to think that if the comments reagrding the Pope and Catholicism in general were being made about any other religion or group of people...

[domesticsluttery]

...it would be deemed entirely unacceptable?

I don't just mean on MN, it seems to be everywhere. I am not a Catholic, but I am really at a lot of what I have heard.

OK, the abuse scandals are completely shocking. But this doesn't mean that the entire Catholic Church and all of its members were involved. There have been plenty of scandals involving the abuse of children in care homes where it has been covered up by so called professionals, but this doesn't mean that anyone involved in social services is implicated. There are plenty of cases of abuse, doemstic violence etc carried out by teachers, police etc and covered up, this doesn't disgrace the whole profession.

It must be pretty hard going to be a Catholic at the moment. I can't help feeling that if the same kind of comments and outright mocking were being made about other religions there would be an outcry.

Whatever happened to live and let live?

god

I think the media have it in for catholics as a whole.

Child abuse went on in many institutions, in boys boarding schools, at Eton, in state schools, state run childrens homes, etc. Yet only the catholic church is singled out. Of the crimes committed in the 60s, 70s and 80s, how many sex abuse cases went to court? Not just involving the church but as a whole, how many cases involving child abuse in the UK went to court during those eras? Compare that to how many go to court now.

Back then child abuse was rarely spoken about and the authorities didn't know how to deal with it. The courts were ill-prepared, the police worse. Think back to how they coped with reports of rape - many victims were told to go home and try to forget about it. That was the same with child abuse.

The church was naive and stupid too. They thought that if they sent the priest away, it removed him from the crime and gave him a chance to start afresh. A stupid way of looking at things, but you have to remember that back then nobody knew that paedophilia was an illness, nobody even used the word paedophilia.

Now the church realises just how wrong it was and it is trying to make amends. There is so much more it can do, but it at least acknowledges that.

Now how about the teachers who abused kids and were moved to a different school? That went on too but you do hear anyone kicking off about that? Some teachers were never prosecuted. Here's just one example of a paedophile teacher who was given help to move and gain a new job teaching yet more vulnerable children.

Child abuse is not restricted to the catholic church, it affects the whole of society and the whole of society made a hell of a lot of mistakes in the past. But it seems only the catholic church are hauled out in public and given a pounding for it.

BTino. You really have hit the nail on the head with this. It seems to me that the media and indeed lots of posters on here are being hugely selective in singling out the catholic church.I've seen it again and again, and it is so obvious. The viciousness and hatred is alarming to say the least.
As a catholic by baptism only, all of this hatred in a strange sort of way has made me look at the church in a more symatectic light then i ever would have before.

No, molly, it is not over and done with, not by a long shot.

jenny, the reality of catholicism on the ground is exactly as you describe, gay priests, divorced attendees, contraception. On the rare occasions when I have attended Mass in our parish, I have been struck by how liberal and inclusive the young priest was. And he is no less a part of the church than the pope and cardinals, most of whom are at least in their 70's. I don't think it is unrealistic for people attending mass to hope that one day, someone like him gets to be pope. John Paul I was more liberal than John Paul II for example and that was back in the 80's, it's not inconceivable that someone like him could yet be elected. It is unfortunate for the average Catholic that there hasn't been anyone like him since but not impossible that there could be again.

And why are people selfish if they continue to attend. What harm are they doing? Is any victim actually going to be helped if my friends, against their conscience, go to the Protestant church down the road?

And some people don't have friends or don't have counsellors or anyone else they can turn to in times of trouble. Therapists are few and far between around here and even people who are verging on suicidal sometimes don't get to see one for free. And no, I don't think any 12 year old needs to go to confession. The priest I went to aged 7 didn't ask me anything about sins, he talked about Santa and Rudolph and presents and was a good man who never abused anyone.

I am getting really heartily sick of all these so called aetheists and 'rationalists' who have nooo spritual life, partly I suspect because they could be bothered to put the effort into it, denouncing the RC church over the child abuse incidence. Buggering boys at schools in the heart of middle and upper England has been carried out for years with no-one wishing to close down Eton/Harrow/Westminster/Uppingham ( even). Children have been getting raped in these places for a very long time.

