Discussion»Questions»Legal» If you thought that pedophilic abuse by priests was over but it's not do you recommend severe screening for any future preist?
The scandal isn't that it happened. Any organization of sufficient size that has access to large numbers of children will attract a percentage of sickos - Boy Scouts, Air Cadets, sports clubs (especially gymnastics) etc. The scandal is what the Church DIDN'T do about it when those paedophiles were discovered. Even without violating the oath of the confessional, those priests could have been moved into areas where access to more potential victims would have been severely curtailed. Prison chaplaincy, for example. Or given that absolution is dependent on completion of penance, make the penance fit - requiring the perp to admit their crimes to civil authority, for example. The Church did none of this.
What's happened to that sick Austrailian RC Cardinal that's been systematically raping children since the seventies....has he been locked up until his trial or is he still walking free protected by the pope ?
We dont tend to hear about these things in England often...I think they tend to be hushed up
I agree with Slartibartfast. The main issue is the fact that they covered it up. It's one thing to have ineffective vetting, and of course they should do their best not to unwittingly hire people who are abusers, but the fact is that they knew these people were guilty and simply moved them around the diocese and made sure law enforcement never found out what they had done.
A problem the church has is filling it’s ranks with new members of clergy. The calling isn’t as appealing to eligible young men as it once was. Yet the Holy See is pressed to preserve the membership at hand to maintain it’s worldwide presence. This presence has brought with it great influence and power. The potential for abuse is great, and as we’ve come to learn, the abuse is nothing new.
In the light of the abuses of that power, the church sought to protect itself by it’s traditional methods of silence and denial. Keeping their evils out of the public eye and off of police blotters. But the evildoers persisted, as they were not penalized personally or professionally, only to be shuffled around to new diocese to hide from their accusers. Even so far as into the Vatican itself.
The sins here are institutional, as well as generational, and any aspiring priest would have to assume the mantle of membership in a closed society of exposed deviants and their corrupt enablers. The church, now stained as a consequence, is faced with a shrinking pool of interested candidates who are still willing to assume that mantle, to replace the old priests dying off or retiring. (Have any actually been jailed?) Serious vetting, I would suggest, is not in their vested interest.
This post was edited by Don Barzini at August 15, 2018 2:35 PM MDT
Some have - and the Archbishop of my home city, Adelaide, has recently resigned in scandal and been sentenced to a year's detention for being involved in covering it up.
Don't really understand what any "screening" would accomplish. I think it would be advantageous for the Roman Catholic Church to allow its priests to marry but that will not get of it entirely. Because people are carnal so we should not expect them to be perfect. Now I don't know the facts but would guess the Church felt it would undermine the authority of priests by removing them. Which is not an issue in Protestant churches where there is not a central authority and each church runs its own affairs. But still abuse can happen because we are dealing with people.
My husband is not Roman Catholic either but he grew up going to a succession of private boys boarding schools and according to him some of that kind of thing always went on but the kids would just say "no" to it and refuse to engage in it so there were never scandals, or outrages, or public headlines, or court cases, or firings.
That many pedophiles in a single organization, in a single state ... any non-church organization would have their license/permit/charter/etc revoked, disbanded, and prohibited from operating.
I believe Pennsylvania should send state police to every Catholic Church, and shut them down. It's not religious discrimination. The First Amendment does not cover pedophilia. It's public safety issue.
Slartibartfast 