The Vatican appears in need of a serious media consultant. Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican’s permanent observer to the UN, has issued a defense that boils down to insisting that implicated priests were not pedophiles but homosexuals who liked young boys — and besides no more than five percent of priests had sex with children . . . and Jews and Protestants do it more.
Tomasi made his confrontational statement following a meeting of the UN human rights council in Geneva, insisting only 1.5%-5% of Catholic clergy were involved in child sex abuse. Tomasi seems to think that the faithful can rest assured that the likelihood that the priest will sexually assault your child is only 5 out of every 100 priests. Those are odds that are viewed as more than adequate in Vegas.
He also insisted that it is more likely that your child will be abused by Protestant or Jewish religious leaders — making the Catholic Church a virtual safe zone if you are going on purely the average likelihood of a rape. That could lead to a new campaign: “Go Catholic: We are Statistically Less Likely to Rape Your Child.”
Besides, Tomasi insisted “[o]f all priests involved in the abuses, 80 to 90% belong to this sexual orientation minority which is sexually engaged with adolescent boys between the ages of 11 and 17.” He insisted most of the accused priests are homosexuals who simply liked younger partners.
The angry response came after Keith Porteous Wood of the International Humanist and Ethical Union accused the Church of covering up child abuse and being in breach of several articles under the Convention on the Rights of the Child: “The many thousands of victims of abuse deserve the international community to hold the Vatican to account, something it has been unwilling to do, so far. Both states and children’s organizations must unite to pressure the Vatican to open its files, change its procedures worldwide, and report suspected abusers to civil authorities.”
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Correction to billy,
No matter how much you try and charm me with your wit you must admit this is a classically stupid logic and a statement [should read] as a whole not (ass hole):
billy 1, October 2, 2009 at 3:28 pm
Tom, the “homosexual bishops” needs to stop being “installed” as bishops, and then we would have fewer ordinations of gay priests. These gay bishops are the major problem behind the ordination of gay/pedophile priests in the church. It is like an “old boy”, homosexual network, these homosexual bishops should be laicized immediately! They like and/or feel sorry for these pathetic souls. They have been a “cancer” in the church for years ans have ushered in all kinds of abuses. The “truth”is right under your nose Tom..
Should read: Come on you know what I mean not (Cum on you know hat I mean).
They wil be serving “snow-cones” in hell before a “simpleton” like you AY, gets the drop on me…
billy,
No matter how much you try and charm me with your wit you must admit this is a classically stupid logic and a statement ass hole:
billy 1, October 2, 2009 at 3:28 pm
Tom, the “homosexual bishops” needs to stop being “installed” as bishops, and then we would have fewer ordinations of gay priests. These gay bishops are the major problem behind the ordination of gay/pedophile priests in the church. It is like an “old boy”, homosexual network, these homosexual bishops should be laicized immediately! They like and/or feel sorry for these pathetic souls. They have been a “cancer” in the church for years ans have ushered in all kinds of abuses. The “truth”is right under your nose Tom..
Cum on you know hat I mean.
AY, The information you “posted” was “obviously pulled” from wikkipedia or some other search engine. Your “farce” is plane to see.. You cover your tracks well…
“Clever girl” AY, you frantically gleaned some data off the internet to hurriedly hide your ignorance before your peers. You work quick..
billy,
Do all Catholic priests take a vow of poverty?
No, they do not. Priests who are members of religious communities (and lay men and women who belong to such communities) make vows to God of poverty, chastity and obedience. However, the diocesan clergy (the usual parish priests and other priests who belong to a diocese rather than to a religious order) may own, inherit, invest and control their own possessions and are responsible for their own insurance, taxes, etc. Diocesan priests at their ordination make solemn promises of chaste celibacy for the love of God and of obedience to their Bishop. They are also bound, by their state in life, to live simply and frugally, but they have no vow of poverty. The vow of poverty made by religious (both clerics and lay) does not oblige them to live in destitution and penury, but means they give up, for the love of God, the right to private property, which is owned in common by the religious order or community to which they belong. Unless diocesan priests were to receive some family money inheritance, they normally have very little by way of personal possessions, except per haps their cars, which they usually need for their pastoral work. If diocesan priests, given their education and talents, had worldly careers, they would undoubtedly be financially rich. However, they cheerfully live on little income and often even give much of that away to the poor.
Your “caustic wit” is only exceeded by your “ignorance” AY..
In fact, a diocesan priest does not take “vows”, they take “promises”.
billy,
After reading the above I am laughing so hard that I have this question to ask:
Do you wake up stupid or does that occur am naturally throughout the day?
AY, read my post, diocesan priests “do not” take a vow of poverty. A “religious” priest, one who is in a religious community “does”, i.e. the Franciscans, the Augustinians the Carmelites..
