Will the Catholic church's cover-up never end?

And the evangelical churches seem to be doing all right & probably the most repressive and male-dominated of the lot!

Churches in a downward spiral in Western Europe but not elsewhere. And what about Islam? Making converts at a rate of knots.

Of course many people lead celibate lives by choice - that is fine.

But a vast and powerful organisation that controls the lives of many of the poorest people in the world has always had its knickers in a twist about sex.
Extolling virginity and celibacy; interfering in the sex lives of couples regarding birth control - these things reflect the personal problems of the male-dominated clergy rather than the spirit of christianity or any other religion.

They have only got away with it for so long because of a male-dominated culture - now that those walls are being broken down, the churches are having to think again. Either religion has to go with the flow a bit, or else they finish up in a fundamentalist and repressive downward spiral as we can see from many other countries.

And many people appear to lead perfectly happy celibate lives from choice. Since some people (not religious or ordained) feel moved to live celibate lives, it can hardly be described as 'unnatural'.

Tegan it isn't the requirement to be celibate that causes some priests to abuse children.

The Irish Catholc Church is facing new legislation making it a criminal offence not to protect a child known to ave been abused, or to report a paedophie priest. It was planned last June, so may be law now.

Is there not something basically wrong about an organisation that advocates celibacy which, by it's very nature goes against, well, human nature? And was the priesthood a sanctuary for men who realised they were homosexual at a time when it was a punishable offence [thank goodness this is no longer the case and they can now lead happy fulfilled lives]. Apologies for not reading the whole thread properly; I'm just having a coffee and 'thinking out loud'.

Greatnan I echo your feelings.

MiceElf as Child Protection (now called Safeguarding) person in your parish I assume you have access to statistics about child abuse and from this and your knowledge of the size of congregations of your own church, and in addition those of all other religious organisations, particularly in Ireland, going back many years, it is relatively easy to calculate rough numbers or percentages of children abused in such circumstances. This also includes other religions.

This is an exercise we did with sex offenders, and found their own calculations to be much higher than those of professionals. And, yes, hundreds of thousands, even going into millions, of children have suffered abuse at the hands of religious men (and some women, as we know). I do not deal in exaggeration. The scale of abuse is shocking and difficult to accept, I know.

There have been many millions of children abused by sex offenders in the last century, who are still alive to report what happened to them as children. The calculations from organisations like ChildLine and NSPCC, who only get to hear of a small percentage of complaints, reinforce the shocking facts about the prevalence of child abuse, both within religious organisations and in other walks of life.

Im relieved to hear that the police were and are informed. Presumably the CPS will prosecute. There have been some senior clergy removed from office in recent years. Perhaps not enough, but you clearly know who they are. I don't. I should be interested to know the offence they are guilty of in law and why the CPS hasn't pursued a prosecution.

I am personally aware of two scout leaders who were moved on. No prosecutions have resulted here either. I'm also aware of a social worker who was 'retired' early after allegations were made. Again, no prosecutions resulted. But I would hesitate to generalise from just my personal experience. Perhaps the police, the CPS and the whole criminal justice system needs to be reviewed and toughened.

MiceElf I am talking about what has been happening in recent years, and my knowledge comes from direct work with priests who offended and were moved by church leaders to try and curtail their behaviour, so these are men the police were involved with relatively recently. This was to illustrate that the churches are still not as up to speed with protecting children as one would hope. The procedure for all public sector workers who become aware of a current risk to children is to report it immediately. As a sex offender treatment provider, all admissions and disclosures about offences, before and after prosecution, were reported to the police. This is how knowledge of corrupt practice regarding offending priests has been gathered over the years. We have yet to see church leaders prosecuted or stripped of their jobs for colluding or failing to protect.

Whenim I cannot comment on what you say. What you allege is unspecific and you do not name names. If you do know that anyone is being moved around or that there is a cover up, surely you should bring this to the attention of the police.

'Thousands even millions of children' seems unlikely to me. It is clear that you detest religions of any sort, but I don't think that exaggeration based on your own perception, is helpful.

I can only speak for now. I am the CP officer in my parish and I can assure you that we comply fully and in every detail with all the protocols.

As for abuse being solely confined to religious organisations, a quick google search will provide you with countless examples of abuse being perpetrated in almost every institution that exists, from political parties to schools to children's homes to sporting associations and so on.

Wherever it occurs it is vile and needs to be stamped out by the most robust of procedures and action.

