I like his beanie. Except it should have a propellor on it.

Exactly true. Worse.

There was a thing in the paper recently about a Hassidic Rabbi pulling similar stunts in Brooklyn. Congo pressured the kid and his rents to STFU. Not sure where it is. have to google.

Find the Pope in the Pizza.

Father Guido Sarducci: Well, I think what I'm gonna do for the prize, whoever wins -- you know, finds the most Popes -- they'll get to have a button that I designed myself. I noticed on the tour, the best selling button was this. [holds up button] It says, "I Got a Peek at the Pope" ... And I designed a button that I think even more people can relate to. [holds up another button] It says, "I saw the Pope on TV" ... This is what you win. And now, I think, we're about ready. So while you're looking at the pizza for thirty seconds, I'm gonna play a cut from Pius XII's album. ... Here is Pius XII singing "On the Sunny Side of the Street" ... And now find the Pope in the pizza. Good luck to you. All two hundred and fifty-four.

[A jazz recording of the old pop song "On the Sunny Side of the Street" plays as we dissolve to close-up of the pizza: mostly a red mass of tomato sauce, but also cheese and one rather large image of a Pope sitting behind a desk in the lower right hand corner. The other Popes are invisible to the naked eye. A clock ticks off thirty seconds in the upper left hand corner as Father Sarducci's voice chimes in with occasional helpful hints.]

Some are easy to find, some are hard. ... Here's a little clue for you. Most of the Popes have red faces. ... Here's another clue. One of them is in the right side of the screen. ... Behind the desk.

What's a Congo? An African country pressured them?

like a convo=conversation

Congregation

What the crap? Why????

Well, I can't really say for sure about the Jewish congregation, but for the Christians, it goes something like this: one of the very basic rules is that you must not do anything that would cause another to stumble (commit a sin) and/or weaken their faith in God, even if it's not a problem for you. Like, you don't drink in front of the alcoholic, even though you yourself are not an alcoholic. So if you're doing it right, the result is that people view themselves as role models and hold themselves to a higher standard.

If you're doing it wrong, then when a scandal arises, there is a desire among some to keep it hush-hush and within the congregation, because an outsider might take the scandal as evidence that this whole God business must be crap, because look at the terrible things his followers do--as, indeed, people tend to do. Of course scandals inevitably come out anyway, and now you've got the added tarnish of hypocrisy, when what they really should have done in the beginning is hold up the sinner as an example of a sinner, something the congregation, being Godly people, clearly won't tolerate.

Anyway, that's another reason the parents take the hush money, aside of course from the delicious money aspect of it.

But Jesus welcomed sinners, and encouraged them to follow him.

Sinners were his target audience. :)

Only sinners who at some point decided they wanted to stop being sinners. Determined, unrepentant sinners were to be first privately rebuked and corrected, then publicly rebuked and corrected, then asked to leave the church body until they were able to be truly repentant as evidenced by their actions. So at most you get to diddle three kids before you are ejected from the entire church body, nevermind being allowed to keep leading it. And really, you shouldn't get more than one, because it is also a tenet of the faith that you must obey the secular law except where it directly conflicts with God's law, thus part of repentance would necessarily be accepting the legal consequences of your illegal actions.

Haggis!

Exactly. Jesus welcomed sinners, not the congregation.

And then they became suicide bombers.

Seems the Catholics have hardly cornered the market:

http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/fai...d_pedophi.html



http://web.archive.org/web/19960101-...rg/clergyabuse

Well yeah, duh...jews.

I'm kidding. I kid. :)

[Non PC English humor]

Pedophilia, Irish Style: Granny Groping

[/Non PC English Humor]

lol Monnie.

in 1992, everyone thought Sinead O'Connor was nuts. now, maybe not so much. Her opinion piece in the Washington Post is here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...d=opinionsbox1

lol

Richard has produced some really great stuff but this is a bit over the top..

Richard Dawkins: I will arrest Pope Benedict XVI

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/com...cle7094310.ece

Dawkins is an attention whore.

I like Dawkins. He's one of my heros.

He may actually be serious here, but it also could just be an attention grabbing act to get people, who aren't listening yet, to start thinking about the invulnerability of the church in legal matters. The Pope, like the president, shouldnt be above the law.

