Sex abuse scandal. Guess the religion?

[MrFun]

I guess I will have to include rah in something else next time I think of something.

[Ben Kenobi]

As stated above... but in addition, it is their constitutional right not to get married if they don't want to.
They are TRULY SUBJECT to US laws. Are you trying to say that Priests are not US Citizens?

Many aren't. We've had Nigerian nationals as our priests up here. We tend to be the 'training parish', where we help the new folks acclimate to -40 winters. I'd be surprised if all the priests were in fact US citizens. They actually have a special visa.

You dismiss everything he says out of hand.

I dismiss his allegations here, yes, as I think his frothing at the mouth isn't exactly helpful. There are topics where Christopher Hitchens is a reliable source, but not on the governance of the Catholic church.

It sure is... 30 years... it just shows how long the RCC has thought they could get away with it.

You know, it's funny. I used to belong to an Anglican parish that were dealing with this sort of thing. What would happen is people would file complaints of sex abuse from 30 years ago, and the church spent all of it's time in litigation, until everything got sorted out. Took years.

The interesting part, is it was never reported. The media all asserted it was all the Catholic church, a fact which was never the case up here. In contrast, the Catholic church here was actually found to be in compliance, whereas the Anglicans lost their suit. But good luck getting the media to actually report on it.

Yep... some did reoffend... and who's fault is that?

The priest, and the folks who put him back in contact with children again.

Maybe if they had a real trial, there wouldn't have been another victim.

Are you aware of the recedivisim rates of sexual offenders? It's very poor. The current method of dealing with them doesn't seem to do anything to prevent reoffenders. I'd wager the Church has far fewer reoffenders.

I think the victims are what are important here... and the fact that the Church sent these priests on their way so they could add more victims to their list is just pure evil.

That's not the case. Again, they were reassigned along with their change in duties. Finding a place to keep them isolated away from the families they victimised makes sense to me.

I can understand that a percentage of the population is just pure pond scum. And that they are priests, doctors, teachers, or any type of proffession. What I have a serious problem with is that the RCC allowed it continue. How many additional victims were there because of the RCC's actions.

The church isn't 'allowing it to continue'. Benedict finally managed to kick out Cardinal Mahoney, and he's been consistantly cleaning house in the USCCB. That will continue. You are right that pond scum is entrenched in many places, and this takes time. You are also right that the pond scum in many cases were protected by the heirarchy, but let's stop kidding ourselves. The Catholic church does not condone this behaviour. Let's keep the heat on the folks who deserve it, not on the folks trying to clean up the mess.

Since when is raping children Church doctirne... These people are criminals, and deserve to be prosecuted if guilty.

Since when does the state have authority over the conduct and discipline of the priest. What's to stop the state from abusing this authority as they have in the past? It's important to keep the two separate.

And you keep trotting out the 3 year crap... do you have proof that that is the average time spent in Jail.

Finally. That took awhile.

http://cbs2.com/local/Convicted.child.molester.2.1553047.html

Here's pond scum who molested 3 girls, served for 3 years, and reoffended. 3 years is about the standard for a first offense.

[Ben Kenobi]

Perhaps this can be Ben's next angle: the priests who molest boys aren't even Catholics...they're gay atheists.

No, they are Catholics. I've never played the 'no true scotsman' card and I won't. I'm the only one actually insisting that they are still priests. This is why the Church needs to root out all of them.

[BlackCat]

Many aren't. We've had Nigerian nationals as our priests up here. We tend to be the 'training parish', where we help the new folks acclimate to -40 winters. I'd be surprised if all the priests were in fact US citizens. They actually have a special visa.

Ben, stop being an idiot. Unless you have diplomatic immunity, you are subjet to the laws in the country you are in no matter if you are a priest or not.

[Boris Godunov]

And were these allegations ever proven to be true? No. I can slander dead people all I want, that doesn't make the allegation anymore true.

Irrelevant. You falsely challenged the fact that most of the priests referred by the church escaped investigation because they were dead by the time the church brought the cases to the authorities. As I pointed out, that was entirely the case. Retraction forthcoming?

So 1/4 of all those accused were actually considered worthy of investigation? That's not a very good ratio.

Wrong. Out of 7700 accused, the church referred over 4000 for investigation. That's over half. Can't you read? The police didn't investigate the 3300 who were dead, but the church still thought the accusations had merit enough to refer them.

And how do you know this? Again, we cannot conduct witchhunts by assuming people to be guilty before they are proven innocent. We must assume that the priests are innocent unless they are proven to be guilty.

No, we don't have to assume that they are innocent, as this isn't a court of law. It is entirely reasonable to extrapolate and make the assumption that since the church itself thought these cases had merit, then investigations would have turned out roughly the same across the board.

So, priests are more likely to be falsely accused. Good to know.

Uh, no? How on earth could you get this from the fact that the priests who were referred to police had a 12% higher conviction rate than the national average?

A dubious assumption. The longer the length of time between the allegation and the event, the less likelihood that it actually occurred.

That is a total BAM. For starters, we don't know when the initial allegations were made in any of these cases, we only know that the church didn't refer the allegations to police until much later.

