𝗧𝗛𝗜𝗦!!! For once, someone in the church ranks has acknowledged that the problem of child sex abuse by priests CANNOT be solved internally, but must involve secular law enforcement. Reverend Connell has had the fortitude to make such a statement in public, and his bold assertion that he will not be silenced by the Catholic Church is a welcome and badly overdue event.
Honestly, I'd bet he isn't alone. It's likely there are a lot more like Father Jim. The problem is that, the second someone like him speaks up, a target instantly goes up on their backs, as it did with Reverend Connell. My impression is that the Catholic hierarchy is pretty intolerant as it comes to alternative opinions, particularly as it comes to something as foundational as the Confessional.
It gives one to wonder, though, if a bunch of priests stood up and said, "ENOUGH! DEAL with this problem!" Yeah, they could all get shown the door, but OH, would that show a less-than-ideal picture of the RCC!
There's a national organization (can't remember the name) of ministers who've lost their faith in God and become atheists. Many of them have left the profession, but some are still pulling in a salary, reasoning that they don't have to spend a lot of time pushing theology and their humanitarian messaging won't reach their congregants any other way. Hypocrites? Technically yes, but I'm not gonna second-guess those guys.
There are times when secrecy is necessary. At the national-government level, it involves things like nuclear secrets and troop movements. At the state level, it can be routing options for future highways, contingency plans for prison riots, or strategies for accepting contract bids. At the municipal level, it can be personnel disciplinary matters or contract-negotiation tactics. In the area of law enforcement, it can involve protection for key witnesses or abused spouses. In criminal justice, it includes jury deliberations. In school and the doctor’s office, it’s your health records. In journalism, it involves protecting one’s confidential sources. In private enterprise, it includes trade secrets like drug formulas and microchip designs. In football, it’s what gets talked about in the huddle. In poker, it’s what your hole cards are. With kids, it’s what their birthday presents will be. With your wife, it’s whether she looks fat in those jeans.
As an obese person, I don't believe jeans can ever make you look fat. Either you are and look it in every pair of pants, or this fucked up society's idea of beauty has so fucked up your head that you think you can't be skinny enough.
The flack they're getting right now is likely the most intense it's ever been, and I would doubt mightily that said blowback is going to lighten up at all. What I would hope for is for the s̵h̵e̵e̵p̵ parishioners might finally wake up and confront the clergy about this.
Sadly, we've been waiting a long time already for that to happen. I suspect we'll be waiting a considerable while longer...
Catholics who still attend Mass and put money in the collection baskets every Sunday are enabling child molestation. There is no getting around this fact.
It worked so well for DM's grandparents 9 children (at least 3 boys and 3 girls, I don't remember for the last 3 and DM is asleep). I imagine the sadness of the town priest(s) when only the girls had a religious education 😁
The argument goes that if someone thinks the priest will report any confessions then they won’t confess their secrets.
Well big deal! The Catholic Church is saying that making the priest, or indeed any offender, feel better by getting these things off their chest (ye gods, what a casual way of referring to child abuse!) is somehow preferable to reporting them and ensuring they can’t continue in their ways. I say stuff them!
No different than seeing protestant clergymen shielding rapists and wife beaters from accountability in many churches by kicking out pastors and congregation members that expose and send such criminals to prison for many decades.
Actually, having that practice of the Confessional and the doctrine that it is SEALED and inviolate by any external action makes the Catholic Church unique. As they have in this instance, they can punish priests who even suggest that said seal should have conditions on it, up to and, I suspect, including excommunication. Protestant sexual predators who may wear a collar may or may not be subject to similar consequences from their church or the association it may subscribe to.
Yet another reason why the RCC should be subject to secular investigation and those found culpable arrested, tried, and jailed.
One of the Jan. 6th MAGAts, who attended Chump's riot-inciting rally some two years and change ago, but who apparently did 𝘯𝘰𝘵 join in the actual attempted coup bit, has lately become a scapegoat for certain high-profile MAGAt mouthpieces. They've been claiming that, because he was seen chatting with the cops, and wasn't part of the mob that entered the Capitol, he must therefore have been a plant sent by the authorities to goad the 𝘱𝘰𝘰𝘳 𝘸𝘪𝘥𝘥𝘭𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘯𝘰𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘳𝘪𝘰𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘴 into Doing an Insurrection. Because, y'know, the FBI or whomever they're blaming this week would be so careless as to have an undercover agent talk with other LEOs in full view of the criminal group they were infiltrating, right?
Turns out he's somewhat unhappy about being thrown under the bus. Unhappy enough to get lawyers involved...
