Pope Benedict XVI faced claims last night he had 'obstructed justice' after it emerged he issued an order ensuring the church's investigations into child sex abuse claims be carried out in secret.From 2005.
The order was made in a confidential letter, obtained by The Observer, which was sent to every Catholic bishop in May 2001.
It asserted the church's right to hold its inquiries behind closed doors and keep the evidence confidential for up to 10 years after the victims reached adulthood. The letter was signed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who was elected as John Paul II's successor last week.
LONDON — A team of international investigators infiltrated an Internet chat room used by pedophiles who streamed live videos of children being raped, rescuing 31 children and identifying more than 700 suspects worldwide.What the Catholic hierarchy did was different. It moved the pedophiles around in order to minimize and prevent any potential PR debacle. The cover up wasn't about getting pedophile priests more ass, it was about covering the Church's ass.
Undercover officers in Britain, the U.S., Canada and Australia busted up the pedophile ring using surveillance techniques more commonly associated with fighting terrorism and organized crime.
The chat room, which was called "Kids the Light of Our Lives," featured images, including live videos, of children — some only months old — being subjected to horrific sexual abuse, said Jim Gamble, chief executive of Britain's Child Exploitation and Online Protection Center.
More than 15 children were found in Britain, Gamble said, declining to give further details. A Canadian official said authorities there arrested 24 Canadians and rescued seven Canadian children as part of the investigation. Four people have been arrested in Australia, including one who was previously convicted of child-pornography charges, officials said.
Stop it. You are all wrong. The pope is infallible, therefore you are all wrong!. Try to get out of this logic. You can't because you are wrong. And if you think you are right you have to have faith that you are wrong.These are not accurate representations of Catholic doctrine. As a veteran observer of contentious debate on this subject I took these comments to be sarcastic predictions of the futility of arguing religious subjects using rational methods. Or perhaps mockery of the idea of a human being being treated as though infallible in any capacity. Or maybe just threadshitting.
posted by cjorgensen at 10:52 AM on March 13 [10 favorites +]
Whoa whoa whoa. I hope no one is saying that this was WRONG. The Pope is infallible, people. It's in the Bible.
posted by DU at 11:14 AM on March 13 [1 favorite +]
Homosexual ≠ pedophile.Inaccurate, inflammatory, and FIAMOed.
Correct. But Homosexual + Pedophile = Catholic Priest
posted by mikelieman at 12:36 PM on March 13 [+] [Flagged]
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: the Roman Catholic Church is the largest pedophile ring in the world.The biggest-paedo-ring thing pops up.
Many things are wrong here, but focusing just on the priests is not the whole story. There are also the secular authorities who allowed the RCC undue exemption from the rule of the law.
This is #4567289 reason for a robust and absolute separation of church and state.
posted by VikingSword at 3:32 PM on March 13 [4 favorites +] [!]
Ratzinger could play a child molester in a film and look totally believable.I think he looks more like an evil wizard, or maybe halfway on the transformation between Joe Lieberman and Emperor Palpatine.
posted by telstar at 4:18 PM on March 13 [3 favorites +]
You know who else kept meticulous administrative records of their crimes?Cheap, easy, and essentially noise. Joe, you can do better. See me after class.
Nothing personal, Your Holiness.
posted by Joe Beese at 4:20 PM on March 13 [3 favorites +]
I know everyone is going to flip out at me saying this, but it's true: the Catholic Church is nothing more than the world's largest, most powerful child abuse ring. I would honestly, no shit, no question bet my life, that at least half of the thousand most powerful men in the church are active or former child abusers.Here we go with the second appearance of the biggest-paedo-ring meme. Here OC tries to stick to factual assertions, but (I feel) lets himself get carried away.
Now I know that there are soup kitchens and shit that Catholics get into and they care about the death penalty and all that, but those are lay members of the church. The guys wearing the costumes and doing the rituals and setting church policy are the child abusers, and they have absolute power within the church, and they will always be protected, all the way to the top.
