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oraxx's avatar

The emotional trauma suffered by the victims of sexual abuse will follow them for the rest of their lives. Now, the State of Louisiana has just raped those victims again. These horrors have endured through the complicity of government. It's all part of the expectation of privilege organized religion has received for centuries. It also speaks to the disconnect between religion and morality. I cannot fathom why anyone remains in the Catholic Church, other than the brainwashing they experienced from birth.

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Guerillasurgeon's avatar

There is a cartoon which I can't find except on my hard drive – Bishop saying to a priest – "you abused one child, but it was years ago and I think we can probably forget that." With a child standing next to them saying "I can't".

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oraxx's avatar

There is simply no way the church hierarchy was unaware of all that abuse. Before those horrors began making their way into the press, the church circled the wagons and protected the priests 100% of the time. Not only that, they went after the abuse victims for having dared to accuse a priest of sexual assault.

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Jane's avatar

It's almost as if the Catholic Church does nothing but abuse children and protect priests. They're all a bunch of pedophiles as far as I'm concerned. Organized religion is evil.

Thanks for your good posts.

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RegularJoe's avatar

I refer to.them as an "International Pedophilia Conglomerate". It tends to do a nice job of pissing off the papists in online forums and such. 😁

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oraxx's avatar

Thank you.

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Bagen Onuts's avatar

The pope in its "infallibility" has decreed NO clergy is ever allowed to speak of these atrocities to anyone under pain of excommunication. The local papers have never mentioned anything about this. The average kkkatlik probably thinks one kid per decade is molested.

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Bill Wilson's avatar

Well there is that claim that the RCC is the OG when it comes to the sacrament. The only one with the taste of the boy of God.

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oraxx's avatar

The churches can make all the claims they want, but there is nothing in the way of objective evidence to support any of them.

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Bill Wilson's avatar

The RCC needs to change their sacrament to replace the bread and wine with a meat like cracker (Soylent Jesus?) and a beverage the taste of warm blood. Expectations and experience align thru truth in advertising. And since they are the ROMAN CC it will be natural for all RCC churches to build a vomitorium to allow the parishioners to “spew forth” after injecting the new and improved sacrament formula.

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oraxx's avatar

Next to abandoning the chuch completely, that's the best idea I've heard in some time.

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XJC's avatar

It's the lovely ceremony, the melodious music, and the comfort of prayer that keeps em coming back for more. (And if it gives people comfort, what-s wrong with that?TM.) That and fear of wrath from their merciful, omniscient God who they can never hear or see except through the words of their priest.

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oraxx's avatar

Priests, Shamans, and holy men and women of all stripes understood the power of ritual when it came to controlling people long before the Christian god appeared. Rituals evolved with the times, but their purpose never changed.

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Black Hole and DM mourner's avatar

"What the justices never explain in their ruling is what the victims of child sexual abuse ought to do if filing a lawsuit decades later isn’t an option."

Obviously the victims here are the priests, so their accusers should repent by shutting up, going back to church, being generous when the collection plate pass around and give 50 % of their revenue to the church to compensate the poor tempted priests for their emotional damages and the rest to the courageous louisana injustices* who showed how disconnected with reality they are 🙄

* 🖕

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XJC's avatar

Louisiana will be giving an additional tax break to those who donate to the Catholic church.

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Sean's avatar

There are other forms of justice.

Because legal and moral might overlap in places, but they are not the same thing.

A friend relayed a friend's story to me: he (as a boy) was abused by a catholic priest. When he told his father, his father told him, "Don't tell anyone." The boy felt betrayed, his own father did not believe him. The next Sunday, a different priest stood at the podium. He announced that their regular priest had been viciously attacked and hospitalized, and he would not be returning. As gasps rang out through the church, the boy looked at his father who did not react to the news at all. His father never confirmed that he was the culprit, but he had no doubts.

