Tax the Catholic Church

[Eliza Thomason]

... Here is the report in full. 291 pages.

...http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/child-and-youth-protection/upload/The-Nature-and-Scope-of-Sexual-Abuse-of-Minors-by-Catholic-Priests-and-Deacons-in-the-United-States-1950-2002.pdf..

What I saw first off here was "USCCB" and immediately thought, and wrote in my reply to you, of the "USCCB with their slick and worldly ways of trying to hide and divert the truth". They are a shame of the Church, and they need to be disbanded. So when I see that this study is funded by the USCCB, I know to look for the dishonesty involved. Even if carried on by a reputable "independent" agency, their paycheck for the project is covered by the USCCB, so we need to examine the USCCB involvement. For this I have the usual expectations of them.

I really wanted to be done with this topic for a few days, but that "USCCB" in your link nagged at me. So I researched it, and it didn't take long to find the problem with this report.

The problem with the report is spelled out in an interview with sociologist Father Paul Sullins, whose new study documents a strong linkage between the incidence of abuse and homosexuality in the priesthood and in seminaries, seen is this link, but I will give give a brief summary. That article is just over four full pages on my printer (but far from the USCCB's 291!).

[Of course one can see an obvious motive in putting out a 291 page report. Very, very few will read the 291 pages, so the USCCB and their media buddies will link it, after providing their own synopsis of what the study means. The "story" for this study is that homosexuality doesn't have anything to do it the pederast problem. What?! But this is how this body of bishops-who-can't-be-trusted reports the conclusion, using facts from this apparently otherwise well-researched study.

In the interview linked above with Fr. Sullin, two big dishonesties of the USCCB emerge. First, in their habit of hiding things, they hide the facts of where the statistics come from! When the USCCB gave their facts to the John Jay Institute to study and compile, the USCCB withheld all the names of the dioceses. Why?? Fr. Sullins says:

....."Well, I don’t know why that was. Typically, you will de-identify individuals because you don’t want to impugn the reputation of individuals. That makes a lot of sense. But if you have an institution where you have a widespread problem, whether it’s abuse or embezzlement or theft or whatever, you’d like to know in what sectors of that institution that occurred more frequently than others. Typically, you would like to say, “Well, over here in this division, they had a great record. Let’s try to see what we can do to make the whole institution more like this division, so as to reduce this unwanted behavior.” That did not occur here. Could it be that the bishops, some bishops, did not want to know, did not want to have people know what dioceses were better and what dioceses were worse? I don’t know.

.....We know from what John Jay College did report that there were a number of dioceses who had no or very few instances of sex abuse over the last 50 years. We don’t know what those are. That might be a kind of a cover-up, or not letting us know everything that we would like to know in order to address the abuse.

.....Now, by contrast, the recent grand jury report from Pennsylvania put everything out there. We know exactly where and when each instance of abuse occurred. I do look at that data to some extent in this report, and it’s very helpful, but we have a possibility to do much more investigation and report on data like that, which will begin to let us know: Were there dirty dioceses and clean dioceses? We’d like to know that about seminaries. Were there dirty seminaries and clean seminaries? We have these reports of homosexual subcultures and seminaries that have been affected by abuse. We don’t know what seminaries those are. Wouldn’t it be helpful to us if there was a handful of seminaries that were really spawning this kind of behavior and lots of clean seminaries that weren’t? It would really help us a lot to be able to know that in order to address this problem and to eliminate it as best we can and for the safety and security of our children, particularly our young boys."

So the USCCB is hiding facts that will help us solve the problem. But this, from the USCCB, is no surprise to many of us.

The other huge problem is with the USCCB and the JJI's strange conclusion that the abuse was unrelated to the presence of homosexual men in the priesthood. But Fr. Sullin uses a more honest method of looking at the facts in the JJI report and discovers a near perfect statistical correlation between homosexuality and the abuse incidence. Surprise, surprise that statistics are used to tell the opposite of what they actually say.

[To find out how he got this from the JJI report, skim about halfway down the article linked above, and start reading at the third paragraph after the isolated interview question in italics, "When you read the John Jay Report when it first came out, what was your initial reaction to it?"].

So my instinct was right when I saw "USCCB" in the link you provided. Instinct based on past experience.

