Another difference: A drag queen finds out another drag queen has touched a child sexually, someone's likely to end up with a stiletto heel between the eyes, or between the thighs,
The systematic sexual abuse of children has been the church's dirty little secret for centuries. The church hierarchy had to be fully aware of it, and until these horrors began getting the media exposure they deserve, the church protected the priests and blamed their victims. I suspect this diocese has moved the majority of their cash assets off shore. The Vatican bank was created to launder money for Mussolini, and they're capable of anything.
The sexual abuse of children (and adults) by the RCC clergy has been going on since the 3rd or 4th Century, when the Church was all-powerful and accountable to no one.
A dirty little secret for centuries, yes, but pretty much an open one. I grew up in a predominantly Catholic neighborhood in the 50s, and I have very clear memories of the church ladies clucking their tongues about it all--but then dismissing it as some sort of minor peccadillo, like tearing the little tag off a mattress. Our neighborhood church ladies weren't the sharpest knives in the drawer, but they did have a kind of sixth sense for juicy gossip, so I guess it's not surprising that they knew what Father Littleblackdress was doing to his altar boys. But none of them seemed to think it was anything more than a yummy little scandal; it was certainly nothing for them (or most other Catholics who weren't victims) to be all that concerned about. I guess they were too busy holding that Catholic moral high ground.
“Staggering legal fees and large settlements or jury awards for a few victim-survivors would have depleted our financial resources, leaving the vast majority of victim-survivors without compensation, while ending ministries that families across Maryland rely on for material and spiritual support.“
What material support can people get that secular organizations (that don’t rape children) can better provide? Are these services worth the abuse of children? We really have to decide as a society that they are not.
I don’t value spiritual support, I know others do, however the question remains. Is the spiritual support important enough to pay for with the lives and innocence and torture of thousands of children?
Deny the bankruptcy. Allow the victim-survivors their say in court, show the world how truly horrifying the crimes are so that people can see the true value of the services they think they need and what they are really paying for them. Any other industry/business would have been wiped out ages ago. Well, maybe not football, but anything else.
I shouldn't be at all surprised to discover that this tactic is part of a playbook, formulated by the Catholic Church, to stave off any meaningful action or response until such becomes unavoidable. On top of which, as stated in the article:
Which means, as I read it, NO PERSONAL ACCOUNTABILITY. I'm not even a lapsed Catholic, and I cannot begin to tell you how tired I am that there have been no substantial criminal penalties paid by individual priests, as regards the Catholic pedophile scandal. There are likely not just hundreds but thousands of collared perpetrators who have yet to be called to task for their heinous actions and very likely never will be.
And yet I am willing to bet NONE of the Catholic faithful will be offput by this. The Catholic Church could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and nothing would happen.
For the large part, they won't. They've been indoctrinated from birth to pray, pay, and obey, and the vast majority of them haven't the strength to shake off that brainwashing.
Knew what I wanted to say when I first saw the article headline but once again Hemant waits until the very last paragraph and beats me to it.
*shakes fist at Hemant*
It's amazing that these enablers...er, parishioners can sleep with a clear conscience. And they wonder why people find them vile. Do they not worry about their own children being near these child diddlers/rapists? Christians love to claim they're pro-life. Time after time, they prove the opposite is true. Guess we shouldn't be surprised considering who they worship. A man who stated that anyone who loved their son or daughter more than him was not worthy of him.
But Ivanka spends so much time alone, without her, er, "metrosexual" husband. Don't you think a good Republican woman ever gets lonely, you heartless atheist, you?
Bullshit. They've got all the money in the fucking world. The Vatican just needs to crack open that vault and start handing out all the shit they've stolen over the centuries.
I suspect that the Vatican resists supporting individual dioceses because once that genie is let out of the bottle, it'll be impossible to get it back in again. There will be churches around the world who will petition for financial and legal support from the Vatican, and the demand will be so high that it will ultimately bankrupt the Catholic Church.
Also don't forget the 3,674 Jesus paintings hanging in the Vatican which wealthy Catholics find priceless (and which all of us would pay somebody to dispose of).
I live in the greater Washington, DC area. The DC Mormon temple had been undergoing renovations and was open to the general public before they “resanctified” it after all the non-Mormon workers had skedaddled. My bride and I took a tour. There were numerous paintings of Jesus in various biblical scenes. OMG, they all looked like they had been purchased from a Sears catalog. As pedestrian as one could imagine. And that goes double for the temple itself. There was no grand room, a la a medieval cathedral. My bride captured it perfectly when she said ‘It was like a really big funeral home.”
