What do you think about the church spending millions to cover up child molestation cases?

Question

This sounds one sided, but has caused alot of controversy. The church instead of punishing child predators within the preisthood, they just move them to a new parish miles away. What's up with that? Have the bishops and even the pope finally lost it?

Answer 1

THATS why i dont have a religion or go to church nor would i encourage my children to

Answer 2

The problem is actually created by greedy lawyers and corrupt politicians.

See, the Church has no real authority in America to punish crime, this is the states job. It’s also doubtful they would be any good at it, since Christ teaches forgiveness instead of punishment.
So aside from a stern lecture and a parish transfer, the only punishment the Church can impose on a priest would be to fire them. But suspecting someone of child molestation and proving it are two different things. A priest claiming to be fired without cause can file a lawsuit.
And what happens if the Bishops do the right thing? What happens if they collect all the witnesses and information to expose the priest as a pedophile?
Well, the lawyers gasp and say “Dear God, how long have you known about this?” and proceed to file a lawsuit against the Church on behalf of the molested children.

So the Church gets sued if they fire a pedophile, and they get sued if they expose a pedophile. So when a Bishop decides a cover up is the only reasonable alternative, .an honest Politician would say:

“Perhaps we should put a stop to the corrupt yet profitable practice of suing the Church for the unsanctioned misbehavior of priests”

But somehow it always comes out:

“Those hypocritical Christians have finally lost it”

And that friend, is what’s up with that

Answer 3

I'm a practicing RC- I live outside Boston, and the whole thing makes me want to puke on my shoes. It's a combination of many factors-

1) Priestly Celibacy- I, like many of my fellow Catholics, would like to see it as optional-

2) Too many bishops and cardinals were so afraid of scandalizing the church that they covered up cases like Geoghagan and Shanley. If those two evil monsters had been handled properly after the first reports came out, it would have saved all involved a lot of grief-

3) As far as the bishops and the pope, I think that it took them a long time to realize that they can't have a quick chat with the DA and the parents of the victim, and promise to 'handle the situation' anymore-someone said that the"... best thing that ever happened to the Boston archdiocese is the Boston Globe." The bishops became so obsessed with protecting the institution that they grievously hurt many of those that the institution was supposed to protect.

4) It's an church with problems, but I think it's worth staying-most priests are pretty decent, dedicated individuals-some may have issues under the surface, but we all probably do. The big lesson to be learned is that it's never the crime, it's always the coverup.

Answer 4

First of all - this is not a new thing that they just started happening. The Catholic church made a fatal error of think that the church was more important than anything else. There were people that knew it was happening. Instead of bringing it out in the open, they hid it. That affected the children and moved the problem to another location. It was stupid. But it pointed out a major problem in the church which they still have not solved. I was in the seminary for 6 years. I never felt love and compassion. It was worse that a military school. They certainly did not want envolvement with women and the men would not allowed to understand their feelings and desires. That is where the priests came from that were the perverts with kids. They did not grow through the desires that they had.

Answer 5

Despite its admirable charitable work in many areas around the world, the Catholic Church is one of the largest (if not the largest) for-profit "businesses" in the world, and therefore will do anything to prevent its income from being adversely affected. Like any "business", the Church has taken questionable steps to prevent airing its dirty linen in public and even worse has failed to install effective procedures to prevent continuance of such inappropriate actions by some of its priests.

Although top church officials might find these inappropriate actions deplorable, they must share the blame for failing to stop it and for failing to admit responsibility.

Answer 6

I think that it wrong. And nobody should be above the law no matter who you are. If you put your hands on a child in any way you shouldnt be just moved so you can find another child to put your hands on. The children in this world are the future and abuse is not what we want the future to be made of. Its sad how people try to cover up horrible things.

Answer 7

This is the way closed power structures work. The military does the same thing. It's referred to as making your problem someone elses problem. That way the stink doesn't rub off on you. The solution is to open it up and let the sun shine in.

Answer 8

It substitute into stupid. the youngster who accused him stored changing the tale of the way it occurred or the place it occurred. they're liers. they're very undesirable human beings and have a foul historic previous. They even messed with George Lopez till now MJ. Golddiggers.. he's often with babies because of the fact he loves them. Why is it so stressful to believe that a guy might actual love babies that lots with none sexual relatives. He in no way had a early life of his own so he needs to furnish all the babies the terrific early life he in no way had. The accuser had maximum cancers, so he substitute into attempting to help him. He did help him. till now the youngster accused him, he pronounced that Michael "cured" him. this is not approximately "women" in basic terms, this is approximately all adults. Michael pronounced he might somewhat be with babies than with adults. He did have a love life, he in simple terms stored it very inner maximum.

Answer 9

hey, theyre the Catholic church, hun
they likes to be big, and they got all the money in teh world
religion was screwed up from day one.
catholicism just forgives, and yur good!
that great
but the rest is bullcrap....sry for you religious folks out there, but i dont rly give a crap

Answer 10

They're hoping to contain the damage so that they can continue to make millions from people through the belief that they are arbitors between man and God.
We're just not buying it anymore.