Follwing the catholic church' termination of an internal investigation into the child rapes by priests, do you think that the church is a criminal organisation?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20957406

Of course they are. In more ways than that, including claiming tax exemptions and then illegally manipulating followers into supporting their favored political candidates.

I’ve had enough. The catholic church should be abolished.

If the church has malicious reasons to do so then, yes. The Pope could also be referred to as The Godfather. Wait, come to think of it, sans actual meaning, I don’t think he would mind.

Every profession draws and attracts the phillias and sexual deviants. The Morgue is full of Necrophiliacs. Schools, Priesthood pedophiles, Finance, sociopaths. You know, you got to fish in the correct rivers.

Overall The Church is not a criminal organization, most clergy are not involved. But there is a criminal organization within the Church, and the Popes have been complicit for decades.

We finally had a bishop convicted for supporting pedophile priests in the US. He received only 2 years probation though.

And the vatican’s response?
“The bishop looks forward to continuing to perform his duties, including carrying out the important obligations placed on him by the court,” diocese spokesman Jack Smith said in a statement.

Yep, He’s still a bishop.

Yes.

Is the pope a nazi youth, twitter following, jesus loving, cocksucking man in a dress?
They should round up all of the priests named Father Kiddiefiddler & thrust a crucifix up their holy cracks!

No, I don’t think it’s a criminal organization more or less than any other denomination. There are stories of molestation for almost all religious denominations, like the cult in Texas and many others.

The Church is more than likely handling the rest internally with the priests because of all the negative publicity. When David Koresh had sex with kids, we heard about it for about 6 months, then no follow up. If the Catholic Church had less power, this would have been blown off by the secular authorities as well I believe.

Great use of the double entendre internal investigation.

Of course it’s not interested in justice. This is so pervasive that they can’t let it out of the bag without massive PR damage. Forget justice, they’re concerned about institutional survival. That’s not to say the Catholic Church would disappear, but publicly confronting their pedophilia would severely weaken it.

They don’t even want to admit it’s an international problem. Vatican authorities describe this problem as anglo-sassone. They deluded themselves into thinking it only affects the perverted English-speaking world. Germany? Probably close enough. Upstanding Italians would never!

The Church is more than likely handling the rest internally

If a member of my family molested somebody else’s kids, could we just tell the police we “it’s cool, we handled it internally”?

If a teacher molests students, can the school say “no problem, we handled it internally”?

If a priest were caught on camera robbing a bank, could the church handle it internally?

Child-rapers and their enablers in the church are finally being treated as the criminals that they are.

@KNOWITALL Thing is cult leaders are suppose to have sex with kids and all sorts of other vulnerable creatures, plus or minus some small critters. Lol. Catholic priests are not.

I don’t condone child rape by anyone ever for any reason.

The Catholic organizations help feed the poor, clothe the needy, run pantries and soup kitchens, and yes there are bad people in every profession, even churches.

Should the Church be under siege and forever apologizing for those bad apples or get back to the daily business of keeping people alive in body as well as spirit?

Having your children participate in services is not a requirement either, it’s a choice.

The Church is the oldest organization on the planet. If you don’t think they know what they are doing, then you are naive. Clearly they want to cover their collective ass. And they will. They realize that if they are open about this activity, it will hurt them a lot more than if they obstruct public knowledge at every step of the way. It would not be responsible of them to do anything other than try to keep the knowledge from escaping. Not responsible to the Church, I mean. And as you know the Church belongs to God and does God’s work. It is infallible, just like its leader, the Pope.

@KNOWITALL That is exactly the reason how the Catholic Church justifies suppressing the issue. To protect their mission of charity and keeping the faith. They may not know it now, but this will weaken and hurt them more. Why? Because they have lost all credibility by sacrificing children for the sake of being able to continue their work. They forgot to ask themselves, What would Jesus do?

I asked myself does the good they do outweigh the bad, and my answer was yes.

No one wants any children to be hurt or raped, not the Church, not the Pope, not Jesus.

