Ongoing religious scandals

mewso

Min wrote: »

He is preaching C by saying the Pope is wrong, the claim the Pope is wrong is not backed up by evidence, therefore Dawkins is putting C first or he wouldn't say the Pope's beliefs will lead to possibly millions of deaths when we all know where the Pope stands when it comes to sex and where sex should be performed.

He is saying the Pope is wrong when he claims condoms do not protect against Aids. I'm going to go round in circles with you when you ignore quotes you post yourself.

PDN

mewso wrote: »

The Pope saying they don't protect you from contracting Aids is not going to help.

And when did the Pope ever say that? Come on now, empirical facts please! Let's have a link or a source.

Flamed Diving

Min wrote: »

I haven't abandoned Professor Green. The article is pro what the Pope preaches

1) Quotes out of context come under the definition of intellectual dishonesty. Green advocates the increased use of condoms, and A&B.
For the second time, he actually points out some success stories of when condoms are stringently used, is this something the White Knight advocates?

I thought not.

2) A list of quotes could not mean less. You may as well fart at the screen.

mewso

PDN wrote: »

And when did the Pope ever say that? Come on now, empirical facts please! Let's have a link or a source.

Maybe we should skip the "me quoteing the Pope saying they make the problem worse" bit and go straight to you saying thats not what he meant. Oh dear I've linked to it. Oh well. Probably not a reliable source or anything but it was the first I found.

Ickle Magoo

mewso wrote: »

Maybe we should skip the "me quoteing the Pope saying they make the problem worse" bit and go straight to you saying thats not what he meant. Oh dear I've linked to it. Oh well. Probably not a reliable source or anything but it was the first I found.

Could be worse, imagine if Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo had gotten the top job! :eek:

mewso

Ickle Magoo wrote: »

Could be worse, imagine if Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo had gotten the top job! :eek:

I'll have to look him up. I'm not too well up on my cardinals. Hang about hes dead. That might not have been worse as they would have a different pope now.

Flamed Diving

How could it be better? That's what I say! Finally this little network of theirs leads right to the top. No longer can people use the "oh, its just a few priests" excuse. Now, Ming the Merciless himself is culpable.

The perfect storm.

Ickle Magoo

mewso wrote: »

I'll have to look him up. I'm not too well up on my cardinals. Hang about hes dead. We might be better off.

Died in April 2008, he was the vatican's chief official on family issues, lauded by Razi:

Cardinal Trujillo, a Colombian, served as president of the Pontifical Council for the Family. He often expressed views on sexual issues that stirred contention, most notably in 2003 when he said that condoms did not prevent the spread of AIDS because the virus that causes it, H.I.V., can “easily pass through.” The World Health Organization quickly responded that condoms were 90 percent effective against transmission and that when they failed, it was usually because of improper use.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/21/world/europe/21trujillo.html

That was Razi's choice of vatican spokesman on contraception, if that's the kind of nonsense he advocates spreading so people stop thinking condoms work then he's guilty of everything he's been accused of and more...

robindch

Ickle Magoo wrote: »

Died in April 2008, he was the vatican's chief official on family issues, lauded by Razi:

NYT wrote:

Cardinal Trujillo, a Colombian, served as president of the Pontifical Council for the Family. He [...] said that condoms did not prevent the spread of AIDS

That was Razi's choice of vatican spokesman on contraception [...]

While I don't want to put the boot unnecessarily into an organization which is run by apparently celibate, family-less men, but which titles itself the "Pontifical Council for the Family", I can't help but point out that another senior member of this outfit was (is?) Bernard Francis Law, most famous for becoming, in 2002, the first senior church figure in the US widely believed to have covered up pedophile priests. Something which may or may not have caused his subsequent permanent departure to the Vatican, where he still resides in what appears to be a state of diplomatic immunity.

Even had they looked hard, I'm not sure that the Vatican could have found two less qualified men to advise families on anything.

patsman07

Good article here by Mark Steel:
http://www.marksteelinfo.com/writing/default.asp?id=156

Its on Rowan Williams comments about the Catholic Church in Ireland.

Galvasean

I'm losing track of who high ranking RCC officials have blamed. Is my list up to date?

