American files lawsuit.

A man who says he was the victim of an American paedophile priest (the late Father Lawrence Murphy) is bringing a lawsuit against the Pope and the Vatican in a US federal court.
His lawyers want the Church to release any files it has on abuse cases involving priests.

Fr Murphy is accused of attacking up to 200 children during his 20 years at a school for deaf children in Milwaukee.
He was finally moved from the St John school to another diocese in 1974, but was never prosecuted or defrocked.

This scale of abuse is simply staggering.

The scale of the abuse of the catholic church is indeed astonishing.

Foxymoron wrote:The scale of the abuse of the catholic church is indeed astonishing.

Yes, always the poor victim. Boo fucking hoo.

Horrifying as these sexual abuse cases are, that really pales into utter insignificance compared with the totality of the abuse the church has committed over time.

It's enlightening how, despite their vaunted intelligence and championing of Truth and Reason, atheist criticisms of the catholic church tend to rely less on informed and dispassionate criticism and more on screaming "Paedo Scum!!!" in the manner of a mob of chavs on a sink-estate who've been whipped into a frenzy by irresponsible tabloid editors.

And yet more :

Belgium's Catholic bishop of Bruges quits over abuse

Foxymoron wrote:It's enlightening how, despite their vaunted intelligence and championing of Truth and Reason, atheist criticisms of the catholic church tend to rely less on informed and dispassionate criticism and more on screaming "Paedo Scum!!!" in the manner of a mob of chavs on a sink-estate who've been whipped into a frenzy by irresponsible tabloid editors.

It must really be a most uncomfortable thing to be nowadays - a Catholic. The shame must burn. Admitting it must be most difficult. Or wait ... there is a better strategy - deny, deny and deny, coupled with a good dose of blame the victim, and even the spectators. It's been working for that moth-eaten bag of old men for centuries, so why change a good plan.

So, as the priest said to the little boy - bend over, this won't take long.

On a more serious note, take it on the chin. You have no right, no right whatsoever, to object to the response as it is unfolding. It is to your shame to even raise the objection in this manner. You have lost my last bit of respect.

Foxymoron wrote:It's enlightening how, despite their vaunted intelligence and championing of Truth and Reason, atheist criticisms of the catholic church tend to rely less on informed and dispassionate criticism and more on screaming "Paedo Scum!!!" in the manner of a mob of chavs on a sink-estate who've been whipped into a frenzy by irresponsible tabloid editors.

They fucked little boys up their arse, just so you know. Pretending that this is other people's fault is going to make it go away.

Foxymoron wrote:It's enlightening how, despite their vaunted intelligence and championing of Truth and Reason, atheist criticisms of the catholic church tend to rely less on informed and dispassionate criticism and more on screaming "Paedo Scum!!!" in the manner of a mob of chavs on a sink-estate who've been whipped into a frenzy by irresponsible tabloid editors.

Let's have a look at this piece of ill-conceived, theologically motivated hallucinatory statement, shall we?

1) What exactly are the informed and dispassionate criticisms you are talking about?

2) Calling paedophiles padeophiles serves the purpose quite well, and that is because that is true, and grounded in an objective reason, that being child rape, and therefore y'see, both truth and reason are being championed over denials and dismissals of the issue at hand as "petty gossip".

3) Rationality doesn't automatically demand that dispassionateness be exercised.

4) "Paedo scum" does the job properly, those involved in child rape ARE paedophiles and ARE scum based on the moral & cultural Zeitgeist of the countries where the abuse has taken place.

5) Denial and hand waving, blaming the editors for pointing out the truth? I suppose only those who stayed clear of the issue would be "responsible" editors? You're right , they were responsible for the public not getting wind of the type of scum that infests the catholic church.

6) Dismissive analogies do absolutely nothing to change the truth.

BBC wrote:Mr Anderson says his client is not seeking money but wants the Church "to fundamentally come clean, to come forth with all documents that have evidence of crimes against children for decades".

