The recent scandal of the Catholic hierarchy covering up sexual allegations against priests, and moving them from post to post, only shows that the problem is neither new, nor restricted to the Catholic Church.
The first time I heard about a serial child molester was about 1960. The United Church of Canada had defrocked a minister named Russell D. Horsburg, after he had been convicted in Windsor, Ontario. He was an equal opportunity pedo, willing to debauch both boys and girls.
One of the wife’s older sisters had left the Catholic Church, to wed a New Order Mennonite boy. As a compromise, they attended and were married in a local United Church. Always paranoid and defensive about leaving the Catholic Church, and anxious to justify her actions, she is the only person I personally know, who put her marriage certificate in a silver frame, and hung it on her living room wall for all to see.
After we got married in 1967, and had a child, we sometimes visited. One evening, after a washroom trip, I stopped to examine the certificate. Sure enough, it was signed by Reverend Russell D. Horsburg. Hmmm, so he practiced his craft here, before the United Church slyly shipped him 300 miles down the highway, to an unsuspecting parish.
She suspiciously wanted to know what I was looking at. I told her that her officiating minister was later jailed for pedophilia.
WELL, THAT DOESN’T MEAN THAT WE’RE NOT REALLY MARRIED!
No, but you’re probably lucky that he wasn’t still here in Kitchener, as your kids grew up.
Okay, I’ve described the problem. Now it’s up to somebody (or somebodies) else to come up with a solution to it. 😳
Archon's Den 
Priests are just men – there are good ones and bad ones – wearing a dog collar won’t change their true nature.
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I know that, and you know that, but try convincing the Bible-thumping “Good Christians.” I remember when ‘The DaVinci Code’ came out. They shouted, “Oh, he’s a Bishop! He wouldn’t do terrible, illegal things like that.” 😛
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Well you know what they say about ‘blind’ faith :O) x
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I know what I say about it…. 😈 But it’s unprintable on a family-friendly, G-rated site like this.
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IF there’s a problem here… it’s NOT yours.
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It certainly is not! Although I do a few little things (like this blog-post) to keep others aware of it. 😳
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The entire situation is evil. Priests sexually abusing children and the vile cover up that assures they never come to justice. So much easier for the archdioceses to pay millions of dollars to shut the accusers up. The hypocrisy of the church disgusts me.
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Even now, the Catholic Church claims that the pedo priests are registered agents of a sovereign nation (The Vatican) with diplomatic immunity. The Church insists that only it has the right to deal with the situation, rather than any civil authority where such crimes are committed. 😦
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It’s shameful, and vile.
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My mother was raised Catholic, but grew up in New Jersey. She only moved to Buffalo when she married my dad. Anyway, my mom totally hated the priests here in Buffalo, claiming they were all dirty old men (based on an experience she had with one shortly after she arrived in Buffalo). I grew up in the 1950’s and 1960’s, and I just figured she was nuts. Guess she was right all along.
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As she was growing up, the wife attended the largest local Catholic Church and school. It had several priests of various ages, and a dozen nuns who all lived in a large home on the property. Her two oldest sisters were nuns, but were posted elsewhere.
There used to be stories about how the priests and nuns were regularly pleasuring each other. “They wouldn’t do that! They took vows of celibacy!” It was bad enough that Protestants made these ‘unfounded claims,’ but even Good Catholic fellow-students were carrying these tales.
As she grew older, and heard more and more of these accusations, she finally realised/admitted that there might be some truth to them. At her church there were no unfortunate altar boys or choir girls. At least the Holy overseers ‘kept it in the Family.’ 😯
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Police Officers, Teaches, school principals, ministers, cab drivers, politicians, writers, actors, directors, psychologists, doctors, doesn’t matter, all have been or will be convicted of abuse at one point in their lives. The problem with the churches is that they hid the abuse and allowed it to continue.. as do Police Departments, school boards, governments, etc. We have to teach our kids the signs and how to avoid those perverts!
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We shouldn’t have to, but #MeToo, and #TimesUp prove that it can last a lifetime. How’s your boy doing? 🙂
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Long story, I will tell you sometime
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The root of the problem, I submit, lies in a fundamental concept of the Catholic church, i.e., that clergy are a necessary link between God and the laity. This is most obvious in the rites of communion, marriage, confession, and “last rites”. The latter means, as I understand it, that you will spend eternity in hell if you die without a priest hearing your last sins. Makes me wonder if the Catholic God is a lawyer.
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I believe that the Jewish rabbis sold the concept to “The Church.” Another example of tithing – they take their 10% off the top, whether you’re coming or going. I’ve written before about how they’ve become the i-dotting, t-crossing salvation accountants.
It gives the, “No-one goeth to the Lord, except through me” a more commercial flavor. 👿
It’s a behavior-modification/control concept. 😯
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