Over 200,000 Spanish Minors Sexually Abused by Roman Catholic Clergy

The sheer scale of the depravity of the Catholic Church worldwide knows no end.

And the more haunting thing is, it's many magnitudes worse than any estimate could possibly come close to.

https://twitter.com/rtenews/status/1717880526025932952

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/27/spanish-clergy-sexual-abused-more-than-200000-children-inquiry-estimates

Spain’s parliament in March 2022 overwhelmingly approved the creation of an independent commission led by the ombudsman to “shed light” on allegations of sexual abuse of “defenceless boys and girls” in the Catholic church.

Spain’s Catholic church, which for years flatly refused to carry out its own inquiry, declined to take part in the independent investigation, although it did cooperate by providing documents on cases of sexual abuse that had been collected by dioceses.

As political pressure mounted, in February 2022 it tasked a private law firm with an “audit” into past and present sexual abuse by clergy, teachers and others associated with the church, which should be completed by the end of the year.

The Spanish church said in June that it had discovered 927 cases of child abuse through a complaints procedure launched in 2020. It argues it has set up protocols for dealing with sexual abuse and has set up “child protection” offices within dioceses.

...

an investigation by the top-selling daily newspaper El País that began in 2018 has since uncovered 2,206 victims and 1,036 alleged abusers dating back to 1927.

“According to experts, this is just the tip of the iceberg,” the newspaper wrote on Friday before the report was published.

Feisar

Surely organisations that allow things like this to happen should be disbanded.

Princess Calla

My family wonder why I won't baptise my kids and then the subsequent communion confirmation palava.

This right here, an organisation rotten to the core. Why when, my generation especially, know the facts would you want your kids to be part of that community. *

* I do appreciate that faith brings comfort to a lot of people and I'll never run that down. Plus there are some really genuinely good clergy....but nope not for me!

Mrs OBumble

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121290517#Comment_121290517

Does that apply to countries as well?

Akabusi

Yeah disbanded in its current form. A celibate life just isn't right and mostly attracted paedophiles who knew they'd be able to have unfettered access to our children, where even when caught the hierarchy in the church was happy to turn a blind eye.

silliussoddius

The sad thing is that I’m not even shocked.

ancapailldorcha

Pure evil. There's no other way to put it.

Princess Calla

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121290832#Comment_121290832

Catholic church and sex abuse

America and mass shootings

Both totally horrific but only get an eye roll when I see the headline

Frank Bullitt

More par for the course from this completely backwards and sinister organization. The RCC have done nothing but pure evil and should be on trial for crimes against humanity.

And if anyone tries to step in and try to defend them or throw in a bit of whataboutery, take a long look at yourself in the mirror.

hoodie6029

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121290517#Comment_121290517

They should no longer be involved in the running and ownership of schools and hospitals. Not allowed members or preach to anyone under 18 too.

Frank Bullitt

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121290640#Comment_121290640

Just like I said, whataboutery in a thread about the abuse of children. Sickening.

Cluedo Monopoly

I honestly think you need a special form of blinkers to enter the church or have your children take part in Roman sacraments these days. I don't know how people do it given the continuing legacy of that dispicable organisation. And don't tell me the church aren't hiding abuse crimes that have not been uncovered yet.

Princess Calla

It would be "interesting" to know when the abuse started, as a whole within the Roman Catholic church.

I've a bit of an interest in art history and I remember reading that during the Renaissance paedophilia wasn't considered a thing. Homosexuality was against the law as a man had to be submissive to another man however men could happily engage with young boys, I don't think it was even considered sex....think of all the little cherubs in the paintings.

The pope's in renaissance times were as corrupt as they come. I would wonder if certain practices remained through the centuries. Doing to the next generation what was done to them. Everything happened behind protected closed doors.

Not making an excuse or anything.

InAtFullBack

Big families in the old days, chances are an 'odd' son or daughter, or two amongst them. To hide the 'family shame' they were 'encouraged' into the Church. A couple of years later instant power bestowed upon them to 'lord' it over the community they were sent to 'serve'. And we're shocked and surprised with the outcome of it all?

eightieschewbaccy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121292854#Comment_121292854

I'd say the fact that the higher ups in the org happily covered it up is the most disturbing aspect.

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121292854#Comment_121292854

It used to be quite common that the favourite son would become a doctor, and the idiot brother would be sent off to the priesthood.

tayto lover

Absolutely terrible to think that so many of them have got away with it.

Overheal

That's a lot more than 1400; bomb them? /s

Gloomtastic!

