Pope's pedophilia advisor caught arranging for sex with boys

[Hermit]

Another poster suggests they should be held accountable along the same lines as teachers, who have both frequent access and a position of trust and authority over them. However I think it exaggerates the amount of access that priests who specifically deal with the laity have -- and as this thread is about higher ups

Priests and chaplains are more than teachers, and unless things have changed dramatically since my upbringing as a catholic, they have frequent and intense contact with every communicant, altar boy and practicing youth. Further, the traditional way to greet catholic priests is to prefix their name with "father". No other role typifies authority and trust more than that. Priests also hear your confession. Again: authority and trust.

As for clergy higher up in the hierarchy, an instruction titled "Crimen sollicitationis" was sent to all Patriarchs, Archbishops, Bishops and other Local Ordinaries, including those of Eastern Rite in 1962. It basically forbade anyone from reporting sexual abuse to civil authorities on pain of excommunication and consequent eternal fire and brimstone, the gnashing of teeth, et cetera. While many weasel words aimed at soothing the outrage that followed when this secret letter became public have emanated from the Vatican since then, not a single sentence can be interpreted to have nullified or overridden that instruction. In short, regardless of whether (or how many) higher up officials had been active in the sexual abuse department, they are rightfully resented for systematically and in principio resisting and sabotaging any attempts to bring any of their perpetrators to justice in any secular courts.

Oh, and welcome to the forum. I appreciate your self-deprecatory alias.

[klr]

Another poster suggests they should be held accountable along the same lines as teachers, who have both frequent access and a position of trust and authority over them. However I think it exaggerates the amount of access that priests who specifically deal with the laity have -- and as this thread is about higher ups

Priests and chaplains are more than teachers, and unless things have changed dramatically since my upbringing as a catholic, they have frequent and intense contact with every communicant, altar boy and practicing youth. Further, the traditional way to greet catholic priests is to prefix their name with "father". No other role typifies authority and trust more than that. Priests also hear your confession. Again: authority and trust.

And in many cases in the past (owing to the level of Church involvement in the education system), Priest were teachers as well. The worst of all worlds.

As for clergy higher up in the hierarchy, an instruction titled "Crimen sollicitationis" was sent to all Patriarchs, Archbishops, Bishops and other Local Ordinaries, including those of Eastern Rite in 1962. It basically forbade anyone from reporting sexual abuse to civil authorities on pain of excommunication and consequent eternal fire and brimstone, the gnashing of teeth, et cetera. While many weasel words aimed at soothing the outrage that followed when this secret letter became public have emanated from the Vatican since then, not a single sentence can be interpreted to have nullified or overridden that instruction. In short, regardless of whether (or how many) higher up officials had been active in the sexual abuse department, they are rightfully resented for systematically and in principio resisting and sabotaging any attempts to bring any of their perpetrators to justice in any secular courts.

It also of course underlines just how aware the hierarchy was of clerical abuse, and the lengths to which it was prepared to go to keep the matter under wraps.

As for lay people not reporting abuse that they were aware of: The usual attitude of lay people towards the clergy was one of unquestioning deference.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

It's fun to have these old-school catlicker apologists available.

[Hermit]

It's fun to have these old-school catlicker apologists available.

Brazen spin-doctors are arseholes, no matter which side they are on. Seppia is not - and has never been - any pope's paedophilia advisor.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

It's fun to have these old-school catlicker apologists available.

Brazen spin-doctors are arseholes, no matter which side they are on. Seppia is not - and has never been - any pope's paedophilia advisor.

Nope, he's just working for the Poop's paedophilia advisor. He is just another priest, like all the other priests.

[Hermit]

It's fun to have these old-school catlicker apologists available.

Brazen spin-doctors are arseholes, no matter which side they are on. Seppia is not - and has never been - any pope's paedophilia advisor.

Nope, he's just working for the Poop's paedophilia advisor.

Which is why this thread's title is wrong.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

It's fun to have these old-school catlicker apologists available.

Brazen spin-doctors are arseholes, no matter which side they are on. Seppia is not - and has never been - any pope's paedophilia advisor.

Nope, he's just working for the Poop's paedophilia advisor.

Which is why this thread's title is wrong.

[Arse]

"I do not want 16-year-old boys but younger," Seppia is accused of having said on the tapes. "Fourteen-year-olds are O.K. Look for needy boys who have family issues."

So he can give them drugs and have sex with them. What a creep, he should be castrated.

[odysseus]

Looks like they were so busy trying to cover up the prior scandals that they forgot to cover up the ongoing ones...

[mistermack]

Phenia, you confuse me.
Is being passed over for promotion a fit punishment for pedophilia?
I would personally cut their balls off, but failing that, a ten year stretch is the least they should get.
And if the church just moves them on, each Canon or Bishop involved should get ten years for aiding and abetting their next crime.
Nobody is picking on the church. If anything, they've got off light.

