Anonymous
Post 04/12/2023 21:12     Subject: Re:600 child abuse victims of the Catholic Church in MD
Anonymous wrote:I was very close to sending non-religious DCs to catholic school to take advantage of the affordable price and traditional pedagogical approach. I was worried I was putting my emotional instincts above the immediate needs of my kids.

So grateful I stayed strong. It would feel like doing a farming internship on a plantation. I don’t want my kids literally walking the same halls as generations of pedophiles and their victims. I later learned that the school we would have chosen was one of the institutions where priests “tagged” little boys with gifted necklaces so other priests would know they were vulnerable.


What school was this?
Anonymous
Post 04/12/2023 19:04     Subject: Re:600 child abuse victims of the Catholic Church in MD
Anonymous wrote:I was very close to sending non-religious DCs to catholic school to take advantage of the affordable price and traditional pedagogical approach. I was worried I was putting my emotional instincts above the immediate needs of my kids.

So grateful I stayed strong. It would feel like doing a farming internship on a plantation. I don’t want my kids literally walking the same halls as generations of pedophiles and their victims. I later learned that the school we would have chosen was one of the institutions where priests “tagged” little boys with gifted necklaces so other priests would know they were vulnerable.


The number of alleged offenders, even over decades, is a minuscule percentage of the huge number of dedicated, self-sacrificing people who have worked in Catholic schools. Every victim is a tragedy, but the number of alleged victims is minuscule compared to all the people who received and benefitted from a parochial education.

Reducing Catholic education to “generations of pedophiles and their victims” is raw, unfair calumny.
Anonymous
Post 04/12/2023 18:40     Subject: 600 child abuse victims of the Catholic Church in MD
Oh wow. That’s bereft of humanity
Anonymous
Post 04/12/2023 18:35     Subject: Re:600 child abuse victims of the Catholic Church in MD
I was very close to sending non-religious DCs to catholic school to take advantage of the affordable price and traditional pedagogical approach. I was worried I was putting my emotional instincts above the immediate needs of my kids.

So grateful I stayed strong. It would feel like doing a farming internship on a plantation. I don’t want my kids literally walking the same halls as generations of pedophiles and their victims. I later learned that the school we would have chosen was one of the institutions where priests “tagged” little boys with gifted necklaces so other priests would know they were vulnerable.
Anonymous
Post 04/12/2023 18:25     Subject: 600 child abuse victims of the Catholic Church in MD
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Why does the Catholic Church attract so many sociopaths. I get the reason gay men or pedophiles used to think the church was good place to hide out. But the sheer sociapathic and violent behavior of nuns and priests towards kids and teens in orphanages,Irish laundries, forced boarding schools—its mind boggling. Whipping and beating wasn’t enough, they got off on torturing young people. Anyone who sits in a Catholic Church every Sunday is complicit in this coverup. Still.


Why are posters like you sociopaths?

Who put gay and pedophile in a sentence as if they are similar or even related.


A person who prays in a Catholic church and tries to live a life like Christ is complicit in child abuse? Hmm. You need help with your anger and bigotry.


If the people of the church all boycatted mass, the church corporation might actually hold themselves accountable to the people of the church. But alas, as long as people show up, then leadership thinks its business as usual.





“Mass” is a proper noun that requires capitalization.

Depriving oneself of the spiritual practices and sacraments of the Church as a form of protest is roughly akin to starving oneself to death to protest bad restaurant management.


I think systematic child abuse and the unrepentant covering it up is a bit more serious than “bad restaurant management.” If you’re not willing to sacrifice your spiritual comfort for your most vulnerable, what are you willing to sacrifice for? Nothing. And that’s what is going to change in this church- absolutely nothing. Don’t pretend like you’re helpless. You can choose to do something, you just won’t.


