I’m still trying to find out the criteria the Vatican uses to weed out straight seminarians or priests who molest girls and women and why are they allowed to remain in the clergy while their gay counterparts are banned?

NYTimes article refers to claims by experts who say that priest sexual misconduct toward women is actually much more common than the outrageous child sex abuse scandals.

Oh and guess what? The Catholic church pays a little hush money to the women, moves the priests around, and worries first and foremost about protecting the Catholic ‘brand’. No punishment for the priest, particularly if he can keep parishoner donations coming in.

Why does the United States continue to allow corrupt organizations like this to operate?

Another thing. The Vatican forbids condom distribution and other forms of birth control in Africa and elswhere where it has missionaries claiming that condoms don’t prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS. That alone is a crime against humanity and Elle would call that love I suppose? Ratzinger’s statement on that was denounced by the W.H.O. and the majority of infectious disease experts around the world I might add.

Then there’s the Vatican again issuing a directive to weed out potential gay seminarians and coming up with criteria which none of us know what that is exactly, yet……totally ignores the straight seminarians with the potential to molest girls, they’re not weeded out of course and I doubt if they’ve come up with a criterion for that, how convenient. Elle would call that love too.

On the issue of abortion, if its the life of the mother or the child, they’d rather the mother die if that would be the outcome by not having the procedure done. Love? NOT!

its actually a very good religion, it thaught us how to love everyone and allow anyone to love back, we are thaught this first and foremost, some people just tend to forget.

You have got to be kidding? A “Good” religion?

The Crusades were good and about loving everyone?

Burning witchs at the stake was good and about loving everyone?

Torturing heretics was good and about loving everyone?

Burning homosexuals at the stake was good and about loving everyone?

The pope saying that “homosexuality” should be wiped from the face of the earth is good and loving everyone?

Telling people in Third World countries ravaged by AIDS/HIV not to use condoms to save lives is good and loving everyone one?

Forcing women to bear rape-induced children is good and loving everyone?

Honey, those aren’t just rose-colored glasses that you are wearing.

You’re wearing spectacles for the blind!

Yes, not all catholics are bad, but the vast majority of them support this pope and his statements. That’s not love, but hatred. They can and you can skew it all you want, that’s not love, but bigotry, learned behavior unlike our orientation.

and i would just like to say to all that please dont judge the whole Catholic church based on these…priestly cunts… not every catholic is a hypocrite. and please dont hate the catholic religion, its actually a very good religion, it thaught us how to love everyone and allow anyone to love back, we are thaught this first and foremost, some people just tend to forget.

The texts were not even written down for over two hundred years after the death of Christ. The originals can only be read by those who study ancient languages, and those scholars who have will tell you that they do not resemble the current bible, at all. It was altered by illiteracy, misspelling and intentional alteration to fit the word that the current religious leaders wanted to be followed. Just like the King James version of the book.

Yes, I have one. I keep it on my bookshelf next to ‘Appalachian Folk Tales,’ where it belongs.

The real harm in priest sex cases tends to be not the sex itself, willing or unwilling as far as the younger person is concerned, but the conflict that arises from the act of having homosexual sex while at the same time imparting guilt and shame over homosexuality. Anyone in a good state of mental and physiological health should recover from having a fearful experience fairly quickly, but when the priest plants seeds in the younger person that sexual gratification and homosexuality are evil then that’s where most of the lasting harm comes in.

It’s ok for the Catholic Church to defend itself by saying the phenomenon isn’t limited to just them, but extends to other religions as well, when viewed in this context. The isolation these particular priests feel, given the sexual proclivities they have, causes them to identify with being put on a cross. People who have desires within them that are considered evil by many are then attracted to types of work wherein forgiveness is important.

It has nothing to do with abstinence, or any alleged “stunted” development.

Really, Queerty?

That careless about an image you place in your header?

I guess the above should read ’1.5%-5% of Catholic clergy were ever caught in child sex abuse’ for I’m sure at least half of them are at it!

The YouTube presentation is updated to the new version. It may take a little while longer for the new version to be visible. You can see it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDdkfmNY-6g

You can get to the presentation and the downloadable PDF file at http://www.susanvance.com/savannah_webshow.html or at http://www.clergysexualabuse.org (Most Clear to View)

Don’t be ridiculous – the Pope is probably not involved at all – he probably has his hands full handling political squabbles between the rest of the upper levels of the hierarchy. At most he might have issued a directive to do what’s necessary to protect the Catholic Church’s financial resources and reputation, and left the implementation details to underlings.

