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Former Pope is dead, the one that ignored child abuse cases

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Memento Mori
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Re: Former Pope is dead, the one that ignored child abuse cases

#51

Post by Memento Mori »

One of the highlights of his time as Pope was certainly his visit to Britain - certainly when he gave a speech in Westminster Hall. Significant location for many reasons of course, but especially regarding St. Thomas More.

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Memento Mori
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Re: Former Pope is dead, the one that ignored child abuse cases

#52

Post by Memento Mori »

I should add, that regardless of one's opinion of Benedict XVI, the visit and honoring of a Pope in Westminster was a very significant occasion for British (and Irish in NI) Catholics given the horrendous discrimination and oppression Catholics had been subject to. A sign of how things have progressed!
jmayo
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Re: Former Pope is dead, the one that ignored child abuse cases

#53

Post by jmayo »

Memento Mori wrote: Sat Dec 31, 2022 8:18 pm There is something most remarkable about so many members of an institution committing heinous acts that they know are not only wrong and against the rules of an institution, but are contrary to the laws of God, and could well serve to deliver their souls to eternal torment. Could these people have actually believed in God? Is it the case of parents encouraging their "odd" children to join? Did they deliberately join to find an avenue to abuse, with easy access and the "shield" of respectability that membership of such an institution gave them? It's all so strange.

Two factors exacerbated the abuse crisis: "legitimate" church authorities (i.e. not pedophiles themselves) seem to have decided that pedophilia was an illness more than a normal crime, and decided that sending offenders to therapy to be "cured" was the solution, and that these "ill" people could be rehabilitated. And that it was best for all concerned to keep this quiet, both for the "ill" perpetrator and for the victim. This approach, evil as it was, was not totally out of keeping with mainstream psychology at the time, and it offered a neat solution for the authorities to "get rid" of such a horrible issue off of their desks - many levels of church authority just did not want to know and just passed the issue on. This is not a unique phenomenon - I'm sure many of us have forwarded on an email and washed our hands of it, glad that it had "nothing to do" with us and was above our paygrades. Another example of this institutional paralysis was evident over the cervical check scandal where there was much back and forth about who should tell the patients about their smear checks.

Everyone would have been better served if the Church went medieval style and dished out punishment.

In terms of institutions in general, there have been changes in attitude, with much emphasis on risk and the adoption of a general attitude that "its better we discover our misdeeds than someone else does" with most institutions having vigorous internal audit and compliance functions.

The second factor is that abusers also came to occupy positions of authority - and carried out and facilitated abuse.
Fooks sake.
These weren't instances of pushing on an email and washing your hands of some bad business decision or such.
It was disregarding the abuse of often vulnerable children by paedophiles who had long track records of it and it was engaging in the cover up of such activity.
Even worse it was moving the offenders on knowing full well they would continue to indulge in the same activity and ruin yet more innocent lives.
It was criminally negligent and it stinks of something old Benedict was a follower of as a young guy, Nazism.
Only following orders eh.

For a crowd that crowed about being the moral guardians of us they were the most immoral institution of the lot.

So fook him and the bast*** from Poland I hope they rot in hell.
PogMoThoin22
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Re: Former Pope is dead, the one that ignored child abuse cases

#54

Post by PogMoThoin22 »

Lets all join together in a nice song to celebrate his death

knownunknown
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Re: Former Pope is dead, the one that ignored child abuse cases

#55

Post by knownunknown »

jmayo wrote: Mon Jan 02, 2023 6:02 pm
For a crowd that crowed about being the moral guardians of us they were the most immoral institution of the lot.
How do us heathens know what is moral and immoral without the religious or the Catholic Church is usually the ‘gotcha’ type of reply. The golden rule is treat others as you would like to be treated and we were all children once, we know we were young and stupid and easily led.

