Posted on 09/21/2012 6:36:26 AM PDT by Dr. Thorne
An Oakdale priest has been charged with criminal sexual conduct involving a 12-year-old boy.
The boy reported to his mother that Curtis Carl Wehmeyer, 47, pastor of the Church of the Blessed Sacrament in St. Paul, had been sexually abusing him in a camper trailer in the church parking lot, according to a criminal complaint.
(Excerpt) Read more at twincities.com ...
Brave boy and good, strong mom! Another one bites the dust.
Now, two questions:
"in the past 2 decades, the church rate, has been reduced to almost zero."
(1) Is this true?
And, if true:
Considering that, of the relatively small number of institutions in the USA which DO morally object to active homosexuality, these are two of the largest and most visible...
(2) Is there some legitimate point --- not justification of abuse, nor deflection of responsibility ---- but some legitimate point --- in questioning the litigation and media focus on the Catholic Church and the Boy Scouts in particular?
This is a thought question.
Not to long ago I got into an argument with a gal at my gym who tried to say the same thing. I simply asked her what is a male who enjoys sex with another male and then at what magic age of the victim does the pedophile then become a homosexual........
But inaccurate.
TSgt: A FReeper recently told me that the church had eliminated all cases of abuse and that abuse now only occurs in public schools
What Freeper Elendur actually said: “in the past 2 decades, the church rate, has been reduced to almost zero.”
Problem: Are the words "eliminated all cases" and "almost zero" synonymous?
Solution: Let x = the number of Catholic sex abuse cases. In the latter phrase, x > 0. In the former phrase, x = 0.
An excellent example of a Freeper who is both mathematically and linguistically challenged.
Applying the universal hermeneutic clue "Cui bono?" I get this interesting hypothesis: they want to morally discredit the institutions which present a public moral objections to the gay political/social "new normal" movement..
Easy prediction: next up will be the LDS.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2914846/posts?page=9#9
Elevating a sinful human to an alter Christus put the RC’s in this dreadful position.
So sad for the children who’s parents have subjected their children to this (throughout the ages) to this man made theology. :(
Paul said, "I live"--- yet It is not "I" that lives but Christ lives in me (Galatians 2:20).
Please, RC’s put their priests on a level on par with Christ that other Christians do not. There is no arguing that.
Once you elevate a sinful human to another Christ/god, you end up with abuse of power over misguided believers.
No different than Jim Jones, IMO.
The Catholic Church has never taught, and no catechised Catholic believes, that priests are sinless or on a par with God. Catholics do believe that holiness --- which is to live in the grace of God -- is the vocation of all he faithful, clergy and laity.
If you are able to locate anything contradicting this, I would like the link. Find, if you can, a Catholic who idolizes priests, I will explain the matter to them.
A most worthy subject for serious, disinterested discussion amongst honest, concerned adults who truly care about this subject.
Sadly however, in this forum and on this thread in particular, you're doing the equivalent of wearing a formal ball gown to a mud-wrestling match.
You no doubt then characterize Scripture as "dreadful" due to its teaching that all Christians are called to be alter Christus.
As an alter Christus, the priest is profoundly united to the Word of the Father who, in becoming incarnate took the form of a servant, he became a servant (Phil 2: 5-11). The priest is a servant of Christ, in the sense that his existence, configured to Christ ontologically, acquires an essentially relational character: he is in Christ, for Christ and with Christ, at the service of humankind. Because he belongs to Christ, the priest is radically at the service of all people: he is the minister of their salvation, their happiness and their authentic liberation, developing, in this gradual assumption of Christ’s will, in prayer, in “being heart to heart” with him. Therefore this is the indispensable condition for every proclamation, which entails participation in the sacramental offering of the Eucharist and docile obedience to the Church.” - Pope Benedict XVI 24 June 2009
Good catch.
Nonetheless, it is a verifiable fact that people who think there is absolutely nothing wrong with intergenerational same-sex intimacy ... who think it’s “hateful” even to express disapproval ... are the leaders of the legal assault on both the Catholic Church and the Boy Scouts of America.
In my opinion, both the Church and the Boy Scouts need to “double down” on their condemnation of homosexual *behavior*, by any person of any age at any time. I’ve noticed that the Boy Scouts are now being hit about excluding “gay” boys, rather than “gay” leaders ... but what makes a boy “gay” other than pursuing sodomitic behavior with other males? The “new frontier” in “abuse” lawsuits is going to be the 13-year-old who was buggered by a 15-year-old ... while the culture and the “establishment” institutions promote this behavior nonstop.
Getting the right balance --- understanding what are the sacramental graces, and what is the "earthen vessel," --- is ofter very, very difficult.
One flagrant and painful recent example was the shameful case of Fr. Marcial Maciel and the orders he founded, the Legionnaires of Christ and the lay association, Regnum Christi. Marcial Maciel was a habitual sexual offender, covering up his corruption with a veneer of piety and "good works". Many good and honest people --- like, sadly, Pope John Paul II --- just couldn't wrap their heads around the possibility that he was a hellbent pervert, and pulling others into his orbit of moral destruction.
Pope John Paul should have seen that Maciel was majorly into luxury, lechery and sodomy, but of course, that's just what you don't see when --as is so often the case --- the abuser is also a sociopathic liar. JP2's problem was maybe that, as a priest in Poland for so many years under the bootheel of Nazi and Communist regimes, he had seen so many good priests doing saintly work in the milieu of heroic resistance, and had witnessed so many dictators' characer-assasination campaigns against good clergy ("priests molest boys" was the standard slander, like "Jews poison wells") --- that he too often assumed the priests were good, and the bearers of filthy tales were the enemies of Christ.
It's a dangerous fault. And the opposite fault is equally dangerous: the cynicism, callousness, and reflexive detraction that assumes "so-called moral conservatives are closet pervs" and "guilty until proven Innocent".
My fingers feel dirty for having typed this.
But this is the next thing in line, the sex-and-gender-progressive "next big thing," which is that pederasty was a noble aspect of Greek and Roman civilization, Christ saw nothing to condemn about it, and it only stands to reason that if you like masculine beauty, you'll like 'em young. It's mentoring, you know.
:o/
Where's the brillo pad. I need a scrub.
Surely not .. the centurion "loved the nation" of Israel. He built them their synagogue in the community. Jesus, who knew everything about everyone, would not have presented him as an exemplar of faith if he were a pederast ... even though He would have healed the servant for the servant's sake.
I agree that Pope John Paul was affected by the culture in which accusations of homosexuality were the standard for taking down any celibate. I was talking with a couple of our other homeschool mothers just the other day (30 children between the 3 of us) and we agreed that once a culture rejects covenant marriage based on procreation, there is no moral line to be drawn short of physical force-rape. I’ve proposed this idea on FR, and nobody has given a counter-argument.
One of the ladies has a son in the Legionaries of Christ and is involved in Regnum Cristo (sp?). It’s unfortunate that good people have to deal with a crazy like Maciel, and it’s hard ... impossible ... to sort out the good fruits from the bad tree. I see something similar in the ongoing controversy over Medjugorie: was there a legitimate apparition? What about the visionaries? What about the spiritual fruits that people have experienced for decades?
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