Such coverups act to encourage future abuse, I think.

The Catholic church consistently interferes with the private sexual lives of its congregation,, i.e. Birth control, no sex without marriage, lgtbq people, etc. So all its priests must be without stain. Otherwise they lose respect and adherence to its laws. Much must change!

And you spend lots of time with children?

Every priest has a story about why. Of course, some are priests because they have access to children. That percentage, thankfully, is small, however, but significant. Significant, because of the RCCs policies about keeping scandals covered up.

Just last month they helped me find housing for two different seniors who would have necome homeless.

I sure wish there could be a way to keep that immense infrastructure for helping people intact.

The church is suffering from its own failings, I'm afraid. Good deeds go unreported most of the time. Evil deeds are news.

You'd think the Vatican would understand that, somehow.

At some point it's fair to ask what's genuine, what's a PR stunt, and what's just a velvet glove on an iron fist. And sometimes, even when we know all about the good being done, it's simply nowhere near enough to offset the evil.

Who knows how far back this goes? I suspect it goes back to the beginning of the RCC, frankly.

And this is how religion makes things worse. They set themselves up as agents of God. When a child tells his parents of the abuse, they believe the priest. If the child accused anyone else, the parents would take action.

The violation of trust is the most evil part of priests abusing children. The church demands trust from its followers, only to betray that trust far too often. Frankly, the RCC is losing people's trust as these horror stories emerge. If it does not correct the problem, visibly, publicly and aggressively, it could lose all trust. Personally, I think it is at that stage now, but hasn't recognized it yet.

We'll probably never know for sure because it's not as if the RCC is going to ever offer full transparency. However, it's pretty safe to assume predators gravitate towards the profession as it offers them both opportunity and concealment.

The RCC must have figured this out very early on, but instead of taking pro-active steps to protect their membership, they chose to engage in a conspiracy of coverup. The result was the formation of extensive networks of child raping priests many of whom were able to reach high levels of power and conceal the crimes of other child raping priests.

The whole thing amounts to a criminal enterprise. The worst part is the RCC has yet to enact policies which protect children.

Clearly, professions that put adults into positions of trust with children tend to attract those who wish to take advantage of that.

Although, now, the RCC appears to be acknowledging the problem, they are not doing anything systematic that would correct the problem. The "sanctity of the confessional" is one of the chief issues. Under duress, the church, diocese by diocese, is being forced to show its records of such abuses. As that happens, people are beginning to understand how widespread that abuse and the coverup has been for decades.

Other organizations that focus on children have also been caught covering up. The Boy Scouts of America is an example. However, the BSA has made systematic changes as a response. The Vatican has not done that. Instead, it issues platitudes from the Pope, but does nothing to change how its hierarchy operates. The Pope "deplores" past actions, but changes nothing.

It is failing in its responsibility to its congregations, I think, and that will not end well for the organization.

If AGs start charging the RCC under RICO they could compel them to turn over their records. This would have already happened if the RCC was a secular organization. The BSA wasn't able to hide behind religious "freedom" which evidently includes the freedom to engage in a conspiracy of child rape.

The RCC has known about this problem all along. It's not as if the public outrage over it is making them aware of something they didn't already know.

numbers of offending priests from a few dioceses and archdioceses. Those numbers are very, very disturbing, and people are being surprised by how many priests are involved.

The more such reports are released, the more pissed off Catholics are going to become. And the more pissed off they become, the more they'll be likely to abandon attendance and donations. Add to that the hefty legal settlements so many dioceses and archdioceses are having to agree to, and the financial hit those policies are causing keeps growing.

I have no question about this being an issue in every jurisdiction, both here in the US and around the world. It is a horrendous scandal that has the potential to break the Roman Catholic Church beyond repair. We're just at the beginning the revelations. More to come...

There's also little doubt there's much the RCC will never disclose.

Much of the information is probably being destroyed, even as we write. We'll never have the entire story, I'm certain. Really, unless individuals report what happened to them, it won't be made public without a fight.

Police departments and schools. It is a gang mentality that supports not reporting it to outsiders. All so they think they can get away with it because they are in authority.

anywhere there are children.


All regularly engage in cover ups.

But if anyone expects perfection of imperfect humans, that person is looking for what never was.

Your attempt at diversion is rejected.

It undercuts your arguments.

Good to know.

As do politicians.

So what can we conclude?

Perhaps that humans often behave badly no matter what label we attach to them?

YMMV