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Pennsylvania Priests

Started by SGOS, August 25, 2018, 06:00:08 AM

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SGOS

300 over 70 years abusing a thousand children so far.  What's amazing is that no one has commented.  Not that this is shocking.  It was already known this was a world wide epidemic, so what's so special about Pennsylvania Doing what the Boston Globe and the Country of Australia already did?

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/14/us/catholic-church-sex-abuse-pennsylvania.html
“Despite some institutional reform, individual leaders of the church have largely escaped public accountability,” the grand jury wrote. “Priests were raping little boys and girls, and the men of God who were responsible for them not only did nothing; they hid it all. For decades.”

I wonder if there is something special about the priesthood that causes this.  Do pedophiles gravitate toward the priesthood knowing there is unlimited opportunity?  It's an odd correlation Priests/Pedophiles.  Makes you wonder why.

SGOS

In thinking about this further.  Pennsylvania is doing more than just fueling the scandal.  It's actually punishing the molesters, lifting statutes of limitations, and allowing civil suits that would ordinarily be too late to be allowed.  Scandal is always fun and an American pastime, but scandal isn't enough.  The church should pony up and pay the victims.  But the church is lobbying Pennsylvania to eliminate some legal tools of redress.

Gawdzilla Sama

Quote from: SGOS on August 25, 2018, 06:00:08 AM
300 over 70 years abusing a thousand children so far.  What's amazing is that no one has commented.  Not that this is shocking.  It was already known this was a world wide epidemic, so what's so special about Pennsylvania Doing what the Boston Globe and the Country of Australia already did?

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/14/us/catholic-church-sex-abuse-pennsylvania.html
“Despite some institutional reform, individual leaders of the church have largely escaped public accountability,” the grand jury wrote. “Priests were raping little boys and girls, and the men of God who were responsible for them not only did nothing; they hid it all. For decades.”

I wonder if there is something special about the priesthood that causes this.  Do pedophiles gravitate toward the priesthood knowing there is unlimited opportunity?  It's an odd correlation Priests/Pedophiles.  Makes you wonder why.
Really? Access to children. Not having to explain why they're not married. And these days, for who knows how long, the church top management is like-minded, so there's protection. The trifecta.
We 'new atheists' have a reputation for being militant, but make no mistake  we didn't start this war. If you want to place blame put it on the the religious zealots who have been poisoning the minds of the  young for a long long time."
PZ Myers

SGOS

Quote from: Gawdzilla Sama on August 25, 2018, 06:11:29 AM
Really? Access to children. Not having to explain why they're not married. And these days, for who knows how long, the church top management is like-minded, so there's protection. The trifecta.
The thing that I wonder about is if potential priests are drawn by the prospect of protection while molesting minors, how did they know this?  And if they knew this, why didn't everyone else?

Gawdzilla Sama

Quote from: SGOS on August 25, 2018, 06:25:44 AM
The thing that I wonder about is if potential priests are drawn by the prospect of protection while molesting minors, how did they know this?  And if they knew this, why didn't everyone else?
I believe they did know and chose to ignore it as part of the cost of going to Heaven. And I further believe that this is part of the reason for the decline of the Church as people chose to not be part of that any more. The decision may or may not have been conscious.
We 'new atheists' have a reputation for being militant, but make no mistake  we didn't start this war. If you want to place blame put it on the the religious zealots who have been poisoning the minds of the  young for a long long time."
PZ Myers

Baruch

Quote from: SGOS on August 25, 2018, 06:25:44 AM
The thing that I wonder about is if potential priests are drawn by the prospect of protection while molesting minors, how did they know this?  And if they knew this, why didn't everyone else?

Former victims become victimizers?
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

SGOS

In retrospect, others may have given signals that they did know.  Growing up in Chicago, probably one fourth of my friends were Catholic who frequently made jokes about priests chasing around after young boys.  I was too young to be offended, and the tone of the claims was casual and along the lines of gallows humor.  Yet they were oddly prevalent.  I remember wondering, "Is this just kids talking? Are those priests sickos or are my friends the sickos?"

Some of this assuredly got back to parents.  Some would likely admonish sons for using sacrilegious humor.  Some would probably deny it to themselves, hush it from their friends to avoid appearing disrespectful toward the Church, and of course as we now know, some parents and police officers were simply bought off by the Church not to press charges or say anything.  But whatever social dynamics were involved, the Church was able to keep it hidden, even while professional child advocates were negotiating payoffs for the victims.

Even the reporters at the Boston Globe didn't know what was going on when they first started investigating.  The media exposing it may have been a major break from well established journalistic tradition.

SGOS

When the story first broke about Boston, I wasn't totally surprised.  I remember thinking, "Well that explains why some of my friends were telling such peculiar stories back then.

Gawdzilla Sama

We 'new atheists' have a reputation for being militant, but make no mistake  we didn't start this war. If you want to place blame put it on the the religious zealots who have been poisoning the minds of the  young for a long long time."
PZ Myers

Unbeliever

Quote from: SGOS on August 25, 2018, 06:00:08 AM
I wonder if there is something special about the priesthood that causes this.  Do pedophiles gravitate toward the priesthood knowing there is unlimited opportunity?  It's an odd correlation Priests/Pedophiles.  Makes you wonder why.

Quote from: Martin BuberSince the primary motive of the evil is disguise, one of the places where evil people are most likely to be found is within the Church. What better way to conceal one's evil from oneself, as well as from others, than to be a deacon or some other highly visible form of Christian within our culture?...I do not mean to imply that the evil are anything other than a small minority among the religious or that the religious motives of most people are in any way spurious. I mean only that evil people gravitate toward piety for the disguise and concealment it can offer them.

Quote from: Kenneth V. LanningThe fact is that far more crime and child abuse has been committed by zealots in the name of God, Jesus and Mohammed than has ever been committed in the name of Satan. Many people don't like that statement, but few can argue with it.
God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman

Blackleaf

I don't think that paedophiles join the priesthood knowing they'd have opportunities to abuse their position of power. But there are probably some other variables that tend to lead to paedophiles gravitating toward those positions. First, they probably acknowledge their desires as sinful and think that becoming a spiritual leader would make up for it. Also, rapists rape not for sex, but to exert their power over others. Who has more power than a man who speaks for God?
"Oh, wearisome condition of humanity,
Born under one law, to another bound;
Vainly begot, and yet forbidden vanity,
Created sick, commanded to be sound."
--Fulke Greville--

Unbeliever

A man with a nuclear arsenal?
God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman

Gawdzilla Sama

We 'new atheists' have a reputation for being militant, but make no mistake  we didn't start this war. If you want to place blame put it on the the religious zealots who have been poisoning the minds of the  young for a long long time."
PZ Myers

Unbeliever

Quote from: Gawdzilla Sama on August 25, 2018, 04:22:53 PM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_sexual_abuse_cases

The claim that it was "the declining moral standards in prevailing culture" that led to the abuse is a crock of shit. This abuse has been going on, I expect, for centuries. I have no proof of that, so I could be wrong, but I bet I'm not.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_sexual_abuse_cases#Purported_declining_standards_in_prevailing_culture

God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman

Shiranu

Probably secretly converted to Islam before molesting them.
"A little science distances you from God, but a lot of science brings you nearer to Him." - Louis Pasteur