Just when you thought the Pope couldn't get any more despicable

[skepticscott]

Pope Benedict XVI told Vatican officials Monday that they must reflect on the church's culpability in its child sex-abuse scandal, but he also blamed a secular society in which he said the mistreatment of children was frighteningly common.

"We must ask ourselves what was wrong in our proclamation, in our whole way of living the Christian life, to allow such a thing to happen," the pope said. Benedict also said, however, that the scandal must be seen in a broader social context, in which child pornography is seemingly considered normal by society and drug use and sexual tourism are on the rise.

"The psychological destruction of children, in which human persons are reduced to articles of merchandise, is a terrifying sign of the times," Benedict said.
He said that as recently as as the 1970s, pedophilia wasn't considered an absolute evil but rather part of a spectrum of behaviors that people refused to judge in the name of tolerance and relativism.

As an avalanche of cases of pedophile priests came to light, church officials frequently defended their previous practice of putting abusers in therapy, not jail, by saying that was the norm in society at the time. Only this year did the Vatican post on its website unofficial guidelines for bishops to report pedophile priests to police if local laws require it.

"In the 1970s, pedophilia was theorized as something fully in conformity with man and even with children," the pope said. "It was maintained - even within the realm of Catholic theology - that there is no such thing as evil in itself or good in itself. There is only a 'better than' and a 'worse than.' Nothing is good or bad in itself."

So "secular society" and not RCC immorality and ass-covering was to blame for all of the priestly child rape, and "everybody else thought this was normal, so don't blame US too much" is the apology du jour.

Fortunately, Barbara Blaine handed him his head right back:

"It is fundamentally disturbing to watch a brilliant man so conveniently misdiagnose a horrific scandal," said Barbara Blaine, president of the main U.S. victims' group Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

She said the scandal wasn't caused by the 1970s but rather by the church's culture of secrecy and fixation with self-preservation in which predator priests and the bishops who moved them around rather than turn them in were rarely disciplined.

"Whenever the pope tires of talking about abuse and starts acting on abuse, he should focus on taking immediate, pratical steps to oust those who commit, ignore and conceal clergy sex crimes first," Blaine said.

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20101221/D9K7UUSO2.html

[tularetom]

1. He's swimming in a river in Egypt

Pedophilia in the Catholic church has been going on since well before the 70's. In fact it was about that time that it began to receive some scrutiny from the outside world.

This pope is a bad guy.

Pedophilia has never been tolerated in any decade of my lifetime. And I've been around for seven of them.

[Gman]

2. I never for even a brief moment thought the Pope is despicable

not in any remote or misconstrued sense of the word.

[trotsky]

5. So if protecting and covering up for child rapists isn't despicable,

what exactly is?

[darkstar3]

6. What do you think despicable means? n/t

[Gman]

7. Hatred and contempt

is there another definition?

[darkstar3]

9. Someone who is despicable would be, from one definition, "morally reprehensible".

I think it would be easy to refer to this particular pope as such.

[trotsky]

12. Hatred and contempt are nouns.

Despicable is an adjective. And it can mean "so worthless or obnoxious as to rouse moral indignation." I dunno, a protector of child rapists is enough to rouse my moral indignation. YMMV I guess.

[Name removed]

13. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[trotsky]

14. Yeah I do enjoy smacking down pedophile enablers...

guilty as charged.

[Goblinmonger]

17. So what would it take, then?

Covering up child rapists and moving them to another parish to lather, rinse, repeat obviously isn't enough for you.

[Ruby the Liberal]

3. No, Mr. Pope - there is evil and pedophilia is at its cornerstone.

[MindandSoul]

4. So. . .what happened to me in the hands of a priest 48 years ago was provoked by . . .

Sexual tourism??? Or child pornography???

I don't think sooooo!!!!

[dimbear]

8. Come on. A little knowledge of history shows that goal is way out there.

If you prefer your popes despicable, have a look at the career of Pope Innocent III. Now you're talking.

[skepticscott]

11. Well, maybe on your planet

decades of facilitating child rape isn't enough to get over the bar for being despicable, but it does it for me here on Earth.

[dimbear]

19. The OP said you couldn't get more despicable. History says

there have been worse. Innocent III had his minions murder thousands of innocent people solely to take their money.
That just seems to be a worse thing to me. Judgment call, of course.

[skepticscott]

20. There was a certain sense of irony

in the OP, which apparently escaped you. And silly me, I guess I would have thought that popes in this day and age wouldn't even try to get away with mass murder so brazenly.

[beam me up scottie]

10. He wrote and enforced policy that instructed bishops to cover up sex crimes and silence the victims

Does he think that everyone has forgotten his complicity?

Sex crimes and the Vatican
A secret document which sets out a procedure for dealing with child sex abuse scandals within the Catholic Church is examined by Panorama.


Crimen Sollicitationis was enforced for 20 years by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger before he became the Pope.

