Clergy Abuse Hotline: 888-538-8551
I wonder if the penny has finally dropped. Our society needs to finally come to grips with the fact that religion is not inherently good, and should get no pass just for existing. Rather, it should be given close scrutiny.
Giving religious organizations, religious people, or religion itself any status above cultism is dangerous, especially to children. Just do not do it. The sex slavery and abuse within the Catholic Church is widespread and has gone on unchecked for who knows how long (centuries?) and it has been allowed to happen because police, government officials, politicians, and regular citizens give sway to anything religious.
The Pennsylvania AG and a grand jury has compiles an extensive report on sexual predation and related matters in six of Pennsylvania’s eight diocese. You can read it here.
From WaPo, a sampling of the horrors:
In Erie, a 7-year-old boy was sexually abused by a priest who then told him he should go to confession and confess his “sins” to that same priest.
Another boy was repeatedly raped from ages 13 to 15 by a priest who bore down so hard on the boy’s back that it caused severe spine injuries. He became addicted to painkillers and later died of an overdose.
One victim in Pittsburgh was forced to pose naked as Christ on the cross while priests photographed him with a Polaroid camera. Priests gave the boy and others gold cross necklaces to mark them as being “groomed” for abuse.
The report makes clear that few criminal cases may result from the massive investigation.
“As a consequence of the coverup, almost every instance of abuse we found is too old to be prosecuted,” the report said.
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What is religion all about? Control? Power? A self perpetuating meme? A remunerating Ponzi scheme? A source of comfort? A weapon system? On one level it seems to be a place where people who like to hurt other people can prosper. Catholic Catechism and Catholic Church were remarkably frightening, stressful, scarring, and bizarre parts of my childhood. It took decades to wash most of their irrational brainwashing out of my system. On one level, the priests and nuns appeared to have been trying to frighten us into being “good” citizens. One thing they succeeded in doing was to turn many of us into power craving, righteous bullies and authoritarians. Good “soldiers” for Christ. As the Catholic Church is about the oldest Christian sect, they definitely have their fear/power/money/corruption chops down pretty good. And like Borg implants, their training cannot easily be removed from most victims.
Cue the Godless atheist charges from the cons and Russians pounding at the blog door at any moment.
You got my vote. Shut it down, liquidate the assets, and give reparations to every victim we can find. If any’s left over, use it to help lift the poor out of poverty. Skip the “thoughts and prayers.”
NO! Don’t shut it down! VOTE to get intelligent people who care into congress, pass law stating religion does not get a free ride, they must all register as a charity organization and do as all other charities do and watch the money come flooding in from their profits they make! Or the people leave as they find out that the churches are money laundering fronts.
Sorry I just realized my glowing error…what INTELLIGENT person would want to be in congress!?!?!
If you want to be even more disgusted read the defense of these priests written by Bill Donahue. Boiling it down, he says these children weren’t raped because there was no penetration, and the numbers in the report can’t be true (no real explanation for that one), and that these priests aren’t guilty of anything (it seems he means legally guilty because there was no trial). In his mind this is nothing but a collection of false allegations put out as part of a continuing attack on the catholic church to weaken its moral authority.
“If wishes were fishes, we’d all cast nets.” –? Frank Herbert, The Dune Storybook
The only thing we can hope for from this is a massive monetary judgement against these eight dioceses. I know JPII and his successor (the nazi pope) worked hard on ways for dioceses to hide money and other resources, so it may take some discovery time, but it needs to be done. The primary concern for the RCC is maintaining its revenue, and so far they’ve made the decision that the cost of dealing honestly with the abuse problem is worse than the backlash they take from stories like this. It won’t be until they see that they’ll lose more money when they got caught than they will from trying to prevent it that the behavior of their leadership will change.
An Australia protest party put out a particularly apt piece of satire a couple years ago:
https://youtu.be/rCDGMbPqNb4
There was and still is a marked dichotomy in attitude towards communities by Australian Federal officials. The difference between what occurred in the communities involved in the Intervention , and the Catholic community was and is, appallingly stark. I’ve never understood it.