This is what I'd like to see happen. Good on them.

Foxymoron wrote:It's enlightening how, despite their vaunted intelligence and championing of Truth and Reason, atheist criticisms of the catholic church tend to rely less on informed and dispassionate criticism and more on screaming "Paedo Scum!!!" in the manner of a mob of chavs on a sink-estate who've been whipped into a frenzy by irresponsible tabloid editors.

I find it both truthful and reasonable to call the abusers 'paedo scum'. Enlightened people tend not to avoid the fact that atheist criticism of the Catholic church existed long before the abuse debacle.

Foxymoron wrote:It's enlightening how, despite their vaunted intelligence and championing of Truth and Reason, atheist criticisms of the catholic church tend to rely less on informed and dispassionate criticism and more on screaming "Paedo Scum!!!" in the manner of a mob of chavs on a sink-estate who've been whipped into a frenzy by irresponsible tabloid editors.

What would you prefer? That everyone keeps silent, like those low life's who live on the scumbag Vatican estate?

Foxymoron wrote:It's enlightening how, despite their vaunted intelligence and championing of Truth and Reason, atheist criticisms of the catholic church tend to rely less on informed and dispassionate criticism and more on screaming "Paedo Scum!!!" in the manner of a mob of chavs on a sink-estate who've been whipped into a frenzy by irresponsible tabloid editors.

Screaming "Paedo Scum" or "Pedo Scum" as we would in the states is both truth and reason. People who have sex with children are pedophiles (truth) and it's reasonable to classify them as scum. Why does this bother Catholics so much when they would normally have no problem calling non-cleric child rapist pedo scum? Case in point; the priest at the church I attended as a child raised in Catholicism was found to be a child rapist (of course only after a couple of decades of being shuffled around from parish to parish). Yet when I point out that he was a piece of shit child raping scum bag this makes other Catholics who attended that church very uncomfortable and even defensive DESPITE THE FACT THAT THEY ACKNOWLEDGE HE RAPED CHILDREN! Does it get more fucked up than that?

Ironclad wrote:American files lawsuit.

A man who says he was the victim of an American paedophile priest (the late Father Lawrence Murphy) is bringing a lawsuit against the Pope and the Vatican in a US federal court.
His lawyers want the Church to release any files it has on abuse cases involving priests.

Hmmm, interesting. The bit in that story that caught my eye was this part:

The alleged victim's lawyer, Jeff Anderson, says the Vatican has been negligent. "What we want the Vatican to do is step up to disgorge the secrets that they have in their files," he told the BBC.

The story of Fr Lawrence Murphy got new legs back on March 24 when the New York Times ran a piece entitled Vatican Declined to Defrock U.S. Priest Who Abused Boys. It began with this paragraph:

Top Vatican officials — including the future Pope Benedict XVI — did not defrock a priest who molested as many as 200 deaf boys, even though several American bishops repeatedly warned them that failure to act on the matter could embarrass the church, according to church files newly unearthed as part of a lawsuit.

Just about everything in that paragraph is factually wrong: (i) the case was still ongoing right up to within days of Murphy dying, (ii) Ratzinger was not involved in any way, (iii) the files were not "newly unearthed" and (iv) the case had been sat on my Milwaukee Bishop Rembert Weakland for 20 years before he bothered to refer it to Rome.

Interestingly, the reporter Laurie Goodstein cites two sources for her story. The first is Bishop Rembert Weakland himself, the former Bishop of Milwukee. That might sound like a nicely unbiased source, since he was the one who referred the case to Rome. Until you realise that this is the same Bishop Rembert Weakland who was known to have a beef against the Vatican over allegations of maladministration of his diocese and who was forced by John Paul II and Cardinal Ratzinger to resign in 2002 when it was revealed that not only had he had a homosexual affair but had also used $450,000 of his diocese's money to bribe his gay lover. Hardly an unbiased source.

