because that is the religion whose priests are &%$#ing little boys, but I could be wrong. /joke

To me, the problem lies with a horribly outdated celibacy mandate. The relatively high rate of perversion is because many Priests are not joining because they want to sacrifice their libido for God, they are joining because they believe it will cure them of their sometimes perverse compulsions. The trouble is this cure puts them in a position of trust, and surrounds them with what tempts them.

Abolish the celibacy mandate, and I believe the rate of perversion would come down to normal levels and not be nearly as pronounced because they will attract more devotees.

Besides, celibacy is not mandated anywhere but in Catholic dogma. Nothing in the bible demands it.

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I'm well aware that you're joking, but it seems absurd to think only Catholic priests are the ones committing these crimes. There is no way that I'll believe no Muslims, Jews, Christians, Mormons or even Amish are doing it. It's just easiest for someone who wants to be close to little boys to fake believing in God to become a priest.


While I do, and don't agree with you on the celibacy thing.
I don't think it's priests who are so in the want for sexual connection that they go to rape little boys. Because A) If they're actual priests and believe in God, there is no way they'd think of doing that and B) That's a large assumption to make. If me or you are celibate, I don't think we'd resort to little boys.


Like I said, I think it all basically lies with the fact the Catholic church has a really weak way of scanning candidates for priests.

It's like if banks didn't have a vault, and left one person in charge of all the money. Now, upstanding citizens like me or you might not steal the money because we have fear of the law. But what would be stopping someone who wanted the job for the sole desire of taking money from the bank, if they never stop to think of repercussions.

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Show me the Jewish rabbi who was raping or molesting children and then had his crimes covered up by the very highest authority in th Jewish religion itself.

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You're right.
Only Catholics molest children.
How crazy I was to ever think otherwise.
Thank you, oh wise Xantar, master of trying to start arguments over the internet.
I'm ever indebted to your giant internet cock.