If the Catholic Church were a secular entity, every single one of those creepy conservative child molesting priests, bishops, cardinals, etc. would have been defrocked & decocked by way of lynch mob already.
The Catholic Church has serious problems which the
Vatican is not addressing. Shame on them, Shame on
his Popeship.
As many have said before, the truth always comes to the light
of the day.
Would, GL, write a similar piece of half-way houses and
shelters, which spawn crime and undocumented drug sales.
in their respect hood?
You can hold your breath until the next blue wave.
The only time the leftwing “fights” evil is when it wants
to destroy religiosity. Really, you blokefolks have a lot in common
with his Popeship.
Would the worthless amoral shithead who posted that care to provide evidence (not a screed from some racist rathole he frequents, but a real study) to support that assertion?
Yeah, that’s why so many people on the left (not all of them, true) have been left alone when stories of their assaults have come out. /snark
That’s also clearly why the right has been so consistent in its condemnation of Trump’s admissions of serial abuse of women and his walking in on teenage girls as they changed clothes. (again, /snark)
You are the dumbest sob in existence billyR, and certainly one of the most vile.
For K9 deanbloke, who is in denial on the Nile.
https://penetrate.blogspot.com/2008/11/homeless-shelters-crime-magnets.html
I can find more linkies for you, deanbloke, if you are not
satisfied.
You failed asshole — you need a legitimate source.
Is there nobody you know or read that has a shred of legitimacy?
http://pinellascounty.wtsp.com/news/news/69635-crime-reports-nearly-double-near-homeless-shelter
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/10/09/southampton-street-shelter-arrival-newmarket-area-sparks-rise-crime/o5OTQfg2XQVOBOIgAEUeML/story.html
https://www.apa.org/monitor/2009/12/violence.aspx
K9 deanbloke, good see you back in form !!!! Name calling, gutter comments
which you so famous for.
I hope you find these links will satisfy your very “high community” standards
for truthful sources.
K9 johndean, I found some more.
https://www.deseretnews.com/article/865674025/Lawmakers-support-making-drug-dealing-near-homeless-shelters-a-felony.html
https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/politics/2016/03/18/unsafe-haven–how-violence-and-drugs-at-city-homeless-shelters-flew-under-the-radar
https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/politics/2016/03/16/unsafe-haven–drug-use-rampant-at-city-homeless-shelters
K9, I have twenty-eight more missive for you, if you are still not
convinced.
They just came over my enigma machine.
You are almost there, although you have managed to find several anecdotes, no official study that links shelters to crimes. In addition, several of the articles you give don’t blame the centers, they discuss crime that was present in the area before the centers were started.
But at least you actually tried. Not hard, and not with any honest intent, but you tried.
You can stop posting individual stories now.
Evil priests, evil people.
https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1027634435733299201
“You are almost there, although you have managed to find several anecdotes, no official study that links shelters to crimes. In addition, several of the articles you give don’t blame the centers, they discuss crime that was present in the area before the centers were started.
But at least you actually tried. Not hard, and not with any honest intent, but you tried.
You can stop posting individual stories now.”
Wow, no WOW dean, that was the nicest post you
ever gave me !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :>)
I gave you a thumbs up. :<)
However, posts made since this one show you are still the habitual liar and functional illiterate we’ve come to know.
“However, posts made since this one show you are still the habitual liar and functional illiterate we’ve come to know.”
Why K9 dean runs out of arguments, he reverts back to his
cavebloke mentally of just debasing his opponent.
This is the skill level of Socshevikes because the truth is not
on their bloody side.
“If your argument does not fit, you must throw a fit!”
If you are not on the side of the truth, you shall never win.
You’ve repeatedly been found to ask people to support their statements, then you refuse to read the material that was posted (you’ve done this several times with BBD, as well as others), so don’t be so blatant as to lie and say you have out argued everyone you cross, because
— your references have been repeatedly shown to be garbage
— you never engage the rebuttals