And who is the other source for Goodstein's story? Well lo and behold, it's attorney Jeff Anderson - the very same one featured so prominently in the BBC story above, solemnly telling journalists about how he's kicking off a law suit against the Pope himself over the Murphy case. Interestingly, this is the same Jeff Anderson who has made a name for himself (and millions of dollars) pursuing contingency-fee law suits against the Catholic Church. So not only does he provide Goodstein with the documents she calls "recently unearthed" (they were actually released by the Milwaukee Diocese years ago) and steer her towards Weakland, but here he is a month later reaping the benefit of her widely-reported though generally-inaccurate story by getting massive international news coverage for his law suit. Incidentally, on exactly the same day Goodstein's story went to press in the NYT, a small group of protesters popped up in Rome complaining about the Murphy case and brandishing - you guessed it - exactly the same sheaf of "recently unearthed documents" that Anderson gave to Goodstein. Co-incidence?

You don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to see that this lawyer is feeding the media a story for his own gain and the media is lapping it up uncritically. Do your homework people - this story is a lawyer's scam.

If the staff of a non-religious organisation abused children their work brought them into contact with, and if that organisation turned out to have a policy stating that abuse should not be reported to the authorities, the chief executive and other decision makers would without doubt be prosecuted.

logical bob wrote:If the staff of a non-religious organisation abused children their work brought them into contact with, and if that organisation turned out to have a policy stating that abuse should not be reported to the authorities, the chief executive and other decision makers would without doubt be prosecuted.

Absolutely. What the "Arrest the Pope!" zealots here and elsewhere have failed to show is that (i) there was any such policy across the institution, rather than local actions taken by middle-ranking managers in secret or (ii) that the chief executive was involved in any such policy or actions.

If the staff of a non-religious organisation abused children their work brought them into contact with, and if that organisation turned out to have some middle managers who secretly covered this up during the administration of previous chief executives, the current chief executive would not be prosecuted. That would be totally absurd.

TimONeill wrote: What the "Arrest the Pope!" zealots here and elsewhere have failed to show is that (i) there was any such policy across the institution, rather than local actions taken by middle-ranking managers in secret

Crimen Solicitationis looks rather like such a policy, especially articles 11 and 13.

or (ii) that the chief executive was involved in any such policy or actions.

Joseph Ratzinger was responsible for dealing with these incidents before he became Pope.

I don't know how things work in other countries, but in the UK if you want to do anything involving children and you have any aspirations to any kind of charitable status (as enjoyed by independent Catholic schools and community care services run by the church) you have to submit your child protection policy. Any acceptable policy emphasises full and immediate disclosure and forbids the organsiation investigating allegations itself. The chief executive is responsible for proactively ensuring that this policy is carried out. Ignorance of the actions of middle managers is no excuse.

A particularly sickening piece of hypocrisy is that, to carry out the UK activities they do, projects that came under the authority of bishops have to present an acceptable child protection policy when those bishops know the Vatican's directives are completely at odds with that.

logical bob wrote:

TimONeill wrote: What the "Arrest the Pope!" zealots here and elsewhere have failed to show is that (i) there was any such policy across the institution, rather than local actions taken by middle-ranking managers in secret

Crimen Solicitationis looks rather like such a policy, especially articles 11 and 13.

Then you need to do your homework on what Crimen Solicitationis was actually all about. It is nothing of the sort. Here - let me help you.

or (ii) that the chief executive was involved in any such policy or actions.

Joseph Ratzinger was responsible for dealing with these incidents before he became Pope.

As I've been over about a dozen times now, Ratzinger was responsible for the CHURCH'S investigations into these matters as they relate to canon law. Nothing more. Canon law also specifically states that relevant civil laws also apply to those under the jurisdiction of the Church and that churchmen should co-operate with civil laws. Ratzinger was also only responsible for even that kind of investigation from 2001 onwards - prior to that it was the responsibility of the relevant bishop to deal with at the diocesan level. It was Ratzinger who fought John Paul II to bring these cases under his jurisdiction precisely because he could see that many bishops were bungling these cases, not handling them at all or sweeping them under the carpet and he could see the damage this was causing. Yes, I know that doesn't fit with the "the Pope was repsonsible" story, but I'm afraid I'm merely a rationalist who does his homework and sticks tot he evidence, not a rabid witch-hunter with an agenda. I can only give you the real world facts.