I’ve said this before … I’m beginning to wonder if the RCC is as wealthy as is commonly assumed. Maybe they’ve been quietly liquidating whatever was in the Vatican basements for years now. Private sales of artwork, etc.
They've been plundering the entire planet's wealth for most of two thousand years and have friends in the highest places. I highly doubt they're strapped for cash.
I've said it before but it bears repeating. They were complicit in CRIMES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Why have they not been arrested and indicted? Why are those who covered it up almost never punished?
And I'll say it again: They hold an enormous, grotesquely outsized influence in this country, both legislative and judicial. Politicians and judges who aren't Catholic themselves rely on the church to deliver votes for them. How dare you suggest they ought to be willing to lose their jobs for doing the right thing!
If you haven't yet, watch 𝑺𝒑𝒐𝒕𝒍𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕. So far as I can tell, it's fairly accurate, and you'll get more answer to that question than you probably want. Also, jomicur's right about the 'grotesquely outsized influence' of the RCC; though I would note it's hardly limited to the US of A.
It seems to me that the diocese has a couple of ways of looking at being made to pay out:
On the one hand, they could believe their protection of the church's reputation was a 'greater good' sort of thing and therefore righteous. In which case, they are being persecuted for their righteousness, which is a blessing, according to a certain religious figure.
On the other, if what they were doing wasn't righteous... then they are correctly being punished for being unrighteous and should accept the penalty as righteous people.
Gripping hand is, of course, that fact that you know, and I know, and they know, and everyone else knows, that this has nothing to do with righteousness at all and is strictly about money and power.
And if anyone needs proof of that, they should ask themselves if the money spent lobbying legislators to prevent victims from coming forward might have been better set aside to compensate said victims. Just a thought.
Soinds like you've been talking to a belgian archbishop.
Roger Vanheluwe; There's nothing wrong in taking comfort with children.
Also: "In a letter read to a press conference, the 73-year-old prelate, who was not present, said what he had done more than 25 years ago "marked the victim forever".
"The wound does not heal. Neither for me, nor for the victim," he said.
I honestly don't understand why anyone would still claim to be Catholic. I just don't get it.
In all truth, this is what the RCC has always done. They circle the proverbial wagons and try to protect Holy Mother Church. This is just the latest iteration of that; the Vatican probably has the money to make payouts to victims/survivors for years to come. They don't want to do that, it might interfere with their ability to buy those expensive robes and such. If they'd had the spine to start actually insisting these abusive priests cease-and-desist posthaste, they wouldn't be in this situation now. So sorry, no sympathy left for a group of wealthy whiners who apparently can't police their own.
As for the more standard member of the Catholic faith - seriously, you deserve better than this. Find a new church if you must, but get out. For your own spiritual health, leave before you become a monster, too.
I'd tell Catholics to become Episcopalians (so very close), but they also have their child sexual abuse issues. Not nearly as vast as the RCC, but there.
I don't understand why anyone would choose to be Catholic, given the whole blood-drinking and flesh-eating things (i.e., the Eucharist). Minor issues of disagreement, I know, but still...
Until they've had to put Fluffy's fancy hat in hock and trade the Popemobile in for a used moped, no tentacle of the RCC should 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 be allowed to claim bankruptcy.
Mostly dead and nearly dead ain't dead dead. Those "visions" people claim to have are simply the mind playing tricks on them.
And isn't it funny how Christian NDEs have them seeing Jesus while Hindu NDEs see Hindu deities and Muslims see things according to their faith. There's never any crossover or seeing things totally unrelated to ANY religion. It's as if NDEs are completely dependent on what faith you were raised in.
If we were truly hardwired for belief as religion claims, why do people see different entities and not the exact same ones? Different afterlives and not the same afterlife?
But, um, we all believe in the same god, don't we? Don't we just have different names for him, or something? Sure, we kill each other over how to word prayers or how many candles to burn, but we all also agree, right?
No drag queens involved in all of this.
Another difference: A drag queen finds out another drag queen has touched a child sexually, someone's likely to end up with a stiletto heel between the eyes, or between the thighs,
Life really is just full of tough choices, isn't it?
Ron DeSantis is working on finding a culpable drag queen to blame all of this on. Next choice is Hunter Biden.
Hunter Biden is also a Good Catholic, right?
Is there any other kind?
They may not be queens, but they definitely dress in drag!