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121290863#Comment_121290863

Yet our President deems it appropriate to have his fourth private audience with the pope last week. He's a real champion of social justice our Michael. Shame on him.....

https://president.ie/en/media-library/news-releases/president-higgins-to-meet-with-pope-francis-in-the-vatican-oct-2023

silliussoddius

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121295062#Comment_121295062

Just like a corporation doing damage control.

Jack Daw

I really don't understand why the government in Ireland doesn't tax all assets and revenue belonging to all religious institutions in Ireland.

There would be zero to lose from such a policy and in the case of the catholic church it could work as a form of reparations for the negative influence (admittedly helped by the general population and politicians) that the catholic church has had on Ireland since independence.

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121300787#Comment_121300787

Well if you are going to charge them for the "negative influence", would that mean they are entitled to bill the State for anything they did? The State stepped aside and outsourced many social responsibilities to them.

rogber

If the Catholic church wasn't the Catholic church it would undoubtedly be banned as a perverse, abusive cult.

Yet year on year most Irish persons born Christian themselves keeps up the same moronic rituals of baptism, communion, confirmation for their kids, and the inevitable Christmas day mass, largely for social conformity. The idiocy and ideological blindness of human beings never ceases to amaze

Jack Daw

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121300826#Comment_121300826

No because the church don't control the laws and taxation of the country so if they did try something like that they could be told to piss off.

You could easily pass legislation allowing for a tax on the church's assets to be applied.It would have a lot of public support.If business have to pay tax why the hell should the church not pay any, they could easily have their not for profit status removed.

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121300996#Comment_121300996

I think you might be overestimating the role of the church.

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121300891#Comment_121300891

And yet the people who say what you say are the same people that go on about being "spiritual" and follow "spiritual influencers" on instagram and tiktok.

Do you think that the Jewish religion should be banned? There's probably not a lot of synagogues in Ireland so would you be in favour of starting there as a trial run?

Just to be clear, I don't think you should. But often people think they are being trendy or edgy by ranting about one religion, but won't apply that consistently

eightieschewbaccy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121300826#Comment_121300826

Thing is, that role often allowed the perpetrating of abuse and cover up of said abuse. So there's a pretty good argument that they failed in their duty and I'm reasonably sure they never want that discussion to open up any more. Plus the billion euro in damages that they've never made any effort to pay.

Jack Daw

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121301019#Comment_121301019

Yes, I know the state and the Irish people themselves outsourced responsibilities to the church when they shouldn't have (as I mentioned in my post) but the priests, christian brothers, nuns etc still were the ones who were abusing children and covering it up.They weren't forced to abuse children by anyone.

furiousox

The world's largest organised paedophile ring.

Vile organisation, the sooner it dies off for good in this country, the better.

gameoverdude

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121290675#Comment_121290675

The celibacy life is mind boggling in one way. Regardless of sexuality. It's all to do with inheritance. Sure weren't the apostles married and had kids.

Pope's were living it up with multiple partners.

The Catholic Church is basically an mnc. Loaded beyond belief.

Have your faith and enjoy it. Fair play to anyone who has.just don't annoy me about it.

I've met some amazingly sound priests and nuns, so it's a very small minority who are disgusting child molesting scumbags.

Not getting at you by the way. Just ranting.

Leg End Reject

It would be very interesting to see how many would identify as RC if they had to pay tax to support the church.

Absolutely rotten to the core while preaching Christian values. I'd say a lot more will come out in time, the missionaries must have had a field day abusing poor, uneducated children.

Princess Calla

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121304334#Comment_121304334

I wonder once they remove the prep from schools regarding communion and confirmation, pushing all the prep work , church meetings etc onto parents will there be a significant drop in numbers obtaining the sacraments.

The amount of parents I've talked to who feel uneasy, but still sign their kids up " cos that's what you do"* is absolutely baffling to me.

*in my view you stick to your principles, if you feel uneasy , say no, I'm not doing this! But hey ho each to their own n all that!

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121304461#Comment_121304461

Well it's all part of the hypocrisy of the majority of those that moan about these things and who won't get off their arse and provide an alternative. It's easy to moan and then mask that laziness by giving out some more.

happyoutscan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121290573#Comment_121290573

Same boat. Best decision ever made and certainly an easy one.

And yet people still baptise their kids, usually using the excuse that they can't 'disappoint the grandparents'.

Can' fathom it.

