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talkpoliticsWow. Pope Benedict's personal preacher Raniero Cantalamessa created a firestorm by comparing the scrutiny and pressure the Catholic Church has been experiencing lately in their molestation scandals to the "more shameful aspects of anti-Semitism."
This just further illustrates why the Roman Catholic Church will never take real steps to stop abuse. They aren't concerned with the children that are getting raped, they're only concerned with their own reputation. They see themselves as being wrongfully attacked, and never does it enter their minds that their actions (and lack thereof) contributed to what they are enduring now.
I hope the pressure never lets up but sooner or later the mainstream media will give up on it, only to flare up again down the road after more children have been raped, and the cycle will repeat again.
Pope Benedict, the only way this is going to end is if you take real steps towards stopping abuse. First of all stop protecting priests who molest children and treat it like the horrific sin (and crime) that it is. Throw them out of the Church and/or turn them in to law enforcement.
To help prevent this from happening as much you're going to have to allow priests to marry. Stop making excuses, stop covering up, and make a real effort to end this abuse.
This just further illustrates why the Roman Catholic Church will never take real steps to stop abuse. They aren't concerned with the children that are getting raped, they're only concerned with their own reputation. They see themselves as being wrongfully attacked, and never does it enter their minds that their actions (and lack thereof) contributed to what they are enduring now.
I hope the pressure never lets up but sooner or later the mainstream media will give up on it, only to flare up again down the road after more children have been raped, and the cycle will repeat again.
Pope Benedict, the only way this is going to end is if you take real steps towards stopping abuse. First of all stop protecting priests who molest children and treat it like the horrific sin (and crime) that it is. Throw them out of the Church and/or turn them in to law enforcement.
To help prevent this from happening as much you're going to have to allow priests to marry. Stop making excuses, stop covering up, and make a real effort to end this abuse.
Re: There are millions of people who live sex-free lives by choice.
Date: 3/4/10 03:41 (UTC)Re: There are millions of people who live sex-free lives by choice.
Date: 3/4/10 03:52 (UTC)Re: There are millions of people who live sex-free lives by choice.
Date: 3/4/10 04:06 (UTC)I thought this meant... "since if they can't they'll go nuts" --but maybe it means "since if they can't too many good folks won't want to do the job and those who are left will be more likely to be disturbed."
But I don't know, is it really reliable to assume that people who are not married and don't have sex (that we know of) are more likely to abuse kids?
Many kids are sexually abused by their parents, who are married...
I don't know if I'm buying in to the idea that single sex-free people are all creepy...
Re: There are millions of people who live sex-free lives by choice.
Date: 3/4/10 04:21 (UTC)I don't buy that at all. I don't think it's that nobody else will do the job either.
What does make sense to me is what qnetter and underlankers said. And now I can't find underlankers' comment. I can't explain it as well as they did. But basically it's that this is one of the jobs that a pedophile would gravitate to, not that a person would have to be a pedophile in order to take the job.
Re: There are millions of people who live sex-free lives by choice.
Date: 3/4/10 04:32 (UTC)Re: There are millions of people who live sex-free lives by choice.
Date: 3/4/10 04:38 (UTC)Re: There are millions of people who live sex-free lives by choice.
Date: 3/4/10 04:40 (UTC)Re: There are millions of people who live sex-free lives by choice.
Date: 3/4/10 18:30 (UTC)That's not what's been said at all, it's much more complicated than that and connected to the power role of the catholic priest and to the divinity role of the catholic priest, which in turn is intimately connected to the vow of abstinence. If you study historically the first break between the catholic church and the protestant church you'll notice that one of the main concerns Martin Luther had with the dynamics of Catholicism was the "divinity" role of the priesthood. He claimed that a priest was just a normal man (with a wife and a family, for instance) and could only give advice, but never (among other things) give pardon for sins in the name of God, only god himself could do that, which would come through the prayer and remorse of the individual. These claims by Martin Luther not only gave him a banning sentence, but also started wars. Today, the catholic church also claims that prayer and remorse are true ways to salvation, but these claims didn't exist in Luther's days, in fact, the majority in a catholic congregation didn't even understand what was said during mass, because it was held in Latin, making the priest's role even more divine. One of Luther's major accomplishments was to start holding masses in the native language of the congregation, which much later in history seeped through to the catholic church.
