For Catholics only

[Philosoraptor]

I'm an atheist, but I have many religious friends, including some very nice Catholics. I fully support America's freedom of religion, and I try to respect people of all stripes.

What would be so wrong with the Catholic church making an official announcement that all future priest pedophiles be immediately removed, banned, arrested, and never allowed to be around kids again?

I guess I just don't understand why they're not condemning these monsters and eliminating once and for all priests who sexually abuse kids. And I don't understand how bringing up this awful subject is somehow 'Catholic bashing', and why certain posts on the subject get locked.

When are the cardinals and bishops and popes going to finally get a handle on these sex perverts?

What if it were your own Catholic kids?

I know that pedophilia isn't limited to Catholics, but about half the people in the world now think of Catholic priests as threats to their own children.

I'd really like to hear from some devout Catholics concerning these atrocities against kids.

[CurtEastPoint]

1. I would be in total favor of that.

Parents and children have the right to NOT be attacked, molested, etc.

The church and civil authorities ought to have removed these pedophiles from the get-go.

The church has done (and omitted doing) some things that make me very angry. It's not perfect, but as you said yourself, there are some very, very good people in the church.

[Philosoraptor]

4. You can't condemn a whole religion based on a few jerks

[TommyO]

10. Unfortunately, it's more than "a few jerks"

It goes right up to the top now.

[ensho]

19. a pedophile is light years worse then a 'jerk'

get serious

[OHdem10]

2. I think the new rules are very similar to what you recommend including

now, the Church is to turn them over to Police immediately.


What becomes confusing possibly is they keep unearthing
these cases from the past. In this case now, the molester
is dead. I am not defending just explaining.

The rules have been updated including turning them over
to civil authorities.

Hope this helps.

[Philosoraptor]

5. Those who hide or re-assign these guys should be arrested too

[spanone]

3. i was raised catholic and it's fucking criminal what the church has done

and in the name of god

[a la izquierda]

23. +1

an abomination before God is what my grandmother, rest in peace, always said.

my grandma, by the way, was as hardcore an Irish Catholic as one could get, and a Liberal too.

[mmonk]

6. Sounds good to me.

[pkz]

7. They didn't care about our children or us for that matter

I was raised Catholic, and I mean Italian-Polish Catholic, any of you out there? know what I mean.
I married out of the church and was not allowed the sacraments. I only attended Mass out of family obligations.

After my divorce, my Grandmother sends the priest to me, long story short...
I told him "when my children and I were abused by a horrible man, you counseled that I stay with him, keep my family together,
now...NOW...you want us back? For what? to raise the church census? to give my hard earned money to help pay all the lawsuits?

I quit, and now call myself a "recovering Catholic"

[DailyGrind51]

8. I have been saying the same thing, since my Cardinal violated the very procedures

he signed to uphold by transferring an accused pedophile instead of turning him over to civil authorities. We need more lay authority in our diocese consisting of parents, teachers, social service personnel, etc. to review a bishop's administrative decisions. "Redemption" consists of confessing one's wrongs, asking forgiveness, and accepting punishment. Merely transferring an accused person without investigating the truth does not meet those requirements.

[Philosoraptor]

9. What makes them think they're above the law?

Pedophiles are the worst sinners in the world in my opinion, how can a so called holy man break God's laws and man's, and then get away with it?

[Possumpoint]

11. IMHO

The Catholic church is a power structure like a government entity. In an effort to retain that power the heads at various levels chose to hide the indiscretions to avoid the scandal. They wanted to keep the illusions that the church was at all times good for the people.

I think that every decision to hide the perp's. should be explored by police to determine if charges can be brought forth. That includes the Pope's. It is also my opinion that the church's ban on marriage for priests is part of this problem. That creates a haven for child pedophiles that they can hide in.

[rurallib]

13. The Church is not like a government; it is a business, a very, very big business.

I have asked for years an approximation of the wealth of the American Catholic Church that is exempted from taxes. I think the amount and the extent of their holdings would shock people.
I was raised Catholic and was a victim of an old priest.
Were there to be a wholesale purge, it would shake confidence in the church and remove much of the infrastructure that drives their business. So while they may have new rules to that effect, implementation of those rules is a whole 'nother matter.

Imagine a huge worldwide business (say Nestle) firing a large group of its middle management without having replacements in the pipeline. Let's face it, not many becoming priests these days.

[ensho]

21. agree

nt

[Johonny]

24. but it is a government

The Pope is the head of the city-state of the Vatican city. Making it much more complex than many churches or businesses.

[Kingofalldems]

12. I think they already made similar rules.

As a Catholic I do not know of any procedure to remove a Pope or Bishop though. Anyone?

[Fresh_Start]

14. I think they should all be defrocked and excommunicated

meaning the leadership.
The pedophiles should be imprisoned and those that protected the pedophiles should be right next to them.

