CATHOLIC SEX ABUSE
(Keywords: CATHOLIC SEX ABUSE, roman catholic sex abuse cases, catholic church sex abuse, catholic church sex, do catholic priests have sex) Knocking other Christians is not one of my favourite pastimes. I too have my sins...
To cast the first stone...
"If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her."
John 8:7
It will no doubt anger some of my Protestant brothers and sisters, but I would like to come out in defence of Roman Catholic priests. It in no way absolves them of the Roman Catholic sex abuse cases, but the root cause of the Catholic Church sex scandals lies not with the individual priests but with Pope Gregory V11.
"It was in 1074 that an ambitious man named Hildebrand, who had become Pope Gregory VII by irregular means the previous year, excommunicated all married priests."
And with 1000 years of Popes who should have known better, but through their silence have become part and parcel of the Catholic Church sex scandal. Will Pope Benedict be the man to break with the scandalous Roman Catholic sex rules that have brought the whole of Christendom into such shame?Let us pray for the man. It's a heavy burden to admit that for a thousand years you and your forebears have missed the plot, and to return to the tradition of the first millennium. To the honest and Godly tradition concerning Christian marriage. The alternative? More and more revelations of predatory Roman Catholic sex abuses cases. If you are a Christian, would you commit yourself to pray for this man every day, whether you are a Catholic or not? I'm going to - he's the man who could save the Roman Catholic church. And Christendom. It's that important.
This is where the buck should stop...
"The wicked are wicked, no doubt, and they go astray and they fall, and they come by their deserts: but who can tell the mischief which the very virtuous do?"
William Makepeace Thackeray
The Facts
America has had its series of Catholic Church sex scandals, and the recompense that it is now paying (estimated at three billion dollars) is threatening to break the financial back of the Church. At least six American dioceses have filed for bankruptcy. Just one diocese, Burlington in Vermont, has put up for sale its administrative building and 26-acre lesure facility, Camp Tara Holy Cross on Lake Champlain, needing a further loan for its 18 million dollar payout to 26 victims. 2010, and now it's Europe's turn.
Ireland
Ireland has had its problems. In the last few months three bishops have resigned after the way in which they shielded paedophiles became public knowledge. One of them was Bishop John Magee, private secretary to three popes...Update (5 June 2010) Top-level Catholic sex probe in Ireland: Archbishop of Westminster, Murphy-O'Connor, must deal with official reports of decades of rape, coercion and sexual abuse by predatory clerics whose activities, in the words of one report, were "obsessively" concealed by the church hierarchy.
"... two scathing Irish government reports released last year revealed decades of systematic sex abuse of tens of thousands of Irish children and a widespread cover-up of the problem.
"Be Sure Your Sins Will Find You Out."
The Netherlands
In my own country, over 100 Dutch priests ...
"Institute Magdala: At least 100 priests in the Netherlands have a clandestine relationship – sexual and serious – with a woman. Accepted in small circles it includes withal younger and old priests alike."
Reported in daily newspaper Spits (Monday 14.08.2006)
PRIEST IN MY BED, a short story from STONES IN MY CLOG.
Belgium
This week Belgium's longest serving bishop, Bishop of Bruges, Roger Vangheluwe, resigned, confessing publicly: “When I was still just a priest, and for a certain period at the beginning of my episcopate, I sexually abused a minor from my immediate environment.”
Yes, Bishop, hang your head, you've brought the whole of Christendom into disrepute, but it's your Pope who is really to blame... that's where the buck should stop.
Austria
Austria has also been rocked by its Roman Catholic sex abuse cases. Cardinal Hans Groer was forced to resign as Archbishop after it came to light that he had molested young boys at a monastery in the 1970's.
Norway
Bishop Georg Mueller has resigned after admitting that he, a Roman Catholic priest sex abused a minor.
In conclusion...
What are we to say? That the hundreds of people who have recently come forward, accusing priests of raping and sexually abusing them whilst the Bishops, knowingly, turned nothing more than a blind eye, have all lied? Or is this just the tip of the iceberg of what has been happening for a thousand years since the reign of Pope Gregory VII?Is it that the Roman Catholic church attracts young men with a tendency to paedophilia? No! Rather, surely, it is the Catholic sex rules, the forbidding of young men to enjoy their God-given instincts and rights, that has turned them into sexual perverts. And where does the buck stop? With the Popes, each and every one of them in the second millennium. These Catholic Church sex scandals are not going to go away. Gradually all will be revealed: from every corner of the globe cases of Catholic church sex abuse are going to come to light, it will be shouted from the rooftops, until...
A MARRIED PRIESTHOOD
... until a Pope, will it be Pope Benedict?, has the courage to overthrow a millennium of shame, a millennium of Catholic sex abuse, and return to the godly tradition of the first millennium: a married priesthood. Or will the church simply slide into oblivion under a mire of Catholic church sex scandals? Is it any wonder that for three straight years the Vatican has declared a loss. Which Pope is going to have the balls, excuse the language, to overthrow the tradition of a thousand years. Let us pray that it will be Pope Benedict.
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