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Post by kj on Oct 3, 2021 19:07:49 GMT
The last of the many final nails in the coffin of the European church? Thousands of paedophiles have operated within the French Catholic Church since 1950, the head of a panel investigating abuses by church members says. Jean-Marc Sauvé told French media that the commission had found evidence of 2,900 to 3,200 abusers - out of a total of 115,000 priests and other clerics. "That is a minimal estimate," he added.
Thousands of paedophiles have operated within the French Catholic Church since 1950
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Post by cato on Oct 3, 2021 21:38:11 GMT
The last of the many final nails in the coffin of the European church? Thousands of paedophiles have operated within the French Catholic Church since 1950, the head of a panel investigating abuses by church members says. Jean-Marc Sauvé told French media that the commission had found evidence of 2,900 to 3,200 abusers - out of a total of 115,000 priests and other clerics. "That is a minimal estimate," he added.
Thousands of paedophiles have operated within the French Catholic Church since 1950
Who knows? Even the current papacy for all its favorable media coverage has an best an ambiguous approach to this festering sore. Many of those favoured and promoted by the odious Theodore mc Cormick still occupy their seats in the college of cardinals. Its most dispiriting.
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Post by Séamus on Oct 5, 2021 0:02:42 GMT
The last of the many final nails in the coffin of the European church? Thousands of paedophiles have operated within the French Catholic Church since 1950, the head of a panel investigating abuses by church members says. Jean-Marc Sauvé told French media that the commission had found evidence of 2,900 to 3,200 abusers - out of a total of 115,000 priests and other clerics. "That is a minimal estimate," he added.
Thousands of paedophiles have operated within the French Catholic Church since 1950
It makes an interesting study in more ways than one. One mantra we heard many people repeating during some of Ireland's darkest scandals was that the Irish government and church were too intertwined,I remember one person citing France as an opposing role model. But we have here evidence that intense governmental secularism is far from a silver bullet (if there really is a child molester silver bullet,which I greatly doubt)....assuming the minimal estimates are accurate- as many cases will be too old to judge with absolute certainty. As the French church doesn't own all, perhaps the bulk,of it's own cathedrals and chapels the whole concept of compensations,etc will be very a different vision than other places also. What I don't understand is how,in a country where citizens habitually riot over all and sundry, including at the unveiling of a public John Paul memorial,there's been no inkling of uproar for all these decades?
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Oct 5, 2021 8:13:48 GMT
It's a horrifying number, but I think we should bear in mind that these seem to be allegations, for the most part.
Look at the allegations, for instance, against Bishop George Bell in England, or Fr. Kevin Reynolds in Ireland, or indeed Archbishop George Pell in Australia.
Sadly people do make false accusations of sexual abuse. The fact that the Church, and other authorities, didn't listen to sex abuse victims in the past shouldn't blind us to that.
If this evidence dates from 1950 how many of the alleged abusers are dead and cannot answer their accusers?
I don't mean to be insensitive. I have no doubt that a huge amount of the accusations are true.
