ReligionSkepticism

The Pope Ignored Child Rape. THE POPE

No surprise to anyone who isn’t brainwashed into believing the Catholic Church is an institution worth your time, money, reverence, and virginity, but still:

The New York Times reports that Cardinal Ratzinger (aka THE GUY WHO IS NOW THE POPE), as head of the organization that was supposed to investigate and defrock molester priests, personally ignored cries for help from Milwaukee in 1996 when Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy was engaging in a 200-child no-holds-barred rape-a-thon. Oh yeah and the kids were deaf.

Ratzinger never responded to the Wisconsin dioceses, and instead after 8 months his second-in-command asked them to begin a trial, which he then halted after receiving a whiney letter from poor Father Murphy. Did Murphy ask the trial not to go forward because he was innocent? No! Of course not! He didn’t need a trial because he had already repented.

Oh, okay then. Go on and rape some more kids and repent again. No worries!

Instead of being disciplined, Father Murphy was quietly moved by Archbishop William E. Cousins of Milwaukee to the Diocese of Superior in northern Wisconsin in 1974, where he spent his last 24 years working freely with children in parishes, schools and, as one lawsuit charges, a juvenile detention center. He died in 1998, still a priest.

Are you still not angry? Read on!

In 1993, with complaints about Father Murphy landing on his desk, Archbishop Weakland hired a social worker specializing in treating sexual offenders to evaluate him. After four days of interviews, the social worker said that Father Murphy had admitted his acts, had probably molested about 200 boys and felt no remorse.

Weakland did nothing for three years, and then only acted because people were starting to catch on. This is par for the course. Throughout this scandal and others, the Church only gives a shit when they’re about to get caught.

The authorities in Milwaukee were just as complicit for failing to do anything to help the victims or prosecute the rapist:

Father Murphy not only was never tried or disciplined by the church’s own justice system, but also got a pass from the police and prosecutors who ignored reports from his victims, according to the documents and interviews with victims. Three successive archbishops in Wisconsin were told that Father Murphy was sexually abusing children, the documents show, but never reported it to criminal or civil authorities.

Seriously, is anyone still arguing that the Catholic Church and the Pope in particular deserve anything but our disgust? I know this whole “priests raping little kids” thing is so old hat that it’s now in the realm of being joked about and glossed over, but every time I read another account, I get angrier.

At this point, I have nothing but a string of profanity to direct at them. I know some friends and members of my family are religious, and I know some of them feel that religion and religious people deserve our respect. Those people may want to stop reading here.

Fuck the Catholic Church with their childish secret society built on hateful lies and brutal torture. Fuck the Pope in his blinged-out gold chains bought with the money donated by the children he helped rape. Fuck their imaginary god-man who sat on a cloud watching it all happen, munching on rainbows and keeping his ways mysterious.

I mean, it’s all for a greater plan, isn’t it? God will reveal it to those kids when they reach the pearly gates, you know, unless of course they kill themselves, which is maybe about 10 to 13 times more likely in children who have been sexually abused but fuck ’em because the Catholic Church says suicide is a major sin that Jesus might decide to punish with an eternity in hell.

I get that if you were raised Catholic, you were brainwashed with all the stupid shit about crackers actually turning into flesh and a god that impregnates a girl so she can give birth to him so that he can get himself killed so he can go back to heaven so he can forgive the toys he made for disobeying the rules he made, and I get that you want to hold on to those beliefs because otherwise life is weird and scary or it just never occurred to you that life might be different to what you thought when you were four years old. I get it! So that’s fine. Keep on believing that.

But please stop believing that you need to give money, time, trust, and love to this vile organization of real-life demons and monsters. You might think your parish is different, that your priest is better, but please remember that that’s what everybody else thought, too. They don’t care about your soul. They don’t care about your life. They don’t care about your kids. They will take your money to buy more gold crosses, and they will rape you and hide the evidence.

Thanks for letting me get that off my chest.

Oh yeah, one more thing: If you live in the UK and you don’t want your tax dollars paying for the child-rape-hiding Pope to visit our fair isles, you can sign this petition and let the Prime Minister know how you feel.

Rebecca Watson

Rebecca is a writer, speaker, YouTube personality, and unrepentant science nerd. In addition to founding and continuing to run Skepchick, she hosts Quiz-o-Tron, a monthly science-themed quiz show and podcast that pits comedians against nerds. There is an asteroid named in her honor. Twitter @rebeccawatson Mastodon mstdn.social/@rebeccawatson Instagram @actuallyrebeccawatson TikTok @actuallyrebeccawatson YouTube @rebeccawatson BlueSky @rebeccawatson.bsky.social

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86 Comments

  1. Not to get too maudlin, but I did cry when I read this earlier today. I taught deaf college students who had very low levels of English — not because they used sign or because they were unintelligent, but mainly because nobody in their family made much of an effort to communicate with them when they were kids, in the most important stage of linguistic formation. Some of these kids also told me (of their own accord, believe me) terrible stories of abuse by hearing people who found it easy to take advantage of them.

    As I said to a friend, I know that no instance of abuse is “worse” than another — they are all fucking atrocities. But man, this particular story hit me hard.

  2. I don’t want to sound like a conspiracy nut but if the Catholic Church so readily conceals child-abuse amongst the clergy, it does make me wonder what other criminal acts they would be willing to hide away to preserve their reputation.

    In the past they have used as a defence the ‘fact’ that from a stastistical perspective, priests are no more likely to be child molesters than any other groups in society. Whether or not this is actually true remains to be seen however it is true that s certain percentage of the population also engages in other illegal and repugnant activities such as murder. Does this mean that there is also an equal amount of priests going around killing people and if so, are these murderers also being shifted around to avoid controversy?

    As I said, I don’t want to come across as conspiracy loon and I’m in no way suggesting that this actually happens, but if an institution such as the Catholic Church feels that it is ok to conceal one type of crime, what’s stopping it from doing the same with others?

  3. I wonder how much of it is a desire to keep these things secret, and how much they (somehow) actually believe that this giant imaginary friend of theirs really has forgiven them and, as such, there is genuinely no need to do anything further?

    To be clear – I don’t think any answer to the above justifies their actions at all; they absolutely disgust me as much as they will any other reader – but still, I do wonder…

    Thanks for the article though; I hope it’s read by as many as possible…

  4. The ‘defence’ that there is the same percentage of priests who are paedophiles as is present in the general population is a red herring designed only to detract from the core issue.

    That core issue is that these people are actively protected by the religious authorities and their activities allowed to continue unabated long after their initial discovery.

  5. It’s too bad that the only method for deposing a pope dates back to the earliest times during the Middle Ages. You raise an army, knock on the door, and tell him a new guy is taking over.

    However, should we choose to actually use said method to bring this guy to justice, I’m all for it! =)

  6. I’ve always wondered why swastikas are censored in scale models and historical reproductions, but the church, the institution that committed the worst crimes against humanity, killed and allowed hundreds of thousands to be killed and tortured, is still a respected organization.
    Yes, I do think that they are worst than that guy from the 30-40’s with the funny mustache.

  7. @AJIrving:
    I don’t want to sound like a conspiracy nut but if the Catholic Church so readily conceals child-abuse amongst the clergy, it does make me wonder what other criminal acts they would be willing to hide away to preserve their reputation.

    In the past they have used as a defence the ‘fact’ that from a stastistical perspective, priests are no more likely to be child molesters than any other groups in society.

