Church sexual abuse may have been factor in Pope Benedict's resignation

Herald Sun, news.com.au ^ | February 12, 2013 | Jessica Evans

[Jyotishi]

A Melbourne priest claims the extra strain placed on Pope Benedict from dealing with widespread sexual abuse within the Catholic Church may have been a factor in his resignation.

Father Max Vodola said the elderly Pope's shock exit from the role may be because he is too physically and emotionally weak to deal with the decades-old problem.

It comes as Archbishop Denis Hart leads Victorian tributes to the Pope, who he describes as gentle and loving.

[narses]

[Rashputin]

This is seriously funny since the same sort of anti-Catholic dimwits were agreeing with a bunch of leftists who wanted Pope John Paul II to resign in 2002 due to his health.

I recall one comment something like, "who can be called by God and stay on when they're too frail to do the job". There was another comparing John Paul II staying on with Billy Graham retiring, but I forget exactly how it was worded other than it said Graham was a good example and the Pope was horrible for hanging in there.

[narses]

Indeed. Sad that bigotry is allowed to be displayed here so blatantly.

[Engedi]

Just watched the movie “ Mea Maxima Culpa:Silence in the House of God”. It is about the sexual abuse at a Catholic Boarding school in Wisconsin during 1950’s and forward. The victims were deaf. When they tried to tell people, they were labeled as retarded, etc. It even shows how the Vatican and Pope Bennedict, looked the other way. How Father Murphy, the biggest molester, was protected until his death in 1998. He is said to have abused over 200 children.

[nickcarraway]

Pope’s have resigned to alleviate such issues. What Pope Benedict is doing is something else. He, more than anyone else, is aware of the ramifications. He is putting the lives of future popes in great danger, and putting them in a terrible position in retaining independence from political pressure. I have been a great fan of the Pope, since before he was the Pope. And this action is a terrible disappointment. It’s not, “refreshing,” at all. Especially since he saw Pope John Paul II’s witness and love for the Church first hand.

[SamuraiScot]

It must be a futile plea to get you guys to see in the face of overwhelming evidence that something is wrong. Every single time hard evidence is presented, you cry "Anti-catholic bashing!" You do it every single time instead of admitting . . .

You (and a good handful of others on this thread) are a decade or so behind the news curve on this issue. The cases we hear about in America are decades old. In part this is because, as most Catholics know, priests today are immediately suspended if an accusation of abuse is made—whether credible or not. The investigation follows. A priest may wait for years to be vindicated of a false accusation. One effect is that young men today do not pursue vocations to the priesthood for the glamor. Today's generation of new priests is (thank God) sincere, tough-minded, conservative, and utterly normal.

Laymen today who work with children in the Catholic church have to go through certification, which involves very exacting rules and procedures designed to ensure the safety of children, including that no child is left alone with an adult.

Measured as a percentage of their numbers, Catholic priests have had a smaller proportion of accusations of child abuse than public school teachers and coaches have had of convictions. Catholic priests also are under-represented among abusers compared to Protestant clergy. (For the record, I believe abusers should be hanged, regardless of denomination.)

We have the spread of promiscuous, 1960s ideas to thank for most sexual abuse of both adults and children over the past decades. The irony is that it is mostly Leftists, such as atheists, aging hippies, and homosexuals, who look to attack the Catholic church for (allegedly) practicing the morality that Leftists themselves have long supported. Alinsky preached that Leftists should accuse their enemies of the sins they themselves commit, to pre-empt any criticism of the Left. This is also what Leftists, being childish, do by inclination.

Conservatives, who are used to de-coding anti-Christian media narratives, should not be confused by willfully ignorant and dishonest reporting in this area, either.

[Revolting cat!]

Do not forget that politics makes for strange bedfellows (misquoted? Sorry), and that the Left finds allies on the right for all sorts of issues, one of them being the so-called “racism”, a 20th century invention of the Left, some say of Leon Trotsky himself, which has taken ethnocentrism present in every human society since the dawn of time, and transformed it into a mortal sin, and a kind of cultist obsession. But here, I suspect the motives and alliances with the Left stem from some 19th century “Christian” sects, which have evolved into today’s respectable Protestant Churches and their obsession with the Catholic Church which obsession is an integral part of their theology and message to the world. The bigots posting here won’t identify their sects, of course, but you can bet they are not Lutherans or Calvinists, but more likely members of some obscure Holy Roller congregations or something close to them.

[Ciexyz]

narses and others, ignore TSgt. He slammed me in another thread with inflammatory comments posting a map of Egypt and calling me the Queen of DeNile - Denial. I ignore people like that.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Jyotishi.

A message from above? Lightning strikes Vatican after Pope Benedict resigns
Blacktown Sun | Feb. 12, 2013 | Megan Levy
Posted on 02/11/2013 4:00:57 PM PST by Alex Murphy
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2987528/posts

[SuziQ]

Not ruddy likely. This Pope did more than any other to put systems in place to keep abuse from happening. He had no control over what was happening in Dioceses anywhere in the world, and if you look at the timeline of most abuse cases, they happened long before he was Pope, or even in the office he occupied before becoming Pope, where he worked to put in the safeguards.

