To be totally disgusted by this

[SilverySurfer]

edition.cnn.com/2019/02/25/australia/cardinal-george-pell-vatican-conviction-intl/index.html

and hope he rots in prison. How many more are there yet to be identified? Rotten to the core.

Jimmy Savile was a Roman Catholic Knight. Says it all.

Well, the Queen knighted him too!

I would really be interested to hear from anyone who is Catholic whether things like this shake their belief, how they deal with it in their local church

I too was raised Catholic before agnosticism claimed me.

Would you think democracy per se if the prime minister was revealed to be a paedophile?

*democracy SUCKED

The Catholic Church don’t give a shit about their victims. I heard the bishop of wherever in Australia this was on the radio this morning. He said that there will be an appeal and hopefully justice will be done, read into that what you will. You can guarantee this will not be mentioned at mass on sunday and devout Catholics like my mum will just keep blindly supporting the church and their dogma.

do they think folk are completely stupid, or is their arrogance such that they expect their word to be taken on trust anyway

Or perhaps they think folk might realise that they can't say what you wanted them to say without risking being sued for libel.

This is one of the reasons why I believe that organised religion has no place in a modern society.

It’s not the fact that so many priests were using their positions to abuse children, it’s the fact that the church has covered it up time and time and time again, and for that the church needs to be held accountable especially given the values it preaches.

And of course it’s not unique to the Catholic Church but the Catholic Church is one of the largest (and richest) churches in the world and hence has a lot of influence.

Interestingly the Vatican is the richest state in the world and yet missionaries are sent out to help in impoverished countries for which the church gives up absolutely none of its wealth.

Why would anyone honestly want to be supportive of an institution like that? After all having a faith doesn’t mean you have to have a church, the two are not mutually exclusive.

IMO the church on the whole is rotten to the core, and while I can see how people find it in themselves to believe in a higher power I do not understand why or how anyone can be supportive of any kind of institution that is instrumental in these kinds of cover-ups.

One previous priest disappeared from our parish and members assumed he was ill. Once the criminal case was completed we were told the truth

The same happened with our local monsignor, only there was no prosecution since he skipped to Ireland where he's been allowed to become involved with another local church

The story given out by the bishop was that he had cancer and had "gone home to die", but years later he appears to be having a wonderful time and to be in the best of health

Another "miracle", no doubt

perhaps (the church) think folk might realise that they can't say what you wanted them to say without risking being sued for libel

It's a fair point, if you're referring to folk speaking out about abuse. Given the obsession with secrecy, it wouldn't surprise me at all if they abused their wealth as well by using it to fund the squashing of whistleblowers

It might be hoped that they'd actually welcome reports so they could be used to root out this filth and set an example to others, but I realise such hope would be foolish

And then they claim it was because of "age" ... do they think folk are completely stupid, or is their arrogance such that they expect their word to be taken on trust anyway? hmm

Both I suspect.

No I didn't expect anyone to say YABU for being disgusted and I asked the questions in my post because I didn't know the answers. Of course it's not limited to the church but wouldn't you say it's worse?
Considering what churches supposedly represent, if a child can't be assumed to be safe in a church then where can they be?

I don't see much truth and honesty coming from the Vatican or other religions

This isn’t my story to tell so I’ll have to change and edit and therefore you can believe it or not.
A neighbour I had and was reasonably close to, was pregnant in not ideal circumstances and then found the baby was unlikely to survive past a few days. Her mum talked to the priest who came to the house every day and persuaded her to continue with the pregnancy and let God’s will be done. The baby survived less than an hour and obviously it was horrendous. After that the family were pressed for many donations for the priests time I could hardly bite my tongue. He was treated like a minor celebrity and visited as and when it suited him. Until he was arrested and charged and you can guess the rest.
This was less than 10 years ago in a large city.
My point is until the Catholic Church starts changing the way priests behave and are treated they will always have access to vulnerable people who don’t feel they can question them. Defending your actions is key to child protection (that’s why drs and teachers are never alone with a child).

The covering up of organised child sexual abuse by spiritual / religious movements is something that happens all over the world.

These kinds of coverups happen in all kinds of groups where dysfunctional / bullying dynamics arise and where child abusers are in positions of power.

One horrible yet also fairly typical example is the Satyananda / Bihar school of yoga.

Report (obviously distressing to read) from the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse here:
www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/media-releases/report-satyananda-yoga-ashram-released

Anyone interested in how evangelical Christian missionaries use the cover of religion to sexually and otherwise abuse indigenous tribal children in Thailand and Laos can educate themselves by watching this excellent and extremely disturbing film by a filmmaker who risked his life and was nearly murdered going undercover to expose the abuses.

vimeo.com/57438027

I am not a Catholic, not Christian, just someone who hates the abuse of children and vulnerable adults. Abuses against children and coverups happen across the spectrum of religious / spiritual groups.

Yes, I struggle to understand how people manage to stay within the Catholic Church. I understand carrying on faith in God, but the Catholic Church seems to have been institutionally abusive on a level that doesn't compare to any other single organisation. So much abuse, so much corruption, so much damage to so many people, so little regard for the teaching of Jesus in the way it conducts itself in the world. I truly do not understand how people manage to stomach it and stay within the church. The amount of mental gymnastics to think its still an organisation worth engaging with is beyond me.

Didiusfalco it seems many agree with you. The article below gives some info from Pew Research relating to the USA - I'm still trying to find the equivalent for the UK, but it's interesting all the same since the US is also a developed western nation

www.patheos.com/blogs/deaconsbench/2018/09/survey-catholics-leaving-the-church-in-greater-numbers-than-any-other-religion/

Didius, with respect your post just makes you appear ignorant.