    Considering the heavy abstinence vow, I think pedophiles and gay people are actually more likely to be drawn to the profession simply because their sexual preference is already considered sinful in the eyes of god, so not engaging in that behavior is even more important to them than for a straight person (who might even become a priest/pastor for another denomination and not even have to worry about that vow).

    Of course, abstinence has a pretty high failure rate either way, so that’s probably no different for priests. I think the main issue is how easy it is to get away with it.

    For starters, people are far less likely to believe you if you say the priest raped you (although luckily, that’s been changing). The community backlash from accusing the priest is an important factor here.
    But a child is probably even less likely to speak up than an adult would in a similar situation. It seems to me that most child molestation just keeps going until the offender stops on his own or gets caught.

    With regards to murder and other crimes where there are no witnesses, you’re likelyhood of getting caught if you’re a priest is just as high as for non-clergy offenders. Although possibly the odds of being considered a suspect by the investigators might be lower.

  8. This from the same guys who keep squawking and cackling about how life is sacred and should be respected, or else. “Hate sin, love the sinner,” they say. They seem to have another, similar motto: “Respect life, screw the living.”

  9. @Mauve,

    I’d agree, only I really don’t want to have any pope after this pope. I’d rather we keep the Vatican as a beautiful historical museum with all the flaws and blemishes exposed as well, and say “This used to be important, but now it is something to teach us about history rather than tell us how to live our daily lives.”

    That would make me happy. =)

    Of course, I know that if we do install Rebecca as the new Pope, that this is what she would do as well. So maybe I am all for that after all. And, wouldn’t it be nice if one of us girls took it down from the inside? =)

  10. As far as my knowledge goes, not too many, if any, priests have been defrocked due to assfucking/receiving a forced blowjob from a child.

    I heard in the documentary Deliever Us From Evil, from a Canon lawyer that the reason the church protects these rapist assholes is that priests, because they are, “called by God”, are more important than the kids.

    I only had a minute so forgive the lack of citations.

  11. Fuck yes. Fuck the pope. Fuck all these weasels who assisted in child rape when all they cared about is secrecy. Fuck these “defrocking trials.” These asshat rapists should have had a real trial and been thrown in prison with a big sign on their back saying “I’m a child molester.” Fuck the Vatican, and all of its riches which could probably feed an entire starving continent. Fuck the Catholic Church, fuck my own baptism when I was too young to know what was going on, fuck the years of trying to understand a dogma that makes no sense, but a little girl just wants to be good, and that’s what they say is good. I tithed out of my fucking allowance to pay for an organization that hides rapists. Fucking hell.

    Issues…. do I have issues?

  12. @BigHeathenMike: I know for sure a few have. About 10 years ago there were a number that were defrocked for child molesting from the parish my father grew up in. When my 85 year old grandmother found out, we about had to sit on her to keep her from marching her frail frame down to the church and knocking some heads.

    The sadness I feel whenever I hear these stories is so profound- I still haven’t gotten to the anger stage. Every time I think about what these children went through at the hands of men they were supposed to trust- and whom their parents trusted- I feel so sick to my stomach. It is so vile I don’t know the right words for it.

  13. For once I wish they were right about their made-up metaphysical bedtime stories – because then they’d all go to hell and suffer.

  14. How come the church officials who allow these things to happen never get charged as accessories to the crimes they enable?

    The other thing that is strange is that prisons are full of people who have repented, yet we don’t let them out when they repent. WTF! I mean, okay, the priest repented, so let him know that god forgives him right after you slam the jail cell door shut and drop the key in sulfuric acid.

    /BCT

  15. It’s great to think about the days when I was an altar boy that the Church I served so devotedly might have been throwing child rapists my way. I’m sooooo glad my family moved to a new town where my road to heathenism took shape when I was still a boy.

  16. I agree with Billy @17. Why are the higher ups in the church being charged with aiding and abetting or conspiracy. Let’s say a school superintendent recieved reports that a teacher was molesting children, and kept that information from the police, that superintendent would be going to jail. And that if the superintendent just failed to report it. I can’t imagine what type of legal trouble he or she would get in to if he or she then bounced the predator from school to school to hide the abuse. But because these assholes have a collar, we let them go free. I say we replace the white collar with a shock collar.

  17. Ohh, I so want the pope to go to jail and rot in there for the rest of his life. Unfortunately, he is too powerful and no one will prosecute him or the rest of those who are accessories to the crime.

  18. Hi, I’m a long time lurker at Skepchick and registered just to state my absolute disgust and horror at this. I just….. WAARGGGHHH NO WORDS TO EXPRESS THE FAIL

    It’s also given me a kick up the arse to finally defect from the Church. I’m an atheist, but was baptised Catholic, and I cannot bear to be even remotely associated with them for another minute. I’m just printing the letter off now.

    Fuck you, Ratzinger. I wish your hell was real, because I’m sure there’d be a special circle reserved just for you.

  19. Another issue about the abuse that bothers me tremendously is that because these children were deaf and used ASL, they most likely would have had much more difficulty finding someone they could talk to about it while it was happening. The climate of deaf education at the time was anti-sign, and most likely they had few adults who knew ASL that they could mention it to. What makes this situation all the more disgusting is that the priest probably knew the secret of his abuse was more secure with these kids simply because they couldn’t just tell anyone. He victimized them in two ways.

    And another thing, if members of the Catholic priesthood are no less likely than the general population to be child molesters, doesn’t that undermine any credibility of the religion’s claim to be morally superior? Seems like religion isn’t helping much.

  20. Why is it that the legal system is not dealing with these priests? I’ve come to expect nothing from the church, but why is the judicial system allowing this to continue? Is it a statute of limitations issue?

  21. I hate snow.
    I hate snow because there was a serial killer in my hometown raping and killing kids around my age with every fresh snowfall. We called him the Snow Angel, cause he laid out the bodies as if they were making snow angels. Apparently, the media called him “The Babysitter”

    Never was caught.

    My dad was the DA and said the cops suspected it was a priest. For some reason they couldn’t do anything about it. That’s when dad said I didn’t have to go to church anymore, and he didn’t either.

    Gonna hate snow my whole life long.

  22. what is the legal system that isn’t dealing with this? It’s every legal system on earth.

  23. In Mexico, the Catholic Church enjoys a level of impunity so outrageous, that when something similar happened here, the culprits (among them the current Cardinal, Norberto Rivera) not only went scot free, but the media quickly buried the matter under a very thick carpet.

    In Mexico, mainstream media has two very simple commandments:

    1) Thou shalt not ill speak of thy President.
    2) Thou shalt not ill speak of the “Virgencita” (The Virgin of Guadalupe).

    Loudmouths breaking any of those rules will find themselves out of a job faster than the Pope can say “Sich Heil!”

  24. @AJIrving: I had the same thought.

    At this point, I think the Italian military should invade and take over the Vatican from the Swiss troops guarding it, with the mission of capturing the men within and turning them over for trial. With proper preparation, the troops might even stand aside.

    I’m an ex-Catholic and I’m furious with them anyway.

  25. What Rebecca said and not one bit less.

    The problem is even bigger than most people think when you include all the incidences of priests and pastors who have told members of their church to not call CPS or law enforcement or when they did not report the sex crime themselves when it was disclosed or reported second hand to them. And then add the religious schools of which some have a long and sordid history of hiding sex abuse and being resistant to reporting the disclosures of students to the proper authorities.