You fall victim to the argumentative devices of people who hate the Church because they feel bad about their behavior and know that the Church is right when it says they should change their lives. The “systematic child abuse” you assert is alleged to have occurred, in Baltimore, over many decades. Each and every perpetrator of such abuse committed a grave sin. That sin violated their duties as Church representatives. Abuse was never a “systematic” Church policy or practice. To the contrary the acts alleged were the defalcations of multiple individuals, against multiple alleged victims, over long periods of time during which the Church carried out incalculable good work, under multiple sets of management. As for “unrepentant covering it up,” if you’d actually read the report, you’d know that in many cases the bishop at the time took steps (similar to those that are essentially automatic now) permanently to remove individuals from the clerical state. You’d also know that the understanding of abuse, both from a religious standpoint and from a psychological one, evolved over time from a view that abusers had a moral problem amenable to spiritual remedy, to one where they were viewed as psychologically unstable but might be helped by therapy, to the present understanding that persons inclined to abuse are very likely ever to reform and are unsuitable for ministry.

The anti-Catholic buzzwords you use are not borne out by the facts as alleged in the report, and today and for many years the Archdiocese of Baltimore has had an exemplary child protection program. The Church has done a great deal, and far more than other institutions (particularly those protected by sovereign immunity) to make amends for past issues and prevent future ones.

Finally, the sacraments and other religious mysteries of the Church are not “comfort” items; for Catholics at least they are essential to any spiritual life at all. They do not belong to the Church management. They belong to the People of God.



Poster, I grew up Catholic. I know of what I speak, so you can lay down your cross. This Church (to include multiple American dioceses and archdioceses) refuses to come clean and in many cases is still actively fighting transparency and gaslighting survivors. These reports keep coming and keep shocking because they are not coming from the people they need to be coming from. If the Church came clean and fully acknowledged the horror of what it has done, it’s be a different story. But here we are, 20+ years later, and still learning more.

This Church has not atoned for its sins. You have not atoned for your part in their sins. [/b]I realize it can be uncomfortable to acknowledge you’re one of the “baddies”, but try as you might to excuse your enabling behavior, it can’t be excused. Most people can scratch their spiritual itch without excusing and enabling the abuse of innocent children.
[b]

And here I thought only a few saints could read souls.

I’d invite you to detail the sins and acts of enabling you accuse me of, but this being an anonymous forum, nothing you could say would be anything but defamation.

As a person “who grew up Catholic and knows of what they speak,” you nonetheless continue to lump together the component parts of a multi-millennia old organization as if it and they were a monolithic entity frozen at a single moment in tune in which every alleged act of abuse occurred simultaneously. Tsk tsk.

Church entities have every right to defend their interests against claims brought by what has become a legal specialty, particularly when the acts of abuse alleged are frankly incredible. It may surprise you to learn that plaintiffs’ lawyers are in business to make money and that claims are sometimes fabricated, but I doubt it.

Church entities have paid millions to resolve claims of abuse, bankrupting themselves in the process.



And they can keep paying until there is nothing left and it will not even come close to remedying the damage they’ve done. And curious how now you’re calling these claims into question and ignoring the similarities and pretending all of these American Catholic churches actually have nothing to do with each other and all this abuse and covering up just happened independently.

Let me ask you - do you think God looks kindly on the Church “defending its legal interests”?


“And they can keep paying until there is nothing left.”

Would you apply the identical standard to every other entity that had abuse issues, including governmental entities like schools, or is it just the Catholic Church you want out of business? Notably, the recently passed statute of limitations bill in Maryland specifically provides for a lower damages cap for governmental than non-governmental entities.

“Do you think God looks kindly . . .?” How else do you propose the “damage they’ve done” be quantified, particularly when the claimant has instituted judicial proceedings? Shall the Church pay whatever preposterous number the plaintiff’s lawyer demands? Shall it forego the opportunity to test the veracity of the claims against it?

“All this covering up . . ..” By who? When? Under what circumstances? Because every claim needs to be assessed on its own merits. The Baltimore specifically cites cases where alleged victims wanted things kept confidential. Is that a “cover up” by Church authorities?

These discussions seem always to degenerate into broad brush allegations against an undifferentiated “they” with no regard for particular facts, the moral standard at the time any given claim arose, or any other matter that might stand in the way of a scandalous juggernaut it’s proponents hope will wipe out a Church they despise because it reminds them of their own failings.