Signing your kids into a paedophile ring so as to not disappoint the grandparents. Shocking.

rogber

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121301024#Comment_121301024

I've no interest in spiritual influencers or crap like that. I find all religions equally silly but am in favour of letting people believe what they want. My specific objection to the Catholic church is, above all, the widely documented sexual abuse of children and general abuse and degradation of women.

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121307770#Comment_121307770

Well answer the question then in relation to banning the Jewish religion. How about starting with getting rid of their places of worship as a trial run for the larger job of getting rid of the Catholic ones?

You original post did not mention anything about sexual abuse or degradation. Those are merely afterthoughts to hide and deflect from your original sneering that:

Yet year on year most Irish persons born Christian themselves keeps up the same moronic rituals of baptism, communion, confirmation for their kids, and the inevitable Christmas day mass, largely for social conformity. The idiocy and ideological blindness of human beings never ceases to amaze

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121301024#Comment_121301024

No one called on Judaism to be banned. Judaism doesn't have a papacy afaik either. And no such papacy has raped 200 thousand kids in Spain, where it is also not a state established religion. The whataboutery doesn't aptly suit.

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121307999#Comment_121307999

Judaism will kill a hell of a lot more kids in the next week than Catholicism. From a population of what - 10 million vs. a billion or more? They will be brown kids of course, but some of us count them as equal.

People appear to think they are smart for sneering at easy targets for doing X/Y/Z but won't criticise another group who have their own equivalents.

Of course, when called out on it they will try to change the goalposts and rant on about some other aspect. That is actually the whataboutery in play here:

"ha ha ha - look at all those stupid Catholics with their sky fairy and stupid sacraments and traditions. The idiocy and blindness of humans never ceases to amaze"

"Well, you can apply the same to other groups such as Jewish people - will you say the same about them"

"<panic-mode> eh, eh, no, yeah, no, but but but , whaddabout some priest did something bad 30 years ago...that was what I meant"

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121304461#Comment_121304461

YES!

This drives me up the wall every time there's a census.

People lob in that they're Catholic because they did the whole baptism, communion, confirmation malarkey and then had their children do the same. Then got married in a church with all those bells and whistles.

In the 2022 census it said 69% (nice) of people in Ireland are Catholic, it's not anywhere near.

69% of people don't go to church regularly (never mind every week) and if you asked 1,000 people to recite a single line from the Bible there's absolutely zero chance that 690 of them could do it.

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121308075#Comment_121308075

The reason that individuals fill out their own census returns in Ireland is that it prevents random people from deciding (on the internet or otherwise) what those individuals are allowed or not allowed to categorise themselves as.

You telling someone that they cannot categorise themself as Catholic or Jedi or flying-spagetti-monsterist has less basis than Enoch telling a kid they can't consider themself whatever gender. None of the foregoing is either your choice, or any of your business.

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121308043#Comment_121308043

I -- don't think those are fair remarks or assertions. Without repeating another thread, a leader of a country is citing biblical text for war pretext, yes, sure. The US has done that a time or two or a leader or to like GWB 'god told me' to do the war on terror, holy ****. But christianity didn't do the war on terror, the USA did. Judaism didn't start a retaliation war in Gaza, Israel did. The koran didn't grow arms and legs and behead Israeli kids, Hamas did.

The suggestion that it's "judaism" or "catholocism" etc. here, well, I think that's imprecise and unfair rhetoric and especially at this time, where sensitivity should be stressed, when lives as we agree are on the line, things are much more volatile than norm to engage in routine thought experiments about 'religions are responsible for a lot of deaths etc globally and historically but which is the worst' I think either extreme rhetoric example gives rise to eg. antisemitic attacks on Jews around the world, attacks on catholics and christians, etc. especially at the moment.

Banning a synagogue in Spain would do nothing to stop deaths in the Middle East. Disenfranchising the RCC to operate churches in Spain stops them from sexually abusing minors, in Spain, by the hundreds of thousands.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121308114#Comment_121308114

Nonsense.

Science is Enoch's enemy.

Fantasy and fables are my enemies.

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121308142#Comment_121308142

No need to be obtuse or try to split hairs in order to obfuscate

The only Israeli "basis" for their stealing of land is that their magic book tells them that their God gave it to them.

So it's fine to sneer at decent Irish people keeping up their traditions and beliefs, but god forbid (ironically) anyone criticise a minority-on-the-global-scale religion that - as I said - will be the justification for the killing of more than any other in the next two weeks.