-secularists
-the gays
-the jews
-the devil
-atheists
-lapsed Catholics who don't pray enough

Flamed Diving

I got this from Viz, but:

- those choir boys for being so damn sexy

Irlandese

PDN wrote: »

Apparently neither, since if they were listening to the Pope in the first place very few of them would contract AIDS.

That is a terrible load of nonsense.
The Pope joined with lunatic fundamentalist churches in the USA, to block campaigns promoting condom use to reduce the spread of HIV virus infection.
They probably have partial responsibility for millions of deaths from AIDS in Africa alone.

Irlandese

PDN wrote: »

And when did the Pope ever say that? Come on now, empirical facts please! Let's have a link or a source.

Please avoid that kind of nonsense here.
I would remind you that this is not your christianity forum.
The church's opposition to condom use in Africa is very well known.

Irlandese

Galvasean wrote: »

I'm losing track of who high ranking RCC officials have blamed. Is my list up to date?

-secularists
-the gays
-the jews
-the devil
-atheists
-lapsed Catholics who don't pray enough

you forgot the little devils of children who tempted the poor priests ?

Irlandese

mewso wrote: »

I'll have to look him up. I'm not too well up on my cardinals. Hang about hes dead. That might not have been worse as they would have a different pope now.

This may help, although it is a little under-stated:
"Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo of Colombia, president of the Pontifical Council for the Family is a sympathizer with Opus Dei promoting reactionary positions on abortion, birth control and homosexuality. In 1972 Trujillo was elected secretary-general of CELAM, and he immediately purged the organization's staff of anyone with ties to liberation theology. In 1985, he was the driving force behind the "Andes Statement" denouncing liberation theology. He is regarded as the protege of Cardinal Baggio, another Opus Dei ally who heads the Pontifical Commission for Latin America. Baggio, in Paul VI's reign was Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for Bishops and listed as a Mason despite the Church's prohibition on Freemasonry and in the early 70s was a friend of Calvi who laundered drug money through the Vatican Bank. One of Trujillo's closest aides is Fr Roger Vekemans, who passed on $5 million from the CIA to anti-Communist organizations in Chile. Recently Trujillo claimed condoms promote promiscuity and are ineffective because the HIV virus is small enough to "easily pass through" latex."
http://www.catholica.com.au/forum/index.php?mode=thread&id=41094

Ickle Magoo

Irlandese wrote: »

you forgot the little devils of children who tempted the poor priests ?

They haven't said that - have they?! :eek:

The scary thing is I wouldn't actually bet against it.

Irlandese

Ickle Magoo wrote: »

They haven't said that - have they?! :eek:

The scary thing is I wouldn't actually bet against it.

Oh yes they have, although it will take me a lot of digging to find the quotes.
I also had copies of statements from paedofile priests where they stated their abuse was like sex education and that the victims "were all homosexuals, anyway".
The stuff the church are spinning re all this is unreal. Their last little foray trying to directly link paedofilia to gay priests is going to result in an awful lot of outing close to top levels in the vatican, according to journalists in rome.

Irlandese

PDN wrote: »

So I'm not one of God's footsoldiers because I distribute condoms in Africa.

Oh Bloody Hell, not another of those " I've been to Africa and I gave out condoms...."
I worked there for years, madam and I am mad as hell about the stupidity of ABC. Lets de-mystify it for all postsers just to show what a load of rubbish it all is:
"One of the difficulties with the ABC approach is the lack of a clear definition. The slogan seems to have first been adopted by the Botswana government in the late 1990s. Seen on billboards around the country it exalted the fact that:
Avoiding AIDS as easy as...

* A bstain
* B e faithful
* C ondomise

Anyone who ever worked anywhere in Africa, Southern, East, West, Great Lakes or Sub-saharan, knows damn well that this is all a load of cobblers and never had a ghost's chance of appealing to sexually active adults who are at extremely high risk of HIV infection. I worked within the UN and we were all constantly appalled at the position of the US Gov. under the Bush's and the Pope. thankfully, most priests and religious there had more sense but the cutting of our UNAIDS budgets under USA duress cost many many lives.
People who push this kind of rubbish perhaps have a lot of personal guilt to think about.
Posters who deny the pope's role in banning condom use promotion here are akin to holocaust deniers and should head back to christianity forum where that kind of stuff might work but it won't here.