Penalize the priests who were guilty, not the religion, not the worshippers, not the priests who did nothing wrong and certainly not all the people they help every day.

Why the investigation was terminated has not been discussed, but I’d be interested in the details rather than just ‘they terminated it because they wanted it shut up.’ Facts would be nice.

It’s enough of a problem where, uh, if Jesus ever comes back, He better not come back as a Catholic. ‘Cause they’d probably rape his baby bum.

I recommend this enlightening documentary

@KNOWITALL It would be fair to say that this specific coverup should be judged on its own merit, but the fact is that the Catholic church has a long history of protecting priests who have abused children. This cannot be denied. They have a culture of shielding pedophiles from the law. It is inexcusable that they have been allowed to get away with this, just because they are a religious organization. Legal authorities need to step in and take these investigations away from the church. Prosecutions need to happen. Right now, the consequences for child rape within the church are zero – and the children have no protection at all.

@glacial I know for a fact that priests who make mistakes are punished within the church.

Do you think it’s a coincidence that a powerful church with millions of members worldwide is the one still being persecuted for the same thing as other churches who are long forgotten by the general public and the media?

What protection do children have at a AOG church or a synagogue or a zealot’s commune?

What protection do children have anywhere, anytime with everyone period?

Why don’t you blame the parents, why leave your children with any adult you don’t know?

It’s amazing to me that parents, who are the ultimate responsible party if it’s their children, get none of the blame at all. I mean they didn’t notice a change in behavior or personality or anything?

Again, I don’t condone anything to do with abuse of children, and I don’t even attend church much, but I think the Church is being singled out maliciously.

Priest pedophiles were moved from one parish to another after hearing their confessions and forgiven by other priests. Afterwards they feel better about themselves because as @KNOWITALL says, none of them wanted kids raped. I don’t personally know if any of those priests repeated their crimes but given the way the Catholic religion works, there would have been endless forgiveness of their sins and parish transfers. It is really the perfect organization for the practice of pedophilia.

Some were, correct.

Jesus does forgive us of our sins if we ask Him, and of course you feel better after confession.

Is Jesus/ God supposed to never forgive a criminal rapist? Unfortunately for most of you here, it doesn’t work like that in Christianity.

My mom worked with a pedophile who had gone to jail, got out and was reformed (not practicing child rape I guess) and she had a really hard time with working with him and not losing her mind. I reminded her that we are not to judge each other, and that God forgives all sins with true repentance.

So should a priest be defrocked, lose his parish, go to jail?

What would make you feel like a priest has paid for his sins enough to be forgiven?

What if I told you the parents had already forgiven him and the child was an altar boy at their current church?

And also, is it your right to do so?

I don’t forgive people who rape babies, and I don’t feel the need to.

@Seek_Kolinahr But from my recollection you never claimed to be a Christian right? So you don’t have to. We do.

“So should a priest be defrocked, lose his parish, go to jail?” He should go to jail, yes. Without question. And so should everyone that protected him and by that abetted his crimes.

@KNOWITALL Fortunately, the criminal justice system doesn’t exclude rapists because Jesus is cool with them now.

I think the issue isn’t simply black and white. On one hand you feel sorry for the victims and would want retribution and assurances that it will never happen again. On the other hand innocent parties get branded with the bad.
It’s like having a rapist in your immediate family and everyone backs away from you because they fear you carry the same gene and may be a rapist as well. Your whole family gets branded. Only in a church that means you also lose followers.

I grew up in the church, hanging out in rectories and convents after school. Never once did I feel uncomfortable until it became public about child molestation’s and rapes. Then all the priest the we knew for years and felt comfortable and safe with, had to follow protocols that actually ended up making them and parishioners feel like we were not of the same community.

None of our priest were involved but they were given strict rules after that for priest and nuns to never be alone with anyone again except for when taking confession. And even then it had to be with someone close by down a hall with the door wide open and one of the persons in view.

I couldn’t help but feel sorry for them at the time. They enjoyed our community (in a wholesome way ) and were now being treated like lepers.
So I can understand why the church would feel defensive.