The importance of divinity and power connected to the vow of abstinence in the catholic priest's role separates him from not only many other kinds of priests, but also from many other kinds of people who take abstinence by choice. I would even go so far as to say that there is no real correlation to speak of.
In the Protestant church the priest is just a man, and his role is just that of a man who's addressing the scriptures, there is a certain littleness and humility within the very codex of the church's hierarchy. In practicality, there might be many messed up individuals within the protestant church's priesthood as well, but making the priest only a man (or woman) certainly can't be ignored as a factor in the dynamics.
If you study the pathology of pedophilia and rape, one of the first things you'll notice is that the key dynamic is power more so than sex. And if a particular faith claims power, otherworldly authority and asexuality as factors in the priest role, this could very well create very particular triggering factors within already damaged individuals, predatory individuals who are drawn to roles of power and authority.
To screen priests closely, by other agencies than the the priesthood itself, would be one way of dealing with these problems, but to suggest that the role of the priest in the catholic church seizes to be divine, but that of a mere man, by letting go of the biggest claim a priest has to his divine role withing the catholic church - the vow of abstinence, would absolutely cause some changes, it would in time likely filter out some of the worst power-junkies that are attracted to the priesthood.
Again, we can find pedophiles where there are children, and very often they are in roles of power (parents, teachers etc), if you tone down a particular part of the catholic culture, the role of sexless divine power (which also poses as a cover, a factor I'm surprised no one has yet mentioned in this debate), we might just find the key reason for why the catholic church has so much more pedophilia within its ranks than many other churches.
Re: There are millions of people who live sex-free lives by choice.
Date: 4/4/10 08:19 (UTC)Re: There are millions of people who live sex-free lives by choice.
Date: 4/4/10 08:54 (UTC)A paedophile wants to be around kids to satisfy desires, obviously. I assume they re born this way and this desire matures as they grow. As they dream and scheme these desires they want to be around kids. Getting married and having kids of one's own is one way to be with kids. Either their spouse;s kids or their own, (incest) or neighbour's kids. Or they become swim coach, teacher, or whatever.
At some point they got to have a clue that this is taboo, wrong, illegal, and fucked up. I mean they got to. Otherwise there's no point of secrecy. If they have any sense or guilt or remorse, in the complete absence of help to preventing perverted behaviours, the obvious answer is celibacy. There is only one place in our culture for celibates. And the church also offers redemption for the guilt they might feel. As
What they don't offer is rehabilitation. We are to understand there is no adequate rehab for paedophiles.
Re: There are millions of people who live sex-free lives by choice.
Date: 3/4/10 14:37 (UTC)2) Thanks for the clarification.
Re: There are millions of people who live sex-free lives by choice.
Date: 4/4/10 08:21 (UTC)Re: There are millions of people who live sex-free lives by choice.
Date: 3/4/10 03:59 (UTC)Your church sounds nice. :)
Re: There are millions of people who live sex-free lives by choice.
Date: 3/4/10 04:09 (UTC)Most folks do best in a relationship, but some are really best off alone.
Re: There are millions of people who live sex-free lives by choice.
Date: 3/4/10 15:58 (UTC)(maybe I should get out more...)
Re: There are millions of people who live sex-free lives by choice.
Date: 3/4/10 17:37 (UTC)Take then into consideration, the element of force. The people who are celibate completely of their own free choice, do better than those who need to make the choice between their calling or their sex life, or their professional and religious role and their sex life.
I've explained the very special dynamics of the priest's power connected to the vow of abstinence here (http://community.livejournal.com/talk_politics/473171.html?thread=33710931#t33710931) and
Re: There are millions of people who live sex-free lives by choice.
Date: 3/4/10 04:12 (UTC)