Here are some of Fr. Sullins very balanced and fair conclusions from his study. This is from one section of those conclusions, a question and his answer:

It’s almost axiomatic among a number of very prominent figures in the Church that there is no correlation, and they cite the John Jay Report. And then we can add to that anyone who tries to investigate that type of a correlation is often accused of either scapegoating homosexual priests or of outright homophobia. What is your response to that?

....."I’ve been called homophobic and hateful before for studying these kinds of things. I would say that if it’s a choice between being called homophobic and allowing more young boys to be abused, I would choose to be at risk for being called homophobic.

.....The question is: Are we on the side of abusers? Are we on the side of victims? I think that the words of Our Lord about the importance of young children and the horribleness of those who would lead such young children astray in my mind outweigh anything that someone could call me. I’m not hateful toward anyone, to my knowledge. … I don’t think that these results in any way imply that homosexual persons are natively inclined or internally inclined to commit abuse at a greater rate than heterosexual persons.

.....In fact, we know that that’s not the case. Most child abuse that happens in most settings is perpetrated by heterosexual males. It's usually in families, and so I don’t think that in any way we can infer these results to something that generally happens with homosexual persons.

.....I do look at the influence of these homosexual subcultures in seminaries, in encouraging and promoting abuse. And I find that it explains about half of the high correlation of the abuse with the percentage of homosexual priests. So something was going on beyond just mere sexual orientation to encourage this horrible immoral activity that has wrought such harm to so many victims.

.....My experience in studying homosexuals has been this: that to people who hate the truth, the truth looks like hate."

I appreciate very much that Father Sullins makes it clear that these actual study results do not put the blame on homosexuality. There is a homosexual SUBCULTURE in the seminaries that seems to be directly connected with the root problem. That is, a subculture that happens to be homosexual. Heterosexuals have subcultures, too. The offending seminaries need to be thoroughly studied, and it will be no surprise if it comes out that what the USCCB is trying to hide from us is that these seminaries are under the jurisdiction of bishops who make regular trips to St.Gallen, Switzerland, and that this is what exactly what it looks like in every other way: a planned infiltration. I expect it will be a group of seminaries and dioceses ridden with the abuse problem, and lots of seminaries NOT. That is what the USCCB will turn out to be trying to hide, IMO. They are protecting their cronies.

[Aylen]

Francis Effect Fades: Pope’s Approval Drops Most Among Evangelicals
The latest abuse investigations have rattled non-Catholics’ perceptions more than Catholics themselves, according to survey data.


Eliza, I didn't know what the USCCB was. I got a direct link to the report, from a quick google search. It is what you based your statistics and terminology on. I didn't look at the rest of the website so no need to get hung up on where I got the full report. It could have been from anywhere. That is all.

[Aylen]

Now I'm just imagining certain people making religious coloring books to try to be irreverent... "Hello New Atheists! Would you like to draw a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed to piss off those horrible Mohammedans, but you feel that your drawing skills are not up to par? Now, you can buy our Color Mohammed! Adult Coloring Books for as low as £19.99! All the winners from the Draw Mohammed! cartoon contest, with 5 bonus pages from everyone's favorite free speech organization Charlie Hebdo, as endorsed by CNN!"

I googled to see if something like that's actually been made and people have tried but it hasn't. I think that's a good cause to be less cynical about people in general (not that that'll stop Charlie Hebdo from being less cynical about people in general.)

I would like to keep my head, thank you, so, no comment. lol

[Not A Communist Shill]

@Eliza Thomason it is astonishing you'd sooner associate paedophilia with homosexuality than with Catholicism, as though that would absolve Catholicism from any blame.

It would be better if you blamed the paedophiles with criminal intent and the Catholics with criminal intent, and dealt with them accordingly.

[Skepsis]

Secular beliefs are on the rise and Catholicism is dying in the West, thankfully. It will continue to rise, depriving religion of the oxygen it needs to fuel its mind consuming flames. The Mythos of Christianity is wholly out of touch with reality and human nature. It's only saving grace it that it is comprised of human beings who are biologically wired for morality, which is just a system of prosocial thoughts to help sentient, social animals survive and flourish. Keeping the masses believing in fairy tales such as miracles, resurrections, life after death make for excellent speculative fiction for children and movies on the hallmark channel, but is disastrous for educated adults who are trying to make our world better through logic, reason, science, and progress, and not through the wishful thinking of ancient desert nomads.

