To me, the best part of the telegraph article was:

The correspondence[...] is the strongest challenge yet to the Vatican’s insistence that Benedict played no role…

“yet” being the funny part (and also not funny at all).  Like they’re expecting to need photographic evidence before the church admits that the Pope knew damned well what was going on.

Meeting the victims, huh? That could work okay. Do the victims get flamethrowers or just baseball bats? Most of those pedos are pretty old, you could even give them a head-start…

(It was snark or a scream of rage that would defy all phonetic spelling, so I went the snark route.)

I think about the best we can hope for out of all this crap is that massive cooperation between Catholics and other Christians RE choice and gay rights might be diminished.  Maybe.

But when you’re the head guy, with nobody above you, no corporate board to listen to, and no messy democracy RE church policy from the proles, you can do pretty much whatever you want and get away with it.

If he was a decent human being, he’d remove himself to stop the harm his presence and his (and other Catholic higher-ups) decisions have caused the church they claim to be so very concerned about.

But I don’t think he has it in him.  He’s spent his whole life clawing his way to the top of the RCC and he’s not gonna give it up for anything.  He’s gonna ride this thing out and cling to his prized position until they pry his dead fingers off of it.

OTOH, he might have an “accident"and be eliminated.  A Godfather III situation?...

“Considering the young age”?

CONSIDERING THE YOUNG AGE????

What about the young ages of the victims, you pompous douchebag?

What’s Latin for “lizard shit”?

Yeah, Mike G, if only he had molested little girls, everything would be copacetic, huh?

In another report , Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesbot, acknowledged that the Church had lost public trust and reiterated Pope Benedict’s willingness to meet more victims of abuse.

Oh, wow, he’s going to MEET WITH some of them! How lucky they are to get such a valuable experience!

Is this for real? They’re actually attempting to get this monstrous conspiracy of child abuse and cover-ups all swept under the rug by giving a few of the victims a few minutes of the Pope’s time? They think THAT pays for this much deliberately-inflicted human misery, not only the abuse but the enabling of further abuse, the dismissals of and the fights against victims’ attempts at justice, the shielding of abusers, and the persistent assertion that a good reputation the church blatantly didn’t deserve was worth such monumental levels of other people’s suffering?

A few minutes of the Holy Father’s time is their magical cure-all.

Comparative worth, anyone?

Hey, Mike G, leaving aside the question of whether the situational homosexuality and abuse-of-power crimes we’re talking about here are in any way comparable to a true sexual orientation, you’re kinda missing the mark as far as the problematic element in this situation.

The problem is not these priests’ orientation, whatever it is. The problem is that they are child molesters.

To blame this on homosexuality is like saying knives are dangerous because they are metal, rather than because they are sharp. Or that sugar is sweet because it is granular, rather than because of the way its chemical composition stimulates our taste buds.

This is a perfect example why homosexuals should not be priests

But a priest molesting a girl is all right, because he obviously isn’t a homosexual?

they really hate what the church stands for, darkness hates the light.

That’s what light does, cover up the molestation of children.

Matthew 18:6, oh faithful child of the Church.

This (MikeG)is a perfect example why god-is-my-imaginary-friend, ill-educated and bigoted wingnuts wouldn’t know facts or logic if they fell over ‘em.

Fer instance, pedophilia is not the equivalent of homosexuality: totally separate, you idiot. (No more than pedophilia is the equivalent of heterosexuality, even if molester is a man and the child is female.)

Grown men who abuse children (male or female) are not homosexuals, they’re child molesters (otherwise commonly known as priests, or bishops.)

This is but one reason why light hates the dark space between the ears of god-is-my-imaginary-friend, ill-educated and bigoted wingnuts like MikeG.

Hang in there, Pope Ratzy you’ve got Mike G as an apologist for decades of church-sanctioned child rape and crime coverup.

And no, Mike doesn’t even ask why if these child molesters were trouble-making homos, the Ratzburger clung to them, for decades.

Geez, I doubt the comment ‘MikeG’ was even real.

If the Pope allows kids to get fucked, I say fuck the Pope!

