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News State Sanctioned Pedophilia & Church Schools

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Sideways

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Something that I'm struggling with (a lot, it's quite difficult at a personal level) at the moment is the culture of pedophilia in the church and particularly church-run schools. This is not an Australian problem, it seems to be an epidemic.

And I'm biased (like, really biased).

So for those with an opinion on the matter, how is institutionalised pedophilia in the church, and the church's ongoing protection of pedophiles, substantially different from organised crime?

And given the billions of dollars that the mainstream churches and church schools get from the State (including generous grants and tax exemptions), is this not essentially State-sanctioned pedophilia?

Pedophilia is widely considered one of the worst criminal offences we have. So why do we continue to not only allow church-run "independent" schools, but actually fund them??

This is not a dig at individual churches, or the "church community", but the institutions that are perpetuating this phenomenon, which by no means pervades all churches. I do, in fact, have an enormous respect for what religion, and indeed churches, have to offer.

But the pervasiveness of pedophilia in some churches is now undeniable. Why are we funding (particularly schools) where this crime is known to be not only rampant, but protected by the institutions themselves.

Like I said, I'm biased: I was sexually abused by the Chaplain at an independent church school. I can't separate that from opinion on this. So I'd like to hear from people - is it different somehow to organised crime? Is there a legitimate way of saying the State isn't endorsing this by continuing to fund these organisations?

Possibly the wrong forum, sorry, just couldn't decide which forum to use).
 
So for those with an opinion on the matter, how is institutionalised pedophilia in the church, and the church's ongoing protection of pedophiles, substantially different from organised crime?

I actually don't believe it's different, except that it's far more egregious because it's state sanctioned, everyone knows it's happening, and no one is doing anything to amount to anything about it.

I'm not biased, in that I have no abuse history by clergy, although I do have some issues with organized religion in general and Christianity in particular (in terms of my past and abuse).
 
So for those with an opinion on the matter, how is institutionalised pedophilia in the church, and the church's ongoing protection of pedophiles, substantially different from organised crime?

It's not. There is no difference. The reason the church gets away with it is because people still see priests, bishops, cardinals, and popes as moral authorities, which could not be further from the truth most of the time.

I lived in Boston during the whole sordid Cardinal Law affair (as seen in the movie "Spotlight") and the denial and hypocrisy from the highest levels of the Catholic Church was sickening, as were the people who excused the behavior. Truly sickening.

In the case of the Catholic Church, I believe pedophilia has been one of the unofficially supported (but unspoken of) perks of the job since the Middle Ages.
 
@Ronin - it's a long time since I studied politics and religion, but the way I remember it, way back when Luther decided thatthe way the church was collecting taxes was corrupt. Ultimately, we ended up with protestant churches and a division between church and state. Or something to that effect.

It seems sad to me that all of this public groundswell is gathering about what the church is doing to our kids, and yet... It almost seems time for a bit of second wave reformation.

I'm guessing that the situation in the US is different, because (1) there seems to be a much larger section of the community that are still faithful, where Australians are present laid back about religion and churches are increasingly welfare agencies rather than Sunday meeting places; and (2) church schools here get a lot of money from the public purse, in some places more than our public schools get (go figure) and I'm not sure that's how it works in the US.

Seems to me though that the separation between church and state needs to change. Churches should be subject to the same laws (for realsies, not just theoretically) as everyone else, and if they're basically running organised crime, they should be having to justify why we don't just plain outlaw them.

I'm struggling to get my head around it. I haven't been able to watch Spotlight. I get angry for a moment, and then I just feel defeated and incredibly sad. And helpless, really. Why can't I do something about this?
 
Why can't I do something about this?

But you /are/ doing something about it.

Right now, in this thread, you're speaking up against it, very publicly, and inviting rather thought provoking discussion about a very sensitive and very personal topic, both to you and to others. That's resistance. That's bravery. That's activism. That's being very engaged in what's going on.
 
We are allowing them have huge amounts of Australian taxpayers money to run Catholic Schools throughout Australia.

The Catholic Church has apparently no money to pay compensation to the victims od child rape but have a seemingly endless amount of money to pay for the defence of their child rapists. There was an article about how much money is being used circulating in the media during these last couple of weeks.

'It just blows me away': Judge stunned by church's legal aid to paedophile

Judge stunned by church's legal aid to paedophile

On top of that - it hasn't stopped. But I can't discuss the cases that I know of due to confidentiality - but it is not a historic problem it is a nuts and bolts problem occuring today. Apparently there are 46 current cases under investigations, with a young person recently being told by their parents that if they don't retract what they said about the clergy that they would need to find somewhere else to live.

There is a growing group of concerned people who are considering a range of media campaigns and actions. If it wasn't such a trigger for me I would be involved.
 
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I have been thinking the same thing @Ragdoll Circus. I would need to be stable for a year before I got involved. So I am doing stuff around the Southeast Planning documents, and the Great Barrier Reef would be worth saving, and a lot of people I know are doing the refugees - even to get the basic truth out there. Saving habitat for the Koalas would be good as well - though they may already be functionally extinct already.

I had an idea for one particular campaign around the Catholic Church - but you have to be ready for them to come after you as well. The money they are throwing at defending the child rapists that they sheltered for decades is obscene.
 
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