This week:
The world’s biggest paedophile ring, and Mr Morgan rides the Treaty gravy train
True to form, the institution flatteringly described by Richard Dawkins as “woman-fearing, guilt-gouging, truth-hating [and] child-raping” –- you guessed it: the Catholic Church -- is molesting defenceless people. This time it’s the dying, who can’t even run away. Looks like no-one is safe from the world’s largest paedophile ring.
The Nathaniel Centre, a Catholic “bioethics” agency, says dying people should be offered food and water, but it opposes assisted suicide. One of the Catholic church’s poster girls, Agnese Bojaxhiu, a.k.a. Mother Teresa, used to take perverse delight in the suffering of the unfortunate people who chose to die in her care. Perhaps the Papists oppose abortion and contraception because that would leave a smaller pool of potential victims for the priest and bishop predators? Or am I being unkind?
In an opinion piece on abortion, the Nathaniel Centre quotes a female writer who claims that unwanted pregnancies “[belong] to the entire congregation.” Is that the sort of mentality that gives kiddy-fiddling clerics their sense of entitlement to the warm bodies of Catholic children? Frankly, I find the notion that a fetus can belong to anyone else but the person in whom it is growing hideous and a form of slavery. This is the same mob that gave us the Inquisition, who persecuted Galileo for seeking the truth about our universe, and who were complicit in persecuting Jews during the Holocaust. Their current boss, Joe Ratzinger, who likes wearing that funny hat, should be arrested if he steps foot outside the Vatican City, and extradited to the United States or Ireland to explain why he and his organisation have covered up the monstrous activities of his underlings.
Life is not a game of chess - children are not pawns for bishops to jump. Children are not wall sockets for priests to plug into. Bedtime is not when the big hand touches the little hand. People are not the property of the Catholic Church – they are thinking individuals with rights. And it’s time Joe & Co stopped lying to them: there are no harp-playing ghosts in some sort of afterlife. What you see is what you get. The metaphysics of this universe is the objective reality that one can perceive using sensory organs whose composition is determined by DNA coding, not by the Intelligent Design of an omnipotent spook.
Accept it, move on and make the most of this life –- the ticket only gets clipped once.
3. And finally, here’s one that will warm the hearts of animal rights activists everywhere, a man allegedly attempted to give mouth to mouth resuscitation to a piece of roadkill, a several-days-dead opossum. And got arrested for his troubles. Really, haven’t the Pennsylvania police force got better things to do? And isn’t this a victimless non-crime? Still, it’s light relief from reading about the Fellowship of the (Ratzinger) Ring.
“When the people fear the government, there is tyranny – when
the government fear the people, there is liberty.”
- Thomas Jefferson
24 comments:
"One of the Catholic church’s poster girls, Agnese Bojaxhiu, a.k.a. Mother Teresa, used to take perverse delight in the suffering of the unfortunate people who chose to die in her care".
Just slanderous.
I remember reading once that MT had dragged to safety a malnourished crippled beggar who had been wedged in to a road-side sewerage pipe in Calcutta. The man had simply been left to die. When she had got to him, he was less than a day away from death.
If that man had to make a choice between being dragged out and cleaned up before dying in a bed being looked after by Mother Teresa, or dying in a gutter while the rest of the world tried to ignore the fact that he was even there, which do you think he should have chosen? Should he have waited for the indian version of Dr McGrath to save him?
He made a realistic choice, and accordingly Dr McGrath should have a realistic view of Mother Teresa.
Anonymous, criticism on Mother Teresa focuses not on individual cases like the one you mention, but on the gulf between what she could have done with the huge amounts of amounts of money donated to her (set up charity hospitals and proper medical care, for instance) and what she actually did with the money (set up large numbers of convents).
@Anon: Don't presume to know my private motivations. I have no problem with uncoerced charity, and may very well have acted as Mother Teresa did.
I didn't know that particular man you mention was lying in a sewage pipe at the time - did you? Therefore I did not "ignore the fact that he was there". Did you?
