Posted on 11/02/2005 6:29:17 AM PST by Abathar
BAMBERG, Germany -- A U.S. Army chaplain has been sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to three counts of forcible sodomy against enlisted men.
Capt. Gregory Arflack, a 44-year-old Roman Catholic priest, apologized at his court-martial in Germany. He sobbed and said, "I've had a lot of time to pray and consider what I've done as a priest and an officer and I'm ashamed."
One of the victims, whom Arflack had been counseling about homesickness and family troubles, told the court, "I don't understand how a person of the cloth could do something like that."
He added, "I didn't believe God would allow something like that to happen."
Arflack confessed to plying three soldiers -- ages 18, 19 and 20 -- with alcohol and making unwanted advances. He forced oral sex on one soldier in the bathroom of a bar and on the other two at his home, where they had passed out on his sofa.
The orientation is a disorder. The sexual activity is a sin.
I think Benedict announced a few weeks ago that NO gays were to be accepted to seminaries anymore --chaste or not.
The notion that allowing priests to marry would keep them out of sexual trouble will be considered after someone poroves that marriage makes adultery impossible or even less likely. As to the Parish interviewing prospective pastors, we are NOT Congregationalists. The Parish will take whatever pastor is appointed and like it. We are NOT a democratic Church. Just as we do not decide what is mral or true by democratic vote, so the laity and most of the clergy have no say so in opersonnel decisions as it should be. May God grant that they never will.
If you like what the largely Catholic constituency has elected as US Senators in Kerry and Kennedy, then can you see what they would want as pastors?
If unavailability of sex at the rectory is what makes homosexual pedophiles of some men in the priesthood, then wives should take great care not to vacation alone or to go to another state alone to tend ailing parents, lest hubby decide to canoodle the newspaper boy while the Mrs. is unavailable.
ELCA's chief executive or whatever is the rampagingly liberal Dr. Martin Marty. The MSM has no interest whatever in making Marty's life difficult. The Roman Catholic Church to which I belong has its problems and always has had one problem or another for two thousand years. Nothing new here. We will deal with it in house whether outsiders think so or not.
The "documentation" on "lavender" Catholic clergy is also aided and abetted by, ummmm, lavender "Catholic" clergy.
Do you also believe the Miami Herald in its very liberal political claims?????
Since there are five times as many Catholics as any other denomination in the US (see numbers posted above), should it be a surprise if more Catholic priests robbed banks than Baptist ministers or Congregationalist ministers or wahatever?
Try: If those leftist AmChurch excuses for bishops had not covered for....., etc.
Good post. Do not relent!
Bl;essed: Googling reflects nothing more than Garbage In and Garbage Out. There is no truthometer connected. If you believe that 25%-50% of the Catholic priests are lavenders, I can get you a terrific deal on the Brooklyn Bridge! Set up a toll booth and you are fixed for life. Pay for it in small, unmarked bills, cash American.
I'd never thought I'd say this, but I'd trust the investigative reporters of the Herald more than I trust most Bishops.
Even from anecdotal evidence (guys I've talked to who've been in seminaries, personal experiences with members of the clergy), I could tell you that the RC Church attracts a disproportionate number of flamers. It may not be 50%, but it is quite high. Remember, however, that some orders tend to attract the gays more than others.
>Since there are five times as many Catholics as any other denomination in the US (see numbers posted above), should it be a surprise if more Catholic priests robbed banks than Baptist ministers or Congregationalist ministers or wahatever? <
Can't hide behind those numbers.Southern Baptist alone have 2 times more ministers than there are Catholic priest in the US.Priests represent less than 25% of the Clergy in the US.
That's right, and there are certainly a lot of sexually repressed, single, unmarried priests in the Catholic Church. Personally, although I am not Jewish, I like the orthodox view that a Rabbi must be married.
But, back to the topic, when the same abuse by "Catholic priests" involves the abuse of a girl, are we blaiming the priest's "heterosexuality", or his pattern of abuse?
Do we blame "heterosexuality" for prostitution, strip clubs, rape, most spousal abuse, "lap dancing", most student-teacher sexual abuse, etc., etc? It could easily be done, using the same statistical method you employ with your comment about Catholic priests. Only, its not accurate, either way.
I have no doubt that there are many, in fact a majority, of Catholic priests who are not "homosexual" and I have no doubt there are "homosexual" Catholic priests who have never committed sexual abuse. But, we are not going to hear about any of them and no one is going to count them. Which leaves us with only what we know and what we know only concerns those who have erred. Its not enough to condem the lot of them.
No one here is "lobbying" to remove any "statutory rape laws"; so do not try to put words in anyone's mouth.
The majority of adults who "prey on the young and the weak" and whose abusive "nature" is manifested in "perversion" with children are married adult males who abuse a young girl who is most often related to them or known to them. Their numbers outweigh any other group. Do we blame "heterosexuality" for that abuse; no we blame the abuser.
"Homosexuals are a 100 times more likely to participate in sexual abuse of minors than hetrosexuals.
No category of individuals - male, female, single, married, heterosexual or homosexual - is "100 times more likely to participate in sexuyal abuse of minors", than any other category. It might sound nice if it is used to support some point someone is trying to make, but it does not have any factual statistical basis.
