Secrets of the Vatican

[Yoder777]

Secrets of the Vatican | FRONTLINE | PBS

This PBS documentary reveals the decades of cover up of clergy sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. I've long defended Catholic priests, saying that less than five percent have been accused of molestation, the same rate as public school teachers. I was raised Catholic and I want to be able to give the Catholic Church the benefit of the doubt.

But now that I am married and have children of my own, I don't feel comfortable belonging to a church where I know for a fact that the local bishop was involved in helping to cover up sexual abuse or hiding money intended for abuse victims. Even Bishop Timothy Dolan, a favorite of loyal Catholics, tried to deprive justice to abuse victims:

In July 2013, documents made public during bankruptcy proceedings showed that Dolan had sought permission to move $57 million in church funds to protect the assets from victims of clerical abuse. In a letter to the Vatican requesting permission to move the funds, Dolan wrote "By transferring these assets to the trust, I foresee an improved protection of these funds from any legal claim and liability.”[55][58] Dolan had previously denied that he tried to conceal assets from child sex abuse victims claiming compensation calling the accusations "old and discredited" and "malarkey."[59] United States law forbids debtors transferring money in ways that protect some creditors against others.[59] The Vatican approved the request in five weeks.[55]
Timothy M. Dolan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There are even accusations that Pope Benedict XVI earlier in his career covered up for abusive priests in Munich and later as hypocritically named "morals enforcer" for The Vatican.[11] Priests who had abused children were simply moved on to other parishes where, all too frequently, they re-offended. Pope Benedict XVI personally issued a document telling bishops to hush up allegations of abuse and avoid reporting abuse to the authorities. The bishops were instructed to keep this sensitive document in a safe at all times. Perpetrators and victims of abuse were sometimes pressured into silence with the threat of excommunication to keep them in line.[12] Other victims were bribed into silence.[13]
Child sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church - RationalWiki

I don't want to raise my children in any church where the clergy claim a higher spiritual authority over my children than myself as their father. Parents were at least partly to blame for the decades of sexual abuse, as it was unthinkable to them that priests would molest.

Given the decades of willful cover up of heinous crimes, the Catholic Church may be the largest organized crime organization in the world. I am not saying this to offend. But I honestly think that international organizations like the UN should get more involved with holding the Vatican accountable.

 

[AvilaSurfer]

Yay. More Catholic bashing. Isn't posting the same thing in multiple forums considered spam?

 

[ChristsSoldier115]

I do not understand the RCC's response to child abuse. I would assume that would be an offense worthy of defrocking the priest.

 

[SteveNZ]

Tell me Yoder777 do you think it would take the church long to sort it out and healing take place?

The good within the church is so good..........

 

[Brandonspapa]

Ah. PBS. Not exactly the bastion of non-biased reporting is it? What the RCC stands for today is no different than it has for centuries, except for the "indulgences." But there are many born again Christians within the RCC who have not bitten into the RCC mantra and will go in the Rapture with the rest of us.

 

[Yoder777]

Since the Vatican is a nation-state, I am seriously curious about what international organizations intend on doing about the abuse scandal.

 

[AvilaSurfer]

Since the Vatican is a nation-state, I am seriously curious about what international organizations intend on doing about the abuse scandal.

What abuses have gone on in the nation of the Vatican?

 

[Yoder777]

What abuses have gone on in the nation of the Vatican?

Is that a serious question?

There are even accusations that Pope Benedict XVI earlier in his career covered up for abusive priests in Munich and later as hypocritically named "morals enforcer" for The Vatican.[11] Priests who had abused children were simply moved on to other parishes where, all too frequently, they re-offended. Pope Benedict XVI personally issued a document telling bishops to hush up allegations of abuse and avoid reporting abuse to the authorities. The bishops were instructed to keep this sensitive document in a safe at all times. Perpetrators and victims of abuse were sometimes pressured into silence with the threat of excommunication to keep them in line.[12] Other victims were bribed into silence.[13]
Child sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church - RationalWiki

 

[SuperCloud]

Since the Vatican is a nation-state, I am seriously curious about what international organizations intend on doing about the abuse scandal.

Catholics on this board report me as a Catholic basher, so, you can't merely accuse me of being an apologist for the Catholic Church.

The problem with sex scandal is deeply complex--I've come to believe. It would be like me attempting to sum up machine politics in Chicago and New Orleans and every corruption stemming from Philadelphia to LA by speaking of the "United States" merely by reference to not only D.C. but the White House and the U.S. President. There is a long legal culture within the USA and the Catholic Church is as decentralized if not more decentralized than the United States with it's culture of states rights in relation to D.C. and the U.S. Presidency.

