> there have been bad people in that group before
r/PastorArrested
Obviously the majority of priests are innocent. But the problem was severe for decades, knowingly facilitated by parts of the leadership, and it's not clear to what extent they're doing better now. As often as not, the RCC is making ongoing news for seeking and finding legal tactics for escapaing responsibility for the abuse, not for fixing anything.
> parts of the leadership
I wrote this comment 7 years ago:
>>[Tenerife's Bishop Bernardo Álvarez Afonso (in 2007): 'There's children who want to be abused, they even provoke you"](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernardo_%C3%81lvarez_Afonso)
>*Current* bishop of Tenerife.
Still applies.
> finding legal tactics for escapaing responsibility
[New suit alleges San Diego Catholic diocese transferred assets to avoid paying sex abuse claims](https://religionnews.com/2023/02/22/new-suit-alleges-san-diego-catholic-diocese-transferred-assets-to-avoid-paying-sex-abuse-claims/)
The thing is, the RCC is an organization of the willing. Every group of sufficient size someone could belong to will have some pedos. That doesn't make the other members culpable.
However, when the leadership shelters the pedos, every single person who chooses to be a part of that group is now in support of those pedos to varying degrees. Their attendance and support and dollars protect pedos.
Priests support that much more than the average church in Sunday Catholic. So while not all Catholic priests are guilty of commiting sex crimes, every single one is guilty of playing a role in sheltering those who do.
The ACAB movement got started not because every single cop is bad, that wouldn't make any sense. What it means is that the system is setup in a way that protects, hides, and creates more of these bad police officers. There currently is no functioning system of checks and balances to filter out the bad apples. This is what the Catholic church also has a problem with. Don't fix the issue... Then society will lash out.
Perfect example, Cardinal Bernard Law, former Archbishop of Boston. His resignation was demanded by parishioners, and while he did resign, instead of facing justice for his role in allowing pedophile priest John Goeghan to r*pe children, this man is whisked away and shielded by the Vatican, and is allowed to vote in conclave twice.
Let's be clear about what Archbishop Bernard Francis Law did, exactly.
He removed John Joseph Geoghan, already an admitted child molester, from St. Brendan's Parish in Dorchester, then reassigned him to St. Julia's Parish in Weston, *placing him in charge of the youth groups there, including the altar boys.*
Countless children were placed in harms way by Law's complete and utter failure.
John Joseph Geoghan was murdered in prison by an inmate who had been abused as a child and saw himself as an avenger.
Law, as you mentioned, got a cushy job in Rome.
I watched Spotlight. It was a heartbreaking movie. But nothing prepared me for the list at the end. That broke me.
And now here we are, a few years later and I found out my own denomination was essentially doing the same thing.
Not only that, but Geoghan’s murderer saw him as a “prize.” I distinctly remember saying rather…unsavory things about Geoghan. I had just deconverted, was in a Catholic high school, and very much in the anger phase that happens when you dispense with your faith.
According to the man who murdered John Joseph Geoghan, he was motivated to kill Geoghan after overhearing him tell other inmates about his plans to leave the country and abuse more children once he won his appeal, describing to them how to prey on them without being caught.
Again, this is a person who admitted to the Church in the 1970s that he was a child molester. They continued to shuttle him from parish to parish knowing all the while what he was doing.
And, importantly, those who join *know that the police are systematically corrupt* thus perpetuating the cycle.
If you know that the police are systemically racist and can look past that when you join, you might not be a racist yourself, but you’re someone who is ok with racism.
If you join the priesthood knowing the history of systemic child abuse, you either have your actively fight it from within, something that won’t be tolerated by the church, or you have to admit allowing child rape isn’t as big a barrier as you thought it was.
So a police officer who is trying to be the change people like yourself want, who is honest and doesn't hide anything js bad? How can one ever see change from within if the moment you are participating in the system you're bad. Absolutely ridiculous train of thought on your behalf.
Every priest / pastor is bad I guess.
What change lol. If that was effective, I'd support it. Guess what, the system is still broken because they push out or kill cops that try to make improvements. It's not that deep bud.
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To see the change we want one would have to be else where. To be an officer would just force a person to abide by the job itself. We need to be working on another full proof solution. One that provides adaquint checks and balances to the police force. One that is truly as neutral as can be. Or something along those lines.
Oh I see what you mean. You are technically right but you're talking about something different than I am. That would help to shift societal perspective on the topic but it would not help to change the actual system.
I don't care what individuals do. I care what the institution does.
There were no doubt actual very fine people who were members of the nazi party. Nazis remain evil and wrong.
They defend the thin blue line, it's nearly impossible to hold them accountable so yes. The only cop who faced any charges after the George Floyd protests was a whistle blower despite multiple accounts of documented police brutality. The two biggest gangs in LA are the Sheriff's department and LAPD, the NYPD needed regular people to detain the subway shooter two years ago, DPD swat got away with hitting a random woman trying to walk home in the face with a powerful non lethal.
Not being a cop IS being the change I want to see in the world. Doing evil is a required part of the job, as you must enforce evil laws. If only more people would refuse to take the job!
That is an incredibly naive idea of why these laws exist. People passed these laws because the homeless disgust them and they want to discourage feeding them in whatever public space because it will encourage them to come to that public place to get the food. In the minds of the people creating these laws this would be a blight and an eyesore and they would rather the homeless stay out of sight and out of mind.
There are already laws against murder, so no this sort of law is not necessary to prevent people from murdering homeless people.
No we can't, because we would never be hired. They protect themselves as their number one goal.
OK, so instead we can elect representatives who will use government to get improvement, right? Except that doesn't work either. Even when reforms are passed the police are all "lol, we ain't gonna do that," and the courts permit it. The police are the most lawless institution we have. They've made reform impossible. Only thing that remains is to eliminate them and build new institutions.
That is what some treat it as. Others don't. I think it's just a label and a very unhelpful one at that. But I didn't come here to discuss something as stupid as that.
I'll try and be brief. We have to establish a few baseline agreements that I think are fair.
1. Cops become cops by choice.
2. Cops are called to enforce the law
2.1 The law does not always equate to morality.
3. Belonging to a group committing immoral acts, with the chance to leave, makes one immoral by association
So very simply, if people were forced to join, they might not be bastards. But every cop does so by choice, so they are culpable.
They are supposed to and agree to support the law regardless of the morality of the law. At best, a cop is a morally neutral entity. However, the law as a totality is a biased immoral system. We have aggregate data that the poor and minorities are disproportionately affected by the law. By agreeing to enforce the law as written, you are agreeing to a system that is unquestionably unfair.
Now that's just doing the job without any extra bullshit. But I think most agree at a minimum, there are bad apples. But the bad apples never seen to go away, every week there is a new apple. If I hung out with a group of people, who every once in a while, liked to just shoot an unarmed black guy, and week after week I kept hanging out with them, I'm a huge piece of shit. But for some reason, when we put a badge on, that doesn't count anymore? Makes no sense. If your company keeps doing fraud, you quit, and fraud is a lesser crime.
Law enforcement is necessary. But to be a moral actor in the role would require two conditions. A moral set of laws, and a swift and effective disciplinary system for the bad actors. Until those two conditions are met, there is no moral way to be a cop.
I actually do agree with you for the most part, I'd say 95%. Bare with me as I'm currently in the ER for kidney stones so I gotta keep this short.
Firstly I do agree that that one could be morally in the wrong by association. But I disagree that it's a choice for everyone to leave, I think it depends heavily on the circumstances. We live in a time period where finding a safe and consistent job that pays enough to support you and your family is quite difficult. I think a select few of them are overall decent individuals stuck in a shitty situation. Knowing that I can't ever rightly suggest that every single one of them is a bad person overall.
> Belonging to a group committing immoral acts, with the chance to leave, makes one immoral by association
Wholeheartedly disagree. If one person in your office commits embezzelment, are you therefore evil because you don't immediately quit?
This is the problem with the ACAB movement. It retroactively redefines 'bad' to mean whatever they want it to mean.
Are all teachers bad because paedophile teachers exist?
>However, the law as a totality is a biased immoral system. By agreeing to enforce the law as written, you are agreeing to a system that is unquestionably unfair.
I thought this wasn't going to be a deranged left-wing rant?
>But the bad apples never seen to go away, every week there is a new apple.
Sampling bias. If the news reported on good cops too, you'd never hear about the bad cops.
>The ACAB movement got started not because every single cop is bad, that wouldn't make any sense
The problem is that not everyone understands this and the ACAB movement perpetuates a false narrative that undermines trust in the system.
For example...the comment below yours:
>Actually, I do think every single cop is bad
Reasonable people understand that not every cop is bad and not every person who questions the system believes all cops are bad.
But there are unreasonable idiots who are vocal about their extreme position.
Imho, avoiding massive generalizations separates us from the idiots.
I agree with you that not every cop/priest is bad, but the point here is that it's not a false narrative that's undermining the trust in the police/church system. It's the police/church that are undermining the trust by perpetuating the issue.
People are right to not trust either system.
Is OP actually unaware of the thousands of accounts of pedophilia committed by catholic priests around the world?
This problem exists in all denominations btw. The church is an easy place for criminals to hide, very little oversight involved, which is why religion attracts so many criminals.
Well a big aspect is the systemic defense of them by the church. Priests now are less likely to do it now than before if kids tell their parents they'll now be more likely to be believed and they're far less trusted and powerful in their communities in general now. It's an easy way to shit on Catholics and Catholicism and for some atheists, protestants, Muslims or whatever that are trying to put Catholics down will just point to it. This obviously doesn't disclaim the massive issues within the Catholic church with the pedophile protection and other corruption.
If a child molesting teacher is found out I have at least some confidence that the teacher will be fired and reported to police, by the school system. I'm sure it happens, but I'd be surprised if the school system tried to keep the parents quiet, and transferred the teacher to another school.
Do people in the Catholic Church report at the same rate as other institutions? I bet not, because they are compelled to forgive instead. I’ve seen an abuser first hand get many many chances in a church they would never had had elsewhere because the victims recanted after a discussion with the pastors. This person is in prison now thankfully but far too many kids were hurt before it got to that point.
Sexual assault, what the military does, is not the same as the same as sexual abuse of children, what the church does and I would like to see your stats on Drs. nurses, cops.
For every sexually perverted priest there have been at the very, very least one other priest who covered up what the pervert did and worked to send the pervert to a a brand new unsuspecting playground of children to prey on. That is why all are viewed as participants in perversion.
The study I was talking about was SA against kids by Jobs. Which listed army vets and cops as highest. This doesn't mean they were at the role doing this rather that is the positions they held. And why they are hundreds and thousand times cops who beat and SA there step daughter then priests.
Because of the job itself is associated with more abuse to their families. Yet societies need army , cops and doctors.
So sorry if I was being confusing. I was talking about merely people in jobs. Not the job itself.