The Cathloic church has taken massive steps to put this ghastly issue in it's proper context and process i.e the civil authorities.

I am worked in the field of child sex abuse since 1991 - our children are being abused by fathers, uncles, friends of the family, NOT the priests. And the priests are NOT being involved in the 'cover ups' which happen in A LOT of families.

I have worked, obv.

No it's not over and the cover up continues, not just within the church but also within education and the state. Many victims are yet to see justice and many perpetrators are yet to be punished.

The Nolan Report was commissioned by the catholic church, Pope Benedict himself wanted answers and since the Report the church has taken on board many of the suggestions and safeguards are now in place to ensure this does not happen again. It's no guarantee, but the church has looked inside itself for answers and is now trying to make amends.

It still has a very long way to go. But then so have childrens homes, boarding schools and so on. Nothing can change what happened in the past, but what is important is that changes are made to make the future a much safer place. With so much scrutinisation the catholic church is probably a damn sight safer for children now than a boarding school, childrens home, foster home or state school.

But it's not just atheists, is it, Pan?

It's Catholics and ex-Catholics too.

And people are quite rightly angry about the hypocrisy and ongoing power of the Church who issue decrees on moral behaviour while continuing to shelter the perpetrators of abuse. I don't see masters at Eton or managers of children's homes being given a platform to massively influence the health and happiness of millions of people world-wide. That is the difference, I think.

Also, the topicality of the Pope's visit, and the gobsmacking nerve of him trying to draw parallels with atheism and evil-doing, when he is head of an institution which has been responsible for so much misery in people's lives.

Priests are no longer sheltered from the law.

Many people are given a platform to air their views. If we are talking about corrupt institutions here I need only point to Westminster. Also, banks are refusing mortgages still, they have brought back charges and are still awarding huge bankers bonuses, yet they caused the recession which is still creating misery through redundancies and crippling debt. I wonder how many suicides are through mounting debt? Yet where is the mass protest there?

[[http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/04/23/here%E2%80%99s-a-crazy-idea-what-if-the-pope-is-innocent/ someone posted this on the other thread, it's really interesting and seems that most of the paedophiles had already been dealt
with by the law by the time ratzinger was called in]]

i mean obviously the guy might have his facts wrong but further down he does give links to the papers that he quotes from.

The pope has diplomatic immunity so he is sheltered from the law actually and lots of the records are in the Vatican. They cannot be seen by police, also because of diplomatic immunity. The reason some high church officials recently had their premises raided in Belgium was because this was the only way the police could get to the records.

Actually chipmonkey, your friends going to church does harm people because as long as people participate in the institution, the longer it can go along doing what it does. It harms people like the man in the video and a friend of mine who was abused by our local priest. He tells me he wants to shake people going into churches and to make them really understand what he went through and what the church allowed to happen to him. He says it feels like a denial of his terrible experience when he sees people participating in the church and I can understand that. Maybe you can't; I guess that's where we differ. If the faithful withheld their support until reform was realised, the church would have to change or it would cease to exist in its current form. This way, there's no incentive at all for reform obviously.

As for hanging in because it?s technically possible that a reformer will come along and change things; well yes, I suppose it?s also technically possible that a woman could be become pope one day but I?m not holding my breath and people who do are deluding themselves. In any case, why hang on for a change if you love the church? If you need it to change so much, you ought to leave because the changes you want will make it into something other than what it is.

Agree with BoF, Pan - the Church sets itself up as the arbiter of morality. It's pretty damn quick to condemn sinners in other quarters, but sheltered its own. That's why it's even more outrageous, and I speak as someone who had a very happy Catholic childhood, with some wonderful kind priests. Doesn't mean that what the church has done doesn't deserve the deepest and most vocal condemnation.

BoF - take your point entirely - it's just the profoundly-believing aetheists who I think annoy most, as if the issue of child abuse in the catholic church was reason enough to denounce all faiths, as they would wish.

Also, heads of schools and children's homes ARE the representatives of the state which DOES influence the moral well-being of millions of people.

