Again, I defy you to provide any evidence of this.

fair enough Yes, that would be interesting. ty

I don't understand. Richard Dawkins is a product of intelligent design. Didn't God plan for him to do this?

Free will baby, free will.

And as we all know, biologists are strictly forbidden by biology from caring about laws being upheld or children being molested. You caught him red handed!

Following the changes and reforms of the Second Vatican Council and all the cultural changes in the 1960's, priests--especially younger priests--began to leave the priesthood in huge numbers. For many Catholics, this was a huge source of confusion and scandal at the time: they saw formerly celibate men who had previously only worn clerical dress at the grocery store with their girlfriends, etc.

Many of these priests just quit, without asking for permission to leave the priesthood. (I should clarify that according to Catholic theology one cannot "leave" the priesthood really; once ordained, always a priest, irrevocably. One can only stop acting as a priest, or be forbidden to act as a priest, or be given dispensation from the obligations of a priest.) Some did ask for dispensation from their priestly obligations (saying Mass, obedience to the bishop, celibacy). There was, in the 1970's, a tendency to grant most such requests for dispensation, and I think the reasoning was that many of these men were going to leave anyway. That it was very easy for a priest to be given permission to quit his promises to celibacy, etc., was a great source of confusion for Catholics who cannot obtain divorces from their marriages.

When Pope John Paul II became pope in the late 70's, he quickly altered the policy concerning dispensations from priestly obligations. It became much less automatic that a dispensation would be granted. What we see expressed in this letter by Cardinal Ratzinger is concern for avoiding the scandal associated with a young priest being given permission not to be bound to celibacy and obedience anymore.

Obviously to our eyes, after all the scandal surrounding the failings of bishops and priests to protect children, it seems strange that Cardinal Ratzinger expressed any other concern with regard to "the good of the Church" or "avoiding scandal." But in this case, Cardinal Ratzinger's decision actually had relatively little to do with the priest's abusive past: he was following the policy established by Pope John Paul II that made it difficult for priests to be dispensed from their obligations. But the man's dispensation was granted only two years later, which was an unusually short turnaround for the process.

Again, I also have to emphasize that all of this has nothing to do with whether or not this priest was kept away from children by his bishop.

There is also no reason to think that the source (a trial lawyer trying to sue the Vatican) that released this particular letter doesn't have other pieces of correspondence that flesh out the situation and context. But he only leaked the one letter that could be misinterpreted as some kind of smoking gun.

Dude,
I do not who you are, but I appreciate you posting here. You actually know what you are talking about.

I don't know about biologists, but never sit in an archeologist's lap.

the day more people openly talk about how ridiculous religion is. there is no getting around the fact that morality doesn't need religion. be moral. don't negatively affect others. gg.

why is it that a good mtt player will tell you that you should be dying to get it all-in as a 55% fave or better, yet when the odds of things like religion, the bible, etc, being fake are 99.999999999% people simply lean on the "faith" crutch. boo ftl.

FYP

exactly its not going to happen that arresting a pope would get the IRA to start a war again.

go check some facts about the catholic church in Ireland and its refusal to bury members of the IRA, also the fact that the IRA no longer exsist would prevent this.

lol

no idea if this article constitutes evidence that would stand up in court, but the guy writing it would surely know more about this than you.

http://www.sundayworld.com/columnists/father-brian.php

This is an opinion piece with almost nothing even remotely touching on the personal actions of the Pope, either in the past or now.

I agree that many Churchmen throughout the world abused their power and failed in their duties to protect the young. You won't find me defending or even commenting on this issue in other threads; but I've been replying to the recent ones about the Pope because anyone in the Church with a lick of sense realizes that no one has done more to amend the ways of the Church in this matter and to begin cleaning house than Pope Benedict XVI. Is everything perfect yet? Absolutely not: but just consider that in 2009 in the United States there were only 6 allegations made against Catholic priests concerning victims under the age of 18 as of 2009. (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/...n6326769.shtml) I don't think there's another major organization, religious, corporate, or political, that self-reports in the open way that the U.S. Church now does. Again, this does nothing to undo the shame of abuse, including that which still occurs; but these recent attacks against the Pope are baseless and biased.

It certainly looks like a smear job to me.

Why is that when teachers are leaving the profession in droves we don't respond by making polices that ensure it is very hard to fire them regardless of their behaviour?

You have some documentation that when he was in charge of his area he issued written orders that every complaint of child-abuse or similar will be immediately turned over to local police? That take's about 10 minutes of someone's afternoon to draft so he can't use "I was too busy" for not doing it. If he didn't, then please don't let it be true that he's done more than anyone, because that would just be the first teensy-eensy step to amending the churches ways.

In this case, the issue is not firing them (or punitive laicization), but allowing them to "quit" the priesthood with the blessing of the Church. As I said above, according to Catholic theology a priest, once ordained, is always a priest. He can only "quit" by being ordered to stop exercising his priestly ministry or by being allowed to stop doing so and to be freed from his priestly obligations (such as celibacy and obedience to his bishop).

Your analogy would work if priesthood were just a job. When you become a teacher, you don't make promises to work for your school until death, never to marry or be sexually active until death, and to obey the principal of your school (whoever it may be) until death. What is at issue in this case is not just "quitting" a job, but being freed from the obligation of a lifelong promise. As I said above, the fact that priests were easily being given permission to leave the priesthood in the 1970's was a great source of scandal to Catholics, who wondered why they were bound to their own lifelong promises in marriage.

http://www.vatican.va/resources/reso...edures_en.html

In the beginning -
" The local diocese investigates every allegation of sexual abuse of a minor by a cleric. "
"Civil law concerning reporting of crimes to the appropriate authorities should always be followed."

My question would have referred somewhat to the second sentence. Did Benedict in his various levels of authority follow the reporting of sexual abuse of children to the civil authorities and others worldwide didn't and that's why "he's done more "? Or were there allegations of sexual abuse of children that didn't get reported under his watch ( pre-pope or pope )?

I'm wondering what all the global fuss is about if all allegations were reported to child-protection or the police?

"All three of the boarding schools I attended employed teachers whose affection for small boys overstepped the bounds of propriety. That was indeed reprehensible. Nevertheless if, fifty years on, they had been hounded by vigilantes or lawyers as no better than child murderers, I should have felt obliged to come to their defense, even as the victim of one of them (an embarrassing but otherwise harmless experience)." - Richard Dawkins, 'The God Delusion' pg. 316

the plot thickens.

Yep. It seems Dawkins is able to distinguish between various levels of behavior and won't stand for overreaction to lesser offenses even when he's a victim of some.
Whether we agree with his general tactics, we can now consider that he feels participating in a cover-up of serious crimes against children is worthy of heavy effort to hold the culprits accountable.
We can also consider that having seen milder forms himself he's more sensitive to how bad it could have been and is more inclined to hop in.
Then, we can toss in his known view on the dangers of theist delusion and his interest in this makes a lot of sense.
We've added a few dimensions to him at the very least.

Milder forms? We don't really know what degree of impropriety Dawkins is talking about. I think an investigation is in order. After all, we don't want a cover up.