Now then, in the days before the fascist pope arrives, the story emerges of yet another cover up by the Catholic hierarchy of sexual abuse.

Why do we tolerate an organisation that does so much wrong in our midst?

One which preys on the poor and needy?

One which is anti-women's rights?

One which causes so much pain and suffering in the 3 rd world?

One which colludes with paedophiles and offers them not only shelter, but actually enables them to procure victims?

I'm sure that Catholics do a lot more good than harm.

It's like the story of Stavros (this might get deleted):

A tourist is visiting a remote Greek island and decides to climb to the highest peak. There sitting despondently is an old man. the tourist ask him his name, but the old man gets very irate at this point and says:

See those boats down there by the shore? I build every one of them, but do they call me Stavros the boat builder? Oh no!

Look at those houses over on the bluff? I build them all when I was young, but do they call me Stavros the house builder? No.

And those vines over there? I grew them all. My wines are the finest in the region, but do they call me Stavros the wine maker? No they do not!

- But you bugger one goat...................

We tell that one about Welshmen, "Dai the sheep shagger"

Back to the OP.

The catholic church does little or no good, it is a parasitic organisation living off  money which the poor and stupid can ill afford to give it.

If the vatican were so concerned about the plight of the poor, they could hold a garage sale and end world starvation now. Instead they keep their child buggering priests and their hierarchy in lives of luxury.
>:(

The Catholic Church is old, traditional, and behind the times. Its membership is dwindling and hence the reason for WYD - to recruit the young. At least the world knows where they stand on issues

More troubling are the fresher newer evangelical churches such as Hillsong. They are all glitz and song and dance which is very attractive to the young. However, their intentions and purpose are not as clear and upfront as the Catholic Church.

Acid Monkey wrote on Jul 13^th, 2008 at 9:26pm:

The Catholic Church is old, traditional, and behind the times. Its membership is dwindling and hence the reason for WYD - to recruit the young. At least the world knows where they stand on issues More troubling are the fresher newer evangelical churches such as Hillsong. They are all glitz and song and dance which is very attractive to the young. However, their intentions and purpose are not as clear and upfront as the Catholic Church.

I remember one Catholic spokesperson talking about the Evangelicals.  I wish I could find the quote, but he basically said that they were not concerned about life matters in any way - it was all about what happened after death. He described it as a death cult - something I always thought was apt.

Apart from the fact that my wife is Catholic, I find Catholicism to be one of the most tolerant of religions. A catholic theologian friend of mine explained how much variety in belief there was between catholics. Virtually all religions, including Buddhism have suffered child abuse scandals. They are at least trying to do something about that now.

Don't diss the catholics - at least they are attempting to learn from their past mistakes. I still think John Paul II was the best Pope though.

If I believed in God, I'd probably be a Catholic.  

muso wrote on Jul 13^th, 2008 at 11:08pm:

Don't diss the catholics - at least they are attempting to learn from their past mistakes.

Lol, kudos where it counts. However, they are still archaic and behind the times. Either they are incompatible with modern society or modern society is incompatible with them.


muso wrote on Jul 13^th, 2008 at 11:08pm:

If I believed in God, I'd probably be a Catholic.

My wife is Catholic as well. If I were to believe in a Christian god I wouldn't have been a Catholic - more likely an Anglican.

The fact that the catholic church is so seriously behind the times is one of  the main concern.

There is nothing in the bible about contraception, the catholic church opposes it as it needs the canon fodder and subservient masses to fund it's life of luxury.

There is nothing in the bible about preists being celebate, it's mind control.

Every catholic should see this movie.

It's actually a myth that the suggestion that Catholic priests remain unmarried contributes to child abuse.  I heard a report on this recently that sounded reasonable.

My recall is a little vague, but from statistics from the Anglican Church,  the ones who  choose to marry are not the problem when it comes to child abuse. Their biggest problem is extramarital affairs with women in their parish. Usually the actual child abusers have no interest in getting married anyway.