I don't know how things work in other countries, but in the UK if you want to do anything involving children and you have any aspirations to any kind of charitable status (as enjoyed by independent Catholic schools and community care services run by the church) you have to submit your child protection policy. Any acceptable policy emphasises full and immediate disclosure and forbids the organsiation investigating allegations itself. The chief executive is responsible for proactively ensuring that this policy is carried out. Ignorance of the actions of middle managers is no excuse.

Your analogy falls down on several levels. Firstly, the Catholic Church isn't the centralised organisation you seem to imagine - those "middle managers" are actually more like franchisees running their own companies and who often buck or ignore what the franchisor tells them. Secondly, the many of the middle managers have come up with "child protection policies" - like that of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops "Essential Norms for Diocesan/Eparchial Policies Dealing with Allegations of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Priest or Deacons" of 2002. Thirdly, as I've explained, Canon Law dictates that civil authorities do have to be involved in cases of abuse and this has been re-stated in the Essential Norms document and more recently by the Vatican. The only internal investigations have involved cases where the allegations involve solicitation in the confessional (which, if they are found to be valid, are to be handed over to civil authorities) and cases where the abuser is to be given a Church punishment (eg penance or laicisation) as well as their civil sentence. You really need to do your homework.

The best defenses I've heard of the Church's behavior are basically three:

1. They were following the best available psychiatric opinion at the time.

2. The victims did not come forth in a timely manner to make their accusations, and it's now to late to do anything about past crimes.

3. It is official Church doctrine that the civil law and the civil authorities are to be invoked in such cases.

All three of these are weakened to various degrees by a number of uncomfortable facts.

1. The coverups continued into the 1990s, when psychiatric opinion was definitely not favorable to the idea of "curing" the perpetrators. Moreover, at least one German psychiatrist in Munich, Germany swears that he warned desperately against putting one priest who had offended back on the beat.

2. The deaf boys in Milwaukee did everything in their power even back in the 1970s to get the Church authorities to take their accusations seriously, including even putting the priest's picture on a "WANTED" poster. They were ignored.

3. Every communication so far published from Ratzinger to his bishops has been utterly silent on the "official doctrine" and very vocal about keeping the whole thing hushed up for the good of the Universal Church. If that is just a function of media bias---that is, the "story" is about a coverup, and no information not contributing to that story is being sought---I must say the Church and its defenders are very slow in getting their side of the story out. If they have a side to get out, that is. Even worse is the uncomfortable and awkward fact that Archbishop Law continues to enjoy the luxury of a Vatican apartment. He's not being handed over to the authorities to face the consequences of his actions. It certainly looks as if, once again, this alleged doctrine has no more reality than the Stalin Constitution of 1936.

And I haven't heard that anybody has been asked to resign, although the Pope has accepted some voluntary resignations.

In her interview with Rachel Maddow last night, Sinead O'Connor pointed the way to a new and better Catholic Church. In fact, though, what she and Garry Will and others want the Church to be is so radically different from what it now is that few would recognize it as the same Church. It would look a lot like the current Church of England or rather the American version, the Episcopal Church.

Sinead also pointed out that the remarkable similarity in the handling of these cases across hundreds of parishes and dioceses on every continent is very strong evidence of a uniform Church-wide policy of covering up.

Not a defense of the Church in general, but of the Pope in particular, the argument is being made in many places that Ratzinger personally had no responsibility for turning the offenders over to the civil authorities or even advising their bishops to do so (reminding them of what is alleged to be Church law). That defense is a naked skeleton of tendentiously selected facts, without any living flesh on it. Would a human being in any other position, aware of such a horrendous crime, and also aware that the supposed rule was not being followed, be allowed to close his eyes and say, "Not my responsibility. The bishop ought to have done this"? I think not.

