papacy
If some priest somewhere is a molester that priest is himself guilty, and not the entire Catholic Church. Blaming the whole Church, or the Pope, for the deeds of a tiny minority of priests is like blaming every American for the war in Iraq or every German for the actions of Hitler. All can’t be blamed for the actions of a few. Someone’s just looking for publicity.
Victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests have accused the pope, the Vatican secretary of state and two other high-ranking Holy See officials of crimes against humanity, in a formal complaint to the international criminal court (ICC).
The submission, lodged at The Hague on Tuesday, accuses the four men not only of failing to prevent or punish perpetrators of rape and sexual violence but also of engaging in the “systematic and widespread” practice of concealing sexual crimes around the world.
It includes individual cases of abuse where letters and documents between Vatican officials and others show a refusal to co-operate with law enforcement agencies seeking to pursue suspects, according to the Centre for Constitutional Rights (CCR), a US-based organisation that represents the claimants.
To be kind, that’s just stupid. We all loathe perversion perpetrated against children. But blaming the Pope and the Vatican wholesale is just simply stupid and betrays a lack of sense and intelligence.
Zwinglius Redivivus 
You might wish to do a bit of reading on the subject, Jim. Papal letters to the bishops in Ireland specifically told them that they were not to disclose violations committed by priests.
Irish abuse victims ‘disgusted’ at Vatican letter
and then was the Austrian cardinal who complained and was disciplined
Vatican…rebukes outspoken Austrian cardinal and denounces U.S. and Belgium
and the refusal to provide whereabouts of known offenders.
Vatican stops short of handing over paedophile priests
and here’s one from 2002, showing the Church has failed to learn or acknowledge its sins
Church still hiding sex abuse priests That was during the time of Benedict XVI’s predecessor so it may only partially be laid on him although Benedict was responsible as Dean of the College of Cardinals. It was said of him during that time that he was, “second to none when it came to setting church priorities and directions”
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none of that changes the central fact- it is the individual priests who are the prime bearers of guilt. unless youre suggesting that benedict is a molester.
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“unless youre suggesting that benedict is a molester.”
I’m sure Milosevic’s hands were clean too. It was his soldiers who fired the guns and raped the women.
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are you suggesting benedict ordered molestations?
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Somerville,
All four of your articles are too vague to be relevant to this discussion. They aim their indictments against “the Vatican” or “the church,” as if the magisterium is made up of one or two individuals and thus culpable for any and all crimes committed under the catholic front. This is silly.
Does anyone know the exact number of individuals who make up “the Vatican”? At least 800, not counting all the satellite groups under the same name spread across the globe. Are we to suppose that every morning they all get together in one gigantic, Brown-esque room for coffee and apfelstreudel, swapping notes and intel and laughing sinsister laughs over molestations going on in Belgium?
Give me hard data. Show me that Benedict personally knew of these cases. Don’t just assume he is guilty because he belonged to “the college of cardinals,” an organisation vast and gargantuan of its own right.
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“are you suggesting benedict ordered molestations?”
At some point, when you’ve repeatedly tolerated molestation, enabled molesters, and shielded molesters from prosecution, the difference between those activities and actively ordering molestation dissolves.
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“Show me that Benedict personally knew of these cases. ”
Benedict was head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (formerly the Inquisition) from 1981 until he became Pope. Starting in 2001, the CDF was tasked specifically with investigating sexual abuse cases. Prior to 2001, theoretically canon law would have instructed bishops to report cases to Ratzinger, and the CDF was generally involved with morals of clergy.
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So in other words, Ratzinger’s guilt is theoretical. Oh my word, if law courts worked on this basis…..we accuse the RCC of all sorts of mediaevalism, before proceeding with an indictment that has about as much legal tenacity as an inquisition.
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Thanks for this post, Jim. You’re dead on.
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