Report Card

Student: The Catholic Church
Academic term: Most recent millenium

Evolution vs Creationism: F
Appropriateness of Torture: D
Cosmology of Solar System: F
Role of women: F
Treatment of children: F

Recommendation: Student is showing profound learning disabilities. Recommend continued remedial education through watching and (following its customary period of kicking and screaming) ultimately emulating liberal, secular society. Eventually student may catch up to the other kids and be a functioning member of society.

This is such a volitile subject.

The abused need to heal and they can do that by distancing themselves from the RCC as far away as they can get.

They don't need apologies from evil men and or women who delibertly and willfully groomed them for their sexual purposes.

If at all possible, the survivors need to reconnect with their LORD AND SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST IN PRAYER.

These men and women who have done these hidious things to you, are being held accountabile to the HOLY SPIRIT, as they have committed the UNFOIRGIVEABLE SIN. That is what the Bible says

They all need to be in jail, away from any more people they can harm.

The whole RCC should be on trial in the World Court and found GUILTY, as they have done these Crimes Against Humanity for millenium(s)

Whether a priest is "laicized" or not is of no significance to me. That is your and your Church's business.

Read the article again:

Erickson was a priest in the Diocese of Superior, Wis, who made the settlement

Erickson admitted in an interview with The Associated Press on Monday that he had fondled three boys but denied having contact with a fourth child involved in the settlement. He said the settlement totaled about $5 million.

Bishop Peter Christensen of the Diocese of Superior was out of the office Monday and did not return a call seeking comment.
The settlement was a civil matter and no criminal charges were ever filed against Ericksen.

Areyousaying wrote (about the laicized priest who molested Special Olympics athletes as a lay person):
"If he were of a religion that is not "above the law," he would be in prison now."

Actually, I read that the diocese where he lives states that not only has he never worked for their diocese in any capacity, he is not registered in any parish there. It's not clear whether this man practices his Catholic faith anymore, but what I read seemed to imply that he does not necessarily. Unfortunately it happens sometimes that the rupture with the Church is severe enough that there are some laicized priests who are basically "fallen away Catholics". I know of one (though not a child molester!) in my local area, who essentially says so.

I note that the Catholic Church has been criticized by some people for not having a policy of immediately laicizing any priest who molests a child. In this case the priest was indeed laicized, but people like Areyousaying still want to blame the Church for the action of this individual who is not only no longer among its ministers, but perhaps not practicing his faith as a lay person either. Others would say cases like this suggest arguments against laicizing such priests, because then the Church is in a position to continue monitoring the priest. As it is, this laicized priest no longer had a relationship with the Church of a kind that the Church would have a responsibility for where he was or what he was doing, even as intensely as the Church might desire that he not have contact with children or molest them.

Meanwhile...

Mo. Special Olympics ousts ex-priest over abuse

..former priest, Tom Ericksen, 62, of Kansas City, was suspended indefinitely last week after the organization learned of the 1989 settlement with the Diocese of Superior, Wis.

Ericksen admitted in an interview with The Associated Press on Monday that he had fondled three boys but denied having contact with a fourth child involved in the settlement. He said the settlement totaled about $5 million.

"I just fondled and stuff like that," Ericksen said during the interview in the lobby of his Kansas City apartment building.
"But I can't say I didn't do inappropriate things. ... But I never had sex" with them, he said.

Bishop Peter Christensen of the Diocese of Superior was out of the office Monday and did not return a call seeking comment.
The settlement was a civil matter and no criminal charges were ever filed against Ericksen

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/19/AR2010071904949.html?hpid=sec-religion

If he were of a religion that is not "above the law," he would be in prison now.
Do you think the DA and jury would be satisfied if anyone else defended their criminal actions by saying,
"I just fondled and stuff like that"?

Catholics can not deny the Church is more interested in protecting its clergy and image than they are in healing the victims who they still demonize and call "gold diggers"

Peter's Church of Christ indeed.

May Mother Mary cleanse this Church and it's sniveling apologists from these atrocities and their cover up of them.