    The other can or worms involves catholic law enforcement officers covering up for priests and a complete failure of the justice system in not prosecuting these serial child rapists.

  26. Seriously, is anyone still arguing that the Catholic Church and the Pope in particular deserve anything but our disgust?

    Well yes, I am. I think that all humans deserve more than disgust. And yes, you do sound a bit like a conspiracy nut. To be sure, the Catholic Church is an actual conspiracy that intimidates bishops into concealing evidence of crimes and shielding criminals. (Penn & Teller did a great episode on the Vatican where they presented the evidence, and nothing I can say will be as succinct as they were. If you haven’t yet, get that episode and watch it.) However that conspiracy does not extend to every priest, monk, and nun in the church. The ones who have need of conspirators know who to go to, and those priests who help shield criminals get to be bishops one day. The criminals are a minority, but they are running the show. Your frequent use of the ambiguous “they” feels like you are suggesting a much broader and universal conspiracy in which all 400,000 priests worldwide are participating.

    As for the frequency by which priests rape children, none of the statistics I have seen seem reliable, and I don’t really know. It is also true however that there is a lot of rape in foster families, group homes, juvenile detention facilities, and boarding schools. Children who are institutionalized anywhere and anyhow in our society are much more likely to be abused, and many more children are institutionalized by government than the church. It is no surprise to me that even unelected prosecutors don’t pursue such cases until there is a public uproar. Institutional child-rape is a door they do not want to open.

  27. Hey, there is a bright side to all of this! You guys seem to think that kid rape is super tragic but you forget that it was kid rape that disgusted me enough to start questioning my religion… which, after a long sequence of events, led me to being here, with you, at Skepchick.

    Isn’t that what they say? If just ONE person was helped by this? That person was me… so it’s all totally worth it.

    And that’s the only response I can give without feeding my urge to go Ezekiel 25:17 on the church.

  28. @ArgentArdor: “It is also true however that there is a lot of rape in foster families,…”

    Sex abuse in foster homes is in fact lower than in the general population when it comes to abuse by a caregiver. However it is true that there is more overall sex abuse of children in foster care because of the high rates of peer age or child on child abuse. The perception that there is higher level of adult on child abuse in foster care is a construct of media reporting and faulty perception. Also foster care is not considered institutional care.

  29. *warning* Bad and inappropriate joke in this post.

    @Rebecca
    you say ” no-holds-barred rape-a-thon”, I think this could read “no-holes-barred-a-thon”.

    Just a nit pick we do not pay “tax dollars” here, we pay “tax pounds sterling”.

  30. It seems that some Catholics are so indoctrinated they’ll support the church no matter what happens, even going so far as to rationalize the failure to prosecute sex offenders. I wonder how many of those people express outrage at the fundamentalist Muslim cultures where rape victims are punished and the rapists are considered the victims. Seems curiously aligned with their world view. One wonders what dirty secrets Judaism or Buddhism or Hinduism suppress on a regular basis. Religious leaders have power over their followers, and we all know what power and absolute power do.

  31. Rebecca: Fuck yes.

    To anyone who thinks that anger and passion have no place in the engagement of religion: Fuck that noise. Anger and passion have an important role to play – indeed, sometimes they’re the only ethically appropriate response we can give. This post by Rebecca exemplifies that.

    I refuse to use the terms ‘pedophilia’ or ‘child abuse’ – let’s call this ugly business out for what it really fucking is.

    It’s not just the fact that some priests are forcing children to suck their penises and bend over to be fucked against their will – terrible and wrong though that obviously is all on its own.

    It’s the cover ups and the refusal to bloody well do anything to fix the situation or prevent it from happening again that gets the blood really boiling. The church’s policy of protecting rapists amongst their number is unconscionable. It’s cold, calculated, and premeditated. It places the reputation of the church above the wellbeing of their charges. Vile.

    And lets be honest: One of the main reasons that rapist priests are continuing to be protected from law and justice, and also one of the main reasons that those protecting and enabling rapist priests will also be protected from law and justice is this: If a full investigation is launched that exposes rapist priests and their protectors to legal prosecution for their crimes, it is inevitable that Darth Ratzinger will eventually be found guilty of protecting rapists himself, and he would need to be brought to justice as well.

    Catholicism and the Church can’t have their morally sacrosanct and infallible hotline to God exposed as a rape-enabling criminal. Vile fucking hypocrites.

    *fumes*

  32. @Danarra:

    Sorry, don’t want to steer the conversation away from the very important topic (I have to agree that the ‘calling’ pedo-priests have to the church is the unsupervised access to children), but holy crap! It sounds like a movie starring Richard Gere or something. Man, I don’t know what the fuck I would have done if I lived in that town, I’d be too scared to let my kids leave the house. I don’t blame you for hating snow now.

  33. @ Advocatus Diaboli
    Oddly enough there were at least a couple of TV movies that had the same underlying story. At one point, knowing memory is half imagination anyway, I wondered if I’d gotten everything confused – and obviously that is still possible. So I looked it up. The unsolved murders are real, and Dad deciding I didn’t have to go to church anymore was real, so the conversation where he told me about the priest seems likely to be real as well.

    For the record, growing up Catholic I knew lots of priests and nuns who were wonderful people. They are not all monsters. It’s just since the Church covers everything up, how are you supposed to tell the priest you can trust with your kids from the one you can’t?

  34. I am not normally a violent person. This, however, makes me want to go buy a really good Louisville Slugger baseball bat and visit some Divine Retribution on some of these mother fucking wastes of flesh. A good beating with a blunt object might not help change their minds but it will sure as fuck make me feel better.

    Oh and in case it wasn’t blatantly obvious, yes I am REALLY fuckin angry about this. Almost makes me wish there was a Devil cause then I could imagine all the fun he’d have doing unto the priests the same things they did to those kids.

  35. I posted this on the NYT comment section too. I wanted to post it here because there are legal avenues available to the International Community.

    [start quote]
    The Holy See is a signatory to:
    Convention on the Rights of the Child.
    Amendment to article 43 (2) of the Convention on the Rights of the Child…
    Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography…

    The protocol on child prostitution specifically requires signatories to criminalize sexual exploitation of children, to take positive steps to protect children from exploitation, to stop exploitation of children, to prosecute those involved in the exploitation of children, and to confiscate proceeds and premises used in that exploitation.

    http://treaties.un.org/doc/Treaties/2000/05/20000525%2003-16%20AM/Ch_IV_11_cp.pdf

    Article 3
    1. Each State Party shall ensure that, as a minimum, the following acts and activities are fully covered under its criminal or penal law, whether these offences are committed domestically or transnationally or on an individual or organized basis:
    (a) In the context of sale of children as defined in article 2:
    (i) The offering, delivering or accepting, by whatever means, a child for the purpose of:
    -2-
    a. Sexual exploitation of the child;
    b. Transfer of organs of the child for profit;
    c. Engagement of the child in forced labour;
    (ii) Improperly inducing consent, as an intermediary, for the adoption of a child in violation of applicable international legal instruments on adoption;
    (b) Offering, obtaining, procuring or providing a child for child prostitution, as defined in article 2;
    (c) Producing, distributing, disseminating, importing, exporting, offering, selling or possessing for the above purposes child pornography as defined in article 2.
    2. Subject to the provisions of a State Party’s national law, the same shall apply to an attempt to commit any of these acts and to complicity or participation in any of these acts.
    3. Each State Party shall make these offences punishable by appropriate penalties that take into account their grave nature.
    4. Subject to the provisions of its national law, each State Party shall take measures, where appropriate, to establish the liability of legal persons for offences established in paragraph 1 of the present article. Subject to the legal principles of the State Party, this liability of legal persons may be criminal, civil or administrative.
    5. States Parties shall take all appropriate legal and administrative measures to ensure that all persons involved in the adoption of a child act in conformity with applicable international legal instruments.

