Posted on 06/11/2002 8:13:16 PM PDT by DallasMike
Regarding thayt number quoted as being a total of 178, yesterday I coincidently looked up the total US bishops, archbishops, and cardinals. You can conveniently find all of them listed at
http://www.nccbuscc.org/bishops.htm
My count is 291 total. (Which would make 111 more like 1/3 BTW).
But can they be forgiven by God?
"Defending the Church" is not the same as defending the heirarchy, and it's certainly not the same as defending particular individuals within the heirarchy.
There you have the crux of the problem. The Catholic heirarchy is indifferent to these abuse cases because they feel no obligation to be "in touch" with anyone. They consider their man-made beliefs to be of a higher law and truth that anything else on earth. They believe that once a priest, always a priest. A priest can never not be a priest, therefore, in the leadership's mind, the priest can continue on in his duties, sheltered from the effects of their criminal activities.
I believe that are not indifferent but are covering their own behinds because they are either homosexual themselves are or being blackmailed by homosexuals.
The problem is - the Catholic leadership is not repenting. Instead of apologies and confession, we hear stonewalling and the meandering words of lawyers. Instead of humility and responsibility, we see the arrogance of position and 'above the law' mentality of the American bishops and cardinals.
ibme:
Thanks for the clarification.
Pray to St. Peter Damian for reform.
Nonsense. In Catholic belief, a defrocked priest is also a priest forever. A priest in hell is still a priest forever.
American Bishops and Cardinals think and act as if they are the church. With the utmost of disdain for the faithful they live like princes and protect themsleves and their friends and have refused to act as the leaders Christ has called them to be.
They and the American Catholic Church (as they have defined it by their actions) must be soundly and loudly condemned.
I'm anxious for you to explain what I supposedly don't get.
In fairness, you probably don't know about the hype that preceding the story that was evidently local, not national. In the countdown (yes, literally) leading up to the story being published, Dallas viewers of the local ABC affiliate and visitors to the Dallas Morning News website were led to believe that there was going to be a single major revelation. The Nightline press release intimated the same thing. Local news announcers gave blurbs every commercial break about how the story was to be simultaneously broadcast on the local news and released on the web at exactly 10:00 P.M. There were rumors floating around the Morning News forums that a USA cardinal was going to be outed. My comment reflects my opinion that the story, which was basically a compilation of already known facts, just didn't live up to the hype.
I'm sure the church leadership was more than happy to hear this as it let them avoid a scandal. But I think to describe this always as a coverup is disingenuous.
Too many FReepers make this out to be some ultra pervasive problem. While one abused child is too many here are some statistics to put things into context.
Fifteen percent of all students will be abused by a teacher before they graduate, according to studies conducted by Dr. Charol Shakeshaft, a professor at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., and a leading national authority on sexual abuse and harassment. From here.
In only one-percent of the cases where students have been sexually assaulted by teachers did school officials attempt to revoke the offenders license. From here.
"How widespread is pedophilia among priests?: Commentators have suggested between 5 and 10 percent. That figure has been presented by various "experts" and widely used by the media. However, true pedophilia--sexual contact between an adult and pre-pubescent child--is extremely rare in the priesthood. The best estimate is "0.3 percent of the whole body of clergy." The most extensive study which considered 2,252 priests over a thirty year period found only one case of pedophilia. It involved a priest-uncle with two six-year-old nieces. The number of pederasts or ephebophiles (priests involved, usually homosexually, with an adolescent minor) was much larger, but still less than two percent. Jenkins traces how those figures were blown up and presented without nuance in the media." From here.
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