Did they punish the priest? Yes. Did they remove him from his position? Yes they did. How is it a cover up?

The same way that if a company found out one of its employees had stolen millions of $$ from clients and instead of reporting him to authorities, they just demoted him and quietly shuffled him off to a new assignment. Are you really this stupid?

If a priest breaks the law, he is subject to civil justice, just like anyone else. There is no immunity, period. If the church is made aware of his criminal activities and does not report it to the authorities, they are guilty of obstructing justice, and maybe even aiding and abetting if they just pack him off to somewhere else where he ends up repeating his offenses.

No, incarceration is 10 percent of convictions, not investigations.

Wrong. 100 incarcerations for 242 convictions = 41%. The total investigated was 1021, remember? ****, why can't you do simple math and keep track of simple numbers?

Yet, in the vast majority of the cases, the Church disciplines the priests.

Who cares? The church does not get to decide penalties for criminal infractions, that's the job of the authorities. The church has no right to deprive victims of criminals from seeing justice for those crimes, simple as that.

Again, the Church is not subsidiary to the law.

Yes it is, in this and most countries. You may think it shouldn't be, but it most assuredly is. Even moreso, the priests and officials are most definitely subsidiary to the law.

Haven't we gone down this gambit before? The Church does enormous amounts of good.

Who cares? That doesn't give them carte blanche to flaunt the law, any more than anyone else.

You know it's funny, not one of the posters here has been able to communicate precisely what the mission of the Catholic church is. Why don't you folks know this?

Who cares? It doesn't matter what its mission is if it's obstructing justice and aiding and abetting serial child rapists. This applies the same to any organization.

You can whine all you want that the church deserves special rights no one else gets, but that just ain't the case.

[Boris Godunov]

Charming : http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/am...use/index.html

Hey, at least the teen was of legal age to consent. Things are improving.

[Ben Kenobi]

Irrelevant. You falsely challenged the fact that most of the priests referred by the church escaped investigation because they were dead by the time the church brought the cases to the authorities. As I pointed out, that was entirely the case. Retraction forthcoming?

They weren't even accused until after they were dead. How did they 'escape' investigation?

Wrong. Out of 7700 accused, the church referred over 4000 for investigation. That's over half. Can't you read? The police didn't investigate the 3300 who were dead, but the church still thought the accusations had merit enough to refer them.

But, but I thought the Church wasn't collaborating with the Police. Now we see that they went above and beyond what was expected?

No, we don't have to assume that they are innocent, as this isn't a court of law.

Yes, we have to assume that they are innocent if we are conducting an investigation. There has to be evidence beyond a reasonable doubt to take it further. That there were so few actual convictions tells me that the vast majority of the allegations were in fact spurious.

Uh, no? How on earth could you get this from the fact that the priests who were referred to police had a 12% higher conviction rate than the national average?

Because the ratio of conviction to allegation is lower for priests then it is for the general population. You cannot toss out half the allegations unless you are admitting that they are spurious.

That is a total BAM.

Not a BAM. It's a general observation. The longer the time between the accusation and the event, the less likely such observation is true. And we do know when they were accused, 30 years after the purported events occurred.

The same way that if a company found out one of its employees had stolen millions of $$ from clients and instead of reporting him to authorities, they just demoted him and quietly shuffled him off to a new assignment. Are you really this stupid?

You mean the same way that happens in Congress? Gee, I dunno how that works.

If a priest breaks the law, he is subject to civil justice, just like anyone else. There is no immunity, period. If the church is made aware of his criminal activities and does not report it to the authorities, they are guilty of obstructing justice, and maybe even aiding and abetting if they just pack him off to somewhere else where he ends up repeating his offenses.

So this is how the procedure should go if you were in charge.

1. Person makes an allegation.
2. Investigation by police starts immediately
3. Person is hauled off and arrested
4. Somewhere along the line the priest is tried and found guilty.

Wrong. 100 incarcerations for 242 convictions = 41%. The total investigated was 1021, remember? ****, why can't you do simple math and keep track of simple numbers?

You keep throwing out all the allegations, just to massage your numbers. So we are really arguing about 100 incarcerations out of some 40k priests?

Who cares?

I care. You don't care about anything which is contrary to your narrative.

The church does not get to decide penalties for criminal infractions, that's the job of the authorities. The church has no right to deprive victims of criminals from seeing justice for those crimes, simple as that.

So you don't care that there are 90 percent false accusations against priests? Justice works both ways Boris. Yes, the accuser has rights, but so does the accused. But of course we can revert to show trials and witch hunts because frankly no one cares about the priests who are exonerated.

Why doesn't that make front page news?

Yes it is, in this and most countries. You may think it shouldn't be, but it most assuredly is. Even moreso, the priests and officials are most definitely subsidiary to the law.

No, they aren't. Most countries have quite a variety of exceptions for priests. This includes, among other things, labour laws, etc.

Who cares?

I care. I want to know whether people are motivated out of a love for the Church or a hate for the Church. So far Poly people are failing.

[BlackCat]

So this is how the procedure should go if you were in charge.

1. Person makes an allegation.
2. Investigation by police starts immediately
3. Person is hauled off and arrested
4. Somewhere along the line the priest is tried and found guilty.