To quote an earlier article on NotPC written originally, I believe by Lindsay Perigo:
Mother Teresa once observed, in a classic statement of her moral philosophy: “I think it is very beautiful for the poor to accept their lot, to share it with the passion of Christ. I think the world is being much helped by the suffering of the poor people.” Mother Teresa is not saying that she is saddened by the suffering of the poor. She is saying that the suffering of the poor is “very beautiful.” She is not saying that she wants to see poverty and suffering ended. She is saying that the poor should simply “accept their lot” and “share it with the passion of Christ.”
You see, Mother Teresa believes that poverty and suffering are "gifts" from God. And the sisters in her order, The Missionaries of Charity, are taught that suffering makes God very happy. Mother Teresa once recounted, with a bright smile, how she had told a terminally ill cancer patient, who was suffering from unbearable pain, that, "You are suffering like Christ on the cross. So Jesus must be kissing you." Now, get that. According to Mother Teresa, Jesus, who, remember, is a moral ideal in her religion, expresses his "love" through tormenting the sick and the dying, while his father - God - gets his kicks from watching their suffering. This is pure sadism. And, unfortunately for the poor, Mother Teresa was ruthlessly intent on making God a very happy deity.'
In addition, she had some very nasty friends - Baby Doc Duvalier and Charles Keating, for example.
Sorry for the lack of proof reading - I see there's a spelling error in the first sentence - 'fattering' should be 'flattering'.
Hi Dr McGrath,
I didn't make any presumption regarding your motivations, but I did point out that the conclusion that you reached regarding the validity of MT's actions was in fact both illogical and uncharitable. The fact is that anyone who travels through India sees that it is a country of incredible extremes. A tourist traveling towards a main city will see many acres of slums before he or she reaches the main city centers which are metropolitan paradises by comparison.
When I said, "Should he have waited for the indian version of Dr McGrath to save him?" I was pointing out the perfectly reasonable conclusion that not many indian doctors who are well trained and have lucrative careers such as yourself here in NZ will ever bother going anywhere near the slums of Calcutta where MT made her home. They live well-heeled western-style lives in a comparative paradise that they would have little desire to go outside of- and into a slum.
Luke H and yourself also need to look at things a bit more critically. It is hypocritical to support Mother Teresa's acts of charity or individual acts of charity per se, and then to state that she should have spent her money on hospitals instead of convents. Why? Because she spent money on bringing together more people like her who would perform more individual acts of charity, which you have already agreed was a good thing! So how can this be a waste of money?
Their wiki sums up quite easily why the money was best spent on their houses and convents. They spent their money on gaps in the care system that couldn't be filled by hospitals,
"Missionaries (of Charity) care for those who include refugees, ex-prostitutes, the mentally ill, sick children, abandoned children, lepers, AIDS victims, the aged, and convalescent. They have schools run by volunteers to educate street children, they run soup kitchens, as many other services as per the communities' needs. They have 19 homes in Kolkata (Calcutta) alone which include homes for women, for orphaned children, and for the dying; an AIDS hospice, a school for street children, and a leper colony. These services are provided to people regardless of their religion or social caste".
Also, MT inspires the work of other christian hospitals in Calcutta. See http://www.calcuttamercyhospital.org/ who donate at least 40% of their services pro-bono.
Don't try to make a diamond ring into a sow's ear- recognize the diamond ring, and work backwards to an actually useful interpretation of the Gospel and the Catholic church which inspired MT's actions, instead of your own twisted misinterpretation.
Let's be upfront here, what the Albanian born Catholic nun did was fraud.
She claimed to be helping the poor, which for most meant providing shelter, nutrition, healthcare and enabling them to advance out of poverty. She did a fraction of that. She raised money based on an image, and was facilitated by the willing idiot Malcolm Muggeridge.
She provided shelter, austere and spartan, for the dying. She did not provide healthcare, she did nothing to enable the poor to advance, because she glorified in their poverty.
