Yeeeah, about that pedophile scandal and the Catholic church, they’re now upping the ante. Like this.
RICHARD DAWKINS, the atheist campaigner, is planning a legal ambush to have the Pope arrested during his state visit to Britain “for crimes against humanity”.
I’ll be over here making popcorn for everyone.
Diplomatic immunity is a bitch.
Dude, what a jerk. (Dawkins, not the Pope)
If they succeeded, we’d need all the popcorn you can make, W. They won’t, of course and by choosing to cast this as “major atheism proponents against the Pope”, they make it sound like a publicity stunt. Getting together a bunch of societies against child abuse and protesting his visit may have worked better, seeing as no one will arrest the Pope anyway. Part of the problem is that pedophiles who are affiliated with the Church aren’t arrested and tried like anyone else would be.
Why is it that atheists are so much more hostile to religious people than vice versa? Just kind of weird.
Perhaps, but perhaps not. The Vatican is not a registered state with the United Nations so it’s sort of legally ambiguous whether or not the Pope actually has diplomatic immunity. Regardless, “diplomatic immunity” is the least of the reasons nothing will become of this.
Given that is a-the frickin’ Pope, I think we can call it de facto diplomatic immunity rather than de jure.
Richard Dawkins is an asshole.
Where is the crime? Benedict failed to immediately defrock a priest convicted of sexual misconduct. In what sense is this concealment or conspiracy? Benedict did not interfere with any legal investigation. He did not try to hide information from the authorities. The priest had already been convicted. Benedict did not plan some crime, then take affirmative steps to execute it – the requirements for conspiracy. Waiting two years to defrock the priest was probably a poor judgment call, but it seems Benedict hoped to rehabilitate the priest.
Dawkins would love to see the biggest religious figure go down in shame, as it would vindicate his life’s effort to vilify religion. The New York Times, which regularly criticizes the Catholic Church for failure to liberalize on abortion, homosexuality, and married and female priests, has fiercely pushed this story (much as it has pushed stories tying Michael Steele, head of the Republican National Committee, to RNC members taking young Republicans to see nude dancers). Most comments in response to the nytimes.com articles suggest that it’s about time the Catholic Church got the infamy its medieval and discriminatory ways deserved.
Frankly, I think most outrage at Benedict (as opposed to the molesters and their concealing bishops) comes from people who have always hated the Vatican for political or religious reasons, and just needed an excuse to attack the Pope.
It is significant that all levels of the church have been involved in a massive cover up of serious crimes and have actively aided in the committing of these crimes by turning a blind eye to the crimes, preventing the prosecution of those involved and tampering with witnesses by actively working to quiet their claims. It is also significant that they have lied about it for years and when facing a smoking gun, make themselves the victims. Its not because Dawkins enjoys seeing the Church exposed for its wrongdoings that the wrongdoings the church committed are any more acceptable.
It seems a lot less likely that it was massive cover-up than many small unrelated cover-ups that could be made to look like part of a conspiracy, but aren’t.
The act of hiding the many smaller cover ups has turned into a big cover up, if only how the church officials kept trying to say that Benedict had never known anything at any time despite how his position put him at the very center.
Hades you said the same thing about Ireland and that has turned out to be literally a mass-cover up that everyone in the church above the level of parish priest must have known about and everyone at the level of bishop is definitely culpable for it. Literally every single bishop knew about it, and they covered it up for years - continuing up until 2009! It may have started as a few small cover ups, but because no-one along the chain of the church hierarchy did anything except actively suppress information and witnesses makes it a mass cover-up. And the fact that these stories are starting to break all around the world indicates this is in no way restricted to Ireland.
And X-Wing that’s definitely not the case. Even my father, who has been a devout Catholic most of his life has come to hate the organisation of the church over this. It’s an incredibly sickening story and should in no way be made to seem less-so.
Way too much institutional apologist masturbation in this thread. This ultimately comes down to whether or not the leaders of institutions should be responsible for atrocities committed inside of their institutions. Marx would be rolling over in his grave about this, if it weren’t for the fact he’s already rolled out to the Andromeda galaxy.
Ironically, I’m quite sure people like Hades have repeatedly called for the head of institutional father figures like Bush or Cheney, whom they view as directly responsible for war atrocities committed in Afghanistan and Iraq. Now, I agree with them, and I think far more heads should have rolled, all the way up to the top. But when it comes to the POPE (he’s…he’s so holy) well all of a sudden let’s just forgive him I’m sure it wasn’t his fault. It was just a few bad apples. It’s just ATHEISTS (THOSE EVIL ATHEISTS ALWAYS “PLOTTING” SOMETHING!!!) looking for a reason to slam the venerable institution of the catholic church. Well, I happen to be a follower of the idea that once a problem reaches a certain size (let’s see…like health care, corrections, financial mismanagement etc), it’s infinitely more likely to be a result of an institutional failure rather than a series of incidental individual failures. Well, the critical mass of catholic shit has hit the collective fan on this one. These days, if a teacher even looks the wrong way at a student he could be brought up on sexual harassment charges, yet priests who have been known to fondle little children and the authority figures above them who knew about it and didn’t tell anyone are still walking around among us, and it doesn’t seem to bother most people. Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens might be assholes (why exactly? because they speak their mind and are actually interested in fair and transparent justice?), but you’d have to be foolish to believe they were doing this simply to get the Pope arrested. They aren’t morons; they know it’s not going to happen. But they also know that it will make people think about the fact that the Catholic Church has been above the law for far too long, and as a society we should stop being fucking moronic theists who believe that priests are somehow different or separate from us. Need I remind you the pope was a mother fucking Hitler youth as a child? The fucking pope was a mother fucking Hitler youth. “Oh…but…but zeppelin…he was forced into it. He didn’t have a choice. The poor little pope ;; ;; ;_; he just did it to survive and renounced it as soon as the third reich fell.” Are you fucking kidding me? This is a person who is supposed to be LITERALLY THE WORD OF MOTHER FUCKING GOD ON EARTH. HE IS INCAPABLE OF BEING WRONG OR MAKING A MISTAKE LITERALLY. LITERALLY LITERALLY LITERALIYLYLI LITERALY,
OK obviously I don’t believe the pope is actually literally never wrong, but that’s what the institution of the church claims about him. And if they’re going to make that claim, maybe they should choose someone who has acted during his life in a more God-like manner. If this fucking pope was really so fucking holy, maybe he would have stood up to the institution of the third reich, and consequences be damned. But he didn’t. And surprise surprise, his experiences working his way through this institution certainly taught him a lot about how to handle an institution like the Catholic Church. Basically, crush all dissent bury any evidence that might expose cracks in its foundation.