Anonymous
Post 04/12/2023 17:26     Subject: 600 child abuse victims of the Catholic Church in MD
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Why does the Catholic Church attract so many sociopaths. I get the reason gay men or pedophiles used to think the church was good place to hide out. But the sheer sociapathic and violent behavior of nuns and priests towards kids and teens in orphanages,Irish laundries, forced boarding schools—its mind boggling. Whipping and beating wasn’t enough, they got off on torturing young people. Anyone who sits in a Catholic Church every Sunday is complicit in this coverup. Still.


Why are posters like you sociopaths?

Who put gay and pedophile in a sentence as if they are similar or even related.


A person who prays in a Catholic church and tries to live a life like Christ is complicit in child abuse? Hmm. You need help with your anger and bigotry.


If the people of the church all boycatted mass, the church corporation might actually hold themselves accountable to the people of the church. But alas, as long as people show up, then leadership thinks its business as usual.





“Mass” is a proper noun that requires capitalization.

Depriving oneself of the spiritual practices and sacraments of the Church as a form of protest is roughly akin to starving oneself to death to protest bad restaurant management.


I think systematic child abuse and the unrepentant covering it up is a bit more serious than “bad restaurant management.” If you’re not willing to sacrifice your spiritual comfort for your most vulnerable, what are you willing to sacrifice for? Nothing. And that’s what is going to change in this church- absolutely nothing. Don’t pretend like you’re helpless. You can choose to do something, you just won’t.


You fall victim to the argumentative devices of people who hate the Church because they feel bad about their behavior and know that the Church is right when it says they should change their lives. The “systematic child abuse” you assert is alleged to have occurred, in Baltimore, over many decades. Each and every perpetrator of such abuse committed a grave sin. That sin violated their duties as Church representatives. Abuse was never a “systematic” Church policy or practice. To the contrary the acts alleged were the defalcations of multiple individuals, against multiple alleged victims, over long periods of time during which the Church carried out incalculable good work, under multiple sets of management. As for “unrepentant covering it up,” if you’d actually read the report, you’d know that in many cases the bishop at the time took steps (similar to those that are essentially automatic now) permanently to remove individuals from the clerical state. You’d also know that the understanding of abuse, both from a religious standpoint and from a psychological one, evolved over time from a view that abusers had a moral problem amenable to spiritual remedy, to one where they were viewed as psychologically unstable but might be helped by therapy, to the present understanding that persons inclined to abuse are very likely ever to reform and are unsuitable for ministry.

The anti-Catholic buzzwords you use are not borne out by the facts as alleged in the report, and today and for many years the Archdiocese of Baltimore has had an exemplary child protection program. The Church has done a great deal, and far more than other institutions (particularly those protected by sovereign immunity) to make amends for past issues and prevent future ones.

Finally, the sacraments and other religious mysteries of the Church are not “comfort” items; for Catholics at least they are essential to any spiritual life at all. They do not belong to the Church management. They belong to the People of God.



Poster, I grew up Catholic. I know of what I speak, so you can lay down your cross. This Church (to include multiple American dioceses and archdioceses) refuses to come clean and in many cases is still actively fighting transparency and gaslighting survivors. These reports keep coming and keep shocking because they are not coming from the people they need to be coming from. If the Church came clean and fully acknowledged the horror of what it has done, it’s be a different story. But here we are, 20+ years later, and still learning more.

This Church has not atoned for its sins. You have not atoned for your part in their sins. [/b]I realize it can be uncomfortable to acknowledge you’re one of the “baddies”, but try as you might to excuse your enabling behavior, it can’t be excused. Most people can scratch their spiritual itch without excusing and enabling the abuse of innocent children.
[b]

And here I thought only a few saints could read souls.

I’d invite you to detail the sins and acts of enabling you accuse me of, but this being an anonymous forum, nothing you could say would be anything but defamation.

As a person “who grew up Catholic and knows of what they speak,” you nonetheless continue to lump together the component parts of a multi-millennia old organization as if it and they were a monolithic entity frozen at a single moment in tune in which every alleged act of abuse occurred simultaneously. Tsk tsk.