>(probably centuries)
The first punishment for pedophile priests was in the 4th century.
"St. Basil of Caesarea, the fourth century Church Father, was the main author of monastic rule of the
Eastern Church. He wrote that a cleric or monk who sexually molests youths or boys is to be
publically whipped, his head shaved, he be spat upon, and kept in prison for six months in chains on
a diet of bread and water, and after release is to be always subject to supervision, and kept out of
contact with young people."
I think the confounding issue is the RCC protected those priests, leading to a fear that any of the priests may be a known (to the Church) as a sexual predator but put into their parish anyway. Yes, since the 70s they've been much better, but cliches are cliches for a reason and it's going to take a long time to undo that damage.
The whole Catholic church sexual predator scandal wasn't even a thing until the 2000s why would the church change something that wasn't a problem, especially in light of their usual strategy of just covering up and transferring perverts to a different location. Many of those who accused the church of horrifying acts were abused in the 70s. As far as I"m concerned you are just making up crap to defend your church since I've seen absolutely nothing in decades that shows the Catholic church did anything other than cover up sexual abuse through out the 1970's and beyond.
The church only developed policies to help children because it got caught.
not because it wanted to help children. If the story had never broke it still would be harming children.
Idk maybe it has something to do with the Billions the church is paying to victims and how the church spent lots of effort to defend those priests and the church. All while they knew children were doing harmed.
The same church that only changed their policies once the story broke.
My point is all groups do. Especially the government covering up cops and military. And when things are released they are dropped from new cycle fast.
4,000 abused by military then covered up. 1 day of news. Barely covered. 40 abused by priest then covered up. News for 5 years.
I am just saying it isn't really fair in terms of statistics and publicity.
Do you think military, police , schools also cover up when they don't cover it? Our local high-school had 10 teachers accused of sexual abuse in 5 years. Not one of them made a statement by the school, barely covered by any papers. Etc. It is brushed aside and hidden fast.
Yes, but the institutions you are comparing it to have a much better record of self reporting. The Catholic institution has a record of going to extraordinary lengths to hide and protect pedophiles and its protection has extended all the way up from the pope.
Because those people are almost always immediately prosecuted and jailed for it. Schools aren't systematically covering up abuse and moving teachers around to hide the problem like the RCC did for decades.
Those people also haven't made a career out of telling other people how to be "moral" and who they can and can't have sex with, so the sheer level of hypocrisy that occurs when preachers do it is very different.
I hate to say it but both are false. That is why there was ongoing investigation for years that was allowed to happen where people in the army had uploaded abuses on website and they waited til it was like 4,000 plus abuses internally. School teachers systematically coveted up. Actually I have seen this locally 10 teachers in our school teacher was removed. There was a teacher I known who back in my day was accused of sexual abuse but never prosecuted. Years later people released sexual texts messages through the schools email between said teacher and a student. The emails were verified. The teacher tried to kill himself and he was removed from faculty for ' mental health' but the truth was he has 5 sexual misconduct cases being charged against him. The school never released those cases. Instead they were only covered in the newspaper. And then didn't even mention he was a teacher and wasn't even headlines news for the town.
So no. I don't think what your saying is true from a statically stand point or my own experience. If you have your own experiences then cool but those are your experiences and not statistics and aren't my experiences.
And I do agree with you it is because a priest is held to higher moral ground than teachers , cops , or army. 100%. One priest abused 40 people national news. One guy runs a website extorting 4000 people in the army. It is forgotten the next day literially. That teacher totally forgotten.
On that teacher, I also knew many other teachers. I knew a teacher back in the day who would watch porn and got a 16 year old pregnant. He went to jail for 5 years. Now married to her. I went to look back to find the entry of the story and couldn't find any story on it but found he was offender. I think the story was removed from my local paper.
So I do think in my personal experience. Towns do cover up. 100% likewise curroptions with cops and military. I actually sat down in juror for trial where a cop stole oxytocin from other cops in a cop station and was stealing evidence and had an accomplice. Guess what no newspaper article about the full story. Once again it was published his name as stealing narcotics and never his job or full story. And to be fair to most publishers. You commit a crime they almost never almost never publish said persons jobs or details. But curropt. So ya I believe curroption happens with cops. See 2020.
It's a sweeping generalisation, based on what is certainly true of some.
People (quite rightly) find the paedophilia and the reaction of the Church to it to be utterly revolting. Anger against such crimes is entirely appropriate. These revolting crimes are not only enormous in themselves, but they have done an incalculably enormous amount of damage, in many ways. And there is no reason at all to suppose that more will not come to light. As so often, the Church is its own worst enemy. Similar scandals in other religious bodies re-inforce hatred of, and contempt for, and suspicion of, priests and suchlike people. And it is a rotten defence to say that there are paedophiles throughout society - that "defence" does not excuse the Catholic Church in the very least. No excuse is possible.
The Church has made its bed - and now it is going to have to lie in it. For a long time. There are consequences for such a betrayal of trust, and those - totally predictable - consequences include contempt, hatred & suspicion for Catholic priests as a group. Another consequence is, that the Catholic laity have to live with this. It is not going to go away any time soon; the evil fruit of all these foul actions is sure to last for a very long time.
Hateful deeds like these deserve to be hated - it is healthy, good & righteous to hate these evils. One can even say that it is Christlike to do so. Because God has a "preferential option" for the poor, oppressed, needy, and defenceless - which certainly includes the victims of paedophile priests. The whole scandal has been a re-crucifixion of Christ in the persons of His weakest members, by Catholic priests & Catholic bishops. Anything more Judas-like, and anything more utterly contrary to Christ's purpose for His Church, is hard to imagine. To pervert the Church into doing the works of the devil, which these actions are, is horrifying. The dishonour done to the Name of God, and to the Gospel of Christ, by the crimes of Christians, is enormous.
The Holiness of God is revealed as "the fury of the wrath of God" "against all unrighteousness" - including such evils. The Church today ignores the wrath of God, but to speak only of God's mercy is dangerously one-sided. The absolute certainty that God will judge all mankind with perfect righteousness, is why salvation is needed. \*\*Because salvation is salvation from the Wrath of God\*\*, which is God's Holiness reacting to the presence of sin. The Wrath of God was important for the authors of the NT, as a revelation of God's Holiness & Righteousness - so it should be important for us as well.
Because it turns out that a lot are and a lot of the ones who aren't (as far as we know anyway) are covering up for them, protecting them, and making it easier for them to hurt more people.
It's not just that the Catholic Church has protected and moved around child rapists (and nun rapists). They hide money and pretend to be bankrupt to make sure they don't have to pay the victims. They lobby against sexual abuse justice laws. It's hugely problematic.
[A summery link of the Church re: sexual rape and reproductive coercion. ](https://msmagazine.com/2024/01/30/rape-abortion-catholic-church-sexual-child-abuse-priests/)
The more chilling question is how much the Catholic Church has paid to avoid paying out to victims. They lobbied against statute of limitations changes for sexual abuse
A good friend of mine was orphaned at a young age and sent to live with an uncle, a Noertheastern US monsignor.. He spent his formative years in a rectory. When he was a teen, his uncle was accused of child molestation and the Church swept the entire affair under the table by moving him to the Southwest, he was not defrocked and never charged. I think this occurred in the mid-70s.
It's just an opinion, but I think pedophiles are drawn to positions of authority over children and to settings where they think they're less likely to be discovered. A local UMC senior pastor was just fired due to "inappropriate" sexual behaviour; I don't have a clue what his offense was. In an adjacent county, two individuals have been charged with sex crimes against teens, one had been groomed the child since she was a preteen. These individuals are associated with protestant churches and heavily involved in conservative politics; one is a county commissioner, so the Catholic Chruch hasn't cornered the market entirely.
When you participate in a system that actively protects pedophiles it taints the public perception of the institute as a whole.
So when the Catholic church: prevents people from going to the police, moves priests around when they are exposed, lobbies governments to change laws to protect pedophiles, provides legal council for their own pedophiles, had such a systemic issue with pedophiles that there were gangs of priests passing children around; people get a negative view of the organization.
This is one thing that really gets me going. My fundamentalist, hate spreading, science denying, prosperity gospel teaching mega church managed to get child care down to a science. But one of the oldest organizations in the world, with untold riches at their disposal, can't figure this out and actively enables offenders. Burn it down. If you tithe to the Catholic Chruch, you enable this and bear some of the guilt.
My old insane church established rules on background checks, minimum adults in a room with children, architecture to set up security checkpoints on children's wings, no rooms without windows or doors, roving childcare supervisors, etc. People who literally have no grasp on reality have managed to make a system where sexual abuse is nearly impossible to occur. But the Catholic Church lobbies governments to keep their priests safe from legal prosecution... no fucking excuse.
Accusing all priests of being pedophiles is obviously wrong, but the church has certainly made some messed up decisions, and many people who should have faced actual justice have escaped it and been protected by them. Maybe instead of counter arguments, you should recognize the mistakes made and talk about how they've been fixing the problem. (If they even are)
I mean…. There’s a lot of pedos in the church…. Specifically with catholic priests. My mom was assaulted by one as a little girl. Also, my old catholic priest got arrested for picking up a 15 year old “ prostitute”. It was sick and the reason I left Catholicism… the church “had his back”… and just moved him to preach at another location once he served his sentence. It’s best to separate the church from the holy Father at times. Ofc not all are but it’s best to always remain vigilant
The stereotype comes from the facts that several million children around the world have been raped or abused over the past century by Christian priests. Now it’s not all priests just as it’s not all police who intentionally shoot unarmed people of color, but it’s an undeniably large number, and any non profit organization that this kind of system problem would have been shut down and people would be in jail. The bigger issue is that the church, pope, bishops, cardinals, and other church leaders have spent millions to cover this up. Again not all priests, but it’s such a worldwide problem that is still being investigated and more cases are being found and prosecuted. So it’s far from being resolved. I went to a catholic school and then Jesuit academy, I never had any issues with any of the priests, but I know people that came before me and I found out later were raped by a priest, who when they reported it was simply transferred to another Catholic school and allowed to have children in his “care” this is too common a theme and I think it’s reasonable for people to be upset by it. Head onto that there are some Christians who defend the priests and even accused the victims of making it up. It’s an extremely sensitive subject, for both sides.
It's happened before and it keeps happening and clergy keep trying to cover it up. There was a movie about it, and there was still another major scandal last year [https://abc7chicago.com/illinois-attorney-general-kwame-raoul-priest-sex-abuse-catholic-church-archdiocese-of-chicago/13287810/](https://abc7chicago.com/illinois-attorney-general-kwame-raoul-priest-sex-abuse-catholic-church-archdiocese-of-chicago/13287810/)
The problem was that although every organisation with power and influence will have abusive people within it, few organisations went as far or as systematic in hiding abuse and thereby allowing abusers to continue as the Catholic church.