I’m not saying they shouldn’t be punished but I can see where they don’t win no matter what they do. They are doomed either way.

From another Christian’s post regarding pedophilia—

We must pray for these people, that they will turn from their wickedness, and find truth and forgiveness in Christ. We must also forgive them (This does not mean tollerating their vile behaviour), so that God can work in their hearts and lead them to repentence!

@Pandora Thank you for expressing that so nicely. That is kind of what I was trying to say. If you’ve ever been around a bunch of nuns and priests, most remind me of loving grandparents, imagining another witch hunt in the Church hurts my heart as much as the children who were mistreated.

By the way. There are better ways for perverts to hide. They can become sport coaches and have excuses to be in the locker room. Only people try to hide that much harder because football coaches and baseball coaches make big money for schools.
You have whole communities go into denial because it also brings money into their communities and may get some of their students scholarship funds or into the pros.
So they pretty much tell little Johnny or Suzy to hush up and take one for the team.

The Catholic Church has been guilty of crimes against humanity for centuries. I’m not just talking about the obvious cases like the Crusades or the Inquisitions, either. The church stole babies from people they thought weren’t devout enough and gave them to other families. And it wasn’t until the end of World War II, after the horrors of the concentration camps had been revealed, that the church backed off on the vilification and persecution of Jews. Before that, there was an official distinction between “bad anti-semitism” and “good anti-semitism.” The idea was that you shouldn’t hate Jews just for being Jews. You should hate them for being money-grubbing cheats who refused to become Christians and engaged in conspiracies to take over the banks and media so as to control the world. In other words, the Catholic Church is responsible for the pervasive stereotypes of Jews that lent credence to Nazism.

Even though the number of priests who personally molested children is relatively low compared to the total number of Catholic priests, the fact is that the molestations were no secret. The number of people who knew is much higher, and every single person who is complicit in covering up the scandal is guilty of aiding and abetting. This extends to the families of victims who told them to keep quiet, too. Members of the Catholic Church are collectively guilty of rape, sexual abuse, and conspiracy to commit rape and sexual abuse. You don’t have to do the act yourself, or even be intending to do the act, to be liable. All you need to do is act in furtherance of the crime. And that’s what every person who helped cover it up did. Hell, I’m not convinced that the Catholic apologists who try to act like it’s not a big deal aren’t fucking conspirators themselves.

@KNOWITALL I cannot believe you are engaged in the victim blaming of children. It’s a choice to bring them to service? How does that mitigate the raping of a child in any way? Any parent who knew that molestation was common in the church is definitely guilty for putting their children in harm’s way, but that doesn’t excuse the priest that molested them.

I don’t respond to that kind of talk from anyone.

@Pandora The church lost followers because they covered it up, so a pretty shitty game plan on their part. If they had just dealt with the first case openly and swiftly, the church wouldn’t have become known as a place where pedophiles were not just able to find their prey, but would be aided, abetting, and downright coddled while doing so. There have been a lot of cover ups in history, but the Catholic Church made a worldwide institution of it. No excuses.

@KNOWITALL You don’t respond to direct questions asking why you are victim blaming children? Well, I guess you’ve just earned another badge for your rape apologist sash.

@Uberwench You know, I can cuss you out much better than you can cuss me I bet, I just choose to be more mature about this discussion.

Just to clarify, my grandmother was passed around to my great grandfather’s friends before she was age 5, I have no love for pedophiles. Actually it’s one of my toughest dilemma’s as a Christian because I want to kill them all for the good of everyone on the planet.

When did I say the victim bore responsiblity for something in any of my posts?

I think a parent is ultimately always responsible for the welfare of their children, whether at church, a playground or a grocery store, or even another child’s birthday party (that’s where my two cousins were all raped when their parents dropped them off and trusted the parents.) Yes, I think the parents should accept some responsibility.

