German Catholic Church ‘Abused Thousands of Children’

[DogmaHunter]

Oh so some priests abused children so everyone who is accused is obviously guilty?

That is not at all what I said.
I'm just talking about those that have been shown (and who, in many cases, have ADMITTED to being) guilty.

The point I’m trying to make is we should accuse anyone and let the courts decide.

Courts have already decided.
The catholic church has alread spend billions on court settlements.
Plenty of people have already been convicted.
Cover ups have been exposed and admitted by none other then the pope.

See, these are the facts that I said that you seem completely unaware of....
A couple of minutes of research can easily solve that.

I got frustrated because it seems like you only want to see one side of the story.

I don't care about sides. I care about evidence. And the evidence is clear.

For crying out loud, the pope himself said last year on may 13 that they have their own a backlog of some 2000 sex abuse cases.... And he said that a year after he claimed that the victims were just making stuff up (for which he later apologised).

This thread is an unwarranted attack on the church itself implying that the church itself abused these children and all 3,677 cases are confirmed abuse which is not the case according to the articles provided in the OP.

Perhaps that is how you took it. But in reality, nobody said this (that "the church itself" abuses children).

Church leadership however, is definatly guilty at covering up sex abuse of children by members of its clergy. There is NO DOUBT about that. At all.

It is completely pointless to make wild accusations based on the amount of evidence given in the articles and it’s completely unchristian to wrongfully accuse someone without sufficient evidence.

Who's making "wild accusations"?
All we are saying is that what court cases, investigations and church clergy/leadership themselves admitted (eventually, with their backs against the wall).

Especially a church of God that is made up of a majority of good loving Christians. People want to blame the entire church when at least 90% or more are innocent of any of these crimes.

When I talk about "the catholic church", I'm talking about the handfull of people that make up the leadership (and who ordered and carried out the cover ups). Not the more then a billion catholic believers.

If I want to refer to them in general, then I'll speak about "catholics" not "the church".

 

[BNR32FAN]

I’d urge people to actually read how Catholics respond to abuse in the Church not the media:

Q&A: Understanding the Priest Scandal | Catholic Answers

Three Great Lessons of the Abuse Scandal | Catholic Answers

Are you saying we shouldn’t believe everything the media says? Surely they care more about the truth than ratings.

 

[BNR32FAN]

But in reality, nobody said this (that "the church itself" abuses children

Did you happen to read the title to this thread? Did you read the OP?

 

[Barney2.0]

Are you saying we shouldn’t believe everything the media says? Surely they care more about the truth than ratings.

The media is never about the truth, Furthermore there is no such thing as unbiased news these days.

 

[BNR32FAN]

The media is never about the truth, Furthermore there is no such thing as unbiased news these days.

Yeah the love to write about priests being accused but for some reason never like to write that they were found innocent. That’s not shocking or controversial enough to write.

 

[Barney2.0]

But they are nevertheless to be held accountable, since they went out of their way to cover up the cases they knew about.

If you murder someone and I then cover it up, then I also didn't commit or sanction murder. But I sure as hell am not innocent!



Making evidence disappear and transfering the abusers to other congregations in other countries, to keep them out of the hands of authorities.




Which makes them responsible. The ONLY proper action, is to hand them over to authorities - wheter the victims choose to go to the police or not.


Yes, as investigations have exposed, they did it on purpose. And they still do: they purposefully move slowly and aren't very cooperative with investigations at all.


It's also pretty hard to deal with them because stricly speaking, for some mega weird reason that I can't comprehend, the Vatican is its own sovereign country right in the middle of the city of Rome.

When has the Catholic Church made the evidence disappear, if that’s the case there wouldn’t be thousands of reports of abuse. The Catholic Church has made mistakes in the past by not handing its clergy into the hands of the authorities. Abuse is also decreasing in the Catholic Church and the Church is trying its best to handle the situation in my opinion:

Myth Buster | Catholic Answers

I think the carelessness of the Catholic Church in the past few years since the beginning of the 1900s has allowed large amounts of corruption into the Church which has manifested in the sexual abuses of more recent times. The Catholic Church itself isn’t covering up abuse, can we blame the Catholic Church for not handling its corrupt bishops yes we can, can we blame the whole Church for purposely covering up abuse no we can’t.