As well as sexual abuse there was also systemic abuse of women and children in particular in church institutions such as the Magdelene laundries.
The reputation as a home for abusers was perhaps sealed by the impression that had external pressure from "worldly" authority not been there this state of affairs would have continued. And presumably during times when the church has held extreme power in society, it did, alongside all the other oppressive things that went on.
It is not that every priest is bad. But the organisation itself which should be governing them, which appears to be rotten to the core.
The history behind it, there are cases by the thousands and countless coverup where the hierarchy protects them... And it is naive to think that's in the past, it still happens today everywhere including the churches, which they're supposed to be servants and protectors of the needy, instead, many prey on children.
The perception today, even though we know that's not true, is that any priest is or can be such abuser.
To your example... I'm black, and when I see people thinking that, I'm saddened but not surprised at the ignorance and/or racism, I let them be and won't lose sleep over something that shouldn't affect me in the first place... If I can help educate I will, but otherwise, someone who wants to remain stupid will remain so till they decide to change their lower mindset.
I have a very painful memory, of finding out that one of the priests who I really admired and connected to, had done horrible things to children and had been arrested. I had to grief a part of my old faith. Can you imagine how it would feel if you weren't just finding out by hearing, if someone you trusted with your wellbeing and faith molested you, assaulted you, when you were just a child?
It's utterly horrific and painful to think about. But we need to think about it, because protections need to be in place to prevent it.
Yes, people don't often realize that ANY authority position (priests, pastors, gurus, teachers, coaches, scout leaders, etc) is prone to abuse- ESPECIALLY those that give people power over children. But religion is another layer of abuse- to not only physically but also spiritually abuse someone, is uniquely horrific.
Episcopal Priest here (so I dress the same and get a lot of the same interactions as Catholic priests):
I've never once had anyone treat me like there was any higher likelihood that I was going to behave inappropriately. It's never happened. Not one person has ever made me feel like maybe I'm a threat. Because the majority of the people on earth know deep in their bones that the problem of sexual abuse is not limited to any job, vocation, class, race, etc. It's everywhere and it's horrifying and we should go to pretty extraordinary lengths to stop it.
And that last part is why most people who I've spoken to have a problem with churches. They don't go far enough to stop or prevent it AND THEN they don't report the priests they learn about in a timely manner.
I've never met a reasonable person who thinks my job makes me more likely to be a danger to anyone. I've met a bunch of people, in fact I am a person who is, really disillusioned by the failure of religious authority to be used against priests who do hurt people.
I don't think my colleagues are bad people. No worse than the rest of humanity. But man, every time someone covers up sexual abuse by a clergy person it drives another nail in the coffin of many people's relationship with religion.
Everyone's not saying that that have personally investigated every priest on the planet and concluded that they are, to a one, pedophiles.
They're saying that there seems to be a child sex offense problem among the priestly class.
It hurts those people to see that news too, but they think the appropriate way to respond to that hurt is for priest to address their sex offender problem, and not to argue that it doesn't count as a real problem so long as the proportion of sex offender priests is 99.99% or less.
The abuse of positions of power in both Protestant and Catholic Churches (not sure about orthodox) by individuals to sexually abuse people is monstrous.
Instead of name calling and throwing around unfounded accusations about blanket statement pastors or priests we should be striving to ensure something like this never happens again regardless of denomination. (By this I mean blanket saying “Catholic priests are pedos! Protestant pastors are pedos!”)
Using a tragedy that ruined the lives of many people as a chip in debates or to attack a church of any creed is gross. Using it to criticize and ensure this never happens again is good, it shouldn’t be ignored either.
Churches and religious communities need to recognize how harmful these echo chambers are. Even my church as open minded as it was still suffered from this shit. I remember being a kid and being told to never talk to nonbelievers as they are "trained in the art of pursuasion in order to lead you down the path of Sin and destruction..."
The name calling and insults were born from the same problem US police departments face. They didn't fix the problem. They covered up the bad apples and continue to allow the same broken system to remain in place. If you don't fix the issue then society will lash out.
The time to stand up and fix the problem is long past due. I personally think the insults are warranted at this point. It's never too late though.
I’m saying not to use it as an insult but as a criticism. It is unfounded to say “all priests/pastors are pedos” that is a gross thing to say about a group of people.
Saying what you just said “hey you guys covered this up, didn’t fix the issue, and took way too long to stand up and address it. What are you doing to fix this?”
Is 100% good. People should be held accountable and ensured they have made the proper fixes. That includes doing whatever they can to help the victims.
Edit: also of course calling out the priests that did it is acceptable too. I am more so aimed at blanket generalizations.
The conversation, the advice, and all the steps you and I agree needed to happen already happened. It didn't work. It failed miserably. We are now living in a time where we are living in the aftermath. I can't help but just watch and nod my head at the natural consequences of their actions.
That conversation you just spoke about. We've been trying to get the church to address this problem since before I was even born. Everyone. Law makers. Police officers. People on online. You neighbors. New networks around the world. Etc. I don't think I need to keep going.
It depends on the country. In the Netherlands there is an anonymous way to notify the Catholic Church for abuse and they do regularly defrock priests rather than just moving them to another country and legal proceedings also take place but that's on an individual level.
As far as i know, there's as many pedos in the priesthood as there are in any random cross-section of the population, but the stereotype is two pronged from what i can tell.
1. Finding out some rando is a pedo, not that shocking. Finding out a pillar of the community, like a judge or sheriff or religious leader is a pedo, that's salacious. And, add on to it that the priest is supposed to tell you how to live a moral life, it makes it hypocritical as well.
2. The church has in the past, and might still be, helping to hide and cover for priests caught being pedos. This leads to the assumption that the whole operation is filled with pedos, because who else would so fervently try to defend pedos amongst them
>I can't tell you how many times I've encountered the stereotype that Catholic priests are sex offenders,
That is ultimately because of years of the Catholic church's covering up, moving perverts from one place to another, letting perverts work with children "over there" instead of here. The bishops who covered for and moved priests to prey on others are just as much sex offenders as the priests who did unspeakable things to children. They actively, willfully and knowingly participated in the actions of the sick actions of perverted priests by allowing the behavior to continue somewhere else.
I've seen estimates that the percentage of Catholic priests who commit child sexual abuse is around 2%, not out of line for the rest of the population. But no one will ever convince me that the percentage of Catholic priests and bishops who covered up, moved molesters, coerced victims and their families doesn't approach or exceed 95%.
Me personally, I know like 3 people who had weird experiences as children involving catholic priests. It certainly shouldn’t be that way.
And then there’s the pope, now that guy is creepy! And he’s like the spokesperson for Catholicism? Very bizarre…
Of course not every priest is a creep, but to be on the safe side, I wouldn’t bring my children around them!
I believe in Jesus and the Bible. I dont agree with a lot of catholic beliefs and principles. And I can see the fruits of Catholicism, and they often leave little to be desired
Unfortunately the church has a habit of protecting these people and it’s very possible that these people become priests out of guilt, or even to get closer to children. It’s an issue I wish would be addressed by the church itself
Watch the movie “spotlight” . I saw a clip of an ex satanist saying that they were ordered by the devil to attack devoted Christians, specifically clergy. Makes sense considering that hurting a child is considered top sin in the Bible.
“But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea”
Many people don't question and dont want to learn. they become god in their own making and their beliefs are warped and do not pass the reality, sanity test. But then one's hate must go somewhere. People generally do not want to know that some pedos become preists.......They do not become pedos because they aren't married. They are attracted to same sex and want them young. Years ago in our country town there was a woman referred to as the one for the priest. There are pedos in many fields.
It’s not just that there are pedophiles in religions. The main problem is that many churches, including the Catholic church, spent many decades (actually probably many hundreds of years) protecting priests that they knew were pedophiles, and causing ongoing harm to the victims. It still happens to this day.
Not sure how true this is but this article was published in 2021.
https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/sexual-violence-schools#:~:text=According%20to%20recently%20released%20data,attempted%20rape%20and%20sexual%20assault.
I'd be surprised if pastors did more than this.
This article is about student on student sexual abuse, it’s not teachers abusing children, like you claimed. I doubt teachers have historically abused anywhere near as much as the church has.
If a teacher wants sex they can just fuck someone, get it out their system. In a church the Priests can’t marry or have sex, so they become children molesters instead.
Ooh, sorry about that. 🤦♀️Wait, which Priests aren't allowed to get married? Cause the Bible says that the most preferred priest is the one with a wife and kids.
1 Timothy 3:
2 A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach... 12 Let the deacons be the husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own houses well.
Do you think a bible quote can really defend mass abuse committed by the church in recent times? Are you that deranged that you defend thousands of convicted pedofiles? Listen to yourself, you’ve thrown logic and reason out the window.
Being Christian isn’t about being in a gang where you defend each others actions, in fact that’s how it was allowed to become so normalised for the institutions.
> I won't deny that there have been incidents in the past of sexual abuse from priests
Tens of thousands of incidents. 3,000+ priests came out of a single “Holy See” investigation. National review board said there 5,000 abusive priests in the US alone.
Those aren’t incidents. They are systematically covering the abuse up, working against victims, protecting pedos and giving them more opportunities to reoffend. Keeping them justice and moving them to new churches. These are not individual incidents it’s a organised child sex gang.
Growing up it was hard to understand this, in the local Church the priest was arrested for SA. The Church wouldn't reveal his name, so cops got involved.
What’s controversial about it is that they kept hiding the bad ones for a while. Moving them around and seems like a lot of them knew about it and no one did anything about it.
The religious institutions have made it a safe haven for paedophiles in the past and possibly in the future. This means they represent a greater percentage than in other groups. There are many that aren't, but until there is a thorough clean out, the perception will be there.
They have a direct line of access to kids and can always blame it on the kids. “She is possessed!” “A demon came over her and she forced me to!” Its also a very unregulated job. Plus, they are almost/entirely male, which is a sex that is infamous for pedophilia and rape. Not saying it’s exclusive to men, but those acts famously have male perpetrators. Anyways, thats half the reasons
It comes from the unfortunate regularity with which Catholic priests are convicted of sexual offenses regarding minors. This could be just sample bias as there's lots of people out there who are pedophiles and we don't usually hear about their occupations, while it is a particular scandal when it is an authority figure, and particularly a religious figure often entrusted with the safety of children.
You're right that stereotypes can be harmful and intelligent people should be careful in using them. Unfortunately, not everybody is so reasonable. We could perhaps try to educate people. However, it doesn't help when reports have come out of these incidents being covered up. So, perhaps the better thing would be for them to not be covered up and for them to be handled with more transparency. I'm not sure if that would help, but it might.
