So cicero, are you saying that you agree that the catholic church and possibly the pope are and were involved in a sexual abuse cover up? Perhaps you are agreeing with everything EXCEPT the timing....correct? If it became a major issue in June, would it be ok?
As far as the movie THE PASSION.......I guess my christian belief in GOD, thankfully, transcends beyond a movie. For me....the movie depicted what Christ went through FOR ME!! end of story.
As far as the blood and violence, well...that's Mel Gibson. I went into the theater having seen trailers of the film, so I knew what to expect. It didn't shock me....it just confirmed my christian 'personal' belief.
And Christ is the center of MY personal Christian belief. I'll leave the anti-semitism to the anti-semite experts!
Sometimes people just make too much of things!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
So cicero, are you saying that you agree that the catholic church and possibly the pope are and were involved in a sexual abuse cover up? Perhaps you are agreeing with everything EXCEPT the timing....correct? If it became a major issue in June, would it be ok?
My issue is not only the timing, but also the way in which it has been reported. Allegations of pedophilia in the Catholic Church have been reported as if those accused have been tried and convicted.
Let's take a look at the words that the AP uses in this article.
Quoted Text
The Vatican is facing one of its gravest crises of modern times as sex abuse scandals move ever closer to Pope Benedict XVI — threatening not only his own legacy but also that of his revered predecessor. Benedict took a much harder stance on sex abuse than John Paul II when he assumed the papacy five years ago, disciplining a senior cleric championed by the Polish pontiff and defrocking others under a new policy of zero tolerance. But the impression remains of a woefully slow-footed church and of a pope who bears responsibility for allowing pedophile priests to keep their parishes. In an editorial on Friday, the National Catholic Reporter in the United States called on Benedict to answer questions about his role “in the mismanagement” of sex abuse cases, not only in the current crisis but during his tenure in the 1980s as archbishop of Munich and then as head of the Vatican’s doctrinal and disciplinary office. It all comes down to the question of what the pope knew and when. The answer will almost certainly determine the fate of Benedict’s papacy. As he approaches Holy Week, the most solemn period on the Christian calendar, victims’ groups and other critics are demanding Benedict accept personal responsibility. A few say he should resign. Some fear the crisis will alienate Catholics from the church, with a survey in Benedict’s native Germany already showing disaffection among Catholics while there is deep anger in once very Catholic Ireland.
This is just an opportunity for the secular media to take shots at the Catholic Church's image based on 50 year old allegations. As you can see, they used very descriptive wording like "deep anger" or "fear of crisis" and "gravest crisis in modern times" to describe unsubstantiated allegations leveled against the Pope. Believe me, they know what they are doing when they present the information is this way. This AP article is red meat for the secular progressives.
Cicero....why does this surprise you? The liberal socialist media uses this 'shock language' all the time. It doesn't matter what they are reporting. Hell....they even do it when they report the weather. They sensationalize everything!!!! The use of FEAR is the best ammunition they have to control the population......and it sells!
Let's not forget the SWINE FLU (H1N1) that was going to kill us all!!!!! Let's not forget the raucci trial.....'TERRORIST'? paleeezzzeeee!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Question.....do priests that have been proven pedophiles have to register as a sex offender and live the the allotted distance from parks and schools and such?
