Whomit,

This is one of the few posts that have ever bothered me.  I hope that you aren't serious.  Should I assume that you don't have children?  Children were getting molested.  It will screw many of them up for life.   The Church knew about it and let it continue. 

The Church should pay.  All participants and all who covered up should be shot.

New lows for the boards. Whomit, this post has to be your idea of a joke, please tell me it is.

It's tongue in cheek but it's serious as well! These people are only screwed up for life if they let themselves be, and there are thousands and thousands of things that happen in a life that can screw it up, not least of which being forced by your parents to be an altar boy (BTW my two daughters were Altar servers, and they learned quickly that the director of altar servers preferred there to be altar BOYS v girls.)

Sex among men and boys is not globally unusual nor historically so, and the more "religious" the community, the less rare it is. This country has to grow up and face the reality of reality, and then we can try and should absolutely strive to change it. Picking on Catholic Priests is scape-goating and it was an orchestrated event, timed to discredit the Catholics right at the time when they do their big "Come Home to Church" push that they do each Easter Time (this was several years ago now). I remember saying to my priest that this was a case of "friends" betraying us (I never liked it when the Catholics threw in their lot with the Fundies).

Once the green "blood" was in the water then people who had no real problems all of a sudden remembered that they were abused by such and such a priest, and it has ruined their lives. Were some? Were many? I believe so. But I don't believe that it is worth $1MM+ per case.

Meanwhile, no comment on the practice of Female Genital Mutilation? Interesting.

There's no good segue into this so I'll just be crass...

Did it strike anybody’s funny bone that a battery manufacturer is buying the maker of "Feminine products"?

"The Church should pay.  All participants and all who covered up should be shot."

Spoken like a true "Christian".

These people are only screwed up for life if they let themselves be,

I hope that this is completely tounge in cheek.  I couldn't imagine someone being molested and not having it screw them up for life to some degree.

Sex among men and boys ...

It's not sex.  It's rape.  

Picking on Catholic Priests is scape-goating

What's wrong with you??!! Priests aren't being scape goated.   How does a pedophile get scape goated?

But I don't believe that it is worth $1MM+ per case.

How much is it worth to be the victim of a pedophile in a position of power?  Does this mean that if your neighbor was a rich pedophile, you'd let them have their way with your son for some dollar figure below $1,000,000?

"The Church should pay.  All participants and all who covered up should be shot."

Spoken like a true "Christian".

Pedophilia is not a forgiveable crime.   Covering up Pedophilia is not a forgiveable crime.

your tongue isnt in your cheek. Its in your ass. This is the most warped thing I have ever seen on any board, let alone one that supposedly caters to professionals. (although we've probably all disproved that theory by now.) You must have been a nazi in your former life. or a child molester.

[quote=anonymous]

These people are only screwed up for life if they let themselves be,

I hope that this is completely tounge in cheek.  I couldn't imagine someone being molested and not having it screw them up for life to some degree.

IMHO it's the huge fuss about it that causes most of the damage. Not necessairly the events themselves. How much damage any sexual "abuse" is going to cause is will be somewhat dependant on the framework in which it takes place. (E.g strength of family relationships, self-perception, personality, context etc).

IMHO Whomit is right, these huge cash settlements are attracting alot of people out of the woodwork. Probably many people who would not have responded to just an offer of say free psychotherapy.

Amazing the harms that money can cure. A truely catholic (universal) remedy.

[quote=pratoman]

your tongue isnt in your cheek. Its in your ass.
This is the most warped thing I have ever seen on any board, let alone
one that supposedly caters to professionals. (although we’ve probably
all disproved that theory by now.) You must have been a nazi in your former life. or a child molester.

"I couldn't imagine someone being molested and not having it screw them up for life to some degree."

The degree is dependent on other factors, not least of which is the amount of shame they are forced to have due to a society which views sex as dirty in the first place. Sex is what it is, everything else is what is made of it. Sex with one's spouse is not the same as sex with the same person before they were your spouse, why? Because the circumstances around the act have changed, the taboo has been lifted, the edges of newness and apprehension have been dulled by time. But the act itself is still basically the same.

We're so homophobic in this country and so sexophobic in general that little boys who were (in some/many cases) curious participants in something that has been going on for thousands of years are then forced to internalize the shame of what they have done (not to say that there wasn't something done to them). If there weren't the "Scarlet Letter" there wouldn't be the shame. They can't speak of it because it is too dirty

Please, don't get me wrong, I don't think that the priests are innocent in this, I feel that the Church must realize the many issues that celibate priesthood causes. But then the same thing is also said about countries that put out girls who do not prove their virginity on the wedding night by producing a bloody sheet! Not only is this stupid for the girl but it forces boys into "alternate arrangements". That's just a reality that is a fact around the world, this is where we should strive to evolve beyond (and this "crisis" proves that we have not done so).

As to this being a depraved discussion and one not befitting a board of professionals, it is absolutely my job to look at the market differently from the crowd and determine where the opportunities lie. This is not a skill that one turns on and off, it is a habit one acquires from a lifetime of detached cynicism/skepticism

Meanwhile, whenever there are $660MM involved, it's going to turn a professional broker's head.

Oh, and as to the "person of authority" having done this, I'd also say "Good!" it teaches the fellow to distrust authority from a young age, that's a good thing.

Along these line are the plethora of "Teacher humps student" stories that hit the news with boring regularity these days. It's given a "Man Bites Dog" feel when it is the female teacher jumping the young bone. When I was in high school (best 7 years of my life) there was a old man teacher who married a student (there was also a guy teacher who cruised after school but most of us were icked out just enough by him not to get into the car, even though we didn't know quite what was going on) hey, it happens.