How does an institution become so corrupt that preaches things about morality, being good and about an all powerful god watching over us all the time? I’m sure the pope rationalised it somehow that the scandal would hurt the church more and ultimately hurt his followers more if he exposed it rather then cover it up, the ends justifying the means. A lot of history’s evils found this justification.
marhay70
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Re: Former Pope is dead, the one that ignored child abuse cases

#56

Post by marhay70 »

Memento Mori wrote: Mon Jan 02, 2023 2:53 pm I should add, that regardless of one's opinion of Benedict XVI, the visit and honoring of a Pope in Westminster was a very significant occasion for British (and Irish in NI) Catholics given the horrendous discrimination and oppression Catholics had been subject to. A sign of how things have progressed!
The British people, to my memory, were spectacularly indifferent to Benedict's visit. Even the "Irish" in Glasgow didn't show up to show the flag.
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Memento Mori
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Re: Former Pope is dead, the one that ignored child abuse cases

#57

Post by Memento Mori »

marhay70 wrote: Mon Jan 02, 2023 6:25 pm The British people, to my memory, were spectacularly indifferent to Benedict's visit. Even the "Irish" in Glasgow didn't show up to show the flag.
"British Catholics". I'm sure the majority of British people either didn't notice or care.
marhay70
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Re: Former Pope is dead, the one that ignored child abuse cases

#58

Post by marhay70 »

Memento Mori wrote: Mon Jan 02, 2023 6:27 pm "British Catholics".
Someone should tell them.
KHD
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Re: Former Pope is dead, the one that ignored child abuse cases

#59

Post by KHD »

jmayo wrote: Mon Jan 02, 2023 6:02 pm Fooks sake.

Even worse it was moving the offenders on knowing full well they would continue to indulge in the same activity and ruin yet more innocent lives.
It was criminally negligent and it stinks of something old Benedict was a follower of as a young guy, Nazism.
Only following orders eh.
Bit rich criticising him for being in the Nazi youth when he was a young fella and you support a government regime in Ukraine who openly support Nazi mass murderers as its state forefather and not even ashamed of it. Good Nazi / Bad Nazi argument I guess. Slava Bandera Zelingsky

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Memento Mori
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Re: Former Pope is dead, the one that ignored child abuse cases

#60

Post by Memento Mori »

jmayo wrote: Mon Jan 02, 2023 6:02 pm Fooks sake.
These weren't instances of pushing on an email and washing your hands of some bad business decision or such.
It was disregarding the abuse of often vulnerable children by paedophiles who had long track records of it and it was engaging in the cover up of such activity.
Even worse it was moving the offenders on knowing full well they would continue to indulge in the same activity and ruin yet more innocent lives.
It was criminally negligent and it stinks of something old Benedict was a follower of as a young guy, Nazism.
Only following orders eh.

For a crowd that crowed about being the moral guardians of us they were the most immoral institution of the lot.

So fook him and the bast*** from Poland I hope they rot in hell.
I was referring to the well-known institutional phenomena whereby things are rumoured or alluded to within it, and all "good" people do (if even) is report it to their superior and wash their hands after that, and assume it is taken care of. In modern times, with whistleblower legislation (which as well as protecting whistleblowers, puts in place a formal process for investigating claims in a professional manner) and other corporate governance initiatives great steps have been taken to overcome this phenomena. Essentially, one cannot rely on an individual in an organisation to go on a crusade to ensure that rumors are addressed - mentioning it, or reporting it to a superior should be enough - hence we have within most organisations a system that formalises (and can provide anonymity) this reporting and the (independent) investigation progress.

This is distinct from those charged to actually do something, who then do nothing (or actively cover it up). I described this activity as "evil".

There certainly is a lot to criticise Benedict XVI about, but charges of Nazism don't add up, especially considering he was from a noted anti-Nazi family.
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Memento Mori
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Re: Former Pope is dead, the one that ignored child abuse cases

#61

Post by Memento Mori »

marhay70 wrote: Mon Jan 02, 2023 6:35 pm Someone should tell them.
Literally hundreds of thousands of people attended various events and Masses he was part of? About 200k people greeted him in Scotland! (Glasgow and Edinburgh). There's only 5 million or so Catholics (and one assumes only a fraction of that are practicing) in Britain so that's a decent turnout in anyone's book.

I get you don't like him/catholicism but it was a big deal for believers at the time.