How can you joke about the fact that they still swathe themselves in medieval raiment? There's nothing at all absurd about that, is there?
Why do they still do it? That, I can tell you. In one word:
https://imgur.com/gallery/aeNPW13
The priests do wear dresses and stylish hats tho'....
The systematic sexual abuse of children has been the church's dirty little secret for centuries. The church hierarchy had to be fully aware of it, and until these horrors began getting the media exposure they deserve, the church protected the priests and blamed their victims. I suspect this diocese has moved the majority of their cash assets off shore. The Vatican bank was created to launder money for Mussolini, and they're capable of anything.
The sexual abuse of children (and adults) by the RCC clergy has been going on since the 3rd or 4th Century, when the Church was all-powerful and accountable to no one.
It became a feature, not a bug.
Maryland's statute of limitations now extends back to 283 AD.
A dirty little secret for centuries, yes, but pretty much an open one. I grew up in a predominantly Catholic neighborhood in the 50s, and I have very clear memories of the church ladies clucking their tongues about it all--but then dismissing it as some sort of minor peccadillo, like tearing the little tag off a mattress. Our neighborhood church ladies weren't the sharpest knives in the drawer, but they did have a kind of sixth sense for juicy gossip, so I guess it's not surprising that they knew what Father Littleblackdress was doing to his altar boys. But none of them seemed to think it was anything more than a yummy little scandal; it was certainly nothing for them (or most other Catholics who weren't victims) to be all that concerned about. I guess they were too busy holding that Catholic moral high ground.
Frankie needs another tacky gown embroidered in gold.
“Staggering legal fees and large settlements or jury awards for a few victim-survivors would have depleted our financial resources, leaving the vast majority of victim-survivors without compensation, while ending ministries that families across Maryland rely on for material and spiritual support.“
What material support can people get that secular organizations (that don’t rape children) can better provide? Are these services worth the abuse of children? We really have to decide as a society that they are not.
I don’t value spiritual support, I know others do, however the question remains. Is the spiritual support important enough to pay for with the lives and innocence and torture of thousands of children?
Deny the bankruptcy. Allow the victim-survivors their say in court, show the world how truly horrifying the crimes are so that people can see the true value of the services they think they need and what they are really paying for them. Any other industry/business would have been wiped out ages ago. Well, maybe not football, but anything else.
𝑇𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑎𝑔𝑎𝑖𝑛, 𝑚𝑒𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐶ℎ𝑢𝑟𝑐ℎ’𝑠 ℎ𝑖𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑟𝑐ℎ𝑦 𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑜𝑙𝑢𝑡𝑒𝑙𝑦 𝑟𝑒𝑓𝑢𝑠𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑎𝑐𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤𝑙𝑒𝑑𝑔𝑒 𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑔𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑑 𝑠𝑒𝑥𝑢𝑎𝑙 𝑎𝑏𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑎𝑠 𝑙𝑜𝑛𝑔 𝑎𝑠 𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑏𝑙𝑒.
I shouldn't be at all surprised to discover that this tactic is part of a playbook, formulated by the Catholic Church, to stave off any meaningful action or response until such becomes unavoidable. On top of which, as stated in the article:
𝐵𝑢𝑡 𝑖𝑡 𝑎𝑙𝑠𝑜 𝑚𝑒𝑎𝑛𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑏𝑒 𝑛𝑜 𝑠𝑢𝑏𝑝𝑜𝑒𝑛𝑎𝑠 𝑜𝑟 𝑝𝑢𝑏𝑙𝑖𝑐 𝑡𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑜𝑛𝑦 𝑏𝑒𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑎 𝑗𝑢𝑟𝑦, 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑐ℎ 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑠𝑢𝑟𝑣𝑖𝑣𝑜𝑟𝑠 𝑖𝑠 𝑎 𝑏𝑙𝑜𝑤 𝑡𝑜 𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑠𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑦 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑎 𝑐𝑟𝑢𝑐𝑖𝑎𝑙 𝑙𝑜𝑠𝑠.
Which means, as I read it, NO PERSONAL ACCOUNTABILITY. I'm not even a lapsed Catholic, and I cannot begin to tell you how tired I am that there have been no substantial criminal penalties paid by individual priests, as regards the Catholic pedophile scandal. There are likely not just hundreds but thousands of collared perpetrators who have yet to be called to task for their heinous actions and very likely never will be.
And that badly needs to CHANGE.
They will never opt for the moral choice, you can be certain of that.
And yet I am willing to bet NONE of the Catholic faithful will be offput by this. The Catholic Church could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and nothing would happen.
