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Why I hate the church

Posted 12-16-2011 at 12:47 AM by Havoc

It shouldn't be any big secret around this place how much I hate organized religion, christianity in particular. And I just had another reason thrown right in my lap.

A couple of months ago a couple of persons came forward claiming to have been molested as a child while they were staying in a christian/catholic (don't really care what the difference is) Dutch boarding school during the late 40's. Following this, even more people came forward and all of the sudden it wasn't just one school any more but several and the Dutch churches had a major scandal on their hands. Politics got involved and an official inquiry was started into the frequency of child molestation in boarding schools around that time.

Today the result of those inquiries were announced after months of research. The inquiry comity estimates that between 1945 and 1981 at least 10 to 20 thousand children have been molested. The report goes on to say that in at least 50% of cases there was repeated abuse. 90% of cases were groping or other forms of inappropriate touching. Thousands of children were actually raped. Church officials were well aware of what went on in these boarding schools and decided to keep it to themselves.

This is already enough to piss me off, but it gets worse. The period of limitation had run out on almost all of these cases, so not a single offender could even be arrested, let alone brought to justice. 4 persons could file charges, but only 1 person was actually convicted. 1 person out of at least 10.000 cases.

It's no big secret that the catholic church is up to their neck in sexual abuse scandals around the world, but if there's already 10 to 20 thousand cases in the Netherlands alone, who knows how many children have been molested in other countries around the world. It's absolutely sickening to me that an institution that has been steadily raping little boys for dozens of years is allowed to even exist. And don't give me that 'you shouldn't judge the church based on the actions of a few people' crap. This is/was a consistent problem all over the world, not limited to just a few bad apples.

Comments 38

Total Comments 38

Comments

	What the fuck? I've had no idea of this. Does anyone know why was it only Christian boarding schools?
	Posted 12-16-2011 at 12:52 AM by Mudokon_Master

My class discussed this in English Literature. We said that one of the reasons for some heavily religious people sexually abusing children is because they live to go without sexual enjoyment. By preventing themselves from doing it, they're trapping their "love", and the longer it stays trapped it will become rotten and bad, which makes them lash out and do those nasty things.
This could be a silly over analytical(sp?) thing, but I think it has some sense to it. After all, why are there so many cases for sexual abuse with those kinds of people?

Posted 12-16-2011 at 12:55 AM by Jordan

	Stuff like this makes me feel smarter in a christian household, though it was annoying to see my 3 year old sister praying to god the other day >_< Just hope I can wise her up when she's older.
	Posted 12-16-2011 at 03:14 AM by JennyGenesis

	She should be able to decide her own religion.
	Posted 12-16-2011 at 03:21 AM by Jordan

This shit has happened and will keep happening, it's an atrocity Benedict dusted under the carpet, it'll keep rearing its head and the secular law courts have to convict the criminals.

Fortunately there are more good guys than bad guys, there are plenty of atheist rapists as well, I guess that means I should hate you as well Havoc? Because you're an an atheist, so, you're evil, because there have been atheist rapists.

I also hate all Germans because of Hitler, and all the Russians because of Stalin, and all Americans because of the slavery plantations.

Don't go around saying you hate a group of people with over 2,200,000,000 adherents because a minute percentage of them have been accused of child molestation, as horrible as it is, it is not my fault, it is not the fault of my father, nor my mother, nor my brother, nor my friends in sixth form/ work who are Christian.

You come across as the kind of person who hates all Muslims because of 9/11, intolerance breeds stupidity.

E: And before you pull anything about my past out, you should have a look at me now compared to me then. Difference is I'm still growing more moderate.

Posted 12-16-2011 at 03:43 AM by STM

Updated 12-16-2011 at 03:47 AM by STM

	I agree with STM?
	Posted 12-16-2011 at 03:49 AM by Phylum

	STM, what denomination do you identify as? As far as I'm aware, this decades-old and ongoing worldwide conspiracy of child molestation is mostly confined to the Roman Catholic Church.
	Posted 12-16-2011 at 03:59 AM by Wil

	I am a Catholic yes, well I am supposed to be, I'm not sure if I still count since I'm not so dedicated to going to Church or anything.
	Posted 12-16-2011 at 04:00 AM by STM

	I fucking hate arguments about religion. Makes me so angry.
	Posted 12-16-2011 at 04:26 AM by Jordan

