I do not know why membership in the Catholic Church isn’t down to zero. Then again, I’m assuming people are rational and will act in their self interests. The Catholic Church brain washes children from birth and they are masters at using guilt to shape behavior. Unfortunately far too many are left shackled with behavior patterns they cannot break.
There's also the matter that religion in general is STILL considered to be a positive influence on society, and there is an enormous amount of social inertia behind that misapprehension.
I don't remember who said it, but I read a quote that went, "I didn't become an atheist because I sudied religion, but because I studied history." The people you are referring to don't study history.
I also don’t know why membership isn’t down to zero.
I was banned from r/excatholic on Reddit because I wasn’t being sympathetic enough to people going through deconstruction that or maybe it was my comment that I wish I could reach through the phone and just shake people.
Have hope I’m a 73 y/o female who left catholicism 53 years ago.
Most theists have a superficial understanding of their religion and almost never have a reason to go deeper or be informed about religion related news.
The Church should have been doing what Trahant did starting 20 centuries ago. If SCOTUS upholds the fine, and I suspect they will given the number of justices connected to the RCC, is there a gofundme set up so we can help Trahant clear the unjust debt?
Regarding the issue surrounding age of consent, I’m not seeing anything about her consent at the time. He groomed her, yes, it was supposedly okay because she was over 16, but he also had a level of authority over her which negates consent even for adults in many cases. But really, the way it is discussed by her, she really was not an actively consenting party in the sexual activity. This is something I notice in many of these situations. There’s huge discussions regarding the children’s ages, if the perp’s actions were legal or not are limited to the age of the victims and rarely whether the victims were actually willing or if they were forced, coerced, or manipulated. To me it sounds like she didn’t want to, but gave in because he was grooming her using his position over her. Her age wasn’t the only thing making his actions criminal, but it’s the only thing being discussed.
I feel like in almost all rape discussions the fact the victims are clearly saying they didn’t want to and were pressured or coerced or whatever into the sexual activity never seems to be considered. That’s the problem entirely. Their desires are the only thing that truly matters and the one thing no one wants to even bring up.
And we are confused about what rape culture looks like. It looks like this.
The fact that churches have any legal procedure under the seal of confidentiality is an indictment on churches themselves. If they were indeed the mouthpiece of God then why not throw open the doors of ANY litigation to show the public that they are on the right side? It's almost like God is an excuse.
In the final analysis, the "seal of the confessional" winds up being little more than a dodge which attempts to frustrate secular justice. The fact that the RCC resists the idea of priests becoming mandated reporters only further verifies this idea. The Church continues to think of itself as "of it but not IN it," apart from and above secular authority.
They need to be disabused of this specious notion.
The seal of the confessional is just justification to commit horrible things.
I haven’t believed in the seal of confessional since 1973 at the age of 20 when my mother came out of the confessional crying. You see I had, had an abortion. (Yes my parents knew. They took me to Chicago to have it). I asked my mother why she was crying. She told me: the priest gave her hell AND ASKED HOW SHE COULD LET ME GET PREGNANT. No I wasn’t excommunicated. I excommunicated myself from that piece of 💩religion over how my mother was treated and realizing I was nothing but a baby making, incubating broodmare again to that piece of 💩 religion.
Except when they want to kill women's bodily autonomy, by making abortion and contraception illegal. Then they are totally cool with being in the world.
Eh that's completely standard. Any time a charity, for-profit company or government office brings in external experts to review their documents or provide advice, they're going to make them sign an NDA.
A disgustingly common line, in stories like these. This is what you get when you raise children to believe they must submit themselves to divinely-ordained authority figures while at the same time teaching them nothing at all about their own bodies, far less about boundaries and consent: a perpetual supply of victims conditioned to either be too ashamed of their own abuse to report it, or too confused by the nature of the act to understand why it was wrong. Or both.
Never trust anyone with a shred of authority over others, especially over children, who isn't subject to oversight and accountability. Ever.
We apparently have an attorney who has been punished for violating a confidentiality agreement THAT WASN'T VIOLATED because the pertinent information was already in the wind! And yet Richard Trahant still gets fined $400,000?!? I have to ask: is the judge who levied this fine a Catholic, and if so, why hasn't HE been investigated and perhaps called before a judicial review panel?