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Contrary to media, church is fighting child sex abuse BY GEORGE WEIGEL The Philadelphia Inquirer
Whether the victim is a kidnapped sex slave in Thailand, a trafficked child camel jockey in the Persian Gulf states, or a fifth-grader assaulted in an American elementary school, the fact that children and young people throughout the world are regularly subjected to sexual and physical abuse is a horror that ought to shock the conscience of humanity. In the United States alone, there are reportedly tens of millions of victims of childhood sexual abuse. In the years between 1991 and 2000, according to Virginia Commonwealth University researcher Charol Shakeshaft, 290,000 students were sexually abused in American public schools. Worse yet, studies indicate that 40 percent to 60 percent of sexual abuse takes place within families — often at the hands of second husbands or live-in boyfriends. Throughout the world, children seem to be the principal victims of lawlessness, wanton cruelty, the sexual revolution, and the hookup culture that treats sex as a contact sport: one in which everyone, of any age, is a potential player. ADDRESSING THE PROBLEM Yet amid this global squalor, one institution has begun to come to grips with its past failures to protect the young people in its care. One institution has acknowledged its grave failures in the past. One institution has brought perpetrators of abuse to book. That institution is the Catholic Church. Far more than the public schools, far more than the teachers’ unions, far more than other organizations that regularly work with young people, and far more than countries that turn a blind eye on sex trafficking and childhood prostitution, the Catholic Church has addressed what Pope Benedict XVI has called the “filth” in its own house. Catholicism has cleaned house in America, where the church is probably the country’s safest environment for young people today (there were six credible cases of abuse reported in 2009: six too many, but remarkably low in a community of 68 million members). Now, the church has begun to scour the Augean stables of Irish Catholicism. A March 20 letter to Irish Catholics from Benedict unsparingly condemned abusers and sharply rebuked bishops who failed to take these problems in hand decades ago and who covered up abuse; no one should doubt that a major shake-up of Catholic leadership in Ireland is coming. Yet the global story line of the last several weeks is that the Catholic Church is an ongoing global criminal conspiracy of sexual abusers and their enablers, centered in the Vatican. ............>>>>................>>>>..............http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r03102&AppName=1
The timing was of course done purposely by the liberal media during holy week. The crimes themselves are reprehenseable. Abusing a child should bring a life sentence or worse. As a practicing Catholic I have become quite distrustful of the lib. media. They seem to take great delight in reporting stories that give credability to anti-catholic sentiments. Like calling Good Friday spring day or saying happy holidays instaed of Merry Christmas. Now I never have seen a story about renaming Passover, or Ramadan, or Kwanza. I have to wonder if the media sat on this story and released it during Holy Week.
The timing was of course done purposely by the liberal media during holy week. The crimes themselves are reprehenseable. Abusing a child should bring a life sentence or worse. As a practicing Catholic I have become quite distrustful of the lib. media. They seem to take great delight in reporting stories that give credability to anti-catholic sentiments. Like calling Good Friday spring day or saying happy holidays instaed of Merry Christmas. Now I never have seen a story about renaming Passover, or Ramadan, or Kwanza. I have to wonder if the media sat on this story and released it during Holy Week.
Why are you so surprised? The catholic church is the liberal socialists. The catholic church is a government unto itself but under the guise of 'organized religion'. They are rich and powerful and liberal thinking. The catholic church has been leaning secular for the last few decades. They have to. They lose parishioners and they lose money. They lose parishioners and they lose power. By slowly blending into the liberal socialist agenda, which they have done over the past few generations, it becomes almost impossible to notice.
Example.....Gambling at a church bizarre. If they don't offer it, attendance is low. If they offer it, 'they will come'. IMHO
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Basil--media didn't treat this any different than they treated the a local rabbi guilty of sex abuse during the fall at Rosh Hashanah. Holy Week is the PERFECT time to address that crime for the church. I participated in three different churches for the Triduum and EACH referenced the abuse. I think that was a good thing. This is a terrible mark on my faith tradition. We need to deal with it for all involved as well as those spectators.