Church entities have every right to defend their interests against claims brought by what has become a legal specialty, particularly when the acts of abuse alleged are frankly incredible. It may surprise you to learn that plaintiffs’ lawyers are in business to make money and that claims are sometimes fabricated, but I doubt it.

Church entities have paid millions to resolve claims of abuse, bankrupting themselves in the process.



And they can keep paying until there is nothing left and it will not even come close to remedying the damage they’ve done. And curious how now you’re calling these claims into question and ignoring the similarities and pretending all of these American Catholic churches actually have nothing to do with each other and all this abuse and covering up just happened independently.

Let me ask you - do you think God looks kindly on the Church “defending its legal interests”?
Anonymous
Post 04/12/2023 16:30     Subject: 600 child abuse victims of the Catholic Church in MD
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Why does the Catholic Church attract so many sociopaths. I get the reason gay men or pedophiles used to think the church was good place to hide out. But the sheer sociapathic and violent behavior of nuns and priests towards kids and teens in orphanages,Irish laundries, forced boarding schools—its mind boggling. Whipping and beating wasn’t enough, they got off on torturing young people. Anyone who sits in a Catholic Church every Sunday is complicit in this coverup. Still.


Why are posters like you sociopaths?

Who put gay and pedophile in a sentence as if they are similar or even related.


A person who prays in a Catholic church and tries to live a life like Christ is complicit in child abuse? Hmm. You need help with your anger and bigotry.


If the people of the church all boycatted mass, the church corporation might actually hold themselves accountable to the people of the church. But alas, as long as people show up, then leadership thinks its business as usual.





“Mass” is a proper noun that requires capitalization.

Depriving oneself of the spiritual practices and sacraments of the Church as a form of protest is roughly akin to starving oneself to death to protest bad restaurant management.


I think systematic child abuse and the unrepentant covering it up is a bit more serious than “bad restaurant management.” If you’re not willing to sacrifice your spiritual comfort for your most vulnerable, what are you willing to sacrifice for? Nothing. And that’s what is going to change in this church- absolutely nothing. Don’t pretend like you’re helpless. You can choose to do something, you just won’t.


You fall victim to the argumentative devices of people who hate the Church because they feel bad about their behavior and know that the Church is right when it says they should change their lives. The “systematic child abuse” you assert is alleged to have occurred, in Baltimore, over many decades. Each and every perpetrator of such abuse committed a grave sin. That sin violated their duties as Church representatives. Abuse was never a “systematic” Church policy or practice. To the contrary the acts alleged were the defalcations of multiple individuals, against multiple alleged victims, over long periods of time during which the Church carried out incalculable good work, under multiple sets of management. As for “unrepentant covering it up,” if you’d actually read the report, you’d know that in many cases the bishop at the time took steps (similar to those that are essentially automatic now) permanently to remove individuals from the clerical state. You’d also know that the understanding of abuse, both from a religious standpoint and from a psychological one, evolved over time from a view that abusers had a moral problem amenable to spiritual remedy, to one where they were viewed as psychologically unstable but might be helped by therapy, to the present understanding that persons inclined to abuse are very likely ever to reform and are unsuitable for ministry.

The anti-Catholic buzzwords you use are not borne out by the facts as alleged in the report, and today and for many years the Archdiocese of Baltimore has had an exemplary child protection program. The Church has done a great deal, and far more than other institutions (particularly those protected by sovereign immunity) to make amends for past issues and prevent future ones.

Finally, the sacraments and other religious mysteries of the Church are not “comfort” items; for Catholics at least they are essential to any spiritual life at all. They do not belong to the Church management. They belong to the People of God.



Poster, I grew up Catholic. I know of what I speak, so you can lay down your cross. This Church (to include multiple American dioceses and archdioceses) refuses to come clean and in many cases is still actively fighting transparency and gaslighting survivors. These reports keep coming and keep shocking because they are not coming from the people they need to be coming from. If the Church came clean and fully acknowledged the horror of what it has done, it’s be a different story. But here we are, 20+ years later, and still learning more.