This isn't just a miscarriage of justice. This is corrupt justice run amok, and it deserves some very damned serious attention.
Meredith Grabill, the judge who levied the fine, appears to be Episcopalian. Since she did approve $230M for the survivors, she got something right. Perhaps she was angry that information left her control, and she punished the only person the rules let her punish? (The benefit of the doubt is doing a lot of jeave lifting here, I will admit.)
That Grabill levied an undue, unjust, and potentially seriously damaging fine on Trahant is grounds enough for a judicial review. She would do well to watch her ass, because I'll guarantee you that others ARE.
It makes perfect sense to me for the courts to fine someone for violating an NDA. It's a contract, you violated it, your violation caused the group you disclosed about some problem.
However I'm guessing the judge had a lot of discretion about the amount of the fine. It sounds like she went maximally punitive here, which says to me she didn't consider any factor but the harm to the church.
Yes that struck me too; wouldn't the law saying lawyers are mandated reporters 'trump' a local job NDA?
I'm not sure why it didn't here. Though I can think of a couple reasons.
First is that technically the priest did nothing illegal, because the girl was above the age of consent at the time of the act. However, that kinda doesn't wash because mandatory reports don't need to know with absolute certainty a crime has been committed to report, they just need to strongly suspect one. And it seems reasonable to me that a lawyer living in "age of consent 18" 2019 could make an honest mistake in thinking a 16 year old in the '90s was under age of consent, because he wouldn't necessarily be aware that the age limit had changed. So if he thought this was a crime, reported it, but it turned out not to be, that shouldn't be a violation, should it?
Second is that he didn't really act like a mandatory reporter. Mandatory reporting means going to the police or social services. This guy texted his brother the HS principal. So maybe the judge didn't buy it because he violated the NDA by sharing information with people his 'mandatory reporting' requirement doesn't cover. If you've got one law saying "you must tell the police" and a contract that says "you cannot tell anyone," then the combo is "you cannot tell anyone but the police." "Tell your brother the school principal" is still not allowed. Again though, maybe?? I'm not sure.
I can't see the Supremes taking this one up, both because of their religious bias and because AIUI SCOTUS is not intended to be a "do over" court where you introduce new facts. Even if they think that the newly revealed facts should be considered, AIUI that would just mean they send it back to a lower court with an order to consider the new material.
But they won't even do that. Because Alito, Barrett, Goresuch, Kavanaugh, Thomas are the 5 needed to simply deny cert.
I'm curious as to why the Mandatory Reporter issue didn't get more legal play. Seems to me that since that's a requirement for licensing and an NDA is a local, single-case thing, the Mandatory Reporter should trump the NDA. I.e. all NDA's are entered into with the tacit understanding that the lawyer must continue to abide by licensing requirements. But it doesn't sound like that was something the courts cared much about. [EDIT] Ahhh...maybe because with the age of consent laws of the 90s, the priest did nothing technically criminal??? So whistleblower and reporting rules that protect people who report illegal activities wouldn't trigger here?? Dunno, that's just a guess.
"A senior C.I.A. official was arrested last week after investigators found hundreds of gold bars worth over $40 million stashed in his Virginia residence, a small fortune that he apparently brought home from work, according to court papers."
You couldn't make this shit up. So maybe he did it so we don't have to.
The man should have been given a medal instead of a fine .This thing is just ubiquitous. 60 years ago a local priest at my wife's church – when she was a Catholic – ran off with a 14 year old and the church funds. Fled to Ireland of all places.
You'd swear that the multiple articles of the Boston Globe's Spotlight team had never been published, that the subsequent investigations in other dioceses and cities never happened, and the Roman Catholic Church was a bastion of morality and goodness.
I read the entire link. It just astonishes me how much smart people can learn from what seems like the barest clues. Chemistry was my worst subject in high school and I haven’t learned any more since then. I find articles like this so inspiring even as I’m likely missing half of the info.
I do not know why membership in the Catholic Church isn’t down to zero. Then again, I’m assuming people are rational and will act in their self interests. The Catholic Church brain washes children from birth and they are masters at using guilt to shape behavior. Unfortunately far too many are left shackled with behavior patterns they cannot break.
Another reason is that indoctrinated people have a great deal of difficulty accepting things until those things happen to them.