But, as I indicated, I don't believe the rule was ever anything but public-relations eyewash. Even as late as last month, the Pope was clearly reluctant to admit the authority of the civil power over Catholic clergy, and spoke only of "properly constituted tribunals," carefully refraining (so it seems to me) from saying, "Civil courts." And there's still that little matter of Archbishop Law....

TimONeill wrote:You really need to do your homework.

OK, I did some and I stand corrected on Crimen Solicitationis, which is sad as I like to think of the BBC as a reliable source of information.

It doesn't really change where I stand, however. I don't expect anyone to charge the Pope. Whether or not anything could be made to stick what judicary would be up for it? I've no doubt there would be much more heat on a secular organisation and much tougher questions being publicly asked by politicians.

Is the church morally culpable for abuse? Hell yes. Is it acceptable to call the outrage going on "petty gossip" and blame the crimes homosexuals? The church has proved to be a place where a lot of child rape happens. Isolated cases are just that, but when the culture of an organisation gives rise to so many cases in so many countries then the responsibility for that lies at the top. The fact that the men at the top claim to be God's representative on Earth and the supreme moral arbiter is the stuff of black farce.

I'm not much of a Dawkins fan, but his description of the church as a child raping institution is fair. It's an institution in which children are raped. There's legitimate anger about that and splitting hairs aboout the difference between the institution and it's members misses the point.

logical bob wrote:

TimONeill wrote:You really need to do your homework.

OK, I did some and I stand corrected on Crimen Solicitationis, which is sad as I like to think of the BBC as a reliable source of information.

You'd like to think so. Unfortunately journalists are lazy beasts and this meme seems to have taken on the status of fact in the media. Our recent experience with the lazy media coverage of the demise of RD.net shows that journalists never let technical little details like facts get in the way of a lurid story. It's to your credit that you're prepared to agree that you may have got things wrong rather than arguing that Crimen Solicitationis is some kind of smoking gun until you're blue in the face, which is what several other people here who made the same mistake proceeded to do.

It doesn't really change where I stand, however. I don't expect anyone to charge the Pope. Whether or not anything could be made to stick what judicary would be up for it? I've no doubt there would be much more heat on a secular organisation and much tougher questions being publicly asked by politicians.

Personally, I think it would be much the same. Or even less. Just yesterday the Boy Scouts of America had to pay $18.5 million in damages to someone who was abused by a scout master, yet that hasn't received anything like the same level of media hysteria as the Catholic cases.

Is the church morally culpable for abuse? Hell yes.

Yes.

Is it acceptable to call the outrage going on "petty gossip" and blame the crimes homosexuals?

No. That is outrageous.

The church has proved to be a place where a lot of child rape happens. Isolated cases are just that, but when the culture of an organisation gives rise to so many cases in so many countries then the responsibility for that lies at the top.

Those who are responsible for the cover ups are where the culpability lies. No arguments there. What I'm objecting to is the claim that the Pope himself is one of them. If he was somehow involved then throw the book at the bastard by all means. But so far the attempts to link him personally to the scandals have been feeble and riddled with errors of fact. The bungled attempts at using Crimen Solicitationis to do this are just one example of that. As rationalists we have to stick to the facts, not try to use anything and everything to pursue a crazed witch-hunt against Ratzinger himself.

And he is only responsible for what HE did. He is not culpable for the neglect and complicity of the Pope who really should be in the firing line here - John Paul II.

I'm not much of a Dawkins fan, but his description of the church as a child raping institution is fair. It's an institution in which children are raped. There's legitimate anger about that and splitting hairs aboout the difference between the institution and it's members misses the point.

See above. It's not rational to try to apply group blame in anything but the broadest of rhetorical senses.