Coming from the 60s, when the joke in a pub "Do priests chase choirboys?" got the answer "Is the Pope Catholic?", it seems clear the problem is not abuse but the change in society's attitude towards sex. I think you should anticipate this movement and ban sex, apologizing for God getting it wrong and announcing that procreation was always meant to be via test tubes and that we should now start working on a way for sperm to be created without involving that ghastly sin, the orgasm.

Only then can we be happy.

I still find it interesting that the majority of people claiming to have been abused by Priests only did so after the system virtually guaranteed high rates of financial compensation. Are the charges against Catholic Priests any more reliable than those obtained via trawling operations in North Wales care homes? I'm not making a judgement; just asking the question. So many cases have been overturned by the Court of Appeal that we have to query whether the situation is as massive and serious as has been claimed. Has society's need for a devil in our midst created a false danger?

Well said JC - it MUST be declared legally, globally, that any compensation is only paid to medical or psychological experts in order to treat patients.
Even though there would still be false allegations by attention seekers, revenge or malicious claimants and those wishing to earn from other sources (media), it would cut down the phoneys without disadvantaging genuine victims.

And a media ban on payments for these kinds of stories would help too.

I have friends who went to Catholic convent schools in Ireland and the stories they tell are horrific- systematic abuse at the hands of priests, masochistic beatings by nuns.. all in the prison-like environment of a convent school with no way out.

There are bound to be many victims who have not come forward before now, due to the social pressure of making accusations against a priest brought with it- i.e. ostracisation from your community especially if it is a rural one. Priests have often held such sway in some places that people lived almost in fear of them.

One of my friends was abused by her brother for years. When she confided in her priest, she was then abused by him for a considerable length of time. She was left scarred for life.

What needs to be done are 2 things that the Catholic Church is shamefully refusing to do:

1. It is not enough to 'apologise' to victims. There needs to be a thorough investigation into how these offences have seemingly been actively covered up by the Church itself for decades.

2. The Catholic Church seriously needs to look at the celibacy rule. Priests are sexual beings like the rest of us, and forcing people tolive their entire adult life in celibacy will only result in sexuality being expressed in more hidden and sinister ways.


The fact that so many cases have emerged and continue to emerge in Ireland, South America, the US, Germany, Austria etc shows that the Catholic Church is rotten to its core. It wouldn't know morality if it was smacked in the face by it.

It's obvious that the Catholic Church has been brutal in it's day. Just watched a docu in Oz about the kids removed from England and told their parents had dissapeared or some similar horror tale. So many ended up as slave labour for the church or whipping boys/girls and much less as sex toys.

The compo angle has shrouded the whole business and corrupted the process.

Despite that I've met too many Catholics that only have good memories of kind priests and nuns so I reckon the whole thing is exagerated.

Reading a good book by an Oz political writer Bob Ellis 'And So It Goes' about the last year of change..he neatly sums up how children are now used as the new bogeyman to keep everyone in check. Pedos and terrorists have replaced the scary commos and so on and how their "protection' is utmost yet the authorities brutalise so many and couldn't give a stuff about them.

You know it all..how many of our allied troops crash through an Iraqi door and drag off a man and leave his family and kids scared witless let alone the thousands of kids killed and mutilated in our name and so on and on..

The Catholic Church is just another scapegoat..historic abuse..it's was all over years ago. What about today's kids brutalsed in their tens of thousands in our own countries via neglect etc etc.

Stil waiting for some wailing abused victim to put their hand in their pocket and help out other kids. That will be the day.

But sex sells, tales of brutalised kids are boring.

veritas wrote:

Despite that I've met too many Catholics that only have good memories of kind priests and nuns so I reckon the whole thing is exagerated.



I too have met many Catholics who are at one with their faith and 'tolerant' of minorities. My former boss at a US bank in the UK was from Cameroon. She got leave from her job to go to the Vatican for the funeral of John Paul II , yet she was totally accepting of me as a gay man. But that does not mean the whole thing is 'exaggerated'.

You say the Catholic Church is a scapegoat. To be honest that doesn't worry me much, given the personal testimonies I have from friends who were brutalised by an institution that is more concerned with maintaining its own status than tendering to the interests of its believers.

I have two major concerns about what is going on - first, the emphasis on sex - what is wrong, very wrong, is abusing another human being, especially a young one; bullying, violence, cruelty - all are reprehensible but it's the abuse that is wrong, not necessarily sex or discipline or punishment. As a society we need to take a long, hard, genuine look at our attitudes towards sexuality. Second, I think too much attention is being paid to certain areas of society and not enough to others. The abuse taking place in the media, in the police, in the courts is less easy to spot and to stop. And prurient concentration on sex deflects examination of less obvious - and possibly far more damaging - areas of irresponsibility.

JK2006 wrote:
I have two major concerns about what is going on - first, the emphasis on sex

you are right, JK and I have to say Vile Pervert was a lesson to me.

But who is placing the emphasis on sex? the media, yes because it feeds sales. And the Vatican, because it keeps people where they belong- feeling guilty.

Not just the Vatican, David; virtually all organised religions. A very nasty aspect of crowd control now assisting in destroying our species.