Take the New York City Public school system which moved teachers from one school to the next when discovered having sexual relations with teachers? You have failed to indict the U.S. Presidency and the mayor of Milwaukee for the NYC public school scandal (which if forced to payout like the Catholic Church would bankrupt the NYC--in fact if every major city in the U.S. had to payout for public school teachers that had sex with kids the entire economy of the nation-state of the USA would collapse).

It's impossible for the mayor of Milwaukee to micro manage the entire city. So, it's certainly is impossible for the U.S. President to micro manage the entire country. And the Catholic Church has around 1 billion people compared to the 300 million Americans. And the Catholic Church geographically covers nearly all of planet earth.

So, it's utterly impossible for any Pope to micro manage global Catholicism from the seat of the City of Rome.

The Catholic Church is much more decentralized than what people think. The Pope is the Bishop of Rome--not the Bishop of Milwaukee or the Bishop of NYC. Each archdioceses around the world handles its own finances and the Archbishop in charge is the authority--not the Pope. The Pope is more or less President Obama. And the U.S. President is more or less a Federally charged governor as all state governors are essentially the presidents of the their states.

And the Catholic Church has a legal system just like the USA. Due process is part of that. The legal system of the Catholic Church is complex enough that to be a Canon lawyer you have to obtain a graduate law degree in Church law--not unlike you have to do to practice secular law with a J.D.

So, I ask you, what are International courts going to do about the "organized crime" called the United States of America headed by D.C. in light of the NYC public school scandal handled nearly the same as the Catholic Church scandal?

Part of the problem the Catholic Church had was it was both a victim of its time during the 1950s, '60s, and '70s but that it was dumb enough to listen to psychologists on the matter. It used to be believed sending a sex offenders of children to essentially mental "rehab" would result in a cure. It results in cures as well as drug rehabs do. Meaning almost never.

There were so many elements. Part of it has to do with the Church historically being easy on sinners and hard on heretics. Although, today the Church is easy on heretics. But the point is the judicial culture of the Church was not akin to the glee of life imprisonment, prison rape, and torture as is prevalent in the legal culture and mainstream culture of the USA. The principle of mercy was more important than it was in the USA.

The Bishops were/are supposed to be both fathers and brothers to the priests under them. So, fathers and brothers aren't suppose to just toss their sons or brothers to wolves just because they're sinners that would be stoned or lynched by Americans.

Of course corruption was part of it too. This aspect still remains strong in the Catholic Church going by recent revelations. I don't even want to know how bad the corruption is within the Catholic Church because I'm afraid I'll find out it's 10 times, 20 times, 1 million times worse than what I'm aware of.

So, I rather just wash my hands of the Catholic Church. To me... it's more or less just a political organization today led by people that talk political language.

The one thing about the 1950s in American and the Catholic Church too that I did like more than now is the "Omerta" so to speak. Not that one needs to keep their mouth closed about everything. But I really don't care for the hyper gossip and tabloid and just hyper snitch culture of today. Even involving sexual things--illegal or not--I don't need to know about it, you just need to remove the person from their position and handle it in the courts or whatever. I don't need people to come running telling me everything about another person or persons personal business.

 

[mindlight]

Since the Vatican is a nation-state, I am seriously curious about what international organizations intend on doing about the abuse scandal.

North Korean kids die of hunger, the Sudanese murder their kids and the Chinese and the West do not allow their kids to be born. Most kids are brought up to believe in false religions and live in poverty. So singling out the Vatican seems a bit rich

The sins of the Vatican are vastly exaggerated and they are trying to sort things out.

 

[Yoder777]

Wasn't there a recent UN investigation of the sex abuse scandal or something like it?

 

[Yoder777]

An official Vatican document, Crimen Sollicitationis, laid out the policies by which sexually abusive Catholic priests would be shielded from criminal prosecution. Please forgive me if I'm wrong about this:

Fr. Tom Doyle on 'Crimen Sollicitationis' | National Catholic Reporter

Instead of attacking the messenger, I would suggest to please actually read this article before commenting. I am sorry if I'm offending anyone in bringing this issue up.

 

[Yoder777]

It's been widely reported that Pope Benedict resigned at least partially because of an ongoing scandal involving gay sex inside the Vatican. There's even video of a gay sex orgy involving Catholic priests who give mass for each other the next morning. In resigning, Pope Benedict hoped to purge the curia of corrupt officials who would have to leave along with him.

Report: Pope resigned in wake of gay priest scandal

Please also keep in mind that, until recently, the legal age of the consent in the Vatican was twelve:

The Vatican State officially has the lowest age of consent, at 12 (although most laws in the Holy See fall in line with those of Italy, where the age of consent is 14).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/gay_rights/12015.shtml