Why do we subsidize the Catholic Church?
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Anonymous
And one could ask, "Why boys and not girls?" |
Anonymous
Right. Closeted gay priests raping little boys. |
Anonymous
Just to clear up a misconception, the independent study of sexual abuse determined that homosexuality was not the cause of the church problem. Rather, the pattern of abuse was a result of opportunity. |
Anonymous
Someone needs to explain the previous misconception. The first sentence suggests that the study showed that Catholic priests were not homosexual, while the second sentence suggests that the study showed that Catholic priests took advantage of the opportunity with young boys. But only men with homosexual tendencies would take advantage of that opportunity. But maybe the study draws a distinction between homosexuals and pedophiles who like boys. The latter makes sense. So, the Catholic Church attracts many pedophiles to the priesthood? |
Anonymous
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All you Catholic haters need who love to scream child rapers need to educate yourself on sex abuse in the Protestant Churches. I am not defending abuse by Catholic clergy by any means, but to point to the Catholic Church and ignore what is happening elsewhere is not only ignorant it is downright scary.
The mainstream media has all but ignored (google AP) reports that the three major insurance companies for Protestant Churches in America say they typically receive 260 reports each year of minors being sexually abused by Protestant clergy, staff, or other church-related relationships. In light of the sex abuse scandal that rocked the Catholic Church, religious and victims’ rights organizations have been seeking this type of data for years. It has been hard to come by since Protestant Churches are more de-centralized than the Catholic Church. Responding to heavy media scrutiny, the Catholic Church has reported that since 1950, 13,000 “credible accusations” have been brought against Catholic clerics (about 228 per year.) The fact that this number includes all credible accusations, not just those that have involved insurance companies, and still is less than the number of cases in Protestant churches reported by just three insurance companies, should be making front page of The New York Times and the network evening news. It’s not. |
Anonymous
No, that is not true. If you would like to read the report, you can. If you would like to study child sexual abuse, you can. But your preconception is not correct. |
Anonymous
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To counter 1327, I quickly looked at that AP articles. It was taken up by NYT, MSNC, and CSM to name a few. Presumably, you consider those to be the mainstream media.
But, more seriously, no one was claiming that pedophiles were limited to The Catholic Church. But I do think that the Catholic Church did far more to cover it up all over the world than most (but probably not all) Protestant Churches. It is a worldwide issue for Catholics, and the centralized and insular power structure of The Catholic Church reinforces the tendency to protect itself. I personally am aware of one incident here in DC that a mainstream Protestant group dealt with in the early 1980's. That church handled it, and adopted policies to deal with future situations. No doubt, all of that has been updated since then. But I know it was handled aggressively at the time. I at least am not aware of any Protestant denomination, region, or church going bankrupt over these issues, or even coming close to that. That contrasts with The Catholic Church. And the reason for that is because the Bishops handle these issues poorly when they were raised. To your numbers, you can't compare 260 with 228. There are twice the number of Protestants in the US as the Catholics. Roughly 25% of the US adult population is Catholic, while 50% of it is Protestant. Now, of course, I do not know what percentage of US Protestants are covered by the number in the AP story. But certainly claiming that this is more of an issue for Protestants than Catholics is misleading, at least based on the AP story. I wonder whether this issue is more prominent in certain Protestant Churches, than others, whether that be Methodist, Baptist, Episcopalian, Fundamentalist or Pentecostal. |
Anonymous
So, you are agree with that poster: namely, there is a distinction between homosexuals and pedophiles who like boys. That is what the poster said made sense. |
Anonymous
| Why do we subsidize Israel? |
Anonymous
I'm not sure what point this addresses. Can you elaborate? |
Anonymous
there is a distinction. However I am not knowledgeable enough on pedophiles to say that they are born that way. It is possibly the result of the environment (ie celibacy) that compounds other issues. But it is possible that they arrive his way. I'm guessing they are attracted as people with confused sexual development looking for a refuge, and the celibate priesthood looks like a place where they can just shut that stuff out, but that turns out to be an unhealthy way to cope. On the other hand I have heard that the insurance companies, who have to predict the likelihood of abuse claims, forecast the same rate of abuse within other churches. The catholic church may attract outsized attention because of sheer numbers and because of he coverup. In other words this is probably happening among other denominations but if they are a few million in size and the issue is dealt with at the individual church level, then the scandal does not rise to the level of a global crisis. |
Anonymous
The Catholic Church reported all credible accusations not just those that involved insurance companies. Also, there would be no reporting of any kind for the plethora of "storefront" churches without the requisite insurance. The point being that the abuse in Protestant churches has never received the same scrutiny, public outrage or abundance of news coverage received by the Catholic Church. No doubt this is due in part to the actions of the Church itself, but I think there is a large issue at play. Thre is a general hatred of the Church for its conservative teachings and the idea of celibacy (by choice) is unfathomable in a society embracing few social or moral restrictions on sexuality. The point I was trying to make and which seemed to be lost on you, is that there is a constant barrage of "child rapist" comments thrown about on this forum without recognition that child abuse crosses denominational lines and indeed is prevalent in our society generally. I think it is dangerous to ignore the incidences of abuse in the Protestant churches (and indeed elsewhere) giving the impression that children are only unsafe in a Catholic setting. |
Anonymous
| why do we tax payers subsidize Catholic, Jewish Mormon, etc anything...schools, clinics, hospitals charities. As a tax payer I don't want to subsidize any religion based anything. Get the fed gov out religion. Enogh with the know what's best for everyone else zealots. |
Anonymous
There are many faithful Catholics who are equally outraged. You can try to lay it off on hatred, but it's a big red herring. The fact is, the Church committed a grave sin. The public does not know, nor do they care, about whether this level of abuse and this amount of coverup is par for the course, slightly better, or slightly worse than average. It is terrible. The sin stands on its own. God does not grade on the curve, and the public's outrage is not misplaced. |
Anonymous
| Of course, Catholics are outraged. I am Catholic and I am outraged. However, I am also outraged at the overall hatred and Catholic bashing that goes on because of this issue and the pass that is given to Protestant Churches for the same issue. The public should be outraged over child sexual abuse without a doubt. My point is that the public should be outraged by all child sexual abuse and not reserve that outrage solely for the Catholic Church. |