And you defend their hypocrisy, as something separate, as if they have every right to it.
Maybe you haven't sat through a sermon, and listened to them arrogantly talking down to the congregation, as if they were a bunch of sinning simpletons. They talk about hell, and damnation, and then do stuff like that, or protect those who do.

It's absolutely obvious that they don't believe. Who would risk eternal damnation by protecting those fuckers.

So they bugger kids, and don't really believe in god. And then they tell you how to save your soul. It's not just hypocrisy, it's world-record hypocrisy.
.

[.Morticia.]

Phenia, you confuse me.
Is being passed over for promotion a fit punishment for pedophilia?
I would personally cut their balls off, but failing that, a ten year stretch is the least they should get.
And if the church just moves them on, each Canon or Bishop involved should get ten years for aiding and abetting their next crime.
Nobody is picking on the church. If anything, they've got off light.

And you defend their hypocrisy, as something separate, as if they have every right to it.
Maybe you haven't sat through a sermon, and listened to them arrogantly talking down to the congregation, as if they were a bunch of sinning simpletons. They talk about hell, and damnation, and then do stuff like that, or protect those who do.

It's absolutely obvious that they don't believe. Who would risk eternal damnation by protecting those fuckers.

So they bugger kids, and don't really believe in god. And then they tell you how to save your soul. It's not just hypocrisy, it's world-record hypocrisy.
.

and the church takes your money for the privilege of abusing you

not even the mafia does the shit the church does

[apophenia]

As for clergy higher up in the hierarchy, an instruction titled "Crimen sollicitationis" was sent to all Patriarchs, Archbishops, Bishops and other Local Ordinaries, including those of Eastern Rite in 1962. It basically forbade anyone from reporting sexual abuse to civil authorities on pain of excommunication and consequent eternal fire and brimstone, the gnashing of teeth, et cetera.

While I in no sense want to defend this doctrine or the churh's conduct, I will point out that, from my quick read, it appears that while the investigation of offenses was indeed sworn to secrecy, if the findings were positive, the penalties were of a public character. I think some sense can be made of the desire for secrecy as embodying specific legal principles which many practices of jurisprudence outside the church do not embrace. At least in the U.S., accusations and the accused bear no right to shield of privacy, instead relying on the principles of due process and presumptive innocence to yield an equitable result. However, there's always more than one way to skin a cat. This way however appears to be built on fail.

The sad fact that whatever theory might support the doctrine, obviously the practice had effects the church fathers were either complicitous with, or did not anticipate. But I urge any and all here to examine the doctrine in a more complete examination than is possible in this thread, probably starting with the Wikipedia entry on Crimen sollicitationis. It's a sadly pathetic fact comparing the Catholic church's attitude towards the use of the procedures available to civil authorities in the instance of the Inquisitions, where civil authorities were gleefully embraced to do their dirty work, horrifically killing those in the out-group; yet when it comes to their own, they close ranks and shield them from even the faintest whiff of scandal. (Though as Wikipedia notes, events prior to a tribunal investigation were not themselves covered by secrecy; what practical effect that exception has or had, I don't know. The absurdity of requiring the accusation be brought within a month of the transgression is beyond contempt -- I have no idea how the weasels explain the reason for that.)

One other minor point about the Crimen sollicitationis before I move on. The doctrine also explicitly applies to acts of bestiality. I myself wasn't aware that bestiality among the catholic clergy was a pressing issue.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

[apophenia]

Phenia, you confuse me.
Is being passed over for promotion a fit punishment for pedophilia?

You might try reading things in context. They tend to make more sense that way. I in no sense asserted that being passed over for promotion was a punishment for sexual misconduct and that such punishment was just. Another poster -- actually two other posters -- made an argument that upper level church officials likely protected lower level clergy from the consequences of that conduct because they were cut from the same cloth. This implies that the relative frequency of pedophilia among higher ups in the church is the same as that among the lower levels. I questioned as to whether that conclusion was warranted based on the evidence provided, and I gave some plausible reasons why, in the absence of sound data on the numbers, one might plausibly conclude that this hypothesis might not be true. Rum and others provided additional reasons to suggest that pedophiles might even be attracted to lower levels preferentially, as this increased the level and frequency of access to potential victims.

And you defend their hypocrisy, as something separate, as if they have every right to it.

Erm, yeah. If by "right to it" you mean that we shouldn't incarcerate people for hypocrisy, sure. I do defend it as something separate, to be dealt with in separate ways, through speech, political action, disinvestment, criminalizing it only where it results in concrete harm and injustice. I understand your anger and outrage, and I share it -- I do not think that moral outrage gives you any right to rewrite the rules, though, no matter how intense your outrage. I'm not a libertarian, but I'm a firm believer in the principle that "Your right to swing your fists ends where my nose begins." As long as these ass wankers aren't hitting anybody's noses (or any unwilling participants anyway), I say let them swing. Are you suggesting criminalizing hypocrisy? In ways your rather heated response to me recalls George W. Bush's statement that "You are either with us or you are against us". Is this your stand? And is it consistent with your other views? If not, what should the punishment for that inconsistency be?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Yep, you're our poster child.