    [The criminalization of child sexual exploitation applies to attempted exploitation, and also to complicity in exploitation.]

    Article 6.
    1. States Parties shall afford one another the greatest measure of assistance in connection with investigations or criminal or extradition proceedings brought in respect of the offences set forth in article 3, paragraph 1, including assistance in obtaining evidence at their disposal necessary for the proceedings.

    Article 7.
    States Parties shall, subject to the provisions of their national law:
    (a) Take measures to provide for the seizure and confiscation, as appropriate, of:
    (i) Goods such as materials, assets and other instrumentalities used to commit or facilitate offences under the present Protocol;
    (ii) Proceeds derived from such offences;
    (b) Execute requests from another State Party for seizure or confiscation of goods or proceeds referred to in subparagraph (a) (i);
    (с) Take measures aimed at closing, on a temporary or definitive basis, premises used to commit such offences.

    Article 10
    1. States Parties shall take all necessary steps to strengthen international cooperation by multilateral, regional and bilateral arrangements for the prevention, detection, investigation, prosecution and punishment of those responsible for acts involving the sale of children, child prostitution, child pornography and child sex tourism. States Parties shall also promote international cooperation and coordination between their authorities, national and international non-governmental organizations and international organizations.

    The Holy See has grossly violated it obligations under this treaty.

    The Holy See has shown itself to be unwilling and unable to protect children in its care, and to prosecute perpetrators and those complicit with perpetrators.

    It is past time for the International Criminal Court to intervene. These are Crimes Against Humanity.
    [/end quote]

    If the Holy See can’t honor its treaties, then kick it the hell out of the UN and all international organizations and cancel the diplomatic immunity of its diplomats.

    There are no statutes of limitations on crimes against humanity.

  36. Rebecca,
    as a former Catholic I have to say, that’s about the best expression of what’s fucked up about the church that I’ve heard. I couldn’t say it better myself if I tried, and I try. . .hard and often.

    Growing up, our pastor was a pathetic, sour, pompous alcoholic that would have been universally detested if it weren’t for his silly collar and a huge flock of sheep brainwashed to believe that clergy are flawless representatives of goodness and ignore evidence to the contrary. He didn’t give a shit about anything or anybody except raising money.

    These guys are like the pathetic kids at school who suck up to the biggest, toughest kids so they can be as big an asshole as they want and be protected.

    In the name of the. . .whatever. Amen Rebecca! Go in peace to love and serve reason!

  37. Here are some good names for a facebook page for someone to start,

    “Kick the Holy See out of the UN”.

    “Excommunicate the Holy See from the International Community”

    “Excommunicate the Holy See from the Civilized World”

  38. Fucking Fuck.

    I’m ashamed that I was ever a Catholic. I could never associate my name with an organization that does this shit. There are good priests, but they call themselves Catholics too and therefore they lend their good reputation to an organization that does not deserve it. The Catholic Church is fucking evil and any priest or nun with morals should see that and leave.

    Rebecca – the title of this post seems to imply that it should be more surprising that the Pope has ignored child rape than that others ignored it, but him being the head of the evil organization that purposely covers up child rape on a regular basis, it shouldn’t be at all surprising that he has personally ignored it. A post title that would be more fitting of the tone I read into this one is “The Pope Encourages Condom Use. THE POPE”.

  39. @marilove: I guess after reading the full post my sense of humour was temporarily disabled. Also my rage must have blinded me to the first sentence in the post that makes it obvious that the title is sarcastic!

  40. @Mauve: “If we go and depose the current pope, I vote we instate Rebecca as the new pope.”

    Well, she’ll need a Popey name, of course. I assume she’d never pick Pope Innocent XIV, so how about Pope Ovarian I?

  41. Hey Rebecca. I have a hunch this post going to piss you off. Be that as it may, I read your post because it popped up in the “What’s Hot in Google Reader” section of…Google Reader. Clearly your post is making an impression. I think you make a lot of good points. I also think you make a lot of bad ones, so I felt compelled to respond.

    It seems this blog is directed towards clear thinking. Brains are back in fashion, or something like that. Well with that in mind, I just want to make a few points, and ask a few questions, which hopefully you will consider in the cool, calm light of reason.

    First, you level some fairly heavy vitriol at the pope, but I’m not sure it’s really justified on the current evidence. When was he briefed on the Murphy matter? What year? And what was the nature of the briefing? Your article is light on details, and heavy on pronouncing judgment on real live people. The pope isn’t some superhuman institution – he’s just a German kid who kept getting older until one day he was 80-odd and the leader of the Catholic church.

    Just to be clear: I don’t want to downplay in any way the gross violations of trust, responsibility, and basic decency which these instances of child rape and molestation entail. I just want to separate pope-hating from child-molester hating.

    My understanding is that the pope received some cursory information on Fr Murphy’s case in the mid-to-late 1990s, some 20 years after the abuses took place. Other church officials and ministers may be deeply culpable for not responding to the dangers presented by the continued service of Fr Murphy, but on the available evidence, I don’t think the pope deserves your colourful salutations of hate.

    Also, were other authorities involved at any stage? Police? Community workers? If so, who? How? Where? When? What were the outcomes? You’re inciting a fair deal of fiery hatred with your blog, and I think it would be helpful to fill in some of these blanks, so that your readers can come to a reasonable conclusion, and not a prejudiced one. In the absence of evidence, your comments section is beginning to look dangerously like a lynch-mob. Something tells me lynch-mobs are not what you bloggers intended to cultivate when you got this blog up and running.

    My last question is more philosophical in nature. Firstly, I just want to point out that every evil that you accuse the church of – lies, torture, rape, theft, child abuse – every single one of those things the church also teaches as being wrong. Even if its leaders, ministers or members commit those and other heinous crimes, the church still teaches that such crimes are evil, and contrary to what people should do.

    That doesn’t mean church members, leaders and ministers don’t commit heinous crimes; and when they DO, the hypocrisy makes them doubly culpable. Covering up crimes like the one’s you’ve reported is also entirely reprehensible.

    The thing is – and you seem to be overlooking this – the thing is that church doctrine teaches that these crimes are WRONG. Church doctrine doesn’t justify child rape. It doesn’t justify covering up child rape. It doesn’t justify overlooking or downplaying the significance of child rape. In every instance, church doctrine deems child rape to be evil. The fact that members, leaders, ministers commit theses crimes doesn’t change the church’s teaching one bit.

    Anyway, my point is that the church’s teaching on, for example, child rape – which it unequivocally condemns as wrong – is based on the existence of a natural law to which everyone – church members, leaders and ministers included – is subject.

    My question to you is this: where does your moral law come from? You condemn the actions of paedophile priests and conspiratory bishops and popes, but what is your moral standard? How do you know that you are right and they are wrong? Who defines morality in your world? Is it you? And if so, why should anybody listen? After all, aren’t you just a collection of molecules, destined to end up as worm food in the not too distant future (relatively speaking). Whence comes your bounteous wisdom?