There's also the matter that religion in general is STILL considered to be a positive influence on society, and there is an enormous amount of social inertia behind that misapprehension.
Honestly, if a book is the only thing keeping someone from being an awful human being, that is what’s frightening.
Which reminds me:
𝐼𝑓 𝑖𝑡 𝑡𝑎𝑘𝑒𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑡 𝑜𝑓 ℎ𝑒𝑙𝑙 𝑡𝑜 𝑚𝑎𝑘𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑎 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑎𝑙 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑜𝑛, 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑎𝑡 𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑎𝑙, 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑗𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑎 𝑐𝑜𝑤𝑎𝑟𝑑 𝑤ℎ𝑜 𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑝𝑜𝑛𝑑𝑠 𝑤𝑒𝑙𝑙 𝑡𝑜 𝑡ℎ𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑡𝑠.
-- Leo Wolf
👆🎯
Right, hide behind a book and you can be a horrible human being and take zero responsibility for your actions. I’m tired.
https://tse1.mm.bing.net/th/id/OIP.MScFKQpliWj4xp2FA2erRgHaHU?dpr=2.9&pid=ImgDetMain&o=7&rm=3
I don't remember who said it, but I read a quote that went, "I didn't become an atheist because I sudied religion, but because I studied history." The people you are referring to don't study history.
I suspect they don't study.... FULL STOP.
Anything they do study has to be related to making money.
And when it comes to being molested, even then.
It’s an easy-breezy way to live
I am continually reminded that half of the people are BELOW the median in intelligence. And the median ain't all that high.
I also don’t know why membership isn’t down to zero.
I was banned from r/excatholic on Reddit because I wasn’t being sympathetic enough to people going through deconstruction that or maybe it was my comment that I wish I could reach through the phone and just shake people.
Have hope I’m a 73 y/o female who left catholicism 53 years ago.
Most theists have a superficial understanding of their religion and almost never have a reason to go deeper or be informed about religion related news.
𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑏𝑜𝑡𝑡𝑜𝑚 𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑒 𝑖𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑇𝑟𝑎ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑡 𝑑𝑖𝑑 𝑒𝑥𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑙𝑦 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐶ℎ𝑢𝑟𝑐ℎ 𝑠ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑’𝑣𝑒 𝑑𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑎 𝑙𝑜𝑛𝑔 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑎𝑔𝑜. 𝐻𝑒 𝑡𝑜𝑜𝑘 𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑛 ℎ𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑧𝑒𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑎 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑏𝑙𝑒𝑚. 𝐵𝑢𝑡 𝑏𝑒𝑐𝑎𝑢𝑠𝑒 ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝑠𝑢𝑝𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑒𝑑𝑙𝑦 𝑣𝑖𝑜𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑙𝑒𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑙𝑎𝑤 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑖𝑡 𝑐𝑎𝑚𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑠𝑒 𝑏𝑎𝑛𝑘𝑟𝑢𝑝𝑡𝑐𝑦 ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑠, ℎ𝑒 𝑛𝑜𝑤 𝑓𝑎𝑐𝑒𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑔𝑔𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑒.
The Church should have been doing what Trahant did starting 20 centuries ago. If SCOTUS upholds the fine, and I suspect they will given the number of justices connected to the RCC, is there a gofundme set up so we can help Trahant clear the unjust debt?
And can we encourage Catholics to send money to the go fund me instead of their church?
😂🤣🤪 you are so funny.
And just yesterday another commenter told me I miss comedic opportunities!
(Stamps little feet and flounces away.)
Regarding the issue surrounding age of consent, I’m not seeing anything about her consent at the time. He groomed her, yes, it was supposedly okay because she was over 16, but he also had a level of authority over her which negates consent even for adults in many cases. But really, the way it is discussed by her, she really was not an actively consenting party in the sexual activity. This is something I notice in many of these situations. There’s huge discussions regarding the children’s ages, if the perp’s actions were legal or not are limited to the age of the victims and rarely whether the victims were actually willing or if they were forced, coerced, or manipulated. To me it sounds like she didn’t want to, but gave in because he was grooming her using his position over her. Her age wasn’t the only thing making his actions criminal, but it’s the only thing being discussed.