	I try not to get involved by I feel there's requirement to protect my faith rather than stand by, I understand I'm the minority party here and in the past I have been incredibly brash but you must look at in from both perspectives like I do.
	Posted 12-16-2011 at 04:31 AM by STM

	You need to learn to ignore what people say, especially Havoc because he has a nack to piss everyone off. I know you feel you have to defend your religion and I can understand why, but there will always, always be people who disagree with religion as well as those that disagree with lack of religion. Arguing with him will not change his views, which I agree are very generalised.
	Posted 12-16-2011 at 04:38 AM by Jordan

It's not so much about the religion or the people who follow it, but about the institution that apparently condones this behavior. Over 10.000 children don't get abused in a 40 year time span by two or three random people. This happened all across the country by probably hundreds of people and hundreds more who knew about it and either did nothing or even approved of it. And that's in my country alone, a country with less than 16 million people at the time. There's more people in New York alone.

I'm not saying every catholic supports child molestation, but every catholic does follow an organisation that has practiced and condoned child molestation for decades by probably thousands of holy men who, by definition, should have been acting as god's servant. And apparently priests everywhere interpret the word of god as 'go touch children, and not in the good way' so that leads me to believe there's something clearly wrong in the catholic church. And as such, to me, it's bloody dangerous and horrifying that a cult like that has over 2.2 billion followers.

Posted 12-16-2011 at 04:44 AM by Havoc

And apparently priests everywhere interpret the word of god as 'go touch children, and not in the good way' so that leads me to believe there's something clearly wrong in the catholic church.

You're being purposefully thick right? They don't interpret the word of God as go touch children, they are sick demented men who have used their position in society as an advantage to fulfil their sick fantasies, some of them aren't even believers in God.

Oh and a cult is a small denomination of a wider group...the Church is the biggest religious institution in the world.

And @ Jordan - I know there will be people who disagree with me, the world would be a lot more boring if that wasn't the case, but disagreement and false accusation are different things.

Posted 12-16-2011 at 04:52 AM by STM

	It's always the Catholic church, it seems. You'd think they'd let the priests get married like Protestants. Then we'd have none of this hoo-hah.
	Posted 12-16-2011 at 05:03 AM by Dixanadu

	I don't know, so long as anyone has a position of power in society, there will be some that abuse their power negatively. The police do it, the MP's do it, teachers do it.
	Posted 12-16-2011 at 05:09 AM by STM

	This is the tamest religious conversation these forums have ever seen. STM and Havoc are basically agreeing. When does the punching and swearing start?
	Posted 12-16-2011 at 05:24 AM by Wil

Even if that's true, it's the church that provides a save haven for them. You'd expect it would be noticable if a group of pedo's all joined the catholic church together just to touch children.

As a matter of fact, I don't care WHY they do it. I don't care if they actually believe in god or not. Point is that it was/is being done on such a grand scale that as an institution you can't just say 'we didn't know this was going on all over the world'. And yet that's exactly what they have been doing for years until people started calling bullshit on them a couple of years ago. And I'm not saying that the church encourages child abuse, but they certainly haven't been doing anything to stop it either.

I don't know, so long as anyone has a position of power in society, there will be some that abuse their power negatively. The police do it, the MP's do it, teachers do it.

Yet we do not hear about police officers massively abusing prisoners or teachers everywhere abusing children. And while the latter does unfortunatly happen, it's nowhere near the scale of the catholic church troughout the years.

Posted 12-16-2011 at 08:10 AM by Havoc

	: Yet we do not hear about police officers massively abusing prisoners Uh, what?
	Posted 12-16-2011 at 09:46 AM by Wings of Fire

	: Yet we do not hear about police officers massively abusing prisoners or teachers everywhere abusing children. You don't?
	Posted 12-16-2011 at 09:49 AM by Nemo

I'm with Havoc on this one, including the subtlety right there in the title: "Why I hate the church". That's not the same as hating Catholics. All of the victims were Catholics. We don't hate them.

It's clergymen of the church who committed the original crimes, and still more clergymen who covered it up, intimidated the victims and their families into silence, and moved the pederasts to fresh pastures where they could offend again. They did this repeatedly. Not a single county with a Catholic presence was immune. In Belgium, not a single Catholic congregation were free of abuse. Irish bishops who might otherwise have reported incidences did not do so because they were told not to by the Vatican. The message is clear: the safety of children is not an issue to the church. The image of the church, is. Well, they're now facing a Streisand Effect unlike any the world has ever seen. They deserve worse.