If they want to play politics in the really real world and try and influence the rest of us, then they should be taxed. Otherwise, you are free to believe in what you want within the confines of wholly consenting adults in non-public institutions.

[Adam Strange]

Secular beliefs are on the rise and Catholicism is dying in the West, thankfully. It will continue to rise, depriving religion of the oxygen it needs to fuel its mind consuming flames. The Mythos of Christianity is wholly out of touch with reality and human nature. It's only saving grace it that it is comprised of human beings who are biologically wired for morality, which is just a system of prosocial thoughts to help sentient, social animals survive and flourish. Keeping the masses believing in fairy tales such as miracles, resurrections, life after death make for excellent speculative fiction for children and movies on the hallmark channel, but is disastrous for educated adults who are trying to make our world better through logic, reason, science, and progress, and not through the wishful thinking of ancient desert nomads.

If they want to play politics in the really real world and try and influence the rest of us, then they should be taxed. Otherwise, you are free to believe in what you want within the confines of wholly consenting adults in non-public institutions.

Religion played an important part in the development of morality and science (yes, science) in early human history, and did so by clever means which are today being imitated and superseded by the entertainment industry.

Early morals were "An eye for an eye", which was an improvement on "Kill their entire family", and an improvement on that is "turn the other cheek", both of which tend to maintain precious numbers in small tribes which cannot suffer even minor losses without disappearing.

Burying the dead after a certain time, covering your head in a desert environment, dietary restrictions, all served to promote "scientific improvements to health" in a world that lacked the scientific method.

Much of what has been preserved in most religions is good for the group's survival. However, humans have discovered more effective measures to preserve life and health in many cases, and it's no more surprising that people are moving toward science and better moral behavior that it was to see Christians move from the Old to the New Testament.

[Not A Communist Shill]

Religion played an important part in the development of morality and science (yes, science) in early human history, and did so by clever means which are today being imitated and superseded by the entertainment industry.

Early morals were "An eye for an eye", which was an improvement on "Kill their entire family", and an improvement on that is "turn the other cheek", both of which tend to maintain precious numbers in small tribes which cannot suffer even minor losses without disappearing.

Burying the dead after a certain time, covering your head in a desert environment, dietary restrictions, all served to promote "scientific improvements to health" in a world that lacked the scientific method.

Much of what has been preserved in most religions is good for the group's survival. However, humans have discovered more effective measures to preserve life and health in many cases, and it's no more surprising that people are moving toward science and better moral behavior that it was to see Christians move from the Old to the New Testament.

The Hammurabi law codes from the 18th century BC are essentially an eye for an eye.

I think Steven Pinker in own of his recent books cited studies which show that religious societies actually tend to be more vengeful and violent than more secular societies. I think moving away from religions that divide people into believers and non-believers helps, as does valuing the life you have now rather than being hopeful of a life after death, as does moving away from ideologies that teach that the lawless unbelievers will be tortured forever.

[Skepsis]

Religion played an important part in the development of morality and science (yes, science) in early human history, and did so by clever means which are today being imitated and superseded by the entertainment industry.

Early morals were "An eye for an eye", which was an improvement on "Kill their entire family", and an improvement on that is "turn the other cheek", both of which tend to maintain precious numbers in small tribes which cannot suffer even minor losses without disappearing.

Burying the dead after a certain time, covering your head in a desert environment, dietary restrictions, all served to promote "scientific improvements to health" in a world that lacked the scientific method.

Much of what has been preserved in most religions is good for the group's survival. However, humans have discovered more effective measures to preserve life and health in many cases, and it's no more surprising that people are moving toward science and better moral behavior that it was to see Christians move from the Old to the New Testament.

Any of the major world religions teach very similar golden and silver rules of morality, suggesting it is not the particular religion per se, but a system of morality developed by civilizations to solidify a population made up of numerous smaller groups and interests. The larger it becomes, the more it has to appeal to a universality to keep these diverse groups together. This is something smaller societies don't have to contend with as they are less complex and less diverse.

Morality becomes codified and adopted as part of a culture. When it is derived from religious beliefs, there is a mix of superstitious beliefs, a move toward universality, with an innate tendency toward prosocial behavior(thank you evolution). Secularism is the advancement of morality beyond religion, essentially getting rid of much of the superstition that predates the major religions, but were adopted by them, and using the knowledge and wisdom we have gained to make improvements, modify, and create alternate systems of morality.