She was a fund-raising conduit for the Church, and much of the money she raised went on those religious activities.
There is more than enough testimony to refute the willfully blind idiots who simply believe on faith what the Church tells them about her. We have learnt long and hard to simply not trust the Church, given its morally disgraceful record in covering up the rape and torture of children by its own.
It is a morally bankrupt institution populated by many who have good intentions, but driven by cowardice. What does it tell you that the church threatens excommunication of those who would expose the secret of child rape and torture, but not those who did it. How can anyone seriously pretend this is some beacon of moral authority?
@Anon: MT may have pulled dying people off the streets and given them shelter and a bed - an act of charity I'm willing to give her some credit for that. And that is what I meant when I wrote that I may have acted as she did.
But it was her underlying belief system, and her insistence that it was good for people to suffer, that appalled me.
Her comments made on receiving a Nobel Prize that contraception and/or abortion were threats to "world peace" are ludicrous.
And her snuggling up to criminals and dictators needs some explaining.
Dr McGrath,
Lets deal with your illogical conclusion that Mother Teresa performed work from an underlying belief that it is good for people to suffer.
Do the following acts either increase or decrease suffering,
-Pulling a dying man out of a sewerage pipe, cleaning him up, and giving him a bed.
-Soup kitchens.
-Leper colonies.
-Co-operation with local christian hospitals doing pro-bono work.
-Fundraising in order to increase the scale of above said works.
It certainly would be very odd for someone to profess openly that they believed suffering was a good thing, and then work full-time to reduce suffering. Is the obvious point sinking in here?
You say MT states that suffering is good. You are wrong. MT was saying that suffering doesn't go unnoticed by God. Furthermore, MT was saying that those who must suffer can take comfort from the fact that suffering has value in this life and in an afterlife where God rewards those who remain faithful and do good things for others despite having to suffer personally.
The understanding that suffering has value is obviously something that you have failed to grasp Dr McGrath, even though you don't have to resort to any sort of Catholic argument in order to prove that this is so. A mother can look after a sick child, and as a result can wind up with a much stronger bond with the child through the daily actions of not running away when the going gets tough. In this sense Dr McGrath it is certainly difficult to escape the conclusion that suffering is often forced on people but it can have positive results. It just confirms the obvious christian maxim that giving is better than receiving.
Liberty Scott should have done some (or any) reading before posting. Mother Teresa brought people to the mercy hospital linked to above for pro-bono healthcare and cooperated with the doctors there. She also helped set up schools for street children that were run by volunteers. LS evidently has difficulty understanding that often religious activity and charitable activities can be one and the same. The Catholic Church is the world's biggest contributor of charitable works, aid, and hours spent looking after others worldwide aside from Red Cross whether LS likes it or not, so LS should have at least a modicum of perspective!
Also Dr McGrath, having reread your post, I take issue with your statements that you would have done the same things as Mother Teresa in pulling the dying man out of the sewer, washing him, and giving him a comfortable bed to end his life in. You can't argue in favor of the right to die, and then try to escape the natural consequences of allowing people that right.
After all, isn't it a common position of the atheist that all suffering is bad, and when the quality of a person's life has gotten really low, it is merciful to allow the person to exercise their right to die, rather than to live a pointless life of suffering?
Why not follow this common atheistic argument to its natural conclusion? Instead of doing what MT did, would you not have (in an ideal world) offered the man the option of receiving a blue injection while he was stuck in the gutter- in order to end his suffering, and then simply dragged his body out after he had died in order to give him a decent burial? Why not 'save' the man through euthanasia rather than saving the man as Mother Teresa did? I can clearly see the answer to that, but I wonder if you are too far gone to see it yourself.
Giving the man the right to die would likely have resulted in a depressed and suffering man asking for a quick death, with the situation quickly resolved without further effort from the rescuers. Mother Teresa's way was to rescue the man, show the man some love, and to tend to him during his last hours. Which would you say was more dignified death from the point of view of the dying man? Are you still going to argue in favor of the right to die?