Interestingly, in this saga, the husband gunned down the boyfriend. Was a time, as I seem to recall, that if a man came home and found his wife in bed, he had the duty to kill the man! Wasn't a jury in the world would convict! It's one of the things that kept down the numbers of cheatin wives!

I'm not saying that it's right, I'm just saying... Meanwhile I wouldn't be surprised if this guy's lawyer doesn't go for the "Pre-emptive Strike" defense! "Your honor, my client has seen reports of the Long Island Lolita Amy Fischer, shooting Mary Jo Buttafucco, of Lorena Bobbit slicing off her husbands body and takin his dick for a ride, of Jean Smart who killed her husband, of the other teacher who hired her boyfriend Beavis, and his buddy Butthead to kill her husband and several other like cases. My client was afeared for his life when he decided the best thing to do was to kill this potential murderer before he had amassed the weapons of solo-destruction that he was sure he was in the process of doing!"

"Sex"  "Homophobic" "Sexophobic"

This isn't about sex and homophobia.  These are kids.  Kids can't consent.  It's called rape. 

If this was about sex, the scandal would be about priests sleeping with prostitutes and adult parishoners.  Instead we're talking pedophilia...and you're trying to minimize it.

Yes, money will bring some claimants out of the woodwork.   To a large degree, there simply was no reason for many of these claimants to come out about it otherwise.

[quote=AllREIT] [quote=pratoman]

your tongue isnt in your cheek. Its in your ass. This is the most warped thing I have ever seen on any board, let alone one that supposedly caters to professionals. (although we've probably all disproved that theory by now.) You must have been a nazi in your former life. or a child molester.

[/quote]

Whomit wins by application of Godwin's law.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law
[/quote]

Link doenst work, please explain.

Whomit cannot win, his thought process is that of a degenerate. You can win a debate, and still be morally depraved.

"Kids can't consent.  It's called rape."

These are legal and moral constructs, not absolutes. (Not one's that I disagree with, but still, they are the sorts of words that push the victims into the shadows. Especially, remeber that we are not talking about victims of today we're talking about victims from the past who had these affairs years ago. before we were as enlightened as we are today.)

I'm not minimizing pedophilia, and yet I'm tired of the mainstream media maximizing it too.

If you are so worked up about rape, then why didn't you pick up the strand about the prison system. To my mind it is barbaric that we have a system where the expectation is that when men are sent to prison they will be raped by the other inmates. It's embarassing that we allow such a system to exist within our society. and yet it does, and so we should ask ourselves why.

One reason why is our attitude towards sex in the first place. men rape men in prison, not for the sexual satisfaction but for the humiliation that it puts on the victim, and why should he be humiliated? Because sex is shameful and having sex done to you shows you to be a weakling physically and morally. Granted these are sociopaths that we're dealing with here, but what looking at a sociopath does is strip away the veneer of society's rules.

Pratoman,

Look it up. You know how to use Google? You know how to use Wikipedia? Don't expect everything to be spoon fed to you, otherwise you'll never be smart enough to make you own decisions. 

 These are legal and moral constructs, not absolutes.

If we are talking about an authority figure and a child, we are talking about absolutes.

You are absolutely minimizing it.    I'm not worked up about rape.  I'm worked up about you because you think that a Priest molesting a child isn't that big of a deal because it's just that society puts a stigma on it. 

So with your whole prison analogy, what are you trying to say?  The guilty priests molested children, not because of the sexual enjoyment that these sick pedophiles received, but because they wanted to show the children that they were weaker physically and morally.  Obviously, that is not what you are trying to say, but you are trying to minimalize it by bringing prison rape into the equation.

Every stinkin' time that you bring up garbage like "attitudes towards sex", you are trying to minimalize it.  I'm surprised that you don't start talking about pedophilia as "love making". 

Joe,<?:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

What about the guy who was busted for having a single joint in NYS back under the Rockefeller Drug law days? Did he deserve to get gang raped in prison for his "barbaric" transgression?

Anonymous,

Perhaps you misunderstand the meaning of the word "absolute." An absolute is true in <?:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />ALL circumstances, what you are describing is a absolute belief held by you to be always true in all circumstances.  You are entitled to that core belief (and I don't disagree with it, particularly) but there is a difference between your belief and reality. When you impose your belief on that reality you are being dogmatic. Sometimes, this dogma helps to lift the cultural evolution of the species, and I applaud that.

But, it is important to have some basis upon which this dogma is founded. And in order for that to be there needs to be a reconciliation of all the factors. Are we against rape? Why? How do we define rape? Are we more against rape committed on some people than we are on others? What about the concept of "statutory rape"? Do we nationalize the age of consent? How do we determine the age of consent, isn't it different for each person?

These aren't meant to be rhetorical questions, do you have a valid reason to be opposed to rape (I do and am), do you? And does that valid reason get "unabsoluted" in other cases of rape?

If I were you I'd be saying, "It's axiomatic that rape is wrong!" and I'd have to agree, except that the word "rape" itself can be stretched beyond the axiom, and I'm not sure that it hasn't been in this particular case.

If I were you I'd be saying,...

No.  If you were me, you would be saying, "Priests should not molest little boys (or girls).   This is an absolute."

Your posts are giving me a slimy feeling.  We're not talking about a boss and his secretary.   We're talking about kids and priests.

Ok well then this is obviously beyond your abilities.

Let's talk about a different headline then, your choice.

The ability to rationalize child molestation is absolutely beyond my abilities.