This Church has not atoned for its sins. You have not atoned for your part in their sins. [/b]I realize it can be uncomfortable to acknowledge you’re one of the “baddies”, but try as you might to excuse your enabling behavior, it can’t be excused. Most people can scratch their spiritual itch without excusing and enabling the abuse of innocent children.
[b]

And here I thought only a few saints could read souls.

I’d invite you to detail the sins and acts of enabling you accuse me of, but this being an anonymous forum, nothing you could say would be anything but defamation.

As a person “who grew up Catholic and knows of what they speak,” you nonetheless continue to lump together the component parts of a multi-millennia old organization as if it and they were a monolithic entity frozen at a single moment in tune in which every alleged act of abuse occurred simultaneously. Tsk tsk.

Church entities have every right to defend their interests against claims brought by what has become a legal specialty, particularly when the acts of abuse alleged are frankly incredible. It may surprise you to learn that plaintiffs’ lawyers are in business to make money and that claims are sometimes fabricated, but I doubt it.

Church entities have paid millions to resolve claims of abuse, bankrupting themselves in the process.

Anonymous
Post 04/12/2023 15:16     Subject: 600 child abuse victims of the Catholic Church in MD
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Let priests marry. Get rid of the gay/pedophile problem and you will go a long way to fixing this problem. Francis has already set this in motion with his recent comments on priests and marriage.


Francis, like other Jesuits, is prone to “open discussion” and “experimental” ideas, but he is not going to change obligatory celibacy. If he were going to do so it would already have happened. Even the “trial balloon” of “virus selecti” in the Amazon went nowhere.

Allowing priests to marry would do nothing to resolve the problem of daemonic sexual perversity underlying the acts alleged in the report. The settlements and scandals involving other churches with married ministers, as well as those involving organizations such as the Boy Scouts are clear proof of this.


Sorry. It's not a gay problem.


Sorry, it is.


DP. No it's not, and saying that it is is unhelpful.


[b]Telling the truth (it is) is helpful.
No one is saying all Catholics do this, but the church offenders are overwhelmingly Catholic males.


FTFY


Gay Catholic males. FTFY 😊.
Anonymous
Post 04/12/2023 15:12     Subject: 600 child abuse victims of the Catholic Church in MD
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Let priests marry. Get rid of the gay/pedophile problem and you will go a long way to fixing this problem. Francis has already set this in motion with his recent comments on priests and marriage.


Francis, like other Jesuits, is prone to “open discussion” and “experimental” ideas, but he is not going to change obligatory celibacy. If he were going to do so it would already have happened. Even the “trial balloon” of “virus selecti” in the Amazon went nowhere.

Allowing priests to marry would do nothing to resolve the problem of daemonic sexual perversity underlying the acts alleged in the report. The settlements and scandals involving other churches with married ministers, as well as those involving organizations such as the Boy Scouts are clear proof of this.


Sorry. It's not a gay problem.


Sorry, it is.


DP. No it's not, and saying that it is is unhelpful.


[b]Telling the truth (it is) is helpful.
No one is saying all Catholics do this, but the church offenders are overwhelmingly Catholic males.


FTFY


Both statements are true.
Anonymous
Post 04/12/2023 15:01     Subject: 600 child abuse victims of the Catholic Church in MD
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Why does the Catholic Church attract so many sociopaths. I get the reason gay men or pedophiles used to think the church was good place to hide out. But the sheer sociapathic and violent behavior of nuns and priests towards kids and teens in orphanages,Irish laundries, forced boarding schools—its mind boggling. Whipping and beating wasn’t enough, they got off on torturing young people. Anyone who sits in a Catholic Church every Sunday is complicit in this coverup. Still.


Why are posters like you sociopaths?

Who put gay and pedophile in a sentence as if they are similar or even related.


A person who prays in a Catholic church and tries to live a life like Christ is complicit in child abuse? Hmm. You need help with your anger and bigotry.


If the people of the church all boycatted mass, the church corporation might actually hold themselves accountable to the people of the church. But alas, as long as people show up, then leadership thinks its business as usual.





“Mass” is a proper noun that requires capitalization.

Depriving oneself of the spiritual practices and sacraments of the Church as a form of protest is roughly akin to starving oneself to death to protest bad restaurant management.


