Media massively over reported abuse in the Church

This is part of an argument I was having with a devout member of the Roman Catholic Church on an Irish political forum website.   - - - - - - - -

Church supporter: It has also since come to the light that the media massively over reported abuse in the Church;

My Riposte: Is reporting that a Christian Brother abused 140 children an massive over-report or a case of 140 victims of one clergyman? How many of these 140 victims actually spoke to the media?

Church supporter: The Church upholds the true meaning of human sexuality and human dignity:

My Riposte: The Roman Catholic Church raped and sodomised children in Ireland, America, Australia, Hong Kong, Canada .... so what exactly is the 'true meaning' of human sexuality and human dignity according to the Church

Church supporter: Our culture is a culture which wars against the child.

My Riposte: You really believe that?

Church supporter: It is the child that is killed before birth, or treated as a product

My Riposte: The Christian Brothers saw the incarceration of children (some as young as four years) in their institutions as vital economic assets!  The Sisters of Mercy sold babies born to Irish mothers to rich American Roman Catholics.

Church supporter: it is the child that is now the subject of a massive social experiment

My Riposte: And the incarceration of children (many of them babies) in Church-run Institutions was a massive experiment in social engineering.

Church supporter: Decades of secular ideology have turned the Church's teaching on its head: any sexual act bar paedophilia  is now acceptable.

My Riposte: Yet clergy sexual terrorists were committing gross acts of paedophilia in the Institutions in Ireland, Canada and Australia. Clergy sexual terrorists were moved from Institution to institution, parish to parish, diocese to diocese, country to country. It seems to me that the Church has accepted paedophilia within it's own ranks. They were uniquely aware of the recurring nature of clergy sexual terrorism - carried out, remember, by people who are specially selected and specially trained for the priesthood. There was no help offered to the victims of these Sexual Terrorists. Indeed there is testimony that the victims were punished for reporting clergy sexual terrorists.

Church supporter: For example, we rightly view rape differently to common assault, but why? If the sexual act is really so casual rape should be seen as just another form of assault, no more significant than any other.

My Riposte: By 'we' I presume you don't mean the Roman Catholic Church - as that institution saw the sexual exploitation of children by it's clergy a 'mere moral lapses'

Church supporter: The Church is now the only institution in the world upholding true human dignity and true human rights.

My Riposte: Not so.  The Roman Catholic Church is tainted by the horrific child abuse it  facilitated. This abuse includes physical abuse and sexual abuse. 

Church supporter: all of your most cherished assumptions far from being freely chosen have been drilled into you by all pervasive cultural forces.

My Riposte: Pot. Kettle. Black. 

Church supporter: What occurred in the Church was not nor could be systemic as anyone who knew how the Church operates would know. Even if individual bishops consulted one another on this issue, the bishops do not operate as a collectivity: each bishop is sovereign within his diocese and answerable ultimately, and only rarely, since there are thousands of them, to the Pope. I have also explained that the recent abuse cases which came to light were largely confined to English-speaking countries, which is again evidence that it was not a systemic problem within the Church which is present worldwide and in all countries. The Catholic Church alone is growing in America, both North and South, India, and Africa among other places.

My Riposte: So should we expect reports of child abuse in the Indian language, African language and Spanish languages to surface.

Church supporter: This betrays an utterly false understanding of the Church. The Church is the people of God; it means the "assembly" the "convoked", those called together to form a community of love.

My Riposte: You mean the Industrial Schools at Artane, Goldenbridge, Letterfrack, Daingean, Glin, Newtownforbes, Upton, Nazareth House in Sligo et al were all 'communities of love' ? 

Church supporter: The Catholic Church is universal and traces its origin back to the Apostles.

My Riposte: Implication here is that Clergy Sexual Terrorism and the cover-up of Clergy Sexual Terrorism started at the time of the apostle Peter !!! 

Church supporter:  Seems like your not bad at badgering yourself, or judging and condemning. Or, for that matter, defaming the name of innocent priests and religious by lumping them together with criminals.

My Riposte: You should provide proof here. Publish the names of innocent priests that I've slandered. Or innocent Religious Orders, or innocent bishops or cardinals or popes. 

Church supporter: Anway my original point stands: a minority of priests and religious were abusers, and by lumping them all together as you have repeatedly done both here and in other threads you have demonstrated a complete disregard for justice and fairness. Some of your posts have been absolutely disgraceful.