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marhay70
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Re: Former Pope is dead, the one that ignored child abuse cases

#62

Post by marhay70 »

Memento Mori wrote: Mon Jan 02, 2023 6:51 pm Literally hundreds of thousands of people attended various events and Masses he was part of? About 200k people greeted him in Scotland! (Glasgow and Edinburgh). There's only 5 million or so Catholics (and one assumes only a fraction of that are practicing) in Britain so that's a decent turnout in anyone's book.

I get you don't like him/catholicism but it was a big deal for believers at the time.

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The total over all his appearances might have been over 100,000 and that included the rabid groupies that follow Popes everywhere. Overall, much like Francis when he visited here, the public was generally underwhelmed.
I really don't give a toss about the Pope or Catholicism, it's irrelevant to me, as is Islam, and all the other cults, but unfortunately, what they do affects me and mine so I take an active interest
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Memento Mori
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Re: Former Pope is dead, the one that ignored child abuse cases

#63

Post by Memento Mori »

marhay70 wrote: Mon Jan 02, 2023 8:27 pm The total over all his appearances might have been over 100,000 and that included the rabid groupies that follow Popes everywhere. Overall, much like Francis when he visited here, the public was generally underwhelmed.
I really don't give a toss about the Pope or Catholicism, it's irrelevant to me, as is Islam, and all the other cults, but unfortunately, what they do affects me and mine so I take an active interest
Its irrelevant, yet it affects you, you don't give a toss, but you take an active interest... Making lots of sense here!

As for the crowds who attended the various events etc, associated with Benedict XVI visit to Britain, I really don't understand your line here. Again you are not making sense... I said that it was an important event to British Catholics, not the general public. Catholics are a pretty small proportion of Britain's population, and the amount who practice is smaller still. As for numbers... this is a silly game. At least 50,000 attended Mass in Birmingham. About 65/70k attended Mass in Glasgow, about 80,000 were at the event in Hyde Park in London. Not to mention the various thousands who were on streets to greet him, and at the smaller events.

My point (again) was that this was an important occasion for British Catholics - it certainly was by any measure and your opposition to my assertion in this regard is, frankly, bizarre.
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Memento Mori
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Re: Former Pope is dead, the one that ignored child abuse cases

#64

Post by Memento Mori »

While I take issue with some particulars in this obituary, I think the general thrust of it is fair. From that noted bastion of Catholic conservatism, the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/ ... t-obituary
marhay70
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Re: Former Pope is dead, the one that ignored child abuse cases

#65

Post by marhay70 »

Memento Mori wrote: Mon Jan 02, 2023 10:30 pm Its irrelevant, yet it affects you, you don't give a toss, but you take an active interest... Making lots of sense here!

As for the crowds who attended the various events etc, associated with Benedict XVI visit to Britain, I really don't understand your line here. Again you are not making sense... I said that it was an important event to British Catholics, not the general public. Catholics are a pretty small proportion of Britain's population, and the amount who practice is smaller still. As for numbers... this is a silly game. At least 50,000 attended Mass in Birmingham. About 65/70k attended Mass in Glasgow, about 80,000 were at the event in Hyde Park in London. Not to mention the various thousands who were on streets to greet him, and at the smaller events.

My point (again) was that this was an important occasion for British Catholics - it certainly was by any measure and your opposition to my assertion in this regard is, frankly, bizarre.
It's irrelevant to me inasmuch as I pay no heed to what it teaches or to the nonsense it spouts but nobody who lives on this island can escape the insidious influences of the RCC nor the seeming throat hold it has on politicians, particularly those from rural backwaters. It has a finger in education and health, two of the most important areas of life and I happen to have grandchildren in education and a need myself for the health service, so it affects my everyday life. Thankfully, its influence in Health is waning quickly and I no longer have nuns trying to shove wafers down my throat at every hand's turn, but the process has a way to go yet.
You obviously have different information to me as regards attendance at Benedict's public appearances, but then again I have a large circle of friends in the UK, particularly the Midlands many of whom are Catholics, and their interest in his visit was zero.
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