Irlandese

From MIN: "when we all know where the Pope stands when it comes to sex and where sex should be performed."[/QUOTE]

I am not sure you realise just how ridiculous that sounds, in view of the subject of this thread??

sonicthebadger*

Irlandese wrote: »

I worked there for years, madam and I am mad as hell about the stupidity of ABC. Lets de-mystify it for all postsers just to show what a load of rubbish it all is:

Are there other approaches not being discussed here? Sorry for the continuing to derail the thread slightly. I was genuinely under the impression that ABC was the best practice devised so far. Though I haven't done much study on the matter.

Irlandese

sonicthebadger* wrote: »

Are there other approaches not being discussed here? Sorry for the continuing to derail the thread slightly. I was genuinely under the impression that ABC was the best practice devised so far. Though I haven't done much study on the matter.

Hi,
I have to head off now but a quick reply: I actually dislike anagrams in communications because they just serve to mystify and confuse and often are someone's clever doodle gone public. For example, I could start off like this:

Much health education is misdirected. Historically, much was KAB modelled, that is 1. Give KNOWLEDGE, then, 2. this will surprisingly change ATTITUDES, leading to 3. the almost magical changing of BEHAVIOURS.

The model is a classic one but the added sarcasm is mine. But , yes, most posters and leaflets are illogically based on that unscientific set of assumptions that giving knowledge will change attitudes and even more magically, behaviours.

ABC and all your other anagrams work on similar jingoistic and often ideologically driven and quite nonsensical assumptions.
Bush and Bush were fundamentalist christians, against condoms, just like the pope. They cut UNAIDS budgets and promoted church-driven campaigns to preach western fundamentalist christian morals to muslims, agnostics, believers in hundreds of local religions and members of thousands of cultures far removed from the US Baptists straitlaced view of life and sex.

Behavioural change is not an easy science, if one at all. As a health professional with a background in this particular area, before "branching into management", as they say, I have a keen interest in the value of effective interventions and good compromise interventions where life is not perfect. KAB, ABC or diddly-idle-dee doesn't cut it.

It is all a load of gobblydy dook, driven, usually, by fanatical extremist fundamentalists, whether christian, baptist, catholic or whatever the idiot of the day chooses to call themselves.

The poster who asked to cite research about the effectiveness of condoms in aids work in Africa probably heard in a fundamentalist meeting somewhere that they should ask us something like that, to tie us up a bit, as it is hard to show results where our operational budgets for health education are less then 10 to 20 cents a year per person and our research budgets are zero.

But, then, they were never interested in the facts anyway. Fanatics never are.

Irlandese

Lets get back on thread again? This article from " Keep the Faith" is worth a lokk:
http://www.ktfministry.org/news/669/roman-catholic-church-scandal-expands


"Roman Catholic Church Scandal Expands · March 31, 2010

On March 24, the New York Times reported that the priestly sex scandal may have implicated the pope. The Vatican, including Cardinal Ratzinger who is now pope, did not defrock, or in any other way discipline a Wisconsin priest who sexually molested more than 200 boys from 1950-1974. Several American Bishops warned the Vatican, even writing to Cardinal Ratzinger himself, who was in charge of the process of dealing with sexual predator priests.

The New York Times reported that documents obtained from the discovery phase of a lawsuit filed in Wisconsin clearly suggest “that while church officials tussled over whether the priest should be dismissed, their highest priority was protecting the church from scandal.”

The Pope is also accused of not reporting sex-offending priests to German civilian authorities while he was an archbishop in Germany and while he was head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome, where he was the Vatican’s chief doctrinal enforcer.

But the case in Wisconsin involving Father Lawrence Murphy was only one of thousands forwarded to the Vatican over decades to the Congregation.