So the argument is that the celibacy of Catholic priests doesn't contribute significantly to the problem.

That's an interesting theory muso. Would you like to start a new thread on it?

Hi pommy

"Now the overseer must be above reproach, the husband of but one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect. (If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God's church?) He must not be a recent convert, or he may become conceited and fall under the same judgment as the devil. He must also have a good reputation with outsiders, so that he will not fall into disgrace and into the devil's trap.
Deacons, likewise, are to be men worthy of respect, sincere, not indulging in much wine, and not pursuing dishonest gain. They must keep hold of the deep truths of the faith with a clear conscience. They must first be tested; and then if there is nothing against them, let them serve as deacons.

In the same way, their wives[b] are to be women worthy of respect, not malicious talkers but temperate and trustworthy in everything.

A deacon must be the husband of but one wife and must manage his children and his household well. 13Those who have served well gain an excellent standing and great assurance in their faith in Christ Jesus. "

1 Timothy:3, 2 - 12


There is direct  orders as concerns a deacon and an overseer.
A priest, bishop and cardinal are overseers.
There are other quotes about being married or celebate.
Up to yourself is the idea.


muso - I'ld agree that married men are not child abusers and child abusers are not too interested in getting married.
So having a married priset would be a good filter ?

freediver wrote on Jul 14^th, 2008 at 12:10pm:

That's an interesting theory muso. Would you like to start a new thread on it?

You can start a new thread if you like. It's not a subject I like talking about myself.

I saw the doco muso was referring to, I am assuming it is the same, I may be wrong, but the upshot was that the paedophiles were buggered in the head already, and that is why they wanted to be priests in the first place.
As a born and raised catholic, I can tell muso that the catholics are no better than the other religions, at the end of the day they are all deluding, self serving, deceitful bastards.
I mean the churches, or religions, not all the individuals unfortunate enough to have been brainwashed with their religious codswallop, and without the intellectual capacity, or integrity to realise or admit their mistake.

bugger religion, it sucks.

Have you seen those poor silly buggers on the telly, all guitars, and grins, and halleluhahs,  I think they could all use a good sexual encounter. I think they may be slap happy. I am sure they are nice enough, but they wouldn't have an original thought amongst the lot of them.

mozzaok - yes, some of us happy clappers are not overly endowed with the grey matter.
Ain't no doubt about that.

Still, generally good hearted people.
No, we are not perfect.

Hi sprint, I think you may have misinterpreted what I meant, because I phrased it so poorly.

I don't mean that people who believe are dumb, I know many who are far smarter than myself, who have a very strong faith based belief.
What I think they do is compartmentalise their belief into an area which they choose to exempt from critical analysis.
They accept that it makes them feel better in some way, and accept it on that level, and leave it at that.

People in this category are however, most unlikely to be the least bit preachy, and accept, and recognise their faith as an imponderable element, that they choose to suspend rationalisation for.

The ones who attempt to legitimise their beliefs on an intellectual level, are not the smart ones, because if they were, they would accept that they have no supporting intellectual arguments at all, to justify their beliefs.

The former group accept a religious philosophy on a very personal level, and contain it there, and that is how all religious people should regard their faith.
If they all did that, we would not see the troubles we always have between rival dogmas, and you would not hear people like me complaining about it.

Mozz I suspect you are confusing intellectual arguments with evidence based arguments.

All guitars and grins?

mozzaok wrote on Jul 14^th, 2008 at 10:19pm:

As a born and raised catholic, I can tell muso that the catholics are no better than the other religions, at the end of the day they are all deluding, self serving, deceitful bastards. I mean the churches, or religions, not all the individuals unfortunate enough to have been brainwashed with their religious codswallop, and without the intellectual capacity, or integrity to realise or admit their mistake. bugger religion, it sucks. Have you seen those poor silly buggers on the telly, all guitars, and grins, and halleluhahs,  I think they could all use a good sexual encounter. I think they may be slap happy. I am sure they are nice enough, but they wouldn't have an original thought amongst the lot of them.

