Sex abuse scandal. Guess the religion?

[MrFun]

I do however object to gay people taking cheap shots at my church.

Says the guy who takes cheap shots at gay people.

[Asher]

Catholics hate you?

Of course they do. The "good" catholics anyway.

[MrFun]

Catholics hate you?

Yes - the Vatican and many Catholic Church clergy do indeed hate gay people.

[Hauldren Collider]

I wouldn't characterize it as hate. I think they see it as sinful behavior that should be avoided.

Admittedly this isn't really much better.

[Asher]

I wouldn't characterize it as hate. I think they see it as sinful behavior that should be avoided.

Admittedly this isn't really much better.

It's definitely hate by some.

One Catholic on Apolyton continues to equate gays with pedophiles whenever possible. If a priest is a pedophile, it's cause them gays infiltrated the clergy...

[Elok]

Does anyone know a figure for the prevalence of pedophilia among males of the general population? Wiki says the figure doesn't exist, but that's Wiki. Until it and a figure for prevalence among the Catholic clergy are found, it's hard to say if there's a real correlation. It might just be that molesting priests garner more headlines than your common wandering pervert.

[DaShi]

You'd need to compare it to other professions, such as protestant preachers.

[Ming]

Does anyone know a figure for the prevalence of pedophilia among males of the general population? Wiki says the figure doesn't exist, but that's Wiki. Until it and a figure for prevalence among the Catholic clergy are found, it's hard to say if there's a real correlation. It might just be that molesting priests garner more headlines than your common wandering pervert.

Who knows... and even if "statistics" are available, we all know about "statistics"

But what we do know is that the RCC has ignored the problem in the past and even hid the facts to protect themselves. Also, unless charges are made, they continue to hide it. More and more of these situations are coming up, and it's NOT from investigations from the RCC or them coming clean... they only come clean when the facts come out.

It's totally shameful and evil considering the source.

[Wezil]

Does anyone know a figure for the prevalence of pedophilia among males of the general population? Wiki says the figure doesn't exist, but that's Wiki. Until it and a figure for prevalence among the Catholic clergy are found, it's hard to say if there's a real correlation. It might just be that molesting priests garner more headlines than your common wandering pervert.

What is the prevalence of covering up child sexual abuse in the general population?

I don't know if being a catholic priest leads to pedophilia but I certainly see an organisation that does everything in it's power (including relocating pedophile priests to other unsuspecting areas) to conceal the problem. If your local school board did the same I would expect to see charges.

This answers your question as well Hauldren.

edit - Yeah, what Ming said...

[Elok]

I'm not denying it's a problem, just stating that the huge number of kiddy-fiddling priests may well be a coincidence as opposed to some effect of celibacy.

[germanos]

The effect of celibacy is that it turns sexual conduct by priests into sexual abuse. They themselves have taken it upon them to refrain from sex and so members of their congregation expect to be safe from sexual harassment. That this is not the case makes the abuse all the more traumatic. It's the moral highground the priests take (examplified by their vow of abstinance) that leads to the enormous outrage that follows the abuse. IMO that's the correlation between celibacy and the outrage over pedosexual conduct by priests and why they (rightfully) have to take so much flak over it.

[DanS]

Does anyone know a figure for the prevalence of pedophilia among males of the general population?

I have heard that it was about 1/2 of the prevalence of pedophilia among priests. At least in the US.

Speaking of just the US, there were a lot of priests who had no business being priests for one reason or another (primarily not because of pedophilia). But most have since been kicked out. My sense is that the situation is a lot better now. Now I rarely hear of any cases that are left to fester.

As to the OP, I don't expect any region of the church to go unscathed by these scandals. One thing to note is that while non-Catholics might focus on the upper church hierarchy, the church is very decentralized. Each bishop has almost total autonomy. So that's the main reason why the church in Germany didn't learn very well from the experiences of the church in the United States, for instance.

[HalfLotus]

Bashing the church is overdone imo, but this was pretty funny.

Priest Off

[Wezil]

Bashing the church is overdone imo, but this was pretty funny.

Let them have at your children and see if you still find it overdone.

[HalfLotus]

By all means bash away at child molesters, but people get too excited about others' faith, and seem to take joy in excoriating religious beliefs.

Despite the logical shortcomings, faith improves a lot of people's lives.

Probly the wrong thread to make that defense, but whatever.