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Another perspective on the Irish 'clergy' abuse scandal

Note: I write this post as the only non Roman Catholic contributor to this blog.

The News media are doing everybody a disservice with the manner of their reporting of the Irish clergy abuse scandal. The problem is the conflation of serious incidents with those which are not greatly out of whack with the times in which they occurred.

The report is massive and covers a period of over thirty years, multiple institutions and describes the grim childhood environments of underprivileged Irish children who had the misfortune to end up in care - and grim it is, especially from our 21st century perspective.

However while there are cases of sexual and severe physical abuse recorded, the bulk of what is contained in the parts that I have read is not terribly different from the childhood experiences of many children of that era, some of whom were came from privileged backgrounds.

For example Roald Dahl's description of his time at Repton School, which co-incides with the early period covered by this report, make for chilling reading today and undoubtedly the way the boys were treated there constitutes gross abuse in today's more enlightened times.

And the savage beating of boys at Eton (including birching) continued throughout the period covered by this report.

So do you suppose the childhood experiences of these unfortunate Irish children differs greatly from those in similar circumstances in state run institutions in Great Britain, New Zealand, Australia or the United States during the same period?

But I guess there is no mileage to be gained by answering that question.

Comments

  1. There is a difference I would suggest between what went on in Ireland and what went on in the way of corporal punishment etc in schools in say England. In addition, just because there was brutality and abuse in a number of non Catholic institutions does not excuse the Roman Catholic Church, especially given the lengths to which they have gone and are still going to, to avoid culpability.

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  2. Your points are valid and appreciated Andrei.

    I guess what "the rest of the world" are thinking is: we know things were tough at that point in time, but surely shouldn't have the Catholic Church been at least some kind of refuge from that behaviour? And to a certain extent, they have a point.

    But they also forget that, like every institution and faculty (whether secular or religious) it only takes the actions of a few to blow it for everyone else. And with the post- Vatican II covering up by liberal lavender Mafia Bishops and clergy, it just got worse and worse to deal with. They prevented the very people who could have dealt with it from doing so.

    That is just one reason why the reform of the reform must take place within the RCC.

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  3. There was anti-semitism all across Europe in the 1930s, so what the Nazis did was not out of step with the prevailing attitude to Jews and experiences of many Jews at the time (except they went a lot further).

    It's a reprehensible cop-out. There HAVE been reports into the abuse endemic in institutions in the UK and Australia, including Catholic run ones. There should be more, who would deny that?

    This is about Ireland, where the church and state hand in glove conspired. Not only were kids being systematically abused, not only were they ignored or even abused when they complained, but the abusers were protected by the church NOT children, the abusers had access to children actively facilitated.

    The safety of children was systematically ignored in favour of protecting the reputation of the church - how can one even start to minimise how despicably evil this is, when the church has always painted itself as a haven of morality. It has proven itself to be the opposite, and now has to redeem itself.

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  4. This is about Ireland, where the church and state hand in glove conspired. Not only were kids being systematically abused, not only were they ignored or even abused when they complained, but the abusers were protected by the church NOT children, the abusers had access to children actively facilitated 

    Libertyscott read the full reports; they are not nice. But there is another story being missed, of Brothers working sixteen hours a day, of being scared of their charges and the vast majority of them were not abusers and were and are just as horrified by all of this as you are.

    For example one of the reports details a major dispute between factions of Brothers in the 1940s, one faction horrified by the brutality of a particular brother, the other faction supporting him.

    There were real institutional problems here, a small number of mostly young men working long hours, looking after a large number of sometimes disturbed boys - and some rotten eggs amongst them.

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  5. What’s happening Andrei?

    Why should you having to front-up for the rest of the crew, mate?

    After-all it’s not your chosen religion, that was responsible for the world’s largest case of child abuse (35,000 victims, over 7 decades)

    It’s not your monetary contributions that allow the deviant out-right evil Irish Priests & Nuns to freely live in retirement villages shielded by the same Church system that allowed them to abuse children with impunity.

    Why should you be the fall-guy for The Papalists at NZC?

    The BBC, one of the more conservative media oracles around, had this to say, about the report:

    The five-volume study concluded that church officials encouraged ritual beatings and consistently shielded their orders' pedophiles from arrest amid a "culture of self-serving secrecy".

    That’s right the BBC said church officials encouraged the abuse.

    CNN talked about malnutrition & starvation.

    The Irish post, mentioned torture implements.

    One account highlighted handicapped children being preyed-on as the most vulnerable, and the least likely to talk and be believed.

    What occurred is outside the bounds of human decency and hardly Tom Browns School-Days.

    The report said 90% of all children who has the misfortune to be placed in to ‘the loving hands’ of the Irish priests & nuns were physically abused.

    60% were sexually abused.

    Do the figures based on 35,000.

    100% claimed psychological abuse.

    Which chapter was it Roald Dahl's book, where he mentions he and his follow students being sodomised?

    And to cap things off these moral degenerates got away with the whole sordid affair – shielded by the Church and the monies ‘good Catholics’ give to the church, having allowed them to purchased better lawyers than the state.

    One of the main orchestraters of the abuse, in Ireland ‘The Christian Brothers’ successfully sued The Commission in 2004, to keep the identities of their members secret, from the public.

    This is like the SS Death Squads suing the Allied prosecutors at the end of WW2, to keep the names of the guilty ‘secret’.

    Every Catholic should hang their head in shame.

    This is defending the indefensible Andrei, and not your fight.

    See ya.

    Paul.

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  6. Canterbury Atheist and LibertyScott: So the question is asked again. Is abortion not the wholesale slaughter of innocent human beings? Get this into your heads: MILLIONS of Children are being slaughtered yearly. Where is your moral outrage?

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  7. mzala - you want people to address the question of abortion (it's murder by the way) but you refuse to address the question of the abuse that occurred in Ireland. You'll not be taken seriously until you show that you are willing to clean up your own camp before you ask others clean up theirs.

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  8. Mzala: Where is your moral outrage for Camp 22 in North Korea? Where is your moral outrage for the stoning of rape victims in Taliban run Afghanistan? Where is your moral outrage for the execution of homosexuals in Iran? How long a list have you got?

    I haven't defended abortion. I've blogged before about it, and my view is that there is a line at which a foetus gains rights to autonomy. I also oppose state funding of abortions. However, if you want to equate destroying some multiplying cells with sodomising young boys, you go right ahead.

    When is it a defence to criminal charges that "look someone else got away with something else evil"?

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  9. I am not going to go off on a tangent here and debate abortion, find another red herring, let’s get back on to what occurred in Ireland for decades.

    If this was the ABC Child-Care group, who had abused 35,000 children, and not The Irish Catholic Church – closure is what would have been the likely action taken.

    Just how an inherently cruel organisation like this, can be permitted to still function, given this level of organised abuse, defies humanity and the laws of decency.

    That’s what I personally consider human-decency by the way – not what the immoral Catholic Church in Ireland considers decent.

    How many young victims does it take for The Irish Government, to act decisively and break-up what is without doubt the world’s largest pedophilia ring?

    Normally you are all morally indignatious around here & had this have been abuse by homosexuals you would be ‘like a pig in sh*t’ and trumpeting in moral outrage.

    But the one-time bastions of the decaying moral fibre, are all strangely silent on this one.

    Andrei, is sent out as the proverbial Judas sheep as the vultures like Liberty Scott, and Canterbury Atheist , circle overhead.

    It’s utterly amazing that everyone of those nuns & priests who systematically abused young defenseless children put into their care – will get away with it and you don’t care!

    You are happy to see them closeted in Catholic Old Age centres - which you indirectly fund!

    You will still trot along to Church on Sunday as if none of this happened.

    Blog-away in permanent denial mode.

    You guys would rather discuss abortion – than own up to belonging to a system that would perpetrate such an abhorrence.

    I repeat All Catholics should feel shame for what happened in Ireland.

    Gettin' late.

    All the best.

    Paul.

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  11. The Irish Government, to act decisively and break-up what is without doubt the world’s largest pedophilia ring?

    That is the sort hyperbolic of nonsense I'd expect from you Paul.

    The vast majority of the people who worked at these institutions were not pedophiles, in fact the sexual aspect of this story is overwhelming the far bigger story of physical abuse and emotional neglect which was the almost universal story of these kids.

    In Ireland and in other places it was the Church that housed sheltered and clothed the unwanted marginalized children, nothing like as well as we would like obviously - and there were a very few deviants that took advantage of this situation.

    I see in todays paper there is a soccer coach who did much of the same - are you going to call junior soccer a hot bed of pedophhila and for its dismemberment?

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  12. The individuals guilty of crime need to be put on trial and punished - teachers, soccer coaches, priests.

    Any that shelter them need to be put on trial.

