Canada Needs an Adult!

[dv8nation.livejournal.com]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11843792

Seems a bishop in the Orthodox church has been charged with molesting kids. Given how this sort of scandal has hurt the Catholic Church in recent years do you think the Orthodox church will react in a more open fashion or could we be looking at the tip of the iceberg in a similar but whole new scandal?

Comments

[dv8nation.livejournal.com]

No, I think the real problem here is people abusing kids. Yeah, anti-Catholic thought is a problem, but not at the crux of this issue.

[anosognosia.livejournal.com]

If it were, we would expect people's complaints to have some substantial relation to the phenomenon of sexual abuse, which they don't. If they didn't simply because people were misinformed about that phenomenon, then we would expect people to correct their objections when they become informed, which they don't. Therefore, etc.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

The Catholic hierarchy shuffled known offenders around to avoid looking bad, rendering themselves complicit in the continued abuse that they knew about and did nothing to prevent. This is a fact. Yeah, they got a lot of press for it, but they deserved it. The fact that other organizations are getting less press for their terrible crimes says that we're being too soft on them, not that we were too hard on the RCC.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

That's my point-that we're too soft on them because of a double-standard that associates US identity with "Nebulous Protestant" and where anti-Catholic bigotry was a part of the older identity and the only thing that may force the change is more Mexicans moving in.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

OK, that works for me. I thought that the issue was that Catholics were getting treated too poorly for their involvement, which the person to whom I was replying seemed to thing was the case. IMO they deserve worse than they got, but statutes of limitations are what they are...

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Well, the person you're talking to is Catholic. I'm a Baptist who finds the double-standard quite interesting as logically there's no difference between a Catholic or Baptist pedo in terms of what the actual crime involves. Rape is rape.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

Agreed there. I just get frustrated at Catholic defenders who say that what they got hit with was unfair. I heard it a lot from parents and teachers at school. What's unfair is paying a stipend for a confessed sex offender who raped everything from little boys to 9-month-old infants and allowing him to roam Ireland, and even live with children, without warning anyone. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deliver_Us_from_Evil_(2006_film))

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, that is entirely inexcusable. It would be heavily ironic if any of these men were the Catholic version of Hellfire and Brimstone preachers in my denomination but find themselves going to the Other Side in the afterlife for this kind of hypocrisy. Nothing done by the Church hierarchy here is excusable, my only quibble is that there's a slight issue with singling one out instead of punishing it equally for all denominations.

BTW, the bolding's not to be condescending, it's to make my view on this clear as far as this discussion now and in the past. In my opinion nothing's worse than the parties that seek to abrogate right and wrong for everyone else shamelessly hiding and aiding and abetting crimes.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

Yep, we agree. /thread?

Yup.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

.

[anosognosia.livejournal.com]

"The fact that other organizations are getting less press for their terrible crimes says that we're being too soft on them..."

Excellent. Now if you examine the previous comments by underlankers and myself, you'll find an explanation for this fact.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

Like I said, I think that's part of it. The other part is that the RCC is bigger, population-wise, than any other single church in the US. If there was a crime spree against blondes, we'd probably hear about it before the crime spree against albino left-handed women.

[dv8nation.livejournal.com]

People using this post to gripe about Anti-Catholic sentiment doesn't mean kids being molested isn't the central issue.

[anosognosia.livejournal.com]

If it were, we would expect people's complaints to have some substantial relation to the phenomenon of sexual abuse, which they don't. If they didn't simply because people were misinformed about that phenomenon, then we would expect people to correct their objections when they become informed, which they don't. Therefore, etc.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Which again is problematic given that the Southern Baptist Convention and other Protestant denominations *also* have this same evil in their denomination but the sole focus is on the Catholic Church.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I mean there was that guy who posted a cartoon that specifically identified this as an issue with the Catholic Priesthood when it's not one and never has been just the Catholics. But of course the idea that anti-Catholicism exists is entirely pooh-poohed. There is no fear of the Papal Hivemind in the USA.....despite another potential side to fear of mass immigration from Spanish America and corresponding ignorance of the same shit back when Canadians often did it.

[dv8nation.livejournal.com]

Those groups aren't on the same level as the RCC nor do they have the history. So yeah, it makes bigger headlines because the RCC has bee around longer. Putting all that on anti-Catholic bias is unreasonable.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

The problem again is that A Baptist pedophile is no less evil than a Catholic one, but only the Catholics are singled out for the same evil. Either it's evil no matter who does it, or it's simply using this as a pretext to bash Catholics while ignoring it's a much deeper rot than in Catholicism alone.