Do catholics realise?
I am open to the concept of religion but have some questions about catholicism...there is a lot of corruption in the catholic church...a while ago it came to light that numerous priests and people high up in the catholic church where child abusers and that it had been covered up (the pope was supposed to have know about the abuse) There is a film called the magdalene sisters, it is about the magdalene laundries in ireland where young women where kept (and abused) often for having children out of wed lock and so on. The film is a true story and high lights a few of the women kept in these laundries. What do catholics think about this? Jimmy savile was a devout catholic. There is obviously a lot of abuse and corruption in the catholic church so i just want to know what a catholics view is on these subjects?
Update:I just want to know what a catholics point of view on these are....do they think it is a lie. do they think that they are exaggerations? I am not comparing them to any other group or religion so please stop saying that child abuse is just as likely in any other religion
Update 3:I AM NOT SAYING THAT IT HAPPENS ONLY IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH! i am just asking what a catholics oppinions are! jesus why is this question so confusing for some people :P
Comments
First of all, many of these stories, ESPECIALLY about the Magdalene Laundries, are greatly exaggerated for the consumption of rabidly anti-Catholic readership.
Second, my advice is to read Matthew 23 in full before thinking that you can disavow truth because of the corruption of those who speak it.
There is much LESS abuse in the church than the media want you to believe. It is there, as is corruption, yes, but the stories are basically fisherman's tales of the one that got away.
Edit: Did you read the link? I am not saying any such thing: I am saying the one who wrote the script of the movie is lying.
It's most often in the public eye because the media puts it there. Never mentions that the Hare Krishnas have the LARGEST DAMAGE SETTLEMENT against it in the USA for abuse. Never mentions how many disfellowed JW'S make claims of such abuse. I could go on and on, but I hope you get the point.
The link I provided also provides links to Irish government reports on the issue. By the way, that article was written by an atheist, NOT a Christian.
Edit2: You HAVE been told; it is a lot of exaggeration with the purpose of feeding rabid anti-Catholics something to eat up. The Catholic Church is a big target.
The question isn't confusing, Chucky; you seem not to get the point that is made. EXAGGERATION!!!!
I am from Ireland. I was baptised Catholic there.Yes, the Magdalene system happened. But it is impossible to judge that without factoring in just how the Church was forced to become a quasi-governmental entity in Ireland, which of course, it was never designed to be. Largely due to English(church of England)landowners, the Catholic church tried and sometimes failed to look after Irish Catholics.
Persons like Jimmy Saville are just that. Persons. What an isolated person does is hardly an inditement of an entire religion, only proof of the sinfulness of humanity. Yes there are bad apples among priests who molest children. There have been lots of Protestant ministers involved in highly public sex scandals. Does this somehow mean all churches are liable for the humanity of their leaders?Are you advocating some sort of police action for those who have transgressed, regardless of their religion?
Nothing confusing about this concept or question except maybe from you.Those who can separate the religious institution from the flawed people in the world know that today's Catholics are no more responsible for the Magdelene laundries than modern Germans are for the Third Reich.
There's a lot of corruption in every Church, including the Church of England. Why single Catholics out? There is NOT a high number of clergy abusing children in the Catholic Church. It LOOKS that way because of the focus on it. There is a higher percentage of abuse in schools, which I assume you attend. There's also a higher percentage in Protestant religions than in Catholicism, perhaps because of the existence of youth ministers and so forth. Yeah, we've seen that story of the laundry. Exactly how many people out of the billions of Catholics were involved there?
When you can see outside you hate for the Catholic Church, come back and discuss.
I'm not a Catholic anymore because I disagree with the church doctrine.
However, you have to be careful about sources of information as there is a lot of hype and sensationalism when it comes to any corruption in the Catholic church. For example with the child molestation charges, rumors that the Pope knew about it are just that-- rumors. Statistically, though, there is no greater a percent of child molestation that goes on in the Catholic church than in any other institution.
I don't see how human corruption and humans falling short of church ideals should really reflect on Catholic doctrine and beliefs, though. In comparison, there is corruption within politics and the Government but that doesn't mean we should lose faith in and throw out the Constitution.
Really? Really? You are indulging in a spoon fed diet of mass media. Jimmy Savile was NOT a devout Catholic. He wasn't even a practicing Catholic. BBC television fed him his special diet of teens.