    Pretty simple.

    It is up to parents to report crimes not just to a Bishop, but the police. Some have, and the Police failed to prosecute. What gives with that?

    Don't punish the good people in and of the Catholic Church, just as we don't punish the people of Christchurch for the uncommonly large number of sex offenders that keep popping up in the news lately; nor do we bankrupt a school for housing a pedophile teacher.

    As Andrei points out, the Church has a lot of good people doing a lot of charity work. That work is to be valued.

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  13. What Andrei is supporting is an intelligent review of the whole. What he is rejecting is hysteria, and in that I support him. He is not defending the indefensible in any measure. It often takes an observer detached from each warring side to see the true picture.

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  14. I guess Vatican apologists will dismiss all the extensive media coverage, and wait for Benedict to issue his one line “sorry” , and magically, all will be forgiven.

    The common thread is the systematic and endemic nature of the abuse.

    The utter contempt, for the victims.

    The deliberate fashion they made sure, they would escape justice.

    To this godless atheist, what these priests & nuns did over 70 years is barbaric, inhuman and evil.

    But not one word of criticsm comes from any of the Catholic posters here?

    Rather than delve into personal attacks Andrei, do the simple math’s mate.

    60% of 35,000 = 21,000 children sexually abused by generation after generation of Irish Catholic Nuns and Priests.

    90% of 35,000 = 31,500 children who were physically abused at the hands of those, who were suppose to be their protectors.

    If this isn’t the worlds largest case of organised (the term the BBC used as well, I might add) pedophilia – come out and tell me another??

    What you want us to believe is a few rogue ‘bad apples’ got around 21,000 children?

    Cripes, some of these poor children were starved and hospitalised through malnutrition!

    One of the institutions investigated had torture devices, it used for punishment.

    Newspapers talk of ritual humiliation and slave-labour.

    Here is a site that prides itself on its moral fortitude, defending what most Kiwi’s consider to be the lowest form of human being.

    Either that or ignoring it - as if it never happened,

    I would like to see the hundreds of deviants responsible for this cruelty punished.

    At the moment The Catholic Church is not just housing & feeding clergy it knows are low-life child-molesters - it is harbouring them from being prosecuted as well.

    If you personally don’t see this all as morally & ethically repugnant – I do!

    If this wasn’t a Church and was simply a Child Care group in Ireland, it would have been closed, down as a danger to children.

    Don’t you agree Lucyna and Zen?

    Time your church gave-up those kiddy-fiddlers to the authorities, rather than protecting them, eh?

    Back to work.

    Nice talking.

    Paul.

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  15. Andrei: It was grand institutional failure. It was not just the actions of a few perpetrators, but a system and culture of cover up, deflection and in some cases blaming the victims.

    Haven't noticed junior soccer being involved to that degree, or even the scouts, which have had a similar issue to a far smaller extent.

    Zen: I largely agree with you, but if the school knows it has a pedophile teacher, and conspires with other schools to place him elsewhere, tells the kids who complain to shut up and it was probably their fault (what girls were told in some cases), and does not tell the Police, it is complicit and should be rendered bankrupt.

    Just because an institution has done much good does not excuse the evil done in its name and facilitated by it. Hamas does a lot of charity work as well.

    It appears to me that the difference is this. Some think it is about a few bad eggs, and Andrei seems to think that everyone else was doing it, so somehow it reduces the seriousness of it all.

    Others, me included, see a systemic culture of denial, cover up and facilitating evil on a grand scale by the Church and the Irish State. The evidence is overwhelming of this. The Scouts have a few bad eggs, indeed most schools had one or two at some point - but this is different.

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  16. My friends,
    Correct me if I am wrong, but I don't believe anyone here has mentioned one of the principle reasons that the Roman Catholic Church is criticized so harshly when these scandals keep erupting, namely, its contention that it is the one and only true church that embodies the holiness that God intended and which Jesus Christ guaranteed would never be conquered by Satan.
    I was as devout a Catholic as can be imagined for my first 33 years of life, culminating with ordination, an advanced degree in theology and a professorship in a seminary. But the higher I moved in the church's hierarchy the more corruption I found.
    Thank God, I saw the light and have spent the last 33 years enabling others to do so as well. The only reason any of these scandals surprise people is that they have been kept in the dark as to the history of the Catholic Church, which is chuck full of such scandals, as I document well at my www.JesusWouldBeFurious.Org web site.
    Catholics can be forgiven so long as their ignorance is BEYOND THEIR CONTROL, but not after they have chosen to PERPETUATE their ignorance.

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  17. Libertyscott: My outrage has got me arrested (not in NZ).My outrage has got me 'on the street'.No big deal.

    Just a degree of perspective. Sorry it's a cut-and-paste jobbie (2004).
    "Now, on the heels of the Catholic abuse scandal comes another of historic proportions—one that has the potential to be much greater and far-reaching. According to a draft report commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education, in compliance with the 2002 "No Child Left Behind" act signed into law by President Bush, between 6 percent and 10 percent of public school children across the country have been sexually abused or harassed by school employees and teachers.

    Charol Shakeshaft, the Hofstra University scholar who prepared the report, said the number of abuse cases—which range from unwanted sexual comments to rape—could be much higher.

    "So we think the Catholic Church has a problem?" she told industry newspaper Education Week in a March 10 interview.

    To support her contention, Shakeshaft compared the priest abuse data with data collected in a national survey for the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation in 2000. Extrapolating data from the latter, she estimated roughly 290,000 students experienced some sort of physical sexual abuse by a school employee from a single decade—1991-2000. That compares with about five decades of cases of abusive priests.

    Such figures led her to contend "the physical sexual abuse of students in schools is likely more than 100 times the abuse by priests".

    Once again, NOT DETRACTING from the priestly abuse and 'systemic' cover-up.

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  18. 60% of 35,000 = 21,000 children sexually abused by generation after generation of Irish Catholic Nuns and Priests.

    90% of 35,000 = 31,500 children who were physically abused at the hands of those, who were suppose to be their protectors.
    Where do you get those numbers from Paul?

    According to the executive summary 50% of those who testified claimed some sort of sexual abuse, ranging from voyeurism up to vaginal and anal rape.

    The perpetrators are not broken down but "Witnesses reported being sexually abused by religious and lay staff in the schools and institutions and by co-residents and others, including professionals, both within and external to the institutions. They also reported being sexually abused by members of the general public, including volunteer workers, visitors, work placement employers, foster parents, and others who had unsupervised contact with residents in the course of everyday activities. Witnesses reported being sexually abused when they were taken away for excursions, holidays or to work for others." and as we all know parasitical adults prey on vulnerable children and adults for that matter, which makes us all sick to the stomach.

    These are issues confronting all institutions regardless of who runs them and includes mental hospitals and prisons but particularly acute where children are involved.

    Do you honestly believe that if the Society of Rationalists and Atheists had been running these institutions they would have done any better?

    An exploration of Romanian Orphanages under Ceausescu might enlighten you.

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  19. Great comments, libertyscott and Canterbury Atheists.
    As for defenders of the Catholic Church, don't pretend to be among those who are shocked when it is revealed that the church's "Excellencies", "Eminences" and "His Holiness" PROTECTED the powerful VILLAINS in cases of the sexual abuse of minors, instead of the innocent, young, powerless VICTIMS.
    Your kneejerk response of defending the defenseless is EXACTLY the problem of the hierarchy, attempt to perpetuate the outrageous claim that the Roman Catholic Church isn't merely A holy institution, but the ONE AND ONLY GENUINELY HOLY CHURCH, the ONLY ONE recognized by God as his own. See how wildly far from the mark I have found my former church to be at JesusWouldBeFurious.Org.

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  20. Hmmm…if I remember correctly Mr & Mrs Ceausescu, meet a lynch-mob, and paid the ultimate price.

    The individual soccer coach, you allude to faces, public justice.

    I’m not going to split hairs on the numbers – other than to indicate they are considerable.

    I’m also waiting for you to give me details of a pedophilia scandal that eclipses the one perpetrated by Catholic clergy in Ireland??

    For you enlightenment, Australasia’s largest sex-offender was Father Denis McAlinden(victims measured in the hundreds on both sides of the Tasman and he got away with it for decades as well, and all with the knowledge of Church authorities including the then Bishop of Waikato, Gaines)

    This situation is not unique to Ireland.

    How can anyone of your staple bloggers at NZC retrain credibility, when the church they belong to, is currently harbouring child abusers!

    NOTE: If it makes you so sick Andrei,you will have no problem filling-in the section on my blog site which asks for The N.Z Branch of The Christian Brothers to put pressure on their Irish 'brothers' to hand-over the child-abusers to authorities.