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121308161#Comment_121308161

Well, ironically, science and chromosomes are Encoh's pals rather than enemies on that front. I personally think he's a dickhead and it's none of his business and let the child do what (s)he wants, but if you want to be consistent in your approach, you're gonna have to be on Team Enoch.

You want to collectively punish Catholics for the crimes of some of them? I think we are seeing that kind of approach being played out at the minute in the Middle East too.............

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121308163#Comment_121308163

There are orthodox Jews that oppose the stealing of land. If they are orthodox and follow the religion in an orthodox manner, I cannot jump to the conclusion it's the religion or a magic book truly responsible for the annexations, but again a nation controlled by individuals who want to misapply said book for means not genuinely supported by the religion.

I don't think there's anything to be obtuse about here, banning Judaism in Spain, doesn't do anything to positively affect what's happening right now.

You don't need to ban the catholic church anyway, you can just drive its arms to bankruptcy by enforcing them on all counts.

https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/09/29/baltimore-archdiocese-files-for-bankruptcy-before-new-law-on-abuse-lawsuits-takes-effect/

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121308179#Comment_121308179

Gender ≠ sex.

Science cares about sex, not gender.

Come on, I thought you're supposed to be good at this stuff.

Meanwhile...

The average Catholic in Ireland (and before you get your obvious quip in, I know this fella is Scottish)...

https://twitter.com/_JC1971/status/1719341970294735012

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121308192#Comment_121308192

Interesting. You won't criticise the Jewsih religion because there are some of them that oppose the stealing of land.

Would you apply the same standards to Catholicism if we managed to find any Catholics that opposed the abuse of children? I mean there is a chance that out of the billion or so in the world, we might be able to find one or two of them?

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121308204#Comment_121308204

You've already established your Enoch credentials and you are only going to confuse yourself and tie you up in knots. You are sounding exactly like him. In your head, you probably think that although you say the same words and "logic" that it is different. But it isn't.

People are free to decide how they characterise themselves, and it isn't up to you or your best bud EB to tell them otherwise. He's possibly also similarly not a fan of the Catholic Church. Maybe he is. I'm just guessing. Perhaps you can ask him the next time you see him and clarify it for us

Why don't you post a video of a stupid person from another country and label it as an "average Jew in Ireland"?

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121308205#Comment_121308205

Well, yes, I don't walk into a Catholic neighbor and blame them for the abuses of the Spanish clergy.

I don't walk up to my Jewish neighbors in the US and blame them for what is going on in Bibi's administration.

I don't collectively condemn Catholics nor Jews for things sicko people have done perversely in the name of those religions. I didn't do the same thing either for Islam, for 9/11, or the War on Terror. I'm a 90s kid who has spent his entire life watching people try and collectively punish people who had the same skin tone or creed as someone else who was an extremist nutjob.

It is not my place do deeply and ecumenically criticize any of these religions, I'm no theologist. But what's being discussed in 200k minors sexually abused by the spanish clergy in the spanish branch of the RCC. We wouldn't tolerate Scientology to operate 'dianetic' rape centers.

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121308267#Comment_121308267

Well you say that, but at the same time you call for the destruction and dismantling of the Catholic Church. Or at least the hounding of them financially into oblivion.

You wouldn't let someone else tell you they are not against Jewish people while at the same time they call for all Jewish synagogues and schools to be blindly seized or put out of business.

Your Jewish neighbour is possibly (likely?) an Israeli citizen with a right of return which they might exercise to go and settle on some ex-Palestinian-farmer's land. That's far more plausible than your Catholic neighbour is going to avail of some imagined "rape centre"

You should bring your evidence on these currently operating Catholic rape centres to the authorities. It's pretty bad you yourself have been keeping it to yourself and helping them to cover it up.

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121308291#Comment_121308291

Well you say that, but at the same time you call for the destruction and dismantling of the Catholic Church. Or at least the hounding of them financially.

That's rather hyperbolic. If they have 200 thousand counts of sexually abusing minors the spanish arm of the RCC is accountable for 200 thousand counts. If that is tantamount to destroying the church in Spain: no it's not. And certainly the church continues to exist, Spain has no authority over the Vatican.

All Jewish Synagogues would never be seized in any such way because they don't have a papacy that covers up hundreds of thousands of sexual abuses. Synagogues, by and large, operate independently. The equivocation doesn't suit.

I have no idea if my neighbor is an Israeli citizen and that would be an extremely unfair assumption. That's a big reach to go project onto my neighbor they have anything to do with settling on ex Palestinian farmer land.

You should bring your evidence on these currently operating Catholic rape centres to the authorities.

See the OP?