Pope Benedict defrocked 400 priests in last 2 years for sex abuse

Irish Steve

The media are reporting that Pope Benedict defrocked 400 priests in the 2 years before his retirement.

http://globalnews.ca/news/1087323/vatican-comes-under-sharp-criticism-for-sex-abuse/

Leaving aside the anachronistic "defrock", word, which has so many strange connotations, and makes me wonder even more about the validity of an unmarried priesthood, I don't know if we should welcome or condemn the fact that 400 priests fell to temptation.

The information has partly been revealed as part of an appearance of Vatican representatives before a United Nations committee in Geneva, where the record of the Catholic Church has been under examination by the UN Human Rights commission.

In some respects, I suppose I am happy to see that at last, the hierarchy of the Church has been seen to be taking action against the significant number of sex offenders that have entered holy orders. The strange thing is that the Vatican representatives have made it clear that priests are not the responsibility of the Vatican, and ultimately the Pope, they are servants of the wider Catholic community, and the responsibility of the national leadership provided by the Bishops in the state. That's going to come as a painful revelation to some leaders!

I have made comments in recent days in other threads that I regard some of the corruption issues that Ireland is facing as a sovereign state have come about as the direct result of an over powerful influence on the education and moral compass of young impressionable minds from the Catholic Church.

Young children spend a significant part of their education being prepared for first communion and confirmation, and the end result of that would seem to be that we have produced several generations of people who see no harm or fault in the hugely offensive corruption and misappropriation of funds that have taken place in the last few years.

Maybe the manner in which first communion and confirmation have become excuses for grandstanding and secular one upmanship is part of the problem, the automatic expectation of many young impressionable minds is that they are going to be receiving massive sums of money as part of their participation in what is supposed to be a significant spiritual event.

In so many cases, the event itself ends up being totally eclipsed by the massive spending on special clothes, obscene limousines, or helicopter trips, visits to places like Eurodisney, hugely extravagent meals at hotels, and all the other extremes that are nothing whatsover to do with the spiritual significance of the events, and everything to do with the desperate need of the families of the participants to try to show that they are "as good as" or "better" than the other participants in the specific event.

Some of that is down to the underlying teaching that is almost brain washing, as long as you attend mass, and parrot the appropriate responses at the right moments, and attend confession, so that your sins have been absolved, with the appropriate number of Hail Marys or as deemed appropriate by the priest, it seems that the underlying attitude is that as long as you do these things on a regular basis, you are a "good and upstanding member of the community". Really? So it's acceptable for the CEO to siphon off significant sums of the CRC charity funds to top up his pension? Apparently so, the general impression that's being given by the people that knew what was going on is that it was all above board, or at least did not raise any questions when it was being nodded through.

Well, in the bible that I read, God does indeed deal with Sin, but to put it in context, while God may have cleared the ledger, in many cases, there are consequences that follow on from Sin, and that is nothing to do with the attitude of God, and everything to do with the natural order of things in the world in which we live. That concept seems to have been carefully avoided by the system that was so carefully nurtured by the Church over generations, partly because it suited the Church to have a congregation that would take the words of the Priest as being infallible and absolute.

The other subtle and insidious influence that the Church has fostered over long generations is that the "leadership" must be obeyed. For years, the priest was the local incarnation of God, and his word was law, to a much greater extent than anything that might be said or suggested by the law enforcement services.

So we ended up with things like an unwritten local rule that the local Gardai were not allowed to patrol in certain areas of the town at certain times, in order to ensure that the local priest was never caught driving under the influence of Alcohol. That was a few years ago, but was well known. The Church worked very hard to ensure that "leadership" was not questioned, or doubted, and did a very good job of educating large numbers of people that were seen as being potential civil servants or priests to encourage and foster that mentality.

Now, in recent times, with the many scandals that have rocked the Church, such as paedophile priests, sex abusers, the physical, verbal and psychological abuse that took place in places like the Magdalene Laundries, and some of the CB schools, where brutal beatings were the order of the day,, increasing numbers of people are less sure of the concept of absolute commitment to "the church" that was the norm for older generations.

In simple terms, the Church lost its moral compass, and right now, that loss has been reflected in a lowering of the standards that are deemed acceptable in high places.

Vocations are down to minuscule numbers, the number of people attending mass is down, and the younger generations are starting to question the absolutes that at one time were seen as fundamental.

The problem now is that the people at the top seem to be unable or incapable of setting any form of acceptable standard to fill the moral vacuum that has been left by the changes in attitude towards the Church,

So, corruption is rife, and many of the people at the top see no fault or error in feathering their own nests to the detriment of the people that they are supposed to be representing or serving, and all manner of other failings are becoming increasingly visible.

Bottom line?

