re: #122 keloyd

I know this is two topics behind, but I just now started goofing off today - Newsweek has covered some pretty good evidence that every other institution and the general public is at least as bad as the Catholic Church. It is helpful to be able to rule out the whole celibate-male-hierarchy thing as being part of the problem. What remains is predatory management, predatory legal maneuverings, and a pathological level of CYA. The data show their perverts are no different than secular or other religious perverts.

They cite a big study as well as the insurance industry, which gathers data more thoroughly when money is involved. It turns out Catholic liability insurance for paying off victims is no more expensive than otherwise similar non-Catholic schools.

And - none of that matters, IMO.

Priests have access to children in a way that predators in other organizations do not, that is, they have pretty free access to children as a person of authority and as a person who children should be able to trust completely. When parents teach their kids to not talk to strangers they make exceptions for law enforcement and the clergy, don’t they?

This makes their use of their special position particularly heinous, in my mind.

Then there’s the whole cover-up business. Completely perplexing to me. The hierarchy - not necessarily parish priests or bishops but those in Rome - seem to have forgotten that these children and their families are just as much a part of the “universal church” as the perpetrators, and more deserving of protection than those who violate them.

Just my .02