Pope's pedophilia advisor caught arranging for sex with boys

[apophenia]

For someone who seems to take such umbrage at the idea of them being somehow stereotyped or pigeon-holed on the basis of little evidence, you seem to engage in a remarkable amount of it yourself. You know nothing about me, yet you feel free to cast aspersions on my communication skills, or that say that I think I'm a head doctor, or that "I have not descended to your depths". Quite charming, I'd say. Nowhere in any of my responses to you have I said anything even remotely comparable.

I was referring to Morticia in all but the last, which, while not relating to Morticia, is also a misreading of what I said.

Regardless, I got carried away and said a lot of things that were probably better left unsaid. I'm a passionate person and sometimes that passion has a life of its own. However, I have been repeatedly personally attacked in this thread, though in hindsight mostly the sort of attacks which Morticia has been launching, for which I should likely just smile and nod politely. ("Mistakes were made!" ) Being attacked personally, I chose to take the fight to the enemy -- probably not the best strategy, particularly as a newcomer. (Though you did misquote me; and your handling of even this latest text makes it clear that I should take special pains to aim for clarity when addressing you; btw, what's this heinous secret you are too discreet to mention -- if you want, whisper it to me in private.)

Of course, if you take offense to some of the excesses in my rather flowery rhetoric, ignore me. please.

[Cunt]

For someone who seems to take such umbrage at the idea of them being somehow stereotyped or pigeon-holed on the basis of little evidence, you seem to engage in a remarkable amount of it yourself. You know nothing about me, yet you feel free to cast aspersions on my communication skills, or that say that I think I'm a head doctor, or that "I have not descended to your depths". Quite charming, I'd say. Nowhere in any of my responses to you have I said anything even remotely comparable.

I was referring to Morticia in all but the last, which, while not relating to Morticia, is also a misreading of what I said.

Regardless, I got carried away and said a lot of things that were probably better left unsaid. I'm a passionate person and sometimes that passion has a life of its own. However, I have been repeatedly personally attacked in this thread, though in hindsight mostly the sort of attacks which Morticia has been launching, for which I should likely just smile and nod politely. ("Mistakes were made!" ) Being attacked personally, I chose to take the fight to the enemy -- probably not the best strategy, particularly as a newcomer. (Though you did misquote me; and your handling of even this latest text makes it clear that I should take special pains to aim for clarity when addressing you; btw, what's this heinous secret you are too discreet to mention -- if you want, whisper it to me in private.)

Of course, if you take offense to some of the excesses in my rather flowery rhetoric, ignore me. please.

Screw it, you were right and they were wrong. I am very pleased to meet you, and I think you have been overall polite, respectful and welcome just as you are.

I can't remember klr ever admitting being wrong here, so don't let that bother you. I am wrong HEAPS and will be glad to enjoy you. I would even add you facebook or something if you wish.

I am not even sure why, but you seem like a breath of fresh air.

[Thinking Aloud]

I had this nagging feeling that I was going to discover that the CRB check (Criminal Record Beureau) in the UK would have exemptions on religious grounds, so I did a bit of digging earlier. I was pleased to discover that there are no such exemptions. So Sunday school teachers and the like need a CRB check if there are in contact with kids regularly. I was also pleasantly surprised to discover that the Anglican Church (or at least some of it's diocese, don't know if it a top down policy) insist on an 'enhanced' check for anyone who works with kids in their churches, even though the law only requires the standard check. Nice work CofE. OK, so they're still brainwashing kids, but at least they're making real efforts to ensure the kids aren't being butt raped too.

A few years ago, I was required (by the RC church) to undergo a standard check, because I played piano within 100 yards of children sitting with their parents. It was rather annoying, since a) I didn't actually have any contact with children other than being in the same room as them with 200 other adults (the nearest ones were my own); b) I also had to be interviewed by some priest who came up from Glasgow to oversee the process. I think he got the message that I wasn't impressed, particularly when I pointed out repeatedly that I was not working with children, etc etc.

Anyway, after that palaver, they informed me that I would also have to undergo screening by the Church itself. I'd have to find referees as to my character, fill in another set of forms, possibly go away for a training course, and no doubt suck something hard, while repeating all the same data I'd just provided. I could not be arsed, unsurprising, although I was reminded a few times, in terms that would suggest that unless I complied ... well ... I wouldn't be able to play piano in a room full of 200 adults any more. Funnily enough, shortly afterwards I finally concluded that I was wasting my time there anyway.

[apophenia]

I had this nagging feeling that I was going to discover that the CRB check (Criminal Record Beureau) in the UK would have exemptions on religious grounds, so I did a bit of digging earlier. I was pleased to discover that there are no such exemptions.

Anyway, after that palaver, they informed me that I would also have to undergo screening by the Church itself. I'd have to find referees as to my character, fill in another set of forms, possibly go away for a training course, and no doubt suck something hard, while repeating all the same data I'd just provided. I could not be arsed, unsurprising, although I was reminded a few times, in terms that would suggest that unless I complied ... well ... I wouldn't be able to play piano in a room full of 200 adults any more. Funnily enough, shortly afterwards I finally concluded that I was wasting my time there anyway.

Whoah. Referee your character. That sounds painful. What happens if there's a foul? Do they put your scruples in a penalty box,
or give the opposing team's moral fortitude a free kick?



(Don't mind me. I'm just being silly today.)

