The Pope's Apology. Does it go far enough?

[sauronsfinger]

Solicitr asks

How can a government tell the rest of the country how to live when it has such a poor record within its own house

?

what does that have to do with the Pope and the Catholic Church?

[Primula Baggins]

Thanks, sf.

[sauronsfinger]

NBC Nightly news just had a story from Germany documenting that people leaving the Catholic Church has tripled from a year ago. I will post a link when it becomes available later today or tomorrow at the latest.

This newspaper story has collaborating information.

http://www.smh.com.au/world/germans-aba ... -r002.html

[Alatar]

The Church sees its priests as diplomats - workers for the Church in a foreign country, and not bound by that country's laws but only to their own.

So much so that when the Papal Nuncio in Dublin was asked for information during a recent abuse hearing they refused on grounds of Diplomatic Immunity.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ire ... 54852.html

Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza was invited to appear before the committee following calls for his expulsion after the Murphy commission revealed that the papal nuncio had refused to co-operate with its inquiry into clerical abuse in the Dublin diocese.

In a letter to committee chairman Michael Woods, Archbishop Leanza said “it is not the practice of the Holy See that apostolic nuncios appear before parliamentary commissions”.

This is not in the forgotten past. It was Feb 12th 2010.

[Lurker]

NBC Nightly news just had a story from Germany documenting that people leaving the Catholic Church has tripled from a year ago. I will post a link when it becomes available later today or tomorrow at the latest.

This newspaper story has collaborating information.

http://www.smh.com.au/world/germans-aba ... -r002.html

So what's your point?
People have left the Church for various reasons not just this scandal so this is not news to me. Heck, most of the Catholic churches in Europe have been half empty for decades even before this.

[sauronsfinger]

here is the news story from NBC News

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp ... 9#36124879

Lurker, you asked me what is my point? If you watch the video, it is clear that this latest scandal is having a very negative effect upon the German Catholic Church and is the reason why people are leaving in such heavy numbers. I said this morning that people will vote with their feet rather than debate the legalistic facts of this. Both the previous news article I linked to and this NBC story show that.

[solicitr]

A Nuncio is a diplomat: he's the Vatican ambassador. It is a grievous breach of protocol for a government to subject an ambassador to interrogation, and the Irish parliament was way, way out of line. If they wanted to, they could have subpoenaed, say, the Archbishop of Dublin, who is an Irishman; but never an ambassador.

[Lurker]

You and the rest of the media are saying it as if it's the only reason why people are leaving the Church. Sheez! Like I said people have been leaving the church for decades. Yet, there are still people out there who wants to be baptized in the Catholic faith. In fact, there are at least 10 being baptized this easter at my parish alone.

For me, most of what the Catholic faith teaches is what I believe in. Second of all, the people who covered this up doesn't answer to me but their Creator.

[Primula Baggins]

Second of all, the people who covered this up doesn't answer to me but their Creator.

But what about the people their actions hurt? It doesn't seem reasonable to ask them to wait for justice until the next world. Aren't the people who did the harm and those who covered it up answerable to them at all?

[Lidless]

A Nuncio is a diplomat: he's the Vatican ambassador. It is a grievous breach of protocol for a government to subject an ambassador to interrogation, and the Irish parliament was way, way out of line. If they wanted to, they could have subpoenaed, say, the Archbishop of Dublin, who is an Irishman; but never an ambassador.

You are correct. Alas almost every priest has been treated in the past as having diplomatic status by the Holy See.

[Elentári]

Second of all, the people who covered this up doesn't answer to me but their Creator.

But what about the people their actions hurt? It doesn't seem reasonable to ask them to wait for justice until the next world. Aren't the people who did the harm and those who covered it up answerable to them at all?

Exactly...I am sure those victims do not feel they should still be turning the other cheek...likewise the families of those abused.