    Link:
    http://canterburyatheists.blogspot.com/2009/05/join-campaign-to-stop-worldwide-order.html

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  21. A very sad case. On one hand I suspect there is much hyperbole being thrown around, and some media organisations appear to be taking their headlines and conclusions a long way past what the report is actually saying. I don't have time to trawl through all five volumes but I did read the one on Artane -- which was the largest of the Catholic boys homes with around 800 children domiciled there.

    First of all the abuse was not systemic, as alleged by others on this blog. According to the report over 15,000 boys went through Artane over a period of almost 100 years. I cannot locate exactly how many priests served at the institution. However the report alleges 13 brothers were involved in sexual abuse of children at Artane. Now that is 13 too many, however given the period of time, and a lot of brothers would have served at the institution, I wonder how the sexual abuse rate would compare to other institutions?

    Secondly with regard to physical abuse, again the question is how would the treatment of the children compared to other institutions of the time? It seems to me that there are two major factors -- young and inexperienced staff with little training and supervision having to control hundreds of boys and poor management from the church hierarchy. One would also have to say that the culture of the time appears to be far too accepting of excessive corporal punishment and outright cruelty.

    The report also clearly shows that the hierarchy did try to do something about the problems. There are a number of incidents recorded of superiors admonishing their staff for their behaviour. Some of the brothers were transferred, some were publicly censured and some were removed from priestly office. This was in relation to physical and sexual abuse, both of which concerned the Catholic hierarchy.

    Having said all this, it seems quite true that the standard of child care in these Irish Catholic institutions fell far short of the mark. That any children should be treated so severely up to and including sodomy and rape, it is deeply shameful.

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  22. Canterbury Atheist: Quoting CNN and BBC (?conservative), a bit unreliable, melodramatic etc. etc. Maybe not the most trustworthy, surely? If you are interested in, at least visual news I would suggest Al Jazeera. Any guesses as to why we have a staple diet (satellite) of these usual suspects?

    Again, not to detract from this sad indictment of individuals who were in a position of trust. We demand the truth.

    "I’m not going to split hairs on the numbers..."
    "..details of a pedophilia scandal that eclipses the one perpetrated by Catholic clergy in Ireland".

    I take it then that you are not really interested in numbers and yet....you want numbers. Or what might you implying by details. Cos if we go into details as to abuse (by today's definition in NZ at any rate) then most of our parents, older brothers and sisters,a decent % of school teachers as well as our neighbour's dog would really have more than explaining to do.

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  23. If it makes you so sick Andrei,you will have no problem filling-in the section on my blog site which asks for The N.Z Branch of The Christian Brothers to put pressure on their Irish 'brothers' to hand-over the child-abusers to authorities. 

    Well most, if not all of them are long in the ground Paul - but rest assured - they will be answering to a higher authority than the Irish Government, one even higher BBC

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  24. I've really been too busy with classes to follow the news lately, so this is all kind of new to me. Of course I think it is a terrible thing, but I also don't agree with the singling out of the Church. As Cardinal McCarrick from the US said when he was here in 2007 -

    "When civil society finally accepts the challenge of making its own statistical survey as carefully and thoroughly as the Catholic Church has, I think we will find that the statistics of the Church are nowhere near as bad as the statistics of the rest of society."From another article -
    According to a survey by the Washington Post, over the last four decades, less than 1.5 percent of the estimated 60,000 or more men who have served in the Catholic clergy have been accused of child sexual abuse.[iv] According to a survey by the New York Times, 1.8 percent of all priests ordained from 1950 to 2001 have been accused of child sexual abuse.[v] Thomas Kane, author of Priests are People Too, estimates that between 1 and 1.5 percent of priests have had charges made against them.[vi] Of contemporary priests, the Associated Press found that approximately two-thirds of 1 percent of priests have charges pending against them.[vii]Any amount of abuse is bad, but I think you will find greater numbers than 1.5% of children abused at their own homes and even in schools.

    Liberator_Rev -

    Sorry, but I believe that the Church Jesus established was and is the Catholic Church. My only advice is to go and read the early Church Fathers. You will very quickly find out about the Catholicity of the Early Church if you really sincerely look into it - in fact; a guy in my own Parish used to be Pastor in another church and after looking in to it (he is v ery much a scholar) came to believe the Catholic Church is the one Jesus founded. He took his whole family out and became Catholic, even to the point of being shunned by people in his former church.

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  25. The open-invite to every-one here to at least seek justice in this sordid affair.

    Yet, all I see is silence?

    No one will join this godless sod, wanting justice for the thousands of victims?

    Not one sentence of remorse for the victims, just continual excuses, side-issues, discussions if it was 35,000 or 3,500 etc.

    Surely if you were in the least bit Christian, ONE victim would be enough?

    I would like all the morally-indignatious folk, who want to carry-on as being the conservative backbone holding the fabric of society together, to come to my blog and join me asking The Christian Brothers (if the subject-matter wasn’t so horrendous, the name would be amusing) to turn-over all the child-molesters it is currently shielding from prosecution.

    Please have some fibre, stop protecting the kiddy-fiddlers the same as the church authorities of your chosen religion, and join me wanting these child-abusers to face the civil courts.

    Forget religion and the fact this is your ‘team’ behind the largest organised child abuse scandal in history of mankind - have some humanity for the victims.

    For (your) Gods sake - not mine, have some decency and ask The Christian Brothers to stop shielding the guilty.

    Personally, I hope these priests and nuns, end-up in a dingy-prison-cell where they become victims, the same as the children who had the misfortune to be sent to these ‘Christian’ institutions.

    You know, where to find-me.

    Paul, who is proud to be an Atheist, as opposed to a Catholic.

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  26. "MILLIONS of Children are being slaughtered yearly. Where is your moral outrage?"

    Indeed, where is the moral outrage from those pretending to care oh so much for the children?

    Apparently being sliced up, yanked out and thrown in the trash is far, far better than being molested. Go figure.

    Another thing, what about all the teachers in schools these days trying to have sex with their students. If you dig around on the net hard enough, you'll see that it's going on in large numbers, yet that doesn't make the headlines eh.

    All the best, take care, bon voyage and all that.

    MK

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  27. I.M. Fletcher: All that's being said wont make an iota of a difference to those who 'single out' Holy Mother Church. They smell blood and it is blood they want. Truth must not be allowed to get in the way nor must honesty, integrity or plain decency. On the positive side of these scandals, I hope and pray that there will be justice as well as healing for the victims. Prayer needs to extend to both victim and offender. The church must be 'cleansed' of all who bring scandal (esp. public) of whatever type. The most important facet however is that individual Catholics have to start living their faith by giving public witness.Yes, there is a lot of weak leadership but this should not detract, in fact it should actively encourage lay-people to be 'Christ-like'.It is quite apparent what happens in a society when "Christianity dies". A society that has exchanged the Truth of God for a lie. A society that has lost the will to live.A society without a future.Reasoning wont convert many to this truth. It is active daily witnessing as has continued for the last 2000 years.

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  28. Mzala,
    You say "The church must be 'cleansed' of all who bring scandal (esp. public) of whatever type."

    But how will that ever happen when Catholics like you view criticism over TERRIBLE SCANDAL as people "singling out Holy Mother Church", as people who "smell blood and it is blood they want" ?

    Instead of questioning the integrity of those who are siding with the VICTIMS, against the VICTIMIZERS, with your snide comment "Truth must not be allowed to get in the way nor must honesty, integrity or plain decency," why don't you JOIN the side that Jesus would be on, i.e. the side or the innocent young VICTIMS, and start questioning the integrity and claims of a "Holy Mother the Church" which produces clergy who mollest mere children, and then PROTECT THOSE VICTIMIZERS from the exposure and punishment they have earned?
    See http://JesusWouldBeFurious.Org/clericalpedophilia.html .

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  29. Fletcher,
    What a great authority for your Conservative Catholics to quote re: the "Myths" about Priestly Paedophilia, Deal Hudson !

    After he was fired from his tenured position as philosophy professor at the Jesuit Fordham University, in 2004 for seducing a vulnerable freshman drunken 18-year-old, it may have cost him one job and $30,000, but that was a small price to pay for the position he earned later that same year as Catholic outreach director in the Bush White House, and he retains a prominent leadership role in the world of Conservative Catholics in the U.S.A.

    P.S. Fletcher, you recommended that I read up on "the Fathers of the Church". I'm familiar with them. Are YOU? Read JesusWouldBeFurious.Org/ChurchFathers.html and you'll see where the Catholic Church got the contempt it displays for women and for sex.

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  30. One of the greatest indicators of the extent on the problem of the R.C. church's problem is the way its apologists attempt to play down how serious it is by suggesting it's similar to scandals in secular institutions.
    In what secular setting has anything like the following occurred?