...and defamation is 𝘮𝘶𝘤𝘩 easier to prove against claims made about an 𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘥𝘶𝘢𝘭, so this may stand a better chance in court than the Dominion case does, if he files the papers. Please please please 𝘱𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦 file the papers!
If your still here, run into any Iowans lately? There are a bunch of them out your way rooting for the Iowa women's basketball team. And, btw, how about changing your time zone? The game tonight doesn't start until 9pm local.
Haven't run into any Iowans flashing the colors yet (not that I've been paying lot of attention to seeing them).
I'm just happy Gonzaga men got bounced at the Elite Eight by UConn. I can't stand the Bulldogs (they're based in Pullman, just like the hated WSU Cougars). And Bulldog games keep interrupting regular programming on AM 880 KIXI.
OT: Ken Ham is claiming that demand for his boat clad office building is so great that it attracted a new hotel to the area. What he doesn't say is that he (AIG) is building it.
They also sold part of the Ark parking lot to themselves to build the hotel on. All above board, I'm sure.
I'm also sure the already existing hotels are thrilled.
Wonder if he'll offer nonbelievers deep discounts for staying at his hotel while simultaneously charging Christians...you should pardon the expression...full boat.
Never has any organization fought so long and so hard to preserve a tradition as the RCC has for the sake of its priestly predilection for raping children. Every time they issue a statement containing the most tepid condemnation of a priest who got caught, you can bet there are fifty more whose crimes went unreported and unpunished, by the grace of Holy Mother Church.
Physicians and psychologists are required to report child abuse, even though they are ordinarily bound by their oaths to keep their patients' confidentiality. Priests should not get a special exemption... especially not when the purpose of the confessional is to absolve the confessor of all responsibility for what they are confessing to. A visit to the confession booth should be viewed by the law as an attempt to evade the just consequences for one's actions- and a priest who fails to report a confession involving a felony, especially against a minor victim, should be tried as an accessory after the fact.
The very fact that Reverend Connell is being punished for putting secular law over the badly problematic "seal of the confession" tells me that the Church in general and that diocese in particular is incapable of policing its own priests, of which I suspect several may well be culpable of such crimes. The fact is that child molestation and rape by Catholic priests is very likely STILL going on, and it will likely continue until some outside force acts to stop it.
Because the RCC has evidently no appreciable interest in stopping it, themselves.
“Right now, in Delaware, there’s a proposed bill (HB 74) that that would break the sacramental seal. It would require priests to “report child abuse and neglect” that they learn about during confession.”
Snark alert. Well now, Catholic priests who don’t want to risk punishment could just refuse to hear confessions in Delaware. They and their flock could cross the state line for confessions. That’s how we are handling abortion, right? No one is saying you can’t get an abortion/confess to sexual abuse of children. We’re leaving that up to state government, just like the Founders intended. Besides, one can hardly fall over in Delaware without landing in a neighboring state.
Robin Williams did a bit about the RCC shuffling priests around more than 20 years ago... and if he were still alive to do it again, he wouldn't have to change a word: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKw8IncU5js
Felony isn't a strong enough word. Selling marijuana is a felony. Child rape is a heinous (still not strong enough) crime against nature (for lack of a better phrase)
The confessional is a joke. A priest is a man, a human being with all the faults and goodness as the rest of us. They have no special power to forgive sin, indeed, to not report crimes is not the Christian thing to do. So, these priests do not report crimes and the criminal goes out of the confessional with a few hail mary's and continues in his criminal ways. Does this not make the priest an accessory to the fact? Why won't the church change this? They would have to admit what they teach is a myth and they have no more power over anyone in or out of their faith than my dog.
The RCC's policies regarding confessional are a reflection of outdated, politically-motivated, selfish ideas that are generally intended to help the RCC remain powerful. Let's face the reality, confessional is a great place to gather blackmail material, and knowing all the dirty laundry is good for the RCC's long-term staying power. As if they didn't have enough with all that money they've got.
I will admit I don't have much respect for the RCC as a rule. I do, however, respect the courage and determination of someone willing to decry RCC policy from within to protect kids. Good on you for this one, Father Jim. I'm sorry to hear you're being punished for doing the right thing.
The Catholic church has been facilitating and protecting pederasts for centuries. Raping children is literally an unspoken tradition of the Catholic Church, and it's a safe bet that many of the Church's top leaders (Cardinals, Archbishops, Bishops, etc.) are pederasts themselves who don't want the tradition to end. So, the sexual and psychological abuse of children is, in large part, the Church's raison d'être, and there is no reason to expect that the church is going to change any time soon.