A head of state, cannot be charged with crimes against humanity, while he's a head of state. Only after he steps down/is removed from office, and the Pope ain't stepping down.:headshake

I would agree that many plaintiffs' trial attorneys are attention whores--it's in their nature. (ETA: I see Dawkins is styled as an "atheist campaigner." I've never heard of him before, and the attorney comment was coming from my own perspective.)

The concept of trying the pope strikes me personally as less an avenue of justice and more as using him as a scapegoat for revenge--which isn't too Christian, is it?

I found the WikiP article on "universal jurisdiction" quite interesting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_jurisdiction

:eyebrow:

For one thing Hawkins could give a rats ass about being Christian. His point, which I agree with, is that its about time we start punching through the invisible force field that protects Catholic Priests from being prosecuted for their heinous acts and that all starts at the top.

priests and laymen are being prosecuted for this, and have been for decades. Who is Hawkins?

Oops..."D".

The church is protecting them though. Keeping it under wraps by just moving the them to other parishes.

ok; thought maybe you meant Hitchens, the author from the article

I was probably trying to combine their names...:3eye:.

Even though the Church (Pope) is guilty of non-action, or the wrong action, the Church (Pope) isn't responsible for the non-action by all those district attorneys. These are civil crimes, felonies, that should have been prosecuted. If more DAs had done that, more people would have spoken up. Seeing others complain, and be ignored by law enforcement, has a chilling effect on the rest.

Like I said, its a matter of breaking through that 'force field' that seems to protect the church. DA's non-action is an off shoot of that. Putting pressure on arresting the Pope is just a way of keep the issue alive and hot.

understand I'm not making apologies for the RC church, but to me it's a complex issue and one that I spend a lot of time thinking about. Going after the pope just strikes me as a grandstanding move. Maybe it's what's needed, but I tend to think it's a futile gesture.

I don't like churches in general, and I think power corrupts. But I think the priests were at first trying to apply prayer and compassion to this problem and to their brothers. This was their SOP, because they live in a different world from the secular, civil world we live in. To us, it makes sense to go through the civil authorities--to them, not so much. These men seek their answers from above, either through their own hierarchy or from the divine.

I see sex with children as a constant variation of human sexual norms throughout history. It is abhorrent to me, because a child cannot consent. No culture today condones it, but no one has a good system for addressing the problem in place. We as a society, are playing catchup, trying to mitigate a problem that has been with us all along, in all segments of society. How many children have been sexually abused by their parents or close relatives? Far more than were victimized by religious. [ETA] What about the young girls being sold into sexual slavery by their parents in Yemen and other places? And yet, so very little education or preventive measure are in place even today.

As far as the church goes, I see secrecy and naivete making the problem worse. Not only did the priests not talk about the issue of pedophilia, but normal human sexuality is not addressed in seminaries. There was no framework for these men to even begin to understand their problem or seek help. Efforts have been made to correct this, and to formulate more open rules and procedures. Is it enough? dunno. All of the religious people I've met are sincerely appalled and ashamed, and compassionate to the victims.

I also see greed and opportunism on the part of journalists, LEOs, politicians, and yes, even victims. They wait 30 years, and all of a sudden claim to remember being abused, and now blame all of their loser lives on it, and want millions of dollars. That's an oversimplification, or course, but there's no doubt that greed and revenge is playing a part in this situation.

I'm just working through these thoughts.

Wait, you're saying that the church has been filing police reports about the crimes committed by priests all along and the DAs have just not been prosecuting them?

Each church diocese has kept detailed records of their pedophiles and other 'crimes'. But the only DA I know of that subpoenaed those records is Lynn Abraham of Philadelphia. Those were published in the Philly Inquirer. Some of it still exists in Philadelphia Grand Jury Report on Pedophile Priests And the Archbishops Who Protect Them

So yes, we should be asking about the cozy relationship between the church and government prosecutors. After all, the Pope ordered all catholic lawmakers to change the laws to conform to church doctrine even if it contradicts fundamental American principles. How much influence does the church have on all Americans? How many DA's refused to subpoena the records that all dioceses keep?

List of where sexually abusive priests were located:
http://www.philadelphiadistrictattor...Appendix_B.pdf

No, I'm saying victims, and their families, have made complaints to civil authorities that weren't prosecuted.

Well Lady, in order to press charges, your kid will have to take the stand, and your family will be at the center of, possibly even blamed for, this scandal embarrassing the church. Or you can just let the Bishop handle it, and still go to heaven.

Got some proof of that?