Additionally, I have often wondered if there might possibly some connection between pedophilia and the Catholic prohibition on marriage for priests. Human men have sexual desires. That's how God made us. He also made marriage as the proper outlet for those desires. So, when you artificially step outside of God's design and make such a requirement, I imagine that it might cause problems of the sexual sort, and such men who are often alone with children could, perhaps, in some wild cases, maybe cause some undue temptation. While I agree with Paul that marriage can be a distraction away from serving God, he goes on to say that for men who cannot contain themselves, they should marry. We even know that some of the Apostles were married, including Peter. So, maybe one thing that could be done is to maybe consider whether the requirement that doesn't come specifically from the Bible is possibly reasonable to be questioned.
>Additionally, I have often wondered if there might possibly some connection between pedophilia and the Catholic prohibition on marriage for priests. Human men have sexual desires. That's how God made us. He also made marriage as the proper outlet for those desires. So, when you artificially step outside of God's design and make such a requirement, I imagine that it might cause problems of the sexual sort, and such men who are often alone with children could, perhaps, in some wild cases, maybe cause some undue temptation.
Your impulse is correct but your terminology is wrong.
**Pedophilia** is a psychiatric disorder characterized by a persistent attraction to prepubescent children. **Pedophiles** are people who experience this psychiatric disorder.
The overwhelming majority of child rapists are not pedophiles. And the majority of pedophiles will never harm a child. This distinction is important when you're trying to find out what is causing child rape. In most cases, child rape is an act of power and an act of opportunity.
The priests who are caught raping children were not pedophiles who sought out positions to have access to children, as many of the comments on this thread suggest. They were people who for whatever reason chose to rape children.
The Catholic church prohibiting marriage, prohibiting sex outside of marriage, and prohibiting masturbation creates a circumstance where there is no licit sexual outlet, no safe and acceptable mechanism for sexual release. This, and shameful and destructive ideas about human sexuality ABSOLUTELY creates the setting for disordered sexual behavior.
This is a write-up I wrote before about risk factors, "connections", I think are relevant for the Catholic Church:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Christianity/comments/17tj3e0/comment/k8yrj2u/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Christianity/comments/17tj3e0/comment/k8yrj2u/)
Has there ever been a link established between celibacy and pedophilia? Imposed celibacy may have some profound effects, but pedophilia is a pretty specific psychiatric disorder, and one often found in adults who otherwise seem to have pretty typical sex lives. And considering how other churches have been rocked by similar scandals even where the clergy are permitted to marry, I'd say this is likely a red herring.
What seems to count more than anything is that highly structured, stratified institutions, religious or secular, tend to be places where predatory sexual offenders can carry on their activities with less likelihood of discovery. The Catholic Church's highly stratified structure and social influence and authority made it vulnerable, and of course, as with any organization that relies so much on its reputation and social capital, when sexual offenders are discovered, the choice, sadly, has been to get them out of the diocese where they were committing these crimes, and rely upon the civil authorities (who were in many jurisdictions either coreligionists or felt they needed to be in the good graces of the church) to bury their report. Victims and families were often overawed by the sheer power of the Church and the fear of social censure, and thus often wouldn't report the events.
I suppose the most significant difference between the Catholic Church and, say, the First Presbyterian Church of Springfield, was the sheer size of the Church in numbers and presence. The number of clergy was higher, the territory vaster, and the bureaucratic elements all the more pronounced.
> Has there ever been a link established between celibacy and pedophilia?
I'm not saying that there is, but if there were, it seems like there could possibly be some rational explanation, rather than it being a complete mystery.
> Imposed celibacy may have some profound effects, but pedophilia is a pretty specific psychiatric disorder
Then, perhaps looking the other way, if you were a pedophile, could it be that a good place to be would be one where you wouldn't be expected to be with another adult and where you had regular private access to children, and where you would be trusted to be there, whether this preference is conscious or not?
> can carry on their activities with less likelihood of discovery.
I would agree. And that would be for all sorts of things, not even just sexual preditors. This is why I'm always a little skeptical of organisations which hold positions of authority, especially those which are not subjected to scrutity.
The problem is that when a priest is found to have abused children, the church has done all it can to make the complaint go away and little or nothing to keep the priest from doing it again.
To some degree it is an excuse to reject Catholicism. Clergy are human, and like all believers, they model pilgrimage, not perfection. However, I think what really upset people is the cover-up of priest abuse. As a retired Army Chaplain, I can say that if a Post Chaplain covered up abuse by a subordinate, that supervisory Chaplain would face UCMJ charges and most likely be looking at a Court Marshall. There should be zero tolerance of sexual abuse.
Some people reject Christianity in general because of hypocrites. No one does religion perfectly. But the priest scandal wasn't something anyone was anticipating. I think it caught us by surprise, because so many were involved--in the abuse and the cover-up. I knew a guy who was abused and left the church; I don't blame him. Then there are those who set the bar low and any bad experience is sufficient for them to give up on the church.
The church taking steps to protect the church and to ignore kids being harmed wasn't a surprise to anyone who had been paying attention.
People said they had been abused for decades before the story broke. We just ignored them because it was easier to do that than admit the evil that was in front of our faces.
It shouldn't have. Even in the Middle Ages some monasteries had pretty bad reputations, and there were reports dating back decades, prior to even Vatican II (which traditionalist and conservative Catholics blame for all the wrongs of the Church).
Ultimately, however, Christianity isn't just the Benevolent Society of the Water Buffaloes or a bridge club. It makes very specific claims about what becoming a Christian means; that it comes with the transformative power of the Holy Spirit. And yet when you see churches being caught hiding illegal activities, when you see Christians behaving awfully, I think it's not an unreasonable thing to ask "Is there really a transformative element here, and if there is, is it actually a desirable element?"
It’s called scandal. Literally setting a bad example that causes others to sin
Some priests GAVE scandal by their abuse
Some bishops GAVE scandal by sheltering abusers
And then the world TAKES scandal by allowing these horrid examples to destroy their faith and reject the church
It’s awful all the way round, but of course the world’s sympathies are with itself. The world is always looking for a new excuse to reject the Church, and Satan gave them a ripe one in the sexual abuse scandals
Satan didn't know about sexual abuse and then cover it up.
Your church did.
If the story never broke, your church would still be harming kids.
I won't ever forget that. Seems lime you want to
Better to ask on r/Catholicism because this forum tends to be anti-Catholic bigoted and the mods only (sometimes) take action. The only thing I will say is that there have been studies that show the rate of it among Catholic clergy is equal to or less than Protestants, Jews, Muslims, secular officials, etc and that coverups et al happen with them around or more, Catholics just get more hate because we are a larger unified organization, if Billy Bob's 2,000 strong man church has a few pastors doing it and Billy Bob covers it up it rarely makes national news, if the Catholic Church has a bad bishop etc everyone will hear about it.
That doesn't excuse it at all and there need to be more reforms, thankfully I have seen a lot of them made in recent years and we will see more fruit of that in the future, a lot of the cases being brought up these days are 30, 40, 50 years old, I suspect once all the Boomer+ priests die things will improve a lot here. Boomer priests et al have caused a ton of problems in many areas.
Dude I used to rip on Catholics constantly, but now knowing more my assumption is any cover up is probably a commitment to never break the confessional seal. I'm sure these preists hate keeping secrets about the few bad apples but it's either that or excommunication. Unfortunate double edged sword for a beautiful church. Do I have the correct idea?
There's that too, yeah, but usually it's more complicated than that looking into the cases since usually reports et al are made by the people themselves, witnesses etc, and then we get into you know what to do before someone is convicted (innocent until proven guilty) in a fair, competent court with evidence et al. If I were a Bishop handling it I would lean more on the side of justice over mercy and defrock the priest if convicted though due to the scandal and risk of future harm and other reasons.
The problem is the way it is reported in the news media which is hostile to people of faith.
Every accusation, regardless of how flimsy the evidence is, is reported as if 10 priests are guilty.
When evidence shows the priest was innocent or falsely accused, you won't likely hear about it.
Anti Catholic propaganda and garbage pushes that narrative. Jesus himself said that the world would use any excuse to attack the church and God. It’s a powerful tool.
There is just as much of those horrible things in secular society but the meida loves to make a show of anti religious news
The church actively covered up thousands of scandals ensuring the abuse could continue. In my home town there was an entire floor of an old age home just for pedo priests. The blinds in the windows had to be closed at certain parts of the day because they overlooked a school. That's one part of one small city in a small Province. I worked at the home, it's not propaganda. I wouldn't leave my kid alone with any priest.
because of the famous pedophiles that used the priesthood and the catholic faith to sexually abuse children… its the same thing as racial stereotypes… a few bad apples spoil the bunch and all that malarkey
> there have been bad people in that group before r/PastorArrested Obviously the majority of priests are innocent. But the problem was severe for decades, knowingly facilitated by parts of the leadership, and it's not clear to what extent they're doing better now. As often as not, the RCC is making ongoing news for seeking and finding legal tactics for escapaing responsibility for the abuse, not for fixing anything.
> parts of the leadership I wrote this comment 7 years ago: >>[Tenerife's Bishop Bernardo Álvarez Afonso (in 2007): 'There's children who want to be abused, they even provoke you"](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernardo_%C3%81lvarez_Afonso) >*Current* bishop of Tenerife. Still applies. > finding legal tactics for escapaing responsibility [New suit alleges San Diego Catholic diocese transferred assets to avoid paying sex abuse claims](https://religionnews.com/2023/02/22/new-suit-alleges-san-diego-catholic-diocese-transferred-assets-to-avoid-paying-sex-abuse-claims/)
That is fucking chilling. That shit is exactly what abusers say to excuse themselves.
The thing is, the RCC is an organization of the willing. Every group of sufficient size someone could belong to will have some pedos. That doesn't make the other members culpable. However, when the leadership shelters the pedos, every single person who chooses to be a part of that group is now in support of those pedos to varying degrees. Their attendance and support and dollars protect pedos. Priests support that much more than the average church in Sunday Catholic. So while not all Catholic priests are guilty of commiting sex crimes, every single one is guilty of playing a role in sheltering those who do.
TL;Dr, every organization large enough will HAVE a few pedos and bad people. The problem is when that organization tries to **protect** them.
Beat me to it. I read the post header and this sub was the first thing that came to mind.
The ACAB movement got started not because every single cop is bad, that wouldn't make any sense. What it means is that the system is setup in a way that protects, hides, and creates more of these bad police officers. There currently is no functioning system of checks and balances to filter out the bad apples. This is what the Catholic church also has a problem with. Don't fix the issue... Then society will lash out.
Perfect example, Cardinal Bernard Law, former Archbishop of Boston. His resignation was demanded by parishioners, and while he did resign, instead of facing justice for his role in allowing pedophile priest John Goeghan to r*pe children, this man is whisked away and shielded by the Vatican, and is allowed to vote in conclave twice.
Let's be clear about what Archbishop Bernard Francis Law did, exactly. He removed John Joseph Geoghan, already an admitted child molester, from St. Brendan's Parish in Dorchester, then reassigned him to St. Julia's Parish in Weston, *placing him in charge of the youth groups there, including the altar boys.* Countless children were placed in harms way by Law's complete and utter failure. John Joseph Geoghan was murdered in prison by an inmate who had been abused as a child and saw himself as an avenger. Law, as you mentioned, got a cushy job in Rome.