I was interested in the exchange of comments about paedophile priests being moved around when they offended, and the comment that the church now has the best Safeguarding policies in place. It wasn't until the late 80s that paedophile priests began to receive sex offender treatment, pioneered by Ray Wyre, ex-probation officer and founder of the Gracewell Clinic. When I began working with sex offenders 25 years ago, there were no child protection policies in the Catholic or Anglican church. Probation, police, Gracewell and NOTA (was ROTA, a network of professionals who collaborated to develop research, training, assessment and treatment of SOs - plenty of info about NOTA on Google) all helped the churches to put together their child protection strategies and policies, and by the mid 90s, priests were being prosecuted at last. It was an uphill battle because the church hierarchy were 'forgiving' priests their sins, and we treatment facilitators were being met with collusion and resistance, with priests being allowed ongoing contact with children.

I retired in 2010, and till the last day was overseeing sex offender treatment of sex offenders from many different religions, still being met with collusion and resistance within the same quarters. Yes, the policies are there, but many religious leaders (who have their own history and agenda) do not subscribe to these polcies, believing that their god will forgive or mete out any necessary punishment.

Having sat in conferences and listened to church leaders telling we professionals what they have in place now they have taken responsibility for child protection themselves, you will not blame me for being cyncal when 10 years later I see some of these same men being named as abusers, too! Angry does not even begin to describe how I and my colleagues feel about the way thousands, even millions, of children have been let down within these religious organisations that are supposed to protect them.....and why aren't their congregations, parents, non-abusing priests and leaders making more commotion about what has been happening? Are they so powerful that they can silence the majority of believers?

If I believed and attended a church, I would want answers, and I would be holding the religious leaders to account publicly.....but perhaps believers are also leaving it to ther god to sort out and forgive? Makes no sense at all to me.

BAnanas, it's good to read that you and your Mum did find some good in the church! I think your Dad's attitude was in many ways a not uncommon male way of thinking, particularly in the 1940 and 1950s, in that many men felt that their understanding was the only correct way and disagreement was a personal slight. I think women do tend to be more pragmatic and flexible.

I can also understand your nostalgia for the church and the community that is found there. As I said on another thread (can't remember where now) one of the central messages of the gospels is 'one another' and it's in community and what we give to one another that is the essence of what we believe.

I agree with all that has been said about the gross failures of some clergy and the hierarchical cover up, but I do think that the very evident dislike of the RCC that is manifest on this forum needs an alternative voice. It is thought amongst some that the pope may have resigned because when the pope resigns, then the Curia (the civil service of the Vatican) is automatically disbanded. This would give the next pope the power to conduct a root and branch reform.

MiceElf, I really like your response. I do know that there are a lot of good people in the church, my mum had a great network in her parish that really supported her in the last few years of her life when she was a widow. Her church also had ongoing collections for Darfur, my mum always had her own collection box that the church had given her in which she used to put much of her loose change for that purpose. I have also read about the work of nuns and priests fighting for human rights and equality in Latin America. I believe there was an Archbishop shot dead on the steps of his church in El Salvador a few years back by enemies of his human rights work. It's a shame really because much of this is overshadowed by the continuing paedophile scandals and cover ups.

Your convent sounds the polar opposite to mine the nuns who taught us imbued us with the notion that women in the Catholic church should never challenge the male hierarchy. Our place was to marry, preferably another Catholic, have children and bring them up Catholic. Divorce was unquestionably wicked on a par with murder. My father had a complete blind faith as far as religion was concerned, there was absolutely no deviating from the path set out and he was really angry with me when I finally lapsed in my mid to late teens. My mother had a far less skewed vision of her religion and as she only died nearly five years ago, was well aware of the scandals that were gaining momentum. I do think she would have been shocked by the Pope's resignation and allegations surrounding Cardinal O'Brien.

Nevertheless, it's good to hear another viewpoint, I still regard myself as a Christian of sorts, I think it's sad that Jesus is so misrepresented by the church in so many ways. Occasionally, I find myself wanting to go to church, all my immediate family (the one I was born into) are dead so in a strange sort of way it links me back to my past when we all went together. I often ask myself why I have a nostalgia for something I didn't like in the first place.

It was not the existence of paedophile behaviour in individual priests that angered most of us, but the callous way they were simply moved to a different parish and allowed to go on hurting children. To say 'we didn't realise it was so harmful' is no excuse, as some of the children suffered horrific physical damage.
I hope schools and scouting organisations would be ready to deal with offending behaviour more robustly, but I certainly have read of teachers being quietly 'moved on' without any reference to their criminal behaviour.

Mishap, I refer you to Lilygran's post of 21:22:11

Paedophiles, sadly, are not interested in 'normal sexual outlets.