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: I want this to kill the Church. I want every last scrap of paper about any crime any priest has ever committed to end up on the front page of the New York Times, and I want the entire Church, or at least the Church in America, to go bankrupt, and I want to sip martinis and pet my cat as I watch the entire rotten institution crumble, and then (in the extra-fantasy version of this where I have money) I want to buy up all the empty church buildings and turn them into Goth nightclubs and Planned Parenthood clinics.

Unfortunately, this goddamned Church has shown a remarkable unwillingness to die so far, so I’m not optimistic. D:

yes, to the planned parenthood and goth nightclub churches—but, sigh, if the bad publicity from the inquisition doesn’t do in the Catholic Church, then nothing will kill that vampire.

And I say that as a former Catholic (just recently requested that I be excommunicated, but it was on the Slog, so I’m not sure the Pope has caught on.)

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/dear-catholic-church-excommunicate-me/Content?oid=3799091

I thought MikeG was satire, but who can tell anymore.

He looks more like Emperor Palpatine than any of the actors who portrayed him. I still can’t get over it. Whenever I see him I picture lightning coming from his fingers.

@ Bitter Scribe: lacerterum feces

translated by the child after a fit of giggles, the same child who has been counseled to call for a cop should a Roman Catholic priest ever come near.

@ cynical romantic:  But I’ll be toasting with a bottle of Chateau Neuf du Pape (ah, irony) and hope you could spare at least one of those buildings for a Ray and Alice style bedroom in the belfry thing.

Thank you jduibrowni, thank you - I’m framing this!  I think I want a copy stuck in my casket, just in case they haven’t gotten the memo in the afterlife.

I demand to be excommunicated because I do not believe women are second-class citizens. I demand to be excommunicated because your missionaries are informing impoverished citizens of third-world countries that birth control is a sin when it is in fact the single most important thing they could do to gain some small amount of control over their economic situation and health. I demand to be excommunicated because your church has become a hate group as virulent as any this world has ever seen, one that is unnaturally obsessed with the sex lives of good men and women across the planet. I demand to be excommunicated because I do not condone child rape or the concealment of child rape.

...

And so it is with deep personal satisfaction, sir, that I say—and I’ll put it so you can understand it—to hell with you, Bishop Malone. To hell with your church. To hell with the pope, especially. If you think the Catholic God actually smiles down on you from heaven for your hatefulness, then to hell with that God, too. I renounce your church, your God, and your traditions. I will not be a part of any organization that welcomes and comforts hatemongers, child rapists, or you.

I demand that you excommunicate me immediately and that you send me confirmation as soon as possible that you have expunged me from the roster of the Catholic Church.

For MikeG, Ratzburger refused to defrock, and protected, an equal opportunity child rapist:

“Kiesle would eventually be defrocked—and was eventually charged with molesting 13 children. He told a lawyer that he molested “tons” of children, boy and girls, “every child that sat on his lap.”
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2010/04/ap_exclusive_future_pope_stalled_pedophile_case.php?ref=fpblg

Ratzy’s refusal to defrock him, Kiesele was kept on as a “youth minister” (yikes!), though the then Cardinal Ratzy was aware that “Kiesle had been sentenced in 1978 to three years’ probation after pleading no contest to misdemeanor charges of lewd conduct for tying up and molesting two young boys in a San Francisco Bay area church rectory.”

The not-homo-but-child-molester Kiesele was “pleaded no contest in 2004 to a felony for molesting a young girl in his Truckee home in 1995 and was sentenced to six years in state prison.”

So, it would appear, MikeG, that the criminals in these cases are not homosexuals, but pedophiles and church officials.

I figured “Mike G” was a Poe…

Mike, do you have stats for this claim?  The discussion is about an abuser who pled no contest in court 7 years before the Vatican stepped up to protect him from his bishop, and who is now doing hard time (very hard time, I suspect) or finishing up past good behavior not for masturbation or using birth control - things condemned by the church but of no consequence to the law - but persistent sexual abuse of minors, female and male.

The issue would not appear to be gay priests but priests who enter the priesthood with intent to use that collar to fuck children or adolescents.  I figure any man who would give up fatherhood in exchange for playing essentially a sanctified form of live-action theological Dungeons and Dragons (sorry but true) for a living is going to be a little off, but if it’s the rules of the game for Latin-rite Catholics, there’s the problem.  Eastern Catholics and Orthodox Christians have largely avoided this problem not because they banned gays but because they ordain to the priesthood mostly married men, i.e. men who are likely to be more well-rounded in life generally.

