Pastor AIO:

THe Church of England has definately become permissive of homosexuality.  If the number of homosexual cases within the church rose to a certain critical level, for instance the level of pedophilic behaviour in the Roman Catholic church, then it would be right to call C of E a Gay Institution.  I would agree with that. 

It is often said that the ancient Greeks were Gay.  The fact is there were so many gay people in that society that that statement becomes valid.  Although I am sure that there many  ancient greeks that weren't gay.

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Given all we now know about the cover-up of clerical sexual abuse by Rome it's difficult to see what is significant about the Pope's meeting with a small number of victims in Malta. I appreciate that it may have been meaningful to those who chose to meet the Pope, but it hardly represents a major breakthrough in addressing the global scandals engulfing the Roman Catholic church.


One might have expected that such meetings, as part of a meaningful engagement with victims, would have been an essential component of an appropriate response to abuse by priests. They are at odds with the ongoing denial of the Vatican of its responsibility for the cover-up of crimes against children and its use of sovereign immunity to block efforts to hold it to account before civil courts.

The perversity of blaming everyone else, including at times the victims themselves for the crimes and cover-ups of the church in a ridiculous attempt to dodge accountability, whilst expressing concern for victims seems lost on the Vatican.

But there was a much more significant event this weekend. Speaking at a Catholic University, Cardinal Dario Hoyos revealed that a letter he wrote praising French bishop Pierre Pican for not passing information about a rapist priest to the French police was sent to every Catholic bishop in the world in 2001 with the approval of Pope John Paul II. Pican had been convicted of failing to report abuse by a Catholic abbot sentenced to 18 years in prison for paedophilia.

In his letter Cardinal Hoyos wrote: "I congratulate you for not denouncing a priest to the civil administration ,  I am pleased to have a colleague in the episcopate who, in the eyes of history and of all other bishops in the world, preferred prison to denouncing his son and priest."

Hoyos was at the time one of the most senior figures in the Catholic Church. So there it is, proof that the Vatican actively supported the cover-up of clerical sexual abuse.

Also exposed is the ongoing deceit of the Vatican's protestations that the church has not covered up abuse. Only last week, the Pope's second-in-command, Cardinal Bertone, said the church had never impeded investigations of abuse by priests. Meetings are all very well, but surely honesty and a commitment to justice would be much more meaningful?

Colm O'Gorman is himself a victim of abuse by a Roman Catholic priest and the author of the memoir 'Beyond Belief'. www.colmogorman.com

Dauchman:

I still say your reasoning is very flawed. Remember the question i asked, since all these sinners leave on earth should we therefore say the Earth has become permissive of all things bad so everyone please move on to Mars?

Dauchman:
And what for you is a critical level? Do you think its only in the RCC we have such because we always over-flog issues when it concerns them because we want to prove they do not know what they are doing. Make use of the net and do a proper research, then you would understand better. Which is worse a church that has approved sin with no regrets or one that its members sin and the church cautions them? If i remember clearly it was only this same institution you call names that stood up and said no abortion no matter how the child came, no to divorce also except it is based on infidelity, and so many more. Do a proper research before you come up with your accusations, do not talk based on hearsay.

And FYI!
, while experts in the field of sexual abuse counseling contend that celibacy has no effect on rates of child abuse in the Catholic Church, as it has been shown that the rates of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church is not higher than in society, other public institutions and other religious denominations.[11] For example, Penn State University professor Phillip Jenkins, after a careful review of all available research concluded that between 0.2 and 1.7% of Catholic clergy are craddle-robbers, while the figure among Protestant clergy is between 2 and 3%.

Pastor AIO:

A critical level for me is one whereby a new reaction is initiated.  In this case the reaction is total revulsion for an organisation.  It is not so much the fact that human errors have been made but the fact that this same organisations makes a claim of piety and moral superiority that is not only unfounded but evidently mendacious.  
I never said that celibacy had anything to do with pedophilia.  I asked why the incidence of pedeophilia is so closely correlated with the catholic church.  I haven't found an explanation yet but I am wiling to discuss the various possible causes with anyone that is similarly interested in the matter.

Pastor AIO:

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Given all we now know about the cover-up of clerical sexual abuse by Rome it's difficult to see what is significant about the Pope's meeting with a small number of victims in Malta. I appreciate that it may have been meaningful to those who chose to meet the Pope, but it hardly represents a major breakthrough in addressing the global scandals engulfing the Roman Catholic church.


