@yourbuttocks:
Then how do you explain the fact that rates of pedophilia are higher among married men than unmarried men?
How do you explain the high rates among protestant ministers? day care workers? teacher’s?
People who have an axe to grind with the church should come out and be honest, insteading misleading by using an inapplicable pretext.
Well, I won’t pretend I can explain any of this, seeing as how I am not familiar with how any of those data compare with what’s been stewing in the U.S. Catholic Church. Bringing these things into daylight frequently seems to have at least a touch of “witchhunt” – for example the daycare scandals of a decade ago.
I will agree with the Yannster: the Church created a system or environment of coverup. This is the huge “sin” as far as Cardinal Law and his ilk go.
As regards your point about an ax(e) to grind, well… maybe see my earlier comments in this thread: I am wondering out loud why, at a time when an established, powerful religious institution – Islam – is being scrutinized publicly in the town square on matters of life, death, liberty, etc., we turn to see what’s up with this other established, powerful religious institution – Catholicism – and find that here in the US it is racked with a power-sapping, influence-draining, effectiveness-eroding scandal of a sordid nature, of its own making.
The irony in it to me, is that some of the more politically active ((and I’m not saying these are spiritual leaders, or even leaders of the Church)) Catholics in the US are among those most vociferous in calling for a “crusade” against a demonized external threat to our civilization. It’s the IRONY that gets me going, not necessarily an ax to grind against this specific religious institution.
I will “come out and be honest” that the Catholic Church is the one religious institution with which I am most familiar. I don’t think that makes me allergic to its misdeeds, however. I am equally amused, angered, frustrated, etc. by the misanthropy demonstrated from time to time by persons of influence within ALL other big organized religious powerhouses – and almost as amused, angered and astonished by the malevolence of some very very small religious groupings, from time to time. ON THE OTHER HAND, there is almost universally some grain of good in each and every one of these cults or sects or houses or temples of worship. Tis an ambivalent world we inhabit, and also tis a not-yet-mature species, or people, we be.
Peace to guys & gals of good will…