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Val Uptuous NotAgain's avatar

Before I moved to Wisconsin, there was a murder of a famously beloved priest. Every couple of years the news talks about the anniversary of his death and if anyone has any information since the murder is still unsolved. I’ve lived here almost twelve years now. One can’t help but wonder what might have happened and since I was not privy to the original story and the investigation, I know nothing about whether the priest had any accusations against him. However, and as intolerant or cruel as it sounds, personally I do not have sympathy and just assume a victim got their justice that day. Yeah, simply because he was a priest and the RCC has destroyed any goodwill I might have had toward them. I feel like the police have no leads because they just don’t want to investigate his past in case it might sully his beloved reputation.

I know this isn’t how I should think, but every time a new story about the RCC comes up, it just drives my suspicions. And I rarely see any stories about the RCC that benefit anyone, no priests saving kittens or housing displaced people after a disaster. They’re all priests molesting and church coverups, or resident schools or laundries and septic tanks and women dying in Catholic run hospitals. How could I possibly extend the benefit of the doubt knowing even the little bit of history I know?

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Sean's avatar

I am currently reading Cinderland: A Memior in which the author talks about the impactful revelation of sexual abuse by a much beloved piano teacher upon many of the girls in town. When asked if she had been abused, she did what every good girl did. She said, "No." The girls who did admit they were abused were very much outcasts in the town and she did not want to be one of them. The truth was never an option.

Like you, I suspect someone got their justice. I have no sympathy for the church or any member or the parishioners who continue to support the rampant evil the church had perpetrated upon the world. There has never been an accounting and never will be.

The church makes me want to believe that there is an afterlife and these people will burn forever for the evil they have inflicted upon the world for centuries.

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Matri's avatar

I’ve always said: the continued existence of these christians is the surest proof of the nonexistence of their God.

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Dianne Marie Leonard's avatar

That, and dioceses declaring bankruptcy, and hiding their assets in prime real estate. Absolutely I know what you mean. My therapist calls this "religious trauma" and I doubt I'll ever be free of it, and I wasn't (that I know of) molested. Nevertheless this sort of ruling is very dispiriting. How many of those who ruled this way are catholics or their enablers?

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RegularJoe's avatar

It could also be that some in law enforcement don't want to solve the case and punish a 'hero'.

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oraxx's avatar

Good for dad!

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Crowscage's avatar

Open season on pedo priests.

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Joe King's avatar

Why is there a statute of limitations on child sexual abuse in the first place? Seems to me that it is just as heinous a crime as murder.

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painedumonde's avatar

Peut-être, the mistaken and old notion that children aren't people until a certain age - a holdover from the past?

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Dianne Marie Leonard's avatar

That is exactly what I was thinking when I read of this ruling. Are children property?

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Black Hole and DM mourner's avatar

As long as parents will be allowed to marry underage children (girls) and "heal" them with prayers, I am afraid the answer is obvious.

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cdbunch's avatar

Excruciatingly so.

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Matri's avatar

Everyone but them is property.

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AlbertCamus's avatar

But what about unborn children?

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painedumonde's avatar

Oh you think you've caught them out, oh ho! No no no, see, the unborn have their souls with one foot in heaven and one foot in the womb. Until the trial of birth, they are special and not yet sinful!

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NOGODZ20's avatar

They're imaginary. Like Jeebus.

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Val Uptuous NotAgain's avatar

“If an organization thinks the statute of limitations has expired, they may destroy otherwise relevant documents.“

Wait. What?

If an organization has documents of a possible crime that they’re holding on to until the statute of limitations expires, aren’t they abetting that crime? If they’ve got evidence, proof of guilt or innocence, regarding a crime and they are just waiting for a victim to come forward, shouldn’t they just go to authorities to report the crime? I know we’re talking about priests and the church, but wouldn’t that be evidence of a cover up and therefore the organization is an accessory.

I’m just done with this crap. The fucking RCC needs to be abolished. And the goddamned courts need to be overhauled completely. Remove everyone and start over. I’m not even done reading this article and this is too damn much.

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Black Hole and DM mourner's avatar

In France, it's why when someone hid a corpse the countdown for the statute of limitations starts only when the corpse is found.

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Stephen Brady's avatar

And in the US, there isn't a statute of limitations for murder. We need to fix this going forward so they can no longer get away with this.