BaNanas thank you for putting your response into context. I can certainly see 'where you're coming from'. All of us who were brought up in the RCC will have had different experiences. I suspect mine were much more liberal than some others. Our nuns were great feminists who saw their mission as empowering their girls to change the world after giving us the best education they could. I think many were not so fortunate. Two sisters of that order are distinguished theologians and their work is concerned with the OOW and other matters of present contention.

As for empowerment. Well, I can only speak for myself, but I have found my Catholicism to be deeply empowering, giving me the spiritual support and intellectual framework for much of the many political campaigns I have been involved with.

That's not to say that there is not much in the church that needs to be reformed. Of course there is. But, as always, there is a huge disconnect between what happens in individual parishes up and down the country, the radicals in South America, the worker priests and nuns, and the very visible presence of the flummery in Rome.

It may seem to many that there is a failure of logic in a radical feminist being a member of the RCC, but it's the everyday goodness that I see in my own parish that is persuasive, that and the fact that the RCC is my heritage; like your mother, she may be awkward, resistant to change and a bit of a dinosaur, but she's yours.

Teachers and Scout masters have access to normal sexual outlets.

The known conspiracy of silence around paedophile behaviour within the RC church could act as an incentive to to choose that job. Lots of access to children; the trust of parents; and little likelihood of getting into trouble. If a child threatens to squeal, then he can always be told that it is god's will. It really is quite shocking and gives me the creeps.

Hopefully that certainty of protection is being eroded - and about time too.

MiceElf, I'm not bitter and angry anymore, I only very occasionally go to church now, although I still believe in the essence of Jesus' message, I just think he has been completely misrepresented. I've been divorced so I can't take the sacraments anyway. I had a very strict catholic upbringing both at home and at my convent school, I don't think it did me a lot of good and although I considered it, I decided my children would be happier if I didn't bring them up catholic, my rationale for this was that if they did choose a religion when they were old enough, at least they would be making an informed choice for themselves and not have it chosen for them like me. However, I'm not really affected by everything that is going on now, I agree with Greatnan's statement I'm sorry for all the good catholic people who feel let down and betrayed by the church I know my mum would have been one of them if she was still here. I don't think it's a sweeping statement to say that women are subjugated by the catholic religion, they are hardly empowered by it. It's certainly not the only patriarchal religion in the world where women are treated like second class citizens and have men dictate to them about how many children they should or shouldn't have.

Great Nan I absolutely agree.

Micelf - I have realised when reading comments from yourself and Lilygran that my understanding of the Catholic Church is based almost solely on the way it operated in the 1940s and 1950s and I can see that a real effort is now being made to root out not only the child abusers but those who covered up their crimes. However, there are still some dioceses in various countries that are doing their best to avoid paying any damages to victims of abuse, to the extent of declaring themselves bankrupt. It may well be that individual dioceses cannot afford large damages. so I think the whole of the Church should accept responsibility and the Vatican should open its fat coffers and pay any damages.
Only when people see that the Church is willing to pay in financial terms for its past errors will any trust or confidence be restored.

PS for Galen. The Archbishop of a diocese has authority over a former Archbishop even if he is a cardinal. A retired or Bishop Emeritus has no power at all.

So many points to comment on here.

Firstly Mishap. You assert that the systems of RCC msy attract people who wish to have unfettered access to children. Well, no more than the teaching profession or the Scout movement or sports coaches. Paedophiles will seek opportunities wherever and whenever they can. The church now has one of the strictest safeguarding procedures in place of any institution. Nothing can ever be foolproof, but it's the very best we can do.

BAnanas, you sound very bitter and angry and it's hard to respond to the sweeping statements you make.

Glammy makes a good point. Vatican II was a great hope, I can only pray that now the ideals and principles which began there fifty years ago come to fruition.

Absent, I agree with your comment about individuals and the cover up by the institution. All are guilty of grave sin. But, although many on this forum seem to think that every Catholic priest is the devil in disguise, that really isn't the case. The great majority are overworked decent chaps trying to live according the teachings of Jesus and to provide spiritual support to parishioners as well as running a parish.

Great Nan, oddly enough I wasn't brought up to revere the clergy! My memories are that any priest or curate was carefully evaluated, their strengths commended and any shortcoming swiftly pointed out. Different parishes, different cultures.

Certainly the zeitgeist of the 40s and 50s was much more deferential to all institutions and authority than today. That applied to politics, medics, teachers and so on. I think the church was no different.

And as for the future, all any of us in the church can do is to hope and pray that good will triumph. There are many many good and holy people in the church. Now might be the time for sweeping changes.

What I should like to know is what their confessors said to them? Did they confess? If not, sin after sin after sin.....