The Vatican - Still Doesn't Get It

First some positive news. It seems the authorities in one country have decided that accusations of raping children deserve a proper investigation. Belgian prosecutors this week raided the headquarters of the Belgian Catholic Church as part of their investigation into child sex abuse claims, as reported by the BBC in Belgian Catholic offices raided in sex abuse probe:

Brussels prosecutors were looking for material relating to allegations of sex abuse, a spokesman for the prosecutors' office said.

"This is a case that the Brussels prosecutors' office received recently, containing a statement of facts in relation to alleged sexual abuse of minors by a number of people within the Church," said Jean-Marc Meilleur.

"The object of the searches is to verify the declaration and eventually gather evidence about these declarations."

Finally, the prosecution body of one country at least has decided that professing belief in a magic invisible sky fairy doesn’t mean that you can rape children without the possibility of being prosecuted. Better late than never. Let’s hope that other countries now follow suit.

Regular criminals, when investigated, usually profess innocence at this point, as they are entitled to do.  The Vatican though, sings a different tune. They are shocked, shocked I tell you, that the authorities dare to treat the church as though they didn’t have a special exemption to the rules that affect everyone else.  You just knew this was coming: Vatican 'indignant' over Belgium police raids

The Vatican has expressed shock at raids, including the "violation" of a cathedral crypt, by Belgian police investigating alleged child sex abuse.

Get that? the Vatican is shocked, not that its priests would rape children, but that the authorities would dare to investigate such alleged crimes. Shocked, not that children were violated, but that a bleeding crypt if you please was violated. It gets better:

The Vatican has summoned the Belgian ambassador to the Holy See to voice anger over Thursday's raids.

I hope the Belgian ambassador told them to go to hell.

And just when you thought they couldn’t get any more hyperbolic, one of their men in dresses tells us Belgium raids 'worse than Communist era'

The Vatican has stepped up its criticism of raids by Belgian police investigating alleged child sex abuse, calling the detention of priests "serious and unbelievable".

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican Secretary of State, said "there are no precedents, not even under the old communist regimes".

He goes on to claim that the priests were held for nine hours without food or drink, which if true would be wrong. The accused deserve to be treated according to the law, which should include the rights to food and drink, not to mention a lawyer. But there are “no precedents” for this? “Not even under the old communist regimes”? Doubtful. I think what he means is that there are “no precedents” for treating the Catholic Church just like any other body that is accused of breaking the law. Which may well be true. And it’s about time such a precedent was set.

Comments

[EoR]

"All violation is offensive, but some violation is more offensive than others."
G. Orwell (modified)

[the chaplain]

Good post. I agree that it's long past time to take off the kid gloves and confront the Church for the crimes of its priests. It's not persecution, it's the pursuit of justice.

[libhomo]

The Vatican child molesters need to be prosecuted now. It's time for an Interpol raid on the Vatican itself.

[Bronze Dog]

It's not persecution of the innocent, it's prosecution of the guilty.

[Alexander]

I'm still angry with what those nasty christians did to Hypatia a long time ago, so more harassment for their purveyors of lies and righteous religionism the better. They can get a little of what they used to dish out.

[jules]

The confession of child molestion by Belgian bishop Vangheluwe did shock the nation. We're already a bit sensitive for the subject since the Dutroux-case.

But the thing which shocked the nation more than anything else is the fact there are a lot of clues the (very popular) previous Archbishop Danneels was well aware of the facts. And did nothing.

Since the confession of bishop Vangheluwe on april 23, the special Committee Adriaenssens dealing with cases of sexual abuse in church received more than 400 new testimonies of abuse in church.

That's an incredible amount. Especially as most of the new cases are from the Dutch speaking part of the country with only 5 million inhabitants.

it makes one wonder how many people in his country have been molested by priests.

Maybe it's time to reconsider celibacy.

Whether it was really necessary to drill holes in the graves of previous bishops is another thing.

[Darth Cynic]

Well they seem intent on damping this latest fire by throwing more gasoline on it. Members of a Belgian church commission that helped sexual abuse victims have quit in protest over the raids.

CNN - Church panel resigns to protest raid

Yep, when taken to task or ignored then the toys get hurled from the pram. Not only is this reaction extremely petty but it once again demonstrates how out of touch with reality these folks really are.

Of course it might be questionable just how much help the source of the whole abuse problem could actually render.

[Big Al]

Remember, boys and girls: without religion, there is no morality. Just think what these people would be like if they didn't have the word of the Lord to restrain them.

Just remember that, as the Bible commands you on pain of eternal damnation: "Thou shalt not molest children..."

Sorry, I must have been thinking of a different book.

God wouldn't waste his awful punishments on trivia like this, but rather for serious evildoing - working on a Sunday, for instance, rather than telling Him how fantastically great He is.

[Sarah Trachtenberg]

I agree with y'all. It's time to put aside all this "infallibility" and treat the clergy like any other human beings. I don't think there's anything smug or hate-filled in that simple request. I am, after all, saying that everyone should have the same treatment.