One might have expected that such meetings, as part of a meaningful engagement with victims, would have been an essential component of an appropriate response to abuse by priests. They are at odds with the ongoing denial of the Vatican of its responsibility for the cover-up of crimes against children and its use of sovereign immunity to block efforts to hold it to account before civil courts.

The perversity of blaming everyone else, including at times the victims themselves for the crimes and cover-ups of the church in a ridiculous attempt to dodge accountability, whilst expressing concern for victims seems lost on the Vatican.

But there was a much more significant event this weekend. Speaking at a Catholic University, Cardinal Dario Hoyos revealed that a letter he wrote praising French bishop Pierre Pican for not passing information about a rapist priest to the French police was sent to every Catholic bishop in the world in 2001 with the approval of Pope John Paul II. Pican had been convicted of failing to report abuse by a Catholic abbot sentenced to 18 years in prison for paedophilia.

In his letter Cardinal Hoyos wrote: "I congratulate you for not denouncing a priest to the civil administration ,  I am pleased to have a colleague in the episcopate who, in the eyes of history and of all other bishops in the world, preferred prison to denouncing his son and priest."

Hoyos was at the time one of the most senior figures in the Catholic Church. So there it is, proof that the Vatican actively supported the cover-up of clerical sexual abuse.

Also exposed is the ongoing deceit of the Vatican's protestations that the church has not covered up abuse. Only last week, the Pope's second-in-command, Cardinal Bertone, said the church had never impeded investigations of abuse by priests. Meetings are all very well, but surely honesty and a commitment to justice would be much more meaningful?

Colm O'Gorman is himself a victim of abuse by a Roman Catholic priest and the author of the memoir 'Beyond Belief'. www.colmogorman.com


http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/colm-ogorman-honesty-and-justice-would-be-better-than-a-meeting-1948208.html

Well said!!

Dauchman:

Again the media has twisted the story again, and you still do not see it.
let me give you the real story;
"I congratulate you for not denouncing a priest to the civil administration," Castrillon Hoyos wrote. "You have acted well and I am pleased to have a colleague in the episcopate who, in the eyes of history and of all other bishops in the world, preferred prison to denouncing his son and priest." 

I am sure you know the meaning of denouncing, it does not mean handing over. Both Priest and his Bishop went to jail. They were handed over to the authorities by the Vatican. Read on;

Castrillon Hoyos justified his actions, saying the late pope John Paul II authorised him to send the letter. "After consulting the pope, I wrote a letter to the bishop, congratulating him as a model of a father who does not abandon his children," he said.

I leave you to decide.

Pastor AIO:

^^^^  Have you just edited the above post.  Because I could have sworn that just before I was about to respond I read that you wrote that a senior priest and a catholic would not say what Hoyos said. 

I was then going to respond by asking whether you were suggesting that a catholic  would, and ought to, lie about what happened if it wasn't in the interests of the Catholic church.  But alas, you have changed your post so I cannot not expose your freudian slip.

Any way sha . . .

. . . at least now you admit that he actually wrote the letter and gave the lecture where he confessed it.  I know what denouncing means.  Let us also consider the context.  and also the phrase 'denouncing to the civil adminstration'.  Not just denouncing, but denouncing to the civil administration. 

Vatican did not hand over nada.  Criminals were caught by criminal investigators.  If there was no criminal investigation I don't think that the catholic church would by it's own initiative hand over it's paedoophile priests. 

tpn:

Why is it that when it comes to religion ,we all loose our reasoning and just become idiotic.
A crime has been committed,the perpetrators of those crime should be brought to justice.
The person who covered the crime should be tried and if found guilty should be prosecuted.That is the standard by which civilised society exist .Religion does not give anybody the right to commit crime and go free.No body is above the law whether you are the pastor ,G.o or Pope.
There is a difference between what God said and what his representative say.God would not commit or condone those crimes so get it straight this has nothing to do with the religion.People would continue to believe in God .
SO use your brain and get the right thing done.

Dude, you are missing the central point. No one is persecuting one for the crimes of another. This is a case of systemic, institutionalised cover-ups. That is really the issue at hand. The current pope, as cardinal ratzinger, also happened to be in-charge of the body responsible for dealing with these issues.

