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The RCC and paedophilia

JJ50

Well-Known Member
I have just seen this BBC News report! Catholics should be questioning a church, which has permitted child sexual abuse by some of their priests to be covered up for so long.:mad:

A senior Roman Catholic Cardinal has said that files documenting child sexual abuse were destroyed, allowing offences to continue.

German Cardinal Reinhard Marx told a conference on paedophilia in the Church that procedures to prosecute offenders "were deliberately not complied with".

"The rights of victims were effectively trampled underfoot," he said.

The unprecedented four-day summit has brought together 190 bishops from across the world.

The Catholic Church has faced growing pressure amid long-running cases of sexual abuse of children and young men, with victims accusing it of failing to tackle the issue.
 

Epic Beard Man

Bearded Philosopher
Exactly....

Christians and Catholics alike are too busy wagging their fingers talking about other religions but aren't focusing on the hypocritical travesty of their own.

Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.

Matthew 7:5
 

sooda

Veteran Member
I have just seen this BBC News report! Catholics should be questioning a church, which has permitted child sexual abuse by some of their priests to be covered up for so long.:mad:

A senior Roman Catholic Cardinal has said that files documenting child sexual abuse were destroyed, allowing offences to continue.

German Cardinal Reinhard Marx told a conference on paedophilia in the Church that procedures to prosecute offenders "were deliberately not complied with".

"The rights of victims were effectively trampled underfoot," he said.

The unprecedented four-day summit has brought together 190 bishops from across the world.

The Catholic Church has faced growing pressure amid long-running cases of sexual abuse of children and young men, with victims accusing it of failing to tackle the issue.

Catholics hate this more than you do.
 

sooda

Veteran Member
They should walk away from a doctrine which has covered up abuse for so long.
Oh please. Rabbis and both fundamentalist and mainstream Protestants have their pedophiles.. likewise bankers and judges and football coaches.
 

Salvador

RF's Swedenborgian
I have just seen this BBC News report! Catholics should be questioning a church, which has permitted child sexual abuse by some of their priests to be covered up for so long.:mad:

A senior Roman Catholic Cardinal has said that files documenting child sexual abuse were destroyed, allowing offences to continue.

German Cardinal Reinhard Marx told a conference on paedophilia in the Church that procedures to prosecute offenders "were deliberately not complied with".

"The rights of victims were effectively trampled underfoot," he said.

The unprecedented four-day summit has brought together 190 bishops from across the world.

The Catholic Church has faced growing pressure amid long-running cases of sexual abuse of children and young men, with victims accusing it of failing to tackle the issue.


The rate of abuse of priests in the comprehensive 2002 John Jay Report over about 70 years was 0.1% pedophilia among American priests.. "Only 96 of the 4,329 priest offenders were classified by John Jay report as true pedophiles." ...Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Clergy

This compares to a conservatively estimated 3 percent rate of pedophilia among the general American male population. Reference: Pedophilia | Psychology Today

An estimated 99.9 percent of American Catholic Priests aren't pedophiles in comparison to the conservatively estimated 97 percent of the overall general male American population, who aren't pedophiles. We should be aware that pedophile is at least 30 times more pervasive among the general American male population than it is within the U.S. Catholic Church.

I'm sick and tired of the smear campaign happening against the pedophilia of American Catholic Priests when in fact pedophilia is at least 30 times less pervasive there in the American Catholic Church than it is within the overall general U.S. male population.
 

JJ50

Well-Known Member
Oh please. Rabbis and both fundamentalist and mainstream Protestants have their pedophiles.. likewise bankers and judges and football coaches.

I am sure all religions have paedophiles among their number, but the RCC appears to be the one who can claim the most perverts!
 

sooda

Veteran Member
I am sure all religions have paedophiles among their number, but the RCC appears to be the one who can claim the most perverts!

Its also a large religion. .. 50 % of all Christians world wide are Catholic... 1.1 billion people. Protestants all denominations number around 800 million worldwide.
 