    The first rape occurred when Ms. Soontiens was 12 years old...there was a period between 1968 and 1973 when Fr. Sylvestre raped her at least once a week... medical records show Ms. Soontiens eventually became pregnant, and Fr. Sylvestre arranged for her to undergo a "back-alley abortion" that almost took her life...
    More than 40 women came forward in the criminal trial that ended with Sylvestre's conviction on sexual assault charges in 2006, 50 years after the first allegations against him began.

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  31. Not one sentence of remorse for the victims, just continual excuses, side-issues, discussions if it was 35,000 or 3,500 etc.

    Surely if you were in the least bit Christian, ONE victim would be enough?
     

    Paul;

    one case is is a case too many - but as for your comment about side-issues may I remind you that you pulled numbers out of the air and were called on it.

    Is it totally beyond your comprehension that these grim institutions were also grim for those who worked (and also lived 24/7) in them and in the overwhelming majority of them did not abuse the trust placed in them.

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  32. Well all my primary and secondary schooling was at Catholic run schools in both Ireland and New Zealand (1980-1993) and I never came across any abuse (though I was one of the last to legally receive the cane - deservedly so - in 1990).

    So after 14 years of being part of it I never received nor heard of peers receiving the same said abuse. This doesn't mean it didn't happen at times in some place or another, but it does indicate that reports of such behaviour are probably being overhyped and need to be taken into context.

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  33. Like Sean, I also attended Catholic run schools, and so did my family. No one in my family was ever exposed to any sort of abuse, physical or sexual, nor was any person that I knew, nor was there any hint of anyone being abused in such a way in any of the schools that I went to during the time that my family attended.

    The impression we get from this report is that it is a widespread Catholic problem, and that is what we apologists are reacting to - not the actual abuse itself.

    However, any of abuse of a serious nature in any Catholic institution or by any Catholic clergy member is a scandal - and rightly so.

    We Catholics should demand a much higher standard of behaviour than the general population, even if secular school teachers are more likely to abuse children than Catholic ones.

    What I do find odd though, is atheists also demanding the higher standard of behaviour. It's almost as if they believe there is something more to the Church, or should be something more to the Church than just being a man-made institution dedicated to an imaginary god ...

    Anyway, in previous centuries, any cleric found guilty of the most serious crimes against nature (pederasty), was severely reprimanded, stripped of all titles and possessions and offered up to the secular authorities for further punishment, ie death.

    Basically, kill the guy and let God sort him out.

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  34. Here’s the deal.

    All the members of this blog are HYPOCRITES.

    You come over all morally repugnant at a whole range of topics, but the moment the ‘blow-torch is applied to the Y-Fonts called Catholicism’ you get all defensive.

    If this was mass-abuse in any other context you would all be ‘climbing-into’ those behind it.

    But the best you can come-up with here is “it didn’t happen to me”

    So the priests thought you were ugly, like that pathetic excuse would made the rape of children at the hands of Irish priests more palatable.

    Using your ‘Catholic block’ logic I presume you believe as they were being brutalised the victims took solace thinking “at least those kids in New Zealand are o.k”.

    This blog HAS NO CREDIBILITY what-so-ever when you ALL began defending the indefensible – child abuse, making excuses for the most heinous activity.

    Religion is still optional, when I last heard, so there are plenty of other ‘God brands on the shelf’.

    You are all in denial mode.

    Show how outraged you are, your moral repugnance’s, by leaving the Catholic Church.

    The fact still remains:

    -The Catholic Church in Ireland ran the worlds largest organised paedophile ring

    -The Catholic Church harbours the criminals who should face justice

    Don’t tell others how to run their lives, when you belong to group that acts in such an appalling reprobate fashion.

    Also tell the world what the illustrious leader of the Catholic Church has had to say on this ‘mass’ (not a good term to use I appreciate) abuse within the Church he is suppose to run??

    NOTHING!

    Even the president of the soccer club you alluded to in you ‘side-issue’ came-out and apologised for one single coach.

    But not one word to say “sorry” from Herr Pope, leader of The Mother Church, for seven decades of indecencies, starvation on thousands of children.

    What a sad indictment.

    It’s high time you took the moral high ground as you normally do, by lambasting the orchestrators of the ORGANISED abuse.

    Your chosen religion has blinded you.

    Got to go.

    Have a great-day.

    Paul.

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  35. Ah yes, the great liberal crime.

    It's not so much the abuse, but the apparent hypocrisy of it all. Far worse than beatings, starvings, or sodomisings.

    Strange set of priorities there.

    Our Pope is not a politician, Paul, whose sole aim is to make himself look good by making popular pronouncements.

    Here's another strange thing about people such as yourself. You expect the Pope to act like an autocratic leader with absolute power over all his minions, yet, if he were to do so, you'd be the first jumping up and down about the massive abuse of power. Which harks back to the age-old fear of Catholicism that transcends national boundaries.

    The Roman Catholic Church is in a crisis right now. I do not deny that at all. I just don't have the vapours over it. Comparable to what occurred before Christendom split off into Protestanism. It's that bad.

    However, getting all hysterical about it is not going to make anything better. Demanding self-flagellation on this blog by the blog authors also does nothing to solve the problem, even if it did satisfy some sort of voyeuristic urge on your part.

    Hypocrisy ... thank you for mentioning that. I left it out of my previous comment, but you deftly stepped into the breach and helped me out.

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  36. Oh and Paul. No one is making excuses for child abuse. But let's make sure that what we get all inflamed about is actual child abuse rather than the smacking equals beatings and torture conflation that is so prevalent in NZ.

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  37. Paul;

    You need to take a deep breath and calm down

    The Church is not now running, nor ever has run a pedophile ring.

    The Church, including the Church in Ireland has issued numerous apologies for these issues over past twenty years or more and no doubt will continue to do so in a vain attempt to mollify hysterics such as yourself.

    Individuals identified as abusers in this report were convicted and imprisoned for their crimes - years ago now!

    Nobody is trying to justify these crimes or sweep them under the carpet. If you read the full reports you will find that the Church was trying to deal with these issues since the 1930s at least and in some, not all, cases they got it badly wrong.

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  38. My Catholic friends,
    Do you want to prove that the abuses were the exception and that your church is really holy at heart?
    Then point to all of the Catholics who shreaked with horror, when they learned of children being abused by priests, brothers and nuns, and couldn't wait to tell the authorities about these unimaginable scandals.

    What's that you say? You don't know of any such Catholics!
    If all the Catholics involved were either perpetrators, silent observers, enablers, or protectors, what does that tell you about the institution that molded the minds, hearts and consciences of its members?

    Paul,
    Aren't you reading MY posts? I not only left the priesthood, but the church,as well, when I came to the conclusion that the higher one goes in the church's hierarchy the more corruption one finds, and the more corrupt one must become to keep up.

    And I have since done a great deal more research on that topic and published JesusWouldBeFurious.Org to alert others about that corruption.

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  39. Paul
    Sure we're furious, just as furious as we are about atheistic regimes killing Jews and communists killing anyone. And scoutmasters abusing boys (have you asked that scoutmasters acede to your demands as well?). Seriously dude, your blazing bigotry is blinding your sanity.

    LiberatorRev: so you left the Church because of the corruption you saw? How noble, bet it makes you feel good when you complain about it. Must be nice to justify it that way. Sickening.

    You two are the hypocrites because you have absolved yourselves and your views from the very critique you DEMAND and ARE GETTING from the Catholic Church.

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  40. "You two are the hypocrites because you have absolved yourselves and your views from the very critique you DEMAND and ARE GETTING from the Catholic Church."

    I'm not entirely sure what you mean by this, can you clarify?

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  41. I have no interest in either condemning or excusing the Catholic Church for the actions of some priests, since I don't know enough facts to separate the hype from the substance, in terms of numbers at least. Have some priests abused children? Undoubtedly. But the numbers being thrown around, it seems to me are often based on little more than guesswork and hearsay--a lack of rigor which would be ridiculed in just about any other field.
    That wouldn't matter quite so much if people such as Canterbury Zealot didn't fling the numbers around as some kind of "evidence" of mass corruption among Catholic priests.
    What I do see however is people using this latest scandal to attack the Church, yet there has been a near-silence from those same people when it comes to the murder of the unborn, the deaths of thousands of children due to beatings and malnutrition in North Korean prison camps, the mass starvation of children in Zimbabwe, the systematic abuse and exploitation of children by U.N. troops in Africa, the massive diversion of funds donated by the public for African children into the pockets of corrupt Western bureaucrats, the children left to starve in Aceh as the U.N. dithered, the massive numbers of schoolchildren abused by teachers...
    There's plenty more.
    The barely-concealed glee with which the atheists have seized on this latest report from Ireland is sickening--and should any of you deny that reading it gave you pleasure at being handed another stick with which to beat Catholics, well...I'm calling you a liar.