So raping adolescents is okay by Mike G (and the Pope), especially if they’re girls, and not boys.

But not according to the American justice system, apparently. After Pope Ratzy covered for Kiesele, and his crimes finally got to the criminal courts after a decade or so of Catholic church coverup, Kiesele did six years for one count of molesting a girl.

But so much for that “adolescents okay for Catholic rape” excuse, it also doesn’t apply to Ratzy’s coverup for Kiesele.

“More than a half-dozen victims reached a settlement in 2005 with the Oakland diocese alleging Kiesle had molested them as young children.

“He admitted molesting many children and bragged that he was the Pied Piper and said he tried to molest every child that sat on his lap,” said Lewis VanBlois, an attorney for six Kiesle victims who interviewed the former priest in prison. “When asked how many children he had molested over the years, he said ‘tons.’”

MikeG is full of crap.  The percentage of pedophiles among gay men is the same as among heterosexual men.  About 2% I think (I’ll have to check that).

If the Rat Pope had believed the molesting priests were GAY he would have kicked them out without hesitation.

Pat Buchanan is a Rat Liar.  He says both sides of the Civil war were “right”.  What the Hell does that mean?  The confedeRats were “right” to fight and kill so they could own slaves?

MikeG is qouting lies and propaganda promoted by the likes of Pat Buchanan (a noted authority on, well, nothing.)

However, experts on the actual subject tend to disagree with Dr. (you mean he’s not a doctor?) Pat B.:

“One study involved 175 male adults who had been convicted in Massachusetts of child sexual assault. They found that none of them were homosexuals; all of them would fit the description of a fixated child molester. They were sexually attracted only to children and not to other adults.  Another researcher studied sexually abused children seen in a hospital. Only 2 perpetrators (less than 1% of the total) were homosexuals (i.e. were attracted to same-sex adults). “
http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_chil.htm

And here we go again with wingnuts and their horror! of the New York Times—except the article with all the juicy qoutes about Ratzy’s criminal coverup and Kiesele’s long history of child rape was an exclusive from the Associated Press.

However, as we all know, reality has a well-known liberal bias.

By the by, someone who can’t even identify the name Judy as a woman’s name (for instance, this woman’s name) is someone with his head so far up his own ass, he’s more likely to perform a homo act on himself than to be correct on any point whatsoever.

Playing the Pedophilia Card

The so-called Christian lies and propaganda, are just that:

http://www.robincmiller.com/gayles4.htm

“In 1988, renowned sex researcher Kurt Freund at the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry in Toronto studied two groups of paid volunteers and found that gay men responded no more to male child stimuli than heterosexual men responded to female child stimuli.[6] He later described as a “myth” the notion that gay men are more likely than straight men to be child molesters.[7]

In 1992, alarmed over claims made during a campaign for an anti-gay state constitutional amendment in Colorado, two physicians reviewed every case of suspected child molestation evaluated at Children’s Hospital in Denver over a one-year period. Of the 269 cases determined to involve molestation by an adult, only two of the perpetrators could be identified as gay or lesbian. The researchers concluded that the risk of child sexual abuse by an identifiably gay or lesbian person was between zero and 3.1%, and that the risk of such abuse by the heterosexual partner of a relative was over 100 times greater.[8]

Child abuse, including sexual abuse, is a terrible reality in this country. According to the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System, established by the federal Department of Health and Human Services, nearly 90,000 children are sexually abused every year.[9] According to some researchers, the true number may be five times this.[10]

Approximately 80 percent of these sexually molested children are girls.[11] Persons focusing only on the remaining 20 percent of molestations—and, even then, only on the small fraction of these crimes committed by gay men—are not authentically concerned with combating sexual abuse of children. Their primary interest lies in perpetuating fear.