For the large part, they won't. They've been indoctrinated from birth to pray, pay, and obey, and the vast majority of them haven't the strength to shake off that brainwashing.
Knew what I wanted to say when I first saw the article headline but once again Hemant waits until the very last paragraph and beats me to it.
*shakes fist at Hemant*
It's amazing that these enablers...er, parishioners can sleep with a clear conscience. And they wonder why people find them vile. Do they not worry about their own children being near these child diddlers/rapists? Christians love to claim they're pro-life. Time after time, they prove the opposite is true. Guess we shouldn't be surprised considering who they worship. A man who stated that anyone who loved their son or daughter more than him was not worthy of him.
Trump said that?
Trump used to fondle his own daughter.
Used to?
She got too old for his taste.
These days, I think he might have more on his hands than Ivanka's body (especially with her hubby around).
But Ivanka spends so much time alone, without her, er, "metrosexual" husband. Don't you think a good Republican woman ever gets lonely, you heartless atheist, you?
Bullshit. They've got all the money in the fucking world. The Vatican just needs to crack open that vault and start handing out all the shit they've stolen over the centuries.
I suspect that the Vatican resists supporting individual dioceses because once that genie is let out of the bottle, it'll be impossible to get it back in again. There will be churches around the world who will petition for financial and legal support from the Vatican, and the demand will be so high that it will ultimately bankrupt the Catholic Church.
One can only hope!
It's all the "one true church" for the money flowing in, but when the money has to go out, the local representatives are franchisees.
The world's biggest MLM scam, with a healthy dose of pedophilia.
They were the ones who invented the MLM scam.
Also don't forget the 3,674 Jesus paintings hanging in the Vatican which wealthy Catholics find priceless (and which all of us would pay somebody to dispose of).
I live in the greater Washington, DC area. The DC Mormon temple had been undergoing renovations and was open to the general public before they “resanctified” it after all the non-Mormon workers had skedaddled. My bride and I took a tour. There were numerous paintings of Jesus in various biblical scenes. OMG, they all looked like they had been purchased from a Sears catalog. As pedestrian as one could imagine. And that goes double for the temple itself. There was no grand room, a la a medieval cathedral. My bride captured it perfectly when she said ‘It was like a really big funeral home.”
I’ve said this before … I’m beginning to wonder if the RCC is as wealthy as is commonly assumed. Maybe they’ve been quietly liquidating whatever was in the Vatican basements for years now. Private sales of artwork, etc.
They've been plundering the entire planet's wealth for most of two thousand years and have friends in the highest places. I highly doubt they're strapped for cash.
> "Staggering legal fees and large settlements or jury awards for a few victim-survivors would have depleted our financial resources..."
Translation: "We might have to sell off one or two of the plush purple cushions I sit my pious ass on. Ain't that just such an awful pity?"
I've said it before but it bears repeating. They were complicit in CRIMES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Why have they not been arrested and indicted? Why are those who covered it up almost never punished?
And I'll say it again: They hold an enormous, grotesquely outsized influence in this country, both legislative and judicial. Politicians and judges who aren't Catholic themselves rely on the church to deliver votes for them. How dare you suggest they ought to be willing to lose their jobs for doing the right thing!
If you haven't yet, watch 𝑺𝒑𝒐𝒕𝒍𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕. So far as I can tell, it's fairly accurate, and you'll get more answer to that question than you probably want. Also, jomicur's right about the 'grotesquely outsized influence' of the RCC; though I would note it's hardly limited to the US of A.
Link to the IMDB for the movie: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1895587/
It seems to me that the diocese has a couple of ways of looking at being made to pay out:
On the one hand, they could believe their protection of the church's reputation was a 'greater good' sort of thing and therefore righteous. In which case, they are being persecuted for their righteousness, which is a blessing, according to a certain religious figure.
On the other, if what they were doing wasn't righteous... then they are correctly being punished for being unrighteous and should accept the penalty as righteous people.
Gripping hand is, of course, that fact that you know, and I know, and they know, and everyone else knows, that this has nothing to do with righteousness at all and is strictly about money and power.
And if anyone needs proof of that, they should ask themselves if the money spent lobbying legislators to prevent victims from coming forward might have been better set aside to compensate said victims. Just a thought.
Catholics are usually not biblical literalists but they sure do take “suffer the little children” to heart.
But...but...
God helps those who rape children. It's in the Bible.
You're not being fair. It doesn't say that. It says that god likes people who dash their heads on rocks.