I think systematic child abuse and the unrepentant covering it up is a bit more serious than “bad restaurant management.” If you’re not willing to sacrifice your spiritual comfort for your most vulnerable, what are you willing to sacrifice for? Nothing. And that’s what is going to change in this church- absolutely nothing. Don’t pretend like you’re helpless. You can choose to do something, you just won’t.


You fall victim to the argumentative devices of people who hate the Church because they feel bad about their behavior and know that the Church is right when it says they should change their lives. The “systematic child abuse” you assert is alleged to have occurred, in Baltimore, over many decades. Each and every perpetrator of such abuse committed a grave sin. That sin violated their duties as Church representatives. Abuse was never a “systematic” Church policy or practice. To the contrary the acts alleged were the defalcations of multiple individuals, against multiple alleged victims, over long periods of time during which the Church carried out incalculable good work, under multiple sets of management. As for “unrepentant covering it up,” if you’d actually read the report, you’d know that in many cases the bishop at the time took steps (similar to those that are essentially automatic now) permanently to remove individuals from the clerical state. You’d also know that the understanding of abuse, both from a religious standpoint and from a psychological one, evolved over time from a view that abusers had a moral problem amenable to spiritual remedy, to one where they were viewed as psychologically unstable but might be helped by therapy, to the present understanding that persons inclined to abuse are very likely ever to reform and are unsuitable for ministry.

The anti-Catholic buzzwords you use are not borne out by the facts as alleged in the report, and today and for many years the Archdiocese of Baltimore has had an exemplary child protection program. The Church has done a great deal, and far more than other institutions (particularly those protected by sovereign immunity) to make amends for past issues and prevent future ones.

Finally, the sacraments and other religious mysteries of the Church are not “comfort” items; for Catholics at least they are essential to any spiritual life at all. They do not belong to the Church management. They belong to the People of God.



Poster, I grew up Catholic. I know of what I speak, so you can lay down your cross. This Church (to include multiple American dioceses and archdioceses) refuses to come clean and in many cases is still actively fighting transparency and gaslighting survivors. These reports keep coming and keep shocking because they are not coming from the people they need to be coming from. If the Church came clean and fully acknowledged the horror of what it has done, it’s be a different story. But here we are, 20+ years later, and still learning more.

This Church has not atoned for its sins. You have not atoned for your part in their sins. I realize it can be uncomfortable to acknowledge you’re one of the “baddies”, but try as you might to excuse your enabling behavior, it can’t be excused. Most people can scratch their spiritual itch without excusing and enabling the abuse of innocent children.


How do you know what the previous poster has or has not atoned for? Why would you assume that all Catholics need to atone for the sins of others within or outside of the church? To paraphrase Seinfeld “it’s almost like you have no [understanding of Catholicism] whatsoever.”
Anonymous
Post 04/12/2023 14:59     Subject: 600 child abuse victims of the Catholic Church in MD
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Let priests marry. Get rid of the gay/pedophile problem and you will go a long way to fixing this problem. Francis has already set this in motion with his recent comments on priests and marriage.


Francis, like other Jesuits, is prone to “open discussion” and “experimental” ideas, but he is not going to change obligatory celibacy. If he were going to do so it would already have happened. Even the “trial balloon” of “virus selecti” in the Amazon went nowhere.

Allowing priests to marry would do nothing to resolve the problem of daemonic sexual perversity underlying the acts alleged in the report. The settlements and scandals involving other churches with married ministers, as well as those involving organizations such as the Boy Scouts are clear proof of this.


Sorry. It's not a gay problem.


Sorry, it is.


DP. No it's not, and saying that it is is unhelpful.


[b]Telling the truth (it is) is helpful.
No one is saying all Catholics do this, but the church offenders are overwhelmingly Catholic males.


FTFY
Anonymous
Post 04/12/2023 14:49     Subject: 600 child abuse victims of the Catholic Church in MD
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Let priests marry. Get rid of the gay/pedophile problem and you will go a long way to fixing this problem. Francis has already set this in motion with his recent comments on priests and marriage.