Modern society simply isn't compatible with Catholicism to anything like the same extent as it was, and revelations like this are hardly going to help. It seems that for every small step that the church takes forward, it slides back another hundred paces. The RCC is talking about repentence and other euphemisms for refusing to acknowledge their responsibility. The personal sufferings of the priesthood should not be the focus here...our concern should be for the current victims and potential victims in the future.

[Alatar]

A Nuncio is a diplomat: he's the Vatican ambassador. It is a grievous breach of protocol for a government to subject an ambassador to interrogation, and the Irish parliament was way, way out of line. If they wanted to, they could have subpoenaed, say, the Archbishop of Dublin, who is an Irishman; but never an ambassador.

And you wonder why people have a problem with the Catholic church. He wasn't being subjected to interrogation. He was asked to help out with information on a sexual abuse case and refused. If you don't have a problem with that I respectfully suggest that your priorities are in the wrong place.

[sauronsfinger]

The Catholic News Agency has a story which offers an explanation about these events.

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/ ... _exorcist/

Please note that the story is not dated April 1 and the source of the explanation was not Flip Wilson.

[JewelSong]

SF, considering the source, what is so unusual or newsworthy or funny...well, ANYTHING about that article?

It certainly isn't as over-the-top and many other articles I have read. And seeing as the man making the statements is an 85-year-old exorcist (yes, AFAIK, Exorcism is still a bona fide rite in the Catholic Church) I didn't find his view or statements all that earth-shattering or humorous.

And this:

we should not be surprised if priests too … fall into temptation. They also live in the world and can fall like men of the world.

certainly makes sense to me.

[solicitr]

He wasn't being subjected to interrogation. He was asked to help out with information on a sexual abuse case and refused.

That's not how I would characterize a demand that he appear before a House investigations committee.

If the Parliament wanted information from the Irish Church, they should have addressed their inquiries to the prelate of Ireland, who is (I believe) the ABp of Dublin, or to the Secretary of the Conference of Irish Bishops. If they wanted information from Rome, the protocol is to have the Irish ambassador to the Vatican approach the Secretary of State.

This stunt with the Nuncio was just that- a stunt- devised to use the expected and proper refusal to humiliate him and by extension the Church.
Waxmanism across the sea.

[sauronsfinger]

Jewelsong..... I view the article and the views of the person speaking as merely another attempt to absolve the persons who committed these crimes of complete personal responsibility. The old cliche "the devil made me do it" simply does not cut it as far as I am concerned.

[Cerin]

Father Amorth added that in instances of sexual abuse committed by some members of the clergy, the devil “uses” priests in order to cast blame upon the entire Church: “The devil wants the death of the Church because she is the mother of all the saints.”

This snippet from sf's article is very revealing. Once again, the children are viewed as irrelevant in the larger scheme of the Church fighting off it's foes. Reading this, the conduct of the Church in covering up the abuse becomes completely understandable (as opposed to excusable). I find it quite appalling, that all the suffering of children is dismissed so casually as incidental to the real concern, the Church's standing.

[Lhaewin]

Today a new case of abuse was made known in the German media. A particularly reactionary Bishop is accused of having beaten lots of children in the 70ies and 80ies when he was a priest and looked after children in a home. Several now adult victims spoke up and on the radio I listened to an interview with one woman who said that she still has nightmares and in the end she was crying.

It's interesting that this Bishop commented on the abuse issue only six weeks ago. He said that the "sexual revolution" is to partly to blame, as progressive moral philosophers in society have been demanding to legalise sexual contacts between adults and minors.

He also condemned sexual assault/abuse by clerics on children as "particularly abominable crimes" - and now he's in the limelight himself.

[Alatar]

This stunt with the Nuncio was just that- a stunt- devised to use the expected and proper refusal to humiliate him and by extension the Church.
Waxmanism across the sea.

Rubbish Soli. You don't know what the hell you're talking about. To suggest for one second that the Murphy commission was setting out to humiliate the RCC is preposterous. The fact that you believe so simply highlights your paranoia.

[Primula Baggins]

This is an emotional topic. I would appreciate it if we could try to maintain a level tone.

(This isn't aimed specifically at anyone.)