You linked to the wrong one - Appendix B. . . This is the correct link

Interesting - A few quick points - 95 priests since the early 50's.
Some of these guys were dead when the church first heard. Many were let go/had power removed... They were very few where the church did little or nothing. In many cases the church did not know for decades.

Some number crunching should be done with this. I'd like to see how the data shakes out.
One guy was found with pron and had it removed - that was his "abuse."

Most were much worse and although NONE OF THIS IS OK with me and I'd like to believe that the first call should have been to the authorities upon hearing about this type of thing in ANY organization - even moreso from a religious one, but I still wonder how much abuse still gets covered up.

So why could Lynn Abraham have the balls to convene a grand jury. While prosecutors all over the country would not? Why was abuse so widespread but mostly prosecution had to occur through civil trials?

Had this been the mafia, the Feds would have been all over it.

Go back and read the rest of my post.

Maybe she's not catholic.

before the last 20 years, most kids did not tell. (Even now, most kids do not cry out of abuse, regardless of who is doing the abusing.) of those that did, very few parents believed them. of those that believed them, very few parents took it further. Those that took their claims to the police were investigated, and many were prosecuted criminally.



When I read this post of Bruce's, the first thing that came into my mind was: well, that's how they treat rape victims, too. Those in power do not want to address the problems of the powerless, like women or children:


only a handful of states still use the grand jury system btw

Shocking as it may be, that is not a quote from Dawkins, but from a Times headline writer. Apparently, it was misleading enough that even a Murdoch paper had to fix it - it is no longer the headline at that link.
Part of the reasoning in the article is that the Vatican isn't a real country, and the Pope isn't a real head of state. Not that I think the arrest will happen.

It is called a Grand Jury. The lady has no choice. She and her kid would have to testify.

So why is Philly but the few who would open a grand jury investigation five years ago. A question not just for America. A question for Australia, Ireland, Germany, Canada, India, Italy, Spain and Chile. Clearly this was never just an American problem. Whereas the Church said they were turning such priest over to local jurisdication, Lynn Abraham's Grand Jury five years ago demonstrated it was just the opposite.

Well, maybe she is not Catholic. Irrelevant. No matter how many times I try, even I cannot get myself excommunicated. But then I couldn't get on Nixon's Enemies list either.

Not if the grand jury doesn't hear about it.
Good for Abraham, one of how many tens of thousands of DAs in this country?
Why do you keep asking the same question, one that nobody can possibly answer?

Interesting.

Because some questions are what everyone should be asking. Or else the problem festers. How many could not be bothered to look into Watergate? How much pedophilia was condoned by the Catholic Church because a majority did not ask such damning questions?

Another damning question that virtually no one asked. And so that problem got away with murder. When do we go after bin Laden? For seven years, America never did and virtually nobody asked.

Most every DA (for reasons that everyone should be demanding from their DAs) could not bother to investigate internationally protected pedophilia? Why not? Not just that DAs did not investigate. Why is an overwhelming majority even in the Cellar not asking this damning five years ago when the church was into “coverup mode”?

Because I don't have kids, I'm not Catholic, I'm not a DA, and I had more Pressing worries.

Yep just the that big ole bad Catholic Church - Perhaps the question should be how many other churches is this happening in?
Maybe we should ask China why they keep aborting female fetus'?
Or murdering dissidents?
Maybe we should ask why there are still drugs coming over the border from Mexico?

Domma dis, domma dat.

;)

snigger @ shaw

So get some info together and start a thread. That's how it works. :rolleyes:

thanks but no thanks - right now I got more important things in my life.

Then why are you suggesting these things should be questioned when we're busy questioning something else? You just think we should stop questioning the catholic church for some reason? Tough shit.

I was following the progression of the last few posts from tw & Bruce.
No, not at all - Where did I EVER say that? PLEASE cite, please!

My opinion is and has been that this is not exclusive to the Catholic Church. To act like it is and repeatedly attack them as if that were true is bullshit. I and I've repeatedly made that point.

Who did this??!!! CITE! OMGZ!!11!

This *is* a thread specific to the catholic church pedophilia and cover up though - so talking about abortion in China doesn't make sense.

there are about 5 pages of it.

and thread drift is uncommon as well?

... as you were.

Is there a limit?
It's not thread drift if you don't actually want to talk about it, and as you said, you don't. You just want someone else to.

Yeah, thanks.