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Dianne Marie Leonard's avatar

Same is true here in the US for medical malpractice. The countdown begins when the person who suffered from the malpractice discovers the crime/coverup. In my case, I didn't discover the crime til I was in my late 40s. The doc was long dead by then. My mom, who also didn't know til then, urged me to sue his estate, which I suppose I could have done. But time (and poverty) intervened. I was left by that quack to suffer for the rest of my life. He skipped out by dying, the fucker. The same was and is true for the abusive clergy. Sometimes I wish there was really such a thing as the christian hell for people like that. Infinite punishment for finite crimes sometimes seems like what they deserve.

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Rachel Baldes's avatar

Yes, no one would take my case until the doctor was no longer located in the city and the time limit to sue was closing.

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Joan the Dork's avatar

The court just out and saying "please go ahead and destroy the evidence now, before someone who actually wants you to face justice finds it" is pretty wild, too. Providing advice on how to get away with a crime is usually defense counsel's job... and even they're not allowed to tell their clients to commit more crimes to cover up their crimes, but that's exactly what the majority opinion is telling the RCC to do, here.

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Dianne Marie Leonard's avatar

Not a lawyer, but wouldn't telling somebody to cover up/destroy evidence of a crime be viewed as complicity--and then make the person(s) who urged the destruction of evidence liable to be sued also?

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Ethereal fairy Natalie's avatar

In a sane world, yes.

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Bagen Onuts's avatar

The kkkatlik church saves everything. It probably has a cololection of holy pope turds dating back 2000 years.

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Rachel Baldes's avatar

There is something more egregious than even what we've come to expect from the Catholic Church going on in Louisiana. The church has more people in high places looking after their interests above the interests of their parishioners in the state than most. Considering the weight of accusations and the years long denial and cover-ups found in the wake of investigations like those found by the Boston Globe that's really saying something. They are linked to the same branches of reactionary fundamentalist Catholicism as our most recent conservative Supreme court judges and this is another face of the world they want to force us all to live in. This is the same archdiocese that recently excommunicated a deacon whose son was molested by a priest from the church but allowed the pedophile to remain in the church.

https://www.ncronline.org/news/after-sons-abuse-louisiana-deacon-and-family-join-anglican-church-incurring-excommunication

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Ethereal fairy Natalie's avatar

Yes, I wonder if Leonard Leo 'fixed' their courts too? Or if it is just the usual Louisiana corruption?

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Rachel Baldes's avatar

I think this is mostly the latter, but I'm not 100% certain.

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Joe King's avatar

… 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐿𝑜𝑢𝑖𝑠𝑖𝑎𝑛𝑎 𝑆𝑢𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑚𝑒 𝐶𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑡’𝑠 𝑎𝑝𝑝𝑙𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑐𝑒𝑝𝑡 [𝑜𝑓 𝑑𝑢𝑒 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑐𝑒𝑠𝑠] 𝑡𝑜 𝑠𝑒𝑥𝑢𝑎𝑙 𝑎𝑏𝑢𝑠𝑒𝑟𝑠 𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑡𝑐ℎ𝑒𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑎 𝑜𝑓 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑡𝑦 𝑟𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑖𝑡𝑠 𝑏𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑝𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑡

There you have it. The Louisiana Supreme Court has effectively declared children to be the property of the RCC, and not people.

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XJC's avatar

As Jesus intended.

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Troublesh00ter's avatar

This is all we need: the government acting as enablers for abusers, and the ONLY likely reason is because said abusers wear holy orders. About the only thing I can hope for here is that victimized parishioners react in numbers, contact their local representatives, and raise unholy hell against this ruling.

It's bad enough that the abuse happened in the first place. The court adding insult to injury by taking the wrong side in this argument only rubs salt in the wound.

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Die Anyway's avatar

I'm sure the Justices prayed about this and their decision is what God told them is the right thing. Can't argue with God you know.

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Bagen Onuts's avatar

Paraphrasing their holey book. "Thou shalt not suffer a priest to live." See how long it takes THAT to be called hate speech.

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Troublesh00ter's avatar

Actually, no, you can't argue with god. How do you argue with something that doesn't exist ... unless of course, you're willing to argue with yourself? Yeah, since a neurological study some time back showed that when believers expressed what they thought god wanted, while being scanned with an MRI, the same portion of their brain lit up as when they expressed what THEY wanted.

