This one goes straight to the pope

"This is going to cripple the Church..."

How so? What are going to be the effects? It may damage some of the hierarchy, but long term? Are billions of Catholics around the world going to denounce their beliefs and turn away from their church? I don't know. I am not a Catholic.

I believe this will have no impact for the Catholic church's most loyal customers like my grandmother. But I believe this will only further erode market share for younger generations.

I think the combination of a decrease in revenue with payouts for settlements with victims will force a reorg. Assets will be sold off, locations will be consolidated. I also believe that employee recruitment will hit new lows.

My guess is these economic issues will be what ultimately leads to change in management along with change in policies.

I believe this will have no impact for the Catholic church's most loyal customers like my grandmother. But I believe this will only further erode market share for younger generations.

I think the combination of a decrease in revenue combined with payouts for settlement's with victims will force a reorg. Assets will be sold off, locations will be consolidated. I also believe that employee recruitment will hit new lows.

My guess is these economic issues will be what ultimately leads to change in management along with change in policies.

Sounds like a Fortune 500 Company, and not a church.

Sounds like a Fortune 500 Company, and not a church.

Correctamundo.
The members of the board of directors, management and employees need to be held accountable at Church, Inc.

Hopefully, shareholders and customers along with all those good employees will rise up to save the organization.

Not sure what your definition of organized religion is, but I am sure there are more good ordinary Catholics who are loving, kind, working in their communites for good and would never harm a child than there are bad ones.

If you had said in "some" cases I would agree, but I don't agree to "most" cases nor would I agree that all organized religion is more about money and politics.

When the earthquake hit Haiti and their plight became world news, millions of dollars were sent to their aid. However for many years the people of Haiti have suffered and who came to their aid when it was not world news; organized religious groups.

There is tremendous good that organized religious groups do on a daily basis that will never make the news because it is not shocking.

What has happend to these children over the years is horrible and definitely something has to be done and there should be some type of punishment for the crimes committed, but it's wrong to paint everyone with the same brush for the wrongs of some.

It may be my use of "organized" was a misnomer but I stand by my assertion. As usual with many of my posts it comes from a personal experience, one that ended my association with any organized church body. It literally pitted one group in a church against another in the same chuch. A lot of church decisions have to do with human wants and frailties and little to do with spirtuality or generousity, IMO. It may be that "some" would have been a better word but there is an awful lot of "poloticing" that goes in churches.

It may be my use of "organized" was a misnomer but I stand by my assertion. As usual with many of my posts it comes from a personal experience, one that ended my association with any organized church body. It literally pitted one group in a church against another in the same chuch. A lot of church decisions have to do with human wants and frailties and little to do with spirtuality or generousity, IMO. It may be that "some" would have been a better word but there is an awful lot of "poloticing" that goes in churches.

Sadly that can be the case in any type of organization be it churches, businesses, schools or government organizations. They are organized by humans so there are always going to be some that lose sight of the mission of the group and promote their own agenda. The larger the organization the more people involved, and therefore more problems.

To take it a step further, mine was a local Methodist church.

It just keeps getting better. Hey y'all, let's blame it on gays.

VATICAN CITY (AP) -- The Vatican heatedly defended Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday, claiming accusations that he helped cover up the actions of pedophile priests are part of an anti-Catholic "hate" campaign targeting the pope for his opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage. <I'm thinking someone's tampering with the Vatican's drinking water.>

Vatican Radio broadcast comments by two senior cardinals explaining "the motive for these attacks" on the pope and the Vatican newspaper chipped in with spirited comments from another top cardinal.

"The pope defends life and the family, based on marriage between a man and a woman, in a world in which powerful lobbies would like to impose a completely different" agenda, Spanish Cardinal Julian Herranz, head of the disciplinary commission for Holy See officials, said on the radio.

Herranz didn't identify the lobbies but "defense of life" is Vatican shorthand for anti-abortion efforts. <Where's the "defense of children?>
Also arguing that Benedict's promotion of conservative family models had provoked the so-called attacks was the Vatican's dean of the College of Cardinals, Angelo Sodano.

"By now, it's a cultural contrast," Sodano told the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano. "The pope embodies moral truths that aren't accepted, and so, the shortcomings and errors <Are you effing kidding me?!> of priests are used as weapons against the church."

Also rallying to Benedict's side was Italian Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo, who heads the Vatican City State's governing apparatus.