It’s not about Socrates and Plato, but about avoiding the PR disaster of terms such as “pedophile priests”. “Ephebophile priests” doesn’t sound as bad due to (a) the victims being older and (b) most people not knowing what the word actually means.
It’s not much different than the way the “Computer Resources” department at a place I worked at kept changing its name because it had such a bad reputation that they wanted it to look like the complaints were about someone else.

You don’t have to believe that “Christian = The Bible is the Word of God” to call yourself or a church you form “Christian”. The First Amendment gives you the right to do what you want in terms of defining your theology and calling yourself a Christian – “Christian” is not a registered trademark.

Whichever, reviving the false connection between gays and child molesters is despicable.

“If you plant ice, you’re going to harvest wind.”—Jerry Garcia

I think the UK government should ban this self-righteous hate monger just as it did with Michael Savage, Geert Wilders and Robert Mugabe. This pope is complicit in the deaths of millions of people from HIV/AIDS in emerging nations where the roman cult has its missionaries by forbidding condom distribution and other life-saving information to prevent infection and untold numbers of births that have wrought poverty on many of the inhabitants. He should be charged with crimes against humanity. To say that condoms do not prevent HIV as he once said is an outrage and offensive to intelligent, rational, scientific and medical evidence to the contrary. This man is a criminal.

Maria, can you explain then why during the U.S. molestation scandal, the Vatican issued an order to “weed out” suspect would-be gay seminarians from entering the priesthood based on certain criteria but failed to address which criteria would be used against the straight candidates for the priesthood? How would they be weeded out and how would the church perceive a straight potential molester based on psychological evaluation that all seminarians are subjected to before they are allowed to enter the seminaries? From what I’ve read, it appears that gays were the sole target of the witch hunt, not their straight counterpart offenders.

Here is the comment from Archbishop Silvio Tomasi, as reported in the Guardian:

‘The statement said that rather than paedophilia, it would “be more correct” to speak of ephebophilia, a homosexual attraction to adolescent males.

“Of all priests involved in the abuses, 80 to 90% belong to this sexual orientation minority which is sexually engaged with adolescent boys between the ages of 11 and 17.”‘

Note, no mention of female victims who, as another commentator said, were in the majority.

This is explicit homophobia in my book, reiterating the age-old myths of gay men as child abusers.

The pope is scheduled to visit the UK next year. There is already intense debate about this and there will be protests.

Ratzinger issued an order to “weed” out seminarians perceived to be gay or whose inclination towards the same gender were supposedly apparent based on certain criteria. What about the straight seminarians inclined to molest girls? Which criteria would vatican storm troopers use to discern it? The question needs to be asked.

Ah, yes – the persecuted must always give their oppressors the benefit of the doubt.

The use of the proper term to express attraction to adolescents was first used by psychologists in the report recommending that the church close junior seminaries. The report stated that junior seminaries, given the unnatural circumstances of how adolescents were expected to live in these situations, often produced adult priests who were emotionally and psychologically stunted, having never developed healthy adult sexuality, and therefore having a higher level of inappropriate sexual orientation towards adolescents of either gender than is usually be found in the general population.

And the spin-mastering on percentages and pointing out that molestation happens in other religious settings as well as in other settings is to be expected when the media only talks about the molestation that has happened in the Catholic Church. Again, I don’t see how this fact can be interpreted as the Church trying to shift attention to molestation being a “gay” issue, unless of course one has such an agenda with the Catholic Church because of its position on homosexuality that everything it does or says is put through this lens.

I just spent the last several days explaining that intolerance and isolation of same gender orientation is not acceptable behavior for Catholics, that the Bible makes very few references to homosexuality and that the references it does make are contextual not directly pointed at homosexuality but rather at promiscuity which cuts across both heterosexual and homosexual lifestyles, and that the official position of the Church is that there is quite a bit of scientific evidence that homosexuality is innate not a decision although it equivocates and does not take a definitive position. I make a specific attempt to correct misguided interpretations of Church teaching because I love my gay family members, godchild, and friends very much, and do not view them in any way as disordered. So, my comments above do not reflect a homophobe, but rather a faithful Catholic who disagrees with parts of Church teaching on morality based on the primacy of my rather maturely developed individual conscience. But the article’s interpretation is just wrong–no need to promulgate intolerance or spin an agenda, from whatever source.

Stop apologizing for Christians. We know what they’ve done to us and continue to teach in their Churches.

Ephebophilia refers to “the preference for mid to late adolescent sexual partners” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephebophilia), and does not imply a “gay attraction” as the adolescent could be of either sex. The term “preference” in context refers to a lack of attraction to people who are adults.

The real reason the Catholic Church wants this term used is that most people don’t know what it means. So from a propaganda/marketing standpoint, it’s simply an attempt at damage control, and gives them a justification for claiming that their priests (the ones with the problems) aren’t pedophiles.