    And speaking relatively, why does it even matter if members of one species (in this instance, the human species) abuse other members of that species? In the grand scheme of things, the entire existence of the human species will barely register a blip on the timeline of the universe. So why all this bother about war and crime and rape and abuse and horrible popes? Why not just let the stars and planets do their thing, and let the collection of molecular matter that we call “the pope” just exist without trying to project some kind of moral standard on to his actions?

    Your outrage only makes sense in a universe with a moral code. But you won’t find a moral code in nature. Only in the supernatural. In fact, just by moralising on the pope’s actions, you reject the possibility of a godless universe: it’s no longer a question of WHETHER there is a god/higher being; rather, it’s a question of WHAT IS THE NATURE OF THIS HIGHER BEING.

    A warning: following the above line of reasoning with even a modicum of tenacity may lead you to places you don’t want to go.

    But refusing to follow it is just sticking your head in the sand, which kind of seems contrary to everything this blog stands for.

  42. @FoxAmongChickens: I find it difficult to finish reading your comment, let alone respond to your points, when you open by making it so blatantly obvious that you didn’t read my post OR the New York Times article I link to. Had you done so, you would know when Ratzinger was made aware of the abuses, and you would know what the response was from local authorities.

    Finally, obviously it doesn’t matter a single shit what you think the Catholic Church teaches about child rape, because you’re obviously and demonstrably wrong: priests rape children, other priests protect and sometimes REWARD the criminals. How much clearer does the lesson need to be?

  43. @FoxAmongChickens: Oh and another thing. Your ignorance about moral philosophy has led you down a disgusting, degrading path. If you need a higher power to tell you NOT TO FUCK CHILDREN, you don’t belong in our society.

  44. Actually I did read your whole piece. I have also read the NY Times article. Read some other articles on the issue too.

    The only facts that are clear at this point: in the mid 1990s, Ratzinger was possibly made aware of allegations of abuse by a priest several decades earlier in another continent. For that you are willing to say that Ratzinger helped rape children.

    Chances are you know someone who was raped as a child – lots of people do. Chances are you haven’t done shit about it. Most people don’t.

    Still, you are happy to incite hatred of a man who has repeatedly spoken out against child sex abuse by priests, and has made several apologies, both public and private, on behalf of the church he heads.

    You say nothing of local police, who investigated and did not press charges.

    Like I said, I don’t want to take any heat out of the crimes that have been perpetrated here. I’m just pointing out that your rhetoric is more blind fury than rational thought. You want someone to blame, so like everyone else who couldn’t be bothered actually engaging the intellect, you strike out at the first and most obvious potential target with an emotional rant, regardless of whether your target is the right one or not.

    You’re like a wingnut texas cop who shoots first and asks questions later. You’re just as irrational, and just as prejudiced.

    As for moral philosophy: you duck the issue by assuming that fucking children is self-evidently immoral. Total cop out. Plenty of cultures have sactioned child-fucking. The Greeks, for example, and the Romans.

    Know which religion was responsible for ending the practice, on the basis that it is contrary to the natural moral law?

    And besides, my point was that YOU need a moral law if you’re going to pass judgment on the pope for his role in the matter. (You may need to be reminded at this point that, despite your hatred for the man, he hasn’t actually been accused of child-rape himself.)

    Of course reason has nothing to do with it at this point, so condemn away – just realise that your morality is all hot air and emotion. You seem to think consensus is enough for a moral law: “If you need a higher power to tell you NOT TO FUCK CHILDREN, you don’t belong in our society.”

    So tell me, would you lynch the pope if you could?

  45. @FoxAmongChickens: So now you’re just lying by saying you read my post and the article? Instead of actually reading it? Because I wrote, “The authorities in Milwaukee were just as complicit for failing to do anything to help the victims or prosecute the rapist:” and quoted the article, and you wrote “You say nothing of local police, who investigated and did not press charges.”

    It’s like you’re forcefully, proudly ignorant.

    And you attempt to draw a comparison between me, someone you know shit-all about, and the pope? Let’s say I do know of a specific child who was raped and that I’m also aware of the perpetrator. And let’s say I never do anything about it. Am I equivalent to the pope?

    Fuck no I’m not, because I’m not the head of a department specifically in charge of investigating and punishing rapists.

    Swing and a miss. Care to try again?

    I do appreciate your posts, because it really helps others see exactly how ignorant and deluded a person has to be to defend an organization that systematically protects child rapists.

  46. Fox, we don’t need a “higher power” to dictate what behaviors are acceptable or unacceptable. That is what we have laws for. Laws don’t make exceptions for people who are “special” because they claim to speak for God and wear special clothes.

    It is the very concept of a “higher power” that fosters exceptionalism. If “rights” and “obligations” come from a “higher power”, then those who are closer to the “higher power” have more rights and fewer obligations that those that are farther away. If “closeness” to that higher power is determined solely by unsupported assertion, then more rights are available by simple unsupported assertion.

    If the obligation to not rape children comes from God, then the right to rape children can be given by God to His followers. Some priests who raped children did tell the children that this was God’s will. I have no doubt that some of them believed it. No doubt many who covered up the raping of children believed it was God’s will to cover it up. No doubt that is what the Pope believes.

    When the moral code comes from a higher power by virtue of the unsupported assertions of those to be constrained (or not) by that moral code, there is an inherent conflict of interest. The Pope can assert that raping children is ok according to God, and no one can prove otherwise. That is in effect what the Pope is asserting by not acting against priests who did rape children. The harm that the Pope is concerned about is the harm to his Church due to the bad publicity, the falloff in donations, and the financial liability for compensating victims. He is not concerned about harm to children, or he would be taking different actions.

  47. @FoxAmongChickens: And would I ‘lynch’ the pope? What the fuck kind of animal are you? I’d like to see the pope and the rest of his cronies tried in a court of law for allowing the systematic rape of so many children.

    Also, you have some fucking balls to say that Christianity is responsible for ending child-fucking in a thread discussing one of the largest Christian cabals in the world protecting child-fuckers.

    Educate yourself about the evolution of morals before you spout off more nonsense. Try this:
    http://www.amazon.com/Science-Good-Evil-People-Gossip/dp/0805077693/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1269609573&sr=1-1

    Or just fucking google it and start reading:
    http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=evolution+of+morals

  48. Fair point about your reference to the cops – I actually misread your comment about “local authorities” as referring to church “authorities”. My mistake.

    The comparison between you and the pope is just meant to get you seeing things from someone else’s perspective.

    Let’s say you WERE the head of a department specifically charged with investigating rapists. You find out about a case of child molestation several decades earlier. No legal action has ever been taken against the perpetrator. You have pressing cases of abuse here-and-now to deal with. The perpetrator is now an old man, and will likely die of old age within a few years. There have been no further allegations for decades. The man is still in another continent.

    What would you do?

  49. @FoxAmongChickens:

    Let’s say you WERE the head of a department specifically charged with investigating rapists. You find out about a case of child molestation several decades earlier. No legal action has ever been taken against the perpetrator. You have pressing cases of abuse here-and-now to deal with. The perpetrator is now an old man, and will likely die of old age within a few years. There have been no further allegations for decades. The man is still in another continent.

    What would you do?