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Post by kj on Oct 5, 2021 18:03:40 GMT
So the latest report says "more than half the cases were before 1970." I find this interesting as it means the Trad Caths will be hard pressed to play the ol' "Vatican II ruined everything" card. I wonder if this will lead to any reflection on their part. Doubt it somehow. One can only shudder at what was going on pre-1950. Sister Veronique Margron, president of the Conference of Religious Orders, put it: "If the Church must tremble, well let it tremble."216,000 children were victims of clergy - inquiry
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Post by Séamus on Oct 6, 2021 5:55:27 GMT
So the latest report says "more than half the cases were before 1970." I find this interesting as it means the Trad Caths will be hard pressed to play the ol' "Vatican II ruined everything" card. I wonder if this will lead to any reflection on their part. Doubt it somehow. One can only shudder at what was going on pre-1950. Sister Veronique Margron, president of the Conference of Religious Orders, put it: "If the Church must tremble, well let it tremble."216,000 children were victims of clergy - inquiry
Assuming that the bulk of the earlier cases are genuine, which may prove impossible to judge,it would probably be a bit simplistic to use this as evidence of a Maria Monk-style pre-Council Catholicism and should be viewed in the light of taboos and general lack of awareness of the subject in earlier times,to say nothing of actually handling it. American statistical evidence has often pointed to most cases being within family and relations- and this would have been the case in past eras also, but unlike clerical or religious situations, these will probably never surface. It may or may not have been a major player, but it might be also considered that many of the psychoanalysis,Jungian and other sex-based psychologies that have been widely praised by Catholic religious leaders since the 60s had already infiltrated and messed up heads well before John XXIII's time(some will probably claim this a force against child advise- I have my doubts). Having said this, it certainly can't be claimed that conservatism is a silver bullet, any more than anything else that lays claim to be. Eastern Sydney had an interesting case of a congregation founded in the 1960s, dedicated to Gerard Majella, for the purpose of religious education of children unable to afford the reformed Catholic system- before this point there seemed to be mostly dual schools in the country, one for fee payers and one for those unable to pay. The Brothers wore habits as other groups took them off and attracted vocations as others began to question the future. But the cases were so high, including the founder himself, that the society was eventually suppressed. Which is unfortunate as, Catholic education becoming ever more elitist in Australia, it sounded like a damn good idea otherwise.
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Post by kj on Oct 6, 2021 8:25:13 GMT
I'm afraid for me anyway the standard Catholic defence about sexual abuse being ubiquitous throughout society, families etc doesn't really cut it.
The Church explicitly sets itself up as a supreme moral arbiter and storehold of truth and goodness. We all know Jesus's warnings about what will happen to those who harm children.
At what point do the usual lines about the Church being "only a human institution", "priests being flawed" etc become untenable and the reality of generational abuse and official cover-up render the church's very existence as questionable?
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Oct 6, 2021 8:29:20 GMT
I'm afraid for me anyway the standard Catholic defence about sexual abuse being ubiquitous throughout society, families etc doesn't really cut it. The Church explicitly sets itself up as a supreme moral arbiter and storehold of truth and goodness. We all know Jesus's warnings about what will happen to those who harm children. At what point do the usual lines about the Church being "only a human institution", "priests being flawed" etc become untenable and the reality of generational abuse and official cover-up render the church's very existence as questionable? But I don't think anyone would deny that the Church's failure is all the more egregious because of its ideals. At the same time, it's one moment in its history. It would never occur to me that moral failings in the Church would make its existence questionable.
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Post by kj on Oct 6, 2021 8:55:13 GMT
Sorry, but "one moment in its history" strikes me as an enormous cop-out. This has been going on for decades that we know of, and there's hardly any reason to think it somehow began in the 20th century. St Peter Damian denounced it in the Book of Gomorrah in 1056.
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Oct 6, 2021 9:25:36 GMT
Sorry, but "one moment in its history" strikes me as an enormous cop-out. This has been going on for decades that we know of, and there's hardly any reason to think it somehow began in the 20th century. St Peter Damian denounced it in the Book of Gomorrah in 1056. I understand that reaction, but I've never really questioned the legitimacy of the institution because of the sex abuse scandals. I grew up in the nineties when this was all coming out. It never even affected my thinking when I was eventually coming to believe in the Church's claims in my late twenties, early thirties. To me, an analogy would be to say that we must ask at some point whether the gravity of governmental crimes means we should abolish, not just this or that government, but government in general, and embrace anarchism. That would seem an overreaction to me. I'm not at all trying to diminish the gravity of the matter or the failures on the part of the Church.
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Post by kj on Oct 6, 2021 9:45:44 GMT
I don't think your analogy works. "Government" can be an abstract term used to mean any form of rulership or politics. The Catholic Church is a specific institution with a specific history and doctrine. When crimes of this magnitude keep emerging and are so egregiously in violation of its core tenets, I think it is a crisis of nigh on irremediable proportions.
I think a lot of Catholics just turn off their brains and conscience by taking refuge in fuzzy sophistics. "The magnitude of the crime somehow reveals the divine nature of the church" or some such waffle. In no other instance of catastrophic institutional failure would this kind of thing be tolerated.