There is literally no other organization on the planet that devotes as much money and manpower into both covering up and facilitating systemic abuse. Priests are shuffled in and out not to protect the church members, but in order to provide "fresh meat" for predatory priests. If you're a regular Joe and you molest a kid, you go to prison. Even those people who are normally "above the law" - politicians and police - will go to prison if they're caught abusing children. Only the Catholic Church has rules in place to specifically protect these men at the expense of their victims; only the Catholic Church will move these men to new places where their crimes are unknown. Only the Catholic Church will intimidate witness to this extent, only the Catholic Church will destroy evidence and obstruct justice as an organizational tenet.
I don't normally agree with crazy evangelicals and conspiracy theorists, but if there were a worldwide Satanic conspiracy that happened to be actually be true, you'd have to start by looking at the wildly powerful, ultra-wealthy, politically untouchable, child-abuse-centered Catholic Church.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 4:47 PM on March 13 [21 favorites +]
Priests have the power of God on their side, and that is a very powerful tool when used against children.empath comes in with the accusation of anti-Catholic bigotry, and VikingSword responds with an assertion of his belief in common priestly goodness, a challenge for counterevidence, and a repetition of his thesis. Again, while there is evidence of widespread and systemic sexual abuse and coverup, we don't know for certain that the Church's efforts in this vein truly are the historic apex.
And parents have the power of Santa Claus. I went to Catholic School for eight years. We were much more afraid of the nuns than the priests.
Non-Catholics seem to have a very, very skewed view of the way actual Catholic life is lived. It's not all child rape and rulers across the knuckles, you know, and the vast majority of priests don't rape children and are pretty nice guys.
But anti-Catholic bigotry seems to be socially acceptable on metafilter when almost no other bigotry is. You guys sound like you could be reading off of Chick Tracts half the time.
posted by empath at 9:03 PM on March 13 [6 favorites +]
But anti-Catholic bigotry seems to be socially acceptable on metafilter when almost no other bigotry is.
Funny, I don't recall anyone attacking ordinary lay Catholics, or even all priests - I certainly wouldn't. What I did attack, and am unapologetic about, is the RCC as a hierarchical organization - top down power structure. I have a problem with the way the "top" is working and the way power is structured within the RCC, because while I have no doubt that there are plenty of good honest decent and even heroic priests, the organization they work for has been responsible for the biggest organized child rape anywhere in the world, going on for decades (and no doubt centuries).
Truth is an adequate defense against charges of slander. And truth is an adequate defense against charges of bigotry. If the shoe fits, wear it.
The charge is: The Roman Catholic Church is the biggest and oldest pedophile ring in the world. That is not bigotry - that is the truth.
posted by VikingSword at 9:44 PM on March 13 [1 favorite +]
The Roman Catholic Church is the biggest and oldest pedophile ring in the world.The far-away wolf-child breaks it down for us. He posits that while these accusations against the Church are hyperbolic, evidence points to them being true at least qualitatively. He points out the inaccuracy of the term "witch-hunt" and makes a point about the inertia inherent in organizations, especially old and powerful ones. Pace jessamyn he demands that participants in the rites, activities, and daily life of the Church hold their hierarchy responsible for their actions. Finally, he points out something of an elephant in the room.
You know, I'd generally just be against such statements on principle. But it's been decades if not centuries of these crimes, literally thousands of such cases and every single time the role of the church has been to cover up - not one time has the church ever been the one to blow the whistle.
For those of you who claim it's a witch-hunt - where are the innocent victims of this witch-hunt? If it's a witch-hunt, why isn't the Holy Roman, Apostolic and Catholic Church actually doing something to distinguish the guilty from the innocent?
Invoking RICO seems perfectly reasonable to me. We've had decades of inaction. The Catholic Church is never, ever going to do one thing about priests putting their penises into the anuses of small children until they are forced to.
At this point, if you are a defender of the Catholic Church, the onus is really on you. Show us how the elders of your church have defended your children from sexual assault. Tell us about the internal discipline of the church, prove to us that priests who have violated children are prevented from ever being in contact with children again. Otherwise you are in the unpleasant position of defending serial child rapists who are also protected by one of the largest and oldest institutions in the world.