[The_Commonist]

15. Maybe this is why they don't condemn it...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Hot_Catholic_Love

[Javaman]

16. a couple of things...

the church has painted itself into a corner.

priests, in general, are a dying breed. The number of men wanting to become a priest these days, is down in huge numbers.

So rather than cut these monsters loose, they move the deck chairs around and hope no one will notice.

Within 50 years, the church will allow priests to marry and allow women to become priests.

The church knows it's fighting an uphill battle, but it takes a long time for the church to make a decision on anything and hoping that they do the right thing in a timely manner is like hoping that earth ages quicker.

They will only fix things when it 1) appears as if the church is doing it under their own accord 2) when it is financially beneficial to them 3) The church does what the church does and will never allow anyone to dictate to them what they should or should not do, out of fear they they will lose power.

[kanrok]

17. First let's define the terms

Pedophilia is defined as a sexual attraction to pre-pubescent individuals.

Hebephilia is defined as sexual attraction to post-pubescent individuals.

According to the John Jay study, the majority of victims of Catholic sexual abuse were by hebephiliacs, therefore the victims were primarily post-pubescent.

By reducing this solely to pedophilia you unintentionally reduce the pool of victims.

It is abhorrent and vile to sexually abuse a child.

It is equally abhorrent to try to actively hide the problem from civil authorities.

I am as Catholic as they come, and I don't for a minute buy the justifications made for hiding the perpetrators under the guise of doing what was recommended by psychiatrists back in the 80's when the scope of the problem became more widely understood.

I believe strongly that anyone involved in perpetrating or hiding the perpetrators should be subject to criminal and civil prosecution. No ifs, and or buts.

Increasingly, reporting to civil authorities is now the norm.

The Church has had numerous priests charged, tried, convicted and jailed.

The Church has also spent billions across the US in civil settlements. Some dioceses had to close churches and schools, and some even went bankrupt.

I'm all for it.

But as a practicing Catholic, I know that priests are also human, and we make allowances for this.

I would no sooner leave the church because a small minority of priests are engaging in this abhorrent behavior than I would attempt to pull my children out of class and home school them.

After all, a child is more likely to be sexually assaulted by a school employee than a priest.

We don't see a clamor in the press (and certainly not here) over ending the scourge of sexual abuse by educators.

And no one would think of leaving the educational system because of this issue.

The issue for me then is, why throw the baby out with the bathwater?

[Philosoraptor]

18. ,,,

[butterfly77]

20. K&R!

[TwilightGardener]

22. A few reasons why it's been mostly ignored or covered up, IMO--

First--not very many priests nowadays, and they won't change their policy to ordain anyone besides single men. So, you recycle them instead of kicking them out.

Second--this is the ultimate top-down authoritarian organization--if the hierarchy says "this is how we're dealing with it", they expect Catholics to go along with that and not question further. Catholics around the world have decided that's just not good enough anymore, and now the Vatican doesn't seem to know what to do.

Third--Priests themselves were seen as authority figures. Nobody dared question them, when I was a kid in Catholic school. Our nuns practically bowed before them, and acted like servants trying to please the master. That's how they got away with these abuses for so long, and why they're still being treated as if they're better/different from your average perv.

[AngryOldDem]

25. Here's the problem in a nutshell....

The institution, in their minds, **must** be protected at all costs. Until that attitude changes, and they see beyond their own selfishness and self-interest and recognize the horrible damage that has been done to millions of innocent people, this scandal will continue to be covered up. They will rationalize it, deny it, try to place the blame somewhere else, and make under-the-table deals to ensure continued silence.

In the U.S., some of what you suggested above is coming to pass. But it's a slow go. And it's only recent cases that get the light of day -- there are still some priests around who abused 30, 40, and in some cases 50 years ago, and they are still active. Keep in mind that the defrocking process takes years, and until that happens, priests remain on the company payroll. So basically they get paid vacations while their victims deal with the pain and the expense of their own therapies.

A lot of states have moved to amend their statutes of limitation for reporting sex abuse, which has been one of the biggest stumbling blocks to prosecution, as well as to include clergy among mandatory reporters of abuse, along with teachers, doctors, day care workers, etc.

I think lay Catholics will find their voice on this issue and demand that the hierarchy open up. I can also see the possibility of schism, especially in the United States, where authority will not go unquestioned for long and people have no problem with calling others on their crap when they see it.

The Church was warned about this back in the 1980s that pederast and pedophile priests were time bombs waiting to go off. Almost everything predicted then has come to pass. The report (Doyle/Mouton/Peterson) is below. Note that Thomas Doyle was a Catholic military chaplain, and he was forced out of his ministry in a "dispute" with his local archbishop.

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/reports/1985_06_09_Doyle_Manual/

As for kids -- parents should tell their kids to treat priests like anyone else. Stranger danger and no-touch zones go just as much for men of the cloth as they do for anyone else in society.