Why peaple mind abpout the doctrines of the Catholic church?If you are not a Catholic then why are you so much concerned with it`s teachings and beliefs?
Peaple lack what to say at the right time and the right place.If the church has false teachings,why is it that priests from other denominations are flowing into it?You all know what is in the Anglican church.Those who are agitating for the union with the catholic church are soon coming into the union.So,am wondering for those who think the catholic church can collapse it`s a dream brethlens.
The catholic church unlike other denominations is so organised.
They say,"a country withiout a leader is like a ship without a campus".Do those denominations have the world leaders as the catholic church?
Remember Jesus left St.Peter to lead His church,and so that`s why you see the Pope.
The hatred has resulted into the blessings within the Catholic church.
Mary Mother of God pray for your Church susch that it can continue growing.

I hope peaple just hate the catholic church,and there is no reasion why they are ever commenting about it.We should know that the Catholic church is the Mother of all churches in the world,and it has got the mojolity followers.
The reasion why i respect the Catholic church takes things on low profile un like other religions that point at it.When a Pastor from the born again is preaching,he talks about the catholic church about it`s doctrines among others.
We all know what the Islam with it`s followera are doing,but no one can come up and blame them because you know what will follow ofcourse.But because the Catholic church is not all that violent,it takes things on low profile.Therefore,i wish bring it to you that the Catholic church will heal those wounds and it will remain stronger.
For the case of women to be ordnaed as priest,it`s very clear the women are not supposed to become the priests because Jesus had only men as his Apostles,if you want to bring pluralism in the church,you should go a head and change the Bible too.
Otherwise,the Catholic church is still firm because is built on a rock as Jesus said so.
Long live the Catholic church.
Lawrence,from Uganda.

"Its funny to see Catholic posters complain that other religions and institutions have sex abuse too, as if it excuses them. The critical difference is that none of these institutions feel that they have the right to govern themselves and act as judge and jury, instead of turning the guilty over. No public school has a trial over a teacher that rapes a child and then reassigns him to a new class because they are low on teachers.
Posted by: Sajanas"

What are you talking about? If a teacher is to be removed from her job, it goes to an administrative court and may even be subject to an arbitrator. That's completely in house.

The concept is called state immunity. Crimes perpetuated by the public sector remain under a separate jurisdiction, with its own courts, its own burdens of proof, with a reduced statute of limitations (most states 6 months), and immunity for supervisors and organization as a whole from civil (monetary) penalty.

In NYC and other cities with strong public sector unions, there's teachers that were successfully prosecuted in criminal and civil court that have not been fired because the teachers stalled the administrative court proceedings.

I recall one case in which the principal knew the teacher had an affair w/ their student (he actually married a former student when she was under age), but the crime wasn't reported until the teacher had another affair years later. Unfortunately the latest case won only in civil, not criminal court. So when the administrative court brought up its process to fire the teacher, it sought to bring up the older case to show this teacher is real threat. However, the principal never reported original case, and so neither the teacher or principal could not be fired for the original or latest case because the administrative rules had a statute of limitations of only a few months.

Municipalities hold dearly to this privilege too. There was a bill in the NY state legislature that targeted private and religious schools for sex abuse. When it was successfully lobbied to include public schools, the municipalities raised a fuss and at present the bill hasn't come to a vote.

And it's not just NYC. Didn't you read the news this past year that the present DC teachers contract has no sanction against teacher sex abuse over the age of 16? The teachers union and DC ACLU were fighting against a zero-tolerance policy. The union and ACLU wanted to restrict it to teachers' and their current students. So, in their view, it would be alright for a janitor to prey on a child or 12th grade teacher on a 10th grader.

"So what the Pope is saying is a Bishop ordaining a woman is no less of a sin than of a Priest raping me when I was a 14-year-old boy?
Posted by: areyousaying"

No. Again, you're misunderstanding the Vatican. (So is the media.)

The CDF is a Vatican committee that handles cases of grave crimes against faith and morals. False ordination is a grave crime. You can't have priests out there claiming what they aren't.

However, there is and has been no attempt to equate the two. It is simply that the same committee handles both cases. Just as criminal courts handle both cases of murder and burglary. The state doesn't equate the two crimes, but does consider them criminal crimes and assigns them to the same court.

However, the latest revision of the committee's policies did equate something with child sex abuse. They raised the penalties of perpetuating and/or covering up the abuse of mentally-challenged adults to the same level as abuse against children.

I agree very much with MWCOB. The few sick priests who go horribly astray and do grave harm to children, are obviously not representative. They are obviously not our ideal, and we obviously do not defend their actions. As MWCOB points out, most Catholics are lay people like MWCOB--and myself, and we too are the Catholic Church, and we love her. I add, we love our priests, truly I know some exceptional, wonderful, and truly chaste priests.