Cardinal Ratzinger did not respond to two letters from American bishops to start a secret tribunal that would have led to Murphy’s removal from the priesthood. But Cardinal Bertone, the second in command at the Congregation started the trial process and then halted it after the priest wrote a letter to Ratzinger asking for leniency because of his age and health. “Three successive archbishops in Wisconsin,” said the New York Times, “were told that Father Murphy was sexually abusing children, the documents show, but never reported it to criminal or civil authorities.” Apparently the first two bishops didn’t even report the matter to Rome.

The church tried to keep the recently released documents secret, but was forced to release them under lawsuit discovery. Moreover, civil authorities also did not prosecute Father Murphy even though they had complaints from the victims themselves. No doubt many wonder if there was some sort of priestly intervention to prevent criminal prosecution in civil courts to avoid exposure. But so far that has not been discussed in the press.

Instead of being disciplined, Father Murphy was quietly moved to another place where he worked with children for an additional 24 years.

“Even as the pope himself in a recent letter to Irish Catholics has emphasized the need to cooperate with civil justice in abuse cases,” wrote the Times, “the correspondence seems to indicate that the Vatican’s insistence on secrecy has often impeded such cooperation.”

Father [Federico] Lombardi, a Vatican spokesman, said that church law does not prohibit church officials from reporting child abuse to civil authorities. Why it never happened in the Wisconsin case, or in thousands of other cases, is one of the questions begin raised about Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI. Lombardi said, “the Code of Canon Law does not envision automatic penalties.”

While from a church law standpoint there may be flexibility to deal with problems, the neglect, or cover up of these cases, and efforts to keep them secret, have greatly tainted the churches reputation.

“The Vatican’s inaction is not unusual,” said the Times. “Only 20 percent of the 3,000 accused priests whose cases went to the church’s doctrinal office between 2001 and 2010 were given full church trials, and only some of those were defrocked… an additional 10 percent were defrocked immediately. Ten percent left voluntarily. But a majority — 60 percent — faced other ‘administrative and disciplinary provisions…’ like being prohibited from celebrating Mass.”

The rather mild disciplinary approach of the Vatican toward sex abusers was no doubt a contributing factor to the wide-spread problem around the world.

After the death of Father Murphy, and in face of a lawsuit, Archbishop Weakland wrote to Cardinal Bertone in which he said that “we are still hoping we can avoid undue publicity that would be negative toward the church.”

The Vatican tried to defend the inaction against Father Murphy, saying that by the time the Vatican knew about the problem in 1998 he was old and sick. But this only raises more questions. If that is in fact true that Murphy molested the children, why didn’t the Vatican know about a known sex offender before then? Why didn’t the local diocese deal with him? His victims actually alerted the police. When they did find out about it, they merely transferred him to another diocese to work with, and potentially molest, more children.

The Vatican also suggested that it would have handled the matter differently today and that more recent policies would have precluded a continuation of the problem. Mechanisms, however, were already in place to deal with sex offenders appropriately, though in disuse, according to press reports. Why didn’t the Church use the existing structure to deal with these cases? Were these recent, supposedly better policies put in place because the Church has reformed itself, or because society is much more demanding and investigative?

Now that the scandal has reached the heart of the church, to the pope himself, it is clear that the Church is at a crossroads. Marco Politi, a veteran Vatican journalist said, “Up to now [the scandal] was far away — in the States, in Canada, in Brazil, in Australia. Then it came to Europe, to Ireland. Then it came tao his motherland. Then it came to his diocese, and now it’s coming to the heart of the government of the church — and he has to give an answer.”

“Last weekend, in a heartfelt letter to Irish Catholics reeling from reports of decades of systemic sexual abuse,” wrote the New York Times in another article, “Benedict apologized but did not discipline any church leaders who had covered up abuses, fueling growing anger in Ireland.”

“As archbishop of Munich and Freising from 1977 to 1982, the future pope approved the transfer to Munich for psychiatric treatment of a priest who had sexually abused boys. The priest… was quickly returned to pastoral work with children.”

The church has lashed out at her accusers in defense saying that the expanding scandal is an “elaborate personal attack on the pope.” The Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, said the New York Times article was written “with the clear and ignoble intent of trying to strike Benedict and his closest collaborators at any cost.”