But influence moral wellbeing isn't the same as "define morality" which is essentially what the church does.

Singling out one man's experiences does not help the argument as a whole. I'm sure a lot of boys abused at Eton would like to see that institution closed down and all boarding schools boarded up. No doubt they would want to shake the parents who choose to send their children there.

Releasing records is one thing the Vatican could and should do. As I said, the church has a long way to go yet.

But what you can do is to keep on at the church from the inside. A priest once said to me that the great thing about the Nolan report was that it was done by an 'outsider' and sometimes it takes an outsiders point of view to make the church realise that they are doing things wrong. He said that the church needs to listen to outsiders more.

Saying sorry will never take away the pain. Both the UK and Australia apologised for the scandal of the forgotten children sent away from their homes to be abused in Australia and Canada. Canada has yet to apologise for the part they played. It made a difference to some people and gave them the closure they were seeking, but others remain angry and bitter and understandably so. There are many wrongs committed by society and there are no easy answers, no way of putting history right.

The church has apologised, commissioned the Nolan Report and started a procedure that will carry on into the future. But will it ever be enough? For some people it is, for others it never will be.

you could just as easily say that if any other church leader from any other faith group were to come to Britain at the cost of £12million to the taxpayer then there would be uproar!

The church is the only institution now that offers any kind of moral guideline. Not just the catholic church but the Anglican church, the muslims, the hindus, the buddhists, they all have a moral code that they strive for.

That code can and is abused within the church because the church is not infallible. How can it be? It is an organisation made of people and people are not infallible. You will find corruption wherever there is an organisation, from the local PTA to the government. A moral code is very hard to adhere to when society tells you that money, power and greed is the only way to live.

Encountering corruption does not mean however that we should throw in the towel and give up morality. It means that we need to try harder.

And yes I know that non-believers also have a moral code and I also know that they too, find their own moral code hard to live with at times. Almost everyone has done something at some time that goes against their moral code and that they are ashamed of. At that point you can either give up and accept a life without morals, or you can pick yourself up and start again.

The church must now pick itself up and start again and I believe that is what it is trying to do.

what I mean is - why the F**k should I have to be paying money to allow someone like the pope to do a pointless tour of the UK!?

DuelingFanjo (shouldn't there be two l's in your name?) Oprah Winfrey is flying herself, her film crew and 300 audience members to Australia for around a week, including food, transfers, sight seeing trips and accommodation and guess who is footing the bill? The Australian taxpayer.

Now if you hate everything that the Oprah Winfrey show stands for that must be a kick in the teeth for you.

Why the f#ck should I pay the royal family to arse about doing sweet FA? Why should I pay for politicians to dine at the finest restaurants and stay at the finest hotels? Why should I pay for their holidays when I can't afford one myself?

Mute argument that one.

instant karma on the mute point there, i think.

did anyone read that link i posted? it was interesting, i promise.

yes i read it, thought it was very good.

I did aitch , previously and it was very gud.

this link takes you elsewhere, I'm afraid.

The Oldest Cat:
You mention the other issues the church has: e.g. Homosexuality, HIV, women etc.

I might be ignorant, but please tell me if for example the Jewish comunity or the Islam has different views on these subjects?

I was not aware that those religions accept homosexuality, women ordained etc?

Please enlighten me.

But BTino, I don't claim that you not adhering to my moral code makes you a sinner or condemns you to hell. And religions do claim that their code (not the adherence of individuals to it) is infallible, as they claim it comes directly from God. That's a pretty strong claim, and one that is therefore all the more damaged by such atrocities.

You know what I'd do if I were still a Catholic? I'd shut up, take the flak and ride out the storm. I really would. Because the fury is justified, and yeah, so what if some people are tagging their own anti-religious generic sentiments onto it? The church needs to demonstrate true and sustained regret and humility if it's to start earning back trust. Meanwhile I will get pissed off at being preached at for "aggressive secularism".

And secondly - because the Bible tells you so. it's in the Beatitudes.

Not yet, Aitch - I will, though.