Those wonderful priests I know are ~~Catholic~~ priests, and together with other faithful Catholics, laity included, they believe as the Catholic Church teaches. They don't believe artificial contraception or abortion or same-sex behavior, or divorce and remarriage are in keeping with the natural moral law, nor indeed that these are what is good for people and society. Their espousal of these basic and consistent Christian beliefs, apparently makes some people (who are free to practice Catholicism or not) absolutely hopping mad. Rage over the Church's witness to truths of sexual morality, is clearly a factor in the lack of civility in response to the news about the grave sexual offenses of some priests. No Church response to the sex abuse issue could ever appease someone for whom the real issue is they want the Church's blessing on their own sins. Any sense that the Church wills anything but the annihilation of priests who did heinous things to children, may be intolerably painful to them, maybe because this is so much objectively graver and more humanly devastating than, for instance, contraception. Why can't the Church just follow suit with the culture, and say that these common things like contraception and homosexual behavior (for instance) aren't really sins anymore--and focus on the very most horrendous things, like child molestation? The answer is that the Church doesn't see herself as the source of the moral law, rather this is from God, is intrinsic to our nature, and unchanging, and we are called to be holy, to do God's loving will in actuality, as best as we know how and are able to, in virtue, which is also living our humanity in the fullest and most beautiful way. It's the way to happiness, to beatitude.

May God's mercy be on all here.

The Catholic church is a dinosaur. Period.

Fort Bliss says:

"Perhaps Buddhist monks should be allowed to marry? Perhaps women should become Buddhist monks? Why not allow Catholic nuns to marry?

Ridiculous, right?"

Um, no. These rules carry stimatism against marriage and human emotions of love and caring. What's the big deal? I'd love to have a happily married nun teach the kids. We might have more nuns in Catholic schools!

I am Catholic who is geatly disturbed by the manner in which the Church has handled the sexual abuse of children by priests scandal.

For years the Church put the avoidance of embarassment and protection of those priests who violated children ahead of the well being of children.

The arguement that others have done the same is counter-productive.

Until Catholics admit that the Church is guilty of a terrible sin and work agressively to prevent it from happening in the future the stain of this tragedy is a wound that will remain and fester.

gays cannot be priests or any other authority figures...
they are pedophiles in waiting...

Posted by: DwightCollins
-------------------------------
And Donohue Catholics can never enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

Its funny to see Catholic posters complain that other religions and institutions have sex abuse too, as if it excuses them. The critical difference is that none of these institutions feel that they have the right to govern themselves and act as judge and jury, instead of turning the guilty over. No public school has a trial over a teacher that rapes a child and then reassigns him to a new class because they are low on teachers.

It amuses me to no end that Benedict keeps raging against the secular. He may have some people brainwashed, but how does he expect to win this fight? When secular morality offers gender equality, gay rights, and reproductive health, I find it hard to see how a culture that denigrates all of those will survive. Especially when the supposedly most moral of institutions takes decades to address the pretty basic moral wrong of child rape.

What's stunning is that these crimes occur in Jewish synagogues, Baptist churches, Episcopalian churches, Public Schools, Pediatrician offices, etc. In fact over 400 public school teachers every year will be charged with sexual misconduct related crimes. Where are those reports? I don't dismiss the grave mortal sin that selected priests have committed. But as a devout Catholic, I object to the fact that out of a billion Catholics, the vast majority of whom are raising their kids responsibly, the Post wants everyone to believe that the Catholic Church is the exclusive domain of a comparatively small group of failed priests. (comparatively next to the billion of laity they to whom they should be ministering)

I am security contractor. I am a devoted father of two. I go to weekly confession, volunteer at food banks, and volunteer in various youth services jobs. As much as any offending priest...

...I too am the Catholic Church. She is my home. She is my family.

Posted by: mwcob
----------------------------------

Then the solution is simple. Turn all known pervert priests over to civil authorities now.

Until then, you're just crying

"Others do it, too.
Others do it, too.
It's OK for Christ's Church 'cause others do it, too!

Except "others" don't pretend to be "Brothers of Christ"

Why does your Church think it can be above civil laws in these matters? And why are there no mandates for civil reporting and punishment for Bishops who continue to obstruct justice?