Yes, other people molest children. But the Catholic church built itself and subsists on claims of moral authority, and no other organisation has a problem like this on any scale or precedent like it, and no other organisation systematically protected the abusers and provided them with more victims. Systematically. All the way to the top. This isn't just a church, it's a criminal organisation. Everyone else sacks such criminals and bring the case to the police. But the Catholic church is above such mundane judicial systems, it seems.

The US army has the same problem. Crimes are handled internally. Every other military in every other free nation hands rape cases to the civilian police. But prosecution would mean losing a man from duty, so commanding officers have the cause and frequently exercised power to dismiss such accusations.

At least we're not habitually putting young children into the care of the US military.

Posted 12-16-2011 at 10:12 AM by Bullet Magnet

	Henceforth:
	Posted 12-16-2011 at 10:18 AM by Bullet Magnet

It's a shame you'd incorporate something so brash and perhaps to some people, unnecessarily offensive into an otherwise relatively well constructed argument.

The point still stands that you make out that this is a problem spread amongst hundreds of millions of priests when that is not the case. Nevertheless, these people must be found and put on trial, and the Pope, the closest man on Earth to God supposedly, should be the first to condemn these paedophiles and begin an inquisition.

Posted 12-16-2011 at 10:42 AM by STM

Updated 12-16-2011 at 10:51 AM by STM

It's a shame you'd incorporate something so brash and perhaps to some people, unnecessarily offensive into an otherwise relatively well constructed argument.

Listen to the lyrics of the song. It makes a good point. This silly little video is hardly anymore offensive than the fact that the Vatican is trying to cover up the mass molestation of little boys by church officials.

The point still stands that you make out that this is a problem spread amongst hundreds of millions of priests when that is not the case.

That's not the point I was getting. I was getting that the church trying to cover up even one act of pedophilia, let alone the several we know about (and the many more we likely don't know about), is odious and despicable no matter how you slice it. Especially for an organization that preaches morality and familial congregation.

Posted 12-16-2011 at 11:27 AM by Sekto Springs

Your criticism of the video was countered in the video. It is an entirely appropriate response to the crime and the scale of the crime. Anything less would have been inappropriately tame and disengaged.

The pope can't begin an inquisition without arresting himself. I don't know of any evidence that John Paul knew of or was involved in the cover-up, but during that time Ratzinger certainly was. He demanded that every report cross his table. He is a criminal, and if the British government had any balls or integrity they would have dismissed his fraudulent claims of diplomatic immunity and arrested him on behalf of Interpol the moment he set foot here during his last visit.

Posted 12-16-2011 at 11:31 AM by Bullet Magnet

	Problem is, he's too powerful, take the WW1, when the Muslims of India were asked to attack the Ottoman Empire, they largely deserted their posts, when it comes down to religion and country, many people hold their allegiance to the higher power. So Britain cannot arrest the Pope without putting its foot into a nest of hornets. Giant, angry, deadly hornets.
	Posted 12-16-2011 at 11:40 AM by STM

Bullet Magnet put it clearer than I ever could and got exactly what I meant to say. +rep for you!

As for the Pope and the Vatican. I've always found it very frightning how the Vatican is considerd it's own country with it's own police force and laws. Especially since the police reports directly to the pope and do not dare contradict him (no-one commited enough to the vatican to take up that job would ever dare to go against god's right hand man). There's something very wrong with how that entire organization was allowed to become what it is today.

Posted 12-16-2011 at 12:16 PM by Havoc

	Mmm, depends how close you are to the Pope, if I thought he was wrong about something and I got a chance to say so, I would. Simple as, he may be a holy man but he is a man, picked by God or not.
	Posted 12-16-2011 at 12:22 PM by STM

	If I could do anything I wanted, it would be to pleasure Marcus in whatever way he wanted for as long as he wanted. In fact, I'm going to build a shrine to him.
	Posted 12-16-2011 at 12:24 PM by Wil

	Marcus? Fenix?
	Posted 12-16-2011 at 01:57 PM by Havoc

	Oh my. I've never been more tempted to bat for the other team.
	Posted 12-16-2011 at 02:39 PM by Bullet Magnet

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