In not wanting The Pope to visit uk at the taxpayers expense?

[Alouiseg]

Apparently The visit wil cost 12m pounds. That's 12 million pounds to be pinched from other budgets. For a man who has been responsible for covering up crimes against children.

My MP will receive an email today and I will make my abhorrence very clear.

The letter states that the church's jurisdiction 'begins to run from the day when the minor has completed the 18th year of age' and lasts for 10 years.>>

That takes it well past the stature of limitations I suppose. Good thinking that.

"Frankly, the instructions weren't adhered to over here, anyway.'

I think that's sort of the point. I have been saying over and over again that this isn't about individual Catholics - it's about the hierarchy. And, actually, about the longstanding ability of the Catholic Church to believe two impossible things before breakfast!

Easyjet Rome to LGW 130 euros at the moment. As he's an old duffer I'm more than happy to stump up the extra for Speedy Boarding, especially on his the way out......

Statutes of limitations vary from country to country, Onagar.

Once civil authorities are aware of claims, time stops running out, afaik. It is up to those civil authorities to pursue a case with alacrity or otherwise. Civil authorities are not always inclined to work too hard -- example of rape kits in Illinois, US, going unprocessed for long stretches.

Most dioceses in Ireland, the UK, the US and elsewhere decided on their own initiative, and presumably with legal advice, to follow the directives of various committees of inquiry and set up protocols to try to prevent abuse and to report any that happened. This is their prerogative.

The idea that the Pope sits in Rome controlling every minute of every day of every Catholic, laity and clergy alike, is as untrue as the widely held belief that the Catholic Church demands blind obedience and a suspension of disbelief from its members, and condemns to hell anyone who deviates from the rules.

The previous Pope put his head above the parapet and said the Iraq war was wrong - I'll pay for that.

Is this a music thread?

Once civil authorities are aware of claims,>

Which was kind of the point of not telling them wasn't it.

I think you are on shaky ground criticising the authorities for being sometimes slow to act while defending someone who made sure they were not told.

How seriously do Catholics view being excommunicated. Given that this was the penalty threatened in the first letter.

I suppose most of you would be perfectly fine if you were excommunicated. no worse than a parking fine right?

The victims are permitted to make claims by themselves, directly to the civil authorities, and always have been. They don't have to go to the authorities via the church, and never had to.

In years past, allegations of sexual abuse were rarely made, against any perpetrators, clergy or otherwise. Victims of incest and other forms of sexual violence just dealt with it, or didn't, while the abusers went free. Apparently one in four children is a victim of sexual abuse. Even in these supposedly more enlightened times, most rapes are never reported and few are successfully prosecuted. Why? Here's a BBC report from 2005 with some figures. Even when a rape case goes to trial, without any members of the Catholic clergy or hierarchy sitting on the bench or on the jury, I assume, a shockingly low rate of conviction is achieved. Why is society reluctant to acknowledge that sexual violence happens, even in post Christian Britain?

We should certainly NOT be paying for this ridiculous man to come to the country.

If the Catholics want him - they can pay for him.

He's nothing to the vast majority of the population. No, he's actually resented by most people.

B.

" The victims are permitted to make claims by themselves,"

I'm sorry, but this turn of phrase says it all for me. "The victims are permitted.......". Outrageous. Can't be doing with anything else on this thread.

Seeker, I know what you mean. I have to say that this thread is utterly, utterly depressing. We're all up in arms and misunderstanding each other and debating and what-not but ultimately it's just grim.

I don't know what will end up happening but ultimately I think most of us Catholic or otherwise won't be pleased.

I'm still reeling from MajorieW's memory of that 8 year old girl.

I don't know where I'm going with this post, but I guess I just needed to say something.

They are 'permitted' by the civil authorities, Seeker. Nowhere is it written, in anyone's rule book, that claims of abuse against clergy members have to (or ever had to) be first submitted to the church. Nowhere, not by the authorities in any given country or by the church.

Any victim of any crime can go to the police, anywhere, and always could. Rape victims seem to be very leery of doing this, not without reason, but there is no law against it and never was.

How hard is it to get a claim taken seriously if the priest/bishop and everyone else support each others false alibis?

Were not some/many of the victims in catholic run homes and at the mercy of the abusers?

Also is it not the case that in Ireland for example the church had undue influence on the police?

I'm not sure where you're going with that anyway. The church had a system of moving abusers safely out of the jurisdiction to a new place where no one would be suspicious of them and a policy of withholding information that would support any claims made to the police.

That is simply indefensible. We don't know everyone responsible, but we know this man helped enforce that policy. No decent person should want him anywhere near them.

