Hi everyone,

Every investigation looks for the smoking gun. The pope, in his previous position as Cardinal Ratzinger, was clearly protecting the church as the cost of boys just like me. Their is smoke all over his hands!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/10/world/europe/10pope.html?emc=eta1

Taz

I think the pope is going down.

Any of those guys who abused should be defrocked! Publically!

Just like they defrocked the kids they molested.

Allen

Eww, this guy is icky. Some people have a good response -
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article7094310.ece?TheGodDelusion

The Catholic Church is reaping what it sowed. I'm disgusted by how they cared more about the reputation of the church than about the boys. Just goes to prove that when your priorities are out of whack, you get what's coming to you. The church is rightly being condemned.

Look at this! This expresses my sentiments!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ye7cLNcAwoo


Allen

aka pufferfish

That video is pretty good.

Brothers,

While I understand, all too well, the pain and grief you feel, I think that the anger's misplaced.

I would strongly suggest you not to take glee or pleasure in the misfortunes of others, whether the Catholic Church or the Democratic Party in Illinois for instance.

Pope Benedict perhaps didn't act as swiftly as he should have in terms of of Priests abusing young boys when a Cardinal but he's acting now as the Pope. As to his guilt or innocence in complicity or overt suppressing of evidence, I haven't been convinced either way by the media evidence to date.

It sounds like he was not duplicitous in the Milwaukee Priest abuse but some of the other molestation allegations in Europe should be looked at further.

However, I do think that Allen's right in that any priests/church officials found guilty of molesting children should be defrocked and I will add on to that by them being led away afterwards in shackles.

Jay

Jay:

I agree that the evidence is not (so far) conclusive.

Nor do I experience any of this with glee or pleasure.

But the Church needed this wake-up call, I think. I still say they are reaping what they sowed with years of official silence, protecting pedophile priests, and the like.

Wherever the truth leads, so be it.

David

I'm a judicious guy and I like to consider the evidence.

So far, I find that there is probable cause based on the evidence, to try members of the Catholic Church, up to and including the Pontiff, for their part in a systematic and international conspiracy to hide the crimes perpetrated against abused boys and girls and men and women by the clergy and religious, and protecting the perpetrators from appropriate criminal prosecution in countless legal jurisdictions.

This makes the individuals involved at the very least guilty of obstruction of justice and criminal conspiracy, and more likely accessories after the fact in these crimes. More, the Catholic Churches documented policy of obstruction of justice enabled the perpetrators to abuse more people and went far beyond a dereliction of the care, responsibility and trust that was given to them. The Catholic Church enabled this abuse to continue happening.

This assessment doesn't bring me any joy or schadenfreude. What it does bring me and other survivors of religious abuse is a possibility of justice where there has been none.

I also find the idea that this abuse is a purely recent phenomenon entirely unconvincing.

There is excellent scholarly work that shows the churches single minded oppression and punishment of many groups that threatened their interests or survival throughout the centuries. All this at the same time clergy were taking boys and girls men and women to their beds abusing their positions of power and trust.

All who are complicit must be tried under secular law. Anything else makes all of society willing accomplices and enablers of this heinous abuse.

-efm