> The point isn't the numbers. We know that there are > Catholic priests > that abuse children. Whether it's many or not is > beside the point. > The point is that the Church is covering up. I > don't blame the Church > if a priest commits a crime, I blame the priest. I > can blame the > Church because it looks the other way, refuses to > admit to any > wrongdoings and does not punish those responsible > for the crimes.
Actually, the point I got from the article WAS numbers. It sounded like the writer was trying to make out the Catholich Church as some sort of breeding ground for child molestors. I'm hardly condoning such behavior; my point is that people act surprised when this happens, and the real question I was positing is whether or not the rate of incidence is the same, more, or less than in larger society. As far as the church harboring molestors, I think something that is being overlooked here is one of the fundamental problems the church is currently facing: a shortfall of new priests coming into the system to replace those coming out. If you are a bishop and such a thing happened within your diocese, your choices are going to be bad and worse: you can dismiss the priest and face the very real possibility of having not enough priests to attend to the laypeople (a significant concern if you are a believer in Catholicism or Christianity), or harboring a priest that has done wrong. A second point I want to make is the ideal of forgiveness. I think in our modern society we are far less ready to forgive, or accept the idea of repentance. I really don't know what happened behind closed doors in these cases; did the local bishops/archbishops pat the priest on the back, wink slyly and let it go, or was there a more spiritual punishment? What about the incidence of repeat offences AFTER discovery? Where these priests rehabilitated after they were exposed? For an organization that believes in repentance and forgiveness it begins to make more sense... Damon. ===== ------------------------------------------------------------ Damon Agretto [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum." http://www.geocities.com/garrand.geo/index.html Now Building: Legends Aussie Centurion Mk.5/1 ------------------------------------------------------------ __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