Funny thing, that.

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Black Hole and DM mourner's avatar

It's Satan's work 😁

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NOGODZ20's avatar

Meanwhile, women have tight time constraints put on them by "pro-lifers" in the the amount of time they're allowed to seek an abortion. And in many case, they're given no time at all.

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Daniel Rotter's avatar

Constraints not just on women but girls, including victims of rape (like the case in Ohio a few years back).

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NOGODZ20's avatar

Yup.

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OwossoHarpist's avatar

And they wonder why so many people are quitting the church for good.

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Bagen Onuts's avatar

I left years ago. I had to threaten the local bitchup with a lawsuit as stated in a registered letter, but I did it. Now I wish I could do it over again to drive this shit back at the local church.

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AlbertCamus's avatar

Virginia is for lovers; Louisiana is for predators.

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NOGODZ20's avatar

Is it any wonder that bottom-ranked Louisiana is also dead last in Crimes and Corrections?

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NOGODZ20's avatar

Dead last in Economy, too. Check out their pitiful rankings...

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/louisiana

Oh, but they're the 4th most devout (read: Christian) state in the US. Rather telling, isn't it?

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larry parker's avatar

Alabama says "hold my giant cross".

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NOGODZ20's avatar

Mississippi, too.

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XJC's avatar

Somebody's gotta win the race to the bottom. Too much competition in 'murica.

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AlbertCamus's avatar

There #1. And with so much competition from the slower states !

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Ethereal fairy Natalie's avatar

It is first in corruption, though!

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Sarah Carr's avatar

😡 I hope this fight isn’t over because that was clearly the wrong decision.

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Whitney's avatar

That really is half the problem in itself. The RCC has near-endless money with which to fight this if needed, but the victims probably don't. Those victims might be able to find an attorney to fight this pro bono, but even if they do there may not be much more to be done.

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Black Hole and DM mourner's avatar

OT : I sincerely thanks the inventors of alarm necklace. DM was in severe hypoglycemia and fell from her bed while I was trying to make her drink some fruit juice, and I couldn't do more than help her to sit on the floor. EMTs came and helped me. She is now safely back on her bed.

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cdbunch's avatar

Glad she's all right.

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Bagen Onuts's avatar

Glad all are safe.

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Troublesh00ter's avatar

Good news! Please give her a hug for me.

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cdbunch's avatar

Yet another reminder I should get one for myself. It's not like the cat can dial 9-1-1. (Not that I'd get to be carried out in the arms of the lovely Oliver Stark.)

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Black Hole and DM mourner's avatar

The person who contacted me after I pressed the button even called me back after the EMTs left to be sure everything was all right.

The monthly fee is less than 30 €. Money well spent.

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Daniel Rotter's avatar

"I sincerely thanks the inventor alarm necklaces."

You mean you didn't thank God, ONLY the people who actually contributed to your husband's safety? Shameful./s

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Black Hole and DM mourner's avatar

You are right.

Thank you Seshat 😁

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Troublesh00ter's avatar

Thank you, Flying Spaghetti Monster! May you be touched by his noodly appendage!

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Black Hole and DM mourner's avatar

Ponzu be udon you.

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Daniel Rotter's avatar

Whoops, "safety of DM," not "husband's safety" ("SHE is now safely...").

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Zorginipsoundsor's avatar

Dungeon Master.

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Black Hole and DM mourner's avatar

I didn't see it.

My husband is as real as a god 😁

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Zorginipsoundsor's avatar

How do you separate a priest from an altar boy?

With a crowbar.

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Patti Beth Smith's avatar

Yet another reason I am now an anti-theist! I'm SO thankful that church attendance by my own son didn't "take" and he didn't get indoctrinated like I did. In fact, he was asked not to return to the last Baptist church he attended. So proud my son has seen truth even at a young age.

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Bagen Onuts's avatar

I had to threaten the local bishop with legal action to get my name removed. My SIL was aghast I left and my brother was threatened with excommunication by a priest. My brother laughed at him.

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