[Rei Murasame]

I think the OP has let his

You mean "her"

Bigotry show.

Ironic. I hope to remain a bigoted enemy of bigots then. Fire vs Fire and all that.

It is to bad that some people are so filled with hate

Well, don't give us a reason to hate then! Did the Church ever think of simply not giving us reasons to hate them? That could be a strategy.

Grow up.

I wish the entire Western world would grow up, then we wouldn't even be having this problem at all.

I don't understand how people expect that the reaction to these stories wouldn't be outrage.

[youtube]bhr_Wy-aAtA[/youtube]
How can the reaction not be outrage when they say these things as a 'defence'?

[Kapanda]

Well, don't give us a reason to hate then! Did the Church ever think of simply not giving us reasons to hate them? That could be a strategy.

So in other words, you expect perfection. Or at the very least, reasons few enough to fit your personal level of comfort.

[Rei Murasame]

So in other words, you expect perfection. Or at the very least, reasons few enough to fit your personal level of comfort.

I actually would want them to stop laughing in the face of our countries, or prepare to experience diplomatic problems.

I don't understand your position. This is a problem at the national level because there is a foreign state (Vatican City) treating all of us like fools and laughing at our consternation.

Why do you defend Vatican City? Is it a case of divided loyalties?

[Kapanda]

No one is denying that the Catholic Church did something appaling.

Call for justice, that is more than reasonable. Have you not called for its abolition, though?

[Rei Murasame]

If we enact 'justice' by taking the appropriate action which is to send all of its diplomats home and embargo Vatican City while freezing their assets, then I have not called for its abolition directly.

I'm sure they could still make money for a while off the Africans or South Americans, but that'd no longer be any of our concern, would it?

[Kapanda]

Okay, still sounds totally extreme to me, and I apologise for mixing comments you may have previously made with the arguments you were raising here.

But I guess that could be one course of action. It does not sound realistic to me because of the nature of the Church - even though I understand you are referring to the Catholic Church's state, and not its institution.

Moreover, how realistic would that be, really? Catholicism has a whole lot of followers. If the state was repealled, why couldn't that happen with local Catholic communities?

[Figlio di Moros]

That does seem to be the problem; there are a lot of goodhearted Catholics, and the Church is renowned for it's charity. While something needs to be done, and I agree with Rei's diplomatic response, it could easily be seen as an assault on the entire institution and faith.

[Huntster]

If we enact 'justice' by taking the appropriate action which is to send all of its diplomats home and embargo Vatican City while freezing their assets, then I have not called for its abolition directly.

I'm sure they could still make money for a while off the Africans or South Americans, but that'd no longer be any of our concern, would it?

So you attack the Church's money?

You want it?

[Figlio di Moros]

Hunster, you see a problem with freezing the Churches accounts until they take serious steps to remove pedohiles and variable sex offenders from positions of power or trust? I never favored you as the pro-pedo type...

[Huntster]

Hunster, you see a problem with freezing the Churches accounts until they take serious steps to remove pedohiles and variable sex offenders from positions of power or trust?

Yes and no. You can take the money. But you'll never kill the perverts. You don't have the balls.

That's for me to do.

I never favored you as the pro-pedo type...

I'm not. I'd just as soon kill 'em. Incarcerate them. Do away with them.

I don't need pedophiles.

[Figlio di Moros]

Before you can apply death-by-castration, you have to seperate them from church protection.

[Huntster]

There is no such thing as "church protection".

[dgun]

Whatever PV.

Catholicism is a joke. Picking some random nut and treating him like a deity is idolatry, not to mention retarded.

Guess what Mr. Pope? All your priests have penises. And any man who claims he can ignore his penis for a lifetime and swear off sex is a freaking weirdo and a liar and is the last person who should be trusted with authority over children and devout, vulnerable believers.

[lcaillo]

More of a joke than other religions? Perhaps historically you could make that case, but not in terms of the good that those devout followers do. As I said before, I was raised Catholic, and saw both sides first hand. What I cannot ignore is the vast majority of Catholics for whom the Church is a very positive thing in their lives and the positive affect that they have on others. As with society in general, punish the wrongdoers and fix the system that enabled them, but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

[Unperson-K]

More of a joke than other religions?

In fairness, most other religions (or at least the other branches of Christianity and the other Abrahamic religions) aren't led by a man who has declared himself to be infallible.

[Cookie Monster]

As Seneca is claimed to have said that "(r)eligion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful".

I suspect the Catholic Church is an instrument for sexual fetishisms.

[Donna]

I don't know about an embargo on the Vatican, but liberal human rights organizations should begin tasking church policies that allow child abuse to proliferate and offer guidelines and suggestions that would remedy the problem. The pedophile priests are obviously a symptom of the whole pseudo-monastic institution of the priesthood, and it should be made clear to everyone that the current model of priesthood is inviting 'human rights' abuses all over the world. In the early 2000s the church sought to deal with this problem by apologizing for its inability to interface with law enforcement, particularly in the United States, but it is clear that child abuse runs so deep in the Catholic Church that massive internal reformation may be necessary. The problem is evidently the outdated division between church and state.

[Mediakeit]

Without religion people will become immoral monster--- Oh wait.

I wonder how many secular humanist public school teachers diddle little boys compared to the Jesusuckers.

[Sephardi]

The Catholic Church and the Jesuits disgust me so much. I will never step foot into a Catholic University especially if it's ran by Jesuits. Not only did my answers die in their hands but they also have a fondness for little boys and girls. They are absolutely disgusting. Maybe the Vatican should let Priests marry. They are also a huge money making machine. I really hope that these Priests and the Pope himself get the worst hell imaginable.

I support the idea of an embargo on the Catholic Church. It's not Catholics themselves, it's just the Vatican, and the Jesuits. They disgust me.

[Potemkin]

The pedophile priests are obviously a symptom of the whole pseudo-monastic institution of the priesthood, and it should be made clear to everyone that the current model of priesthood is inviting 'human rights' abuses all over the world.

I'm not convinced that's right. Enforced celibacy does not necessarily lead someone to become a monster of perverted depravity. These pedophile priests were, I would submit, always predisposed to pedophilia; they merely chose to become priests in order to have the camouflage necessary to practice their socially unacceptable sexual deviation without significant fear of detection or punishment. The real problem is not the celibacy of the priesthood, but the failure of the Catholic Church as an institution to prevent itself from being used as camouflage by pedophiles. Such people also try to use the Scouts, or other institutions which bring them into contact with children, in order to simultaneously facilitate and camouflage their proclivities, but these other institutions have a zero-tolerance policy towards this, unlike the Catholic Church.