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  42. Liberator Rev:As an aside, it is pretty obvious that attention(not unlike the atheist fullah)is what you seek otherwise why is it that on each of your blog-postings, reference is consistently made to that website. Another Dan Brown, I guess. Well the company is pretty ordinary anyhow but them's the breaks. Secondly, analysing what you have stated re: 'leaving the church' for your stated reasons, it is quite apparent that you have not come entirely clean. Of course, one has to accept what you have stated is true but is it entirely so? Only you can answer that (of course, the Good Lord who looks into our hearts knows the answer as well). Reminds me of the story of Judas who betrayed Our Lord. Remember that he was a thief first. Of course not pointing a finger here just simply making an analogy. That is, before a person "leaves the church" established by Our Lord Jesus Christ, there is something that occurs interiorly. See Lib. Rev. as you are well aware,the faults we see in others are very possibly faults within us that are made visible. Therefore the corruption you viewed 'out there' could possibly be a reflection of the corruption within.

    As a further example, follow Canterbury Atheists posts. You will notice that there is a certain 'pain element' underpinning his writings. It is this that causes the salivation in the rabid rantings expressed.His writings are further driven by an absolute despising of the Roman Catholic church. Question: Why?
    Because it is 'corrupt' as he alleges or possibly closer to the truth, does it reveal something within him that is 'eating from the inside'. I am sure we'll agree that charity begins at home.

    I hope and pray for a healing for both of you.

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  43. Well said mzala. I was going to say something similar in that I believe the Catholic Church is the one that Christ established and no matter what type of corruption there is, 'to whom else can we go?' as Peter replied to Our Lord.

    Also, corruption or not, I believe that the Church cannot and will not fail (at least until the time of that "horrible thing" being where it should not be) because Jesus said so: he said 'the Gates of Hell will not prevail' against his Church on Earth. He won't let it.

    Yes, there will always be corruption in any collection of people. Just look at Judas - he was right there with Jesus, saw the miracles he performed and yet betrayed him. If one of Jesus' closest disciples can be that corrupt, are we to expect that there will be no corruption in any of the members of the Church in our day and age? As Jesus said, if they can do this when the wood is green, what will they do when it is dry?

    I believe that the Church is perfect, but that the people in it aren't always - they are human.

    Let me offer another earthly example - suppose you are a fan of the Warriors and one of their player rapes a woman. Or maybe one of the coaches or leaders does. Would that make a die-hard fan go and choose another team? No, because the Warriors is more than just a player, or a coach, or even an owner. In the same way, the Catholic Church is my church. I very much hate the things that some priests have done and if any of it's hierarchy has been guilty of covering that up, then I hate that too, but, again, as Peter said, "to whom else can we go?".

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  44. MZLA: “You will notice that there is a certain 'pain element' underpinning his writings. It is this that causes the salivation in the rabid rantings expressed.His writings are further driven by an absolute despising of the Roman Catholic church. Question: Why?”

    FYI: The only ‘pain element’ you crudely allude to as being my ‘issues’ , are the very ones where where moralistic individuals like you, Lucyna, Zen etc turn your back-on.

    That’s the obscenity that is child abuse, done under the guise of religion – the same religion, you MZLA etc personally administers to.

    So for the record, MZLA etc - it’s you that belongs to a Church that perpetrated the world’s largest case of organized child abuse – not me.

    If I have an issue against, someone like me, having the fortitude, rabid or otherwise, to rally against organised child abuse – then you are clearly sick (comes with the territory I guess)

    To accuse me of some bias against the Catholic Church is utterly wrong.

    I would, rally against against any group that perpetrated mass starvation, physical and sexual abuse.

    It is your church that turned their backs on the heinous ORGANISED crimes, over seven decades.

    So if it is painful to admit the sins of your brothers - don’t take it out on me for pointing out the fact you belong to a group that harbours child-abusers etc!

    It’s you that should examine why you would want to belong to such a group – not me.

    So tough-sh*t mate, accept the FACTs or leave the religion of your parents – which you like all Catholics never do of course – far too convenient to go into denial, or attack commentators like me.

    Become a Muslim, they don’t seem to have the same issues Catholics do when it comes to child molestation – ouooch that hurt!

    If you, genuinely, wanted the scum guilty of these crime to be punished – why not e.mail their N.Z representative?

    Brother John P.O'Shea, jposhea@edmundrice.org

    O’Shea is part of a ‘fellowship’ that encompasses pedophiles, indirectly protected by YOU.

    This is my last post on this topic.

    It’s sickening to think I live in the same society, in which we have so many, people that defend child abuse.

    You guys have no credibility, you make my stomach turn – I can see how they got away with it in Ireland for so long- when I encounter sort of perverted justification and self-serving denial .

    Please give generously tomorrow at Church, the defendants YOU have helped shield need more money to fund their retirement.

    Give till it hurts, or becomes painful, forget the victims altogether, instead attack me as being some-sort of guilty party.

    Keep playing the oppressed card, forget the children who were raped, beaten and starved.

    In other-words keep being ‘good Catholics’.

    Cheers there.

    Paul.

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  46. Paul,

    I'm sorry but your posts make me quite angry. Who here (Christian, Catholic, or otherwise) has said that they condone child-abuse? NO ONE. In fact, we all hate it. You show me where anyone here has defended child abuse....go on. As far as I can see, you're just trying to be a stirrer.

    I can see that the Church is taking huge steps to combat this problem - in fact, I have been at several Masses where Bishop Pat has condemned just this thing in the Church and asked for any victims to come forward.

    FYI, Christians do a HECK of a lot of good work around the world. Take Mother Teresa, for instance; if it weren't for her and her nuns then the unloved, the lepers, and the poor would still be dying like dogs in the streets of Calcutta. No one else cares/cared enough to do anything for them. Even just being there to hold their hand when they died and to let in them die with some modicum of comfort.

    And they are only one of the many Christian organizations that do great work around the world (like Caritas, TEAR Fund, Habitat For Humanity and World Vision, just to name a few), not to mention the Christian-run hospitals, schools and orphanages.

    You fail to mention all the good work that Christians and their charities do.

    Oh, and as far as Christianity vs Atheism, there have been *FAR* more murdered in the name of Atheism than there have been in the name of Christianity.

    --snip--

    China under Mao Tse Tung, 26.3 million Chinese. According the Walker Report, 63.7 million over the whole period of time of the Communist revolution in China. Solzhenitsyn says the Soviet Union put to death 66.7 million people. Kampuchea destroyed one third of their entire population of eight million Cambodians. The Chinese at two different times in medieval history, somewhere in the vicinity of 35 million and 40 million people. Ladies and gentlemen, make note that these deaths were the result of organizations or points of view or ideologies that had left God out of the equation. None of these involve religion. And all but the very last actually assert atheism.

    It is true that it's possible that religion can produce evil, and generally when we look closer at the detail it produces evil because the individual people are actually living in a rejection of the tenets of Christianity and a rejection of the God that they are supposed to be following. So it can produce it, but the historical fact is that outright rejection of God and institutionalizing of atheism actually does produce evil on incredible levels. We're talking about tens of millions of people as a result of the rejection of God.--snip--

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  47. "Become a Muslim, they don’t seem to have the same issues Catholics do when it comes to child molestation – ouooch that hurt!"

    BESLAN!
    And schoolgirls driven back into burning buildings to die, and children with bombs strapped to them and schoolgirls having acid thrown in their faces for having the temerity to want an education and children tortured and raped and blown up while held hostage and a child roasted and eaten in front of his parents...
    Oh no, you selective idiot..no issues at all.
    "So for the record, MZLA etc - it’s you that belongs to a Church that perpetrated the world’s largest case of organized child abuse – not me."
    Even if it was organised by 'the Church'--which it wasn't--it's not the largest case.North Korea, Mugabe,Joe Stalin and Hitler are the examples you're looking for. They abused and killed millions of children. A trivial point, but accuracy is so much tidier, don't you think?
    "I would, rally against against any group that perpetrated mass starvation, physical and sexual abuse."
    You would? Yet you haven't even bothered to mention them, let alone make the effort to 'rally' against them.
    But perhaps you meant 'rail'...although I don't see that either and you could do it from the comfort of your chair.
    "It’s sickening to think I live in the same society, in which we have so many, people that defend child abuse."
    Show where ONE PERSON on this thread has defended child abuse.
    "forget the children who were raped, beaten and starved."
    As you seem to be able to? No thanks.