There is evidence to contradict you anonymous regarding Mother Theresa's attitude to health. You know full well she raised so much money she could have provided far more facilities than she did. Funny that.
I am not denying that there has been good charitable activities by the church. Good people inside a woefully corrupt organisation that continues to lack a good degree of self reflection.
The simple truth is the Catholic Church proclaims to be the representative of an omnipotent creator and the conduit to an absolute moral authority. It has been found rotten to the core as it has sheltered and protected some extremely vile men over many years. It has finally admitted this, but is limp wristed in punishing them or those who sheltered them - a stark contrast to the punishment and damnation they peddle to the flock, and the vile philosophy they peddle to children that they are born already sinful.
It has many good people, and many good people are Catholic, but that is more coincidental than because of the Church itself.
The biggest defence the Church has had is "other people molest kids too". The weakest defence of any crime is that it is less of a crime when you're not the only one guilty.
The trouble the Catholic church had is that due to the fact the clergy are required to be celibate, they weren't able to exclude homosexuals outright from entering the church (for the explicit purpose of getting their hands on post-pubescent boys) - the majority of abuse victims...
Unlike the Boy Scouts who finally took action against homosexuals joining their movement, had reportedly documented a thousand odd man-boy abuses over the past couple of decades.
http://www.nwcn.com/news/oregon/Alleged-Boy-Scouts-perversion-files-may-be-revealed-in-sex-abuse-case-88553092.html
Pybus, Fenemore, Clark, Harding & Cootes anyone ?
Truly sickening.
LS, if only there was even a shred of truth or evidence that you had to back up your assertions. If only.
"You know full well she raised so much money she could have provided far more facilities than she did. Funny that".
So we're past saying that she didn't provide any facilities, and now we're down to a futile statement regarding how many facilities she should have provided. So you've basically rolled over on that one. "She could have done more". Well, how about you pick up where she left off then if you feel that she didn't do enough for people. There are plenty of homeless people in Auck, Welly, and Christchurch who need help, and our food banks are facing unprecedented demand at this time.
"It has many good people, and many good people are Catholic, but that is more coincidental than because of the Church itself".
Well as a Catholic I can pretty safely say that all you are showing here is that you have never talked to a Catholic (certainly never to a priest or a nun, as doing so would spin your assertions on their head), or opened a bible, because actually doing any of these things would debunk most of your third-hand hearsay. The fact is that the bible and the church inspire people to devote their lives to God, to the church and to charity, which results in the status of the CC as one of the world's largest providers of charitable work. This charitable work is modeled on the example set by Jesus Christ in the new testament, though a fair few Catholics certainly do fail to live up to that example.
"The biggest defence the Church has had is "other people molest kids too". The weakest defence of any crime is that it is less of a crime when you're not the only one guilty".
This is incorrect. The biggest defense of the church is that the CC is actually abusing children in far lesser numbers than any number of other groups including married protestant denominations, and especially teachers.
http://www.catholicleague.org/research/abuse_in_social_context.htm
Moreover, the other most significant defense is that while the NZ church cooperated with authorities and brought about swift payment of compensation to victims to the order of about $20-40 million all up, the Ministry of Social Development has over half a billion dollars of outstanding historical claims against it for kiddy fiddler foster parents who molested the kiwi children under their care. And where are the voices of Dr McGrath and Liberty Scott constantly crying out for justice for these people when the lawyer overseeing the government's out-of-court settlement process has reported that the process has been a complete failure, so she will have to take all these cases through the courts? I'll tell you where your voices are- nowhere to be found. This lawyer, Sonja Cooper, has said that this is NZ's biggest shame, so you would do well to keep things in their proper context when commenting how the CC is "rotten to it's core". Hah.
http://www.voxy.co.nz/national/boys039-home-violence-and-sexual-abuse-nz039s-greatest-shame039/5/18718
Anon
The ONLY reason the Catholic Church paid compensation to ANYONE is because the Church got caught. Simple as that.