The system is broken, totally and irreparably. The people at the top have to realise that they can no longer pretend that they are entitled to be treated differently to the rest of the population, and the worst extremes that are now being revealed, such as the CRC scandal, have to be the end of the line for these sorts of abuse.

The rules have to be changed so that people who offend against the public good can be removed from their posts with prejudice.

At least we'll be "civilised" about it, and not do what used to be done, behead them.

Maybe that wasn't such a bad solution, at least the people in high office knew exactly what the price of failure was, and acted accordingly.

Now, failure seems to be almost expected, and allowed for, without any consequences or recriminations. How nice for the chosen few that manage to get into those lofty and exclusive positions.

What would be even better would be for the influence of the Church to be taken out of the education system, and for the whole responsibility for "spirituality" to become the responsibility of the parents, and something that is outside of the education system completely.

I can but hope.

Sir Arthur Daley

Thats too much to read this hour of the night OP, can you summarise it?

Daqster

Well, sure as long as they are all now just defrocking each other, what harm.

Jester252

Tl:dr

DEFTLEFTHAND

Decent man who did his best, never wanted to be Pope especially at 78 years of age in 2005. There seems to a man in there now who has enthusiasm for the post, To quote John XXIII I want to see an opening up of the windows and doors and a new Vatican Council. It's time celibacy was shown the boot and women be given the opportunity to become priests and higher.

Spunj

Summary: Priest penises, penises of priests.

kneemos

I agree with you op they are very insular in their teaching.There's very little about the community but loads about how many hail Mary's you need to get into Heaven.

GalwayGuy2

Where did four hundred come from? I read the article, but it didn't mention number or even the last pop.

_Redzer_

Sounds durty

Phill Ewinn

Always wondered what he did with the co tents.of the documents in that safe. I guess I know now.

MRnotlob606

priests could marry before in 10th 12th and 13th century, then they changed it

Son Of A Vidic

Irish Steve wrote: »

The media are reporting that Pope Benedict defrocked 400 priests in the 2 years before his retirement

Some pervert.

Cookie_Monster

a whole 400 world wide? big deal, 1% of 1% if that...

Spike Witwicky

I only got £20 for my confirmation :mad:

Filibuster

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

a whole 400 world wide? big deal, 1% of 1% if that...

7% of all priests in Ireland have been accused of child abuse :eek:

http://www.thejournal.ie/one-in-every-14-dublin-priests-accused-of-child-abuse-462621-May2012/

PLUG71

De-frocked?

De-cocking would have been more appropriate!

Daith

Where the local police in each country informed?

TwoShedsJackson

DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: »

Decent man who did his best, never wanted to be Pope especially at 78 years of age in 2005.

They really went the other direction then with his 76 year old (at the time of appointment) successor.

Tipsy McSwagger

DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: »

Decent man who did his best, never wanted to be Pope especially at 78 years of age in 2005. There seems to a man in there now who has enthusiasm for the post, To quote John XXIII I want to see an opening up of the windows and doors and a new Vatican Council. It's time celibacy was shown the boot and women be given the opportunity to become priests and higher.

The only decent thing he did was resign and that was probably not his decision. Why would he resign 2 days before Ash Wednesday meaning there would be no pope in the Vatican for Easter Sunday? Maybe it was because the documentary Mea Maxima Culpa was about to be released revealing the cover up of child abuse in which he was the top guy in charge.

In 2010, as outrage built over clerical abuses, some secular and liberal Catholic voices called for his resignation, their demands fueled by reports that laid part of the blame at his doorstep, citing his response both as a bishop long ago in Germany and as a cardinal heading the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which handles such cases.
In one disclosure, news emerged that in 1985, when Benedict was Cardinal Ratzinger, he signed a letter putting off efforts to defrock a convicted child-molesting priest. He cited the priest’s relative youth but also the good of the church.
Vatican officials and experts who follow the papacy dismissed the idea of his stepping down at the time. “There is no objective motive to think in terms of resignation, absolutely no motive,” said Father Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman. “It’s a completely unfounded idea.”
For his supporters, it was a painful paradox that the long-gathering abuse scandal finally hit the Vatican with a vengeance under Benedict. As the leader of the powerful Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he had been ahead of many of his peers in recognizing how deeply the church had been damaged by revelations that priests around the world had sexually abused youths for decades. As early as 2005, he obliquely referred to priestly abuse as a “filth in the church.”
He went on to apologize for the abuse and met with victims, a first for the papacy. But he could not escape the reality that the church had shielded priests accused of molesting, minimized behavior it would have otherwise deemed immoral and hid the misdeeds from the civil authorities, forestalling criminal prosecution.

http://movieline.com/2013/02/11/pope-benedict-xvi-resignation-alex-gibney-analysis-mea-maxima-culpa-silence-in-the-house-of-god/