I merely pointed out that he was in the hitlerjugend. The rest is your words.
No, the rest was rather clearly implied given the tenor of your post. If you want to pretend otherwise that's fine. But you're reacion is a bit like ... well ...
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Gf8NK1WAOc[/yt]
And you certainly don`t need to lecture me on the methods of the nazis. My uncle who was a police officer was murdered by them for refusing to do their work during the occupation of Norway.
Then maybe you should remember that before you make moronic comments implying the pope was somehow affiliated with the Nazis anymore than any other German man his age. Unless, of course, you make reference to all German males of a particular age being former members of the Hitler Youth. Oh, I'm
sure you do that
If anyone is ham handed it is the pope himself. He seems content to let the church continue to function as a pedo ring among other things.
I'm not sure why I'm bothering to spend my time answring you as your posts make it obvious you don't have a good grasp of what's actually going on with regards to the scandal but I'll give it a go (to say noting of the lack of any interest on your part to actually find out what's been going on).
First of all, technically speaking, a very small minority of the incidences of sexual abuse actually qualify as pedaphilia. The majority of cases involve men abusing boys who were at least adolescents (78% of victims were 11-17 years old while 6% were less than 7 tears of age). Unimaginably horrible, but not pedaphelia. I know you'll appreciate the distinction because you're interested in facts, regardless of what they are.
Strangely, men having sex with adolescent boys (ephebophilia) is
not listed as a mental disorder in the DSM-IV. Still horrible and obviously a crime but why the APA doesn't consider a specific mental disorder is a question I'd like to see addressed, wouldn't you?
Secondly, if you look at the incidence of the annual total of incidents of sexual abuse by priests and the annual totals of accused priests you willfind that
both incidences begin to show serous decline in 1981, after increasing in number since 1950.
What happened in 1981? Well, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger was appointed head of the CDF. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was one of the Church organs responsible for dealing with cases of sexual abuse by priests. In 2001 the process was streamlined and the CDF gained sole responsibility for dealing with such cases. By 1995, however, the rate of abuse was extremely low numbering about 50 per year (albeit any instance of abuse of a chil by any adult, clergy or not, is too many).
A graph of this information can be seen here:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_CVA-OCFOYuI/S8E-ZHHrLXI/AAAAAAAAACA/W6IImV2wGlQ/s1600/johnjayreport.jpg
That doesn't look like the pope being "ham handed" or "[seeming] content to let the church continue to function as a pedo ring among other things." At least it does't appear that way ifyou're interested in facts.
THE scandal? This is like the 500th. Every time they just pray for the poor brother priest who has been tempted by the devil and by no fault of his own has succumbed to the irresistable magical disease, and everything is made ok.
Wow, what a great example of you not exaggerating. Bill already mention the incidence rates of sexual abuse by Catholic priests but let's look at things a bit closer. (And yes, I use the tem "the scandal" to refer to the priestly sexual abuse problem as a whole, because it
is a scandal.)
About 4% of the 110,000 priests operating from 1950 to 1992 had complaints against them (the actual number is 4,392 so a bit less than 4%, but nevermind). That is, obviously, a rate that is astronomically too high. For
any group, wouldn't you say?
There is disagreement about the rate of sexual abusive behavior in the generalmale population of the U.S. but studies put it generally between 1 in 10 and 1 in 5. The most common thing sexual abusers have is a pre-existing relationship with their victim. This could be as a rabbi or minister, a techer or coach, or a family member.
So why do we hear so much about Catholic priests being sexual abusers? Probably for a couple of reasons. A single abuser who has a lot of exposure to children can have huge rates of abuse. 149 priests, for example, were responsible for more than
25,000 cases of abuse in the years between 1950 and 1992. The same rates could be possible for teachers or coaches, of course, who deal with childen on an even more frequent basis than priests. Or more. In fact, over the course of a single decade, 1991-2000 it's estimated that
290,000 children were sexually abused by school employees. That's in ten years, not 5 decades.
Interestingly, the NYT published a piece back in April which made an interesting point: "If the rate of abuse among Catholic priests stands (per the John Jay data) at roughly 4 percent, thatĀs less than half the rate that Allen cites for the population as a whole. And the Jay study covers the sweep of the last 50 years; if you compare the rate of accusations against priests
now (as opposed to during (during the crisis of the 1960s and 1970s) to AllenĀs 10 percent figure, it looks like Catholic clergy currently abuse children and teenagers at about
one-fifth the rate of the male population as a whole." (see
http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/09/does-celibacy-increase-sex-abuse/)
One fifth the rate of the general male population of the U.S.
Another reason is that the Church, in the person of the individual bishops, has a bad track record of punishing molesters when it has been determined that they are guilty of this crime.
Lastly, the sheer size of the Church makes it more likely that we will hear more about this problem in the Church than in any other religious body. While a slight majority of American adults are Protestant they belong not to a single denomination but a host of them, umbering in the hundreds if not more. It's a matter of numbers, at least partially.
(The figures I was quoting above can be found at:
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/04/07/mean-men.html and
http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/4/5/01552.shtml)
Feel as confident as you wish, I don`t give a crap.
Oh, I'm pretty confident about you based on your posts in this thread. You've made things very obvious.
I am actually glad this poor excuse for a human being is leading the church so we can see how flucked up their practices are.
Every person is a sinner, including the pope, as Benedict would be the first to tell you. But again, your comment here indicates how serious you are about getting to the facts.
Any incidence of abuse of a child is a horrible crime and a sin. It should be punished under the law and any priest found guilty of such behavior should be removed from ministry permanently.
But I'd appreciate a bit of parity in the presentation of sexual abuse in the media and perhaps by members of this board. Where is the moral outrage about the astronimically high rate of sexual abuse of minors suffered at the hands of public school employees, for instance? Hmm.
Now prepare to experience the full power of the catholic church!
Can you imagine if people made a similar pictue of a rabbi or a Muslim cleric? You'd be labelled as the bigot you are.
You're not the first that has posted an image like this on MT, of course. But I'm still waiting for people to point out the inherent bigotry of doing so. Sure we can all agree that burning the Koran is bigoted, or that saying
all Muslims are terrorists is bigoted (although I still don't know of anyone who does that), but pesent the pope as the evil Emporer? That's hunky dory! But I guess it's OK to be a bigot about some things. Right?
Pax,
Chris