I will be protesting with a vuvuzela (for when he is doing his stupid speeches) and loads of condoms too to throw at him and his cronies. Am determined to be front page of daily mail.

YANBU

mrsanxiety - of course a victim can report abuse to anyon he or she wants to. The point I am trying to make is that up until recently, priests and bishops who had suspicions or evidence of abuse were obliged to keep that witin the Churce and were not permitted to go to the secular authorities about it.

I say again - this is not about the Catholic laity - it is about the Church hierarchy.

math - in Ireland abuse victims (often children) were sworn to secrecy and threatened with excommunication if they dared ever tell. I don't see how anyone can justify that, or blame them for being too frightened to speak out. The people responsible are priests and bishops who behaved in an evil manner. Not just failing to live up to their supposed values and teachings and vows, but actively doing evil.

And I thought EVERYONE learnt at their mother's knee that two wrongs don't make a right. The fact that the rape conviction rate is shamefully low has nothing to do with this - it's just an attempt to divert attention.

Except possibly that powerful organisations like the church have shaped attitudes to sexuality and female sexuality in particular, so have probably played a part in society's reluctance to convict rapists.

It's not justifiable -- and the bishop who resigned recently who had a hand in swearing children to secrecy should now be locked in jail with the key thrown away. It was a sordid crime in itself to do that.

As to doing whatever the church allegedly obliged them to do (the 'just following orders' defence) -- that was denounced at Nuremberg. Every priest and bishop has an individual conscience. They all believe that ultimately they will answer to God and not to any Pope for what they did or have not done. I sincerely hope they are right.

All of the christian churches and others too, have had a bad record wrt female sexuality and sex in general (not just the Catholic Church). Society seems to have accepted that aspect of the dampening effect of the churches (maybe because it worked out well for men to have a patriarchal society?) while admonitions on excessive drinking, greed, murder, etc., seem to have gone unheeded over the centuries.

Church = people = society. A twisted mess.

' know what you mean about taxes
I dont want my taxes spent on
Librarys(dont read books)
subsidised theatre(dont go)
The upkeep of roads(dont drive)
Free school meals and other subsidised thing for the needy(we have to pay )
illegal imigrants being looked after,they should be deported imediatly
I could go on
what benefits do i get from these things? '

Heck I know its old but unresistable

and as its been a big week ehre I have missed it

And am astounded that poster will never need anything deleiverd or an ambulance orr to acccess anything (roads)

Will never have a child at uni or school needing a library

Or who may become ill and need a free school meal

And enver benefits in anyway from supporting poor people and having a stable state without starving masses

Prray, how does one acquire such an isolated life? Does the poster live alone on an Island somewhre inside UK borders but without access to people?

Compare the cost of the Pope's visit to the amount of money it takes to sustain the Head of the Church of England, a massive cost each and every year, which every tax payer in this country pays, regardless of their personal faith. I am disgusted with the bigotry displayed on this board; remember this is the country where power cannot be held by a Catholic! We've had a Jewish PM, but Blair had to wait until after his resignation to convert to Catholicism. Only a couple of years ago, Peter Philip's fiancee had to convert to the Church of England as he'd lose his claim on the throne otherwise.
So much for multi-cultural Britain!

AQNd on a more general note

I don't care if the Pope comes or not

But when schools are falling down and bfudning to fix them being pulled, day centres closed and frontline health and education staff losing their jobs in a climate whre many will lose thier (heck, dh already did) and a great number will lose their homes

It all seems a very alrge bit wrong to spend hard cash on any satte visit IMO.

Regardless of what Catholics may or may not be associated with.

We just can't afford it.

There are famillies on the SN section terrified that their invisibly diabled child will flunk the new DLA tests in 2013 and they will lose pretty much everything- people who ahve no choice at all

It all is so very- un Christian to throw such huge sums at this when the vulnerable are suffering

Shanster

tgere's bigotry everywhere but not wanting to fork out doesn't mean bigot

I am sure there'd be less (noit no) outrager if the Vatican and the Churcxh paid for 100% of the cost

that's not bigotry, it's accountancy and realism

Plenty of 'radicals' have been barred from this Country, mainly due to their postulations being or coming into conflict with what is morally and legally right. So, we invite a guy who wishes to ban gays, single mothers, covers up sexual abuse and is indirectly responsible (or at least his dogma) for the spread of HIV. And we call this person a 'friend'. I despair at times.

On a side note, I have heard that the £20m cost for him coming here is due to Police protection; apparently they are going to allocate a Police officer to watch over every pre-pubescent child in the country.

Better safe than sorry given his (and his ilk's) track record.