I feel like in almost all rape discussions the fact the victims are clearly saying they didn’t want to and were pressured or coerced or whatever into the sexual activity never seems to be considered. That’s the problem entirely. Their desires are the only thing that truly matters and the one thing no one wants to even bring up.
And we are confused about what rape culture looks like. It looks like this.
The fact that churches have any legal procedure under the seal of confidentiality is an indictment on churches themselves. If they were indeed the mouthpiece of God then why not throw open the doors of ANY litigation to show the public that they are on the right side? It's almost like God is an excuse.
In the final analysis, the "seal of the confessional" winds up being little more than a dodge which attempts to frustrate secular justice. The fact that the RCC resists the idea of priests becoming mandated reporters only further verifies this idea. The Church continues to think of itself as "of it but not IN it," apart from and above secular authority.
They need to be disabused of this specious notion.
The seal of the confessional is just justification to commit horrible things.
I haven’t believed in the seal of confessional since 1973 at the age of 20 when my mother came out of the confessional crying. You see I had, had an abortion. (Yes my parents knew. They took me to Chicago to have it). I asked my mother why she was crying. She told me: the priest gave her hell AND ASKED HOW SHE COULD LET ME GET PREGNANT. No I wasn’t excommunicated. I excommunicated myself from that piece of 💩religion over how my mother was treated and realizing I was nothing but a baby making, incubating broodmare again to that piece of 💩 religion.
At least you were smart enough to realize it. So many girls have their lives ruined, because of the effluent they teach about women being brood-sows.
Except when they want to kill women's bodily autonomy, by making abortion and contraception illegal. Then they are totally cool with being in the world.
Pre-CISE-ly!
Eh that's completely standard. Any time a charity, for-profit company or government office brings in external experts to review their documents or provide advice, they're going to make them sign an NDA.
Time to tax all churches, starting with the RCC. Hit them all where it hurts.
"𝘚𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘴𝘢𝘪𝘥 𝘴𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘪𝘥𝘯’𝘵 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦."
A disgustingly common line, in stories like these. This is what you get when you raise children to believe they must submit themselves to divinely-ordained authority figures while at the same time teaching them nothing at all about their own bodies, far less about boundaries and consent: a perpetual supply of victims conditioned to either be too ashamed of their own abuse to report it, or too confused by the nature of the act to understand why it was wrong. Or both.
Never trust anyone with a shred of authority over others, especially over children, who isn't subject to oversight and accountability. Ever.
"Did I screw that?" ~ Father Steve Urkel
OT:
Al artwork looks the way Christian rock sounds.
Does christian rock have mangled fingers?
Probably. That might partially explain why it sucks so much.
We apparently have an attorney who has been punished for violating a confidentiality agreement THAT WASN'T VIOLATED because the pertinent information was already in the wind! And yet Richard Trahant still gets fined $400,000?!? I have to ask: is the judge who levied this fine a Catholic, and if so, why hasn't HE been investigated and perhaps called before a judicial review panel?
This isn't just a miscarriage of justice. This is corrupt justice run amok, and it deserves some very damned serious attention.
Meredith Grabill, the judge who levied the fine, appears to be Episcopalian. Since she did approve $230M for the survivors, she got something right. Perhaps she was angry that information left her control, and she punished the only person the rules let her punish? (The benefit of the doubt is doing a lot of jeave lifting here, I will admit.)
That Grabill levied an undue, unjust, and potentially seriously damaging fine on Trahant is grounds enough for a judicial review. She would do well to watch her ass, because I'll guarantee you that others ARE.
It makes perfect sense to me for the courts to fine someone for violating an NDA. It's a contract, you violated it, your violation caused the group you disclosed about some problem.
However I'm guessing the judge had a lot of discretion about the amount of the fine. It sounds like she went maximally punitive here, which says to me she didn't consider any factor but the harm to the church.
But are there mandated reporters in Louisiana and are attorneys included?
Yes that struck me too; wouldn't the law saying lawyers are mandated reporters 'trump' a local job NDA?
I'm not sure why it didn't here. Though I can think of a couple reasons.
First is that technically the priest did nothing illegal, because the girl was above the age of consent at the time of the act. However, that kinda doesn't wash because mandatory reports don't need to know with absolute certainty a crime has been committed to report, they just need to strongly suspect one. And it seems reasonable to me that a lawyer living in "age of consent 18" 2019 could make an honest mistake in thinking a 16 year old in the '90s was under age of consent, because he wouldn't necessarily be aware that the age limit had changed. So if he thought this was a crime, reported it, but it turned out not to be, that shouldn't be a violation, should it?