By the way, how do you like to be on the other end of stereotyping like your fellow
Catholic Dwight Collins, who stereotypes all gays as pedophiles in another post here?

It's not fair, is it?

But until your Church does something more concrete than comparing child rape to ordaining women in the same edict, this issue will be a huge, infected, puss filled zit on the end our your pompous noses forever.

The difference between prodestant crimes and papacy is that if a prodestant preacher is caught having sex with a child, that preacher goes to prison!

The papacy scares me. I see the pope decorated in such elaborate garb then I see Jesus dressed in simpe clothing, non assuming, teacher, prophet, healer. It seems the teachings of Christ, the commandments are a second thought to the papacy. The pope seems to be the central theme and Jesus an afterthought. The laws of men vs the laws of God. This was the primary reasons for the reformation. When regards for a human man the pope are above our Saviour. Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour and the pope is a employee of our Lord. The pope walks around in what i consider silly elaborate expensive garb, huge gold crowns, like he is a god, that seems wrong. That is my view.

So what the Pope is saying is a Bishop ordaining a woman is no less of a sin than of a Priest raping me when I was a 14-year-old boy?

Without a mandate to turn existing perverts over to civil authorities for prosecution like any other pervert teacher or minister, the Church is still holding itself above civil law and tries to tell us they will take care of the problem.

History has shown they can't and won't.
The is no penalty prescribed for Bishops who continue their complicit racketeering.

Why is a Church above the law, especially in the US? Why do we look the other way as if God entitled old men of the clergy to help themselves to the bodies of young boys?

I don't want any of the Church's dirty semen and blood stained money and never did. All I want is civil law protection for future victims as a deterrent against perverts and as a deterrent against criminal obstruction of justice by hiding them.

When the Church coughs up all its known pervert priests for civil prosecution and officially tells us it did, may you no- longer-complicit Catholics enjoy your religious freedom. Until then, the rest of us, especially victims who your leaders have demonized as "gold diggers," aren't going to sit back, look the other way and pretend the problem doesn't exist like you apparently do.

gays cannot be priests or any other authority figures...
they are pedophiles in waiting...

Ms. Dillon says: "This week, the Vatican outlined more new rules for the disciplining of abusive priests." As Catholic Church documents go, the one she mentions is very unusal. Most Church documents bearing on wrongdoing concern its moral aspects. This one does nothing but codify many points of the Church's law, most of which were already in effect. (The attempted ordination of a woman was already dealt with by a decree issued on 19 December 2007.) For that reason, nothing in this document articulates the Pope's and his helpers' views on the relevant moral or other aspects of the matters treated.

Church law is concerned with everything from a very different point of view than the laws of political society. Public law should defend and promote the human common good of the society's members. Church law should defend and promote reverence for God and the holiness of the Church's members. Unless one shares that perspective, Church law is bound to seem absurd.

From the perspective of the Catholic Church's law, simulating the celebration of the Eucharist, soliciting a woman who is confessing her sins to commit adultery, and trying to ordain a woman are all greater crimes than leading an adolescent boy to participate in sodomy. However, even the latter crime is far greater, from the perspective of the Catholic Church's law, that treason against one's country, which Church law nowhere mentions.

What's stunning is that these crimes occur in Jewish synagogues, Baptist churches, Episcopalian churches, Public Schools, Pediatrician offices, etc. In fact over 400 public school teachers every year will be charged with sexual misconduct related crimes. Where are those reports? I don't dismiss the grave mortal sin that selected priests have committed. But as a devout Catholic, I object to the fact that out of a billion Catholics, the vast majority of whom are raising their kids responsibly, the Post wants everyone to believe that the Catholic Church is the exclusive domain of a comparatively small group of failed priests. (comparatively next to the billion of laity they to whom they should be ministering)

I am security contractor. I am a devoted father of two. I go to weekly confession, volunteer at food banks, and volunteer in various youth services jobs. As much as any offending priest...

...I too am the Catholic Church. She is my home. She is my family.