Francis, like other Jesuits, is prone to “open discussion” and “experimental” ideas, but he is not going to change obligatory celibacy. If he were going to do so it would already have happened. Even the “trial balloon” of “virus selecti” in the Amazon went nowhere.

Allowing priests to marry would do nothing to resolve the problem of daemonic sexual perversity underlying the acts alleged in the report. The settlements and scandals involving other churches with married ministers, as well as those involving organizations such as the Boy Scouts are clear proof of this.


Sorry. It's not a gay problem.


Sorry, it is.


DP. No it's not, and saying that it is is unhelpful.

Telling the truth (it is) is helpful.
No one is saying all gays do this, but the church offenders are overwhelmingly gay males.
Anonymous
Post 04/12/2023 14:45     Subject: 600 child abuse victims of the Catholic Church in MD
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Why does the Catholic Church attract so many sociopaths. I get the reason gay men or pedophiles used to think the church was good place to hide out. But the sheer sociapathic and violent behavior of nuns and priests towards kids and teens in orphanages,Irish laundries, forced boarding schools—its mind boggling. Whipping and beating wasn’t enough, they got off on torturing young people. Anyone who sits in a Catholic Church every Sunday is complicit in this coverup. Still.


Why are posters like you sociopaths?

Who put gay and pedophile in a sentence as if they are similar or even related.


A person who prays in a Catholic church and tries to live a life like Christ is complicit in child abuse? Hmm. You need help with your anger and bigotry.


If the people of the church all boycatted mass, the church corporation might actually hold themselves accountable to the people of the church. But alas, as long as people show up, then leadership thinks its business as usual.





“Mass” is a proper noun that requires capitalization.

Depriving oneself of the spiritual practices and sacraments of the Church as a form of protest is roughly akin to starving oneself to death to protest bad restaurant management.


I think systematic child abuse and the unrepentant covering it up is a bit more serious than “bad restaurant management.” If you’re not willing to sacrifice your spiritual comfort for your most vulnerable, what are you willing to sacrifice for? Nothing. And that’s what is going to change in this church- absolutely nothing. Don’t pretend like you’re helpless. You can choose to do something, you just won’t.


You fall victim to the argumentative devices of people who hate the Church because they feel bad about their behavior and know that the Church is right when it says they should change their lives. The “systematic child abuse” you assert is alleged to have occurred, in Baltimore, over many decades. Each and every perpetrator of such abuse committed a grave sin. That sin violated their duties as Church representatives. Abuse was never a “systematic” Church policy or practice. To the contrary the acts alleged were the defalcations of multiple individuals, against multiple alleged victims, over long periods of time during which the Church carried out incalculable good work, under multiple sets of management. As for “unrepentant covering it up,” if you’d actually read the report, you’d know that in many cases the bishop at the time took steps (similar to those that are essentially automatic now) permanently to remove individuals from the clerical state. You’d also know that the understanding of abuse, both from a religious standpoint and from a psychological one, evolved over time from a view that abusers had a moral problem amenable to spiritual remedy, to one where they were viewed as psychologically unstable but might be helped by therapy, to the present understanding that persons inclined to abuse are very likely ever to reform and are unsuitable for ministry.

The anti-Catholic buzzwords you use are not borne out by the facts as alleged in the report, and today and for many years the Archdiocese of Baltimore has had an exemplary child protection program. The Church has done a great deal, and far more than other institutions (particularly those protected by sovereign immunity) to make amends for past issues and prevent future ones.

Finally, the sacraments and other religious mysteries of the Church are not “comfort” items; for Catholics at least they are essential to any spiritual life at all. They do not belong to the Church management. They belong to the People of God.



Poster, I grew up Catholic. I know of what I speak, so you can lay down your cross. This Church (to include multiple American dioceses and archdioceses) refuses to come clean and in many cases is still actively fighting transparency and gaslighting survivors. These reports keep coming and keep shocking because they are not coming from the people they need to be coming from. If the Church came clean and fully acknowledged the horror of what it has done, it’s be a different story. But here we are, 20+ years later, and still learning more.