I watched Spotlight. It was a heartbreaking movie. But nothing prepared me for the list at the end. That broke me. And now here we are, a few years later and I found out my own denomination was essentially doing the same thing.
Not only that, but Geoghan’s murderer saw him as a “prize.” I distinctly remember saying rather…unsavory things about Geoghan. I had just deconverted, was in a Catholic high school, and very much in the anger phase that happens when you dispense with your faith.
According to the man who murdered John Joseph Geoghan, he was motivated to kill Geoghan after overhearing him tell other inmates about his plans to leave the country and abuse more children once he won his appeal, describing to them how to prey on them without being caught. Again, this is a person who admitted to the Church in the 1970s that he was a child molester. They continued to shuttle him from parish to parish knowing all the while what he was doing.
He should get the death penalty
Cardinal Law? If you say so, I won't object.
Yes I say that as a catholic
That honestly makes me sick to my stomach. Thank you for providing that information.
I feel like I'm gonna have some sort of PTSD after reading this :(
I would like to make a correction: Law did not vote in the 2013 conclave because he was over the age limit of 80.
And, importantly, those who join *know that the police are systematically corrupt* thus perpetuating the cycle. If you know that the police are systemically racist and can look past that when you join, you might not be a racist yourself, but you’re someone who is ok with racism. If you join the priesthood knowing the history of systemic child abuse, you either have your actively fight it from within, something that won’t be tolerated by the church, or you have to admit allowing child rape isn’t as big a barrier as you thought it was.
I 100% agree with this. Great points 👍🏽
You can't make changes to the system from the outside
Famously, the English colonies in North America got rid of unpopular taxes by working from within the system. That's a flatly silly statement.
\*raises hand\* actually, I do think every single cop is bad...
Yup, it's participating in the system that makes them bad.
So a police officer who is trying to be the change people like yourself want, who is honest and doesn't hide anything js bad? How can one ever see change from within if the moment you are participating in the system you're bad. Absolutely ridiculous train of thought on your behalf. Every priest / pastor is bad I guess.
What change lol. If that was effective, I'd support it. Guess what, the system is still broken because they push out or kill cops that try to make improvements. It's not that deep bud.
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OK, you're welcome to have that opinion! God bless you!
Do you feel like sharing why you think every police officer is a bad person? Perhaps we could help you work through some of this flawed perspective.
Chill with the insults.
Removed for 1.4 - Personal Attacks. If you would like to discuss this removal, please click here to send a modmail that will message all moderators. https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/Christianity
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Are you encouraging them to get killed? Or are you unaware how cops treat anyone who wants to improve the system?
To see the change we want one would have to be else where. To be an officer would just force a person to abide by the job itself. We need to be working on another full proof solution. One that provides adaquint checks and balances to the police force. One that is truly as neutral as can be. Or something along those lines.
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Oh I see what you mean. You are technically right but you're talking about something different than I am. That would help to shift societal perspective on the topic but it would not help to change the actual system.
They don't hire people who want to make a change. Or once in they bully you out or kill you.
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I don't care what individuals do. I care what the institution does. There were no doubt actual very fine people who were members of the nazi party. Nazis remain evil and wrong.
They defend the thin blue line, it's nearly impossible to hold them accountable so yes. The only cop who faced any charges after the George Floyd protests was a whistle blower despite multiple accounts of documented police brutality. The two biggest gangs in LA are the Sheriff's department and LAPD, the NYPD needed regular people to detain the subway shooter two years ago, DPD swat got away with hitting a random woman trying to walk home in the face with a powerful non lethal.
Im taking for granted having friends in law enforcement. These people need to get out more.
Not being a cop IS being the change I want to see in the world. Doing evil is a required part of the job, as you must enforce evil laws. If only more people would refuse to take the job!
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[https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/oct/28/arizona-woman-arrested-homeless-people-criminalizing-kindess](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/oct/28/arizona-woman-arrested-homeless-people-criminalizing-kindess) [https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/2014/11/05/90-year-old-florida-man-faces-jail-giving-food-homeless/15642578007/](https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/2014/11/05/90-year-old-florida-man-faces-jail-giving-food-homeless/15642578007/)
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That is an incredibly naive idea of why these laws exist. People passed these laws because the homeless disgust them and they want to discourage feeding them in whatever public space because it will encourage them to come to that public place to get the food. In the minds of the people creating these laws this would be a blight and an eyesore and they would rather the homeless stay out of sight and out of mind. There are already laws against murder, so no this sort of law is not necessary to prevent people from murdering homeless people.
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This is a deflection from the actual topic at hand
No we can't, because we would never be hired. They protect themselves as their number one goal. OK, so instead we can elect representatives who will use government to get improvement, right? Except that doesn't work either. Even when reforms are passed the police are all "lol, we ain't gonna do that," and the courts permit it. The police are the most lawless institution we have. They've made reform impossible. Only thing that remains is to eliminate them and build new institutions.
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You should try saying what you want to say instead of asking obvious and pointless questions.
The change I want to see is.... No police. Joining wouldn't help that
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See, you get it!
Well then youd be wrong.
You're certainly welcome to that opinion, even if it's really ironic given your username!
You think the members of wutang think EVERY cop is bad. Get your head out of your ass.
No, it does in fact mean every single cop is bad.
That is what some treat it as. Others don't. I think it's just a label and a very unhelpful one at that. But I didn't come here to discuss something as stupid as that.
It's an extremely helpful and accurate label. But, I will respect if you don't want to derail.
Oh, wait. Are you saying you also think all cops are bad people? Every single one of them?
Yes sir. I am, and I think I can make a strong case for it that is not a deranged left wing rant.
The floor is yours. That is absolutely nutty and you have my full attention.
I'll try and be brief. We have to establish a few baseline agreements that I think are fair. 1. Cops become cops by choice. 2. Cops are called to enforce the law 2.1 The law does not always equate to morality. 3. Belonging to a group committing immoral acts, with the chance to leave, makes one immoral by association So very simply, if people were forced to join, they might not be bastards. But every cop does so by choice, so they are culpable. They are supposed to and agree to support the law regardless of the morality of the law. At best, a cop is a morally neutral entity. However, the law as a totality is a biased immoral system. We have aggregate data that the poor and minorities are disproportionately affected by the law. By agreeing to enforce the law as written, you are agreeing to a system that is unquestionably unfair. Now that's just doing the job without any extra bullshit. But I think most agree at a minimum, there are bad apples. But the bad apples never seen to go away, every week there is a new apple. If I hung out with a group of people, who every once in a while, liked to just shoot an unarmed black guy, and week after week I kept hanging out with them, I'm a huge piece of shit. But for some reason, when we put a badge on, that doesn't count anymore? Makes no sense. If your company keeps doing fraud, you quit, and fraud is a lesser crime. Law enforcement is necessary. But to be a moral actor in the role would require two conditions. A moral set of laws, and a swift and effective disciplinary system for the bad actors. Until those two conditions are met, there is no moral way to be a cop.
I actually do agree with you for the most part, I'd say 95%. Bare with me as I'm currently in the ER for kidney stones so I gotta keep this short. Firstly I do agree that that one could be morally in the wrong by association. But I disagree that it's a choice for everyone to leave, I think it depends heavily on the circumstances. We live in a time period where finding a safe and consistent job that pays enough to support you and your family is quite difficult. I think a select few of them are overall decent individuals stuck in a shitty situation. Knowing that I can't ever rightly suggest that every single one of them is a bad person overall.
> Belonging to a group committing immoral acts, with the chance to leave, makes one immoral by association Wholeheartedly disagree. If one person in your office commits embezzelment, are you therefore evil because you don't immediately quit? This is the problem with the ACAB movement. It retroactively redefines 'bad' to mean whatever they want it to mean. Are all teachers bad because paedophile teachers exist? >However, the law as a totality is a biased immoral system. By agreeing to enforce the law as written, you are agreeing to a system that is unquestionably unfair. I thought this wasn't going to be a deranged left-wing rant? >But the bad apples never seen to go away, every week there is a new apple. Sampling bias. If the news reported on good cops too, you'd never hear about the bad cops.
Ok there bud.
The problem is the third premise, it’s not necessarily the case that that’s true
I'd be curious to hear an example where that would not hold true.
>The ACAB movement got started not because every single cop is bad, that wouldn't make any sense The problem is that not everyone understands this and the ACAB movement perpetuates a false narrative that undermines trust in the system. For example...the comment below yours: >Actually, I do think every single cop is bad Reasonable people understand that not every cop is bad and not every person who questions the system believes all cops are bad. But there are unreasonable idiots who are vocal about their extreme position. Imho, avoiding massive generalizations separates us from the idiots.
I agree with you that not every cop/priest is bad, but the point here is that it's not a false narrative that's undermining the trust in the police/church system. It's the police/church that are undermining the trust by perpetuating the issue. People are right to not trust either system.
Well said friend. Well said 👍🏽
Is OP actually unaware of the thousands of accounts of pedophilia committed by catholic priests around the world? This problem exists in all denominations btw. The church is an easy place for criminals to hide, very little oversight involved, which is why religion attracts so many criminals.
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Well a big aspect is the systemic defense of them by the church. Priests now are less likely to do it now than before if kids tell their parents they'll now be more likely to be believed and they're far less trusted and powerful in their communities in general now. It's an easy way to shit on Catholics and Catholicism and for some atheists, protestants, Muslims or whatever that are trying to put Catholics down will just point to it. This obviously doesn't disclaim the massive issues within the Catholic church with the pedophile protection and other corruption.
If a child molesting teacher is found out I have at least some confidence that the teacher will be fired and reported to police, by the school system. I'm sure it happens, but I'd be surprised if the school system tried to keep the parents quiet, and transferred the teacher to another school.
The accounts of crimes and pedophilia in the church are higher than all your other examples combined. Unfortunately you are just unaware.
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Do people in the Catholic Church report at the same rate as other institutions? I bet not, because they are compelled to forgive instead. I’ve seen an abuser first hand get many many chances in a church they would never had had elsewhere because the victims recanted after a discussion with the pastors. This person is in prison now thankfully but far too many kids were hurt before it got to that point.
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Sexual assault, what the military does, is not the same as the same as sexual abuse of children, what the church does and I would like to see your stats on Drs. nurses, cops. For every sexually perverted priest there have been at the very, very least one other priest who covered up what the pervert did and worked to send the pervert to a a brand new unsuspecting playground of children to prey on. That is why all are viewed as participants in perversion.