Here’s the one priest in the RCC that makes up for the rest. Not all priests are raping children, or covering up the rape of children, this guy is advocating for the kids. Now the RCC apologists have someone to glom onto to prove us atheists wrong about how immoral the RCC is. Thousands of bad apples don’t ruin the bunch when you have this one good apple.
... 𝑖𝑓 𝑠𝑒𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑡𝑠 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑏𝑢𝑡𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑎𝑏𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝑜𝑟 𝑛𝑒𝑔𝑙𝑒𝑐𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑎 𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑜𝑟, 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑚 𝑜𝑓 𝑠𝑒𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑦 𝑖𝑠 𝑖𝑚𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑎𝑙 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑑𝑒𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑡𝑜 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑚𝑜𝑛 𝑔𝑜𝑜𝑑 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑜𝑐𝑖𝑒𝑡𝑦.
𝗧𝗛𝗜𝗦!!! For once, someone in the church ranks has acknowledged that the problem of child sex abuse by priests CANNOT be solved internally, but must involve secular law enforcement. Reverend Connell has had the fortitude to make such a statement in public, and his bold assertion that he will not be silenced by the Catholic Church is a welcome and badly overdue event.
I wish him luck.
I find myself in the uncomfortable position of agreeing with a Catholic priest.
It's a big organization, there have to be at least a few halfway-decent ones.
Honestly, I'd bet he isn't alone. It's likely there are a lot more like Father Jim. The problem is that, the second someone like him speaks up, a target instantly goes up on their backs, as it did with Reverend Connell. My impression is that the Catholic hierarchy is pretty intolerant as it comes to alternative opinions, particularly as it comes to something as foundational as the Confessional.
It gives one to wonder, though, if a bunch of priests stood up and said, "ENOUGH! DEAL with this problem!" Yeah, they could all get shown the door, but OH, would that show a less-than-ideal picture of the RCC!
There's a national organization (can't remember the name) of ministers who've lost their faith in God and become atheists. Many of them have left the profession, but some are still pulling in a salary, reasoning that they don't have to spend a lot of time pushing theology and their humanitarian messaging won't reach their congregants any other way. Hypocrites? Technically yes, but I'm not gonna second-guess those guys.
Would that organization be "The Clergy Project?"
Even a blind organization of pigs finds an acorn now and then.
You have to squirrel away a few acorns.
Nuts!
Yes.
Oakey doakey!
Just because they are wrong about everything else doesn't mean they are wrong about this. : )
The system is corrupt but not every person in the system is no matter how hard the system works to corrupt them.
Just don't bend over. You'll be fine. Just uncomfortable.
Broken clock...
There are times when secrecy is necessary. At the national-government level, it involves things like nuclear secrets and troop movements. At the state level, it can be routing options for future highways, contingency plans for prison riots, or strategies for accepting contract bids. At the municipal level, it can be personnel disciplinary matters or contract-negotiation tactics. In the area of law enforcement, it can involve protection for key witnesses or abused spouses. In criminal justice, it includes jury deliberations. In school and the doctor’s office, it’s your health records. In journalism, it involves protecting one’s confidential sources. In private enterprise, it includes trade secrets like drug formulas and microchip designs. In football, it’s what gets talked about in the huddle. In poker, it’s what your hole cards are. With kids, it’s what their birthday presents will be. With your wife, it’s whether she looks fat in those jeans.
With child abusers, it's NEVER!!!!
As an obese person, I don't believe jeans can ever make you look fat. Either you are and look it in every pair of pants, or this fucked up society's idea of beauty has so fucked up your head that you think you can't be skinny enough.
NOW the RCC wants to practice cancel cultural? Not when their clergy are raping kids and being shuffled around?
And Holy Mother Church still wants to claim the moral high ground?
The flack they're getting right now is likely the most intense it's ever been, and I would doubt mightily that said blowback is going to lighten up at all. What I would hope for is for the s̵h̵e̵e̵p̵ parishioners might finally wake up and confront the clergy about this.
Sadly, we've been waiting a long time already for that to happen. I suspect we'll be waiting a considerable while longer...
Catholics who still attend Mass and put money in the collection baskets every Sunday are enabling child molestation. There is no getting around this fact.
I expect they’re also not long for this world. When the boomers die out a lot of Catholic Churches are going to be suddenly empty.
To paraphrase James T. Kirk:
"Let it die!"
That's why they're against birth control. If you have 8 kids, the brainwashing will stick with one or two.