Standard operational procedure was that when one of these terrible perverts was exposed the Church did everything within its power to cover the facts of the situation up. The predators were moved to other parishes where they could begin their perversions anew. The victim was shamed, excuded from help, blamed and pushed out. And on it went over and over and over again. Finally things got so bad that even the power of the Church authorities expending all their political pull, influence peddling and bribing was unable to prevent the facts from reaching the public domain.
Suddenly, having lost ALL credibility, with Church "leadership" ensnared, caught cold, unable to deny what they'd known about, unable to evade the facts of how they'd protected the perverts while persecuting the victims, THEN some compensation began to be paid. Make no mistake about it, in order to get the Churchies to confront what had been done (in the name of God) took more than a lifetime. This disgusting behaviour is not something recent. It's endemic and has been going on for generations. So has the routine covering up after. In order for the truth to out and for this disgusting mess to reach the public domain people have had their lives destroyed, finances ruined, were forced to make Court appearances again and again, were denounced as trouble makers and liars and deluded....
It is the basest shame of the Church and its promoters that this was not only allowed to occur, that this was not only encouraged by the benevolent protection of those who commited the acts, but that the victims were so ruthlessly persecuted for so long.
---
As far as Mother/T is concerned, the Doc has that topic spot on the money. I suggest you review the material on the links, in particular the interview with Hitchins.
LGM
"The ONLY reason the Catholic Church paid compensation to ANYONE is because the Church got caught. Simple as that".
Give me a break. "The only reason that the *insert name of offender here* paid compensation is because the *insert name of offender here* got caught". Your point being- what? Nothing. The NZ government has done exactly the same thing, except it has also prevented ALL victims from accessing either adequate or any form of compensation, as I linked to above!
You have ignored pretty much everything I said here, in case you hadn't noticed. You just needed to rant a bit I think. Any comment on how the CC compares in its response to child abuse when compared to the NZ government? I'm not holding my breath waiting for you to admit that at least the church bothered to compensate its victims, or that in reality child abuse is far more likely to occur due to a foster-parent, family member or a teacher than it is to occur due to a priest.
If you want proof of that, Stanlake recently released a meta-analysis of studies undertaken to ascertain levels of child-abuse in the US school system has uncovered that between 16 and 34% of all females, and 7-16% of all males experience some level of sexual abuse during their time at school by teachers, with one study reporting that 82% of female students reported sexual harassment by faculty during their education (and chronic underreporting for all of the above applies). This basically indicates that the sexual abuse problem as it applies to teaching faculty has really spun way out of control in the US, in case you didn't pick that up.
http://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/research/pubs/misconductreview/report.pdf
The wiki page on Catholic sex abuse cases relates the conclusion of a recent study on the priesthood, "A Perspective on Clergy Sexual Abuse by Dr. Thomas Plante of Stanford University and Santa Clara University states that "available research suggests that approximately 2 to 5% of priests have had a sexual experience with a minor" which "is lower than the general adult male population that is best estimated to be closer to 8%".
Since the statistics regarding child abuse by priests do not even approach these stats for teachers, do you want to make comment? Can you comment on which is NZ's greatest shame, "The world's largest pedophile ring", the "NZ Ministry of Social Development", or our wider society which abuses children in much greater numbers than the priesthood?
Anon
You have trouble with comprehension.
The Church is paying compensation only because it got caught. Simple fact. Without the sordid business reaching the public domain as it eventually did, the Church would have continued on as it had for generations- protect the abusers, persecute the victims, deny, lie, cheat, bribe, threaten, lobby, pull special favours, employ political connections, hide the evidence, spin, cover-up etc. Luckily, over recent times the silence has been broken and the truth is finally out.
It remains fact that not only is the Church populated by many perverts but that it systematically protected them. It did that to the direct detriment of the victims and has undertaken that task consistently and for an extended time.
It is an example of the basest intellectual dishonesty that you choose to claim that is "Nothing." Still, no surprise really. Your sort are like that.
