the church and the law
 

I was wondering why it is the church, any church dosn't have the the law knocking on the door in cases of paedophile rape or general sexual abuse.

isn't the church subject to the same basic laws as everybody else ?

I don't get why sex abuse cases don't go to police investigation and trial just like everyone else.

They do. But up until the fairly recent past, there was no requirement that people report abuse or suspected abuse. If any church knows of abuse and doesn't report it, those in the know can go to jail now.

Beyond that, you seem to have found a hole in the space/time continuum that allows you to post on the internet from the 1950's. Good job with that. Show me how it works?

so it's up to the victims to go to the police ? I mean a gang of bank robbers won't volunteer to give up information. why doesn't the law chase this ? I don't see why the church needs to do anything.

in NY a couple years back there was a news item about a moyle that licked the blood from a circumcision, it killed the baby because the moyle had herpes. now it seems to me the moyle must have known he had herpes so that in my mind was criminal transmission of an STD. I never heard any resolution of that.

the police don't wait around to investigate if black gangs are selling crack, they are pro-active to the point of breaking the civil rights of people who live in poor black communities illegal search and seizure and all.

it seems like people just don't want to know or believe there is a problem.
my post was 04-02-2010, 06:28 PM so I'm not shure if your joking ...did you see a glitch on the date ?

boink, you really don't seem to get it. Generally speaking, no criminals just turn themselves in out of the goodness of their hearts.

Either you're making a bad joke that's in poor taste or you really just don't get what I'm saying.

Assuming it's the latter, I'm not talking about the perpetrator, who in this scenario is a Catholic priest (who, by the way, is no more statistically significant to be a pedophile than the general population). What I'm talking about is the people who find out about that priest's actions after the fact. Where the Church has gotten into trouble in the past is that they've handled everything in house and not reported things to the authorities. That's no longer the case in every single diocese in the US. They have to report, both by law and by their own internal rules. That means that other priests (and nuns, for that matter) can, will and do file reports on other priests (and nuns).

Otherwise I don't see what you're talking about. Honestly, equating the Catholic Church with NAMBLA is offensive, and I'm not even a Catholic. I suppose I can be equally offensive, though, which looks like where this is headed.

..

that's pretty much what I said
I edited out my joke in the above post if it really offended you, sorry I work in a metal shop and I guess I'm used to peppering my dialogue with salty exaggerations. no real offence intended. the church seems to draw in an inordinate amount of attention on this subject regardless of the statistics.

I was just curious what the law says regarding sexual abuse and the church, like if religious organizations are exempt of police investigations like they are taxes or what ?

I just wonder why the police aren't more aggressive investigating this shit. it's disgusting.
I guess I'll just chalk it up to all the other WTF ?!? surrounding religion.

I'm not trying to joke or bash on anything just for the fun of it.

No, they're not exempt from reporting laws.

You seem to think that the police aren't investigating this. I have no earthly idea why you think that. It really makes me think that you just aren't paying attention because I see lots of investigations reported and rushes to judgement.

It's a real problem, and it's being addressed. I'm with you - I classify myself as a disinterested agnostic (don't know, don't care) - but I'm married to a practicing Catholic that used to work in the Church in a department that dealt with this kind of thing on a daily basis. Honestly, it seems like there's currently more of a problem outside the Catholic Church than inside it. At least the Church has some pretty tight controls in place to try to stop stuff before it happens and to deal with it if it does happen.

I guess your right, I'm hearing more on the victims side recently on NPR and your right, I don't hunt up investigation news and whatnot. too many news sources I guess. just seems like there'd be more perp walks by all the time it's gotten lately.

oh well..have a happy easter ! :)

Most of what you're hearing about on NPR is stuff that happened before 1985, which is about when the Catholic Church started taking it seriously.

Pope hit by fresh allegations of paedophile priests cover-up | World news | The Guardian

i put this link here partly for the photo of the pope wearing a pink cowboy hat that i find simultaneously kinda creepy and endearing though i cannot say why endearing. maybe it's the overall cowboy pose the photo captures. hard to say. i also post it because the letter that is the center of the piece lets you peer a little further into the way ratzinger was thinking about some of the issues that attend these molestation cases.

this guy does not think the church should react to anything any temporal institutions float its way. he actually believes that the church is over them, closer to god. so temporal institutions have no power over the church. that seems the direction the letter points in.

creepy yes, endearing umm, I don't see it. cowboy pose ? maybe a cowboy in some freaky underground sex club.

((& Moses walked in)thinking it was yesterday) & ordered a spot of wine.

I worry about the church as much as it worries about me. I hope you never got boinked by a cleric. The sheriff is generally better.

Not directly on topic because you've covered that fairly well, I think. I do however think your above comment is a little (and really, just a little) naive. Like you, I'm not Catholic, but am married to a devout one.

The fact that your wife worked in a church department that dealt with this sort of thing gives you an insight that the rest of us wouldn't have... but it IS a biased one. The church has a strong incentive to not look objectively at the matter.

From an informed outsider's POV (I read just about everything I can on this topic), it really seems that the church's response is weak, and only comes into play when there is a local media focus on the issue. Abuses in Ireland and Europe, where the strength of the church precluded media attention until relatively recently continued well into the 1990's and probably into the early 2000's, despite the prominent reports from the US. Abuses in Africa and Asia are almost certainly continuing to this day, aided and abetted by the church (no, I have no evidence for that; simply the lessons of recent history). Church controls are far from consistent from diocese to diocese.

As to their being no more danger of a priest being a pedophile than in the general population, it depends. Most pedophiles are actually not serial but opportunistic in nature. They assault a child in their own family and never outside. Priests who do offend tend to fall into the serial category, and so spread their harm over more victims.

So the issue of how much danger there is relates more to the nature of the pedophilia (serial vs opportunistic) and exposure of potential victims. The nature of their work gives priests access to more potential victims. It's like a pedophile elementary school teacher versus a pedophile banker. Where is there more danger?

Finally, there is at least some anecdotal evidence that the priesthood somewhat preferentially attract males with pedophilic or homosexual predispositions (I hate putting those 2 terms together because they ARE NOT related in any way). The simple rationale is that men with those tendencies who recognise that in themselves are drawn to the celibate lifestyle as a means to control any urges. It may work for at least some.