My Riposte: Bishops and Religious Orders who facilitated CLERGY SEXUAL TERRORISM are criminals. To cover up such despicable crimes to protect the institution of the Church is criminal.  Knowing of the recurring nature of CLERGY SEXUAL TERRORISM these bishops and Religious Orders are COMPLICIT in the abuses. 

Church supporter: You have been corrected a number of times in other threads including by Kilbarry1 and Florence Hosman Hogan

My Riposte: And [you have yet] to point out any corrections - despite being asked several times.

Church supporter:  To isolate the Church and to claim that it is somehow magically and uniquely responsible for the abuses is simply to demonise it

My Riposte: The Church isolated itself by it's complicity in CLERGY SEXUAL TERRORISM over many decades in Ireland and elsewhere.

Church supporter: You are just not being permitted to get away with baseless assertions or a vast panoramic attempt to lump all the members of the Church together in a mass besmirching attempt, indicting them in the crimes of a minority of betrayers. Such attempts will serve only to motivate me to oppose your agenda even more forcefully.

My Riposte: I say again: Bishops and Religious Orders who facilitated CLERGY SEXUAL TERRORISM are criminals. To cover up such despicable crimes to protect the institution of the Church is criminal.  Knowing of the recurring nature of CLERGY SEXUAL TERRORISM these bishops and Religious Orders are COMPLICIT in the abuses. 

Church supporter: abuse by Catholic clergy is rare

My Riposte: You mean 'rarely exposed' don't you.

Church supporter: You will further learn that the media have distorted the rate of abuse,

My Riposte: How many stories could the media get from a story of a CLERGY SEXUAL TERRORIST who admitted sexually abusing 25 children - One story or perhaps 25 stories?  Where exactly should the media halt in a case like that?  Bearing in mind what the Archbishop of Dublin said that victims voices must be heard.  Is your Church schizophrenic?

Church supporter:  We also know that concrete historical, sociological and cultural reasons had an enormous causal influence in the abuses. We also know that some people classified the ordinarily harsh circumstances of the time as "abuse".

My Riposte: Obviously you haven't read the testimony at the Child Abuse Commission, given by the Religious Orders, admitting that the Institutions were harsh, that children were neglected, beaten, starved, overworked and physically and sexually abused. Hardly the lot of the general population! Well Almanac was the lot of the general population in Ireland one of being neglected, of being beaten, of being starved, of being overworked, of being sexually abused?  Was life outside the Institutions the same as life [inside] the Institutions?  Were priests and members of Religious Orders physically and abusing children in ALL parts of Ireland - in every city, in every town, in every village, in every school, in every home ????

Church supporter: "The Roman Catholic Church". What do you think that is Andrew? A "criminal organisation"? Really? Where does this criminal nature come from I wonder? Is there an evil spirit haunting the Church that somehow makes all its members behave in exactly the opposite way to their beliefs as you seem to believe.

My Riposte: Either facilitating CLERGY SEXUAL TERRORISM is a crime or it isn't. Either covering up such despicable acts is a crime or it isn't.  What do you think Almanac? Are the hands of the Roman Catholic Church clean on the issue of CLERGY SEXUAL TERRORISM?

Church supporter:  I am going to present the true face of the Church to counter the vile black propaganda you are distilling here.

My Riposte: I already know the true face of your Church ... vile, despicable, loathsome, and devious are descriptions used by members of the Roman Catholic Church and I don't have any problem with those descriptions.

Church supporter: Please refrain from using the term "paedo priest".

My Riposte: CLERGY SEXUAL TERRORISTS would be more apt as it also covers those SEXUAL TERRORISTS in the Religious Orders.  I note Almanac that you actually describe them as a 'minority' !  A bit Monty Python that!  They're evil monsters, monsters shielded by your Church.

Church supporter: So why would "the creator of the universe" create beings in his own image and likeness if not to enter into personal relationship with them?

My Riposte: The problem was these CLERGY SEXUAL TERRORISTS were into a different kind 'personal relationship'. It included denigration, extreme physical exploitation and sexual violence.

Church supporter: The Church is now the only institution in the world upholding true human dignity and true human rights. It would be impossible for it to do so in face of the monumental worldwide pressure put on it to change its teachings, particularly since the sixties, if its teachings did not come from God. I don't consider myself remotely gullible or naive.  What we had was a small number of abusers and massive mishandling by some bishops.

My Riposte: No what we had was a criminal conspiracy to protect CLERGY SEXUAL TERRORISTS and the institution of the Church.

Church supporter: There is, in fact, in Ireland a child protection scheme to ensure that what happened will never recur.

My Riposte: So the Bible isn't enough!   See more
by: Andrew Brennan