Cloynes Report, Christianity, etc etc

I can't claim to be an expert on the subject but is there any justification in claiming that it was specifically the Christian beliefs of those responsible which led to this? From how I see the whole affair it seems like those abusing the children used the structures in place with the Church to put themselves in positions where they could abuse whilst the hierarchy were power hungry men who, no matter what organisation they would have found themselves in, religious or secular, would have defended their position by any means possible, the fact that in this case it was a religious organisation is more or less incidental.

Given the recent revelations concerning Rupert Murdock's empire it seems to me further proof that the quote from Mao was unneccessarily specific and could simply have been put as "power is poison".

Malty_T wrote: »

Yeah I agree I don't see what this has to do with Christian Beliefs.

When I think of this scandal I can't help but think about those parasites in nature which infect animals such as mice, the bacteria are capable of altering their host's behaviour in ways which are completely detrimental to the host but beneficial to the bacteria. In the case of a mouse, the bacteria removes it's aversion to cat pheremones making it more likely to be killed and eaten by the cat. This benefits the bacteria by allowing it to be spread in cat droppings.

I can't help but compare the Catholic Church to the mouse and both the child abusers and the complicit hierarchy to bacteria which have infected the Church, altering it's behaviour in ways which benefits themselves but to the overall detriment of the Church.

Dawkins talks about organised religion being a mind virus but I don't know if he mentioned if it can be a two way street, I think in the case of the cover up of child abuse we have seen that the tables can be turned and organised religion can be and was infected by the twisted minds of certain people.

The abusers didn't commit these acts because of their faith or religion, but they used their faith and religion to their advantages to commit these acts. They used their positions of trust and their moral authority as priests to help commit these acts.

Abusers will always abuse, whether they are priests or average Joe Soaps. It's the cover-up that damns the church. The complete failure of those bishops to do what is morally right, and instead protect their friends and their organisation.

Expel the Papal Nuncio.

philologos wrote: »

^^ I don't believe the abuses had anything to do with Christian tenets. They were in complete violation of them.

The word "Strawman" is thrown around a lot, mostly in error, but this is one for sure. Nobody is arguing that Christianity itself is a call to abuse children, we all agree that "It's OK (or even encouraged) to have sexual encounters with children" is NOT a central tenet of Christianity. So you arguing against that position is pointless.

What people (such as yourself) do argue is that in some real sense, being a Christian and living your life as a Christian does make people behave better towards their fellow humans.

So we have 2 parts to this.

Firstly the abusers themselves were priests, absolutely steeped in Christian tradition and learning, and preaching this to others. Now I know "We're all weak sinners etc." but them being at the "top end" of Christian understanding didn't seem to curtail their actions at all.

Now I guess you could argue that maybe others didn't abuse kids because of their beliefs - but the stats just don't seem to back this up.

Anyway, this was all reasonably secretive, many of these men may have hated themselves for doing it and been guilt-ridden and you can make whatever argument you like about Christianity not magically turning people into saints but being a set of morals to aim for, however ...

The cover-up is another situation entirely. This was discussed, this was out in the open (well within the Catholic hierarchy), this wasn't some wretched sinners in their darkest hours coming to terms with demons haunting them to abuse altar boys, this was the cynical and systematic refusal to deal with real abuse.

Many argue this was done to protect the Catholic church itself (which they considered somehow to be a "greater good"), however I don't agree, these men could have been buried (figuratively) in places in the Church with no access to children, in fact you could argue that the last thing you'd do if you wanted to protect the church's image would be to move a priest to another parish. The fact is, to all intents and purposes it appears as if they just didn't care.

So all this (for me anyway) leaves in tatters an claim that Christian Beliefs in any real or meaningful way make people behave better towards their fellow man. So what are you left with? ... "Well my Christian Beliefs ..." maybe?

The Catholic Church has very weird beliefs in regard to sex; in fact for a celibate cult they are obsessed with sex. Celibacy is abnormal and celibacy combined with the churches nasty views in regard to sex is why the church is full of scumbag paedophiles. The church not only attracts paedophiles it creates them. But this abuse is not just about the church’s dysfunctional sex belief, if it was it could have been fixed long ago. A lot of the church’s abuse against innocent little children was extreme physical and mental abuse from none pedo priests and brothers and nuns. The church has a much bigger problem than sex. The church’s problem is class - the church is really about politics not god. The children abused by the church were and are overwhelming from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. The church provided a very different school experience to children from Blackrock that it did ballyfermot and still does.

Barrington wrote: »

I agree. It was the Religious Organisation... not the Religion. It was the Priests and Bishops, who were more concerned with protecting their organisation than victims and potential victims.

Can you explain your thinking here, because I genuinely don't see it.

If this is what the problem was, i.e. that the church wanted to protect the organisation rather than see justice for victims (which would have publicly humiliated the church) they could still have moved these priests to monasteries or parochial homes, retreats or shelters, the catholic church has worldwide reach, surely places away from children and far away from where the abuse happened could have been found.

Instead, in many cases, they seem to swept the abuse under the carpet and moved the offender to an identical position in another parish. This behaviour doesn't seem to be in keeping with a desire to protect the church, it seems more like they really didn't see it as a problem, they didn't really care and they protected their own above all others.

and??

Well his Christianity is obviously different*





* for different read "better"