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Re: The Pope Covered Up Pedophile Priests
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Originally Posted by Xantar
I'm not saying that all fathers are saints. I'm saying that if Catholic priests had all been family men, they would have been less likely to try to hide pedophiles from justice. Yes, it's a generalization. That's why I use words like "more likely" or "less likely" instead of "will."
I don't know if it is more or less likely... has a study been done on that?
I'm kidding by the way.. Though I don't think him having a family would have solved the problem, this is a top down problem caused by them chosing to keep immoral action secret opposed to openly punishing people for it.
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Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (the future Pope Benedict) was assigned the task of covering up pedophile priests, moving them to other jurisdictions, hiding evidence and so on. To do this, he had to think that it was ok for little boys to be traumatized for life with no possibility of justice.
I that he could have thought that way, but somehow I don't think he's that sick...I think that he probably thought that allowing that information to get out would do more to hurt the catholic church then it would to help their cause. Just because you're the one who hides the evidence doesn't mean you're that you agree with the crime. Some people just simply feel that letting things get out on the table, even if it's the right thing to do, can hurt their cause more then it can help it.
I'm sure the priests were slaped on the wrist, in a very secret way.. but they weren't about to let someone else handle it.
Just like the whole torture situation in the US. They didn't want to release certain pictures. certain information, and did not want to prosecute the people who gave the orders. Is that because they agree with the crime? No.. It's because some of those pictures, and some of that information can destroy america's reputation and anger our enemies/allies further, even if we do the right thing and put the people who allowed it in jail.
That's just how I see it.. yes little things could change up how much the molestation occurs, but the thing that needs to change the most is how they handle people who commit the crimes. Because as I pointed out a few times, the crimes will still happen no matter what incentive structure surrounds a person.
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"See the Hebrew sign?" he says, pointing. "You go downstairs, and that's where the mikvah is."
The mikvah is a bathhouse usually used by women for ritual cleansing. But in some Hasidic communities, like this one, fathers bring their young sons on Friday afternoons before Shabbat begins. Twenty-one years ago, when he was 7, Diangelo recalls going to the mikvah with his father to find the place packed with naked men and boys.
"And I was in the tub, and I had my back turned, and somebody raped me while I was in the water," he says. He takes a shaky breath. "And I didn't know what happened. I couldn't make sense of it, really."
...
"He motioned for me to get on his lap, and as soon as I got on the chair, he would swivel the chair from right to left, continuously," Engelman says. "Then he would start touching me while talking to me. He would start at my shoulders and work his way down to my genitals."
Engelman says this occurred twice a week for two months. He told no one for more than a decade. Reichman was, after all, a revered rabbi. Four years ago, he told his parents. And a year ago, when he heard that Reichman had allegedly abused several other boys, they confronted Reichman. When the school heard about it, they gave the rabbi a polygraph.
"He failed miserably," Engelman says. "So they told me, 'This guy is gone. This guy has to go.' "
But a few weeks later, a religious leader from the school approached Engelman's mother, Pearl. He posed an astonishing question: On a scale of 1 to 10, how bad was the molestation?
She was speechless. Then she says, the man continued, " 'We found out there was no skin-to-skin contact, that it was through clothing.' So he's telling me, 'On a scale of 1 to 10, this was maybe a 2 or a 3, so what's the big fuss?' "
The school hired Reichman back. That was in July 2008 — one week after Joel Engelmen turned 23 and could no longer bring a criminal or civil case against the rabbi.
...
"If you're a pedophile, the best place for you to come to are some of the Jewish communities," he says. "Why? Because you can be a pedophile and no one's going to do anything. Even if they catch you, you'll get away with it."
Abuse and cover-up by the Hasidic Jewish community. It's amazing what power does to control people.
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Religion: Creatin' pedophiles since the dawn of time.
The Pagans had it right.
No single God, no desire for molestation.
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Well, ya know, if you had just given me the story that manasecret just posted, then that would have been the end of it. But I understand it's easier to make fun of my penis size than it is to actually read my question. It's all good.
Anyway, not asking rhetorically and really looking to be enlightened: who is the highest authority of Hassidic Jews? The article says that Hassidism is broken up into a bunch of small groups spread around the world, but I don't know if each of those is considered autonomous or if they all answer to some (human) authority.
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Well, ya know, if you had just given me the story that manasecret just posted, then that would have been the end of it. But I understand it's easier to make fun of my penis size than it is to actually read my question. It's all good.
Anyway, not asking rhetorically and really looking to be enlightened: who is the highest authority of Hassidic Jews? The article says that Hassidism is broken up into a bunch of small groups spread around the world, but I don't know if each of those is considered autonomous or if they all answer to some (human) authority.
Good question, but sorry I can't answer it, I don't know much about them and their power structures. On that note, others here mentioned this, but how many religions out there have a power structure that goes as high up as the pope? I reckon just a handful.
