301 Predator Priests...

[rogue06]

Don't leave out the Protestants, seer. Somehow Catholics seem to get all the publicity, but according to some studies the protestants are even worse offenders. Seems the pure evil is spread throughout Christendom.

The Catholics are targeted because of the hatred the MSM has for them what with being so vocally against abortion and to a lesser extent gay marriage. But the group that according to some studies has a higher rate of abusers among their ranks are teachers and coaches. You can hardly go a month without a scandal surfacing not too far away. And school administrators and boards used to deal with them pretty much the same way as the RCC did -- ship them off to another district or if they terminated them, conceal it so they could just move to another state and start doing the same thing all over again. I had several posts about this citing the studies back on the pre-crash Tweb.

[Sparko]

Can the saints physically hear me? I doubt it. Can the Holy Spirit make it possible? I dare say yes. Further, I don't see time as a constraint in heaven. I don't know about you, but I don't consider praying for others "work". I am happy to do so.

But the Holy Spirit IS God, so you are saying you are praying to God, asking God to tell the saints to intercede with God for you? Seems a bit of a roundabout way of doing things. And still, a saint that is interceding for thousands of people per day is going to be a really busy guy. And since the saint doesn't even know you, how is he supposed to intercede for you? "God, there is this guy, OBP, who asked me to ask you to grant him a favor"

[seer]

Since the vast majority of these abuse cases involve men with boys is this reasonable?

NEW YORK – Allegations that disgraced ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick engaged in sex with adult seminarians have inflamed a long-running debate about the presence of gay men in the Roman Catholic priesthood.

Some conservatives are calling for a purge of all gay priests, a challenging task given that they are believed to be numerous and few are open about their sexual orientation. Moderates want the Church to eliminate the need for secrecy by proclaiming that gay men are welcome if they can be effective priests who commit to celibacy.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/08/20...y-priests.html

[One Bad Pig]

The same applies to Christianity itself. Christianity would not have developed into the dominant force that it became had it not been promoted by the emperor Constantine and his successors from the fourth century onward...especially Theodosius I, who made it the Empire's sole authorised religion.

Maybe, maybe not. Pagan religion was crumbling before then, even with imperial support, and Christianity was growing despite imperial opposition.

The Athanasian Creed is the authoritative statement against Trinitarian and Christological heresies in the Western Church.

Said who, when?

ALL the creeds were written and accepted by the Church as the official statements of orthodoxy.

That's a rather broad assertion. Creedal statements were being composed (probably orally) even before Paul wrote 1 Corinthians, which incorporates one. The first church-wide attempt seems to have been the Nicene Creed, which was followed by a number of unsuccessful attempts to modify it.

The development of the New Testament canon was a slow and gradual process and was based upon general acceptance and tradition...including by the Councils.

Inasmuch as Councils are part of the tradition, sure. Canon was never an explicit topic at the church-wide Councils, however.

There are numerous pseudepigraphical works in the NT including several “Pauline” Epistles. And the authorship of the Gospels is not known.

Allegedly. Paul's letters were collected as a group extremely early (perhaps even by Paul himself, as the practice was not unusual in antiquity).

The Shepherd of Hermas and many other scriptures may well have ended up as New Testament canonical texts, e.g. 1st Clement was included in several collections of Christian texts as was the Didache, which is one of the earliest texts that ultimately failed to make it into the canonical New Testament,

Yes, those are the most prominent of the writings not accepted, but the difference is still stark (see also here).

[One Bad Pig]

But the Holy Spirit IS God, so you are saying you are praying to God, asking God to tell the saints to intercede with God for you?

Er, no. When I pray to the saints, I am not directly asking God to do anything.

Seems a bit of a roundabout way of doing things. And still, a saint that is interceding for thousands of people per day is going to be a really busy guy. And since the saint doesn't even know you, how is he supposed to intercede for you? "God, there is this guy, OBP, who asked me to ask you to grant him a favor"

You know that God doesn't actually need to hear our prayers to know what we need or desire, right? It is we who need prayer, affirming our relationship with Him. Similarly, prayer to the saints affirms my relationship with them and with God. God is not limited to what our minds can conceive; regardless of your skepticism, prayer to the saints achieves results, so it's working somehow. I'm not especially concerned about the mechanism of how exactly it happens.

[JimL]

The Catholics are targeted because of the hatred the MSM has for them what with being so vocally against abortion and to a lesser extent gay marriage.

Oh I see, it's the big bad MSM's fault again. Brainwashed much?

But the group that according to some studies has a higher rate of abusers among their ranks are teachers and coaches. You can hardly go a month without a scandal surfacing not too far away. And school administrators and boards used to deal with them pretty much the same way as the RCC did -- ship them off to another district or if they terminated them, conceal it so they could just move to another state and start doing the same thing all over again. I had several posts about this citing the studies back on the pre-crash Tweb.

Off topic.

[carpedm9587]

You're going to get crumbs on the floor!

You clearly have never seen me eat popcorn...

[carpedm9587]

Since the vast majority of these abuse cases involve men with boys is this reasonable?

There are gay people who are pedophiles - and there are straight people who are pedophiles. Although pedophilia keeps getting equated to homosexuality, they are distinct things. Many of the incidences in Pennsylvania involved priests with young girls. So if you're going to make an argument to purge all homosexuals, should you not also make the case to purge all heterosexuals, to remain consistent?

And yes, I saw that you said, "vast majority." I think the catholic church needs to re-examine it's position on celibacy, and it's psychological screening practices. Any institution that allows a disproportionate number of pedophiles into its ranks has some serious self-examination to do.