I think he was keeping in mind the state of the Church during John Paul II's last years. JPII wasn't fully in charge, because his health was declining. Benedict wants the Church to be in better shape when he turns the office over to his successor.

[Shadow44]

This is a point not emphasized enough. I mean, what doctrinal differences do reformed congregations and the Catholic (or Orthodox) have that makes them bigger enemies than the Left?

Some people seem to think anything short of torturing every Catholic clergyman to death and dismantling the Church brick by brick is not enough.

But does the Left really care? They’ve already started to push for normalizing pedophilia in Europe, in 10 years time all the media figures decrying the abuse will probably be calling for such as “civil rights”.

They only care about destroying the largest church which can threaten their goals, and the bigots would rather let the Godless win if it means sticking it to Rome.

[SuziQ]

Good grief, what a load of horse hockey!

[fr_freak]

...unlike Catholic clergy who flee to the conclave of pedophiles in Rome.

You are nothing but a useful idiot for he anti-Christian Left. And, given that you know damn well what effect a comment like this will have on Catholic and other Christian Freepers, you are also trolling. Hard.

[SuziQ]

Has the Catholic church even solved this problem? I seem to still be reading about incidents of priests abusing little boys.

Yes, the Church has worked hard to solve this problem, mainly because, contrary to the carp posted up the thread, Cardinal Josef Ratzinger helped Diocese put safeguards in place, largely by putting restrictions on homosexuals entering the seminaries.

We are still hearing about cases of abuse, but if you look at the time frames, the vast majority took place years ago. There have been very few recent situations.

[AmericaUnite]

This whole thread is Roman Catholic bashing. I am Roman Catholic. I belong to Christ’s church on Earth. The Pope is in Peter’s place. We need priests to receive Our Lord in the Eucharist. It IS His Body. When He broke the bread at the Last Supper He said, “This is my body which will be given up for you.” Even if the priest is corrupt, it doesn’t stop the the consecration of the Host.

[word_warrior_bob]

who will resign over public school sex abuse?

__________

Beat me to it.

Public school teachers make the Catholic Church look like pikers in comparison, but since the media hates religion and worships teachers as Gods, this is the coverage we get.

[narses]

‘Passing the trash’

Too often, problem teachers are allowed to leave quietly. That can mean future abuse for another student and another school district.

“They might deal with it internally, suspending the person or having the person move on. So their license is never investigated,” says Charol Shakeshaft, a leading expert in teacher sex abuse who heads the educational leadership department at Virginia Commonwealth University.

It’s a dynamic so common it has its own nicknames—“passing the trash” or the “mobile molester.”

Laws in several states require that even an allegation of sexual misconduct be reported to the state departments that oversee teacher licenses. But there’s no consistent enforcement, so such laws are easy to ignore.

School officials fear public embarrassment as much as the perpetrators do, Shakeshaft says. They want to avoid the fallout from going up against a popular teacher. They also don’t want to get sued by teachers or victims, and they don’t want to face a challenge from a strong union.

[virgil]

The doctrinal differences reside in the minds of Catholic haters, each one of them his own pope, following and spreading their own self-inspired false teachings. Each one thinks he’s Ezekiel, and understands all of the symbolism of Revelation and Daniel. Because the KJV Bible has no Maccabees, they can’t get it in their thick heads that all that stuff about “Abomination of Desolation” and the statue of Olympian Zeus in the Temple of Jerusalem has already happened. When they start talking about “red heifers” it gets too much for me and I just shut it off. So, please don’t ask me about the meaning of the red heifers. The Catholic Church is not the whore of babylon.

[BlackElk]

Nickcarraway:

Peter was imprisoned and martyred under Nero by upside down crucifixion and was dealt a coup de grace by a centurion who was traditionally believed to have been executed for showing that mercy to Peter.

A very high percentage of the popes were martyred by pagan Roman authorities up until the Emperor Constantine made Catholicism the religion of the Roman Empire during the papacy of Miltiades in the early 4th century.

As recently as the Age of Napoleon, Bonaparte imprisoned Pope Pius VI as "Citizen Pope."

I have no doubt that Narses knows all of the foregoing and would say so.

I have followed Narses' posts for numerous years here. I usually agree with him but not always. I do not remember a single instance in which he has EVER suggested what you claim he has claimed. In justice, you owe him an apology.

You are also usually a lot better than to post your #51. Your last sentence in #51 is particularly shameful nonsense.

[BlackElk]

I would take second place to no one here in my admiration for John Paul II. OTOH, His last years were hard to understand in that his health was sooooo precarious. If he had suffered a stroke and had become incapacitated in his ability to communicate but survived for, say, four years, no mechanism exists to convene a conclave to elect a successor until he would be physically dead. That would leave the Barque of Peter adrift and without its captain during very perilous times.

We can say that God would not allow that to happen to his Church and it did not but resignation is an honorable and practical alternative. The pope who resigns should scrupulously avoid conflict with his successor and Benedict XVI is apparently going to handle this by entering a cloistered monastery and cutting off direct contact with the outside world.

May God bless Pope Benedict XVI and his soon to be elected successor.