It’s Wednesday, which means Jesus and Mo Day, giving me once again the opportunity to indict WordPress for helping the Pakistani government ban this website in that country. (The WordPress fatwa comes solely because I reprint Jesus and Mo cartoons, which, according to the Pakistani government “offended Muslim sentiments”.)
Today’s new strip, called “foul”, came with an email note:
An article on Patheos goes into this in more detail.
The article is from Libby Anne’s “Love, Joy, Feminism” website, and criticizes Catholics for claiming that child abuse comes from the Church authorities having been corrupted by homosexuality.
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“….claiming that child abuse comes from the Church authorities having been corrupted by homosexuality.”
No, corrupted by celibacy.
No, just corrupted.
The frequency of pedophiliacs is high, but not notably so AFAIU. It is just that they are encouraged and organized.
I must say that “pedophiliac” is much better than “pedophile.” There’s something about using that particular suffix (I think it means afflicted with, suffering from), which adds two extra syllables and conveys revulsion and compulsion.
I think that the issue of celibacy very much forms part of the equation, though I’m unsure as to how this connects with paedophilia. It’s certainly, in my opinion only, much more relevant than whether priests are homosexual.
The celibacy requirement naturally attracts people who could not form a healthy sexual relationship anyway. This used to be paedophiles and gays, and now with gay couples more and more accepted by society, only the paedophiles remain.
Celibacy belongs to the dustbin of history. Always has.
I’m thinking they are also corrupted by the culture within the Catholic clergy. Do some join the church knowing they are pedophile-friendly? Do some see their fellow priests behavior as enabling? Seems likely.
I’d wholeheartedly agree, except I’d change “join the church” to “join the priesthood”.
Yes, that’s what I meant. “Some” referring to priests. “Priesthood” works better.
I thought that’s what you meant and was just trying to clarify.
I dunno, given the chance, the thought-police could probably find plenty of pretext here for banning you in Pakistan.
They could, but interestingly they (or, I guess, whoever it is complains to them) seem to notice mainly cartoons.
Judging by the list of banned sites that was quoted here a few weeks back.
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The homosexual problem in the church is one thing, pedophilia is another. They may both be attracted to the church but they are certainly different items committed by different people.
“. . .they [pedophilia and homosexuality] are certainly different items committed by different people.”
Not sure what this means. No one with any sense would suggest that all gay men are pedophiles, but in the case of Catholic priests, almost all of the pedophiles are gay men. This isn’t coincidence; it results from a long history of making the priesthood an attractive option for gay men who want respect and who are then put in situations that almost invite sexual transgressions with young boys. Pretending that the transgressors are not homosexuals may seem like defending gays, but it’s simply inaccurate and does nothing to alleviate the situation. But perhaps I misunderstood your meaning.
Some people estimate that as much as 80% of the Catholic clergy are gay.
(My source is an autobiography of a rabbi entitled “Sex and the Pulpit”. This is an estimate in clergy circles.)
The %age who are have molested children is probably far far higher than estimated, but still hovers around 5%.
The Catholic church’s whole set of strategy and tactics for psychologically reinforcing its ethic is a disaster. Among other things it has the effect of focusing one’s ethical attention entirely on sex, rather than honesty, responsibility etc.
A fine treatment of this is “The Gospel of Shame” by Bruni and Burkett.
“The %age who are have molested children is probably far far higher than estimated, but still hovers around 5%.”
Assuming you did not source that number from the same source as I do below, I thought so:
That number is not exceptionally high, I take it. The only thing going on is that the molester club is organizing – encouraging – its molesting members.
“Our current estimates from the best researcher of pedophilia in the field, Michael Seto, indicate that pedophilia affects less than 5% of the male population and less than 4% of the female population[4]. The DSM-V indicates that the highest prevalence for pedophilia in male population is 3-5%[5]. [Using its estimate of adult numbers, the age distribution is mostly children:] As such, about 1.12-1.86% of the world’s population are pedophiles.”
https://www.csaprimaryprevention.org/prevalence-of-abusers-among-pedophiles.html
Makes me wonder what else corruption, besides associated children/young women slave camps/death factories and economical and sexual, they still hide. They do like their magical exorcism, so I guess there could literary be more skeleton in their cupboards.
I suspect that the RC Church is a case of Institutional Authoritarianism. Like Institutional Racism it is not individual acts of paedophilia or acts of unacceptable behaviour but the mindset of the organisation that allows such things to flourish, and attracts those so inclined.
The suffering of children, the harsh treatment of single mothers, the resistance to even purely medically advised abortions – these are all the sufferings of unimportant people which may be disregarded for the greater good.
I’ve often said that large organisations should be torn down and rebuilt every few generations as they become ‘captured’ to be run for the benefits of the staff. The RC Church, in my opinion, is well overdue.
Church apologists claim the clergy were infiltrated by gays. Yet they’ve been demonising homosexuality since time immemorial.
What:they’re too stupid to even safeguard against the perceived threat they so actively opposed?
But we don’t take what the Church says at face value, so obviously it’s more complicated than that. Their attempt to rationalise the abuse tries to equivocate between homosexuality and pedophilia. But these supposed “homosexuals” were molesting and raping girls, too.
It’s probably only the traditional patriarchial makeup of the Church that prevented them from inflicting the same sort of widespread abuse on girls as they did on the boys.