@Uberwench I don’t think @KNOWITALL was blaming the victim but rather pointing out that the parents of some of the victims may share some blame as well. I have witnessed parents who happily drop off there kids with anyone who says they will watch them to get some time to themselves. And then act all surprised when their kid is victimized. Well if you have to brain cells in your head than you know to be careful who you leave your children unattended with. These children are usually easy marks because the parents don’t care.

wants to hear @KNOWITALL talk dirty…yeah baby, yeah! ;¬}

@Pandora Can you just say everything I want to so I dont have to just make everyone mad? :) I get emotional and don’t articulate as well on particular subjects that are close to me.

@ucme You don’t want to get me started, when I’m good I’m good, when I’m bad I’m the baddest. Don’t make me post a profile pic in my leathers-lol

@KNOWITALL My jaw just hit the floor…not even if I beg? ;¬}

@KNOWITALL Not answering the question is being mature about it? If @Pandora is right that all you meant was that the parents were partially responsible, then you should have said that instead of implying that it was offensive for me to even ask in the first place. But it’s still wrong to say that the parent is the ultimate bearer of responsibility here. The person who is ultimately responsible for rape is the rapist. No matter what the parents did, the rape wouldn’t have happened if the rapist hadn’t done it. The parents share in the blame if they knew, but it’s still the priest who is ultimately responsible for the molestation.

Which point is really being made here? @KNOWITALL and @Pandora feel sorry for priests and nuns who are not pedophiles yet expect parents not to trust any of them with their kids?

@KNOWITALL I re-read her post and I didn’t feel she meant that the rapist wasn’t the most to blame, but simply that a parent had the most responsibility to ensure their child’s safety at all times. Some things you can’t guard against like teachers. But when it comes to coaches or priests or even community centers, you should make your presence known so that they are aware that your child is well monitored. I watched my kids wherever they went and made it clear to all teachers and friends that I will believe and trust whatever my children tell me. I was involved in their schools and even events.

My husband and I were often chaperones for many school events. We always made sure we could attend till they were of age to know if they were being manipulated. We moved a lot since he was in the service so we made sure not to be careless with who we left them with. It meant giving up being alone a lot but I gave birth to them and I was going to do everything possible to guard them. I didn’t even let them do sleep overs unless I personally knew the person and have seen there was not one thing suspicious about their behavior. And that usually meant at least knowing them and their family for at least 2 years. Pissed a lot of people off but we were ok with that.

I’ve seen documentaries on how pedophiles select their victims. They usually go for the kid who needs the attention because parents are absent or careless in their lives. The child gravitates towards them and trusts them because they are looking for a parent figure and they go out of their way to make the child feel loved and secure. Not the childs fault at all because they are innocent but parents should at least try to make things difficult for these criminals to prey on their children. Some parents make it too easy.

@mazingerz88 Unfortunately that is the world we live in today. It is a sad thing that children are victims anywhere with anyone, at anytime. I can feel empathy for all the innocent victims,both children and adults and still think that the guilty should be punished. I’m a realist though. There is no perfect solution.

Even if you could go back in time to a more innocent time, it doesn’t mean that you can come out not being a victim. It only means that in the past, more victims kept quiet because they were ashamed.
The world simply isn’t black and white.

I’m so tempted to point out that leaving your child with a Catholic priest seriously calls into question your sense of responsibility as a parent.

@bolwerk like this?

@Pandora I’m going to assume that this was meant to be directed at me.

The statement I was reacting to was this: “Having your children participate in services is not a requirement either, it’s a choice.” We’ll ignore the fact that Catholic doctrine makes skipping Mass without a very good reason a grave sin and in some cases a mortal sin, meaning that it actually is a requirement. Instead, I’ll point out that there is nothing in that statement or the whole answer that implies that @KNOWITALL was trying to say something about the parents’ responsibility. In fact, there wasn’t anything like that until you suggested it for her. If that was what she had meant, she could have said so. Instead, she needed someone else to make excuses for her, at which point she claimed to have meant that all along.