Religion is just another way of thinking - and one that you and I don't really understand, but I've spent enough time with religious people to understand that they are mostly fair dinkum. They are not deluding anyone - for the most part. They just have a different method of parsing reality than you or me.  

The way I think of it is this: The thinking process is necessarily 'idiomatic'. Most of us tend to speak in ways that use idioms.  We cut up reality into 'easy to digest' chunks that we can deal with or understand. (That was an example of and idiomatic thought - we don't actually eat thoughts. ). We are so used to thinking idiomatically that we sometimes forget that reality is a continuum, and not composed of little discrete idioms. We start to believe in the idioms. For example, we believe that the nail 'doesn't want' to go into the wood.

We even formalise idioms, for example as Meridian lines. Meridian lines don't exist. Longitude varies continuously as we travel from East to West, but we find it convenient to draw imaginary lines all over the world to make it easier to understand.  How many other imaginary things do we work with every day in order to better understand reality? Are you deluding yourself, or are you just being human?  

In the same way I think of 'God' as an idiom. Many people think of God as being real in a way that I don't understand. Maybe I don't have the brain architecture to appreciate God, or maybe other people have the brain architecture that perceives God.

Who knows?

(edited to fix a niggling grammatical error)

I give you points for trying muso, and I do not go around telling people they are deluded in their beliefs, but in a forum situation I just speak my mind without trying to purposely offend, but also not sugar coating so as not to.

It seems to me like you are being sensitive to others' feelings, which I would also do in a normal social encounter, but I am confident you have no argument that would challenge my assertion that religion is one very buggered up philosophy for life.
The delusion I speak of is self delusion.

I know people who are turds, but try and display a pious facade, as if they were trying to "buy" a good seat in heaven, they I consider to be warped individuals.

muso wrote on Jul 14^th, 2008 at 12:01pm:

It's actually a myth that the suggestion that Catholic priests remain unmarried contributes to child abuse.  I heard a report on this recently that sounded reasonable.

But isn't the FACT that the Catholic church has harboured, given succour too, and even enabled paedophiles* far more than any other church, to the point of them being renowned for it, a BIG cause for concern?

4% of all sexual abuse in the United States was caused by Catholic priests.



*By hiding their abuse, and moving them onto other parishes where they will have acces to kids, not reporting them to the police.

But isn't the FACT that the Catholic church has harboured, given succour too, and even enabled paedophiles* far more than any other church

Did you just make that up?

Not really.

Can you name me one other world wide organisation, let alone church,  which has been proven to have harboured, given succour too, and even enabled paedophiles, on the scale of the catholic church?

No. I'm not the one making outlandish claims. You made the comparison, you back it up.

a) There is nothing outlandish about my claim.
b) I can find no information against any other organisation which has  harboured, given succour too, and enabled paedophiles, on the scale of the catholic church.
c)However there is a surplus of evidence of the catholic church's complicity in this.
d) Back to you.

I can find no information against any other organisation

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

However there is a surplus of evidence of the catholic church's complicity in this.

Sigh.

What evidence?

Quote:

The John Jay Report, commissioned by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, found accusations against 4,392 priests in the USA, equalling about 4% of all U.S. priests between 1950 and 2002.

Quote:

During a recent visit to the United States Pope Benedict admitted that he is "deeply ashamed" of the clergy sex abuse scandal that has devastated the American church. The American Catholic Church has paid out $2 billion in abuse costs since 1950

Quote:

An example of the policy of shifting offenders from place to place is demonstrated in the case of Fr Ramos. Typical of these examples he was reassigned to another parish after treatment. An unknown Church official in 1985 took telephone notes that indicate an awareness of his continuing child molestation by Church officials well after his initial psychological treatment in the late 1970s. In spite of this knowledge that he re-offended, he continued to molest for a further two years and accumulated 25 allegations of abuse in total.