Such allegations are likely self-serving. The Vatican obviously is unhappy about the unwelcome and spreading exposure to many countries. The increasing concern is that Cardinal Ratzinger was deeply involved in the attempted cover-up.

Some might argue that the liberal news organizations are unfairly criticizing the Catholic Church, since similar things go on in other churches too.

There are at least two reasons why this is not a valid defense. First, the Catholic Church claims to be the moral leader of the world. Rome is much more than a mere church. It is a political power, and a powerful one at that. She stands before the world in white vestments claiming to be the ethical and moral guide of nations, kindreds, tongues and people. Her responsibility therefore is greater than other churches that are not political organizations. Rome’s double standard is now being scrutinized by the court of public opinion. Perhaps it would surprise no one that many people despise religion because of that very double standard.

Secondly, though other churches that make high spiritual and moral claims have their cases of abuse, immorality, and vice, the Catholic system of celibate priests as well as male and female monastic orders is unnatural and lends itself to sexual immorality and abuse. The culture of secrecy also aids and abets predator priests. Sexual abuse has become so endemic and so prolific that it cannot be classed as mere individual or isolated lapses in morality. It is a systemic problem, and therefore deserves more scrutiny and accountability in the public arena than other churches.

“Since January,” wrote the liberal Huffington Post, “more than 300 former Catholic school students and others have stepped forward with abuse claims and the church has seen it’s poll numbers fall drastically.

“According to Stern magazine, Only 17 percent of Germans polled said that they still trust the Catholic church, compared to 29 percent in late January, just before the first abuse cases there were made public.”

Dades

Irlandese wrote: »

Please avoid that kind of nonsense here...
The church's opposition to condom use in Africa is very well known.

I think you missed PDN's point that if people actually listened to the Pope it would be effective.
That said, we're all in agreement that they don't.

Irlandese wrote: »

I worked there for years, madam...

Madam? :pac:

Irlandese wrote: »

I would remind you that this is not your christianity forum.

I would remind YOU that this is a forum open to ANYONE to post, and belongs to nobody except Boards.ie.

PDN

mewso wrote: »

Maybe we should skip the "me quoteing the Pope saying they make the problem worse" bit and go straight to you saying thats not what he meant. Oh dear I've linked to it. Oh well. Probably not a reliable source or anything but it was the first I found.

It's not a case of arguing over what the Pope meant. It's a case of you claiming he's said one thing and then, when asked to back it up, you link to him saying something entirely different.

You said, "The Pope saying they don't protect you from contracting Aids is not going to help."

The Pope said, "You can't resolve it (the AIDS epidemic) with the distribution of condoms. On the contrary, it increases the problem."

Now come on, you'd need an absolute brass neck to try and equate those two statements.

In fact, it reminds me of arguments I've had with American friends about gun control.

I say, "Widespread gun ownership creates a more violent society." (a sociological argument looking at society as a whole)

They reply, "Having a gun in the house makes you safer if someone breaks into your home." (a practical argument referring to an individual's circumstances).

In fact, both statements are probably true. Having a gun in your home may well make you safer in the event of a break in, but that does not alter my position that widespread gun ownership actually creates more violence in society-thus actually increasing the risk of you getting killed in your home.

What would drive me up the wall would be if my American friends accused me of saying that owning a gun will not make you safer if someone breaks into your home. In fact, if they said that, I would conclude that they were either dishonestly twisting my words or else they had a stunningly bad grasp of the English language.

Now,the Pope's argument is a sociological one. He is saying that widespread condom distribution may promote a more liberal approach to sexuality which will actually result in more people engaging in unprotected sex - thus increasing the AIDS problem. He is not saying that condoms provide no protection for Babatunde against AIDS if Babatunde decides to shack up with a prostitute in a Lagos brothel.

You may disagree with the Pope's argument (I certainly disagree with it) but it is a sociological argument that cannot be dismissed out of hand.

But misrepresenting that argument (to pretend that the Pope has said that condoms don't provide protection against AIDS) as I have seen posters do on this forum and on the Christianity forum, contributes nothing to sensible discussion, and I think the debate on AIDS deserves better.