Being a member of a reformed catholic Church (the Scottish Episcopal Church) we watch with interest the spiralling catastrophe emerging with the Roman Church, which is sad. Their adherence to the Pope's dogma is still curious. RCs are not encouraged to have an informed opinion. I know of many RC friends who ignore the Pope's statements and follow their own, inner consciences. His condemnation of women priests in the same breath as sex abusers is appalling.
The Pope's forthcoming 'State Visit' to Scotland when he will meet the Queen at the Palace of the Holyrood in Edinburgh is viewed with doubt and aprehension by many RCs, as well as others, yet we will be polite to visiting dignatories and welcome him - but not too much. He will then fly to England where security will have to be tight. He ignores the criminal law of countries which demand that sexual abuse should first be reported to the Police. Canon Law takes second place. "Render under Caesar the things that are his...etc"

You, Professor Dillon, I believe are far too sympathetic to the Vatican's line that there are forces external to their religion that account for the crisis of sexual abuse revelations in the RC Church, rather than intrinsic psychological and therefore moral wrongs they themselves propagate that in fact have led them to the unsavory place they find themselves. I have written at length elsewhere (www.viewfrommywindrow.blogspot.com) about the self-deception they are engaged in, but let me just advance the notion here that in displacing moral blame, and doing so inveterately, they continue to do what individual priests do in instances of child sexual abuse, which is create victims. That failure to look within and failure to listen to those from without is the ultimate source of their blindness and deafness to the harm caused to victims--not just ineptness at PR with the secular press, secular world, and their own followers.

R.S. Hoffman, M.D.

Perhaps Buddhist monks should be allowed to marry? Perhaps women should become Buddhist monks? Why not allow Catholic nuns to marry?
.
Ridiculous, right?
.
Everyone has a vocation, some to the married life, some to a celibate life dedicated to God. All of us should pray more to discern what God expects of us and not what God expects of others.

Once again, the bishops are wearing their miters too tightly. What are far more serious episcopal sins: 1-denying the Eucharist to its members because there are no priests available due to the non-marriage law. 2-refusing due to pride to acknowledge the power of the Spirit to acknowledge the need and the place for women in its ordained ministry. Yes, Jesus started off with 12 men but do you think he would be preaching a "No women need apply."?

Maybe Religious Leaders do NOT get it. These religious Leaders; Catholic, Christian, Jewish, etc; when they violate any form of moral responsibility, they have let go of their faith completely, and replaced their faith with personal greed.

Catholic/Christian believers allow for repentance, but as a Buddhist, I am beginning to believe the idea is being overused and not respected. Once is enough, more than once it is a habit that needs to be changed internally.

Religious Leaders are hypocritical when they allow their group to act outside of their identified moral responsibility and become an accomplice to the act, condoning immoral behavior within their religious order.

Looking down and calling gay people faith-less while the Catholic Leadership allows pedophilia of children is unacceptable, like the pot calling the kettle black.

My problem is a simple one; please resolve it for me:

The Vatican insists that Roman Catholic dioceses operate as independent entities; hence, it is not responsible for the goings-on in these places. Yet these places must follow the Vatican line. How, exactly, does that work?

Years ago, as an undergraduate at Notre Dame (Indiana), a classmate made a very convincing argument that Orwell's 1984 could be applied to the governance of the Roman Catholic Church. An O'Brien, you'll remember, was Big Brother.

In 50+ years, nothing has changed.

"overall context of the disturbing problem of sex abuse" is related to secularization and its impact on "people's traditional adherence to Catholic teaching and values" and "loss of respect for the Church and her teachings"

What a crock. It has gone on for centuries. Anyone thinking this is a new thing is kidding themselves. Which means they have raped kids for centuries. This is a result of an unimpinged theocratic regime.

Its secular forces that are exposing these b*stards and the only loss of respect occurs through their blind stupidity of thinking they can systematically rape kids and get away with it.

We all would benefit from more time in prayer, and may I in all charity suggest that that is true as much for the misguided souls who natter on about priestesses as for anyone.

The real crime in all of this is not letting priests marry if they so choose. What is so difficult to understand?

Just when you think that the Church cannot sink any lower, they throw out two heaping shovels full. Basically he is saying in one breath “secularism” causes priests to have sex with little boys and in the next breath that those who even disagree with the Church on the ordination of women have committed an equivalent sin. That’s not being tone deaf; that’s being morally dead.

Ironically, this Pope doesn’t seem to understand that a sectarian government might choose to establish a religion other than Roman Catholicism. That is just one of the reasons that any government that is not secular is inherently unjust.

The administration of the RCC still must believe that to blame all will distract from the fact that the administration silennce the truth of the sexual crimes against children by their employees to protect the image of the church. Why does thow paint thow into a corner? NUTS!