[Zymologist]

You clearly have never seen me eat popcorn...

Start modestly, with a kernel or two, then before long I'm grabbing massive fistfuls of the stuff, trying to cram as many pieces of popcorn into my maw as humanly possible, without regard for the pieces that end up on my shirt....

Eating popcorn. Always the same.

[carpedm9587]

Start modestly, with a kernel or two, then before long I'm grabbing massive fistfuls of the stuff, trying to cram as many pieces of popcorn into my maw as humanly possible, without regard for the pieces that end up on my shirt....

Eating popcorn. Always the same.

Yeah - me too... except I don't get crumbs on my shirt. Why would I waste a perfectly good piece of popcorn?

[One Bad Pig]

Oh I see, it's the big bad MSM's fault again. Brainwashed much?

Well, no, that's not what rogue's saying at all. The MSM has nothing to do with the abuse itself; it merely chooses where to shine the light of exposure.

Off topic.

It is quite on-topic - moreso, in fact, than 90% of the thread thus far.

[seer]

There are gay people who are pedophiles - and there are straight people who are pedophiles. Although pedophilia keeps getting equated to homosexuality, they are distinct things. Many of the incidences in Pennsylvania involved priests with young girls. So if you're going to make an argument to purge all homosexuals, should you not also make the case to purge all heterosexuals, to remain consistent?

Well no, the vast majority of cases involve men with boys, that is homosexual behavior.

And yes, I saw that you said, "vast majority." I think the catholic church needs to re-examine it's position on celibacy, and it's psychological screening practices. Any institution that allows a disproportionate number of pedophiles into its ranks has some serious self-examination to do.

Well we agree on that...

[carpedm9587]

Well no, the vast majority of cases involve men with boys, that is homosexual behavior.

So then the cases involving sex with girls, this is heterosexual behavior, correct?

ETA: BTW, this article is a bit dated, but provides some statistics. The personnel involved is about 4% of the Catholic clergy, which is disturbingly high. Outside the church, 1 in 5 girls reports being abused, but only 1 in 20 boys do. I have to admit there is an open question (for me) as to whether this is because that is the rate at which it actually happens, or if that is a reporting discrepancy (do boys report at a lower rate than girls?). Within the church, 80% of the reported abuse is of boys, with the majority being boys 14 and older and 15% being children under 10 years old.

[One Bad Pig]

So then the cases involving sex with girls, this is heterosexual behavior, correct?

Sure - but those cases are distinctly in the minority.

ETA: BTW, this article is a bit dated, but provides some statistics. The personnel involved is about 4% of the Catholic clergy, which is disturbingly high. Outside the church, 1 in 5 girls reports being abused, but only 1 in 20 boys do. I have to admit there is an open question (for me) as to whether this is because that is the rate at which it actually happens, or if that is a reporting discrepancy (do boys report at a lower rate than girls?). Within the church, 80% of the reported abuse is of boys, with the majority being boys 14 and older and 15% being children under 10 years old.

That you think such a large discrepancy might be due to reporting speaks volumes, and evinces a desire to avoid facing an uncomfortable evident fact. The Catholic Church has a homosexual problem.

Source: Nate Jackson

The sexual abuse scandal that rocked the Catholic Church in recent days marked the culmination of seven decades of horrendous wrongdoing by hundreds of priests. But the media would rather ignore one particularly inconvenient truth: The vast majority of the crime was perpetrated by homosexuals.

Monsignor Charles Pope, a Catholic priest writing of previous abuse scandals in the National Catholic Register, makes the case:

It is evident that the vast majority of the cases involving both the sexual abuse of minors and of adults involve male victims. The 2004 John Jay Report (The Nature and Scope of the Problem of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests and Deacons in the United States), which was commissioned by the U.S. bishops themselves, found that 81 percent of the victims were male and 78 percent of all victims were post-pubescent. … So, the large majority of cases involved attraction by homosexuals to young men who, though legally minors, were physically and sexually mature males, not little children. This is not pedophilia. It is homosexual attraction.

In the Catholic Herald, Madison, Wisconsin, Bishop Robert C. Morlino likewise writes of the current situation, “It is time to admit that there is a homosexual subculture within the hierarchy of the Catholic Church that is wreaking great devastation in the vineyard of the Lord.” He continues, “In the specific situations at hand, we are talking about deviant sexual — almost exclusively homosexual — acts by clerics.”

And Cardinal Raymond Burke, a member of the highest court at the Vatican, the Apostolic Signatura, said, “It was clear after the studies following the 2002 sexual abuse crisis that most of the acts of abuse were in fact homosexual acts committed with adolescent young men. There was a studied attempt to either overlook or to deny this.” He added, “Now it seems clear in light of these recent terrible scandals that indeed there is a homosexual culture, not only among the clergy but even within the hierarchy, which needs to be purified at the root.”

© Copyright Original Source

[seer]

So then the cases involving sex with girls, this is heterosexual behavior, correct?

Of course...

ETA: BTW, this article is a bit dated, but provides some statistics. The personnel involved is about 4% of the Catholic clergy, which is disturbingly high. Outside the church, 1 in 5 girls reports being abused, but only 1 in 20 boys do. I have to admit there is an open question (for me) as to whether this is because that is the rate at which it actually happens, or if that is a reporting discrepancy (do boys report at a lower rate than girls?). Within the church, 80% of the reported abuse is of boys, with the majority being boys 14 and older and 15% being children under 10 years old.

Ok, like I said most were boys.