    You've just shown yourself to be both a hypocrite and a liar, C.A. and perhaps one day you'll find the self-knowledge and courage to confront yourself and what ails you.
    Somehow, I doubt you have what it takes to do that--it's so much more gratifying to wail and rend your garments and flaunt your wafer-thin caring credentials, isn't it?
    I know your type. Know it very well, in fact because I've seen it in hellholes from one end of Africa to the other. The leeches who prey on human misery and need, polishing their faux concern and parading their shallow compassion just so long as it's safe and profitable to do so.
    If those who abused the children in Ireland are disgusting (and every commenter here agrees that they are) then rest assured, Paul, I find you equally so.

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  48. "but the historical fact is that outright rejection of God and institutionalizing of atheism actually does produce evil on incredible levels. We're talking about tens of millions of people as a result of the rejection of God."

    ....and by historical fact you mean historical interpretation. Authoritiarian governments being install as a result of violent revolution had nothing to do with it I bet?

    I'm not quite as into the idea of guilt by association that paul has expressed, but I do think that as Catholics, if you really want to be seen as the higher moral authority, it would be a very good idea to refrain from this kind of defensive posturing and take the initiative to root out the evil that exists in your organisation.

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  49. I.M. Flectcher,

    I'll take your,
    "Take Mother Teresa, for instance; if it weren't for her and her nuns then the unloved, the lepers, and the poor would still be dying like dogs in the streets of Calcutta. No one else cares/cared enough to do anything for them. Even just being there to hold their hand when they died and to let in them die with some modicum of comfort.."

    and call you on it.

    Go ahead. Rush to canonize her - against the wise rules that were established precisely in order to avoid acting from emotion, rather than reason -. Don't listen to the truth about M.T., which you can find among other places at my
    JesusWouldBeFurious.Org/MotherTeresa.html page. The fact is that most of what you have been led to believe about Mother Teresa is carefully cultivated myth.

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  50. Mzala,
    Have you been reading the Gospels?
    Your writing. "I hope and pray for a healing for both of you." sounds so much like the Pharisee's words that Jesus contrasted to the those of the Publican! Do you remember which "prayer" impressed Jesus, and why?

    It's amazing how difficult you find it to understand why non- and ex- Catholics have such contempt for an institution that produces priests who molest innocent young children and bishops who protect such priests!

    Your posts show, however, that you have no trouble feeling contempt for ME (and (C.A.).

    While YOUR priests were either molesting children themselves or defending those who did, my wife and I were either raising our first five normal children, or adopting five others - three of whom were severely handicapped -.
    Contemptible, isn't it?
    Do pray that we are healed before we sin again!

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  51. Rev, well good for you.
    But, in the midst of your demonizing, what about praise for the other 98% of priests who never touched a child in the their lives and do wonderful work in the shepherding of their parishes? The same work that you used to do as a priest: how about giving some kudos to your (ex) fellow priests.

    There are more Catholic priests doing good work in the world than the 1.8% who have molested children.

    You seem to have a bee in your bonnet about something? Let me try and guess - you didn't agree with Church teaching about some things so you left and started your own church (the 'Rev' in Liberator_Rev mean reverend?).
    Now you dispense your own form of Christianity - am I close?

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  52. Fletcher,
    You don't know any more than any one else what percentage of priest "who have never touched a child in the their lives and do wonderful work in the shepherding of their parishes?" But let's go with your 98%.for the time being.

    Now tell us how many of that 98% of "virtuous priests" SAVED children from their molesters by REVEALING the brutality and exploitation of their little Catholic brothers and sisters to the public, the press and/or whatever authorities cared enough about those children to listen and to RESPOND.
    I'm inclined to believe that some WOULD HAVE DONE SO, if they believed the church and/or Catholic civil authorities CARED.
    Now if you want to find priests that deserve kudos, I suggest you find the ones LIKE ME, who left the church in disgust, rather than continue to be a party of its IMMORALITY!!!!
    Once again, I recommend my JesusWouldBeFurious.Org web site, where I document a whole catalogue of reasons why moral people should NOT want to be part of the Roman Catholic Church.

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  53. Rev, what gives you the idea that good priests knew about this and did nothing? You're assuming that anyone else even knew about it. I don't know about America or Ireland, but over here we are lucky to have one priest per parish - quite the shortage. Considering that isolation (if you will) and considering that abuses like these are carried out in secret, it makes it hard for you to make your point.

    Also, it's not just the Catholic Church. Over here at least we've have cases of abuse in the Salvation Army, teachers and others.

    As I have quoted above, "When civil society finally accepts the challenge of making its own statistical survey as carefully and thoroughly as the Catholic Church has, I think we will find that the statistics of the Church are nowhere near as bad as the statistics of the rest of society."

    Are you looking into the teaching profession and the Salvation Army and demonizing them on your site as well? Why not? In fact, most abuse of this kind happens within the closed walls of family life.

    I am sure Jesus would be furious about any attacks on young people, but I'm sure he is also sad about his church being attacked

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  54. ps, from looking over the internet, I see you're one of those who subscribe to the lie (and it is a lie) that Pope Pius was "Hitler's Pope", despite all evidence pointing to the contrary. We probably have don't have a lot we agree on.

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  55. Lib. Rev.: "And of course, if you check MY BLOG, you would really know why etc. etc.".

    One could go on and on with Biblical quotations e.g. 'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" when Saul was attacking the faithful belonging to the Bride of Christ (these attacks will continue to occur till the end of time).

    How is it possible to pray for somebody and at the same time show them contempt? I am of course questioning your credentials. Do you not wonder what motivates a person to write or say what they do? Does it not arouse your curiosity when statements are made that are blatantly false (also known as lies).

    It doesn't matter one iota as to what Catholics' write, do or say. They are all lumped in the same basket according to your posts.

    If I claim that the Holy Roman Catholic Church contains the FULLNESS OF TRUTH (as I do), then am I not obligated by my baptism to pray for others who refute this fact. That the Light of Christ may penetrate their soul. That they come to know this fullness of truth. And that they be healed and converted to the TRUTH.

    " It's amazing how difficult you find it to understand why non- and ex- Catholics have such contempt for an institution that produces priests who molest innocent young children and bishops who protect such priests!"

    Like I've stated above, it is what occurs within an individual's heart rather than scandalous actions within the church. These scandals are more often than not, the excuse. It is more a problem with doctrine rather than 'scandal'. As evidenced by the apostles accepting the authority of Peter even though the scandalous act of denying God (which I do daily through my sin).

    Lib. Rev. it is not truth you seek. Why??

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  56. In response to my challenge to tell us of even ONE
    virtuaous priest, i.e.
    "Now tell us how many of that 98% of "virtuous priests" SAVED children from their molesters by REVEALING the brutality and exploitation of their little Catholic brothers and sisters to the public, the press and/or whatever authorities cared enough about those children to listen and to RESPOND.
    I'm inclined to believe that some WOULD HAVE DONE SO, if they believed the church and/or Catholic civil authorities CARED. "
    you respond that NO ONE SPOKE OUT because NO ONE KNEW ANYTHING TO REPORT over that 70 year period.

    Let's just consider the BISHOPS for a moment. It is a well-known fact that there were bishops who knowingly moved from positions where their sins became known to OTHER positions where they could get a new start WITH NEW VICTIMS! Was there even ONE bishop in all these years who looked into these systematic abuses of children in the Catholic institutions for which they were responsible and said "WHOA ! What the hell is going on here?" Or were 100% of the "successors of the Apostles" deaf, dumb and blind shepherds ???

    I was a member of the exalted "Order of Preachers" during this period, and one thing I learned was that the long-standing required "annual inspection" had become a long-standing farce. Everybody - including him - was shocked when I actually tried to tell the (bishop-like) Provincial Superior of problems within our seminary.

    I never personally experienced anything as shocking as the scandals reported in Ireland, but I experienced enough to conclude that the Catholic hierarchy was NOTHING LIKE what Jesus of Nazareth intended his leaders to be. They were pompous, dishonest, self-seeking hypocrites, very much like the kinds of clerics with whom Jesus did battle throughout the pages of the Gospels, until they put him to death.

    How can you continue to insult Jesus of Nazareth by associating him with this "church" of scoundrels ?

    Sunday, May 24, 2009 6:50:00 PM NZST

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  57. Fletcher,
    Are you sure that you want to open the whole new can of worms of the role of the Catholic Church in the Nazi Holocaust?
    Before you do, you might want to explore the many pages of my JesusWouldBeFurious.Org/RCscandal site on this topic.
    Otherwise you are going to make any number of erroneous statements that I will subsequently demolish, such as your foolish claim of "all evidence pointing to the contrary."