As far as the government is concerned- whatever evils that gang undertakes, no matter the scale of it, in no way does that justify, validate or defend the behaviour of the Church's resident perverts or the Church authorities that protect them while persecuting the victims with such calculated cruelty. There is no excuse for such degeneracy.
"Suffer the little children to come unto me."
LGM
Anon
BTW have you reviewed the material on the M/T the links yet?
LGM
LGM, yes, I have read the link material and your comments on the other post.
Funny how you think I have trouble with comprehension when you got comprehensively fisked by 'scott' in that old post and myself in this one. I notice that someone replied with the one-liner, "got any evidence to back up your claims about MT?" and that was the last anyone heard from you on the subject- big surprise. "But I thought that a long interview in which Hitchens makes a large number of accusations that are 100% unsubstantiated and/or unverifiable would qualify as QED!" I hear you say. It won't.
"It is an example of the basest intellectual dishonesty that you choose to claim that is "Nothing." Still, no surprise really. Your sort are like that".
You just repeated the same logical fallacy I pointed out in my last post. All organizations, businesses and individuals accused of any crime react in the same way- cover up, divert attention, or try to place things in a favourable light. It is a logical fallacy to infer that the CC is unique by acting in a way that is a well understood phenomenon of the human experience regardless of race, religion, culture, profession, or the crime in question! I have already pointed out that the NZ government to this day does the same thing and worse to children abused under its care, and quite likely does so more frequently than will ever be admitted by the government.
Your statement that no amount of child abuse occurring in other professions will ever excuse what Catholic priests did is actually a statement that everyone including Catholics agree with (which you would never admit that as you are really looking for an opening to accuse all Catholics of being supporters of pedophilia in order to polarize the debate and to have an avenue to dismiss what I say). However you have presented your statement in order to infer (without good reason) that the child abuse occuring in wider NZ society and within other professions that also have a trusted fiduciary relationship with children is irrelevant, which is another logical fallacy on your part.
The fact is (and this is a line of reasoning that any child could follow- see if you can) child abuse is actually present in all professions that have a fiduciary relationship with children (such as psychiatry, doctors, child-care workers, the priesthood, and teachers). So the question is- which profession is it safest to leave your children with in NZ society?
Sorry LGM, the answer at the moment, in line with the evidence I presented in posts above, is the Catholic priesthood. To quote you, "Have you read the links I posted?"
Put the abuses of children by Catholic priests in their proper context after considering the level of abuse that is occurring in wider society and in other trusted professions.
Anon
1/. You've not fisked the facts I pointed out to you, nor has your imaginary friend, Scott. Don't write such beullshit.
2/. What you have accomplished here is to offer the very weak excuse that there are other groups within which perverts may be identified and that these groups allegedly cover up the activities of said perverts. That does nothing to make what your Church did any better. Your excuse does not alter the deep moral corruption that resides within your Church.
3/. There is no logical fallacy in pointing out what your Church did in regards to defending its perverts, in persecuting victims and in abrogating any scrap of moral decency in its dealings over this entire matter. Those things are established fact and no amount of wriggling, fibbing, rationalising and word play will alter them. Further, there is no logical fallacy in pointing out that your worthless excuse in no way atones, validates, reduces, repairs or justifies the immorality of what occurred and what your Church actually did.
Face the facts honestly.
4/. You write, "Your statement that no amount of child abuse occurring in other professions will ever excuse what Catholic priests did is actually a statement that everyone including Catholics agree with".
I take it that you agree with it then. You have conceded my point entirely.
5/. You write, "So the question is- which profession is it safest to leave your children with in NZ society?"
No, that's not the question at all. That sort of collectivist nonsense is known as offering a false choice. The choice is not between professions, it is between individuals. The question I face whenever I have to decide who to leave my children with is, "Is this individual a safe person to leave my children with?".
6/. You wrote, "Put the abuses of children by Catholic priests in their proper context".
OK. They were utterly evil. They destroyed lives. The abuses of children by Catholic priests consisted of sexual perversion and also abuses after the fact by systematic cover ups and the like undertaken by Catholic priests defending their colleagues.
