Enough already! I feel like I am living in an alternate universe. After reading the comments, I realize that there are still a majority of people who think the church has done absolutely nothing to change their policies in screening seminarians, reporting abuses, removing the culprits, apologizng, etc.. I expect better from Freepers who ought to know better.
Because the RC Church is so huge, and because it has a hierarchy, the abuses of which 80% of the cases were attributable to - homosexual clergy with teenage boys, they have been broadcast all over and over and over and over again, and again, and again!!!!! They are not typically pedophilia but homosexual in nature. The fact that this is still being called Pedophilia is harmful to our youth, See my comments below about the Boy Scouts!!
Yes the abuses were horrible; Yes, they should have been stopped and punished and removed from the clergy; Yes the victims deserved attention and apology from the bishops, etc, and there was no excuse for the many years that nothing was done - which should have been done case by case immediately. The church has learned its lesson, although there is still some who are in denial. However, Pope Benedict has been excellent in cleaning out the church of many bad bishops - who were either homosexuals themselves or were afraid to act and intimidated by the enormity of the problem. Thank God that many seminaries have been totally restructured and candidates for prieshood are now being screened very well. The newly ordained priests are terrific, at least the ones I have met in the past 5 years are very dedicated and holy men.
HAS SOCIETY LEARNED ANYTHING FROM THIS DEBACLE?
NO! Harping continually against the RC Church will not correct the problems in the general society. The fact is that the RC church has adressed their problems, and hopefully will not have new cases anymore or will be handled better in the future.
BUT, WHAT ABOUT THE BOY SCOUTS? WHAT ABOUT THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS?
The Gay Lobby is trying to force the Boy Scouts to accept Homosexuals as troop leaders. It is to the Gay Lobby’s advantage to continue to lable the Catholic Church problems as Pedophilia when it was actually primarily homosexual in nature.
As for the schools, is no one concerned about the constant drum of cases whereby teachers are abusing our children from small kids to high schoolers? Both male and female teachers! Is it because these institutions are less easy targets than the RCC Church?
If we as a society close our eyes and only keep yammering about a problem that has been resolved and then look the ohter way at other abusers, how is that helping our children?
Amen! Right on Gumdrop.
Here is where the problem started:
Liberal admissions policies in the seminaries lead to the idea that those seminarians leaning gay are the same as those leaning straight because after all they were both going to be celibate.
Turns out that those with homosexual leanings have a lot of other problems as well including mental health disease and pedophilia.