[hiyymer]

Now. I've been asked to explain why I feel that abusers within the church likely are not promoted at as high a rate as non-abusers. I will have to defer on that question as I tire, and feel the need for refreshment. Quick, non-definitive answer, that's simply how businesses work; employees who are perceived as potential liabilities or possessing bad judgement are preferentially ignored in the promotion process; for example, an executive convicted of DUI will be passed over for promotion in favor of one who hasn't -- regardless of the legality of such. Another obstacle for promotion of the "diddlers" as you call them -- and I resent such cutesy terms, it numbs us to the shock and criminality, which hurts victims --is that abusers are frequently relocated to less visible positions to shield them; employees in high visibility positions are far more likely to get promoted than employees in low visibility positions. Again, that's just how businesses and organizations work.

Child Sexual Abuse By Roman Catholic Clergy (Toronto Center for Religious Tolerance)

Perhaps what you are not addressing is that not reporting criminal activity to the police and protecting criminal activities is a crime. It is hard to see how that is not the case here. What's more, while the perpetrators do not typically get promoted, the cover-uppers do. There seems to be no culpability at that level. The church states boldly that they are a law unto themselves and they have no enforceable obligation to report such crimes to the secular authorities although it is now belatedly "suggested" that the individual higher-uppers do so (unclear whether doing so would help or hinder one's career).

As for the rate of pedophilia and sexual abuse among priests versus the general population, the numbers are quite slippery. I think you can build a reasonable case that it is higher among priests but it requires assumptions about information we don't have. By the same token when the church says the rate is no higher, they can't really back it up. My feeling is that the priesthood attracts people who are uncomfortable with their sexuality. There may well be more gays in the priesthood than in the general population, as well. It is interesting that Catholics part company with other conservative sects on the issue. They hold that there is nothing wrong with being gay, only with acting upon it. That pretty much keeps the door open to gays in the priesthood, which certainly needs new recruits. I am not saying that there is any connection between being gay and the sexual abuse of minors. I don't believe there is.

[klr]

Meanwhile, back to the bigger picture.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opi ... 47942.html

Church's superficial treatment of sex abuse issue must change.

RITE & REASON: The approach of leading churchmen to clerical sex abuse issue is reprehensible

THE BISHOP of Down and Connor, Noel Treanor, has told us in Belfast that his fellow prelates acknowledged at their Rome meetings in February last year “cover-ups and mismanagement” in their treatment of clerical sexual abuse. He urged the church to repent of its sins and seek forgiveness.

He is to be commended for this and, like Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, for locating his plea for forgiveness squarely in the context of a call to repentance.

Genuine penitence requires not only the implementation of adequate child-protection measures (the absence of which gave rise to neither paedophilia in the church nor the relevant concealments), financial compensation to victims, and symbolic washing of feet.

It also requires a clear admission of unpalatable facts about the familial nature of the predominantly clerical sub-culture from which these cover-ups emanated and the manner in which Pope Benedict continues to respond to the issue.

These truths include that the church, contrary to what was said by most of its episcopal spokesmen (before and after, but not during, the Rome meetings of February 2010), did indeed cover up sexual abuse by some of its members, the most notorious of whom included Fr Brendan Smyth and Fr Tony Walsh.

Second, that “the church” was primarily the spiritual family comprising not merely bishops and heads of religious orders, but also priests, nuns and brothers of divergent juristic status, subject, in their professional capacity, to the precepts of canon law.

The all-important issue is whether it is prepared to make amends for its wrongdoing.

Cardinal Seán Brady, Bishop Francis McKiernan, the Norbertine community at Kilnacrott, two Premonstratensian abbots-general, senior Vatican officials, including a papal nuncio, and other religious persons withheld from relevant civil authorities for decades information that might have enabled Smyth’s incarceration and so prevent many crimes he committed against children and minors over almost 50 years.

Cardinal Brady swore on oath in 1975 that he would never disclose to anyone what he knew of Smyth’s crimes.

So too, in similar circumstances, did other canon lawyers, some of whom were subsequently elevated to the Irish episcopal bench.

The Murphy report reveals not only the fact that Archbishop Desmond Connell covered up many of Fr Walsh’s crimes but also that priests of the Dublin archdiocese who were acquainted with particular instances of the latter’s misconduct, chose (as did fellow clergy in like situations throughout the Catholic world) to restrict what they knew to ecclesiastical confines.

The religious family (familia), governed by the authority (auctoritas) of its head (paterfamilias), was the matrix from which many concealments emerged, but what of repentance?

There are, on this score, four obvious grounds for disquiet.

First, the church has refused to acknowledge that it covered up clerical sexual abuse. Its apologists have, almost without exception, either remained silent or insisted that its response to the problem was merely “inadequate”.

It has failed to explore, in a serious way, the causes of these concealments or, in particular, to ask why cover-ups were executed, sometimes in good faith, by people of exceptional intelligence and goodness.

Third, the church continues to deny the very existence of recalcitrant family members who, though not physically maltreated, were, nonetheless, victims of its “mismanagement” of clerical sexual abuse. (Fr Bruno Mulvihill, the Norbertine “whistleblower”, was reduced to virtual penury by his order for disclosing the extent of the church’s cover-up of Smyth’s crimes.)

Fourth, its supreme pontiff, Pope Benedict, has shown great insensitivity towards the feelings of injured parties by not only refusing the proffered resignations of Bishops Ray Field and Eamonn Walsh but also by promoting the beatification of Pope John Paul II, whose treatment of the abuse issue was reprehensible.

Catholics should, of course, forgive and forget – but it would be delinquent to do so while the clerical sexual abuse issue is treated in ways that are superficial, offensive to victims and unworthy of exculpation.

Dr Joseph McBride is a retired senior lecturer in philosophy at NUI, Maynooth

What was LBJ's observation about J. Edgar Hoover? "It's probably better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in"

[Pappa]