 

[Barney2.0]

The statistics of sexual abuse among the Evangelical branches of Christianity is much higher then that committed by the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church has also done things to try to stem sexual abuse and corruption in he Church, while abuse and corruption is still rampant and ongoing in Evangelical Christianity. So why is the American media singling out the Catholic Church, probably because Evangelical Christianity happens to be the majority and national faith of the US.

 

[Rhamiel]

I sort of feel bad for people who really love the Church.

Then again, its loving the Church that really allowed this to persist for so long and be enabled at all levels of the institution.

I saw a video on this very topic, part of this scandal, this collection of horrible crimes, was caused by unorthodox respect for the person of the priest

What !? I don't think ANYONE who loved a church would allow this to go on ever, even for one week, let alone hundreds of years....... If they could not stop it from happening then, they would go somewhere else and also make known to others what was happening "bring everything out into the LIGHT so all your deeds may be seen to be from Yahweh(God) " .......

note: there is a different love in the world than godly love; As written in Bible: "the world loves its own" (an evil love in sin, promoting sinfulness in everyone)

This problem does not seem to be hundreds of years old, if you look at the numbers from the Pennsylvania reports you see that the numbers go up in the 1960’s and reach highs in the 1970’s and 1980’s
Of course the numbers of abuse and cover up are still far too high, but there are good men in both the laity and clergy who are praying and working to end this systemic abuse and cover up
There have been worldly forces pushing a secular agenda within the Church and we pray that God rips them out of their positions of power

The statistics of sexual abuse among the Evangelical branches of Christianity is much higher then that committed by the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church has also done things to try to stem sexual abuse and corruption in he Church, while abuse and corruption is still rampant and ongoing in Evangelical Christianity. So why is the American media singling out the Catholic Church, probably because Evangelical Christianity happens to be the majority and national faith of the US.

Some of it is just journalism, a story with a cover up is more interesting/easier to report on then random abuse statistics

Some just hate all religion and they know the Evangelical churches are too divided to offer much resistance so they go after the bigger institutions

 

[mindlight]

This is disingenuous though, as if to suggest this is a Christian problem.

Child sexual abuse in religiously affiliated and secular institutions: a retrospective descriptive analysis of data provided by victims in a government-sponsored reappraisal program in Germany

"The results suggest that child sexual abuse in institutions is attributable to the nature of institutional structures and to societal assumptions about the rights of children more than to the attitudes towards sexuality of a specific religion."

I've actually read retrospective studies saying sexual abuse is more prevalent in secular institutions, too. The problem is that if people want to cast aspersions, any denial is often thought to confirm a cover-up. While the Catholic problem is horrific, it is hard to be objective. Thing is though, this is against Christian precepts and the accounts emerging from Catholic institutions is coupled to blasphemous acts and desecration of what is supposed to be considered holy (such as confession, holy water, crucifixes, etc.).
So this is more abuse of Christianity by apostates from it for secular ends of self-gratification, than a 'Christian' thing. The problem is the lack of respect for the Churches in question and a rejection of their God.

Yes exactly. I missed your post before posting the same point.

Given that secular abuse seems more widespread than religious abuse the focus of the media in exposing Catholic priests is actually disingenuous and indeed covers up the failures of the non religion or secular ideologies that many of these journalists subscribe to. A child is more likely to be abused by a school teacher or his own godless father than by a Christian priest.

That said there are issues with the ways that the Catholic authority structures work that seem to magnify the levels of abuse in this church by comparison with more open and horizontally structured Protestant churches. Both Catholic and Protestants seem to behave far better than the general secular population though and you are safest taking your child to a Protestant church than to school or even back home.

 

[Par5]

Yes exactly. I missed your post before posting the same point.

Given that secular abuse seems more widespread than religious abuse the focus of the media in exposing Catholic priests is actually disingenuous and indeed covers up the failures of the non religion or secular ideologies that many of these journalists subscribe to. A child is more likely to be abused by a school teacher or his own godless father than by a Christian priest.

That said there are issues with the ways that the Catholic authority structures work that seem to magnify the levels of abuse in this church by comparison with more open and horizontally structured Protestant churches. Both Catholic and Protestants seem to behave far better than the general secular population though and you are safest taking your child to a Protestant church than to school or even back home.