This Church has not atoned for its sins. You have not atoned for your part in their sins. I realize it can be uncomfortable to acknowledge you’re one of the “baddies”, but try as you might to excuse your enabling behavior, it can’t be excused. Most people can scratch their spiritual itch without excusing and enabling the abuse of innocent children.
Anonymous
Post 04/12/2023 14:12     Subject: 600 child abuse victims of the Catholic Church in MD
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Why does the Catholic Church attract so many sociopaths. I get the reason gay men or pedophiles used to think the church was good place to hide out. But the sheer sociapathic and violent behavior of nuns and priests towards kids and teens in orphanages,Irish laundries, forced boarding schools—its mind boggling. Whipping and beating wasn’t enough, they got off on torturing young people. Anyone who sits in a Catholic Church every Sunday is complicit in this coverup. Still.


Why are posters like you sociopaths?

Who put gay and pedophile in a sentence as if they are similar or even related.


A person who prays in a Catholic church and tries to live a life like Christ is complicit in child abuse? Hmm. You need help with your anger and bigotry.


If the people of the church all boycatted mass, the church corporation might actually hold themselves accountable to the people of the church. But alas, as long as people show up, then leadership thinks its business as usual.





“Mass” is a proper noun that requires capitalization.

Depriving oneself of the spiritual practices and sacraments of the Church as a form of protest is roughly akin to starving oneself to death to protest bad restaurant management.


I think systematic child abuse and the unrepentant covering it up is a bit more serious than “bad restaurant management.” If you’re not willing to sacrifice your spiritual comfort for your most vulnerable, what are you willing to sacrifice for? Nothing. And that’s what is going to change in this church- absolutely nothing. Don’t pretend like you’re helpless. You can choose to do something, you just won’t.


You fall victim to the argumentative devices of people who hate the Church because they feel bad about their behavior and know that the Church is right when it says they should change their lives. The “systematic child abuse” you assert is alleged to have occurred, in Baltimore, over many decades. Each and every perpetrator of such abuse committed a grave sin. That sin violated their duties as Church representatives. Abuse was never a “systematic” Church policy or practice. To the contrary the acts alleged were the defalcations of multiple individuals, against multiple alleged victims, over long periods of time during which the Church carried out incalculable good work, under multiple sets of management. As for “unrepentant covering it up,” if you’d actually read the report, you’d know that in many cases the bishop at the time took steps (similar to those that are essentially automatic now) permanently to remove individuals from the clerical state. You’d also know that the understanding of abuse, both from a religious standpoint and from a psychological one, evolved over time from a view that abusers had a moral problem amenable to spiritual remedy, to one where they were viewed as psychologically unstable but might be helped by therapy, to the present understanding that persons inclined to abuse are very likely ever to reform and are unsuitable for ministry.

The anti-Catholic buzzwords you use are not borne out by the facts as alleged in the report, and today and for many years the Archdiocese of Baltimore has had an exemplary child protection program. The Church has done a great deal, and far more than other institutions (particularly those protected by sovereign immunity) to make amends for past issues and prevent future ones.

Finally, the sacraments and other religious mysteries of the Church are not “comfort” items; for Catholics at least they are essential to any spiritual life at all. They do not belong to the Church management. They belong to the People of God.

Anonymous
Post 04/12/2023 13:54     Subject: Re:600 child abuse victims of the Catholic Church in MD
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Did you see “The Keepers”?


Yes, and no call to end the church or any discussion about religion in society. But let's go after LGBTQ, keeping our guns, and books.

Why is this church allowed to exist?


“End the [C]hurch.”

You clearly don’t have the slightest clue what “the Church” is, how it is constituted, the relationship between its various components, or anything else relevant to the discussion. Try doing some research before you talk about “ending” something you can’t possibly comprehend given your present state of appalling ignorance. Hint: “the Church” is not a monolith. It is a confraternity of local organizations (“particular churches”) who acknowledge the Pope as a leader with unique powers and duties, but who also act essentially autonomously in many matters.

And who’s going to do this “ending?” Of a worldwide faith with billions of adherents?

This [C]hurch is “allowed to exist” because at least in free countries freedom of religious belief is recognized as an inherent human and civil right.