I like to think of the Catholic Church as the world’s first corporation. In fact, I think corporations learned a lot about how to structure their own institutions from this wonderful example. At the top of the institution, you’ve got the Pope (AKA the CEO). He is the literal representation of that institution out in the real world, but he is removed by many layers of bureaucracy underneath (in the case of the church, you’ve got the cardinals, then the bishops, then the priests, lay people etc. - for corporations you’ve got the board, the executives, directors, vice-directors, middle managers etc.). These layers of bureaucracy basically insulate the top of the institution from taking any blame for actions at lower levels, especially at the lowest levels. Priests fondle little boys and girls, they can be thrown under the rug, perhaps some bishops might have to take the fall, but this way the reputation of the institution as a whole is maintained and the top levels have plausible deniability. Corporations go the same way, but they take it even one step further. Executives and top-level decision makers inside corporations are not even remotely financially responsible for the decisions that they make on behalf of the corporation, even if those decisions lead to complete disaster. And yet, despite the fact that their jobs basically entail no risk whatsoever (many lower-level jobs, especially those based on commission, see their income directly effected by the work that they do, whereas at the upper levels of corporations pay seems to be completely disconnected from any kinds of results whatsoever apart from short-term stock gains), as a society we somehow feel that they deserve to be paid hundreds if not thousands of times more than the workers at the bottom rung of the ladder.
And there you see exactly the kind of train of thought Dawkins and Hitchens are hoping to create. IT’s not about “arresting the pope” it’s about trying to wake people the fuck up and getting them to stop sucking the proverbial cocks of the elite and fucking show some balls for once.
This sort of presumptuous is offensive, as well as unrealistic. Where is your evidence? You leap from “everyone in the church above the level of parish priest must have known” to “every single bishop knew” in the course of a sentence. How can I possibly trust you as an unbiased observer, when proven sexual misconduct by 2-3% of priests convinces you that 100% of bishops “knew about it” and “covered it up for years”? You remind me of Republicans who argued, “Afghanistan shelters so many terrorists, everyone there must know about it, yet they’re doing nothing about it. So they deserve to be carpet-bombed.” That is, because you find the Church’s old hierarchy distasteful (leaving aside your humble “parish priests”), you ignore the need for individualized guilt, and leap to guilt by association.
This is why you’d reply to my statement,
by lecturing,
In what sense does my defense of Benedict diminish the sickening conduct by the molesters and their concealing bishops? Somehow, you’ve decided that by defending Benedict, I must be defending every Catholic clergyman. But hey, if misconduct by a few priests and bishops incriminates the entire Catholic church, any defense of the Pope must be a defense of the bad priests and bishops, right? One bad apple ruins the bunch. Guilt by association.
Like I said, I suspect “most outrage” comes from the Vatican’s political or religious opponents, not all of it. Maybe your father is the rare exception. On the other hand, I wouldn’t be surprised if your father has always found the Vatican’s stances on some issues distasteful – perhaps on abortion, homosexuality, married and female priests, etc.
X-Wing you haven’t had views of the reports published about the systematic abuse perpetrated by the Irish Catholic institution.
It is seriously sickening.
And the point is you’re lessening the responsibility of the organisation. Absolutely the individuals bare the blame - however, that’s only if the organisation as a whole didn’t facilitate their activities. IT DID. I cannot emphasise enough how much of this went on - witnesses and victims were silenced or denounced and had the blame laid on THEM for the actions of the priests - with the knowledge of the bishops.
Note that I’m not saying 100% of bishops approved of the situation but by doing nothing at all about it they facilitated the abuse and assault of children. Seriously, you obviously know nothing about how very, very widespread the abuse was (and recent!) in Ireland.
The fact the latter (usually) believe a divine being will punish them for that behavior probably has something to do with it.
As someone who was raised Catholic (though I don’t subscribe to any denomination these days) my opinion is that these sexual scandals aren’t so much a conspiracy as they are the inevitable result of an ossified hierarchy that insisted in sticking to old customs and maintaining their image over everything else. This is why I still admire Pope John Paul II even after I stopped being Catholic- he turned out to be more open and fair than the hierarchy expected him to be. The stuff he got away with -like treating the leaders of other religions with open respect, even friendship- is amazing, considering how utterly conservative the Church is. I often got the impression that he would’ve done even more if they’d allowed him. After his death I expected things to go back to the old ways, and I was right.
look what you did weiila
Edit: Also, realize that your source is THE SUNDAY TIMES
only slightly less respectable journalism than 4chan
Heh…4chan.
Why is it OK for the Catholic Church to cover up child abuse, but not Day Care Centers?