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Posted: 06.07.2002
A clue for $500, Alex?
Just when I think I can't be sickened by the Catholic Church scandals any more than I already am, I find (granted in a gossip column) that the Church is seeking help with their image from public relations firms. Heads up Monsignor -- a PR firm and a glossy coating of spin isn't going to help your image. Getting rid of priests that molest little children -- and then turning them over for prosecution, rather than hiding them and shuffling them around for years under the cloak of 'the system' -- is going to improve your image. 'Fess up, clean up, or forget about me feeling all warm and fuzzy because a full-page New York Times ad or low-lit, soft-focus Barbara Walters exclusive interview told me to do so. (Article from MSNBC.com.)



Hey boy take a look at me...let me dirty up your mind...



EVERYTHING about the Catholic church pisses me off. Faith is an important thing, but the fact that the Church as an entity has always been about power and protecting itself sickens me!

I just can't wait for the day that Cardinal Law finally retires. Being in Boston that guy is driving me up a wall. Every day I read something more that makes me HATE the man even more! "A man of God." Not him!

¤ ¤ credit: C.C. | 06.07.02 at 08:50 AM | link--this ¤ ¤

the whole catholic church hiding thing pisses me off. hide child rapists? how sick and disturbing. uck

¤ ¤ credit: kat | 06.07.02 at 09:47 AM | link--this ¤ ¤

I hate to say it, but what do you expect when you ask a grown man to abstain from sex for his entire life? Sure, it's not right by any means what these guys are doing, but I also don't think it's right that the church asks those that serve God to forgo sex. Aren't rabbi allowed to marry? So why can't priests? I realize it's a different religion and whatnot, but it doesn't make sense to me.

¤ ¤ credit: nicole | 06.07.02 at 10:46 AM | link--this ¤ ¤

I agree with Nicole...if they allowed priests to marry, they could channel their sexual needs in a normal, legal way. Yeah, there are a lot of married guys who are stil perverts, but this would probably cut down on the number of them in the church.

And, as a fellow Bostonite, I agree with C.C. about Cardinal Law...only I don't think we should be forced to wait for his retirement...I feel he should be prosecuted right alongside of guys like Snanley and Geoghan. He may not have molested any kids himself, but he knew about it, did nothing to stop it, so that makes him just as guilty!

¤ ¤ credit: Christine with an *M* | 06.07.02 at 12:16 PM | link--this ¤ ¤

I think that's called "guilty by association", it's also hiding a crime. Makes them just as guilty as the pervert. If you have knowledge of any other crime, and do nothing to report it, YOU go to jail to.

¤ ¤ credit: Mama | 06.07.02 at 01:09 PM | link--this ¤ ¤

My Wife and I being Catholics, and my wife being a PR person, I'll say that the Church would do a damn sight better listening to PR firms than they will do continuing to listen to their laywers. Laywers do sleazy lawyer stuff like stonewall and equivocate and blame the victims -- stuff that would make any self-respecting PR person cringe if the Church were her client. My wife always counseled clients, when bad news or scandal surfaced, to come clean and be up front about it. That's advice that the Church needs to take. If it comes from a PR hack then so be it.

As for the Church, don't be a hata. The American Catholic Church is a collection of millions of faithful, generally nice, and, pretty pissed-off and hurting people right now. Every Catholic I know, including the priests, are reeling from this thing. We want reform. And we want the bastards to resign/go to jail/get their asses sued off too. We just don't want to be lumped. It makes an easy post to poke at the current open wound in the Catholic soul, but what's the sport in that? It's like saying Dubya is dumb.

¤ ¤ credit: Cody Clark | 06.07.02 at 02:50 PM | link--this ¤ ¤

OH VOMIT. Wait, OH PUKE.

A kinder, gentler priest. Photos of male priests posing cute and tender with small bleached blonde boys and girls in pigtails.

Male Priests giving the thumbs up at baseball games while holding a hotdog, See, I'm not evil !