    There is not a doubt in my mind that I would report him to the authorities, defrock him, and most importantly: protect the children I’m responsible for, by ensuring that he no longer works anywhere near them. This rapist continued working with children in a juvenile detention center for two years before he died. How many kids could he rape in that time? I say too many.

    Your question implies that there may be some other answer, but for the life of me I cannot fathom a morality that allows one to think that ignoring those kids is the correct answer.

    I have to admit that I never learned not to rape children. I didn’t have to, because I evolved to understand that that’s wrong. Your posts suggest that you did have to learn it, from the Bible or in church. I suggest that your teachers did a poor job.

  50. Daedalus, the laws are whatever we say they are. And I’m pretty sure that certain laws in certain recent societies have declared certain kinds of people to not actually be people. Slavery anyone?

    Point is, you need a higher moral law to judge the laws themselves – to decide whether a law is a good law or a bad law. Just because everyone at a given time agrees that child sacrifice is good doesn’t MAKE IT good. And when we (you and I) say that slavery is wrong, even though the law once said it was right, essentially, we are saying that slavery is wrong REGARDLESS of what the law says. Laws simply cannot be the source of morality.

    Also, you’re playing pretty fast and loose with the “no doubts”. “No doubt many who covered up the raping of children believed it was God’s will to cover it up. No doubt that is what the Pope believes.”

    Ah… SOME doubt about that last assertion. In fact, a lot of doubt. As I said before, at this point the evidence against the pope is thin. His efforts at initiating reparation and reconciliation for victims of abuse is pretty extensive.

  51. I agree with Fox, you aren’t thinking, just lashing out. First off, it is evident you don’t know how Church governance works. The discipline of the priest is the duty of the bishop in that diocese. Archbishop Ratzinger was in charge of the Congregation who has, as one of many duties, the responsiblity to hand down the punishment to the bishop to hand out if the bishop requests or reports a problem. That duty was given to one of his aides Bishop Bertone. The decision never crossed Ratzinger’s desk.

    The real failing is at the local level. The Bishop (5 points if you can name him) failed to act when the accusations came. The police (15 points if you can name the Chief of Police and and addition 15 if you write a scalding article condemning his cover-up in a similar fashion) failed to follow up an with investigation.

    The Bishops of this country made a huge mistake. They listened to the experts. The sociological experts that tell us that sex offenders can/could be rehabilitated with a bit of therapy and care. If you look at the history of sexual abuse by clergy as recorded by the John Jay School of Law, you will notice that it was rare for any claim to go totally ignored. Many were sent for treatment and then reassigned. The same tactic that is used by the public school system. Query, how many sex scandals have been settled out of court and the abuser still on the payroll in the NYC public school system?

    Since you are rightly outraged at this priest and his bishop, would you then agree that if the Church enforced its own rules more consistently that this would not be a problem, or at the very least the problems could be nipped in the bud?

  52. Yes , god of the bible teaches us great moral lessons.
    My favorite story for learning morals is when bible god commands Moses to kill all the captive male Midianites and divvy up the virgin girls as war booty. Those helpless little boys needed to be put to the sword. My only problem with the lesson is what became of the girls? Slaves, sacrifices (god loves the smell of burning flesh), forced sex servants?

  53. “I’d like to see the pope and the rest of his cronies tried in a court of law for allowing the systematic rape of so many children.”

    Um, Rebecca – hate to break it to you, but you’re not likely to get any kind of judgment in a court of law with the evidence against the pope at this stage (that evidence being a bunch of speculation and insinuation by commercial media). You wouldn’t even get a hearing.

    That’s my whole point. You’re pre-judging. You’re prejudiced. You have it in for the pope, regardless of whether he has done anything wrong. You don’t even care if he has done anything wrong or not. You just want to cast your judgment.

    That’s your prerogative.

    “Your question implies that there may be some other answer, but for the life of me I cannot fathom a morality that allows one to think that ignoring those kids is the correct answer.”

    Maybe other pressing cases took precedence. Maybe the pope and his cronies delegated to local authorities to deal with Fr Murphy. Maybe there were protocols which should have been followed but weren’t. WE DON’T KNOW.

    Maybe the church as an institution is totally ill-equipped to deal with these kinds of abuses effectively, especially given the explosion in the number of cases in the past century. Definitely it has a massive and urgent responsibility to get things in order. Definitely there is massive culpability, both collectively and for many individuals, for the continued abuses that have taken place. Probably Ratzinger bears some personal responsibility for some part of the church’s current predicament. That’s all fair.

    But to spout direct hatred and blame at the pope for a case like Fr Murphy’s is ignorant, because just like I don’t know shit about you, you don’t know shit about the pope.

    p.s. The Christian teaching on sex was in direct opposition to the Roman practice of paedophilia. The Christian teaching on sex remains in direct opposition to paedophilia.

    And if your morals simply “evolved”, and mine didn’t, then kudos to you, oh highly evolved and enlightened one. Just don’t cast judgment on lesser-evolved types like me who have to learn morality the old-fashioned way – through reason.

  54. @JOHNEA13
    Do not confuse the Bible with other forms of morality literature. The thing is a library of family history, poetry, wisdom lit, and prophecy. If you read the history as morality or the fables as history, you are going to end up looking stupid. Like you just did. The various texts of the Bible were choosen and compiled in a purposeful way. If you don’t use that as your lens of interpretation, it won’t make sense.

  55. To back up what Fox just wrote:

    CCC 2389 Connected to incest is any sexual abuse perpetrated by adults on children or adolescents entrusted to their care. The offense is compounded by the scandalous harm done to the physical and moral integrity of the young, who will remain scarred by it all their lives; and the violation of responsibility for their upbringing.

  56. You mean the”good book” is not the word of god?
    God did not command Moses to kill the Midianite males and divvy up the virgin girls? Is it all made up or can only certain people discern the proper interpretation so we need to bow down to these enlightened ones?

  57. John, you just like sounding ridiculous, don’t you? It has nothing to do with ‘certain people’ unless by ‘certain people’ you mean those who are educated into the times in which a given text was written and that ‘certain people’ paid attention to how the people who originally used these texts did so.

    When a Catholic says it is the word of God, he does not mean that God dictated the Hebrew or Greek to the author. That is the Muslim understanding of the Koran. What we mean is that God is the direct inspiration, the muse to use a term you might be familiar with, and so the meaning of the text is inerrant.

    One of the constant interpretations of the wars you speak of is that, in order for there to be a place where God would become incarnate and say I am the Son of God and have it mean what it did, a piece of the world had to be scoured, stripped clean and started anew. Much the same with the Levitical laws. Most of these were the laws to seperate the Jews, and still seperates the ones who actually take their faith seriously, until the coming of the Messiah.

    Of course you are familiar with these commentaries, being so well versed in Scripture. Either that or you have one or two choice stories that you like to club over the head of unprepared folk since they sound so barbaric to us in these times.

  58. Wow.Such a kind loving god. With all his powers and intelligence , extreme violence and brutality was the only solution he could think of. I am in awe.

  59. Your flippancy is childish. All of his power and intelligence and that’s what he had to do. It should say something to you about the fallen nature of man kind.

  60. Maybe if he actively interacted with everybody instead of hiding or talking to a few chosen ones, he could teach and lead by example.

  61. All Hail JOHNEA13! He has figured out what God could not! He can see in the hearts of men and see that they just need a good talking to! People just sin because they don’t have a good example! Who knew?!?