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  58. Sorry, Rev, I'm not even going to look. I wasn't there and you weren't there, but there were people back then who witnessed to the truth and told what they saw, and they are the Jews and they had nothing but praise for Pope Pius. In fact, the chief Rabbi of Rome (Rabbi Zolli) even converted to Catholicism after seeing what Pius did. But you have read all this before haven't you Ray. The truth just doesn't make any difference to you. You sure get around the net though, I must admit. I don't know where you find the time.

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  59. Just for a moment, imagine if the RC Church took a principled and unambiguous stance on child abuse within its ranks, and indeed on all forms of violence.

    Imagine if it had done this throughout history. Imagine how revered and respected it would be today if every time a child rapist or beater had been excommunicated and forwarded to law enforcement. Imagine if it had unambiguously resisted Nazism.

    IM Fletcher: No one has been murdered in the "name of atheism", they have been murdered in the name of Marxism-Leninism, nationalism and racism. Atheism was only an element of Marxism-Leninism because it produced a new cult of worship - the party - all dictatorships hate competition for loyalty, and hating religion was part of that. Today Muslim states treat non-Muslims the same way. It's just as vile. No modernist atheists (Voltaire et al) have ever been proponents of murder.

    Oh and don't start on Mother Teresa, the glorifier of dictators in Haiti and Albania, the cult of death she produced in Calcutta where she refused to send people from her death home to hospitals, and glorified in the suffering of the poor. Absolutely sickening and vile. A myth built up around a rather despicable woman.

    My conclusion is there are millions of good people in the world, of all religions and no religion. Most of the good ones don't regard the religion as their single motivation, but in fact their own humanity - which is innate. There are many evil people, some are also proponents of religion, some use religion to justify their evil (and can always point to religious texts that literally endorse it), some are not religious too - but their key commonality is a belief that human lives do not exist for themselves, but some "greater good", and they are willing to sacrifice lives for the "greater good".

    Most rivers of blood have been created by people who believed in sacrifice - virtually all religions demand it, and certainly all political philosophies besides liberal individualism do so too.

    Perhaps if people grew up believing in the virtue of being thinking beings with enormous potential to do whatever they wish, whilst respecting the same in others, it might be different.

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  60. "Most rivers of blood have been created by people who believed in sacrifice - virtually all religions demand it, and certainly all political philosophies besides liberal individualism do so too"

    You've been spending too long inside the group think echo chamber of the Libertarianz ! You are a politically naive fool, utterly worthless.

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  61. LibertyScott: No modernist atheists (Voltaire et al) have ever been proponents of murder". Then why was the Catholic church specifically targeted by these purveyors of hate. Hundreds of priests and religious were massacred, buildings destroyed etc. etc. Western society has not yet recovered from the writings of these dangerous fools.

    Mother Teresa " A myth built up around a rather despicable woman". I think that about sums up the atheist position contrary to what most people know. Pure delusion. Another Hitchens.

    "Perhaps if people grew up believing in the virtue of being thinking beings with enormous potential to do whatever they wish, whilst respecting the same in others, it might be different".

    You cannot be serious. Surely?

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  62. Fletcher,

    Of course, as you say, "I'm not even going to look."

    Your idea of "the truth" is whatever confirms your beliefs, i.e. pro-Catholic sources.
    "I wasn't there and you weren't there." How often would justice be achieved if only notoriously unreliable "eye witnesses" were allowed to determine guilt or innocence?
    You repeat the Catholic mantra "Rabbi Zolli even converted to Catholicism after seeing what Pius did." while conveniently omitting the fact that had been ostracized by the Jewish community because he had saved himself and his immediate family in the Vatican while letting most of his congregation to be shipped off to Auschwitz!
    And you have the nerve to say to me "The truth just doesn't make any difference to you." Unlike YOU, I am interested enough in the truth to read BOTH sides before coming to my conclusions.
    For the sake of OTHERS who are open to the truth, see
    JesusWouldBeFurious.Org/RCscandal .

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  63. My dear mzala,
    I haven't read the Hitchens book about Mother Teresa, but I can't imagine that it can be anywhere as devastation as a little known book by a native of Calcutta named Aroup Chatterjee who spent 8 years studying Mother Teresa first hand and writing the book, "The Final Verdict" which anyone can read free online, or buy in hard back..

    Here's one of the excerpts I've posted on my JesusWouldBeFurious.Org/MotherTeresa.html page. YOU decide who is being deluded by whom:
    M T said repeatedly:
    'In Calcutta alone we cook for 7,000 people everyday and if one day we do not cook they do not eat.'

    This was a voracious claim - at the time the Missionary of Charity kitchens cooked for at the most 500 people a day, and that included their vast army of nuns, novices and Brothers, most of whom do not have any charitable function.

    The '7000 people' story was part of a fairly lengthy parable, similar to the one with 'loaves and fishes' of Jesus. Mother retold it numerous times, in various parts of the world, but never in Calcutta itself. It is possible that the tale would be invoked as a 'miracle' during her beatification process. In her own words, one version of the story ran as follows:
    'We have witnessed God's tender care for us in a thousand different ways. In Calcutta alone we cook for 7,000 people daily. If one day we don't cook, they don't eat.
    In a programme entitled Meet Mother Teresa, recorded in 1982 for Scottish Television - the video has been widely distributed in Catholic circles - she told Ian Gall, 'We cater for 7,000 people everyday but we never had to say no...'
    Let us take for instance her comment that 'on the ground floor of Shishu Bhavan [her orphanage in Calcutta] there are cooking facilities to feed over a thousand people daily.' That there are, but are the facilities used for the purpose of a soup kitchen? They are not - although, one would infer from her statement that she was serving a thousand meals daily from Shishu Bhavan to the public.

    I have spent days on end in front of Shishu Bhavan (the MT convent) with a video camera and I know what goes on there. The soup kitchen at Shishu Bhavan feeds about 70 people a day, 5 days a week. The daily turn out is about 50 people for lunch and 20 for dinner, but charity does not come easy for the poor - they need to possess a 'food card' in order to get their gruel. It has to be admitted however that the night time kitchen is not that fussy about the food cards, and I know of instances when even for lunch, the absence of the card has been overlooked.
    Mother's soup kitchen runs on a far stricter regime at Prem Daan, her other home in Calcutta. The production of food cards is mandatory here, possibly because Prem Daan sits in the middle of Dnarapara slum and there is the likelihood of getting overwhelmed. Here the number of beneficiaries is around 50 a day, 5 days a week, but only one meal is served daily. I have the close-up of a food card captured on video, with its days and corresponding boxes, which are ticked off by the nuns.
    Now, how does one obtain a food card? - The process is shrouded in mystery, like most of the functions of the Missionaries of Charity. New ones have not been issued for some time. There was a vetting procedure involved at the time of issue and I am told that they were given only to the 'poorest of the poor' - there is an element of truth in that. However, the handful of Catholic families in Dnarapara, who cannot be called 'poorest of the poor' by any stretch of the imagination, have all got cards. They often do not use them."

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  64. Did the Jews who spoke favorably of Pius XII at the time have any idea of the following?:
    When the Berlin correspondent of the Vatican's own official paper, L'Osservatore Romano asked Pius XII if and when he would speak out against the extermination of the Jews, the Pope is reported to have answered, "Dear friend, do not forget that millions of Catholics serve in the German armies. Shall I bring them into conflicts of conscience?"
    What was the alternative, if not to allow those Catholics to continue carrying out their part in the extermination process? How were lowly Catholic laymen were supposed to be guided by their conscience if their priests weren't telling them what was right vs. wrong, because their bishops weren't saying anything to their priests, because their pope thought it would be WRONG for him to bring the millions of sheep desperately in need of guidance at the time "into conflicts of conscience?"

    98% of Germany's citizens at the time identified themselves as Christians. The 33% that called themselves Catholics included most of the top leadership of the Nazi regime, i.e.
    Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, Josef Goebbels, Reinhard Heydrich, Rudolf Hoess, Julius Streicher, Fritz Thyssen (who bankrolled the Nazi rise to power), Klaus Barbie, and Franz Von Papen in Germany and the heads of all of these other NAZI countries :
    Leon Degrelle of Belgium, Emil Hacha of Bohemia-Moravia, Ante Pavelic of Croatia, Konrad Henlein of Sudetenland, Pierre Laval and then Henry Petain of Vichy-France. and the R.C. priest, Msgr. Josef Tiso, of Slovakia. (who wasn't even defrocked after the defeat of the Nazis).