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Post by assisi on Oct 6, 2021 12:16:27 GMT
I don't think your analogy works. "Government" can be an abstract term used to mean any form of rulership or politics. The Catholic Church is a specific institution with a specific history and doctrine. When crimes of this magnitude keep emerging and are so egregiously in violation of its core tenets, I think it is a crisis of nigh on irremediable proportions. I think a lot of Catholics just turn off their brains and conscience by taking refuge in fuzzy sophistics. "The magnitude of the crime somehow reveals the divine nature of the church" or some such waffle. In no other instance of catastrophic institutional failure would this kind of thing be tolerated. Ask yourself one question. Is a cleric who knowingly (i.e. who plans the abuse and carries it out ) preys on children over, say, a period of years, a Catholic or a paedophile?
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Post by Stephen on Oct 6, 2021 13:26:57 GMT
I don't think your analogy works. "Government" can be an abstract term used to mean any form of rulership or politics. The Catholic Church is a specific institution with a specific history and doctrine. When crimes of this magnitude keep emerging and are so egregiously in violation of its core tenets, I think it is a crisis of nigh on irremediable proportions. I think a lot of Catholics just turn off their brains and conscience by taking refuge in fuzzy sophistics. "The magnitude of the crime somehow reveals the divine nature of the church" or some such waffle. In no other instance of catastrophic institutional failure would this kind of thing be tolerated. Ask yourself one question. Is a cleric who knowingly (i.e. who plans the abuse and carries it out ) preys on children over, say, a period of years, a Catholic or a paedophile? On this topic, I want to make myself abundantly clear. We need catholic inquisition. " were better for him, that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should scandalize one of these little ones." The death penalty would be to good for these evil Men and may the only way they would truly repent. It asks the question do we remain Catholic when we mortally sin? Can a catholic ever fully remove themselves once received the sacraments? I imagine the vast majority of these Homosexuals and paedophiles care very little if anything about the Catholic Faith.
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Post by Stephen on Oct 6, 2021 13:31:49 GMT
So the latest report says "more than half the cases were before 1970." I find this interesting as it means the Trad Caths will be hard pressed to play the ol' "Vatican II ruined everything" card. I wonder if this will lead to any reflection on their part. Doubt it somehow. One can only shudder at what was going on pre-1950. Sister Veronique Margron, president of the Conference of Religious Orders, put it: "If the Church must tremble, well let it tremble."216,000 children were victims of clergy - inquiry
"I find this interesting as it means the Trad Caths will be hard-pressed to play the ol' "Vatican II ruined everything" card." Vatican 2 and the wasteland that came after it was not the start of the Modernist problems in the Church. If you're interested in the current crisis watch the excellent series called the crisis in the church series sspxpodcast.com/episodes/
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Post by kj on Oct 6, 2021 13:55:28 GMT
On this topic, I want to make myself abundantly clear. We need catholic inquisition. " were better for him, that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should scandalize one of these little ones." The death penalty would be to good for these evil Men and may the only way they would truly repent. It asks the question do we remain Catholic when we mortally sin? Can a catholic ever fully remove themselves once received the sacraments? I imagine the vast majority of these Homosexuals and paedophiles care very little if anything about the Catholic Faith. Well I personally disagree with the death penalty, but while certainly a Catholic Inquisition with either the death penalty or a public casting out might convince the world the Church is serious about cleaning out the mountains of excrement from its Augean stables, we all know this isn't going to happen. Instead the usual shuffling and empty rhetoric will continue. As for modernity etc being responsible for crimes within the church, sorry but I'm not convinced. I think this is just evasion. I referenced Peter Damian referring to widespread sexual abuse in 1056 - an era that can by no stretch be considered modern. Nor am I persuaded by the "anyone who did these things isn't really Catholic" line. By Catholic standards, having received the sacraments they were and still are Catholic unless they've been formally excommunicated. Where do you draw your lines at "if you do this, you aren't really Catholic"? It's a slippery slope that quickly disqualifies just about anyone. Not to mention the fact that a paedophile could regularly confesses to a priest and be granted absolution, so in answer to a question above, yes, you can be Catholic and a paedophile.
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