The Catholic Horror Show Continues.

[Canary42]

While the Vatican and Italy's Government prevaricates, a kiddy fiddler continues as a Holy Priest.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60325191

[gness]

Long and interesting read, Canary. Still allowed to have contact with minors. Sadly this will continue to happen for as long as people enter the doors of this evil organisation.

[Patsy33]

Evil monsters. Ripping away innocence.
It breaks my heart.

[jno]

there's also the Charing Cross police station scandal - nine police remained in post, two were actually promoted.

This suggests to me something wider than religion - more like institutions where members are encouraged to think of themselves as different and sspecial, and to know that they will always have one another's backs. With that line of thinking everyone gets protected, nobody gets sacked, nobody's held to account.

I'm not suggesting that misogynistic cops are on a par with child-molesting priests, but I think there's a sort of corporate parallel in the way these bodies work.

[Stickybottle]

Makes you realise that the film Spotlight was just the tip of the iceberg

[jno]

yes, I saw that, Stickybottle, it was very good.

[Stickybottle]

Indeed jno
The scale of it in Boston alone was frightening

[Patsy33]

I agree 100 pc, jno.

[jno]

ninety just in Boston, wasn't it?

I wonder if this is a universal problem in the church - ie abusers round the world are in contact with one another - or just a vast series of discrete local ones. One thing I will say for the Met, it's basically a London problem, it doesn't mean Cumbria police are also a bunch of sexist pigs.

[royfromaus]

The reaction to crowds getting a glimpse of the pope tells me that the whole thing is an illness.

[gness]

I can’t agree about illness, Roy. I have, as you can imagine, far too many Catholics in my family. Many have queued to see the Pope or have had an audience with him but they are not ill, even in the way you perhaps mean.
A kind of brainwashing or a strange need maybe?
Whatever it is I don’t understand it...and they all know that and know my feelings about the Catholic church and those who contribute in any way to it.

[andy-hughes]

I have commented on each of these threads as they distressingly continue to crop up.

My belief, based on experience, is the two aspects of the unnatural lives that priests, and nuns, lead.

Firstly, because they do not live the normal lives that would enable them to develop the experience and empathy of human relationships, they remain arrested adolescents, they don't mature properly, they don't understand familial relationships, because they are denied to them.

The second problem is the utter reverence with which catholic priests are regarded.

They are surrounded by people, who to varying degrees, and some of them are seriously delusional, regard them as an incarnation of God himself, and as such, they can simply do no wrong.

That is a lethal combination - a man with no access to the normal comforts of a loving relationship, and a power complex, makes fertile ground for the paedophile.

Add the catholic church's wilful determination to avoid acknowledging that they have a massive problem, far less confront and start to deal with it, and the whole horrible situation perpetuates itself and will continue, until someone at the top decides to change.

But of course, like any major organisation, in order to reach a position where you can actually change things, you have already had to prove that you are perfectly happy with the way things are.

Boat rockers do not rise, they stay at a low level, or they are forced out, they never come near to anywhere where they can actually do something.

And so we go on.

As an atheist, I have no problem accepting that a proportion of priests are paedophiles, the difficulty is, the people who do need to accept it are raised in conditions where questioning and changing are simply not countenanced.

I don;t know what the answer is - well, I do, but i can;t see a way that it would ever happen.

A pope who understands what abuse is, and is determined to do something about it.

I can't see that ever happening.

[gness]

The answer is simple, Andy. Every Catholic stops darkening the doors of a church, stops adding to their huge wealth with the envelope in the plate, often with money they can ill afford, and shows that he or she cares more about those who have and still are suffering at the hands of the Catholic Church.

We can't wait for a Pope who understands what abuse is and will do something about it....we'd have to trust that Pope and I for one wouldn't any more than I trust any priest or nun.

[andy-hughes]

Gness - I fear we are both doomed to be disappointed.

[ToraToraTora]

AH 20:50 an excellent analysis.

[jno]

andy, I think you'll find most priests and nuns grew up with families; you don't get them taking in foundlings left on their doorstep so much these days.

[tomus42]

Paedophiles and other inadequates gravitate towards priesthood, rather than being converted into such once they get there.

Normal and well adjusted people take a quick look at it and think, 'nope not for me'.

[andy-hughes]

Jno - As I said, they are emotionally stunted because as teenagers, their path is marked out for them, and normal life and development stops.

[andy-hughes]

Tomus - No paedophile is 'converted into it' as you put it.

And for paedophile looking for easy access to children, there are dozens of easier ways than joining the priesthood.

[burlyshirley]

23:30 I agree.