Original Sin?

Quote: petroglyph

I wonder if anyone is running the numbers to see if attendance is down because of all this exposure, or are parishioners just blithely showing up for mass, like it didn't happen to them so, it won't?

They are showing up because they love Jesus in the Eucharist and they know that their faith is not in a bishop or a priest, but in God.

Quote: FrGamble

They are showing up because they love Jesus in the Eucharist and they know that their faith is not in a bishop or a priest, but in God.

Yeah, that's what all the abhorrent priests
in your midst say too. They are men of god
and Jesus, yet they keep doing what they're
doing because they know they'll be 'forgiven'.
That's quite the system you have there. Escape
clause is built right into it.

This is amazing:

More than 700 educators and Catholic lay leaders have written an open letter urging the United States bishops to tender their collective resignation to Pope Francis in the wake of a string of scandals related to clerical sex abuse. “The catastrophic scale and historical magnitude of the abuse makes clear that this is not a case of ‘a few bad apples’ but rather a radical systemic injustice manifested at every level of the Church,” they state.

This report last week might finally
be the proverbial straw that was
needed to break the camels back.
Time to let priests get married and
weed out the criminal Gays. This
problem will not go away without
radical action.

STATEMENT OF CATHOLIC THEOLOGIANS, EDUCATORS, PARISHIONERS, AND LAY LEADERS ON CLERGY SEXUAL ABUSE IN THE UNITED STATES
https://dailytheology.org/2018/08/17/statement-of-catholic-theologians-educators-parishioners-and-lay-leaders-on-clergy-sexual-abuse-in-the-united-states/

Quote: Evenbob

Yeah, that's what all the abhorrent priests
in your midst say too. They are men of god
and Jesus, yet they keep doing what they're
doing because they know they'll be 'forgiven'.
That's quite the system you have there. Escape
clause is built right into it.

The priests committing these heinous acts are not men of God and they don't keep doing these things because they can be forgiven. They are sick and they don't seem forgiveness. If they had sought forgiveness and were honest with God long ago before their grave sins they would have saved their souls, protected precious children, and avoided this sacrilegious scandal.

Thinking you can sin just because you can be forgiven is called the sin of presumption, so no escape clause there, good try though.

Quote: FrGamble

The priests committing these heinous acts are not men of God .

And yet they get forgiven when caught,
say they're sorry, and they're moved to
another job where they continue
molesting. It's a racket, it's all internal
within the Church. It needs to see the
light of day, the Church needs to be
transparent. Don't hold your breath
waiting for the most secretive
organization on earth to do that any
day soon.

I agree that it all needs to see the light of day and many, many others inside the Church and out of it agree too. It is already happening. Take a look at the number of cases before 2002 and after. That is when mandatory background checks and education about abuse were required for everyone who worked or volunteers in the Church began. It is also when strict reporting rules and investigative boards went into place in the Church.

Quote: FrGamble

Take a look at the number of cases before 2002 and after.

That's like Ford, instead of dropping
the Pinto, just came out with
statements that 'Pinto's hardly ever
blow up any more.'

After 2002 there should have been NO
more pedo incidents. But they continued,
they just got more careful.

The Church did a lot of work after the Boston scandal to strive to get to NO more cases of child sexual abuse and to change the culture.

Hey, but instead of singing the Church's praises right now why don't we focus on its failures. The Grand Jury report exposes the fact that a lot of the same bishops who were all about changing the way things were done in 2002 had for many years previous been doing exactly the same things they were railing against. They were using all types of excuses, but it boils down to the fact that they were protecting child abusers and siding with the perps rather than the victims. They were not turning these cases over to law enforcement and they were implicitly or explicitly using faith to ask for silence from the victims and those in the know. This is reprehensible. You don't have to go your normal route of making stuff up and exaggerating. You saying that they just got more careful or are documenting screams of torture are just you missing what is really happening right in front of you that may be worse than the made up stuff and extrapolation you like to do.

Quote: FrGamble

Hey, but instead of

Lets just cut to the chase. The
Church will NEVER get rid of the
problem unless they get rid
of the Gay subculture of predators
in the hierarchy that the cardinal
spoke about. Way too many Gays
are fixated on young boys and
you'll never change that.

You can make all kinds of rules and
set up all kinds of safeguards, they'll
always find ways around them. It's
like teaching your dog not to eat
a raw steak set in front of him. He'll
obey until you leave the room, then
temptation will always get the better
of him.

Change the Gay structure of the Church,
that's the core problem.

Quote: FrGamble

I agree that it all needs to see the light of day and many, many others inside the Church and out of it agree too. It is already happening. Take a look at the number of cases before 2002 and after. That is when mandatory background checks and education about abuse were required for everyone who worked or volunteers in the Church began. It is also when strict reporting rules and investigative boards went into place in the Church.

So far, from the church, we have seen statements of apology and condemnation, a claim that things have been better in the last 15 years, and that steps will be taken to prevent it from happening again.

What we have not seen - statements that a world-wide investigation with full disclosure will take place. Yes, I think that is necessary, even if most of what they might uncover might not be punishable by the law.

As for cases since 2002, which you also brought up - how many cases were exposed in the 15 years before 2002? It takes time for these cases to turn up, for people aging enough, healing enough, to even thinking about coming forward.

Even if cases of abuse we're greatly reduced since then, they all need to be uncovered, and there need to be real consequences, not just a "mea culpa" and assuring us that everything is just fine now.

Obviously everything is not just fine now, or there would be nothing else to do, but they are making statements about taking further steps to reduce abuse.

I wouldn't be surprised if another RICO case (yes, another) was brought against the church.

I think, from this and your subsequent posts, that you probably agree with me on a lot of this.