    Although these were among the most visible Catholic lay people in their countries at the time, did Pope Pius XII excommunicate a single one of them? NO.
    The Catholic Church is currently talking of CANONIZING this pope, intead of condemning him for failing to take obvious measures such as this one so as to make it clear to the millions of Catholic faithful who were enabling the Nazis to carry out their campaigns of mass murder, not only against Jews, but against their fellow Catholics in Poland, that they should have no part in these monstrous of crimes and most mortal of sins? Apologists for Pius XII who claim that their crimes caused these people to be "automatically excommunicated" miss the point that excommunication isn't intended to tell GOD who is a Catholic and who isn't but to tell THE FAITHFUL whom to shun.
    On the other hand, after the Nazis were defeated and no longer posed any threat to the pope, the Vatican, or the Catholic Church anywhere, did Pope Pius XII allow the Vatican to be used to protect thousands of Catholic war criminals such as the above to escape punishment for their war crimes? YES. Whose side was the pope on?

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  65. Lib. Rev: Once again, if people would only look at YOUR WEBSITE.....What really happened whilst you were studying LR? What have you done for which you will not forgive yourself? (Not a suggesting a public confession) Yes, you may have observed/experienced or even participated in some sort of 'corruption'.This corruption is the excuse. What really lies at the root of your anti-Catholicism??

    p.s. In case I missed it, do you know of any 'good Catholics' and ANY GOOD PRIESTS?

    Our Lord forgives all and everything. All we have to do is fly to His Divine Mercy.

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  66. mzala, you ask if there are any priests that I like.
    Glad you asked!
    I liked the liberal Pope Paul VI, but he died prematurely on Aug. 6, 1978 of causes consistent with poisoning.
    I liked the liberal Cardinal Yu Pin, primate of China, but he died prematurely on Aug. 11, 1978 of causes consistent with poisoning.
    I liked the liberal Cardinal Valerican Gracias, primate of India, but he died prematurely on Sept. 11, 1978 of causes consistent with poisoning.
    I liked the liberal ( Albino Luciani) Pope John Paul, but he died prematurely on Sept. 29, 1978 of causes consistent with poisoning,
    I liked the liberal Fr. John, (Luciani's long time personal assistant, friend and theological ally) , but he died prematurely on Sept. 30, 1978 by hit-and-run.
    I liked the liberal Cardinal Boleshaw Filipiak of Gniezno (Cardinal Wojtyla's liberal rival in Poland), but he died prematurely on Oct. 14, 1978 of causes consistent with poisoning.
    I liked the liberal Cardinal Trinh-Khue, primate of Korea, Vietnam & Cambodia , but he died prematurely on Nov. 27, 1978 under mysterious circumstance.
    I liked the liberal Cardinal Jean Villot, Paul VI's Secretary of State , but he died prematurely on Aug. & Sept. 1978 of causes consistent with poisoning.
    I liked the liberal Cardinal Boleshaw Filipiak of Gniezno (Cardinal Wojtyla's liberal rival in Poland), but he died prematurely on Oct. 14, 1978 of causes consistent with poisoning.
    Conservatives like you may claim that God is on their side and helped tip the papal consistery in their favor by removing all of these liberal cardinals.
    Liberals like me claim that Conservatives had more to do with these untimely deaths than did God.
    See more about all of these deaths at LiberalsLikeJesus.Org/murderedpope.html .

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  67. LR,

    A couple of points.

    It's seems you need to talk, therefore you are getting alot of leeway on this thread.

    I'm normally very argumentative and would have enjoyed rebutting your misconceptions on Catholicism if you'd got me a month or so ago, but I'm going through an internal reorientation right now and have absolutely no desire to argue, hence the leeway given. Anyone that is a longtime reader of this blog can easily find their own rebuttals.

    This blog is called "conservative" because we comment on NZ politics from the conservative perspective. However, when it comes to the Catholic faith (I'm sure I speak for everyone here), we are orthodox Catholics, not conservative Catholics. Our one non-Roman Catholic is also Orthodox. Note the big "O".

    I am aware that Catholicism is subject to politics, however anyone that does so (irrespective of what the Church has taught over the past 2000 years) is dragging us down to the level of the world, rather than keeping us between Heaven and Earth.

    I am not in the least bit intimidated by the fact that you were training for the priesthood. Through personal experience of someone close to me, I am aware that someone can get very far through such training and still completely miss the point of why they are there. So you are no surprise.

    What's up with "Jesus would be furious?" Our Lord is not dead. He is very much present in the world. It's either "IS" or you don't believe He has any impact in the world any more. Almost as if you don't believe He is God.

    Personally, I would never dare to assume what Jesus thinks of us. It's more of a liberal trait, presuming to speak for Him.

    Carry on.

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  68. Lib Rev: Thank you very much for nailing your colours to the wall (or maybe THE DOOR).

    'Nuff said.

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  69. Lucyna,

    What's up with your need for a "Vicar of Christ"? Do you all think Christ is dead? He is very much present in the world. It's either "IS" or you don't believe He has any impact in the world any more. Almost as if you don't believe He is God.

    And assuming that you are an Orthodox Catholic WOMAN, you are lucky if you have been allowed by your church to even be an "altar girl". Is THAT what makes you such AN AUTHORITY on Roman Catholicism?

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  70. Koolaid: Given you posted doggerel on my blog that I helped get Obama elected, despite many posts supporting McCain, you're comments have no value to me.

    Mzala: What dangerous fools? Voltaire? The man who disagreed with what you say, but would defend your right to say it? What planet are YOU on?

    Ok Mzala, so you think it's good to go to Haiti and praise a murderous gangster dictatorship, go to Albania and praise the "contribution" of a Stalinist dictator, you think it's good to deny people medical care because "they'll all want it", you think it's good to say the poor are closer to good because of their suffering.

    It's despicably evil. Mother Teresa ran a home for the dying, she kept them in poverty, it was nothing glorious, it was nothing like the umpteen charities (religious and non-religious) that actively feed and assist people to live - it was a cult of suffering. It was a cult that only got publicity and a fortune of donations because of Muggeridge and the BBC, and MT milked it for all its worth, with most of the money raised not apparently going to the poor, but the church.

    The RC Church suffers from the lies and corruption of most large institutions where a strict hierarchy limits real accountability, particularly when it considers itself the sole bastion of sacred authority in the universe. When it repents for supporting dictators and shielding child abusers it might go some way towards rebuilding a reputation given its bloody and violent past.

    What I do wonder about is whether an institution based presumably on the notion of it representing an omnipotent and moral supernatural power can be allowed by that power to have committed so much atrocity in its name over history.

    What power one has over children, families, cities and countries when you represent god. The good that can produce (and has done) is well acknowledged, but many people do good, many institutions as well.

    However, when much evil is done within that institution, and when that institution looks asunder, whilst at the same time finger pointing at what it thinks is moral depravity, it corrodes its claim to be worthy of being listened to.

    I'd wager that most people who read this blog have more moral fibre than Agnese Bojaxhiu. Someone who says "I think it is very beautiful for the poor to accept their lot, to share it with the passion of Christ. I think the world is being much helped by the suffering of the poor people."

    is morally vacant.

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  71. LR,

    Why the Vicar of Christ?

    If you actually studied for the priesthood, you would know the answer to that question. But the fact that you don't even know it and have to ask me? That leads to to a number of questions, such as, did you really study for the priesthood, because the answer to that question would be kind of at the top of the list, don't you think?

    Why on earth would I want to be an "altar girl"? It would be like trying to tell me I am not equal to men because I don't have a penis.

    I need you to stop with the caps. It's makes your comments difficult to read, and creates this, look at me, look at me, LOOK AT ME! impression that is off-putting to say the least.

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  72. LS,

    I think the problem is that "the institution" of the Church is not properly understood by people such as yourself. She is a supernatural entity that has human participation. The human aspect is always inadequate, and recently far more so. However the underlying principles and messages are true because they come from God.

    Quite honestly, I don't think I would have converted back if I had to rely on just the example of people as a whole within the Church today. But, having spent enough time outside of Her, if She doesn't point to the Truth and to God, then nothing else does.

    You also really don't get redemptive suffering. Suffering is by it's nature evil, except for the fact that it was redeemed by Christ and by offering our suffering to Him, He gives it supernatural power. In other words, we cannot get away from suffering while we are alive on the world, but we allow our suffering to be transformed, to offer it up as a sacrifice to God, and therefore have some good come out of what is evil.

    The quote that seems to rile you so much doesn't seek to keep the poor in suffering, as alleviation of suffering is a noble and worthy goal and something the Church has been involved in over the centuries (ie Hospitals are a Catholic invention), but, when there is no possibility of alleviation then acceptance is the only thing left.

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  73. LS; I take it then by your passionate response that the issues of the poor and suffering are dear to your heart and that you do something concrete about it.

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  74. Lucyna, mzala, Fletcher, et al.
    Your inability to understand "rhetorical questions" (try to find somebody with a college education to explain it to you) about the "vicar of Christ" and "altar girls" is the last straw.
    I feel it's unfair to debate people with so little to work with.

    Good bye!

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  75. LR,

    We don't play games here. Sorry to disappoint.

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