    Seriously, that’s the best you can come up with? How do you know who God intereacted with and didn’t? The belief is that everything in the Bible is truth, but not all that is truth is in the Bible. Of course you knew that as well.

  62. Back to the original subject. Here is an observation by Archbishop Nichols about Pope Benedict as Prefect fot he Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith:

    “What of the role of Pope Benedict? When he was in charge of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith he led important changes made in church law: the inclusion in canon law of internet offences against children, the extension of child abuse offences to include the sexual abuse of all under 18, the case by case waiving of the statue of limitationand the establishment of a fast-track dismissal from the clerical state for offenders. He is not an idle observer. His actions speak as well as his words.”

    What say you about these actions? Is he still complicit, or is it possible that you don’t have all the information?

  63. Just a quick note here.

    DON’T FEED THE CHILD-FUCKER-APOLOGIST TROLLS!!!

    Thank you, that is all.

  64. ““What of the role of Pope Benedict? When he was in charge of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith he led important changes made in church law: the inclusion in canon law of internet offences against children, the extension of child abuse offences to include the sexual abuse of all under 18, the case by case waiving of the statue of limitationand the establishment of a fast-track dismissal from the clerical state for offenders. He is not an idle observer. His actions speak as well as his words.”

    What say you about these actions? Is he still complicit, or is it possible that you don’t have all the information?”

    YES damn fuck he is.

    How dare he pretend “Oh i’ve done SOOOOOOOOO much to help the children” while when it was going on he gave the “TO HELL WITH THE LITTLE CHILDREN” order.

    “The Bishops of this country made a huge mistake. They listened to the experts. The sociological experts that tell us that sex offenders can/could be rehabilitated with a bit of therapy and care.”

    This is such a fucking lie. The experts say there is NO CURE FOR PEDOPHILIA. And no fucking expert would put a pedophile in control of children. Doesn’t your church have something against oh I don’t know…lying?

  65. “Maybe the church as an institution is totally ill-equipped to deal with these kinds of abuses effectively, especially given the explosion in the number of cases in the past century. Definitely it has a massive and urgent responsibility to get things in order. Definitely there is massive culpability, both collectively and for many individuals, for the continued abuses that have taken place. Probably Ratzinger bears some personal responsibility for some part of the church’s current predicament. That’s all fair.

    But to spout direct hatred and blame at the pope for a case like Fr Murphy’s is ignorant, because just like I don’t know shit about you, you don’t know shit about the pope.”

    Yes the church was ill fitted to deal with pedophilia…if Only there were some outside legal system run by well funded civic officers that had a sound infrastructure for trials based on evidence, and places to incarcerate criminals. If only there was such a legal system they could turn the issue over to. Sadly such an organization only exists in the wildes of our imaginations

  66. Goddamn it those fuckers pissed me off…

    You cannot praise Ratzinger for putting anti-pedophile into catholic law (Wait didn’t the other asshole say it was ALWAYS in Catholic law since the Roman times?) while he previously GAVE THE ORDER TO HIDE THE PEDOPHILES.

  67. Ing, you are as foolish as you are foul-mouthed.

    He did not give the order to hide the pedophiles (technically only 10% of the accused were pedo, most were euphebo but I’m sure you knew that and were just using short hand). He did give a directive to be discrete for the sake of the victim and the accused so that they were not dragged into the public spotlight and made a circus of. I’m sure that order was unwarranted since the media and their ilk are so discrete when it comes to the needs of the victims of crimes. And society never rushes to judgement.

    So where were these supposed priests hidden anyway? Near as I can tell, none of them changed their names or went into hiding. The reason they were not ‘brought to justice’ is because of failings in the civic legal system. Not. The. Church. Most cases I’ve heard about, the cops don’t do much of anything. Tell me, why is that? If you think its the clout of the Church in America, that strange noise you’ll hear in the background is me dying of laughter.

    And to clarify about you last post, Ratzinger expanded the legal definition of abuse in from what was writen in the 1983 Code of Canon Law so as to make canonical punishments easier. Also he made it so you do not have to have a Tribunal case to strip a man of his office, but a suffciently grave reason would suffice.

    The Code of Canon Law is about the governance of the Church and was compiled to make things more uniform. What Fox was talking about is the Church’s teaching of sexuality, which has been consistent since the beginning. Not all sins are listed in Canon Law, but they are covered in the Catechisms and other texts.

    All of that said, neither I nor Fox are saying what was done by this priest is anywhere near excusable. Never was their a single edict, teaching, or directive that said it was allowed. This is a grave matter and the bishop in Milwaulkee and Fr Murphy have already met their final judgement. Kyrie Elesion.

  68. @Baron Korf: What the fuck is this:

    “(technically only 10% of the accused were pedo, most were euphebo but I’m sure you knew that and were just using short hand)”

    Is that supposed to make it better? The kids he were abusing were a little older, so fucking what?

  69. Amberjoy @24:

    [B]because these children were deaf and used ASL, they most likely would have had much more difficulty finding someone they could talk to about it while it was happening. The climate of deaf education at the time was anti-sign, and most likely they had few adults who knew ASL that they could mention it to.

    The NYT article did not specifically say that the deaf children used ASL but did note the priest was “gifted at communicating in American Sign Language,” which implies they did.

    ASL or not, I agree completely with your assertion that the children would have had much more difficulty than hearing children in finding someone they could talk to about the abuse at the time.

    I was born in 1972 and happened to be in one of the first school districts in the US to provide services to the deaf. In elementary school, I was in an oral program, not an ASL program, but I still felt isolated.

    Back then, the medical view (rather than the cultural view) of deafness prevailed, and what seemed to me like a majority of teachers tended to view deaf students as defective. I also came to view myself as defective.

    I was raised as a Catholic, and I cannot imagine the courage it would have taken for me, a deaf, defective kid wearing a large beige boxy hearing device on his chest, to report abuse by a priest.

    Murphy was a despicable person, period. If he abused the deaf children, or engaged in more abuse than he would have otherwise, because he knew of the barriers faced by deaf children in reporting abuse, then fuck me, that’s outright evil.

  70. No Linzee. It is a rhetorical device used to exemplify the opponents deficient knowledge of the subject.

    No one is making the abuse out to be less than it is, especially not the Holy Father. Read his recent letter to the Church in Ireland for proof of this. My point is that people sling around terms and concepts without even knowing what they are talking about.

    The misconstrued order that Ing was talking about was issued in 2001, three years after the death of the priest in question here. 3 will get you 30 if you can name the document.
    .
    .
    .
    Time! Pencils down. De delictis gravioribus. Read it and tell me where he went wrong.

    This was a terrible incident, but get the story straight. Learn the facts. Then report. Don’t shoot from the hip.

  71. Baron, we have researched, we know the story. No one believe you. You can insult me all you want but to dismiss this harm against not just children but human decency is too far. The Vatican did not turn any accused priest over to the authorities for investigation. not until it was exposed by outside forces. They moved priests around when the heat got too high. This is not the act of someone acting in good faith. This is not decent.

    Remember, when this came to light in America the Church said it was an American problem, or a gay problem…well now we know that while they were saying that they were still covering up stuff in Ireland and Germany etc. They knew it was happening else where and tried to blame my country and my culture on it.