Let's try to stick to the facts.
I would not make any excuse for the abuser.
Extreme intoxication can lead some individuals to ignore (drop their guard), or fail to realize completely, what is going on. How many drunken sailors have awakened the next morning in a bed that they have no idea how they arrrived at and with a girl who they do not even remember meeting?
To take advantage of someone who is very intoxicated, particularly if you helped them get intoxicated, is no excuse for your belief that they were "willing" at the time.
If the only thing that is known is that they were drunk, you weren't and they regret what happened, then the onus must be on you that they were taken advantage of. You could have just pulled a blanket over them and let them alone.
Sorry...I don't believe that. Because of original sin, we all have an inclination toward evil. Homosexuals, like anyone else struggling with sin, can resist the inclination. Instead, most of them feed their perverse desires.
Again, I said let's try to stick to facts; from which there is no foundation for your 2%, or your 1/3 figures cited above. You can pull them out of something some author wrote somewhere, but neither you nor they can account for them, factually, based on any factual study.
Also, again, try not to put words into other peoples mouths. No one in this thread said "male pedophiles who abuse males are not homosexuals".
However, since you love throwing out undocumented statistics, please keep in mind how easily they are manipulated to say what people want them to say.
For instance, I read a report once that said "85% of male homosexuals in San Francisco had at least one reported incidence of an STD". I looked at the basis of the author's comment, which was a footnote. The footnote was a reference to a report. The report actually said "85% of the male patients at San Francisco health clinics had tested positive for an STD at least once" during a particular number of years during which the study was conducted.
So what is wrong with the author's comment that "85% of male homosexuals in San Francisco had at least one reported incidence of an STD". The statement is not founded on the "facts"; its an erroneous statement. It would be as if, in the same study, 85% of the women going to family planning and gynecology clinics in San Francisco had a positive pregnancy test and the author wrote "85% of the women in San Francisco became pregnant at least once" during the period in the study. The "85% of" figure only represents those who met a certain condition among those who went to the facilities used in the study. In neither case is there a demonstrated attempt to comparge either the "85% of" figure or the 100% figure for all those studied, to the 100% population-base figures for all of San Francisco. How many San Francisco "homosexuals" never went to such clinics, or in the theoretical case, how man women never went to such clinics?
It is no different than converting a statistical report that said "85% of sixteeen year olds who apply for a learners permit get one", to a statement saying "85% of sixteeen year olds get learners permits". Its an often used misuse of statistics. Go back to sources and be sure to get the actual data the sources said they used. Do your own math.
It happened to me when I was 16 or 17, so I know what you mean. I should be more understanding, but the military will not be. I also had a man try it when I was 14 -- took me home and tried to ply me with beer. When I realized what he was doing I ran out of the house at 3:30 in the morning and walked home, like 5 miles. What a frickin' drag that was. Next night at work, dude acted like nothin' had happened.
I suspect that you are not Catholic. If you are not Catholic, then how the Roman Catholic Church resolves its problems with clerical pervs is, ummmm, none of your business.
It takes more to become a Catholic priest that to set up your own storefront, get some used chairs, a few Bibles however badly translated, a collection plate or two and proclaim yourself committed to the Word (as one may understand it if indeed one understands it at all). Many non-Catholic clergy have to keep their day job as construction workers, bus drivers or whatever just to make ends meet. Can I get an AAAAAAMEN???????
Meanwhile, as my grandmother used to say: The idle mind is the devil's workshop. We would do more good cutting off Catholic clerical paychecks and keeping them off the golf course and away from ClubMed and busy working with their hands for a living than by satisfying the ignorant critics outside the Church who imagine that celibacy somehow leads to homosexual abuse of children.
I am not hiding behind anything. It's just that, if there must be criticism of the Church founded by Jesus Christ Himself, then some of us are going to fire back to ensure that the criticism is almost vaguely accurate rather than what it usually is.
BTW, Catholics are the ones with standing in the argument because we pay for the consequences, because it is OUR Church that is demeaned by the despicable behavior of less than 5% of all priests and because of the liberal idiocy that has grasped the AmChurch hierarchy and a few others for several decades. The Catholic Church is a lot bigger than the storefront cults and, like a battleship compared to a PT Boat. It takes longer to turn battleships or to repair their major systems.
If you are at least conservative in your politics, you will want us Catholics to effectively purge our ranks of both faggot/chickenhawk/priests and liberal hierarchs who, ummmm, sooooo sensitively enable them. The more we Catholics succeed at both tasks the better allies we will be for non-Catholic conservatives in the social issues civil wars.
If, on the other hand, you are looking to Catholics for groveling and sniveling apologies or some moonbat admission that Catholicism is somehow not the One True Church etablished by Jesus Christ (with possible addition of Eastern Orthodoxy for the most part), be kind to yourself and don't hold your breath.
I have read this from numerous sources also, but I tend to disagree. It seems to be the root of the feminist position of class struggle, which is ridiculous, and since this position has been largely researched and advanced by feminists, I reject the "power" theory as the fundamental reason for rape. When the messenger twists every piece of data, you can't accept anything they say.
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