Sr. Zonules

Amos Amos....

So we meet again in another thread. Again, I disagree with you fully.

I have 3 questions for you, and they are all YES/NO answers, so it involves little typing. Quite convenient I think. Other people should answer these, too.

1.) Has Cardinal Law molested children?
2.) Is molesting children wrong?
3.) Should child molesters be criminally punished?

As for my answers: 1. Yes. 2. Yes. 3.Yes.

I see here no reason to uphold or support the Catholic Churh. The Cardinals and the rest of the R.C. Clergy participate in <a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=kangaroo+court&r=2" target="_blank">Kangaroo Courts</a> that are completely bogus, and at least in my books, that means nothing. Why aren't these people being tried in a REAL court with legitamate, fair power? It would be the same as letting the jury of a murdur trial be composed of murders. Likewise, these courts are porsecuting pedophiles by pedophiles.

As for another argument, if I were to right now go out and molest little children, I would be prosecuted severly in an instant. But, due to the fact that the Cardinals and Bishops are religious leaders, they are let off the hook because of religious sympathy.

What a bunch of crap. If someone molests a child, they (LAWFULLY, MORALLY and ETHICALLY speaking) need to be punished. Period. (notice on this the lack of exceptions. If God himself is a child molester, then he, too should be locked up and fined.)

[ December 19, 2002: Message edited by: Sr. Zonules ]</p>

mecca777

Erm, I think you mean

1.) No, but he enabled some priest to go on molesting children by not publicizing or prosecuting their crimes.
2.) Yes.
3.) Yes.

I don't know whether you thought that Cardinal Law lost his job because he personally was a paedophile, but that's not the case. The argument is that, when evidence of sexual abuse by his priests was presented to him, he paid off the victims and moved the priests to new areas without informing the authorities of their crimes; consequently they re-offended, which would not have been the case if the police had been involved.

lunachick

Cardinal Law should be tried for aiding and abetting or co-conspiring in these crimes. When things got out of hand, he protected the clergymen and gave them fresh boys to molest and paid the families of the victims hush money. This would be easy to do from a psychological point of view - my father (an ex-cop) always told me to tell him if I was ever raped or molested and he will get the perpetrator - because as a cop he'd been to many rape trials and knew how hard it was for the victim, and how the victim was cross-examined in a way as to blame the victim. If the Cardinal had suggested this line of legal enquiry to the boys parents, then you can't blame them for not wanting to put their child through anymore than what they had already gone through.

There is no excuse for this at all. ALL parties should be made fully accountable under public law, not Church law.

Also, according to some researchers, sex offenders are the LEAST likely to be effectively rehabilitated; therefore they should be castrated - chemically or surgically - I don't care. These people are more dangerous than pub thugs, and should be treated as such.

Ut

Would you advocate that FGM should be practiced on female offenders?

lunachick

Female genital mutilation? In what context are you asking me this?

Ooops, sorry - I'm getting sleepy and didn't read properly. If they are sexual offenders than I would say something would need to be done chemically or surgically to disable the ability or desire to offend. Yes.

[ December 19, 2002: Message edited by: lunachick ]</p>

Ut

You're asking for a form of MGM to be performed on male offenders, I'm asking if you would also ask for FGM to be performed on female offenders.

lunachick

Sorry - I was editing while you were answering.

In repeat child sex offences, where incarceration and psychotherapy has failed, then I would have to say yes.

This goes for both men and women. Whether the surgery is genital or a lobotomy to curb the desire, I don't care - in the light of the potential damage done to victims lives, I believe this to be justified.

Ut

I understand your point. However, this is not merely a choice between letting the repeat offender go free (after some incarceration and therapy) or mutilation. There is at least a third possibility: life without parole.

After all, incarceration can't fail if you don't let them out.

lunachick

The problem I see with this solution is that it would make it more desirable to kill the victim, or at least torment them terribly to keep quiet, as the chances of getting away with it may be deemed better this way. In the criminal mind it would be a weighing up of possible options and outcomes. If the sentence for these rapes and molestations was the same for murder, then why not murder your victim if you thought it would increase your chances of not getting caught?

Crime and punishment - actions and consequence - there is much to weigh up from a justice point of view, just as there is much to weigh up in the criminal mind as to how far you can go in what you are doing and how it affects your sense of self-preservation.

The Admiral

Gemma said

&lt;&lt;There is a religious sister at my college with her doctorate in Analytic Number Theory&gt;&gt;

And I know a Lutheran minister with a masters in mathamatics from University of Southern California.

He believes the universe is about 7 thousand years old, that Adam and Eve were real people, that the world wide flood was a real occurence, that dinosaurs never existed, god put the bones there to test our faith, etc.

So how does one account for this? Well, my theory of the SWI syndrome does it pretty well.

The Admiral