Additionally...The ONLY reason the world even knows of the clergy abuse is because the press has exposed it. It certainly isn't because the catholic membership or leadership spoke up to the authorities as they should of to stop these perverts.
Furthermore...It’s really disingenuous for the catholic church to try to deflect its faults to others.... In the rest of the world if a person is involved in felony rape of a child then they are accused, go to jail if found guilty, and are labeled as a “sex offender.”....... In contrast the Catholic Church has a long history of hiding and moving priests around and only until recently were still not fully cooperating with the law enforcement authorities.
You can claim all you want of what PaulII did but few would agree 95% of the problem is resolved...the evidence shows otherwise....and the only reason the mechanisms the church has now put into place are there because your church was shamed into doing it……exposed for what it's been doing,…….....individuals who cared more for their reputations and monies, and it's abusive perverts than they have or do for children... or the devastation which comes to their families.
Benedict XVI,.... who as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has publicly acknowledged the enormous pain he endured reading the thousands of reports of abuse that crossed his own desk year after year. Rome..... Since the early 1980s , he was in a position to know the extent, the depth and the horror of the problem, and he was in a position to lead the Church in responding to the problem....he “supremely” failed.
And let's be frank of what some of these Priests have done just so your eyes are wide open...this was in the Phila. Archdiocese and only some of the happenings the grand jury reported:
- An 11-year-old girl was repeatedly raped by a priest who took her for an abortion when she became pregnant.
- A fifth grader was molested by a priest inside a confessional.
- A teenage girl was groped by a priest while she lay immobilized in traction in a hospital room.
- A priest offered money to boys in exchange for sadomasochistic acts of bondage and wrote a letter asking a boy to make him his “slave.” The priest remains in ministry.
- A sadistic priest enjoyed having children play the roles of Jesus and other biblical characters in parish Passion plays. He made them disrobe and whip each other until they had cuts, bruises and welts.
- A priest falsely told a 12-year-old boy his mother knew of the assaults and consented to the rape of her son.
The grand jury found that many victims were abused for years and that many priests abused multiple victims, sometimes preying on members of the same family. One of the Priests was determined to be on a “criminal rampage” abused 17 victims,.. many of them from a single parish. Another abused 16 victims and was allowed to stay in his pastoral role for decades after the first abuse report in 1966.
And so....this is just on ONE Diocese.....how many are still being hidden and protected which we do not know of because the Pope and others are sheltering them.????
>> First of all....pointing the finger at other denominations and secular groups that have the same problems only gives the appearance that the Church is trying to mitigate its own failures. <<
What a laugh for you to say that. You’re the one who has abandoned any discussion of doctrine, and is merely slinging mud.
>> First of all....pointing the finger at other denominations and secular groups that have the same problems only gives the appearance that the Church is trying to mitigate its own failures. <<
Just this week, among the Baptists (whose church is 1/4 the size of the American Catholic church, yet outnumbers them manifold in recent years):
1/9: Former youth pastor charged with molestation
1/6: Former Baptist pastor, fresh out of jail after serving only three years, talks about starting a new church
1/3: Minister, charged with raping teen, now accused of on-line solicitation of a minor.
So, you’re citing one archdiocese, which, incidentally is equivalent to 1/4 of all Southern Baptists in population. The cases you cite reach back over 50 years. Yet in one week, look what the Baptists did.
So knock off your mudslinging.
It’s the systemic, organized, ongoing cover ups at the highest levels that show the entire organization is corrupt. Anyone who believes that apostolic succession would allow that type of evil is not being honest with themselves.