If you look at the continents of North and South America and Europe they consist of countries that would have a majority of people who subscribe to the Christian faith.
So, when you talk about the general secular society, that society would surely consist of a large number of people of the Christian faith. Most people work in organizations that are not affiliated with anything religious.
Why are you angry at the media for reporting abuse by priests and the cover-up by the hierarchy? It's a massive story that needs to be reported and the seriousness of the situation made all the more obvious by the millions of dollars paid out by the RCC in an attempt to buy itself out of the mess it created. I am also quite sure that it has not yet finished reaching into its very deep pockets.

 

[FireDragon76]

If you look at the continents of North and South America and Europe they consist of countries that would have a majority of people who subscribe to the Christian faith.
So, when you talk about the general secular society, that society would surely consist of a large number of people of the Christian faith. Most people work in organizations that are not affiliated with anything religious.
Why are you angry at the media for reporting abuse by priests and the cover-up by the hierarchy? It's a massive story that needs to be reported and the seriousness of the situation made all the more obvious by the millions of dollars paid out by the RCC in an attempt to buy itself out of the mess it created. I am also quite sure that it has not yet finished reaching into its very deep pockets.

Let's not be naive, since the 70's the media have tended to be sensationalistic. "If it bleeds, it leads" as they say. "Human interest stories" at best get 3-4 minutes at the end of the news hour.

 

[Barney2.0]

If you look at the continents of North and South America and Europe they consist of countries that would have a majority of people who subscribe to the Christian faith.
So, when you talk about the general secular society, that society would surely consist of a large number of people of the Christian faith. Most people work in organizations that are not affiliated with anything religious.
Why are you angry at the media for reporting abuse by priests and the cover-up by the hierarchy? It's a massive story that needs to be reported and the seriousness of the situation made all the more obvious by the millions of dollars paid out by the RCC in an attempt to buy itself out of the mess it created. I am also quite sure that it has not yet finished reaching into its very deep pockets.

There’s never been a cover up by the Catholic Church, if there was we wouldn’t be seeing this in the news. And we’re not angry at the media for reporting abuse, but for manipulating events and stories for their own gains and viewpoints or generally exaggerating abuse and painting false pictures. The media can hardly be relied on for anything these days even for reporting crimes of racism or politics, so why take information from the media?

 

[Occams Barber]

Given that secular abuse seems more widespread than religious abuse the focus of the media in exposing Catholic priests is actually disingenuous and indeed covers up the failures of the non religion or secular ideologies that many of these journalists subscribe to. A child is more likely to be abused by a school teacher or his own godless father than by a Christian priest.

We've had a series of major investigations from Chile, Ireland, Australia, Germany, Holland, Boston and Pennsylvania. Each report details child sexual abuse committed by the Catholic church. We have no similar reports covering secular or Protestant institutions. It may (or may not) be true that abuse is more prevalent in secular institutions but, since there are no investigations for the press to report on, I don't know what you expect them to do. To suggest a worldwide press conspiracy is ridiculous. These reports are significant news which should be reported. You'll also find that the Catholic press has covered this issue extensively.

You need to understand that arguing that secular institutions may be worse does not excuse the behaviour of Catholic institutions.

Let's not be naive, since the 70's the media have tended to be sensationalistic. "If it bleeds, it leads" as they say. "Human interest stories" at best get 3-4 minutes at the end of the news hour.

Press sensationalism does not mitigate the fact of child sexual abuse. In fact, most of the reports I've read (and I've read a lot) are a basic regurgitation of facts from the original reports. (see the first OP BBC link for an example)
OB

 

[FireDragon76]

We've had a series of major investigations from Chile, Ireland, Australia, Germany, Holland, Boston and Pennsylvania. Each report details child sexual abuse committed by the Catholic church. We have no similar reports covering secular or Protestant institutions. It may (or may not) be true that abuse is more prevalent in secular institutions but, since there are no investigations for the press to report on, I don't know what you expect them to do. To suggest a worldwide press conspiracy is ridiculous. These reports are significant news which should be reported. You'll also find that the Catholic press has covered this issue extensively.

You need to understand that arguing that secular institutions may be worse does not excuse the behaviour of Catholic institutions.