For an institution that claims moral authority to operate as it did completely extinguishes any claim to morality it may have once posited. Your Church behaved immorally and undertook evil.
Fact. There is plenty of evidence. Face it.
LGM
Anon
Regarding M/T.
That she consorted with finanical rortists, fraudsters, criminals and con-men is established verified fact.
That she consorted with tyrants, merderers, torturers, theives, rapists, political criminals and the like is also established verified fact.
That her bank accounts (they were hers- she controlled them) contained tens of millions of dollars is established fact. That the vast bulk of that cash was invested and not employed to alleviate the suffering of the poor is well and completely and truely and utterly established fact. Even the present Pope wrote of his concerns about the disposition and disposal of all that cash at the time. Established verified fact.
That M/T was a hypocrit when it came to seeking the best heathcare and technology on offer is established fact. She got access, employing the very money donated for the purpose of helping those poor wretches in her "care". Those in her "care" got nowt! Fact.
That she had a double standard when it came to theological matters, in particular the rules of behaviour of her religion, is established fact. If one was important enough, or famous enough, then divorce was OK. If not, then divorce was impossible, forbidden. Fact.
It's funny how people like you pretend to be interested in seeking evidence and fact, only to pretend it doesn't exist when it turns out to be inconvenient or when it demonstrates something you'd rather not admit. It's even funnier how you'll profess to believe in a religion for which no evidence whatsoever is available to demonstrate its correspondence with truth of reality. Just delusional.
Oh well.
Hitchens is well worth reading. His research is thorough and exhaustive. You do need to get his book and read it through (it's good). Then you need to go back and take a look at the newspapers of the time (where much of the evidence you are attemtping to deny was first reported). You need to check the sources (including eye witnesses and employees and those who worked with M/T closely and knew her affairs intimately- lawyers, financiers, administrators, etc.). Hell, you should even take a look at what the Vatican said about those huge cash accounts shortly after she died. If, after reviewing all that material, you still claim it isn't good enough for you, then nothing real ever will be. That would be completely delusional on your part. Completely.
LGM
Anon said that all organizations, businesses and individuals accused of any crime react in the same way- cover up, divert attention, or try to place things in a favourable light, and that exactly what Enron did. COVER-UP.
LGM, the problem here is that you haven't realized that with regard to all your comments on the priest abuse scandals, you have been a complete troll!
In this blog post Dr McGrath makes the accusation that the CC is in fact the world's biggest pedophile ring. In order to find out if this is true, we MUST compare the levels of child abuse within professions that are trusted with children against the level of offending by priests.
You however, are not prepared to enter a discussion regarding the validity of Dr McGrath's accusation. You have misrepresented both mine and Dr McGrath's positions by pretending that Dr McGrath was in fact only accusing the Catholic priesthood of abusing children (which is illogical as both myself and Dr McGrath already understands that this is a given), and by pretending that I am here to say that the abuse never happened, or that I am here to say that abuse of a child by a priest is not as bad as abuse of a child by someone working in another profession!
The actual truth is that I am not here to say that abuse hasn't happened, or to excuse it, or to lessen the condemnation that any priest should receive for abusing children. I have already said, ""Your statement that no amount of child abuse occurring in other professions will ever excuse what Catholic priests did is actually a statement that everyone including Catholics agree with" so stop setting up and knocking down a straw-man. I am here to say that the CC is not the world's biggest pedophile ring- in fact it is the world's smallest, so in regard to this issue of child abuse, go away troll until you are willing to make a comment that is on topic.
Anon
Oh do grow up you deluded weenie. You are not able to wriggle and slime your way out of this. Your position is untenable. Your entire contribution has been dishonest excuses, evasions, avoiding the facts, dancing around the substantive, word games and supercillious nonsense. Understand that none of that works. Bullshit is bullshit and your stink can be smelt from a great distance.