I agree that the parents are guilty of something if they knowingly leave their children with a molester, but @KNOWITALL brought it up as if it mitigated the priest’s responsibilities. “You shouldn’t have left your child with him” is the exact same argument as “you shouldn’t have been wearing that.” In fact, all of @KNOWITALL‘s early answers to this question are rape apologism. This one tries to pretend that other denominations doing bad things somehow changes whether the Catholic Church is a criminal organization. Even if the Catholic Church is not more of a criminal organization than other denominations, that doesn’t mean the answer to the question @ragingloli asked is “no.” And the David Koresh bit is stupid. We stopped hearing about it because he died in a fire. The authorities didn’t blow it off. All they tried to blow off was Koresh’s fucking head!

Honestly, @KNOWITALL‘s attempt to be the rape apologist for the church is all the worse because she has family experience with child rape. Of course parents should be careful who they leave their children with, but priests shouldn’t be victimizers. They are supposed to moral leaders, and the parents we’re talking about are people who were assured their whole life that the Catholic Church has their very souls in its hands and is most definitely trustworthy. Are you saying that everyone should have been just as suspicious of their priests as they were of random strangers on the street even before there was any evidence of a massive molestation conspiracy? And would that really change the answer to the question @ragingloli asked, which is whether the Catholic Church is a criminal organization? They can be criminals even if other people were irresponsible.

@bolwerk Other people have already suggested as much. It doesn’t change whether or not the Church is criminal, though.

@Uberwench My daughter would very much agree with you. She and I have a very heated conversation about victim blaming but I don’t see this as the same situation. One statement I think we can all agree upon is that rape is 100% the blame of rapist. Never the victim. I don’t care if a woman or man strips down naked and runs though the street naked, it doesn’t give anyone the right to do someone harm.

I just get so annoyed when I hear these stories of child rape because some days I feel I’m the only one who wonders where were the parents. You drown your kid because you got the baby blues, not your fault. Your 5 year old walks through the woods after school alone and disappears, not your fault. Your little baby girl who was murdered while in your care and you have no real alibi, and lie at every turn to the police. Not your fault.

The world is both fascinating and dangerous. If anyone has ever listened to the news or read a paper or has been on line or listened to the radio, you can’t claim to be ignorant to the dangers your child will face to reach adulthood. In an attempt to keep all the focus on the perpetrator we make sure to ignore neglect that places your child in harms way.

But to answer the question. The Church tries hard I think to protect its reputation as it has for centuries. There are many things I do not agree with in regard to protecting rapists and murders but then I’m not so religious that I feel that only God has the right to pass final judgement. I believe they should follow the law of the land wherever they are and should not interfere. They should continue to forgive others for their sins when they ask for it but they should stay out of the way of the law. No matter what direction they choose there will always be fall out.

@Uberwench First you cussed like a sailor when it was completely unnecessary, then you keep harping about the same mistatement, but don’t you dare bring my families molestation into question.

Ultimately anything that happens to a child is the parent’s responsibility, especially when they’re young. The priests or clergy who hurt children obviously are guilty, which I made pretty clear earlier.

By the way, there is a strong Catholic movement trying to make marriage acceptable for clergy, then every child they’re around won’t be seen as a sexual object. Why not work together to make that happen instead of arguing semantics and placing blame on the entire Church.

I’ve a long time without getting laid. Never did a 9 year old boy become appealing.

Anyone else?

Aren’t pedophiles usually men?

@burntbonez Not always but statistically the majority are men.

And we know some people have trouble repressing their sexual urges more than others, which is why so many of us Catholics are pushing the Church and other members about celibacy for lay persons being overturned for all sects.

The Vatican, yes, most cardinals, yes, many bishops, yes, some priests, yes.

Christian Pfeiffer is a reputable crime expert and I’m outraged that German bishops are trying to discredit him. Here’s an English video about the matter. I think the church’s decision will backfire.

http://www.dw.de/catholic-church-in-germany-calls-off-study-on-sexual-abuse/a-16507382

And Pfeiffer will make sure the truth gets out. So there’s even an opportunity here.