And having 8 kids means more fresh prey for the clergy to get their grasping hands on. Literally.
It worked so well for DM's grandparents 9 children (at least 3 boys and 3 girls, I don't remember for the last 3 and DM is asleep). I imagine the sadness of the town priest(s) when only the girls had a religious education 😁
Yeah really
The argument goes that if someone thinks the priest will report any confessions then they won’t confess their secrets.
Well big deal! The Catholic Church is saying that making the priest, or indeed any offender, feel better by getting these things off their chest (ye gods, what a casual way of referring to child abuse!) is somehow preferable to reporting them and ensuring they can’t continue in their ways. I say stuff them!
No different than seeing protestant clergymen shielding rapists and wife beaters from accountability in many churches by kicking out pastors and congregation members that expose and send such criminals to prison for many decades.
Actually, having that practice of the Confessional and the doctrine that it is SEALED and inviolate by any external action makes the Catholic Church unique. As they have in this instance, they can punish priests who even suggest that said seal should have conditions on it, up to and, I suspect, including excommunication. Protestant sexual predators who may wear a collar may or may not be subject to similar consequences from their church or the association it may subscribe to.
Yet another reason why the RCC should be subject to secular investigation and those found culpable arrested, tried, and jailed.
OT- *snerk* heheheheeeeeheeheeheeAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA*wheeze*𝘈𝘏𝘈𝘏𝘈𝘏𝘈𝘏𝘈𝘏𝘈𝘏𝘈
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BL57IFERJEc
One of the Jan. 6th MAGAts, who attended Chump's riot-inciting rally some two years and change ago, but who apparently did 𝘯𝘰𝘵 join in the actual attempted coup bit, has lately become a scapegoat for certain high-profile MAGAt mouthpieces. They've been claiming that, because he was seen chatting with the cops, and wasn't part of the mob that entered the Capitol, he must therefore have been a plant sent by the authorities to goad the 𝘱𝘰𝘰𝘳 𝘸𝘪𝘥𝘥𝘭𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘯𝘰𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘳𝘪𝘰𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘴 into Doing an Insurrection. Because, y'know, the FBI or whomever they're blaming this week would be so careless as to have an undercover agent talk with other LEOs in full view of the criminal group they were infiltrating, right?
Turns out he's somewhat unhappy about being thrown under the bus. Unhappy enough to get lawyers involved...
...and defamation is 𝘮𝘶𝘤𝘩 easier to prove against claims made about an 𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘥𝘶𝘢𝘭, so this may stand a better chance in court than the Dominion case does, if he files the papers. Please please please 𝘱𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦 file the papers!
Trump the flip flopper.
When talking about John McCain he said "I like people that weren't captured, OK?"
Now he likes the J6 folks that were captured.
Make up your mind, Trump.
You expect consistency from Trump? So unfair.
If your still here, run into any Iowans lately? There are a bunch of them out your way rooting for the Iowa women's basketball team. And, btw, how about changing your time zone? The game tonight doesn't start until 9pm local.
Haven't run into any Iowans flashing the colors yet (not that I've been paying lot of attention to seeing them).
I'm just happy Gonzaga men got bounced at the Elite Eight by UConn. I can't stand the Bulldogs (they're based in Pullman, just like the hated WSU Cougars). And Bulldog games keep interrupting regular programming on AM 880 KIXI.
Go Hawks!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lm-vrmJmehQ
Sometimes mockery is the only answer. But I do like lawsuits.
OT: Ken Ham is claiming that demand for his boat clad office building is so great that it attracted a new hotel to the area. What he doesn't say is that he (AIG) is building it.
They also sold part of the Ark parking lot to themselves to build the hotel on. All above board, I'm sure.
I'm also sure the already existing hotels are thrilled.
Comment may contain sarcasm.
https://pandasthumb.org/archives/2023/03/aig-owns-some-hotel.html#more
Wonder if he'll offer nonbelievers deep discounts for staying at his hotel while simultaneously charging Christians...you should pardon the expression...full boat.
You have to sign a statement of faith at check in.
I assume he won't rent rooms to unmarried couples, then. What about groups of three or more)? Or is it strictly two of every kind?
Didn't one painting of Noah's Ark have two male lions boarding the Ark? :)
https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/styles/story_medium/public/thumbnails/image/2017/08/28/17/gay-lions-2.jpg
What you can't see is that just to the left of these two is a lioness looking on.
Wonder what she's thinking of this? :D
Would love to see him try to make that stick legally. ;)
He managed to get it to stick for employment, and this is Kentucky.