Secularism likes to play with morality for its advancement, while the Catholic priests are busy playing with little kids.

[Eliza Thomason]

Francis Effect Fades: Pope’s Approval Drops Most Among Evangelicals
The latest abuse investigations have rattled non-Catholics’ perceptions more than Catholics themselves, according to survey data.


Eliza, I didn't know what the USCCB was. I got a direct link to the report, from a quick google search. It is what you based your statistics and terminology on. I didn't look at the rest of the website so no need to get hung up on where I got the full report. It could have been from anywhere. That is all.

I did not mean to imply you did something wrong. My interest in the source of the link had to do with my own thoughts, and it led to giving me more understanding of the issue. Like, I am glad pursuing this topic led me to find the Fr. Sullin article. The reason USCCB caught my eye is because they are a central to the problem - they are the ones boldly hiding the facts that can lead to solving the problem. It's a continuing journey to learn what is true. But it's ugly, and I think I want to focus on some beautiful and right and holy things for a bit now.

[Eliza Thomason]

@Eliza Thomason it is astonishing you'd sooner associate paedophilia with homosexuality than with Catholicism, as though that would absolve Catholicism from any blame.

It would be better if you blamed the paedophiles with criminal intent and the Catholics with criminal intent, and dealt with them accordingly.

It's like you did not read any of my posts, and you are just responding to a word or two that you saw in what I wrote. You draw your own conclusion about what those words must be saying, and are now responding with astonishment to that figment of your own imagination.

You cannot have an intelligent conversation if you don't read the words you are commenting on.

[Not A Communist Shill]

It's like you did not read any of my posts, and you are just responding to a word or two that you saw in what I wrote. You draw your own conclusion about what those words must be saying, and are now responding with astonishment to that figment of your own imagination.

You cannot have an intelligent conversation if you don't read the words you are commenting on.

You said that:

*The truth is that the name of the crime is pederasty - sex between a grown man and a boy. Just as horrible as child molestaion, but these perpetrators and protectors of perpetrators refuse to call it what they know it is. 80-84% of the victims are post pubescent boys over the age of 14, preyed upon by homosexual priests. For some suspicious reason, they are united (with the support of the media) in their endeavor to hide the true nature of the crime. And truly, it is organized crime.

This is not true. The charges relevant to the Catholic Church are rape, statutory rape, child abuse, and the concealment of crime. The gender and the sexuality of the people involved is legally irrelevant.

[Eliza Thomason]

This is not true. The charges relevant to the Catholic Church are rape, statutory rape, child abuse, and the concealment of crime.

The gender and the sexuality of the people involved is legally irrelevant.

Legally, yes, this information is might be irrelevant. This would help explain what bishops and higher-ups, whose primarily interest seems to be protecting their cronies, are hiding behind when they withhold key information about the nature of their crimes.

However, it seems you have not read my posts because I am obviously not concerned with legal limitations, but instead about getting to the root of the problem in order to correct it. Since the JJI studies indicate that some dioceses have either no abuse problem or almost no abuse problem, while others are teaming with it, we have proof there that the problem is not an essentially "Catholic" problem, but instead, some other problem that, demonstrably, can be eradicated.

[Not A Communist Shill]

Legally, yes, this information is might be irrelevant. This would help explain what bishops and higher-ups, whose primarily interest seems to be protecting their cronies, are hiding behind when they withhold key information about the nature of their crimes.

However, it seems you have not read my posts because I am obviously not concerned with legal limitations, but instead about getting to the root of the problem in order to correct it. Since the JJI studies indicate that some dioceses have either no abuse problem or almost no abuse problem, while others are teaming with it, we have proof there that the problem is not an essentially "Catholic" problem, but instead, some other problem that, demonstrably, can be eradicated.

You said I made a conclusion about what you said that was not true, even though I was correct.

When the Catholic Church systematically covers up murder, rape, child abuse, fraud etc., it engaged in a criminal conspiracy. That is very much a "Catholic" problem, quite above and beyond the Church's legal obligations for the harmful actions of their employees. Homosexuality has absolutely nothing to do with the liability for these crimes.