Vatican did not hand over nada. Criminals were caught by criminal investigators. If there was no criminal investigation I don't think that the catholic church would by it's own initiative hand over it's paedoophile priests.

zubeyr:

only God knows how many africans childrens been abused by their cardinals we need to shed more light on the role of the chatolic church in Africa and investigate the reason for this silence

mama-gee:

^^Do you have any proof to back up this Claim or are you out to spread blasphemy against a fellow human being?

~Lady~:

Actually he wasn't. That's the problem. The Pope didn't handle these cases. When he started handling the case, he started finding solutions to the problem.

I already posted an article that stated clearly that the Pope was the one who started doing something about it. He wasn't involved in the cover up. But then again there are idiots who believe everything the media says.

The Vatican doesn't do the handling over, it isn't supposed to be that way. It doesn't even get to the Vatican in the first place unless it has to do with abuse of the confessional. A lot of the cases did not make it to the Vatican, but ofcourse everyone wants to blame the Vatican.

The cases are to be handles with the Bishops, that's why a few Bishops were the ones who did the moving around not the Vatican. Bisops have authority in their Sees and are therefore supposed to handle the cases themselves. And for a lot of Sees the criminals were handed over to the authorities but nothing was done by the government. And at that time Pedophilia was considered a curable mental problem, a lot of Priests were said to be cured by the Psychologists. So the Bishops put them back to work.

People should actually learn how things work rather tahn show their ignorance by spouting meaningful accusations.

Pastor AIO:

Now the above is full of claims and not one shred of evidence, not one single document or link is sited to help us verify whether what she is saying is true or not.

After sexual abuse cases became the responsibility of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2001, Cardinal Ratzinger, as head of that congregation, made strong efforts to investigate such cases.[110] According to Jason Berry, Ratzinger had "persuaded John Paul to consolidate authority of abuse investigations in his office".[111] According to John L. Allen, Jr., Ratzinger in the following years "acquired a familiarity with the contours of the problem that virtually no other figure in the Catholic church can claim" and "driven by that encounter with what he would later refer to as 'filth' in the church, Ratzinger seems to have undergone something of a 'conversion experience' throughout 2003-04. From that point forward, he and his staff seemed driven by a convert's zeal to clean up the mess".[112] According to Charles J. Scicluna, a former prosecutor handling sexual abuse cases, "Cardinal Ratzinger displayed great wisdom and firmness in handling those cases, also demonstrating great courage in facing some of the most difficult and thorny cases, sine acceptione personarum (without exceptions)".[112][113]

pluzini:

it is really shameful that atheists and the world should be the ones telling us our wrongs, but on careful study are some of this atheist not the product of the church? what do u think a boy or girl that was despoiled by a priest will think of religion? most of the love-peddlers on our streets where bright girls from good homes but because of some form of abuse they now care little of about their lives. i have had the opportunity to live with priests and the experience will make any man loose his faith in God. i am not saying that all priests are bad, thier are really some very good priests but the number of the bad eggs is alarming! we as catholics knows this and we the members are also involved in this cover up. right here in nigeria there are victims especially girls but there is no one to speak for them not even their parents. please lets not be fanatics, i see this as a revival its only coming from outsiders because we have refused to do nothing about it.

pluzini:

thats the problem, the bishop will do nothing about it and the family of the victim would not even want to go to the police. in nigeria its still a pity that r a p e victims still find it hard to report to the police not to talk of when it has to do with their priest, their parents won't even listen to them.

pluzini:

all i have to tell u is to open your eyes, if u r a catholic then wat i am saying might exist right there in your parish, i know u will contest everything i say but my prayer is that none of your relatives or friend be a victim.

I Timothy 4
1 But the Spirit saith expressly, that in later times some shall fall away from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons,
2 through the hypocrisy of men that speak lies, branded in their own conscience as with a hot iron;
3 forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by them that believe and know the truth.

a word is enough for the wise.

Now the above is full of claims and not one shred of evidence, not one single document or link is sited to help us verify whether what she is saying is true or not.

This thread has brought out some things out of me that I'm not too comfortable with. Like the part about playing with the Pope's name benedict - maledick etc.

But the long and the short of the point that I want to make is that This organisation is not the paragon of moral excellence it claims to be nor is it the representative of God on earth. And it is those claims that are challenged by this current drama. In fact the entire history of the RCC challenges the claim but history is history, let's deal with what is before us now.

If catholics can confess that they are just trying to live right and be better people through their own human agency like every other person, and not come with some fictitious claim of divine ordination then I would say that something positive has been learned from this whole episode. finito, fini, o pari!!