Quote:

O'Grady details how he preyed on children, how the Diocese of Stockton, California, knew about the abuse, and how O'Grady claims church officials allowed him to abuse children for two decades by moving him from parish to parish instead of removing him from ministry.

Quote:

Chilling too are the reasons that O'Grady agreed to be interviewed on camera: He wants to force L.A. Cardinal Roger M. Mahony and other church officials to acknowledge they knew of his abuse and transferred him to a new parish every time a family complained

Quote:

Geoghan, 66, who goes on trial Monday, had been moved from parish to parish for years, even though the archdiocese had evidence he sexually abused children. Geoghan also faces 84 civil lawsuits. More than 130 people have claimed he fondled or raped them during the three decades he served in Boston-area parishes.

Quote:

In at least eight cases, the archdiocese allowed priests to remain in ministry after receiving information about their alleged sexual interest in minors. Hennigan said all priests who were transferred after complaints received psychological evaluation and treatment before they were returned to parishes. Mahony has since removed them all from ministry.

Quote:

From a legal perspective, the most serious offense, aside from the incidents of child sexual abuse themselves, was the active institutional cover-up by the Roman Catholic Church's most senior Church leaders for failing to report these felonies to the police. In response to the failure to report abuse to the police, lawmakers have changed the law to make reporting of abuse to police compulsory. An example of this can be found in Massachusetts, USA

Quote:

The Vatican instructed Catholic bishops around the world to cover up cases of sexual abuse or risk being thrown out of the Church. The Observer has obtained a 40-year-old confidential document from the secret Vatican archive which lawyers are calling a 'blueprint for deception and concealment'. One British lawyer acting for Church child abuse victims has described it as 'explosive'. The 69-page Latin document bearing the seal of Pope John XXIII was sent to every bishop in the world. The instructions outline a policy of 'strictest' secrecy in dealing with allegations of sexual abuse and threatens those who speak out with excommunication. They also call for the victim to take an oath of secrecy at the time of making a complaint to Church officials. It states that the instructions are to 'be diligently stored in the secret archives of the Curia [Vatican] as strictly confidential. Nor is it to be published nor added to with any commentaries.'

The John Jay Report, commissioned by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, found accusations against 4,392 priests in the USA

Just taking your first piece of 'evidence', you claim that a report commissioned by Catholics on the issue is evidence that the Catholics are covering the issue up. Can you explain?

Where did I state that?

Well, you didn't actually say anything, so I could only assume your post was in response to the request for evidence. Perhaps now would be a good time to explain yourself. Hence my request for an explanation.

I rather thought I'd explained myself well, what is it about my stance which you do not understand?

Quoting me may help.

What I don't understand is why you posted that quote, especially seeing as you contradicted the obvious conclusion. Hence my request for an explanation.

I'm sorry I'm, not getting you?

Unless you believe that an investigation instituted by the church into the level of paedophilia within it, is a denial, or mitigation, or disproves that it has harboured, given succour too, and enabled paedophiles?

I think the fact that they initiated an investigation and published the results despite the serious conclusions indicates that they are doing something about it. I think it is naive to conclude that other churches and institutions are not harbouring pedophiles (or doing it to a lesser extent) just because you can't google the information.

We've yet to see any real results stemming from whatever investigation or that they are serious about this.

Some of their members are still a little slow in catching up with the Pope mobile as in the case of Bishop Fishers' comments.

As the victims and the media are crowing - it's okay to say sorry but action is what really matters.

Cardinal Pell says that he has already said sorry to the Fosters and that his apology still stands - however, that is not what they want from him and the Church.

I've never doubted they are doing something about it. (However, too little too late.)

I have never said I believe;
Quote:

that other churches and institutions are not harbouring pedophiles

But do you not think that if they were doing it even  "to a lesser extent' then we would also be seeing the stories in the papers and news, seeing those churches sued, those vicars, preists, parsons, pastors, clerics, etc outed as abusers, and seeing that abuse exposed?

However, we are not.

The catholic church has been a home to, and harboured, given succour too, and enabled paedophiles. It stands head and shoulders above all others in this.