¤ ¤ credit: felicia | 06.07.02 at 02:53 PM | link--this ¤ ¤

Just wanted to let you know that I am NOT signaling out the Catholic Church members. (Several of my close friends are Catholic and are just as outraged at the Church itself as I am.) "The Church" in my writing includes the behind-the-scenes goings-on by the heads of the system, IMHO -- not the innocent victims publicly left in their wake. And I'm sure I speak for the rest of my commentors here when saying that. Otherwise, you are just blaming the victim.

¤ ¤ credit: robyn | 06.07.02 at 02:58 PM | link--this ¤ ¤

Exactly, Robyn's mama! :-)

¤ ¤ credit: Christine with an *M* | 06.07.02 at 04:17 PM | link--this ¤ ¤

wow, heated discussion here. I don't know if allowing priests to marry would stop the problem. most of the victims are BOYS , little boys. The priests who are doing this are not only sick individuals to be having sex with children but also , they may be gay. The case with Shanly is so sick and disturbing that that man needs to fry for what he has done. Whenever he was sent to reside over a new parish, he checked in with the local clinic first to make sure that he could get his STD meds! the man was carrying sexual diseases around and possibly spreading them to children. He also condoned the acts of men and boys having sex. Thats men and boys folks. He liked it and I'm willing to bet most of the priests involved also like sex with little boys as well. the church should be made to turn over all the sexual offenders and be prosecuted right along with them and have to make serious restitution to all the victims for all the years that they helped to hide these disgusting pigs. sorry robyn, didn't mean to go on a rant there.

¤ ¤ credit: kat | 06.07.02 at 05:48 PM | link--this ¤ ¤

Feel free to rant away! I've already went off about Shanly myself here. And I agree with you. Many people choose to lead celibate lives and do not have urges to molest children. I don't believe marriages -- straight or gay -- would be the solutions for many of these priests. (And obviously being gay doesn't make you a child molester either.) In fact, I shudder to think someone might grow up knowing they're a little "off", and as such might be drawn to the priesthood for the protection involved around disguising their deviance.

¤ ¤ credit: robyn | 06.07.02 at 05:59 PM | link--this ¤ ¤

see, i think the problem with not allowing priests to marry is that it makes a lot of men not join the priesthood. i'm sure there are plenty of good men out there who would become priests if they were allowed to be married and have families. since most of these pedophiles do not have normal sexual urges to marry and have kids, going into the priesthood isn't as hard of a decision for them (granted their are huge numbers of priests who are able to give their lives to god, which is great, but i imagine it's a very hard decision to make). i don't think not being able to marry drives those few who do molest to this, i think they already have those desires. people don't really just become pedophiles, they are usually like this most of their lives and it's one of the few things that is impossible to "cure". eventually i think the catholic church is going to have to allow marriage to ensure the catholic church has a good future, because as the years go on less men are becoming priests. the church has been using PR for a few years, not to make them look better from the scandal, but to recruit men to become priests. in philadelphia there has been an ad campaign with commercials on major networks and even billboards.

¤ ¤ credit: renee | 06.07.02 at 06:58 PM | link--this ¤ ¤

Actually, relatively few of these bad priests are pedophiles. Those that are actual pedophiles will definitely not be cured, especially not by allowing them to marry. The majority of priests in this scandal are ephebophiles -- they go for adolescents and have a different (but still criminal) problem. Once again, allowing them to marry is not the answer to that either.

The problem, IMO, is that there are a lot of guys who are priests who should not have been priests. They did not have an authentic calling. Most of these guys came from back when Catholic families pushed their young sons to be priests -- it was like being a doctor or a lawyer -- a profession to make mom and dad proud. Like back in the middle ages when being a priest was a way to get prestige and power, you got a lot of guys who have no real business being priests.

My answer is to quit recruiting priests so aggressively, screen and educate seminarians better, and allow them to delve into their sexual identity so they don't end up to be 45-year-old adolescents trapped in a collar. If this means the laity need to step up and we end up having fewer priests, so be it.

¤ ¤ credit: Cody Clark | 06.07.02 at 09:13 PM | link--this ¤ ¤




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