That is what happens with say a school teacher - first step 1 and 2, and if there are reason to go on, then step 3 and 4 (though, the court can decide that the person is innocent).

Are you saying that priests shouldn't go trough the same procedure ? And if not, please explain why.

[Ming]

Many aren't. We've had Nigerian nationals as our priests up here. We tend to be the 'training parish', where we help the new folks acclimate to -40 winters. I'd be surprised if all the priests were in fact US citizens. They actually have a special visa.

I did mention the exception of visiting priests... but even visiting priests are subject to the law of the land while they are here. Unless by some RARE chance they have diplomatic passport.

I dismiss his allegations here, yes, as I think his frothing at the mouth isn't exactly helpful. There are topics where Christopher Hitchens is a reliable source, but not on the governance of the Catholic church.

Your opinion... and that's all it is, an opinion.

The interesting part, is it was never reported. The media all asserted it was all the Catholic church, a fact which was never the case up here. In contrast, the Catholic church here was actually found to be in compliance, whereas the Anglicans lost their suit. But good luck getting the media to actually report on it.

Yeah, using a single case to try to prove that all are like this... doesn't work.

The priest, and the folks who put him back in contact with children again.

Yep.. the folks who allowed him to go free... the Church.

Are you aware of the recedivisim rates of sexual offenders? It's very poor. The current method of dealing with them doesn't seem to do anything to prevent reoffenders. I'd wager the Church has far fewer reoffenders.

Prove it... It's just your opinion. My opinion would be that jail followed up by a national sex offender list is more effective than just being sent to another place without telling potential victims.

That's not the case. Again, they were reassigned along with their change in duties. Finding a place to keep them isolated away from the families they victimised makes sense to me.

Again.. prove it. They obviously weren't isolated enough if there repeat offenders. You are making the assumption that EVERY offender or even MOST of them were isolated from any potential offender. You can't possibly know if it happened or not. You are just saying it did with no proof. The only fact is that they were sent away without warning new potential victims.

The church isn't 'allowing it to continue'. Benedict finally managed to kick out Cardinal Mahoney, and he's been consistantly cleaning house in the USCCB. That will continue. You are right that pond scum is entrenched in many places, and this takes time. You are also right that the pond scum in many cases were protected by the heirarchy, but let's stop kidding ourselves. The Catholic church does not condone this behaviour. Let's keep the heat on the folks who deserve it, not on the folks trying to clean up the mess.

Gee... great, they finally get seriuos after being called on it. They let it happen for years... all around the world. They had no choice but to start doing something about it. It says a lot about the church that had to be dragged into doing it.

Since when does the state have authority over the conduct and discipline of the priest. What's to stop the state from abusing this authority as they have in the past? It's important to keep the two separate.

If a priest breaks the law, the state has the authority, it's that simple. Again, are you claiming that the authorities don't have the right to enforce the laws of the land and that priests are above the law.

Finally. That took awhile.

http://cbs2.com/local/Convicted.child.molester.2.1553047.html

Here's pond scum who molested 3 girls, served for 3 years, and reoffended. 3 years is about the standard for a first offense.

Gee... again, you are trying to use a single case to prove a point. Again, PROVE 3 years is about the average, that's all I ask. And as far as your example, I could post examples of priests who also reoffended... so what' your point?

As usual, nothing you have said backs up your crazy claim that priests are above the law and that the Church owns them. They are citizens of the US and are subject to the laws of the land, just like everybody else. And foreign national priests are also subject to the laws of the land while on US soil, unless they have a diplomatic passport.

[BlackCat]

And foreign national priests are also subject to the laws of the land while on the soil of this, unless they have a diplomatic passport.

Well, you are a Yankee, so it probably comes natural for you, but I prefer my minor correction - it also avoids giving BK a loophole

[Nikolai]

That is what happens with say a school teacher - first step 1 and 2, and if there are reason to go on, then step 3 and 4 (though, the court can decide that the person is innocent).

Are you saying that priests shouldn't go trough the same procedure ? And if not, please explain why.

I used the teacher argument with Ben in a PM yesterday, his view is that a teacher is always a teacher, and a priest is always a priest, no matter what happens.

[BlackCat]

I used the teacher argument with Ben in a PM yesterday, his view is that a teacher is always a teacher, and a priest is always a priest, no matter what happens.

Sure they are, but it's irrelevant. It doesn't matter if you are a priest or a teacher - if you are accused of a crime, you get the same treatment - accusation investigated, if there is a case, then you are tried by the court and deemed either innocent or guilty.

[Ming]

BK thinks the state doesn't have authority over priests... only the RCC... what a moron.

[BlackCat]

BK thinks the state doesn't have authority over priests... only the RCC... what a moron.

Well, he do have a point. In states ruled by religious dicatators such as Iran and the Vatican, the state haven't authority over priests

[Nikolai]

Sure they are, but it's irrelevant. It doesn't matter if you are a priest or a teacher - if you are accused of a crime, you get the same treatment - accusation investigated, if there is a case, then you are tried by the court and deemed either innocent or guilty.

I agree, of course.