I originally responded to this piece of deception posted by you, "Moreover, the other most significant defense is that while the NZ church cooperated with authorities and brought about swift payment of compensation to victims to the order of about $20-40 million all up".
Again, the Church co-operated with the law only because it was caught out- involved as it was in criminality and evil doing, having persisted for an extended period of time. Church authorities complied with the law only AFTER their actions had been exposed to the public domain with the severest public opprobrium bought to bear against them.
The compensation, such that it was, certainly was anything but swift in arriving for the victims. The perversion and subsequent cover-ups (including persecution of victims) had persisted for many, many decades. That compensation was paid at all was down to public exposure after years of cover-ups, depravity and immorality. Hardly swift. Definately immoral.
In your liturgies you have attempted to employ a slimey justification, proceeding along the line that somehow a claim that other organisations are worse than the Church mitigates what the Church did. As I've pointed out, and you have since conceded, none of that in any way validates, justifies, lessens, reduces or mitigates what your in-house Church perverts did. Nor does it in any way validate, justify, lessen, reduce or mitigate the cover-ups and victim persecution your Church "leaders" subsequently undertook. Immoral and perverse, all of it. Evil. Seriously, it is very difficult to imagine that a civilised person could make the decision to do what these critters did. Still, they managed to. It is even more shocking when one considers these same individuals claim a special moral authority for themselves and their organisation...
Your responses have been irrational muck. You have yet to face facts. Time you had the courage to do that.
LGM
"5/. You write, "So the question is- which profession is it safest to leave your children with in NZ society?"
No, that's not the question at all. That sort of collectivist nonsense is known as offering a false choice. The choice is not between professions, it is between individuals. The question I face whenever I have to decide who to leave my children with is, "Is this individual a safe person to leave my children with?"."
So how do you decide whether it is safe to leave your kid with an individual? Do you ignore the profession that the individual works within? Do you fail to take into account the level of safeguards against abuse within professional environment that the individual commonly works within, and whether professionals working within that industry who are accused of child abuse are routinely caught and punished? Of course you take this into account, so it is not a false choice- it is a responsible part of deciding whether to leave your kid with another adult.
Anyone can see now you're playing dumb now. Yes, the real question that should be on your lips is whether that individual is safe to leave your kid with, but you need to ask my question (among other questions like does this person have a good reputation in the community) in the process of coming to a decision otherwise you're just being an irresponsible parent by failing to make adequate safeguards against abuse.
Since my question was valid, maybe you should consider the question yourself, if you care about your kids. It might take a while for you to be brave enough to ask it honestly, though with trolls these things take time to sink in, if at all. Then look at the links I posted and make up your own mind. I know you haven't because you haven't commented on them. How about it? I had the unpleasant task of having to read through that unbelievable crap-fest that was that interview with Chris Hitchens, in which there wasn't a shred of evidence to support his accusations, (unless we judge people on playground standards of gossip, like "He said, she said"), how about you return the favor?
Anon
You ask, "So how do you decide whether it is safe to leave your kid with an individual?"
You find out all about that particular individual. It's known as undertaking due diligence. You go and find out as much as you can about them.
I leave my children with people I am very familiar with and approve of. If I lack sufficient information to make a positive decision, then the children stay with me. If I have any doubts, then the children stay with me. Simple.
Do I concern myself with any of the collectivist or religo inspired muck you write about? No. Not really. It just isn't fundamental to making this decision.
What you need to understand is that I'm not leaving my children with a profession. I'm leaving with them with a specific individual for a specific reason. It is my business to find out about THAT person before I trust THAT particular person.
Your question remains invalid. You offered a false choice. I am not obligated to choose between the limited options you demand I submit to. It is, after all, my choice to make and we are discussing how I care for my children.
LGM
PS. As previously stated, the unsavory aspects of M/T are already well established fact. You can deny reality as much as you like. You're merely being dishonest or delusional or both.
BTW none of your wriggling apologetics mitigates the evil doing of your church. Be honest. Face the facts.
"The truth will set you free."
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