Press sensationalism does not mitigate the fact of child sexual abuse. In fact, most of the reports I've read (and I've read a lot) are a basic regurgitation of facts from the original reports. (see the first OP link for an example)
OB

That's not my point. The news almost never reports on the good the Catholic Church does, or even neutral news stories. Occasionally you will encounter positive stories tangentially and accidentally in documentaries, but that's about it.

The news in general seems to have an anti-Christian bias, probably because many people that are engaged in making the news have that bias themselves, considering religion irrelevant at best, or dangerous at worst.

 

[Occams Barber]

That's not my point. The news almost never reports on the good the Catholic Church does, or even neutral news stories. Occasionally you will encounter positive stories tangentially and accidentally in documentaries, but that's about it.

The press rarely reports on the good anyone does. What difference does this make to valid reports of child sexual abuse in Catholic institutions?

Does the good stuff justify the bad stuff?
OB

 

[Occams Barber]

There’s never been a cover up by the Catholic Church, if there was we wouldn’t be seeing this in the news. And we’re not angry at the media for reporting abuse, but for manipulating events and stories for their own gains and viewpoints or generally exaggerating abuse and painting false pictures. The media can hardly be relied on for anything these days even for reporting crimes of racism or politics, so why take information from the media?

You need to read more widely.
Covering up, moving priests, failing to report abuse to authorities - have all been documented in investigations into child sexual abuse in Catholic institutions. The Catholic Church has issued apologies which include admissions of its own cover up and failure to act.

My personal reading on this issue includes excerpts from the original reports:

• the (Irish) Ryan and Ferns reports
• the (Irish) report on the Tuam Babies
• The Australian Royal Commission on institutional Child Abuse
• the Pennsylvania Grand Jury report

I've also read a number of factual reports from respectable media sources (ABC, BBC, Irish Times, NY Times, Guardian for example) along with reports in the Catholic media and Wikipedia summaries.

I'm not seeing exaggeration or false reporting.
OB

 

[Par5]

There’s never been a cover up by the Catholic Church, if there was we wouldn’t be seeing this in the news. And we’re not angry at the media for reporting abuse, but for manipulating events and stories for their own gains and viewpoints or generally exaggerating abuse and painting false pictures. The media can hardly be relied on for anything these days even for reporting crimes of racism or politics, so why take information from the media?

"There has never been a cover-up by the Catholic Church, if there was we wouldn't be seeing this in the news."
Really? The reason we are seeing this in the news is that the abuse and the subsequent cover-ups have been exposed. What planet are you living on?

 

[Barney2.0]

You need to read more widely.
Covering up, moving priests, failing to report abuse to authorities - have all been documented in investigations into child sexual abuse in Catholic institutions. The Catholic Church has issued apologies which include admissions of its own cover up and failure to act.

My personal reading on this issue includes excerpts from the original reports:

• the (Irish) Ryan and Ferns reports
• the (Irish) report on the Tuam Babies
• The Australian Royal Commission on institutional Child Abuse
• the Pennsylvania Grand Jury report

I've also read a number of factual reports from respectable media sources (ABC, BBC, Irish Times, NY Times, Guardian for example) along with reports in the Catholic media and Wikipedia summaries.

I'm not seeing exaggeration or false reporting.
OB

Failing to report priests to the authorities was a mistake by the Catholic Church, moving priests to different parishes was done that in hope of moving them abuse would stop, this didn’t work which is why the Church apologized. None of these are actual policies to cover up abuse, it’s merelt poor handling of abuse cases in the Church. None of those sources you listed could be considered credible, Wikipedia the least of all.

 

[Barney2.0]

"There has never been a cover-up by the Catholic Church, if there was we wouldn't be seeing this in the news."
Really? The reason we are seeing this in the news is that the abuse and the subsequent cover-ups have been exposed. What planet are you living on?

Exposed by who exactly? And what method were the Catholic Church using to cover up abuse?

 

[Par5]

Exposed by who exactly? And what method were the Catholic Church using to cover up abuse?

The abuse was exposed by those who were abused. Who else?
If paying the victim hush money and have them sign a confidentiality agreement or do nothing more than having the predatory priest moved to another parish is not covering up their crimes, then what is?
I ask you again, what planet are you living on?