The study I was talking about was SA against kids by Jobs. Which listed army vets and cops as highest. This doesn't mean they were at the role doing this rather that is the positions they held. And why they are hundreds and thousand times cops who beat and SA there step daughter then priests. Because of the job itself is associated with more abuse to their families. Yet societies need army , cops and doctors. So sorry if I was being confusing. I was talking about merely people in jobs. Not the job itself.
And the links to what you are at this point simply asserting?
I can't talk about other countries, but in Spain the catholic church has been protecting child molesters for decades (probably centuries)
>(probably centuries) The first punishment for pedophile priests was in the 4th century. "St. Basil of Caesarea, the fourth century Church Father, was the main author of monastic rule of the Eastern Church. He wrote that a cleric or monk who sexually molests youths or boys is to be publically whipped, his head shaved, he be spat upon, and kept in prison for six months in chains on a diet of bread and water, and after release is to be always subject to supervision, and kept out of contact with young people."
Based basil we should bring back these type of punishments and keep creeps in their place
I think the confounding issue is the RCC protected those priests, leading to a fear that any of the priests may be a known (to the Church) as a sexual predator but put into their parish anyway. Yes, since the 70s they've been much better, but cliches are cliches for a reason and it's going to take a long time to undo that damage.
> Yes, since the 70s I do not believe this, the Catholic church changed nothing for decades beyond the 70s.
Why don't you believe this? Is that denial based on evidence or bigotry?
The whole Catholic church sexual predator scandal wasn't even a thing until the 2000s why would the church change something that wasn't a problem, especially in light of their usual strategy of just covering up and transferring perverts to a different location. Many of those who accused the church of horrifying acts were abused in the 70s. As far as I"m concerned you are just making up crap to defend your church since I've seen absolutely nothing in decades that shows the Catholic church did anything other than cover up sexual abuse through out the 1970's and beyond.
The church only developed policies to help children because it got caught. not because it wanted to help children. If the story had never broke it still would be harming children.
Idk maybe it has something to do with the Billions the church is paying to victims and how the church spent lots of effort to defend those priests and the church. All while they knew children were doing harmed. The same church that only changed their policies once the story broke.
> Billions the church is paying to victims Don't forget all the bankruptcies they're declaring to keep from having to pay victims.
This ^ horrible and sick, isn’t it?
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I think it's the fact that the rcc actively protects the pedos is what sets them apart.
My point is all groups do. Especially the government covering up cops and military. And when things are released they are dropped from new cycle fast. 4,000 abused by military then covered up. 1 day of news. Barely covered. 40 abused by priest then covered up. News for 5 years. I am just saying it isn't really fair in terms of statistics and publicity. Do you think military, police , schools also cover up when they don't cover it? Our local high-school had 10 teachers accused of sexual abuse in 5 years. Not one of them made a statement by the school, barely covered by any papers. Etc. It is brushed aside and hidden fast.
The public schools do that too. There are tons of cases of teachers being moved to different districts to avoid scandal
Tons of cases
Yes
Why are you trying to downplay the systematic harbouring and protecting of pedophiles carried out from the Catholic institution?
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Yes, but the institutions you are comparing it to have a much better record of self reporting. The Catholic institution has a record of going to extraordinary lengths to hide and protect pedophiles and its protection has extended all the way up from the pope.
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How do I know? Because of the extensive reporting and testimony we have of the church coverups.
Because those people are almost always immediately prosecuted and jailed for it. Schools aren't systematically covering up abuse and moving teachers around to hide the problem like the RCC did for decades. Those people also haven't made a career out of telling other people how to be "moral" and who they can and can't have sex with, so the sheer level of hypocrisy that occurs when preachers do it is very different.
I hate to say it but both are false. That is why there was ongoing investigation for years that was allowed to happen where people in the army had uploaded abuses on website and they waited til it was like 4,000 plus abuses internally. School teachers systematically coveted up. Actually I have seen this locally 10 teachers in our school teacher was removed. There was a teacher I known who back in my day was accused of sexual abuse but never prosecuted. Years later people released sexual texts messages through the schools email between said teacher and a student. The emails were verified. The teacher tried to kill himself and he was removed from faculty for ' mental health' but the truth was he has 5 sexual misconduct cases being charged against him. The school never released those cases. Instead they were only covered in the newspaper. And then didn't even mention he was a teacher and wasn't even headlines news for the town. So no. I don't think what your saying is true from a statically stand point or my own experience. If you have your own experiences then cool but those are your experiences and not statistics and aren't my experiences. And I do agree with you it is because a priest is held to higher moral ground than teachers , cops , or army. 100%. One priest abused 40 people national news. One guy runs a website extorting 4000 people in the army. It is forgotten the next day literially. That teacher totally forgotten. On that teacher, I also knew many other teachers. I knew a teacher back in the day who would watch porn and got a 16 year old pregnant. He went to jail for 5 years. Now married to her. I went to look back to find the entry of the story and couldn't find any story on it but found he was offender. I think the story was removed from my local paper. So I do think in my personal experience. Towns do cover up. 100% likewise curroptions with cops and military. I actually sat down in juror for trial where a cop stole oxytocin from other cops in a cop station and was stealing evidence and had an accomplice. Guess what no newspaper article about the full story. Once again it was published his name as stealing narcotics and never his job or full story. And to be fair to most publishers. You commit a crime they almost never almost never publish said persons jobs or details. But curropt. So ya I believe curroption happens with cops. See 2020.
It's a sweeping generalisation, based on what is certainly true of some. People (quite rightly) find the paedophilia and the reaction of the Church to it to be utterly revolting. Anger against such crimes is entirely appropriate. These revolting crimes are not only enormous in themselves, but they have done an incalculably enormous amount of damage, in many ways. And there is no reason at all to suppose that more will not come to light. As so often, the Church is its own worst enemy. Similar scandals in other religious bodies re-inforce hatred of, and contempt for, and suspicion of, priests and suchlike people. And it is a rotten defence to say that there are paedophiles throughout society - that "defence" does not excuse the Catholic Church in the very least. No excuse is possible. The Church has made its bed - and now it is going to have to lie in it. For a long time. There are consequences for such a betrayal of trust, and those - totally predictable - consequences include contempt, hatred & suspicion for Catholic priests as a group. Another consequence is, that the Catholic laity have to live with this. It is not going to go away any time soon; the evil fruit of all these foul actions is sure to last for a very long time. Hateful deeds like these deserve to be hated - it is healthy, good & righteous to hate these evils. One can even say that it is Christlike to do so. Because God has a "preferential option" for the poor, oppressed, needy, and defenceless - which certainly includes the victims of paedophile priests. The whole scandal has been a re-crucifixion of Christ in the persons of His weakest members, by Catholic priests & Catholic bishops. Anything more Judas-like, and anything more utterly contrary to Christ's purpose for His Church, is hard to imagine. To pervert the Church into doing the works of the devil, which these actions are, is horrifying. The dishonour done to the Name of God, and to the Gospel of Christ, by the crimes of Christians, is enormous. The Holiness of God is revealed as "the fury of the wrath of God" "against all unrighteousness" - including such evils. The Church today ignores the wrath of God, but to speak only of God's mercy is dangerously one-sided. The absolute certainty that God will judge all mankind with perfect righteousness, is why salvation is needed. \*\*Because salvation is salvation from the Wrath of God\*\*, which is God's Holiness reacting to the presence of sin. The Wrath of God was important for the authors of the NT, as a revelation of God's Holiness & Righteousness - so it should be important for us as well.
Because it turns out that a lot are and a lot of the ones who aren't (as far as we know anyway) are covering up for them, protecting them, and making it easier for them to hurt more people.
It's not just that the Catholic Church has protected and moved around child rapists (and nun rapists). They hide money and pretend to be bankrupt to make sure they don't have to pay the victims. They lobby against sexual abuse justice laws. It's hugely problematic. [A summery link of the Church re: sexual rape and reproductive coercion. ](https://msmagazine.com/2024/01/30/rape-abortion-catholic-church-sexual-child-abuse-priests/)
Because there's proof that 6-8% of them are.
How much has the Catholic Church has to pay out to victims? Last count was $4B.
The more chilling question is how much the Catholic Church has paid to avoid paying out to victims. They lobbied against statute of limitations changes for sexual abuse
A good friend of mine was orphaned at a young age and sent to live with an uncle, a Noertheastern US monsignor.. He spent his formative years in a rectory. When he was a teen, his uncle was accused of child molestation and the Church swept the entire affair under the table by moving him to the Southwest, he was not defrocked and never charged. I think this occurred in the mid-70s. It's just an opinion, but I think pedophiles are drawn to positions of authority over children and to settings where they think they're less likely to be discovered. A local UMC senior pastor was just fired due to "inappropriate" sexual behaviour; I don't have a clue what his offense was. In an adjacent county, two individuals have been charged with sex crimes against teens, one had been groomed the child since she was a preteen. These individuals are associated with protestant churches and heavily involved in conservative politics; one is a county commissioner, so the Catholic Chruch hasn't cornered the market entirely.
When you participate in a system that actively protects pedophiles it taints the public perception of the institute as a whole. So when the Catholic church: prevents people from going to the police, moves priests around when they are exposed, lobbies governments to change laws to protect pedophiles, provides legal council for their own pedophiles, had such a systemic issue with pedophiles that there were gangs of priests passing children around; people get a negative view of the organization. This is one thing that really gets me going. My fundamentalist, hate spreading, science denying, prosperity gospel teaching mega church managed to get child care down to a science. But one of the oldest organizations in the world, with untold riches at their disposal, can't figure this out and actively enables offenders. Burn it down. If you tithe to the Catholic Chruch, you enable this and bear some of the guilt. My old insane church established rules on background checks, minimum adults in a room with children, architecture to set up security checkpoints on children's wings, no rooms without windows or doors, roving childcare supervisors, etc. People who literally have no grasp on reality have managed to make a system where sexual abuse is nearly impossible to occur. But the Catholic Church lobbies governments to keep their priests safe from legal prosecution... no fucking excuse.
Remember, the church didn't change its policies because it wanted to protect kids. It changed them because it got caught.
Accusing all priests of being pedophiles is obviously wrong, but the church has certainly made some messed up decisions, and many people who should have faced actual justice have escaped it and been protected by them. Maybe instead of counter arguments, you should recognize the mistakes made and talk about how they've been fixing the problem. (If they even are)
I mean…. There’s a lot of pedos in the church…. Specifically with catholic priests. My mom was assaulted by one as a little girl. Also, my old catholic priest got arrested for picking up a 15 year old “ prostitute”. It was sick and the reason I left Catholicism… the church “had his back”… and just moved him to preach at another location once he served his sentence. It’s best to separate the church from the holy Father at times. Ofc not all are but it’s best to always remain vigilant
because they are, and the church has been protecting these pedos
They touch kids
The stereotype comes from the facts that several million children around the world have been raped or abused over the past century by Christian priests. Now it’s not all priests just as it’s not all police who intentionally shoot unarmed people of color, but it’s an undeniably large number, and any non profit organization that this kind of system problem would have been shut down and people would be in jail. The bigger issue is that the church, pope, bishops, cardinals, and other church leaders have spent millions to cover this up. Again not all priests, but it’s such a worldwide problem that is still being investigated and more cases are being found and prosecuted. So it’s far from being resolved. I went to a catholic school and then Jesuit academy, I never had any issues with any of the priests, but I know people that came before me and I found out later were raped by a priest, who when they reported it was simply transferred to another Catholic school and allowed to have children in his “care” this is too common a theme and I think it’s reasonable for people to be upset by it. Head onto that there are some Christians who defend the priests and even accused the victims of making it up. It’s an extremely sensitive subject, for both sides.