It instructs bishops on how to deal with allegations of child abuse against priests and has been seen by few outsiders.

Critics say the document has been used to evade prosecution for sex crimes.


Crimen Sollicitationis was written in 1962 in Latin and given to Catholic bishops worldwide who are ordered to keep it locked away in the church safe.

It instructs them how to deal with priests who solicit sex from the confessional. It also deals with "any obscene external act ... with youths of either sex."

It imposes an oath of secrecy on the child victim, the priest dealing with the allegation and any witnesses.

Breaking that oath means excommunication from the Catholic Church.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/panorama/5389684.stm

Crimen Sollicitationis: An interpretation

Father Tom Doyle is a canon lawyer. He had a diplomatic career with the Vatican but was sacked after he criticised the church's handling of child abuse. He gives this interpretation of Crimen Sollicitationis in the Panorama film.

Crimen solicitationis is indicative of a worldwide policy of absolute secrecy and control of all cases of sexual abuse by the clergy.

But what you really have here is an explicit written policy to cover up cases of child sexual abuse by the clergy to punish those who would call attention to these crimes by the churchmen.

You've got a written policy that says that the Vatican will control these situations and you also have I think clear written evidence of the fact that all they are concerned about is containing and controlling the problem.

Nowhere in any of these documents does it say anything about helping the victims.

The only thing it does is say that they can impose fear on the victims and punish the victims for discussing or disclosing what happened to them.

It's all controlled by the Vatican and at the top of the Vatican is the Pope so Joseph Ratzinger was in the middle of this for most of the years that Crimens was enforced he created the successor to Crimen and now he is the Pope this all says that the policy and systematic approach has not changed."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/panorama/5392338.stm

Can someone tell me why he's not in prison again?

[Bad Thoughts]

15. Half Right

The dichotomy Benedict erects between secular and religious society is lame at best, especially given the higher religiosity that existed in Europe and America over the last century. However, tolerance of sexual violation was much higher in all corners of society. It probably wasn't until the mid-1980s that inroads were made in prosecuting sexual crimes and victims felt comfortable pressing charges. Just consider how the Joan Little case was a landmark--a black woman in prison was actually acquitted of murdering a white guard who was raping her. This was definitely a world in in which all manner of sexual crimes was given a pass. Perhaps more disturbing is Benedict's own moral relativism and dithering on the RCC's late adaptation of more stringent standards: secular society got tired of sexual predation, why didn't the Church?

[edhopper]

16. This line is particularly loathsome

"He said that as recently as as the 1970s, pedophilia wasn't considered an absolute evil but rather part of a spectrum of behaviors that people refused to judge in the name of tolerance and relativism."

I am old enough, and having come of age during the sexual revolution to know that pedophilia was NEVER seen as anything but wrong and "evil" (as the Pope says).
He seems to be saying that because some asshole somewhere in the 70's said pedophilia isn't completely unacceptable that we shouldn't condemn the priests and enablers, like him.
What unmitigated, reprehensible bullshit.
I know there were some Popes in the past who were pretty bad people. But to be relativistic, by today's standards this man is truly a piece of crap.

[Heywood J]

18. I've never thought the Pope couldn't get any more despicable.

Most recently, after I saw his authenticated signature on letters covering up sex abuse, I knew he had a long way to go - downward.

Before that, the Church was getting frequent letters from the head of the Congregation of the Servants of the Paraclete (as early as 1948), telling Church leaders that child molesters were dangerous, couldn't be cured, and should be booted from the priesthood. This was their own order in charge of "rehabilitating" priests with problems!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congregation_of_the_Servants_of_the_Paraclete#Treatment_of_sexually_abusive_priests

In 1962, Fitzgerald prepared a report at the request of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (then known as the Holy Office) in which he discussed the various types of sexual problems of priests, including sexual abuse of minors.

In April 1962, Fitzgerald wrote a five-page response to a query from the Vatican's Congregation of the Holy Office "the tremendous problem presented by the priest who through lack of priestly self-discipline has become a problem to Mother Church." One of his recommendations was for "a more distinct teaching in the last years of the seminary of the heavy penalty involved in tampering with the innocence (or even non-innocence) of little ones." Regarding priests who have "fallen into repeated sins ... and most especially the abuse of children, we feel strongly that such unfortunate priests should be given the alternative of a retired life within the protection of monastery walls or complete laicization."

In August of the following year, he met with newly elected Pope Paul VI to inform him about his work and problems he perceived in the priesthood. His follow-up letter contained this assessment: "Personally I am not sanguine of the return of priests to active duty who have been addicted to abnormal practices, especially sins with the young. However, the needs of the church must be taken into consideration and an activation of priests who have seemingly recovered in this field may be considered but is only recommended where careful guidance and supervision is possible. Where there is indication of incorrigibility, because of the tremendous scandal given, I would most earnestly recommend total laicization."