Children are little ****bags who should be used for baynet practice.

[David Floyd]

I'm not convinced that turning it over to the secular authorities is going to net the result that people want, which is no abuse. There's lots of rules and laws that the church doesn't have to follow simply because things work better that way. What happens when a priest gets charged and gets off entirely due to a legal technicality? Happens all the time in a criminal justice environment.

The fact that occasionally guilty people get off isn't an excuse for exempting the priesthood from the criminal justice system. Additionally, double jeopardy doesn't apply to church discipline. There is nothing saying that the Church can't discipline a clergyman irregardless of legal proceedings. However, to say that the legal system can't go after priests given a valid complaint is ludicrous.

There are no juries in the human rights commission.

There are no HRCs in the United States. Those would violate the US Constitution as well as being completely absurd in the US system. The fact that there are in Canada isn't an argument that priests shouldn't be held to secular standards - it's just an argument that HRCs are completely unfair and unnecessary institutions.

[David Floyd]

I'm not exactly sure either. Beats me.

Because you started our discussion by saying that priests should be subject to Church discipline rather than legal authority.

[Ben Kenobi]

The fact that occasionally guilty people get off isn't an excuse for exempting the priesthood from the criminal justice system. Additionally, double jeopardy doesn't apply to church discipline. There is nothing saying that the Church can't discipline a clergyman irregardless of legal proceedings. However, to say that the legal system can't go after priests given a valid complaint is ludicrous.

There are good reasons why they stick to the class action suits. You would have to prove a different evidentiary standard in criminal law.

http://www.timesnews.net/article/9033785/alleged-victim-in-sex-abuse-trial-of-former-kingsport-priest-testifies

He was subsequently suspended from the Catholic ministry pending completion of the laicization process.

Do you understand what this means?

[David Floyd]

There are good reasons why they stick to the class action suits. You would have to prove a different evidentiary standard in criminal law.

That isn't my argument. I'm also not arguing that clergy shouldn't be subject to both civil and Church standards as well as criminal ones. They can and should be subject to all of them. You were the one who said that priests should be subject to Church discipline rather than the legal system.

That's rather like saying that my Homeowner's Association should be able to punish me if I drown a child in the neighborhood pool, simply because the evidence is circumstantial and the case might be hard to prove.

[Ben Kenobi]

Even in a case where the priest has admitted and confessed and cooperated, the priest may not get convicted. They are having trouble reconciling accounts and finding evidence. The Church has made up their mind already.

Can you find a case where the Chruch hasn't already came to a decision that was taken to criminal court and the Church was found to be wrong?

[David Floyd]

Even in a case where the priest has admitted and confessed and cooperated, the priest may not get convicted. They are having trouble reconciling accounts and finding evidence. The Church has made up their mind already.

Can you find a case where the Chruch hasn't already came to a decision that was taken to criminal court and the Church was found to be wrong?

You are still entirely missing the argument. My point is that the clergy both should be and are responsible to secular legal authority. You took the opposite position, and you have yet to justify it. Yes, our legal system is "skewed" in favor of the accused. That is as it should be.

[Ben Kenobi]

I'm not really sure there's a situation where a priest who wasn't laicized would go to criminal court over these charges.

[Flubber]

Even in a case where the priest has admitted and confessed and cooperated, the priest may not get convicted. They are having trouble reconciling accounts and finding evidence. The Church has made up their mind already.

Can you find a case where the Chruch hasn't already came to a decision that was taken to criminal court and the Church was found to be wrong?

Ben -- wouldn't it be a different standard? IN criminal court everything is beyond a reasoable doubt. If an employee was accused of raping someone at the office and we fired him, his later acquittal does not mean we were wrong and if he sued and we could prove on the blance of probabilities that he did it, the termination could stand.

I have no idea of the standard the catholic church applies but the argument still applies

[Ben Kenobi]

It is a different standard, the church doesn't require as much evidence as the state does in criminal court. This is why you won't see priests who haven't been disciplined by the church go to criminal trial. Usually because if the evidence isn't strong enough for the church, they aren't going to win a conviction.

[Flubber]

It is a different standard, the church doesn't require as much evidence as the state does in criminal court. This is why you won't see priests who haven't been disciplined by the church go to criminal trial. Usually because if the evidence isn't strong enough for the church, they aren't going to win a conviction.

Fine-- thats pretty much the way it works with any employer. I would think it absurd though that they not face sanction from the state as well. IF a priest molests children I hope the evidence is sufficient to send him to jail-- and my vindictive side doesn't care much if big Bubba takes said priest as his personal beeyatch

[Dinner]

Gee, I don't think even the Vatican asks that it's priests be accountable only to canon law anymore.

Read Hitler's Pope. It goes into great detail on how the Vatican aided & abetted the holocaust as well as profited from it.

[Ben Kenobi]

Read Hitler's Pope. It goes into great detail on how the Vatican aided & abetted the holocaust as well as profited from it.

This nonsense again?

The pope saved more Jews than Schindler.

[MOBIUS]

And condemned more to horrible deaths at the hands of the Nazis than he saved. Nice pope that.

[BeBMan]

The pope saved more Jews than Schindler.

[rah]

You are still entirely missing the argument.

Could be posted in every thread that Ben participates in. He makes a dumb statement. Then argues about something else.
Here he started with Priests are not subject to local laws. And ends up arguing that no priest has been convicted unless the church had already found him guilty. How one relates to the other, I have no clue. But then, that's are local village idiot.