Rod Dreher Quotes

The official position of the church was against the child molestation and rape by pedophile priests as it was against artificial contraception. Harris based his conclusion on the effort the church leaders and priests were making for each of the two issues. While the Pope condemned in no uncertain terms the pedophilia of the priests, the sermons and the literature of the church dealt with contraception much more frequently. At the time, the church was still covering up the sex scandal and some church officials were still in denial as to the extent. When the Pope was a cardinal, he also contributed to the cover-up, claiming to be hamstrung by the limitations of cannon law with regard to defrocking perverted priests.

The problem priests who sexually prey on young boys is not a modern problem only. This quotation demonstrates that the problem has existed for over 1000 years and probably existed in the earliest days of Christianity. This has been a problem of many clergies of different religions. However, the Roman Catholic authorities of the day seemed to be more proactive in dealing with it than in the scandals of the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio

The Roman Catholic Church hierarchy had just cracked down on some nuns and their orders who were discussing and debating classic church positions, like male only priesthood, birth control, women’s roles in the society and in the search. There were many strongly worded admonishments from the Vatican. Down found it odd that the Church Fathers should be so distressed by activist nuns when their reaction to Priest sexual predation of young boys was by comparison, so mild.

This quotation, 500 years later, would be used by American anti-Catholics to justify their antipathy to the Catholic Church. This was about a most undemocratic statement about the common man and his capabilities which was completely counter to the American view. The fact that it was 500 years past or that many American Catholics did not believe it or that even if they did, it was restricted to matters of theological faith, was not considered by the Know-Nothings and others.

This detestable accusation completely ignores the fact that when the American Catholic Church had a raft of homosexual priests in the early 21st century, the Pope condemned this in the most uncertain terms. Child homosexual molestation is vehemently condemned by both Catholicism and Islam alike—also by straights and homosexual groups.

Ingersoll was considered to be the greatest orator and political thinker of his day, but his overt atheistic views curtailed his elected political career.

Vladimir Lenin

While this was his opinion, it was never issued in a Papal Bull or had the force of Catholic law. Meanwhile, almost all of the socialist movements in the West have had Catholics in their leadership and many democrats of modern times would have been considered socialist. Many countries with high proportions of Catholic voters have elected socialist governments in secluding Spain and Italy.

When the priest died, 3 handwritten manuscripts were found written and signed by him in which he attacked religion in general and the church and the Bible in particular. His Testament was read by Voltaire and Denis Diderot among others and he was very influential in their development as opponents of organized religion. This quotation has been one of the bases of secular humanism which would then develop after he had died.

Saint Benedicta was born and brought up as a Jew and converted to Catholicism. She and a few other leading German Catholics spoke out forcefully against Nazi crimes and immoralities. She was one of the few German Catholics who wanted the Pope to act more forcefully in Germany.

Sometimes referred to as Gaspar de Toledo. This quotation Illustrates one of the ways that Churches maintained power over the secular government even though they were supposedly separate. By maintaining control over the secular leaders consciences and sense of morality, the Church could control the secular government. In this particular historical case, there was not even a supposed separation. The Confessor had an ex officio role in the high council. See {629457}.

This sad quotation illustrates how some of the leaders of the Church were so out of touch with law and morality. The Archbishop justified the archdiocesan cover-up of the crimes of sexually predatory priests and actually tried to lay much of the responsibility on children who might have been streetwise. It is almost like the Priests were seduced. The typical action of the church authorities was to transfer the sexually predatory priest to another assignment where in most cases he continued the predation with other children. Even if the children were very sexually active, the law is that they are under the age of consent and may not consent to sexual activity. Any adult having sex with a teen ager is guilty of statutory rape. However, the Church authorities decided in many cases that the age of consent was 12 contrary to state law in most states. Therefore in their minds there was no crime because the child was old enough to consent so they felt justified in not referring the crime to the police. See {633188} . Of course, few of the child victims of the priests were sexually sophisticated. Most were innocent and totally intimidated by the high spiritual and community role of the priest. Weakland was removed from his position of authority as part of the Church program to eliminate the problem of predatory priests and irresponsible bishops.

King Henry VIII had left the Roman Catholic church and taken England and Ireland out also. He replaced the Pope as the head of the English and Irish churches. There was much opposition in Ireland and the priests were the most assertive opponents to the change and were still loyal to the Pope. Queen Elizabeth continued to have problems with the Priests. James I, Elizabeth’s successor, became fed up by the Roman Catholic Priests and therefor issued this Proclamation.

The Protestant Clergy issued similar statements. This was one of the few areas of agreement.

The United States was governing the Philippines after the Spanish American war. Most Filipinos were Roman Catholic and before the Americans even took over there were a large number of Catholic priests who were sexually active in different ways. Many had housekeepers/concubines, others had relations with women who they learned were vulnerable in the confessional. Still others were homosexuals and preferred young boys. Americans were much more prudish than many other countries where lecherous men of the cloth had a long history. The American authorities simply removed these priests not realizing that there was still with many countries laws and traditions that left the disciplining of clergy, even for criminal matters, to the religious authorities. The Catholic Church was then very defensive about sexually predatory priests. The Vatican made many protestations that the U. S. Government were interfering with the prerogative of the church to run its own religious affairs. American Catholics and Catholic leaders also complained about the religious “interference”. Roosevelt knew full well that the Church had done little or nothing about the Filipino lecherous priests before the Americans took over, and he had no confidence that they would do so in the future. And he was adamant that religious officials should be subject to the civil law and civil authorities for behavior of all citizens with no exemptions for clergy. When the Catholic church realized the poor PR that they were getting from the worst priestly offenders, it tended to back off overt confrontation, and came to a diplomatic agreement with America over the issue. Most countries resolved this issue the way Roosevelt and the Americans did. Clergy were subject to civil law in all things.