The source of the right’s statistics linking gay men with child molestation is discredited psychologist Paul Cameron, who operates the Family Research Institute in Colorado Springs, Colorado.[12] Cameron is responsible for many of the right’s most bizarre allegations about gays and lesbians, such as that gays constitute 44 percent of sexual mass murderers, that two-thirds of gay men “ingest biologically significant amounts of feces,” and that being a gay male takes 30 years off one’s life.[13]

But Cameron is hardly a credible source. He was dropped from the American Psychological Association back in 1983 for a violation of its Ethical Principles of Psychologists.[14] And he’s been censured by four other professional associations and a federal court.[15]

In the November 1985 letter, Ratzinger says the arguments for removing Kiesle are of ‘’grave significance’’ but added that such actions required very careful review and more time…

But the future pope also noted that any decision to defrock Kiesle must take into account the ‘’good of the universal church’’ and the ‘’detriment that granting the dispensation can provoke within the community of Christ’s fait

18:12 How think ye? if a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray? 

18:13 And if so be that he find it, verily I say unto you, he rejoiceth more of that sheep, than of the ninety and nine which went not astray. 

18:14 Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.

MikeG: they really hate what the church stands for, darkness hates the light.

As an advocate for the Church’s position on child molestation, Mike, perhaps you could explain why in your view it’s the role of “the light” to allow child molesters unrestricted access to children and protection from prosecution by secular forces?

Yeah, Mike G, if only he had molested little girls, everything would be copacetic, huh?

Well, you know, there’s always the hope that people wouldn’t go on about it so much and disturb the Pepe’s beautiful mind.

Watch for the Vatican to bring out the “at least he fiddled the *right* sort of kiddies” defense for the next scandal…

Fuckers.

the overwhelming majority of the victims are young boys, not girls.

I don’t know which Catholic Church *you* grew up in, moron, but in the sexist, racist, homophobic idiotfest I grew up in, the Vatican didn’t officially approve altar girls until 1994.  So even if your bullshit stats were true, the common sense you don’t appear to possess states that would probably be because when you were a man with the urge to molest children who joins the church in an attempt to get closer to them and gain their trust, the vast majority of the children you were going to end up being in a position to be alone with for a very long time were the boys.

Of course, that would also presume that you’d ever bothered to learn the definitions of the words “pedophile” and “homosexual.”  They’re different, just in case you missed it.

So, is Bill Donahue trolling as MikeG?  At least he’s able to acknowledge that protecting child rapists and providing them access to more kids is traditionalist Catholic activity.

My co-worker’s Catholic family refuses to acknowledge her live-in boyfriend because they are not married and she divorced her first husband.  This is apparently an evil that requires them to disavow their own blood.  Yet they can somehow overlook the vile and despicable actions of their Church leaders.  I cannot comprehend this mental disconnect.

Yesterday in the news I also saw that several USA Swim coaches have been abusing their athletes for years.  The executive director’s comment was that “this is not just a problem that is isolated in one sport.”

It baffles me that any time a feminist brings up the phrase “rape culture” she gets mocked as being hysterical.  Yet “everyone does it” is an actual defense that gets brought up when these groups get investigated for rampant child abuse.  “Everyone does it” is an admittance that this is an inherent part of our culture and means that we are allowing this shit to continue.

Mike G.:  80 % of the abuse cases are not with young children but with adolescents.

Only if you count 11-14 year-olds as “adolescents” whom it is somehow OK to rape (because they’re asking for it?).

The US Conference of Catholic Bishops published this analysis on over 12,000 instances of abuse reported from 1950 to 2002.  (That’s about 250 children molested per year, on average). 

The report found that “the largest group of alleged victims (50.9%) was between the ages of 11 and 14, 27.3% were 15-17, 16% were 8-10 and nearly 6% were under age 7.”

In other words, only 27% of these molestations and rapes clearly involved adolescents.  Trying to add in the group of 11 to 14 year-olds is just dishonest.

Notice that the Bishops’ report divides the children into unequal groups (a 7 year span, a 3 year span, a 4 year span, and a 3 year span).  A more honest way would have been to have consistent age-ranges, say 6 to 9, 10 to 13, 14-17.  But this evil claim that the majority of the raped children were “adolescents” would be a more obvious lie: only 40% of them would fall into the 14-17 range.

Hey Mike G:  I’ll bet you’re one of those reactionary to VII Catholics who like the Opus Dei types - so here’s a little tip for you:

Since a “person” and I use that term loosely, like you will never come out of the closet, but will need to self-flagellate for all those “unclean” thoughts - go stick some hot coals up your ass.