I grew up as a catholic and went to Catholic school. I've never heard any such cases of abuse or any accusations. I don't think priests even get that close to the children anyhow. I'm not saying that it doesn't go on, however I think it is exagerrated. If it was a plumber committing abuse then it would be 3 lines on page 4, if it is a priest then it is front page news, that is the difference.

robbiex wrote:
I grew up as a catholic and went to Catholic school. I've never heard any such cases of abuse or any accusations. I don't think priests even get that close to the children anyhow. I'm not saying that it doesn't go on, however I think it is exagerrated. If it was a plumber committing abuse then it would be 3 lines on page 4, if it is a priest then it is front page news, that is the difference.

Agreed totally. I too have been raised a Catholic and never heard of any un-toward behaviour. The media have a negative, stereotypified view of Priests. I suspect the cause of this kind of reporting is because of an underlying bigotry by journalists and editors alike.

david wrote:
JK2006 wrote:
I have two major concerns about what is going on - first, the emphasis on sex

you are right, JK and I have to say Vile Pervert was a lesson to me.

But who is placing the emphasis on sex? the media, yes because it feeds sales. And the Vatican, because it keeps people where they belong- feeling guilty.

correct on both points. Of course it's the media that promote it for it's own selfish ends and I reckon R.Murdoch (as an example) promotes war and politicians join in and then there is lots of handwringing about sex while kids get blown apart daily. Ever heard T.Blair say a kind word about some dead Iraqi child ?

The sex angle is exagerted and physical abuse (the majority) overlooked. Control sex and you control everyone. Pedos are the new communists under the bed.

It's got so bad..I know a wonderful Catholic priest who has saved hundreds of kids fom life on the streets, prostitution, drugs and so on compared with a horrible dame who groped me on a plane years ago who always implies he has an ulterior motive.

Yet it's she who has the ulterior motive...the government grants-$600K a year to keep her in luxury hotels attending conferences about 'child sex slavery' ..she's always good for a TV quote..never saved one child yet..doesn't give a stuff about child slavery making your Nikes.

While the priest was over in Sri Lanka building 200 houses after the Tsunami..he won't accept awards..lives in a bare room on single bed and so on...she was in the Hilton in Bangkok texting the Oz media that hundreds of 'pedos' had flooded the area lookig for kids. Thai government embarrassed...even police had to admit it was rubbish but it got her the headlines. The priest only gets stories in the Catholic Weekley preaching to the converted. I know which one is going to heaven if there is one !

A certain singer songwriter predicted all this ages ago...

And on the front page of today's Times - "I will not be intimidated" says Pope.
On P5 (report of speech) it is revealed he actually says faith in Christ "does not allow us to be intimidated by the chatter of dominant opinions".

Which is very different indeed from saying he will not be intimidated.

The media is getting so good at spreading the chatter of dominant opinions that it believes, probably rightly in the majority, that we don't notice this regular subtle blurring.

But some of us do.

JK2006 wrote:
I have two major concerns about what is going on - first, the emphasis on sex - what is wrong, very wrong, is abusing another human being, especially a young one; bullying, violence, cruelty - all are reprehensible but it's the abuse that is wrong, not necessarily sex or discipline or punishment. As a society we need to take a long, hard, genuine look at our attitudes towards sexuality. Second, I think too much attention is being paid to certain areas of society and not enough to others. The abuse taking place in the media, in the police, in the courts is less easy to spot and to stop. And prurient concentration on sex deflects examination of less obvious - and possibly far more damaging - areas of irresponsibility.

I wouldn't say the abuse meted out by the media, courts, police is less easier to spot, but certainly nigh impossible to stop. Abuse of any kind walks in hand in hand with the media.

I wonder if the current trend to turn on the pope is in a way trying to bring God himself into the dock?

And since terrorism doesn't seem to have worked on Islam and Christianity is suffering through paedophilia, how long before Satan's Minions start work on an Islamic Paedophile scandal?

I see now the Archbish of CofA is condemning Catholic buggery; perlease! We all know everyone is doing it, doing it, doing it... how many vicars and imams and rabbis and buddhists are fiddling while God burns?

But it's a good story. That's all that matters. And the brain dead meejah only goes in the direction it's pointed. Currently - at the Pope. Good victim!

I've been watching a few programmes on French tv about this, including the lunchtime news on France 2 which had an interesting studio debate on the subject.

One of those debating was a member of the French clergy. When asked whether he considered the Catholic Church to be the vistim of a media witch hunt, his reply was more or less this: 'There is a bit of that yes, but we cannot deny that there is a huge problem here. If we, as a church have been preaching morality to people for centuries and are caught with instituitional abuse on this scale, we have to be prepared for it to hit us in the face and to be taken to task in public.' I found that surprisingly honest, and wonder why the Vatican itself cannot be so open.

It was said that, although the figure of 10,000 victims has been mentioned in the USA, charities have said they know of up to 100,000 in the USA alone. The priest did not dispute this.

One very important thing to note- In the US, a large number of the cases seem not to be 'historical cases' where the victim is only coming forward now. A large number of the kids and their parents complained to the church at the time and their cases were known about, but covered up. That for me is the most disturbing thing about all this.

For me, the important questions to be asked at the time should have been...
1) what is best for the child in these circumstances?
2) what is best for the priest?
3) what is best for the community?
4) what is best for the church?

in that order.

I know none of the details but in many cases these questions may very well have been asked, in that order, and the answers, though far from satisfactory in these days of different moral and accepted solutions, may have involved discretion, counselling, removal, warnings, care and punishment.

One thing is for certain, none of the answers will have suited the overwhelming question being asked today...

IS IT A GOOD STORY?