The pope "has done all that he could have" against sex abuse by clergy of minors, Lajolo said on Vatican radio, decrying what he described as a campaign of "hatred against the Catholic church."

Rev. Rebecca Voelkel, a Minneapolis, Minnesota-based minister in the United Church of Christ who is faith work director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, described the cardinals' comments as "diversionary counterattacks" that are an affront both to the victims of clergy abuse and to gays and lesbians.

"It makes me heartsick," she said.

Sex abuse allegations, as well as accusations of cover-ups by diocesan bishops and Vatican officials, have swept across Europe in recent weeks. Benedict has been criticized for not halting the actions of abusive priests when he was a Vatican cardinal and earlier while he was the archbishop of Munich in his native Germany.

The mainland European scandals - in Germany, Italy, Austria, Denmark and Switzerland - are erupting after decades of abuse cases in the United States, Canada, Australia, Ireland and other areas.

In Germany, nearly 2,700 people called the church's sexual abuse hot line in the first three days it was operating, a Catholic church spokesman said Tuesday.A team of psychologists and other experts have spoken with 394 people so far, ranging from several minutes up to an hour, Trier Diocese spokesman Stephan Kronenburg said.
"Most callers reported cases of sexual abuse," he told The Associated Press.

Benedict has ignored victims' demands that he accept responsibility for what they say is his own personal and institutional responsibility for failing to swiftly kick abusive priests out of the priesthood, or at least keep them away from children.

But he has been protected by a vanguard of senior Vatican prelates who are fending off what they contend is an orchestrated attempt to attack the leader of the world's more than 1 billion Catholics.
The Vatican No. 2 official, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, rebuffed questions about the pontiff's silence on the topic, indicating that Benedict was standing firm.

"He's a strong pope," he told reporters after arriving Tuesday in Chile. The Italian news agency ANSA quoted him as calling Benedict a "great prophet of the Third Millennium."

Bertone, now the Holy See's secretary of state but formerly Benedict's deputy when the future pope, then-called Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, headed the Vatican's morals office, has himself been swept up in the scandals.

During a May 1998 meeting at the Vatican, Bertone told Wisconsin bishops to halt a church trial against an ailing priest who was accused of sexually abusing 200 deaf children, according to a Vatican transcript. The priest died soon afterward.

"It's not true, it's not true! We have documented the opposite," ANSA quoted Bertone as saying in Chile. "Let's not talk about this topic now, because otherwise we'll be here all day verifying precisely the action taken by me and by his eminence."

On Easter, the most important day in the Catholic faith, the Vatican broke with tradition and began its service in St. Peter's Square with a ringing defense of Benedict delivered by Cardinal Sodano.

The Vatican newspaper quoted Sodano on Tuesday as saying the church is "certainly" suffering because of pedophile priests but he asserted that "Benedict XVI has apologized several times."

"But it's not Christ's fault if Judas betrayed" him, Sodano said. "It's not a bishop's fault if one of his priests is stained by grave wrongdoing. And certainly the pontiff is not responsible."

"Behind the unjust attacks on the pope are visions of the family and of life that run contrary to the Gospel," Sodano said. "Now the accusation of pedophile is being brandished against the church."

He noted that past popes have also been criticized, including the "offensive against Pius XII for his conduct during the last World War as well as that against Paul VI" for his encyclical against birth control, the cardinal said. <Yeah, those are on par with pedophilia, all right.>

Pius has been accused by Jewish groups and some scholars as not having done enough to save Jews from the Holocaust, although the Vatican contends he used behind-the-scene diplomacy to help them. Benedict has hailed Pius as a "great" pontiff, who is being considered for possible beatification.

Vatican Radio, presenting listeners with some of the most vehement counterattacks yet, depicted the church as a victim.

"There are those who fear the media campaign of anti-Catholic hatred can degenerate," Vatican Radio said.

It noted anti-Catholic graffiti on walls of a church outside Viterbo, a town near Rome, and reminded listeners that a bishop was attacked by a man during Easter Mass in Muenster, Germany. The bishop fought back with an incense bowl.

The radio likened the recent campaign to the persecution suffered by early Christian martyrs. "The crowds, incited by the slanders of the powerful, would lynch the Christians," the radio said.

In Munich, meanwhile, an independent lawyer hired by the Catholic church wrapped up his investigation of abuse allegations at the southern Ettal monastery.

"The investigation clearly shows a system of abuse that lasted for decades," Thomas Pfister told The Associated Press.