Pope Benedict can heal church, victims by stepping down
I am a practicing Catholic and am deeply attached to my faith and that is not likely to change. That said, the continuing saga of priests who have sexually abused children remains a massive stain on our church because of how the institutional church fought so hard to cover up the worldwide scandal and how badly the victims of this abuse have been treated [April 5 Gazette]. While many of the stories that are coming out now in the country and Europe do not represent recent incidents, they repeatedly demonstrate how the hierarchy failed to protect our young, instead focusing on the proverbial cover-up within the culture of silence. It has also been shameful how little Christian love was extended to the young people who were abused. I cry when I think of all these young innocents, many of whom have been damaged for life by those we implicitly trusted. I also pray for the wonderful priests and nuns who have committed their lives to the service of all of us, who are true to their calling, but who must live in the shadow of this scandal. I am in no position to determine what role, if any, the current pope, Benedict XVI, played in covering up any part of this scandal in any of his previous posts as Archbishop of Munich or Prefect of the Congregation of the Faithful. It is fair to say, however, that he should have been a powerful force for good in either case, and we know he was not. It is within Benedict’s authority to use this moment, however, to achieve some kind of reconciliation for all of us. The pope can go a long way to healing this tragic state of affairs by using this Easter season to seek the forgiveness of all victims of clerical abuse and manifest the importance of his words, and his humility, by tendering his resignation. While this step may seem extreme, it would be an opportunity for the pontiff to commit his remaining days to repairing the institutional church’s relationship with those who have been abused. In the end, he may leave a legacy as one who helped to save his church.
Organized religion is the evil of all evils in the world. Why isn't there a RICO investigation into the church? The Pope has admitted these things have happened...why is he still allowed in this country?
And to the Catholics...would you belong to a club that was accused of abusing children? Why is the church okay? Catholicism is as scary to me as Scientology.
Benedict admits church’s role in scandal BY BARRY HATTON The Associated Press
LISBON, Portugal — In his most thorough admission of the church’s guilt in the clerical sex abuse scandal, Pope Benedict XVI said Tuesday the greatest persecution of the institution “is born from the sins within the church,” and not from a campaign by outsiders. The pontiff said the Catholic church has always been tormented by problems of its own making — a tendency that is being witnessed today “in a truly terrifying way.” “The church needs to profoundly relearn penitence, accept purifi cation, learn forgiveness but also justice,” he said. “Forgiveness cannot substitute justice,” he said. Benedict was responding to journalists’ questions, submitted in advance, aboard the papal plane as he flew to Portugal for a four-day visit. In a shift from the Vatican’s initial claim that the church was the victim of a campaign by the media and abortion rights and pro-gay marriage groups, Benedict said: “The greatest persecution of the church doesn’t come from enemies on the outside but is born from the sins within the church.” ..............>>>>.........>>>>.............http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r00401&AppName=1
Vatican warned Irish bishops not to report abuse By SHAWN POGATCHNIK, Associated Press Shawn Pogatchnik, Associated Press – 1 hr 17 mins ago
DUBLIN – A 1997 letter from the Vatican warned Ireland's Catholic bishops not to report all suspected child-abuse cases to police — a disclosure that victims' groups described as "the smoking gun" needed to show that the church enforced a worldwide culture of covering up crimes by pedophile priests.
The newly revealed letter, obtained by Irish broadcasters RTE and provided to The Associated Press, documents the Vatican's rejection of a 1996 Irish church initiative to begin helping police identify pedophile priests following Ireland's first wave of publicly disclosed lawsuits.
The letter undermines persistent Vatican claims, particularly when seeking to defend itself in U.S. lawsuits, that Rome never instructed local bishops to withhold evidence or suspicion of crimes from police. It instead emphasizes the church's right to handle all child-abuse allegations and determine punishments in house rather than give that power to civil authorities.
Signed by the late Archbishop Luciano Storero, Pope John Paul II's diplomat to Ireland, the letter instructs Irish bishops that their new policy of making the reporting of suspected crimes mandatory "gives rise to serious reservations of both a moral and canonical nature."
Storero wrote that canon law, which required abuse allegations and punishments to be handled within the church, "must be meticulously followed." Any bishops who tried to impose punishments outside the confines of canon law would face the "highly embarrassing" position of having their actions overturned on appeal in Rome, he wrote.
Catholic officials in Ireland and the Vatican declined AP requests to comment on the letter, which RTE said it received from an Irish bishop.
Child-abuse activists in Ireland said the 1997 letter demonstrates that the protection of pedophile priests from criminal investigation was not only sanctioned by Vatican leaders but ordered by them................................>>>>...................................>>>>..........................http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110118/ap_on_re_eu/eu_ireland_catholic_abuse