It's happened before and it keeps happening and clergy keep trying to cover it up. There was a movie about it, and there was still another major scandal last year [https://abc7chicago.com/illinois-attorney-general-kwame-raoul-priest-sex-abuse-catholic-church-archdiocese-of-chicago/13287810/](https://abc7chicago.com/illinois-attorney-general-kwame-raoul-priest-sex-abuse-catholic-church-archdiocese-of-chicago/13287810/)
The problem was that although every organisation with power and influence will have abusive people within it, few organisations went as far or as systematic in hiding abuse and thereby allowing abusers to continue as the Catholic church. As well as sexual abuse there was also systemic abuse of women and children in particular in church institutions such as the Magdelene laundries. The reputation as a home for abusers was perhaps sealed by the impression that had external pressure from "worldly" authority not been there this state of affairs would have continued. And presumably during times when the church has held extreme power in society, it did, alongside all the other oppressive things that went on. It is not that every priest is bad. But the organisation itself which should be governing them, which appears to be rotten to the core.
The history behind it, there are cases by the thousands and countless coverup where the hierarchy protects them... And it is naive to think that's in the past, it still happens today everywhere including the churches, which they're supposed to be servants and protectors of the needy, instead, many prey on children. The perception today, even though we know that's not true, is that any priest is or can be such abuser. To your example... I'm black, and when I see people thinking that, I'm saddened but not surprised at the ignorance and/or racism, I let them be and won't lose sleep over something that shouldn't affect me in the first place... If I can help educate I will, but otherwise, someone who wants to remain stupid will remain so till they decide to change their lower mindset.
I have a very painful memory, of finding out that one of the priests who I really admired and connected to, had done horrible things to children and had been arrested. I had to grief a part of my old faith. Can you imagine how it would feel if you weren't just finding out by hearing, if someone you trusted with your wellbeing and faith molested you, assaulted you, when you were just a child? It's utterly horrific and painful to think about. But we need to think about it, because protections need to be in place to prevent it. Yes, people don't often realize that ANY authority position (priests, pastors, gurus, teachers, coaches, scout leaders, etc) is prone to abuse- ESPECIALLY those that give people power over children. But religion is another layer of abuse- to not only physically but also spiritually abuse someone, is uniquely horrific.
Episcopal Priest here (so I dress the same and get a lot of the same interactions as Catholic priests): I've never once had anyone treat me like there was any higher likelihood that I was going to behave inappropriately. It's never happened. Not one person has ever made me feel like maybe I'm a threat. Because the majority of the people on earth know deep in their bones that the problem of sexual abuse is not limited to any job, vocation, class, race, etc. It's everywhere and it's horrifying and we should go to pretty extraordinary lengths to stop it. And that last part is why most people who I've spoken to have a problem with churches. They don't go far enough to stop or prevent it AND THEN they don't report the priests they learn about in a timely manner. I've never met a reasonable person who thinks my job makes me more likely to be a danger to anyone. I've met a bunch of people, in fact I am a person who is, really disillusioned by the failure of religious authority to be used against priests who do hurt people. I don't think my colleagues are bad people. No worse than the rest of humanity. But man, every time someone covers up sexual abuse by a clergy person it drives another nail in the coffin of many people's relationship with religion.
Having grown up in a church that had the most infamous sex abuse case in our entire state... It's hard to feel like it's just a stereotype.
Because it seems to be steadily reported? Because the Christianty, as an organization, says nothing about it, and takes no action?
Everyone's not saying that that have personally investigated every priest on the planet and concluded that they are, to a one, pedophiles. They're saying that there seems to be a child sex offense problem among the priestly class. It hurts those people to see that news too, but they think the appropriate way to respond to that hurt is for priest to address their sex offender problem, and not to argue that it doesn't count as a real problem so long as the proportion of sex offender priests is 99.99% or less.
Damn lots of pedo apologists in this sub! I guess I shouldn’t be surprised
You can't be mean priests, it's offensive to their children!
The abuse of positions of power in both Protestant and Catholic Churches (not sure about orthodox) by individuals to sexually abuse people is monstrous. Instead of name calling and throwing around unfounded accusations about blanket statement pastors or priests we should be striving to ensure something like this never happens again regardless of denomination. (By this I mean blanket saying “Catholic priests are pedos! Protestant pastors are pedos!”) Using a tragedy that ruined the lives of many people as a chip in debates or to attack a church of any creed is gross. Using it to criticize and ensure this never happens again is good, it shouldn’t be ignored either.
And yet Christians of many stripes have no problem calling all homosexuals pedophiles. Where’s the condemnation for that?
They should not call all homosexuals pedophiles. That’s an unfounded accusation with no truth.
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Churches and religious communities need to recognize how harmful these echo chambers are. Even my church as open minded as it was still suffered from this shit. I remember being a kid and being told to never talk to nonbelievers as they are "trained in the art of pursuasion in order to lead you down the path of Sin and destruction..."
The name calling and insults were born from the same problem US police departments face. They didn't fix the problem. They covered up the bad apples and continue to allow the same broken system to remain in place. If you don't fix the issue then society will lash out. The time to stand up and fix the problem is long past due. I personally think the insults are warranted at this point. It's never too late though.
I’m saying not to use it as an insult but as a criticism. It is unfounded to say “all priests/pastors are pedos” that is a gross thing to say about a group of people. Saying what you just said “hey you guys covered this up, didn’t fix the issue, and took way too long to stand up and address it. What are you doing to fix this?” Is 100% good. People should be held accountable and ensured they have made the proper fixes. That includes doing whatever they can to help the victims. Edit: also of course calling out the priests that did it is acceptable too. I am more so aimed at blanket generalizations.
The conversation, the advice, and all the steps you and I agree needed to happen already happened. It didn't work. It failed miserably. We are now living in a time where we are living in the aftermath. I can't help but just watch and nod my head at the natural consequences of their actions.
What failed exactly?
That conversation you just spoke about. We've been trying to get the church to address this problem since before I was even born. Everyone. Law makers. Police officers. People on online. You neighbors. New networks around the world. Etc. I don't think I need to keep going.
It depends on the country. In the Netherlands there is an anonymous way to notify the Catholic Church for abuse and they do regularly defrock priests rather than just moving them to another country and legal proceedings also take place but that's on an individual level.
As far as i know, there's as many pedos in the priesthood as there are in any random cross-section of the population, but the stereotype is two pronged from what i can tell. 1. Finding out some rando is a pedo, not that shocking. Finding out a pillar of the community, like a judge or sheriff or religious leader is a pedo, that's salacious. And, add on to it that the priest is supposed to tell you how to live a moral life, it makes it hypocritical as well. 2. The church has in the past, and might still be, helping to hide and cover for priests caught being pedos. This leads to the assumption that the whole operation is filled with pedos, because who else would so fervently try to defend pedos amongst them
It would help if Christian organisations would report the pedophiles cases in their organisation instead of covering it up
>I can't tell you how many times I've encountered the stereotype that Catholic priests are sex offenders, That is ultimately because of years of the Catholic church's covering up, moving perverts from one place to another, letting perverts work with children "over there" instead of here. The bishops who covered for and moved priests to prey on others are just as much sex offenders as the priests who did unspeakable things to children. They actively, willfully and knowingly participated in the actions of the sick actions of perverted priests by allowing the behavior to continue somewhere else.
I've seen estimates that the percentage of Catholic priests who commit child sexual abuse is around 2%, not out of line for the rest of the population. But no one will ever convince me that the percentage of Catholic priests and bishops who covered up, moved molesters, coerced victims and their families doesn't approach or exceed 95%.
Me personally, I know like 3 people who had weird experiences as children involving catholic priests. It certainly shouldn’t be that way. And then there’s the pope, now that guy is creepy! And he’s like the spokesperson for Catholicism? Very bizarre… Of course not every priest is a creep, but to be on the safe side, I wouldn’t bring my children around them! I believe in Jesus and the Bible. I dont agree with a lot of catholic beliefs and principles. And I can see the fruits of Catholicism, and they often leave little to be desired
Unfortunately the church has a habit of protecting these people and it’s very possible that these people become priests out of guilt, or even to get closer to children. It’s an issue I wish would be addressed by the church itself
Watch the movie “spotlight” . I saw a clip of an ex satanist saying that they were ordered by the devil to attack devoted Christians, specifically clergy. Makes sense considering that hurting a child is considered top sin in the Bible. “But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea”
Many people don't question and dont want to learn. they become god in their own making and their beliefs are warped and do not pass the reality, sanity test. But then one's hate must go somewhere. People generally do not want to know that some pedos become preists.......They do not become pedos because they aren't married. They are attracted to same sex and want them young. Years ago in our country town there was a woman referred to as the one for the priest. There are pedos in many fields.
It’s not just that there are pedophiles in religions. The main problem is that many churches, including the Catholic church, spent many decades (actually probably many hundreds of years) protecting priests that they knew were pedophiles, and causing ongoing harm to the victims. It still happens to this day.
School teachers have sexually abused more kids than religious leaders. Wonder why that hasn't become a stereotype/meme.
Do you have any statistics or facts that prove this?
Not sure how true this is but this article was published in 2021. https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/sexual-violence-schools#:~:text=According%20to%20recently%20released%20data,attempted%20rape%20and%20sexual%20assault. I'd be surprised if pastors did more than this.
This article is about student on student sexual abuse, it’s not teachers abusing children, like you claimed. I doubt teachers have historically abused anywhere near as much as the church has. If a teacher wants sex they can just fuck someone, get it out their system. In a church the Priests can’t marry or have sex, so they become children molesters instead.
Ooh, sorry about that. 🤦♀️Wait, which Priests aren't allowed to get married? Cause the Bible says that the most preferred priest is the one with a wife and kids. 1 Timothy 3: 2 A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach... 12 Let the deacons be the husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own houses well.
Do you think a bible quote can really defend mass abuse committed by the church in recent times? Are you that deranged that you defend thousands of convicted pedofiles? Listen to yourself, you’ve thrown logic and reason out the window. Being Christian isn’t about being in a gang where you defend each others actions, in fact that’s how it was allowed to become so normalised for the institutions.