Salvador

RF's Swedenborgian
And your evidence for that is?

The rate of abuse of priests in the comprehensive 2002 John Jay Report over about 70 years was 0.1% pedophilia among American priests.. "Only 96 of the 4,329 priest offenders were classified by John Jay report as true pedophiles." ...Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Clergy

This compares to a conservatively estimated 3 percent rate of pedophilia among the general American male population. Reference: Pedophilia | Psychology Today

An estimated 99.9 percent of American Catholic Priests aren't pedophiles in comparison to the conservatively estimated 97 percent of the overall general male American population, who aren't pedophiles. We should be aware that pedophile is at least 30 times more pervasive among the general American male population than it is within the U.S. Catholic Church.
 

Salvador

RF's Swedenborgian
BUT there are perverts inside the church (as there are in all walks of life) and the church has compounded the problem by hiding their misdeeds instead of outing and handing them to the police.

Because pedophilia is such a rare occurrence within the Church, there is no doubt some inexperience by the Church in dealing with such matters.
 

Altfish

Veteran Member
Because pedophilia is such a rare occurrence within the Church, there is no doubt some inexperience by the Church in dealing with such matters.
It is NOT a rare occurrence.- it has had immense amounts of publicity over the last 50(?) years - there should be procedures in place to protect the children and condemn the priest.
But why is there any doubt as to what you have to do?

These are equally 'rare' occurrences
If someone stole the collection plate - you call the police.
If someone vandalised your church - you call the police.
If you caught someone breaking into the church - you call the police

Why is the problem of child abuse any different?
 

Salvador

RF's Swedenborgian
It is NOT a rare occurrence.- it has had immense amounts of publicity over the last 50(?) years - there should be procedures in place to protect the children and condemn the priest.
But why is there any doubt as to what you have to do?

These are equally 'rare' occurrences
If someone stole the collection plate - you call the police.
If someone vandalised your church - you call the police.
If you caught someone breaking into the church - you call the police

Why is the problem of child abuse any different?

When less than 100 Priests out of more than 100,000 of them over a 50 year time span have been shown to sexually abuse prepubescent boys; this is very rare in comparison to the conservatively estimated 3 percent of the overall male population who are believed to have sexually abused prepubescent boys. So then, maybe the Church policy of transferring suspected child molesting Priests away from exposure with children to being among a parish of predominately elderly people has been an effective method of preventing sexual abuse against prepubescent boys.
 
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Altfish

Veteran Member
When less than 100 Priests out of more than 100,000 of them over a 50 year time span have been shown to sexually abuse prepubescent boys; this is very rare in comparison to the conservatively estimated 3 percent of the overall male population who are believed to have sexually abused prepubescent boys. So then, maybe the Church policy of transferring suspected child molesting Priests away from exposure with children to being among a parish of predominately elderly people has been an effective method of preventing sexual abuse against prepubescent boys.
I think you need to check your arithmetic, the evil even has its own wiki page...

Catholic Church sexual abuse cases - Wikipedia
 

metis

aged ecumenical anthropologist
Here are some stats on this in terms of alleged molestations, and I'll start with the high point of these alleged molestations here in the States, which was:
1970-74 at 1367
1975-79 at 1343
1980-84 at 1002
1985-89 at 518
1990-94 at 217
1995-99 at 129
2000-04 at 80
2005-09 at 99
2010-14 at 101
2015-17 at 22

Now, these numbers are likely to be bumped up at least a bit as investigations continue, but please note the trend.

Also, much like in political science, which is "basically all politics is local", this also tends to be true with the church that Joe & Mary Schmoe attend as well, regardless of denomination.
 

metis

aged ecumenical anthropologist
I was at a United Farm Workers conference about 30 years ago, and I was with several priests, and one of them said "We might get into heaven in spite of the Church", and we all laughed in agreement.

The good news at least is that the Church realizes and has finally come to admit this. I wonder how many other Christian denominations have been also willing to do as such? :shrug:
 
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