So I don't know if this story of Hasidic Jews meets your criterion for being like the Pope covering things up, but it is quite similar with high-ups getting caught and then the organization tending to cover it up.
But really, I have to point out again -- it's like a South Park episode: "So, on a scale of 1 to 10 -- how bad was the touching of your son's penis by the rabbi? I mean, there was no up and down motion, right? Just some side to side motion, maybe a little tongue. So, I mean, come on -- 2... 3?"
Did anyone know that the then-future pope Joseph Ratzinger was being sued in a Houston federal court some years ago for international conspiracy to obstruct justice? And that he was then elected pope just so he could get diplomatic immunity as head-of-state?
That's what Daniel Shea, the man behind the suit, believes, and I think I believe.
According to Shea, the cardinals elected Ratzinger Pope to give him the immunity that would enable him to avoid answering any questions concerning his knowledge about and handling of sex abuse cases in Houston's St. Francis De Sales church in the mid-1990s.
In fact, Shea believes that what he started with the lawsuit may eventually result in the destruction of the entire Roman Catholic Church.
Dan Shea, a former Catholic deacon, has come a long way from the seminary. Whether that's a long way up or a long way down depends on where today's Catholic Church stands in your eyes. In the last five years, Shea has cracked wise about the Pope being gay and a drag queen in front of the Italian Parliament. He got a bishop to declare in open court that it was the church's position that minor children were accomplices in their own molestation. He looked another bishop dead in the eye and told him to kiss his ass.
So it's safe to say, he evokes strong emotions while expressing his beliefs.
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In Doe et al v. Roman Catholic Diocese of Galveston-Houston et al, Shea and Khan Merritt allege that a letter then-Cardinal Ratzinger sent to every Catholic bishop on May 18, 2001, constituted an international conspiracy to obstruct justice. This official Vatican document Ratzinger penned in his role as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith dealt with official church procedure in dealing with clerical sex abuse cases.
Not only did this letter contain the cardinal's current thinking on the subject, it also cited in a footnote a top-secret 1962 Vatican document Shea would eventually flush out.
This 48-year-old document, informally known as Crimen Sollicitationis, considered a smoking gun in some quarters, contains written orders from the Vatican laying bare a system for protecting child molesters. To Shea, Crimen is more than a smoking gun, it is "a nuclear bomb."
Joseph Ratzinger needs to resign. He's poisoning the Catholic Church from within.
In fairness, these claims are coming from the plaintiff in a lawsuit. Of course he's going to assume the worst. Also, while I do believe that Ratzinger covered up the scandal, I also believe the many accounts that he has worked to reform the situation from the inside. Does that make the cover-up better? No. But understanding how the mind of the Vatican works, I'm not surprised by their actions.
What are the laws of a nation compared to the laws of God and His retribution/absolution? The rulings of a government court system mean nothing to them.
In fairness, these claims are coming from the plaintiff in a lawsuit. Of course he's going to assume the worst. Also, while I do believe that Ratzinger covered up the scandal, I also believe the many accounts that he has worked to reform the situation from the inside. Does that make the cover-up better? No. But understanding how the mind of the Vatican works, I'm not surprised by their actions.
What are the laws of a nation compared to the laws of God and His retribution/absolution? The rulings of a government court system mean nothing to them.
The rulings of a government court system does mean something to them, otherwise there would be no need for a cover-up.
While certainly the plaintiff, Daniel Shea is going to assume the worst, you have to admit it's a good conspiracy theory with some hard evidence pointing to the conclusion that he was elected Pope to give him diplomatic immunity.
But, as far as the two letters that the article references -- Ratzinger's letter to all Catholic bishops from May 18, 2001, and the 48-year-old document Crimen Sollicitationis it cites in its footnotes -- those are hard facts. I'd like to read them in full myself (I believe both are in Latin, so it makes it slightly more difficult, having to rely on someone's translation), but if they're at all what the article makes them sound like, it sure sounds like a cover-up to me, and across international borders, which I'm guessing makes it an international conspiracy to obstruct justice.
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Last edited by manasecret : 05-05-2010 at 04:44 PM.
IMO they covered it up to avoid losing their flock, not because of government legal action.
Kind of a chicken or the egg situation -- if it weren't for legal action (and media outcry), would they have to worry about losing their flock? But yes, I agree they are more worried about losing their flock, whatever the cause of that may be.
I see what you're saying, in their mind, they felt like they could fix it internally without courts getting involved and mussing it up. Can't say that makes breaking the law any better. Especially with their track record of "fixing" it by slapping priests on the wrist and transferring them somewhere else.
Also to note, from my Catholic education and exposure, as I remember it Catholics are supposed to follow man's law as well. Though I never quite understood the quandary when man's law doesn't jive with god's law...
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Last edited by manasecret : 05-05-2010 at 06:32 PM.
Re: The Pope Covered Up Pedophile Priests
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