[Yojimbo]

But Sarah - treating the clergy like everyone else defeats the whole purpose of being elite. How could they continue to be the mouthpiece for a diety if they're just regular folks? You might as well ask them to stop wearing the funny clothes...

[Sarah Trachtenberg]

@ Yojimbo--Being in the Society for Creative Anachronism, that would just be hypocritical!

[Dunc]

We shouldn't be surprised... Remember, one of the key practical issues underlying the Reformation was the centuries-long dispute between the Church and various secular authorities as to who had supremacy, and one of the major factors in that was the question of whether clerics could be tried in secular courts. Kings were excommunicated over this very question.

[Big Al]

I wonder why the Big Guy didn't wade in to resolve the issue, bringing tribulations here, smiting left and right there, terrible in His anger and His rage as He laid waste to the heretic transgressors?

He certainly used to - along with stopping the Sun in its tracks, parting the Red Sea, raising the dead, and so on.

In days of old, so it would seem, the Almighty One was only too keen to let people know in no uncertain terms that they'd made the wrong choice.

I wonder why He stopped?

[Carlos Vidal]

For the sake of accuracy, the vast majority of priests sexually abused the pubescent males. This homosexual sickness exists at all levels in society, it is not an exclusive of the priesthood.

[Big Al]

That's nonsense, Carlos. Homosexuality is not a sickness, and nobody here is criticising priests for being homosexual.

However, what is indefensible is when they use their social status and influence to extract sexual favours from unwilling youngsters of whatever age, and when the Church hierarchy uses its muscle to suppress the facts, rather than to root out criminals in its ranks.

The fact is that the priesthood has access to resources that no common or garden child molester can acceess.

That makes priestly abuse more dangerous, because it is fostered and protected.

[Bronze Dog]

Somehow, I haven't learned how to stop being amazed by the apologists' ability to completely and utterly miss the point.

The lesser outrage:

It's not the homosexuality, it's the molestation of underage individuals. If it was the molestation of girls by male priests, or of altar boys by nuns, we'd be just as outraged, and for the same reason.

Unfortunately, this happens just about anywhere where adults work with groups of children and teenagers. We know that. That's why we favor investigating and throwing the guilty into jail and possibly some sort of therapy.

---

The greater outrage:

The Catholic church is NOT dealing with the lesser outrage like other institutions would. Responsible institutions would cooperate with the legal authorities to investigate and prosecute according to all the evidence. Responsible institutions would do everything they could to uncover and remove molesters to protect the children they have been entrusted with.

The Catholic church isn't doing that: They're doing the opposite. They're protecting their own selfish interests by trying to cover up the crime and moving the criminals to fresh grounds where they aren't likely to be recognized. They're cooperating with the corruption, not exposing it.

The greater outrage is essentially that the Catholic church is more interested in protecting its staff than it is in protecting children.

---

The icing on the outrage cake:

They're using their religion as an excuse to be above the law.

[Brahms]

Unfortunately, the victims in this case will be teenage boys I'm sure. I find it sickening that people will learn no lessons from this, apparent, global gay molestation ring. The sexual preference of all adults, who have power over children, must be available to the public.

[gmcevoy]

ummm, young girls have been raped too

including one poor lass who was serially raped at different orphanages

then the legal department of the church sends her a notice saying she can't bring legal action against more than one of the pervs - which is a complete fabrication...

[Yakaru]

Brahms,
You're a fucking idiot. For more information, grow a heart and a fucking brain. Children get raped and molested, nuns get raped, one priest even started a fucking a dying woman to whom he was supposed to be reading the last rites.

......
Roosa tells a story about Poole molesting a 9-year-old girl in Portland, Oregon, while simultaneously having an affair with the girl's mother. Poole supposedly told the girl's mother he would quit the priesthood and marry her, but abruptly returned to Alaska. The girl's mother committed suicide. According to Wall and Roosa, that same girl says she was molested by another priest, one who has been listed in at least three settlements in cases that reach back to the 1960s. They say that, in one incident, this priest was called to a house in Yakima to administer last rites to a dying woman in 1989. "He raped the woman on her deathbed," Roosa says. "He told the family to go into the other room, the husband heard a weird noise, went into the bedroom, and caught him raping his unconscious wife."

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/the-pedophiles-paradise/Content?oid=1065017

And you distort all this into a chance to bash gays. Go fuck yourself.

[Bronze Dog]

I'm completely unsurprised there are non-male victims. Of course the next thing Brahms will post will probably involve trying to minimize the crime, and possibly even blame the girls for dressing provocatively.

[gmcevoy]

blame the girls, never

"Crown Prosecutor Sarah Farnden said the priest told the girl she instigated the behaviour and it was “his mistake to allow her to do that”."

http://www.qt.com.au/story/2010/08/27/priest-blames-12yo-for-sex-abuse/