There were some cases of sexual abuse at Ettal but most victims who came forward were physically abused and most cases took place before 1990, Pfister said in a telephone interview.

The lawyer declined to elaborate as his final report will be published next week.

AP News : NWFDailynews.com

Correctamundo.
The members of the board of directors, management and employees need to be held accountable at Church, Inc.

Hopefully, shareholders and customers along with all those good employees will rise up to save the organization.

It just keeps getting better. Hey y'all, let's blame it on gays.




AP News : NWFDailynews.com

So if I'm reading that right then abortion=bad, gay marriage=bad, but rape of a minor=gods will?

What gets me the most is that this is an institution based on rigid rules and requirements. However, Jesus himself never wrote anything down and never really defined anything to be a definite and absolute. It's almost like someone with a serious mental disease co-opted his teachings and built an empire.

It's almost like someone with a serious mental disease co-opted his teachings and built an empire.

No "almost" about it, sweetie. And unfortunately, the co-opting doesn't only apply to Catholicism. It's just one of the more egregious examples.

You've touched on something that's long bothered me about many "Christian" religions - that is, their adherance to Bblical "principals" even when they are in direct opposition to Jesus' teachings. I'm a Christian, not a Biblian (or whatever you would call it). And Jesus even said "I come to bring a new covenant," which would seem to imply that much of the "old" covenant was wrong. Much of the old covenant had to do with ego. The God of the Old Testament is terribly ego-based - full of vengeance, judgment and wrath - an eye for an eye. The Father that Jesus teaches of is only love, light and hope - turn the other cheek. If I'm a Christian, and Jesus is my leader, then I choose to believe in the God he reveals.

I received a mailing-list email from a local paster last week that included the words "God hates. . ." I quit reading. MY God hates nothing. MY God does not know what hate is. And if He did, I believe the thing HE would "hate" most is. . . . hate. We choose to believe the outdated stuff because it appeals to the petty human side of us - the ego. And many church leaders become leaders because of their ego. Letting go of the ego is hard, and I don't mean to imply in any way that I've been successful, but I keep trying. Because Jesus - and all the great spiritual teachers in history- teach that it is the only way to heaven (a discussion for another time), which sounds like a pretty groovy state of being.

The Vatican can spin all it wants, but my feelings have nothing to do with propaganda/theology/family values/politics and everything to do with what is right and wrong at the most basic level of humanity.

You do not hurt children and you do not protect those who do.

I agree. Not to mention that the NYTs article was based on official correspondence about father Murphy to the vatican.

Hitchens had a scathing op ed about this last week in Slate:

The pope's entire career has the stench of evil about it. - By Christopher Hitchens - Slate Magazine

Hitchen's should have done his homework because most of his interpretations are flawed. Hitchen's claimed that Ratzinger sent out a confidential letter to Cardinals that they are not to speak of child cases or they would be excommunicated. This was what was actually sent out publicly regarding canon law, which has been on the Vatican website since 2001:

[quote]The four-page document, written in Latin and entitled "Sacramentorum sanctitatis tutela," is dated May 19, 2001, and has already been conveyed to all the world's bishops by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
[/quote]

This rule also extended the limits of prosecution which hampered investigations prior to that date. It was extended to 10 years past the victims 18th birthday.

What is true is that canon law regarding these situations is that anyone involved in the case being investigated by the Congregation must keep the case secret, that includes the accuser. This is not uncommon in our public judicial system. It goes further to include excommunication of anyone who knowingly had information about sexual abuse and not reporting it to the Congregation. The Church claims that it has the seal of confession to protect and to protect the victims.

What irks me about all this is why the Church has their own laws and how to handle them these cases outside of any Countries judicial system. I can't imagine any Country in the world not having laws about child molestation that has a large Christian population. I can understand having canonical laws on how to treat the accused as to whether to defrock him, but if someone is a victim and reports the accused, then, IMHO, should become a judicial pubic case outside of the Church.

There was an interesting piece done by the BBC about all this in 2008.

Here's Part 1 of 4 on Youtube

[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wBExdblRNY&feature=related"]YouTube- Sex Crimes and Vatican - Part 1 of 4[/nomedia]

Maybe the seal of confession is part of the problem. Members of the church accept the possibility of horrible crimes going unreported to the authorities, and it's all legal.

No, it's that they are keeping it secret so the parishioners don't know of or the true extent of the issue.

Confession doesn't cover all sins. You may get forgiven, but there are still legal consequences.