ANd BAbh, I’d guess that that age thing is as much a part of opportunity as the sex is, per troll princess’ post.  As a general rule, priests aren’t going to have much contact with kids in general until they get to at least middle school or junior high - the usual age fro altar servers is 11-12 minimum.  OCnfirmation (which the priest teaches, is also 12-14).

But you’ve made me think about something else with this. IIrc, there was a big brouhaha about altar girls back when they firs started allowing them in the US.

OK, just grabbed the wiki here: “Once prohibited in the Catholic Church, female altar servers are now allowed provided that the diocesan bishop and the parish priest allow the practice. At present, there are few places in the United States where girls do not serve. Anecdotally, some pastors would prefer to use only boys; others say the girls actually are better at it, and are good role models because they are more involved with parish life in general.” 

Have to wonder if some of those objections from priests were because girls were more likely to report about abuse, observed or experienced, than boys? It would seem that girls of that age are more mature and have closer relationships with their parents than boys - “in general.”

Eight years after he was defrocked, Kiesle “molests a young girl at his Tahoe vacation home,” according to his AP timeline.

I fail to see what good defrocking did. Kiesle should have been in jail, not free to molest again.

Mike G, I find it really extraordinary that you are:

(a) Trying to conflate homosexuals with kiddy fiddlers, and

(b) Trying to mitigate the wrongdoing by claiming that it was largely perpetrated on adolescents. Even if this were true it is still a statute crime and morally revolting to the great majority of the public. Though seemingly not you.

I can only conclude that you are an apologist for monsters. What kind of monster does that make you, Mike?

They really hate what the church stands for, darkness hates the light.

Well so far we understand the Church stands for looking after its own power and financial interests at the cost of many innocent children and adolescents abused by paedophiles with the connivance of the current Pope. If that is the light then I’m proud to stand agin’ it.

They really hate what the church stands for, darkness hates the light.
Well so far we understand the Church stands for looking after its own power and financial interests at the cost of many innocent children and adolescents abused by paedophiles with the connivance of the current Pope. If that is the light then I’m proud to stand agin’ it.

Ah, but you see, because some delusional dude thought he could extend everyone’s life beyond death was tortured to death by the Romans, all Christians are always being persecuted.

A few minutes of the Holy Father’s time is their magical cure-all.

See…they actually believe this.

The US Bishops had a meeting.  They FUCKING HAD A MEETING, so why are we still hearing bleating from the sheep?

The ordained sat down and had a meeting.  They even let a lay council lecture them (though they mostly ignored everything they were told, to the further abuse of children).  What else do you people want?!?!

The Pope himself will let the victims come unto him.  He might even let them kiss his ring or the hem of his robes.  What more could a good Catholic want?

Justice?  Are you out of your fucking minds?  These Correctors want the Medieval power structure back.  They’ve been working their asses off to get rid of all the V2 reforms.  They most certainly have NO intention at all of LISTENING TO THE LAITY. 

Fuck them and the inverted power structure of V2.  Fuck that “called to serve” shit.  The ordained are a sacred brotherhood who are to be revered—not for what they do, but for who they are: ORDAINED.

Seriously, that’s what they think.  They are better than the rest.  Protecting the brotherhood by hiding the crimes is what’s best “for the universal church” according to this Pope.  As proof, Bernard Law is living in luxurious, extradition-free retirement.  It’s his reward for doing EXACTLY WHAT HE WAS SUPPOSED TO DO: namely, hide and protect the BROTHERHOOD.  Fuck the kids.  Who the hell are they, anyway?

They should be grateful to kiss the Pope’s ring.

does anyone wonder if Benedick himself may have a past that involves young boys/girls, and that’s the reason for his bizarre sympathy for the molesting priests?  This guy is a dirtbag in spades.

Since it’s obvious that no government has the cojones to bring criminal charges against these conspirators to obstruct justice, I guess the best solution will be for the victims to sue the whole criminal racket into financial oblivion.

At this point I’m wondering if the Pope could just molest a kid on the steps of the Vatican himself. In front of cameras. Hey, nobody can stop him, he can get away with whatever he likes.