Second is that he didn't really act like a mandatory reporter. Mandatory reporting means going to the police or social services. This guy texted his brother the HS principal. So maybe the judge didn't buy it because he violated the NDA by sharing information with people his 'mandatory reporting' requirement doesn't cover. If you've got one law saying "you must tell the police" and a contract that says "you cannot tell anyone," then the combo is "you cannot tell anyone but the police." "Tell your brother the school principal" is still not allowed. Again though, maybe?? I'm not sure.
That's a given isn't it?
I can't see the Supremes taking this one up, both because of their religious bias and because AIUI SCOTUS is not intended to be a "do over" court where you introduce new facts. Even if they think that the newly revealed facts should be considered, AIUI that would just mean they send it back to a lower court with an order to consider the new material.
But they won't even do that. Because Alito, Barrett, Goresuch, Kavanaugh, Thomas are the 5 needed to simply deny cert.
I'm curious as to why the Mandatory Reporter issue didn't get more legal play. Seems to me that since that's a requirement for licensing and an NDA is a local, single-case thing, the Mandatory Reporter should trump the NDA. I.e. all NDA's are entered into with the tacit understanding that the lawyer must continue to abide by licensing requirements. But it doesn't sound like that was something the courts cared much about. [EDIT] Ahhh...maybe because with the age of consent laws of the 90s, the priest did nothing technically criminal??? So whistleblower and reporting rules that protect people who report illegal activities wouldn't trigger here?? Dunno, that's just a guess.
I can’t see SCOTUS taking this on either.
If Trahant had done everything within the confessional, I wonder how long the RCC would've still considered the seal of the confessional inviolable?
I have the strange feeling Holy Mother Church would have declared "special dispensation" to break that seal in Trahant's case.
OT
"A senior C.I.A. official was arrested last week after investigators found hundreds of gold bars worth over $40 million stashed in his Virginia residence, a small fortune that he apparently brought home from work, according to court papers."
You couldn't make this shit up. So maybe he did it so we don't have to.
We all take work home from time to time.
Hopefully not the mortician.
"We all take work home from time to time."
Talk about "take home pay."
Hopefully not gynecologists.
https://youtu.be/gqwOLhrDB2Y
He just gave Trump an idea.
So that's where my missing gold bars turned up.
"...gold bars worth over $40 million....a small fortune...."
I suppose that is inflation.
The man should have been given a medal instead of a fine .This thing is just ubiquitous. 60 years ago a local priest at my wife's church – when she was a Catholic – ran off with a 14 year old and the church funds. Fled to Ireland of all places.
"The Catholic Church protected a predator priest. "
Again and again and again......................................................................
You'd swear that the multiple articles of the Boston Globe's Spotlight team had never been published, that the subsequent investigations in other dioceses and cities never happened, and the Roman Catholic Church was a bastion of morality and goodness.
Makes me want to gag.
The 'faithful' that keep propping up this pedophile cult are the ones that baffle me.
You're not alone on that one!
The little old ladies who are the backbone of it, simply deny reality.
Genesis 22:1-19
It’s probably in their catechism as a must do.
OT - 🎵 Dust reign o'er me
Rain on me, rain on me 🎵
https://badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/radioactive-cosmic-dust-is-raining-down-on-earth-s-surface
Reflex in the sky
Warn you, you're gonna die
Storm coming, you better hide
From the atomic tide
I read the entire link. It just astonishes me how much smart people can learn from what seems like the barest clues. Chemistry was my worst subject in high school and I haven’t learned any more since then. I find articles like this so inspiring even as I’m likely missing half of the info.
Dust in the solar wind...
All we are is star stuff in the wind.
A variation of one of my faves on Quadrophenia
The 5th Circuit. No more need be said.
The 5th rubber stamp.
More like the 𝘚𝘪𝘵𝘩 Circuit.
On CP:
Me: If person A prays that person B stop sinning and person B dies and therefore stops sinning, did person A murder person B?
No. Prayers don't work. I suspect you'll get a different answer on CP.