    The % of priests molesting is a non-sequitor the fact that the church supported them, bought silence, and obstructed justice is unforgivable. Let me spell it out for you. THEY PUT PEDOPHILES BACK IN CONTROL OF CHILDREN. Not acceptable. No one does that. They have claimed “we didn’t know pedophilia hurts children” that it’s the gays fault, america’s fault. They have appologized, while crying about having to pay for the msitake. They don’t take responsibility. And why would they, they have people like you who will go and wag their finger and the big bad angry atheists for…what now? Being pissed and foul mouthed about this. Well FUCK YES. They say religious people are happier than irreligious, well maybe if you weren’t so fucking happy despite your surroundings this wouldn’t happen! May I remind you you’re cohart stated that “most people know someone who was raped as a child” and tried to shame us for not speaking out. Um no, I know ONE person in my age group who was molested. ONE. They were molested by a teacher at my school. You know what they did? Fired his ass and sent him to trial. Why did he say this, to diminished the phenomena, to excuse it as common place and try to make it look like ignoring child abuse is something EVERYONE does. Bullshit. Yeah I’m upset beyond words about this. Fox diminishes child rape, YOU diminish it and JOSEPH RATZINGER dimishes it (No way I’m using holly father. He ain’t holy and he ain’t no one’s papa)

    “What Fox was talking about is the Church’s teaching of sexuality, which has been consistent since the beginning.”

    BULLSHIT. Ummmmm when was vows of chastity introduced to the priesthood? Not day one. I went to Catholic school, I was taught Catholic history from Catholics. Do not try to bullshit me on this. BTW even the minor thing of saying “Gays are not evil but the act is, to be good they must abstain” is itself a change from “homosexuality is an abomination. Hey what about the popes who had orgies? Was that in line with your consistency. You’re not worth talking to I’m done, Skepchick can ban me if i crossed the line, don’t care. Fuck you, Fuck the Former-Nazi-Youth demagogue you worship, Fuck your institution and fuck your bullshit. Congratulations, you’ve motivated me to stop sitting on my ass and to go find a way to DO something about the Church crimes. I’m going to look and see what I can do for activist groups helping the victims, and I hope they sue the Vatican back to the stone age.

  72. Really, what does anyone expect from people with such a delusional world view?

    People who believe people who just make shit up?

    People who have turned The Secret into a way of life.?

    They were doing the best they could, they were praying for a miracle so that God would fix everything and make everyone and everything all better. That didn’t work, and they didn’t have a plan B.

  73. Oh yeah, one more thing: If you live in the UK and you don’t want your tax dollars paying for the child-rape-hiding Pope to visit our fair isles, you can sign this petition and let the Prime Minister know how you feel.

    Already signed, although somehow I doubt that whatever party is in power after the forthcoming General Election will take any notice. :(

  74. You know what Fox and Friend remind me of?

    Ever see Apocalypse Now or read Heart of Darkness? They are SO much the Photojournalist/Harlequin. Loony as hell and in denial, desperately arguing that the atrocities their god figure (Kurtz==Pope) do are really good things. This psychotic masochism has no response other than ridicule.

  75. Clearly anyone who committed these crimes should be charged for them. Anyone in which there is proof that knew about them and didn’t warn the authoraties should be charged with aiding the crime. It is hands on one of the most horrendus crimes a human can do…

    but..

    Going on about the catholic church being all evil is the equivilant of Islamic fanatics going on about suicide in the name of killing infidels.

    Please people use your brain.

    Yes there are evil people, there are evil people where you live, you have voted for evil people, you have bought things from evil people, you have worked in your company with evil people. Just because in your countries government there are evil people does it make you evil? Because in your country horendous crimes have been hidden by many with responsibilities does it make you part of that same evil?

    It would be nice to see most people that coment here say that they didnt mean that the “catholic church” is evil and other hcildish generalizations, unless of course you yourself also blame each other for your own countries evil doings. Even if the pope read and signed of on every single letter and decision from the multinational structure below him i thnk every other catholic has nothing to do with that.

    So stop being hypocrites, yes you too Rebecca…

    “the Church only gives a shit when they’re about to get caught.”

    Yeah, I think the catholic church is a little more than a couple of men, even evil men. Use your brain please and keep your rant towards those who did it, and not every single person that belong to the same religion…

    Unless your going to renounce yourself from your country, your workplace, your society and your own species, cause in your rational, your just as too blame as the rest of them.

    “Fuck the Catholic Church with their childish secret society built on hateful lies and brutal torture. ”

    Yeah, Fuck the Americans/English/Whatever with their childish secret society built on hateful lies and brutal torture. Their murder of innocents aupported by tax dollares/pounds/whatever. The idiotic tax payers that support the bleeding of less fortunate countries to support their own miserable lives. Their purchase of clothes form overworked children in asian countries. Their polluting the planet ruining it for future generations… Fuck you all

  76. @Tac

    OTHER PEOPLE ARE BAD TOO SO ITS OK!

    No fuck you, stay on topic. Church covers up crimes, spreads lies, built on torture and exploitation. that what we’re talking about, what other people did wrong outside of the topic does not make them less wrong. the Pope himself was involved, and you give money to it. HEY YOU CAN CHOOSE, NOT TO GIVE MONEY. the rest of us cant not-pay our taxes. We don’t give cash for the pedoring, maybe you shouldn’t either. FUCK YOU

    “Just like harping on islamic suicide bombers” YES EXACTLY, that is exactly what it’s like. How is that a bad thing? Do you WANT to allow Al Quedo to continue operations? SHOULD Bin LAden be a respected world leader. use your head, dumb ass.

  77. Dear Ing,

    Don’t tell me to stay on topic and then counter-argument. If your putting up a counter argument that means i’m on topic.

    Second please don’t miss-quote people to present an argument against them. I said that generalizing that a whole community is evel based on the actions of the few is the same as islamic radicals killing innocents because they are also americans. I’m comparing you to islamic fanatics. Yes, i’m saying that you use the same rational as Bin Laden, except he goes a step further and actualy kills those he is against.

    And you can choose not to pay taxes (hey thought of changing country?) You can choose not to buy low wage children built items (or 90% of your household items.)

    Or you can choose to actually use your brain and not blame the actions of individuals on the community around it.

    And last i’m not catholic. I haven’t given a cent of what i earned to the church cause i’m against it for rational reasons and not because there are a few evil men in it. I actually use my brain to realize that the community cannot be held against the actions of the few, even if they are the leaders.

    If your amaerican or english, or even from a western civilization (lke I am) your country has also “covers up crimes, spreads lies, built on torture and exploitation”. And thats what your talking about it. Have you moved to another country? Have you ever voted?

    Dont be a hipocrite. I know in my society there are those who do evil. I know there are does who do evil without my knowing what or who. And i’ll demand for prosecution to those who do. I’m not an idiot who generalizes that everyone in a society is eveil just cause it makes me feel better. I’m not a irrational fanatic…

    How bout you? Gonna strap some bombs round your chest and blow up a church cause there are a few evil men in that society? Or gonna stop being a fuckin hipocrite?

  78. How bout you? Gonna strap some bombs round your chest and blow up a church cause there are a few evil men in that society? Or gonna stop being a fuckin hipocrite?

    Thank you for straw manning me. My position that “the church should not shield pedophiles” is exactly like an Islamic extremist. Seriously get off your liberal high horse. It’s not bad eggs here, it’s a bad policy from the top down.

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