[Servant of the Cross]

Wow, you place a heavy burden of accusation at the feet of Pope John Paul II. The Catholic Church teaches that the Pope, the Bishop of Rome, is the successor to Saint Peter. All of the bishops around the world are the successors to the Apostles, who themselves lead the faithful in their local Churches. John Paul II courageously led the Bishops of the world toward living an authentic Catholicism, one 'not of this world' but radically different, one that truly took up the cross and followed Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, not all Bishops followed him. The secular world's politically correct culture influenced them more.

Pope John Paul II appropriately called our secular society "a culture of death". His first public teachings in his General Audiences as Pope began in September, 1979 and have been collected and taught as The Theology of The Body. He presented an integrated vision of the human person - body, soul, and spirit - with an emphasis on our sexuality and God's most beautiful original design. These teachings are truly a beautiful treasure and gift for the world and Church.

Unfortunately, the human beings (yes, priests are human too) that make up the Church have free will and are "in the world". For some, that also conspired to make them "of the world". The depravity of the secular world's twisting of the gift of our sexuality infected some of our priests. IMO, the "fault" for that lies mostly at the feet of various local Bishop's not Pope John Paul II. The Bishops who were orthodox, traditional and followed the lead of Pope John Paul II mostly did not have the homosexuality (it was not by and large 'pedophilia'; do some reading of the facts [USCCB: A Report on the Crisis in the Catholic Church in the United States] rather than buy the MSM line) problems with priests in their diocese that the liberal dissenters did.

The life and example of Pope John Paul II actually led to less problems in the Church with homosexual priest's abuse of children and young people (tons more has occurred AND CONTINUES in public schools and with pastors in other faith traditions) than would have been without his example and shepherding. God will be the judge of that too, rather than us.

[MrEdd]

Poor Pope John Paul II. He just had no authority to discipline the hierarchy, aid the victims, or address the flock.

Lets see, you post a paper by a bishop's conference that is supposed to explain it all away. And you wish others to see this as an unbiased presentation, as if it had been produced by an uninvolved party out of one side of your mouth, while from the other side of your mouth comes this little gem "rather than buy the MSM line" in which, absent any knowledge you attempt to float an assumption that all of my knowledge of this must stem from the MSM. That absolutely is not going to fly. I have had knowledge of this since long before the press switched sides and began exposing pedophiles - which Internet competition forced them to begin doing in the 90s. I will also note that government investigations confirm the press reports - but my primary source has been and continues to be people who were abused as children.

You floated that there was a lot of stuff that didn't amount to pedophilia. That's true there was, and that is it's own topic - I am addressing the pedophilia specifically and there was still a lot of it. For the record, while much of the press has focused on homosexual pedophiles, there was plenty of good old heterosexual pedophile abuse as well, and my post did not single out the homosexual variety specifically. You can go on about the gays in the priesthood all you want, but that is outside of the topic I am bringing to the fore and I won't really brook your attempt to change the topic of debate.

Next you brought up the topic of predators in schools. There are plenty there, and also within the mental health profession and within law enforcement. Anywhere a predator can gain some semblance of authority to shield their actions. That does not, however excuse the church anymore than Eve's sin excused Adam. You paralleled Adam's attempted defense extremely well.

You did not address at all the continued failure of the church to provide actual help for those that were harmed. Indeed, as of yet there is nothing for you to say.

As for your other post, well absent a thourough and contrite effort to make amends to those harmed, the church absolutely will be judged in the public square. While this concept is evidently foreign to your way of thinking, the people who were helpless children years ago, and had no way to make it stop, are now grown and the church has no way to make them, or those who take their part shut up.

What goes around comes around, or, to put it another way - You reap what you sew

It's harvest time. Maybe making restitution would be a much better strategy for the church than the self righteous bluster you personally are attempting.