And many priests/clergy are supposed to be court mandated reporters due to their contact with children in schools and other programs.

Maybe the seal of confession is part of the problem. Members of the church accept the possibility of horrible crimes going unreported to the authorities, and it's all legal.

I believe the seal of confession extends to knowledge of an unlawful act, so it may be that some priests, depending on how they interpret it, may not be bringing these cases to the Church's attention. One could argue that a man of the cloth could not give absolution to the violator if the other priest does not accept any form of contrition, like turning themselves in to the authorities.

I am not sure. I am not a canon law expert. But, it certainly gives the Church an excuse to hide these heinous acts. :roll:

No, it's that they are keeping it secret so the parishioners don't know of or the true extent of the issue.

Confession doesn't cover all sins. You may get forgiven, but there are still legal consequences.

And many priests/clergy are supposed to be court mandated reporters due to their contact with children in schools and other programs.

Not true, it comes down to their personal decision. Priests have been exonerated in court due to separation of church and state upholding their vow. It's similar to attorney client privilege or doctor patient privilege. The difference being that there are laws for the latter 2 and no laws regarding the first.

To clarify, priests CAN tell (it's easy to circumvent the seal of the confessional - all you need is permission from the person confessing OR to discuss/witness something outside the confessional), but cannot be FORCED to tell by a court of law etc.

So once again it comes down to CHOOSING to protect child molesters.

And of course it's useless when the priest hearing the confession is the molester............or is actually molesting people in the freaking confessional.

I'm a fan of the onion and it's no secret how I feel about the church with respect to this scandal. That said, (and I'm surprising myself with this one) I think this satire is in poor taste.

Pope Vows To Get Church Pedophilia Down To Acceptable Levels | The Onion - America's Finest News Source ATICAN CITY?Calling the behavior shameful, sinful, and much more frequent than the Vatican was comfortable with, Pope Benedict XVI vowed this week to bring the widespread pedophilia within the Roman Catholic Church down to a more manageable level.

Addressing thousands gathered at St. Peter's Square on Easter Sunday, the pontiff offered his "most humble apologies" to abuse victims, and pledged to reduce the total number of molestations by 60 percent over the next five years.

"This is absolutely unacceptable," Pope Benedict said. "It seems a weakening of faith in God has prevented our priests from exercising moderation when sexually abusing helpless minors."

"And let me remind our clergy of the holy vows they all took when they entered the priesthood," he continued. "They should know that they're only allowed one small child every other month."

The pope said he was deeply disappointed to learn that the number of children sexually abused by priests was almost 10 times beyond the allowable limit clearly outlined in church doctrine. Admitting for the first time in public that the overindulgent touching of "tender, tender young flesh" had become a full-blown crisis, the Holy Father vowed to implement new reforms to bring the pedophilia rate back down to five children per 1,000 clergy.

"The truth is there will always be a little bit of molestation?it's simply unavoidable," Vatican spokesperson Rev. Federico Lombardi said. "But the fact that young boys have gotten much more attractive over the past few decades is no excuse for the blatant defiance of church limits that have been in place for centuries."

"The majority of priests don't want to molest kids at all," he added. "But for those who do, we must make sure they're doing it at a reasonable rate."

Following the pope's speech, the Vatican released a statement outlining its plan to reduce pedophilia. Starting next year, specially trained cardinals will make unannounced visits to inspect and observe random churches in order to ensure they are not going beyond diocese-wide molestation caps. The inspector-cardinals will grade each parish based on long, private interviews with altar boys in darkened church basements, and careful observation of priests' sexual activity.

Yeah, kind of like with carbon. They're going to try to manage their "molestation footprint". (I realize it's the Onion)

poor taste may be in the eye of the beholder!?

I could do without the Teriyaki Jesus.

Fair point, Bob...

Just to clarify my point. I think the reason the piece by The Onion doesn't come off well for me personally is because it isn't off the wall satire that is funny. It's pretty much true!!!

Fair point, Bob...

Just to clarify my point. I think the reason the piece by The Onion doesn't come off well for me personally is because it isn't off the wall satire that is funny. It's pretty much true!!!

beware any large organization of your fellow species[rhymes w/feces].

On a serious note, priests aren't molesting kids any more than the general population is molesting them. (grammar?)

1/3 girls and 1/5 boys will deal with the issue before age 18, so don't think a lack of a Roman Collar means they are safe.

Relatives and family friends are the biggest dangers - not strangers.