(Oh, and I'd add that my anger is fueled by the fact that these are the same people who believe that people who have consensual same-sex relationships will be subject to infinite torture for an infinite time, whereas priests who sodomize - rape! - little boys will get an eternity in paradise...)
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 11:15 PM on March 13 [3 favorites +]
This whole catholic as victim thing really has me curled in a ball, weeping for them. Seriously? Are we going to indulge this crap? Um, sorry your feelings are hurt, but your little club has been killing people and dictating misery to a massive percentage of the planet for well nigh on many centuries? Deal with it. Sorry your feelings are hurt. Your rosary is in the corner.Despite the historical justification given in the fourth sentence, this comes off as rude and is not likely to help the conversation go in any positive direction.
posted by nevercalm at 12:39 AM on March 14 [+]
Just last month, a book by the chief rabbi of Great Britain, Jonathan Sacks, was labeled as heresy by several Orthodox rabbis in Manchester because it espouses the belief that Judaism does not hold the only religious truth. One of the offending passages in "The Dignity of Difference" states that "no one creed has a monopoly on spiritual truth."But what you can't do is use our pluralism against us, to take our belief that all opinions are more or less equally allowed to be held and our belief that all opinions, even those we vehemently disagree with should be treated politely, and use our pluralistic beliefs to undermine our pluralism.
With this in mind, this Congregation wishes to ask the Bishops to be especially cautious of any programmes which may seek to pressure the Church to change her teaching, even while claiming not to do so. A careful examination of their public statements and the activities they promote reveals a studied ambiguity by which they attempt to mislead the pastors and the faithful. For example, they may present the teaching of the Magisterium, but only as if it were an optional source for the formation of one's conscience. Its specific authority is not recognized. Some of these groups will use the word "Catholic" to describe either the organization or its intended members, yet they do not defend and promote the teaching of the Magisterium; indeed, they even openly attack it. While their members may claim a desire to conform their lives to the teaching of Jesus, in fact they abandon the teaching of his Church. This contradictory action should not have the support of the Bishops in any way.Quite clearly the magisterium is introduced here (as in all other instances in the text) to assert its primacy over these modern liberal approaches. His concern is, as I said, that gay people continue to be told they're going against God's plan.
"We would heartily encourage programmes where these dangers are avoided. But we wish to make it clear that departure from the Church's teaching, or silence about it, in an effort to provide pastoral care is neither caring nor pastoral. Only what is true can ultimately be pastoral. The neglect of the Church's position prevents homosexual men and women from receiving the care they need and deserve.You're right that the exoteric half of the letter is aimed at preserving the repudiation of ordinary homosexuality. (That's the "deluding" horn of the dilemma.) However, the letter would apply equally well to what the Church has always thought of as homosexual "ephebophilia" rather than pedophilia, which is attraction to adolescent boys, defined as 11-and-above. This distinction is built into the Catholic doctrine of "the age of reason." Here I claim that Ratzinger's desire to prevent "isolating" such unfortunates has a troubling double meaning: for homosexuals, it means welcoming gay Catholics to participate so long as they acknowledge that homosexual activity is a sin. For pedophiles, it means doing the same thing, and preventing the intervention of temporal authority.
An authentic pastoral programme will assist homosexual persons at all levels of the spiritual life: through the sacraments, and in particular through the frequent and sincere use of the sacrament of Reconciliation, through prayer, witness, counsel and individual care. In such a way, the entire Christian community can come to recognize its own call to assist its brothers and sisters, without deluding them or isolating them."
"I thought I made a distinction between criticising the actual behavior of the church and the cheap lulzy shots at Catholics and Catholicism. In case it wasn't clear, then yes, I think it's perfectly fine to criticize the disgusting behavior of the Church organization in its handling of the child rape cases.Which is it, then? We don't know. And he isn't clarifying.
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by empath at 7:29 PM on March 13, 2010 [3 favorites]