Taken with its illogical stances on contraception and abortion, and its leeching off the poor, its hoarding of wealth and its fascistic structure,  it is not a wholesome enterprise.

Pommy Bastard wrote on Jul 22^nd, 2008 at 5:57pm:

....it is not a wholesome enterprise.

What an understatement!

;)

However, we are not.

Yes we are.

Then I trust you will post them?

Google is a wonderful thing. Here's all that missing information:

http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=anglican+pedophile&meta=

Did you actually check the links, and the articles linked to, before posting that?

I looked at some of them. Those Anglicans sure have a lot to answer for....

Not from what I read. Most of it was speculative, unsubstantiated,and seemed to come from catholic sources, very little hard factual evidence at all.

Religions though eh? A pox on the lot of them. (But the biggest pox on cathlicism  ;) )

That's because the Anglican church is covering it up, whereas the Catholic church is dealing with it openly. They should be congratulated for their honesty. How many other churches are going to be so open about it if you latch onto any church that publishes the facts?

Since when is only having half the story evidence that the other half isn't there? How come you believe Catholic sources when they admit their own failures but you dismiss those same sources if they acknowledge the failures of other churches? It's not like the Catholics are using this issue to attack other churches.

Quote:

That's because the Anglican church is covering it up, whereas the Catholic church is dealing with it openly.

Tautology, if they are covering it up, how are you aware of it?


Quote:

They should be congratulated for their honesty. How many other churches are going to be so open about it if you latch onto any church that publishes the facts?

Pardon?


Quote:

Since when is only having half the story evidence that the other half isn't there?

Not that I've ever said that it is, so why do you insist on putting words in my mouth?


Quote:

How come you believe Catholic sources when they admit their own failures but you dismiss those same sources if they acknowledge the failures of other churches?

Because the sources are not "the same", and I haven't dismissed them, just noted their lack of supportive evidence.



Quote:

It's not like the Catholics are using this issue to attack other churches.

Well done them, but again, as no one has claimed they are, why should this idea concern us?

What about Peter Hollingworth and friends?

Of course they're doing something about it. They see it as a disgrace. It goes against every one of their teachings.  They might be a bit coy in attracting too much publicity about it, but that's just how the church operates.

- and that goes for Catholics and Anglicans alike.

What do you think Catholics are? A force of evil that secretly condones pedophilia?

muso wrote on Jul 30^th, 2008 at 12:05am:

What do you think Catholics are? A force of evil that secretly condones pedophilia?

Yes.  :-?

Do you get your info from south park?

freediver wrote on Jul 30^th, 2008 at 2:20pm:

Do you get your info from south park?

Nope.

Pommy Bastard wrote on Jul 30^th, 2008 at 12:19pm:

muso wrote on Jul 30th, 2008 at 12:05am: What do you think Catholics are? A force of evil that secretly condones pedophilia? Yes.  :-?

Interesting. A very monochrome viewpoint. I conclude that you  believe that your behaviour is predominantly guided by fate, luck, or other external circumstances.  Would I be right?

http://wilderdom.com/psychology/loc/LocusOfControlWhatIs.html

muso wrote on Jul 31^st, 2008 at 12:38pm:

Interesting. A very monochrome viewpoint. I conclude that you  believe that your behaviour is predominantly guided by fate, luck, or other external circumstances.  Would I be right? http://wilderdom.com/psychology/loc/LocusOfControlWhatIs.html

I cannot for the life of me fathom how you extract your wildly inaccurate description of me, from the information I have posted.

This place seems to be full of people with an amazing ability to mind read. Unfortunately that ability seems to have over-ridden their ability to debate what is actually written.

Due to this they make up fictions and strawmen accusations. Such a shame.


BTW:
Quote:

mon·o·chrome   –noun 1. a painting or drawing in different shades of a single color.   2. the art or technique of producing such a painting or drawing.   3. the state or condition of being painted, decorated, etc., in shades of a single color.