@mattbrowne says, “I think the church’s decision will backfire.” I said, “They may not know it now, but this will weaken and hurt them more.” @Pandora posted, “I’m not saying they shouldn’t be punished but I can see where they don’t win no matter what they do. They are doomed either way.” AMEN…

I think the Church is far from doomed, weakened maybe. If God is on the Church’s side, they cannot lose.

If a company had a 100 employees and 20 were bad, the company doesn’t shut down, you simply replace the bad apples and move on.

And if the company is actively protecting criminals and actively hindering investigations, the entire company needs to be shut down.

The investigation is being re-opened with another company, so your Q is misleading.

@Seek_Kolinahr: Rick Santorum? Methinks the people who talk pedophilia up in public are its biggest (secret) fans.

@ragingloli: corporations are people too!

@KNOWITALL
Yes, with one that will obediently falsify and censor results so the criminal church can white wash its involvement.
But fortunately the criminal church’s meddling has already been revealed, so any results that come from a future “internal investigation” are now untrustworthy and without merit.

We’ll see…..I don’t presume to know the future and what it will reveal. What I do know is that the whole Church should not be shut down because of a few hundred priests out of thousands.

The entire vatican has been systematically shielding the abusers from law enforcement and tried to sweep it under the rug. The pope himself was personally involved.
It is not just “a few hundred priests”. The entire apparatus is complicit in the crime.

@ragingloli Come on, we shouldn’t have to shut down the whole Taliban because only seven people flew an airplane into a building.

@KNOWITALL Come to think of it, I just realized @ragingloli makes a good point. Now, my feeling is, and this same sentiment was already expressed albeit in different words in some of the posts above…the whole Catholic church is guilty by association because they choose not to protest their leadership’s criminal acts. It’s that simple. They are, sad to say, enablers and cowards.

@Seek_Kolinahr Let’s not forget the Taliban goat herders and the goats themselves. They shouldn’t be involved at all….

Okay then.

Test.

Child abuses committed by relatives outnumber all other abused committed by priests, teachers and so forth. Like for teachers, the vast majority of priests has never abused any child. The Vatican has apologized for the harm done to the victim. But to this day, the Vatican has never apologized for the installation of systematic crime cover up schemes. In fact, the system is still in place and the public is supposed to learn as little as possible about it. This is unacceptable.

@KNOWITALL You are raving. My language really shouldn’t be an issue, but it’s hardly worse than anyone else’s. And saying “fuck” is not nearly as offensive as apologizing for rapists. And I haven’t been harping on about anything. Until this response, you never even admitted you made a misstatement. You and @Pandora just kept defending the point, so of course I kept pointing out that it was rape apology. If you’re finally willing to admit that it was a mistake, then we can drop it.

And where the fuck do you get the idea that I am bringing your family’s molestation into question? I don’t doubt that it happened. My point was that your being a rape apologist is even worse for having known someone affected by it. That’s not calling it into question, that’s putting a flashing light on it and saying “Look at this! How can you see this and still say what you said?”

And you’re still doing it by trying to blame the Catholic Church’s policy of clerical celibacy. Priests didn’t molest children because they aren’t allowed to have sex. Plenty of men go without sex for long periods of time without thinking “hey, I should go fuck a 12 year old boy!” Pedophilia is its own disorder, and the church let itself become a haven for pedophiles by covering up their crimes for them. Blaming it on the policy, or suggesting that it’s a homosexual plot (like Bill Donohue did, even though most child molesters are either straight or have no adult orientation) is just another way of not addressing the problem.

Don’t be misled, though. I have worked with Catholics to try and change their marriage policy. I’m also against the rule against female ordination. Not having a one-track mind, however, I have the amazing capacity to do that and argue that something should be done about the widespread rape conspiracy within the Catholic Church. I can also walk and chew gum at the same time.

@jaytkay the Popes have been complicit in several shades of all kinds of wrong at most levels since the Crusades in the medieval era. Decades? Not even close buddy. Not even close.