Do try to keep up! /s
Besides, if raping children gives the priests comfort, what's wrong with that?
Soinds like you've been talking to a belgian archbishop.
Roger Vanheluwe; There's nothing wrong in taking comfort with children.
Also: "In a letter read to a press conference, the 73-year-old prelate, who was not present, said what he had done more than 25 years ago "marked the victim forever".
"The wound does not heal. Neither for me, nor for the victim," he said.
Someone should show him what a wound looks and feels like. Until he realizes he wasn't wounded.
I would suggest crucifixion. It's a popular subject for performance art
I don't know, brings to mind Felicia's line "Get down off that cross. Someone needs the wood."
I honestly don't understand why anyone would still claim to be Catholic. I just don't get it.
In all truth, this is what the RCC has always done. They circle the proverbial wagons and try to protect Holy Mother Church. This is just the latest iteration of that; the Vatican probably has the money to make payouts to victims/survivors for years to come. They don't want to do that, it might interfere with their ability to buy those expensive robes and such. If they'd had the spine to start actually insisting these abusive priests cease-and-desist posthaste, they wouldn't be in this situation now. So sorry, no sympathy left for a group of wealthy whiners who apparently can't police their own.
As for the more standard member of the Catholic faith - seriously, you deserve better than this. Find a new church if you must, but get out. For your own spiritual health, leave before you become a monster, too.
I'd tell Catholics to become Episcopalians (so very close), but they also have their child sexual abuse issues. Not nearly as vast as the RCC, but there.
As Robin Williams put it: "same religion, half the guilt!"
They can get married, there is that.
That too. Joan pointed out Robin Williams (an Episcopalian). Robin gave a list of humorous positive attributes for his religion.
https://christchurchepiscopal.org/new-to-the-episcopal-church/robin-williams-top-10/
I was baptized Episcopalian.
Like their book with multiple origin stories. And bats that are called birds. And stars falling to Earth. And...well, you get the idea.
Knowledge beats superstition 7 ways to Sunday.
I don't understand why anyone would choose to be Catholic, given the whole blood-drinking and flesh-eating things (i.e., the Eucharist). Minor issues of disagreement, I know, but still...
what a shame
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2023/09/29/michigan-republican-party-faces-financial-turmoil-bank-records-show/71003017007/
Breaks the heart, doesn't it?
maybe they need to stop eating so much avocado toast
sure...... why not????
Tsk. That's all I can be arsed to give. Just a single tsk and nothing else
This is what happens, I guess, when you put the Breitbart comments section to lead the state GOP in a swing state.
That they can do this makes me SO. FUCKING. MAD.
Jesus said: "give away all that you have and follow me."
Religious hucksters say: "give us all that you have and follow Jesus."
The Baltimore archdiocese says: "let's pretend we don't have anything and we will blame it on Satan."
Gold! gold! Glorious gold!
Nothing quite like it! It never gets old!
So follow me! follow!
Down to the hollow
And there let us wallow
In Glowingly Glorious gold!
Until they've had to put Fluffy's fancy hat in hock and trade the Popemobile in for a used moped, no tentacle of the RCC should 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 be allowed to claim bankruptcy.
Popemobile shows how much they really trust God.
OT: Terrific, this will add fuel to the fire of the I nearly died and I saw God crowd.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkamgm/people-experience-new-dimensions-of-reality-when-dying-groundbreaking-study-reports
Mostly dead and nearly dead ain't dead dead. Those "visions" people claim to have are simply the mind playing tricks on them.
And isn't it funny how Christian NDEs have them seeing Jesus while Hindu NDEs see Hindu deities and Muslims see things according to their faith. There's never any crossover or seeing things totally unrelated to ANY religion. It's as if NDEs are completely dependent on what faith you were raised in.
In short, they see what they're conditioned to expect that the "afterlife" will be like. As Stephen Sondheim put it:
"His idea of ecstasy's
To see what he expects to see."
If we were truly hardwired for belief as religion claims, why do people see different entities and not the exact same ones? Different afterlives and not the same afterlife?
Do believers never ask this?
But, um, we all believe in the same god, don't we? Don't we just have different names for him, or something? Sure, we kill each other over how to word prayers or how many candles to burn, but we all also agree, right?
Think I'll wait until all believers everywhere get their stories to jibe and present a united front.
And maybe I'll dig my way to China with a spork before that ever happens.
https://youtu.be/xbE8E1ez97M?si=x8j--Qf8XtK9PVNm
Thought of this movie while I typed. 🙂