Reply to My Fellow Catholics Please Help Me To Understand

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]But what would justice be?  What would reconciliation with victims be?  I feel like that's true of any child predator.  Nothing is going to make it right.  So the victim gets money.  The offender goes to jail.  Current and future clergy get copious amounts of screening and instruction.  Victims get copious amounts of counseling.  I have some connection to this as I'm familiar with the developments in Boston years ago.  Does the victim heal better if the offender is sent to jail and stomped to death by another inmate vs. not imprisoned but sent away forever?  I wish I knew answers.  I do see the Church taking huge strides to address it.  There are a million non-clergy abusers out there too and their victims have no support system to rally for them.  Their legal fees and mental health needs are just as important but there's no rallying cry for them.  I know many, many good priests and I will not turn my back on them because someone who shares their occupation is horrible.  We have talked about it at length and in my experience they do not become uncomfortable the way you say yours have.  They've shared their experiences openly (some were in seminary before this was exposed and some after so it certainly has been addressed differently) and discussed how it affected their formation as priests.  I've yet to find any priest who is not affected deeply by this or is complacent about it.  I too harbor resentment that some who are retired probably do harbor blame, but I also read an article once about a pastor or bishop or someone who signed off to move an abusive priest based on reports from independent psychologists who deemed him rehabilitated.  Who shoulders the blame?  The person in charge or the professional who "fixed" him?  If you act based on information you have at the time, are you responsible for what comes later?  It's the crux of our whole prison rehabilitation system.  It's a lot to wrap your head around.

As for my continued life as a Catholic, I stayed and I do that for me.  I go to Mass and receive sacraments because I have faith.  I didn't stop believing just because of this.  I can separate my faith from the "system" and I continue to practice because God is in my heart and in the end it's between Him and me.[/quote]

NP. But the church is a huge system that actually supported this behavior by shuffling priests who were repeatedly accused from parish to parish, hiding them away and turning a blind eye, therefore enabling and excusing the abuse. If the priest was treated as the criminal he is and sent to jail, yes, that would be preferable than "sending them away forever." What does that even mean? Where do they go? In my experience, they were "rehabbed" and then put back into parishes with full access to children. Please.  :roll: But where are you saying they go for the rest of their lives?[/quote]

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