The Mad Hatter

Galvasean wrote: »

I'm losing track of who high ranking RCC officials have blamed. Is my list up to date?

-secularists
-the gays
-the jews
-the devil
-atheists
-lapsed Catholics who don't pray enough

Funny, I tweeted something very similar last night. Responses also mentioned women's lib, but otherwise I think we hit the same buttons.

me wrote:

If the RCC was to be believed, the pedophilia problem is the fault of atheists, secularists, jews, homosexuals, the media and children.

Mark Hamill

Galvasean wrote: »

I'm losing track of who high ranking RCC officials have blamed. Is my list up to date?

-secularists
-the gays
-the jews
-the devil
-atheists
-lapsed Catholics who don't pray enough

Crab People?

robindch

PDN wrote: »

Now,the Pope's argument is a sociological one.

The poop's argument might be purely sociological, but the Vatican's argument is both sociological and biological.

Sociological, as you say, because the pope -- as do most christians -- thinks that providing condoms will increase the kind of sexual activity he doesn't want people engaging in. It is also biological, since the position of the Vatican is that condoms do not reliably prevent the transmission of the disease. Which is false. And there are other top-level catholics who are out there spreading complete fantasies about condmns.

In short, the position of the Vatican is, at the sociological level, to spread fear in order to encourage people to stick to its rules and at the biological level, to lie to people so that they again are frightened into not having sex.

The undignified, dishonest position of the catholic Vatican is quite similar to the position of a significant number of christians of all persuasions in the US who deny the HPV vaccine to their kids in the hope that they will be frightened into not having sex by the fear of an easily-preventible, fatal disease.

mewso

PDN wrote: »

It's not a case of arguing over what the Pope meant. It's a case of you claiming he's said one thing and then, when asked to back it up, you link to him saying something entirely different.

You said, "The Pope saying they don't protect you from contracting Aids is not going to help."

The Pope said, "You can't resolve it (the AIDS epidemic) with the distribution of condoms. On the contrary, it increases the problem."

Now come on, you'd need an absolute brass neck to try and equate those two statements.

In fact, it reminds me of arguments I've had with American friends about gun control.

I say, "Widespread gun ownership creates a more violent society." (a sociological argument looking at society as a whole)

They reply, "Having a gun in the house makes you safer if someone breaks into your home." (a practical argument referring to an individual's circumstances).

In fact, both statements are probably true. Having a gun in your home may well make you safer in the event of a break in, but that does not alter my position that widespread gun ownership actually creates more violence in society-thus actually increasing the risk of you getting killed in your home.

What would drive me up the wall would be if my American friends accused me of saying that owning a gun will not make you safer if someone breaks into your home. In fact, if they said that, I would conclude that they were either dishonestly twisting my words or else they had a stunningly bad grasp of the English language.

Now,the Pope's argument is a sociological one. He is saying that widespread condom distribution may promote a more liberal approach to sexuality which will actually result in more people engaging in unprotected sex - thus increasing the AIDS problem. He is not saying that condoms provide no protection for Babatunde against AIDS if Babatunde decides to shack up with a prostitute in a Lagos brothel.

You may disagree with the Pope's argument (I certainly disagree with it) but it is a sociological argument that cannot be dismissed out of hand.

But misrepresenting that argument (to pretend that the Pope has said that condoms don't provide protection against AIDS) as I have seen posters do on this forum and on the Christianity forum, contributes nothing to sensible discussion, and I think the debate on AIDS deserves better.

You are absolutely right and I will willingly accept that I misrepresented him. My mistake. I would really appreciate it if you could give me some credit in future though and maybe make this kind of post in the first place instead of your previous one. I would have admitted my error in response to that too.

In fact I realised my error when I found the link I posted but knowing full well that your previous post was a precursor/setup to/for this post I was too annoyed to do anything other than predict it.

Are we all so jaded with forums that we expect nobody to say "you know what you are right and I was wrong. Sorry about that".

robindch

Galvasean wrote: »

I'm losing track of who high ranking RCC officials have blamed. Is my list up to date?

Although not immediately singled out as responsible for the scandal, The Media and the petty gossip of dominant opinion are both up for doing their damndest to make the Vatican look real bad.