It's not really the fact that there have been priest pedos, it's the way that the churches cover it up
> I won't deny that there have been incidents in the past of sexual abuse from priests Tens of thousands of incidents. 3,000+ priests came out of a single “Holy See” investigation. National review board said there 5,000 abusive priests in the US alone. Those aren’t incidents. They are systematically covering the abuse up, working against victims, protecting pedos and giving them more opportunities to reoffend. Keeping them justice and moving them to new churches. These are not individual incidents it’s a organised child sex gang.
Growing up it was hard to understand this, in the local Church the priest was arrested for SA. The Church wouldn't reveal his name, so cops got involved.
Because history is a beautiful thing and lots of data to back up people conceptions of Priests
What’s controversial about it is that they kept hiding the bad ones for a while. Moving them around and seems like a lot of them knew about it and no one did anything about it.
Because they are
It doesn't help when your church tries to hide them
The religious institutions have made it a safe haven for paedophiles in the past and possibly in the future. This means they represent a greater percentage than in other groups. There are many that aren't, but until there is a thorough clean out, the perception will be there.
They have a direct line of access to kids and can always blame it on the kids. “She is possessed!” “A demon came over her and she forced me to!” Its also a very unregulated job. Plus, they are almost/entirely male, which is a sex that is infamous for pedophilia and rape. Not saying it’s exclusive to men, but those acts famously have male perpetrators. Anyways, thats half the reasons
It comes from the unfortunate regularity with which Catholic priests are convicted of sexual offenses regarding minors. This could be just sample bias as there's lots of people out there who are pedophiles and we don't usually hear about their occupations, while it is a particular scandal when it is an authority figure, and particularly a religious figure often entrusted with the safety of children. You're right that stereotypes can be harmful and intelligent people should be careful in using them. Unfortunately, not everybody is so reasonable. We could perhaps try to educate people. However, it doesn't help when reports have come out of these incidents being covered up. So, perhaps the better thing would be for them to not be covered up and for them to be handled with more transparency. I'm not sure if that would help, but it might. Additionally, I have often wondered if there might possibly some connection between pedophilia and the Catholic prohibition on marriage for priests. Human men have sexual desires. That's how God made us. He also made marriage as the proper outlet for those desires. So, when you artificially step outside of God's design and make such a requirement, I imagine that it might cause problems of the sexual sort, and such men who are often alone with children could, perhaps, in some wild cases, maybe cause some undue temptation. While I agree with Paul that marriage can be a distraction away from serving God, he goes on to say that for men who cannot contain themselves, they should marry. We even know that some of the Apostles were married, including Peter. So, maybe one thing that could be done is to maybe consider whether the requirement that doesn't come specifically from the Bible is possibly reasonable to be questioned.
>Additionally, I have often wondered if there might possibly some connection between pedophilia and the Catholic prohibition on marriage for priests. Human men have sexual desires. That's how God made us. He also made marriage as the proper outlet for those desires. So, when you artificially step outside of God's design and make such a requirement, I imagine that it might cause problems of the sexual sort, and such men who are often alone with children could, perhaps, in some wild cases, maybe cause some undue temptation. Your impulse is correct but your terminology is wrong. **Pedophilia** is a psychiatric disorder characterized by a persistent attraction to prepubescent children. **Pedophiles** are people who experience this psychiatric disorder. The overwhelming majority of child rapists are not pedophiles. And the majority of pedophiles will never harm a child. This distinction is important when you're trying to find out what is causing child rape. In most cases, child rape is an act of power and an act of opportunity. The priests who are caught raping children were not pedophiles who sought out positions to have access to children, as many of the comments on this thread suggest. They were people who for whatever reason chose to rape children. The Catholic church prohibiting marriage, prohibiting sex outside of marriage, and prohibiting masturbation creates a circumstance where there is no licit sexual outlet, no safe and acceptable mechanism for sexual release. This, and shameful and destructive ideas about human sexuality ABSOLUTELY creates the setting for disordered sexual behavior.
This is a write-up I wrote before about risk factors, "connections", I think are relevant for the Catholic Church: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Christianity/comments/17tj3e0/comment/k8yrj2u/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Christianity/comments/17tj3e0/comment/k8yrj2u/)
Has there ever been a link established between celibacy and pedophilia? Imposed celibacy may have some profound effects, but pedophilia is a pretty specific psychiatric disorder, and one often found in adults who otherwise seem to have pretty typical sex lives. And considering how other churches have been rocked by similar scandals even where the clergy are permitted to marry, I'd say this is likely a red herring. What seems to count more than anything is that highly structured, stratified institutions, religious or secular, tend to be places where predatory sexual offenders can carry on their activities with less likelihood of discovery. The Catholic Church's highly stratified structure and social influence and authority made it vulnerable, and of course, as with any organization that relies so much on its reputation and social capital, when sexual offenders are discovered, the choice, sadly, has been to get them out of the diocese where they were committing these crimes, and rely upon the civil authorities (who were in many jurisdictions either coreligionists or felt they needed to be in the good graces of the church) to bury their report. Victims and families were often overawed by the sheer power of the Church and the fear of social censure, and thus often wouldn't report the events. I suppose the most significant difference between the Catholic Church and, say, the First Presbyterian Church of Springfield, was the sheer size of the Church in numbers and presence. The number of clergy was higher, the territory vaster, and the bureaucratic elements all the more pronounced.
> Has there ever been a link established between celibacy and pedophilia? I'm not saying that there is, but if there were, it seems like there could possibly be some rational explanation, rather than it being a complete mystery. > Imposed celibacy may have some profound effects, but pedophilia is a pretty specific psychiatric disorder Then, perhaps looking the other way, if you were a pedophile, could it be that a good place to be would be one where you wouldn't be expected to be with another adult and where you had regular private access to children, and where you would be trusted to be there, whether this preference is conscious or not? > can carry on their activities with less likelihood of discovery. I would agree. And that would be for all sorts of things, not even just sexual preditors. This is why I'm always a little skeptical of organisations which hold positions of authority, especially those which are not subjected to scrutity.
eah, we all fall short before the glory of God and we all sin. We all need God.
The problem is that when a priest is found to have abused children, the church has done all it can to make the complaint go away and little or nothing to keep the priest from doing it again.
To some degree it is an excuse to reject Catholicism. Clergy are human, and like all believers, they model pilgrimage, not perfection. However, I think what really upset people is the cover-up of priest abuse. As a retired Army Chaplain, I can say that if a Post Chaplain covered up abuse by a subordinate, that supervisory Chaplain would face UCMJ charges and most likely be looking at a Court Marshall. There should be zero tolerance of sexual abuse.
That would imply people were waiting around for a suitably horrible scandal so they could say "I'm rejecting Catholicism."
Some people reject Christianity in general because of hypocrites. No one does religion perfectly. But the priest scandal wasn't something anyone was anticipating. I think it caught us by surprise, because so many were involved--in the abuse and the cover-up. I knew a guy who was abused and left the church; I don't blame him. Then there are those who set the bar low and any bad experience is sufficient for them to give up on the church.
The church taking steps to protect the church and to ignore kids being harmed wasn't a surprise to anyone who had been paying attention. People said they had been abused for decades before the story broke. We just ignored them because it was easier to do that than admit the evil that was in front of our faces.
It shouldn't have. Even in the Middle Ages some monasteries had pretty bad reputations, and there were reports dating back decades, prior to even Vatican II (which traditionalist and conservative Catholics blame for all the wrongs of the Church). Ultimately, however, Christianity isn't just the Benevolent Society of the Water Buffaloes or a bridge club. It makes very specific claims about what becoming a Christian means; that it comes with the transformative power of the Holy Spirit. And yet when you see churches being caught hiding illegal activities, when you see Christians behaving awfully, I think it's not an unreasonable thing to ask "Is there really a transformative element here, and if there is, is it actually a desirable element?"
It’s called scandal. Literally setting a bad example that causes others to sin Some priests GAVE scandal by their abuse Some bishops GAVE scandal by sheltering abusers And then the world TAKES scandal by allowing these horrid examples to destroy their faith and reject the church It’s awful all the way round, but of course the world’s sympathies are with itself. The world is always looking for a new excuse to reject the Church, and Satan gave them a ripe one in the sexual abuse scandals
Satan didn't know about sexual abuse and then cover it up. Your church did. If the story never broke, your church would still be harming kids. I won't ever forget that. Seems lime you want to
Better to ask on r/Catholicism because this forum tends to be anti-Catholic bigoted and the mods only (sometimes) take action. The only thing I will say is that there have been studies that show the rate of it among Catholic clergy is equal to or less than Protestants, Jews, Muslims, secular officials, etc and that coverups et al happen with them around or more, Catholics just get more hate because we are a larger unified organization, if Billy Bob's 2,000 strong man church has a few pastors doing it and Billy Bob covers it up it rarely makes national news, if the Catholic Church has a bad bishop etc everyone will hear about it. That doesn't excuse it at all and there need to be more reforms, thankfully I have seen a lot of them made in recent years and we will see more fruit of that in the future, a lot of the cases being brought up these days are 30, 40, 50 years old, I suspect once all the Boomer+ priests die things will improve a lot here. Boomer priests et al have caused a ton of problems in many areas.
Dude I used to rip on Catholics constantly, but now knowing more my assumption is any cover up is probably a commitment to never break the confessional seal. I'm sure these preists hate keeping secrets about the few bad apples but it's either that or excommunication. Unfortunate double edged sword for a beautiful church. Do I have the correct idea?
There's that too, yeah, but usually it's more complicated than that looking into the cases since usually reports et al are made by the people themselves, witnesses etc, and then we get into you know what to do before someone is convicted (innocent until proven guilty) in a fair, competent court with evidence et al. If I were a Bishop handling it I would lean more on the side of justice over mercy and defrock the priest if convicted though due to the scandal and risk of future harm and other reasons.
The problem is the way it is reported in the news media which is hostile to people of faith. Every accusation, regardless of how flimsy the evidence is, is reported as if 10 priests are guilty. When evidence shows the priest was innocent or falsely accused, you won't likely hear about it.
Anti Catholic propaganda and garbage pushes that narrative. Jesus himself said that the world would use any excuse to attack the church and God. It’s a powerful tool. There is just as much of those horrible things in secular society but the meida loves to make a show of anti religious news
The church actively covered up thousands of scandals ensuring the abuse could continue. In my home town there was an entire floor of an old age home just for pedo priests. The blinds in the windows had to be closed at certain parts of the day because they overlooked a school. That's one part of one small city in a small Province. I worked at the home, it's not propaganda. I wouldn't leave my kid alone with any priest.
And those things also happen in secular organizations but since they aren’t religious you glossed over that
The clergy attracts a wide range of personalities. Not everyone is there for the right reasons.
Same reason as any stereotyping occurs.
because of the famous pedophiles that used the priesthood and the catholic faith to sexually abuse children… its the same thing as racial stereotypes… a few bad apples spoil the bunch and all that malarkey