Yep. Hammy the Scammy took taxpayer dollars for his masturbation fantasy while simultaneously discriminating in his hiring practices.
All with the help of his very good friend, then-governor Matt Bevin.
Whatever floats his boat.........oh wait.
Never has any organization fought so long and so hard to preserve a tradition as the RCC has for the sake of its priestly predilection for raping children. Every time they issue a statement containing the most tepid condemnation of a priest who got caught, you can bet there are fifty more whose crimes went unreported and unpunished, by the grace of Holy Mother Church.
Physicians and psychologists are required to report child abuse, even though they are ordinarily bound by their oaths to keep their patients' confidentiality. Priests should not get a special exemption... especially not when the purpose of the confessional is to absolve the confessor of all responsibility for what they are confessing to. A visit to the confession booth should be viewed by the law as an attempt to evade the just consequences for one's actions- and a priest who fails to report a confession involving a felony, especially against a minor victim, should be tried as an accessory after the fact.
The very fact that Reverend Connell is being punished for putting secular law over the badly problematic "seal of the confession" tells me that the Church in general and that diocese in particular is incapable of policing its own priests, of which I suspect several may well be culpable of such crimes. The fact is that child molestation and rape by Catholic priests is very likely STILL going on, and it will likely continue until some outside force acts to stop it.
Because the RCC has evidently no appreciable interest in stopping it, themselves.
“Right now, in Delaware, there’s a proposed bill (HB 74) that that would break the sacramental seal. It would require priests to “report child abuse and neglect” that they learn about during confession.”
Snark alert. Well now, Catholic priests who don’t want to risk punishment could just refuse to hear confessions in Delaware. They and their flock could cross the state line for confessions. That’s how we are handling abortion, right? No one is saying you can’t get an abortion/confess to sexual abuse of children. We’re leaving that up to state government, just like the Founders intended. Besides, one can hardly fall over in Delaware without landing in a neighboring state.
Plus it's not like catholic leaders don't know how to shuffle priests.
Robin Williams did a bit about the RCC shuffling priests around more than 20 years ago... and if he were still alive to do it again, he wouldn't have to change a word: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKw8IncU5js
Remember, Its not just a sin. Its a felony.
Felony isn't a strong enough word. Selling marijuana is a felony. Child rape is a heinous (still not strong enough) crime against nature (for lack of a better phrase)
The confessional is a joke. A priest is a man, a human being with all the faults and goodness as the rest of us. They have no special power to forgive sin, indeed, to not report crimes is not the Christian thing to do. So, these priests do not report crimes and the criminal goes out of the confessional with a few hail mary's and continues in his criminal ways. Does this not make the priest an accessory to the fact? Why won't the church change this? They would have to admit what they teach is a myth and they have no more power over anyone in or out of their faith than my dog.
The RCC's policies regarding confessional are a reflection of outdated, politically-motivated, selfish ideas that are generally intended to help the RCC remain powerful. Let's face the reality, confessional is a great place to gather blackmail material, and knowing all the dirty laundry is good for the RCC's long-term staying power. As if they didn't have enough with all that money they've got.
I will admit I don't have much respect for the RCC as a rule. I do, however, respect the courage and determination of someone willing to decry RCC policy from within to protect kids. Good on you for this one, Father Jim. I'm sorry to hear you're being punished for doing the right thing.
The RCC isn't interested in justice. It's "circle the wagons" and protect the institution at all costs.
the Catholic church still does not get it. But I am sure they will light up more candles the next time another huge expose comes knocking on the door.
They've lit so many candles with each expose that those candles are threatening to become smoke hazards.
you are not wrong.
Is that what happened to Notre Dame?
Where was the Christian god's protection over one of his most famous houses of worship?
The Catholic church has been facilitating and protecting pederasts for centuries. Raping children is literally an unspoken tradition of the Catholic Church, and it's a safe bet that many of the Church's top leaders (Cardinals, Archbishops, Bishops, etc.) are pederasts themselves who don't want the tradition to end. So, the sexual and psychological abuse of children is, in large part, the Church's raison d'être, and there is no reason to expect that the church is going to change any time soon.
Here’s the one priest in the RCC that makes up for the rest. Not all priests are raping children, or covering up the rape of children, this guy is advocating for the kids. Now the RCC apologists have someone to glom onto to prove us atheists wrong about how immoral the RCC is. Thousands of bad apples don’t ruin the bunch when you have this one good apple.
Of course the RCC apologists will fail to mention that this one priest is being punished 𝘣𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘙𝘊𝘊.
They're not the bad apples, they're the worms.
That's an insult to worms.