Why is anyone still Catholic in light of all the scandals with pederast priests?

Question

Especially when the churche's idea of reform is to overtun civil laws that would bring these monsters to justice...

Answer 1

All christians are extremely hippocritical and have been for the last 1400 years. Why would they stop now?

Answer 2

Less than 1% of the priest have had accusations brought against it. Now I understand in Colorado they want to set the statute of limiations back. The lawyers there won't go after public school because there is a $150,000 cap on any award they receive. Whenever a priest is sued the Diocese is sued and the people in the pews pay the price.
I don't know of any attempt by the church to overturn civil laws that would bring pedophiles to justice. You should have given an example.

The cases brought to light in the past few years are allegations of several years back. Since 1990 the cases of incidents or alledged incidents are very few. The past two years, there were less than 20 occurences or alledged occurences in 2005 and 2006.

I am very angry for the victims and am very angry for the many fine priest who are stigmatized.

Answer 3

Are you suggesting that we all just completely give up our religion just because some people screwed up? There's a lot more to faith than that and it certainly isn't dependent upon the frailties of other people. I'm not sure I'd expect someone who asks a question like this to understand that though.

For the guy below me that brought this up.... The Catholic Church does not *force* celibacy on anyone. Priests take that vow completely voluntarily with full knowledge and consent. Also, these things have happened in other religions and settings where the men have been married so I think that argument can be pretty much dismissed.

Nobody is saying that it's right. We're just as disgusted by it as everyone else, but we're not going to change our faith over it.

Answer 4

The priests are not the end-all and be-all of the Catholic Church. There are a lot of reasons why people remain Catholics even with the scandals.

You don't change religion just because you see a mistake committed by a few. The same way that you don't change your citizenship just because you saw a fellow citizen kill someone.

The Catholic Church has never espoused reforms to overturn civil laws. The Catholic Church espouses law abidance.

Answer 5

Because the devil is wreaking havoc as usual and is infiltrating this religion. The Catholic church has been a strong rival of satan. Why do you think that when the devil attacks he goes after the catholic religion??? You don't ever hear stories of satan going after other churches do you? Pray to St. Michael the arch angel to protect us from the devil!! There are so many false prophets among us and if the devil can get to priests, we all need to think and pray harder. There are scary times ahead but the Lord will prevail!

Answer 6

Actually, the percentage of Catholic paedophiles is exactly the same as of our society in general. I think it is 3%.

Answer 7

This is the result of forcing godly men from sexual interactions. Did God say to the priest not to marry? No. But God DIRECTLY told the WHOLE of mankind to "go forth and multiply". SEX is not at all bad. And why does the catholic church force this no marriage policy on all priest? If a priest can live godly without mariage, good for him. But its bad to force it upon people who have love ones and want to have families. This is what tuns good priests into pedophilic, homosexual, and sex-driven rapists.
THIS is why I preffer our sect of Christianity from those Ritualistic Catholics.

Answer 8

The Vatican offers "immunity" to pedophile priests and other corrupt Church leaders. There are nearly 16,000 reported cases against the Catholic Church. Most of the cases will never be resolved either because the pedophiles have died, the Church is "hiding" the accused and/or due to other devious acts of Church "intimidation" against victims and their families.

Priests bring a unique religious-based spiritual component to an adult-child/youth relationship. To intentionally abuse their religious positional power and trust, to intentionally use their priesthood as a tool to help them commit pedophilic acts adds a uniquely shocking religious-based spiritual violation to the child/youth's victimization and suffering.

Furthermore, to use religious beliefs and practices, such as the taking of communion, as other tools useful in the commission of their acts of abuse adds another depth of violation. Religious-based spiritual abuse can cause on-going confusion, depressiveness, and a loss of religious-based spiritual faith that can last a lifetime.

Priesthood plus religious beliefs and practices can be made deviant and used as tools for pedophilic abuse, which allegedly happened when Martin Elli alleged that when he was being driven home from a Washington field trip by a priest and the priest urged Martin " . . . to give him oral sex, blessing it as a way to receive Holy Communion."[6]

Compounding oral rape by using deviant religious practices is the very literal act of using "priestly" acts for spiritual consumption via "seminal communion".[7] Using oral rape as a form of communion causes spiritual distortion and confusion for the child/youth victim who perceives they ought to believe in and obey the priest without question because the priest is next to god and all knowing.

Spiritual confusion makes the child/youth even more vulnerable because spiritual abuse also attacks the fundamental developmental question of, "Who am I?" Am I a good person or a bad person? This is a question with an immense spiritual domain.

From our experience, the use of some form of deviant religious beliefs and practices in combination with sexualized violence is a common technique used by some pedophiles, whomever they may be pedophilic priest or a perpetrator of ritual abuse-torture who uses some form of christian-satanic, christian-luceriferin, or jewish-satanic beliefs and practices.

Deviant religious beliefs and practices are used to enforce a sense of spiritual consumption unto a child/youth victim. Spiritual abuse, "being one with god or one with satan", can make the child/youth feel totally and spiritually consumed by the perpetrator, giving the pedophile even greater power and control over their child/youth victim.

Sexuality and spirituality are intimately connected.

Sexualized violence committed by a priest, minister, or rabbi, in their professional and spiritual role, adds a very deep and spiritually abusive component to the pedophile's behavior and to their victim's traumatization. Our experiences suggest the child/youth victim may have grave difficulty disclosing their abuse because they do not want to violate their spiritual relationship with god or satan or with god's or satan's representative the pedophile whom they perceive as having next to godly or satanic power.

To tell on the perpetrator may also leave the child/youth victim feeling as if they are hurting their own spirituality because they may perceive their spirituality as being connected to their "spiritual" perpetrator. Thus, when increased Self-blaming occurs so too may be the risks for suicidality for the child/youth victim.

Answer 9

(Revelation 18:4-5) And I heard another voice out of heaven say: “Get out of her, my people, if YOU do not want to share with her in her sins, and if YOU do not want to receive part of her plagues. 5 For her sins have massed together clear up to heaven, and God has called her acts of injustice to mind.

Answer 10

Every organization has child molesters -- all religions, police depts, fire depts, public schools, private schools, little league, scouts, etc.