There is no evidence to "numerous priests and people high up in the church" being abusers. Certainly NOT to the extent that there is evidence of it in schools. As to the MOVIE - again, a MOVIE - about the Madgalene Laundries, it was a workhouse. Women went there for food and shelter. And they worked for it. Those women were better off there than dying on the streets. Survivors have thanked the sisters for seeing them through tough times.
What about the monks of Notre Dame de Atlas? Who remained WITH the villagers they cared for, while the threat of the Taliban sent others scurrying for safety?
What about Fr. Shay Cullen in the Philipines working to stop Americans from pimping teenage girls?
Monastaries saved books and educated villagers rather than let the invading Germanic tribes ruin everything...
Monks, nuns, friars and sisters, running shelters and soup kitchens do more for the poor and homeless than any government.
The public eye - you mean media fodder. I could post more. But you'll just ignore it.
I think one must also keep in mind the times...
At the time of the laundries, to be pregnant out of wedlock was a serious crime. It wasn't normal and in most cases, these women were thrown out on the streets to fend for themselves and many times, they were forced into prostitution (and would end up at the Laundry that way too).
While what happened to some of those women in the Laundries (30,000 women were contained there, but not all 30,000 claimed abuse. I believe it was 10,000 that claimed abuse of some sort, which is still not acceptable, but certainly not all the women) is certainly not right, but one must keep in mind the times.
Also, keep in mind that according to articles "The committee, chaired by Martin McAleese, husband of former Irish President Mary McAleese, was only able to survey 100 “survivors”." They did not look into all the Laundries or interview a majority of survivors...they interviewed less than 1%.
I don't know what would be better, but if it wasn't for these Laundries, these women would be out on the streets with no food, no clothes, no shelter--pregnant and alone.
Today no one blinks at an unwed single mother, even if that woman has 4 children all by different fathers! But then, it was certainly not the case, to say they were put away "simply because they were pregnant" is misleading because during this time...it wasn't "simply".
I'd recommend reading this article, it may give some insight.
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/david-q...
Was their treatment right? No. Was it abnormal? Sounds like it.
As for the child abuse, again, one must keep in mind the times. It is completely immoral, no doubt, a serious sin and a major issue throughout the world, but until recently, there were NO child abuse laws. NO protection for children...nothing.
During this time, you could break your kid's arm again and again and NOTHING would be done because there were NO laws against it!
The Church tried to do their best to fix the problem as there were no authorities to hand these men over to. They spend hundreds of thousands of dollars sending these men to psychiatrists who claimed pedophilia was curable (something we now know is not the case). They would be completely removed from the public until they were deemed "cured". They were then placed at a new parish and, many times, it happened again because it's NOT curable as they thought.
It isn't like today where you can end up in hot water for spanking your child, you could do anything except murder your kid and you wouldn't be punished for it because it wasn't against the law. It's sickening and heinous to think about, but it was the times that this stuff happened.
As it stands, the corruption is very heartbreaking, but the corruption is within the people not the Church. I cannot abandon Christ's Church because a slight minority of people wish to sully her. How would it look if the other 11 Apostles abandoned Jesus because of Judas?
Added:
here is another link for you to check out:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/brendanoneill2/1...
Many women who attended the Magdalene Laundries cite no abuse, no shaving of their heads, never seeing another abused and spoke wonderfully about the nuns who ran these places. So no, it was NOT 30,000 women who were abused.
Using those claims to say that Catholicism is wrong would be the same as me saying atheism is wrong because of what Hitler did, what Mao did, what Lenin did, what Stalin did, what Pol Pot did, and all the rest of the communists did in the name of their atheist ideas.
These men are a bit different, because they persecuted people because they weren't atheist. The supposed Catholics you mentioned did things that Christianity proclaims as inherently evil. I can still say that Mao was an atheist because nothing he did is against an atheist "code" or "law", as there is none. But I cannot say that the people you mentioned are Catholics, because that is against the Catholic (Christian) code and law, and if someone does that, they obviously cannot be actually Catholic.
I am not a Catholic, by the way.
There is some corruption in every large institutiion, including every large church. In other words, in every institution, no matter how good, there are always a small minority of individuals who do not live by the principles and beliefs that define the institution. The "numerous" priests you refer to comprise fewer than 1% of priests, the same per capita occurence you find in any large group of men, and slightly lower than the rate of occurence among Protestant clergy.