Stephen T-B

From the BBC.
Tuesday, 19 November, 2002, 14:53 GMT
Cardinal accused over child sex priests is facing a raft of new allegations

The leader of the Catholic Church in England and Wales failed to act appropriately when dealing with paedophile priests in his former diocese of Arundel and Brighton, a BBC investigation has uncovered.
Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor is currently the subject of a police inquiry over claims he covered up the activities of paedophile priest, Father Michael Hill.
Michael Hill faces more time in jail
But an investigation by BBC Radio 4's Today programme revealed that some priests had been allowed to continue their pastoral duties in the same diocese despite serious allegations.
The Church has rejected calls for the Cardinal to resign, saying that the "compulsive and obsessive" nature of paedophilia was not generally understood in the 1980s, when the allegations emerged.
Two years ago, the BBC revealed that, as Bishop of Arundel and Brighton, the Cardinal had allowed Hill to continue working even though he knew he was a paedophile.
Documents showed that in 1981, Hill was sent to a therapeutic centre following concerns over his sexual behaviour.
In letters seen by reporters, the Cardinal describes the matter as "very serious" and questions whether Hill should have pastoral care of a parish.
But a few weeks later Hill was allowed to conduct a baptism at a family retreat for disabled children.
Witnesses told the BBC the Cardinal had attended the baptism and was seen with Hill.
Hill's victims say the Cardinal's actions condemned them to years of abuse.
Hill, 68, was jailed for five years in 1997 for a string of sex offences against boys before being freed on parole in 2000.
He is due to be sentenced on Thursday after pleading guilty to six further charges of indecent assault on three boys aged 10 to 14 carried out between 1969 and 1987 - the same period covered by the previous court case.
The Today programme's latest investigation received allegations against a number of priests in the Arundel and Brighton diocese.
Reporters investigated four and found three had continued in their pastoral duties despite serious allegations.
The fourth, Father Alan Love, admitted indecently assaulting two boys when he was a priest in Glasgow and moved to Arundel and Brighton.
He was not convicted of anything but later received counselling.
In 1996 the Catholic Church in Scotland, which sent him down to Arundel and Brighton, said the new parish was aware of Father Love's history and he had the "full confidence" of its bishop, who at the time was Cormac Murphy-O'Connor.

The victims of alleged abuse, and their families, concede that the Church authorities appeared to follow the letter of the new guidelines, but not the spirit.
They say the police were informed, as recommended, but despite serious concerns the priests were allowed to continue working.
A relation of one of the alleged victims said: "There is no escaping the underlying impression of a Church exercising damage limitation policies."
Another said the Cardinal should admit what happened while he was in charge and show his integrity by offering his resignation.

Laurentius

There seems to be a sickening trend among sex addicts nowadays, i.e. paedophilia, and its subjects are among equally Christians and non Christians, which shows the habit must be related to the human nature. This being the case, the nonChristians' satisfaction that xians fall prey to this (in my opinion) deviant sexual behavior looks like a cheap argument to prove that religion and its followers are no good. Were I Christian I'd say anyone can be tempted by the devil, as the Scripture says (so the Book is right once again). Since I'm not I'd rather mention xians' tendency to find the "truth" in an imaginary world, to ignore any facts that may shatter their dogma, to blindly obey some charismatic trickster and so on.

AVE

randomsyllable

My view is that essentially, you are correct. There is no basis for claiming superiority whenever a Christian is caught. However, the fact that priests are being protected by the church *does* provide an argument. The crime itself is immaterial. If a crime is committed, and then the perpetrator is protected by the church, the church is in the wrong.

Stephen T-B

These events are significanrt to the extent that Christianity claims to be the source of Morality.
A worthless claim, I think

Pitshade

Off to Misc. Religion...

Shake

Today's (11/23) NY Times Crossword in my newspaper has as clue 48 Down: "Kind of priest" and I just can't figure it out, 'cause there aren't enough boxes for "pedophile".

Amos

The above claim is based on Puritanical self righteousness and it can be argued that just the opposite is true. For one, Catholics are sinners and have the confessinals to prove this.

Further, the Laws were given to Moses not to stop sin but to convict man of sin. From this follows that sin is good or the Law could not serve its purpose.

This is confirmed by the fact that the cross of eternal salvatin is for sinners only and so sin must be good. Therefore also we read in Gal.2:17 "that in seeking to be justified we were convicted as sinner."

I wrote this to put your claim in the proper context and does not clear peadophiles. It does however warrant the forgiveness of their sin. The nature of their sin is just a societal problem and has nothing to do with religion except that religion has become a hide-out for homosexuals that were shunned the Puritan based societies from where you got your ideaology.