The different churches within Christianity all have slightly different beliefs. You don’t just stop believing in something because those in power within the organisation have committed a heinous act. It’s perfectly possible to believe in the teachings of the Catholic Church and not support it’s handling of things like paedophile priests.

What a terrible story Nonibaloni.

I don't know if the Catholic Church still do it but I know back when I was a child the NDNs were Catholic and I used to see the priest regularly visiting their house. They had eight children and could barely afford to put food on the table yet the priest would come regularly asking for money.

I remember watching Billy Connelly and laughing at him describing how he and his siblings had to put coats on their beds because they couldn't afford blankets and made up a big story about when the priest would visit their Glasgow tenement expecting money. Then it made me think. If an organization is sitting on billions of pounds, art and artefacts etc, how can it be right to take money from the poorest in society? Why are they not using their wealth for the betterment of people's lives?

That’s what I meant silvery I’m not religious so can’t really understand the situation where someone is treated with such reverence for want of a better word. But I can see how it would attract men with less than pure motives.
Asking people in dire straights (emotionally as well as financially) for money must take brass neck.

I wish Mumsnet didn’t allow these posts where people with no clue about various religions get to make up random ‘facts’ to slate them

Out priest used to visit my family and extended family all the time. My mum and her sisters lived in the same street.

They never asked for money. They used to visit to be sort of the community. We would also invite them round if we were having a party, or family over from Ireland etc.

Just because Billy Connely made a joke (which may or may not be true) or a few priests would take money from poor families, doesnt mean all do.

I worked in kitchens for years. I have seen a few chefs do disgusting things to food before it's been served to customers. Do I think ALL chefs do this? Of course not.

Its amazing how people are allowed to make blanket judgments about Catholicism and its priest based on the fact that some disgusting people have become priests. But would do it over other religions or jobs. What about harold shipman, do people think all gps are serial killers?

Or that all nurses like to kill babies because of Beverley allet?

Oh and btw I have my own issues the catholic church and organised religions in general.

I still don't think you can judge people because they choose to remain part of the church.

"We also learnt on the course that most paedophiles were child abuse victims themselves when they were young, which I found very sad." PLEASE don't perpetuate this myth. Many abusers CLAIM this as a way to gain sympathy including reduced sentences. It's now being discovered they are no more likely to have been victims than the rest of the population, many have confessed they've lied about this and it doesn't excuse their actions.

As a lapsed Catholic (the old joke there's no ex Catholics just bad ones) and a csa survivor my issue is far less with abusers going into the clergy, we know abusers seek various roles they hope that will give them access, my problem is them not properly acknowledging and dealing with it! It's the covering up that's sickening.

And as pp say there's ongoing similar problems in other religions and organisations it's certainly not limited to the Catholic Church - and that includes the cover up issue.

Personally I think we need to create laws that recognise that those who were complicit in covering up have to face some responsibility too inc custodial sentences.

🎶 fuck the morherfucker he’s a fucking motherfucker..... 🎶

I did mean what I said. I wasn’t brought up with religion so I don’t know.
@Tennesseewhiskey that’s exactly what I thought would be the benefit of religion, having a ready made community and someone ready to offer a hand. I’m not knocking every catholic or every priest. And it definitely is every religion and organisation.
In my story, no one felt able to say anything remotely negative to the priest. He wasn’t young, he’d worked (ministered?) lots of places so It can’t have gone unnoticed that he was pushy at best. He was also rude and judgemental. Surely this could have been dealt with, and the abuses would have come to light earlier (or been prosecuted earlier). That’s what I meant.

Active catholic here.This story is absolutely disgusting. I pray that the Church continue to put strict safeguarding measures in place, cases are handled more efficiently and these terrible abuses continue to be exposed for abusers to face the law.

HOWEVER, this doesn't shake my belief in God or the teachings of the Catholic Church. I truly believe that the Church is the bridegroom of Jesus and instituted by Jesus. The human element of the Catholic Church has done terrible things throughout history and it is full of sinners. Always has been and always will.

Its amazing how people are allowed to make blanket judgments about Catholicism and its priest based on the fact that some disgusting people have become priests.

Trouble is that it's not the paedophilia thing alone. It's the extreme abuses of children in the Magdelen Laundries, as others have said it's the extreme wealth possessed by the church in comparison to the poverty of millions, it's the integral profound sexism and utterly rigid inflexibility of the organisation, it's the intense manipulation by inculcating guilt in people and then playing on it. Plus the inescapable feeling that they're hiding a massive amount of information, plus an extremely oppressive history.

There are many intensely autocratic and inflexible institutions with bullying problems (the military forces not all that long ago) but the Catholic church claimed that they represent the teachings of Jesus, which are amazing, and that the Pope is the infallible representative of God on earth.

I think when you put all that together along with the covering up of so much evil, it's not surprising that the Catholic church attracts some pretty blanket condemnation.

Longstanding monolithic cultures are rarely pretty but the Catholic church claims great deal of moral high ground. Revulsion at what's been done as opposed to what's been claimed was always going to be intense.

I would really be interested to hear from anyone who is Catholic whether things like this shake their belief, how they deal with it in their local church

Why would it shake their faith in God? I'm sure it shakes their confidence and respect for the Church institution and leaders, who have been appalling slow to react to abuses, allowed the destruction of records and done little to recompense victims by any means. But like plainspeaking said - there is abuse within many organisations, groups and from individuals........the rotten core needs to be visibly removed and the 'behind closed doors' way of dealing with the perpetrators (or hiding them from prosecution) needs to be stopped. No organisation can police itself - that is clear.