Tom, the “homosexual bishops” needs to stop being “installed” as bishops, and then we would have fewer ordinations of gay priests. These gay bishops are the major problem behind the ordination of gay/pedophile priests in the church. It is like an “old boy”, homosexual network, these homosexual bishops should be laicized immediately! They like and/or feel sorry for these pathetic souls. They have been a “cancer” in the church for years ans have ushered in all kinds of abuses. The “truth”is right under your nose Tom..
billy 1, October 2, 2009 at 3:23 pm
Homosexuals are drawn to the priesthood because they are hiding in the “closet” of the Church..
Golly Geeze billy, maybe Hitler should be alive to deter them as well.
billy,
AY, only Catholic priests who are in a monastic order or religious community take vows of “poverty”. Diocesan priests do not take a vow of poverty. Just thought you would like to know..
This is an incorrect assumption and statement of monastic order, community and diocesan priest. I do not know where you are grasping these statements from.
billy:
“Once the Church stops ordaining “homosexuals”, much of this problem will be ameliorated. Visit a seminary or religious community, it will make your head spin.”
there is a good deal of literature out there on this subject. it appears that child abusers are in a class of there own, they don’t care if the children are male or female, age is what attracts them. the fact that some priests pray on young boys is probably more a function of proximity than anything else.
Most gays that I know are interested in adults and would bite their arm off rather than harm a child. Granted I only know a small sample so this is no scientific study. But my guess would be that the incidence of child molesters among gays and straights is probably roughly similar, in other words within an appropriate statistical deviation for any randomly sampled population.
please feel free to correct me if I am wrong.
Homosexuals are drawn to the priesthood because they are hiding in the “closet” of the Church..
AY, only Catholic priests who are in a monastic order or religious community take vows of “poverty”. Diocesan priests do not take a vow of poverty. Just thought you would like to know..
CEJ,
Remember Catholic priest’s vow poverty along with chastity.
********************
The part with respect to the celebrate portion, this is only true of the RCC. The part where poverty is stated, not rue. It depends on the Order, some yes, some no.
Tom Arch(?), I suggest you take a tour, or better still make a weekenf retreat to alocal seminary or house of monastic studies. spend time with the seminarians, “you’ll sing different tune, either that or you are in “stone cold” denial.
First off, let’s point out that the original statement of “we don’t molest children that much,” is a distraction. We need to simultaneously focus on the decisions that were made to both cover up the many cases of molestation and to move pedophile priests from one position to another where they could continue to harm children. Separate from the question of “are there disproportionately more child molesters in the priesthood” is the apparent fact that the church conspired to hide and allow further molestation. That is a very serious problem, and there is little evidence that the leadership understands it as such.
As annoying as this “billy” person is, it’s useful that he/she is posting here. You’re getting a decent illustration of the underlying cultural problems with a large part of Catholic culture (at least as I’m familiar with it in US culture.) His/her basic point is that “homosexuality” per say is the problem. That’s a widespread belief, and it ties into my above point – it’s a nice distraction from recognizing and fixing problems with the church’s leadership. It also has some nice circular reasoning – sure, we’re homophobic, but homosexuals do bad things, so we’re justified in our biases!
Here’s my theory about the apparent disproportionate appeal of the priesthood to people who are both homosexual and pedophilic. (But, who knows? Maybe the vatican is right, and Lutherans are waaaay more into child molesting.) Some starting points: There is a high correlation between strong Catholic belief/culture and homophobia. Priests are disproportionally drawn from people with strong Catholic belief/culture. Homosexual orientation is spontaneous and is a trait in some fairly consistent portion of the human population.
From here we see that some proportion of very Catholic boys will be gay. Imagine growing up gay in a deeply homophobic culture – how do you develop to have a mature, adult sexuality, when you can’t date, and are told that your feelings of love are sinful and shameful? Of course, you can’t – you don’t learn how to have a sexual/interpersonal relationship with your peers, and you’ve got a huge load of self-loathing, particularly about your sexuality. You are presented with the opportunity to enter a lifestyle that is supposedly “celibate”, which would seem to make your sexuality a non-issue. You, perhaps, imagine that a life devoted to God would go some way to alleviating you of your “sinful urges.” Not being a seminarian or priest, I really don’t know what the reality is of “celibacy” in these groups, so I’ll leave that issue alone.
The end result of this process is that you have men who have great self-loathing, who have never developed mature, adult sexuality in positions of exceptional authority, particularly power over children with parents who view your interest in their children as wonderful. (hmmm. reminds me of the situations with Michael Jackson and Roman Polanski…) In creating this dynamic, are we supposed to be surprised that these sexually messed up guys with power over children take advantage of the situation?
“Ah ah!” Folks like “billy” will say, “See! Just exclude the homosexuals!” Uh, maybe – except who would implement that purge? The current priesthood? Really?
The “progressive” solution would be to tone down the homophobia and improve the culture’s approach to sexuality in general. (Lot’s of Catholics reading this are chortling reading such a preposterous proposal…) It seems the Catholic church has quite a quandary.
My bad, I meant “infidelity”…