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Catholic Church blames victims for child molesting Priest's behaviour

I

I'm Typing

Golden Member
Just another "isolated incident:"


According to an Associated Press report in August, quoting
lawyers close to the case, the Catholic Diocese of Nashville,
Tenn., planned to use the defense of "comparative fault" in
two lawsuits filed by boys who claimed to have been sexually
molested by former priest Edward McKeown. Such a defense would
allow the church to reduce its damages by showing that other
people had knowledge of McKeown's continued abuse and did not
warn authorities of it. Among those other people the church
regards as culpable are the 21 other victims who were abused
but remained silent.
 
Messed up people everywhere, the Catholic Priesthood included. Obviously they should've reconsidered whether they could go through life w/o a wife. It's too bad really.
 
This is dispictable.
I praise God that even though the church I grew up in was very unbiblical, it wasn't like this.
 
Is the church getting sued in this case? If they are I can understand *why* they would be trying to reduce their damages. However if they are not getting sued they should hang the bastard out to dry.
 
I have never respected the catholic church. Time after time they use the church for their own agenda. At one point it was taxes to build St. Peters (I think it was St. Peters), selling of indulgences, killing of people who contested their beliefs, etc. The list goes on and on. While most people who attend catholic church's believe in God and are normal everyday good citizens, the management of the catholic church is really distorted and undermines all of the "good" people in the church.

This doesn't surprise me. However,their defense would have to start somewhere, so in their defense this was probably their best choice.
 
GRRRRRRROWWWWWWLLLLLLLLL!

Few things get me angrier than this kind of crap, especially since I have experienced it first hand. People who use this kind of defense deserve to get the harshest penalty just for again victimizing the victims!

People are responsible for their own bad behavior. To blame anyone else is the utmost in bullsh1t.

edit: This is everywhere, all churches, all societies.
 
Capn
I think the main issue is the fact that the church knew what was going on and didn't do anything about it. They are saying that since the other victims didn't speak up that they share some of the responsibility. The messed up thing is they are reinforcing these children's fears. It's a well known fact that victims of abuse blame themselves for the abuse taking place and the church is buying into that as well. The same thing happened in Ireland in the early 90's and the church took NO blame for doing nothing about it.

D
 
Did they know?, if they did then they should face all damages possible. I still think they should share a significant part of the blame for not having a network of checking in on these kinds of things since there have been a few of them. But, I can't judge the kind of network this church had, perhaps it was just this one priest and no one other than him and the victims knew of the crime.

Anyways I'm protestant.

 


<< It's a well known fact that victims of abuse blame themselves for the abuse taking place and the church is buying into that as well. >>



Precisely. When it happened to me, it was in the Protestant church.

To this day, I am ready to rip people who do this kind of thing to shreds.

How do you make an angry face? You know, the little red guy? That's how I feel Xs 10.

Edit: I did speak up... It made me real popular, as you can imagine! How dare she speak! Grrrrrrr.....
 
There is absolutely no excuse for that type of behavior in any way shape or form. :|


There's your angry face Isla 😉
 
People just love to attempt to destroy the reputation of the Church. Fine, but keep your facts straight.

The title of this thread is wrong -- flat out. Given the author, that doesn't surprise me. The Church does not &quot;blame&quot; the victims for the priest's behavior, the legal defense is that had other people come forward earlier when they were aware of the abuse, the abuse would have been stopped earlier. Simple, yes? Therefore, they are saying that they should not be held responsible (monetarily) for the full impact of the abuse by the individual unsanctioned acts of this priest when they could have put an end to it but for the lack of awareness from those who knew.



<< I have never respected the catholic church. Time after time they use the church for their own agenda. >>


Fettsbabe: You surprise me. Dredging up items from centuries ago as evidence of the bad nature of the Church is hardly relevent. Further, it overshadows the constant, widespread respectable acts that the Church has done and is doing around the world. Want one example: Mother Teresa of Calcutta (actually born in Skopje, Yugoslavia -- didn't know that). If you want to vilify the Church for the actions of one priest, then similarly praise it for the actions of another (please also note that the Church will raise Mother Teresa to sainthood in due time but will not be doing the same for this FORMER priest).

Before this post is misunderstood, I in NO WAY condone this behavior and fully believe in the maximum punishment for the individual(s) responsible. I am fully in favor of throwing child molesters into the general prison population -- perfect justice. If in fact the diocese knew about the behavior and did nothing, then again, I would fully support sanctions for that despicable behavior. However, lambasting the Church willy nilly because it's a politically correct thing to do is not something I'll stand by and watch and misquoting facts to accomplish that does service to no one.
 
I don't think it has anything to do with the church. I think it is just human nature to take advantage of those who are weaker. It is also human nature to pass the blame onto others.

And let me tell you, when you speak up about stuff like this, you get ATTACKED.

The moment you open your mouth, you are subjecting yourself to being ripped to shreds by whatever established power or authority you are up against. People do not want to deal with this.

That is why victims stay silent.

Edit: Thank you, Fathom. 🙂
 
Andrew - I threw up those acts because they are the most &quot;common&quot; ones. There are many others that I could throw up, but the majority of people here may not remember or even know about local acts in our communities.

If the church knew this child was being molested then it was their duty to God and to the parents to turn the &quot;criminal&quot; in. I know they are entitled to a defense, but I hardly think the one they chose was a valid one. Especially since they knew about it, and could have probably prevented the molestation just as much as the other people could have.

Besides it stifles me that &quot;the church&quot; is the one that will raise Mother Theresa to Sainthood. I think that God's job, and no one else is truly capable of doing that in a religious sense. You can put a title of Sainthood on a millionaire but that doesn't mean he will go to heaven.
 
There are some churches that still believe the Bible and hate this as much as any of you all. And make it very hard for unqualified men to get into such positions.

Here is the link to one if your interested

to AndrewR: your &quot;If you want to vilify the Church for the actions of one priest, then similarly praise it for the actions of another &quot; is not very valid. I see it as kind of like a guy who just murdered a person saying &quot;Yeah but judge, I didn't kill anybody the day before, or even the day before that.&quot; It doesn't matter, the guy is a murderer.
Now I am not saying that the whole Catholic church should be judged by this one man but you should look at the number of similar cases and use that. And if a true Christian then you should look at it doctrinally compared to the Bible and judge it on that.

That's my understanding with the light that I have been given.
 
I'm Typing,

Where's your source? This one said this about that one doesn't cut it. Especially from you.



and Fetts,

The church is made of people, and people do wrong. That is universal. If you want to point your finger at Catholics be prepared to point at all other religions too, large and small.
Catholics are no different than anyone else. There's good, there's bad.
 
There is no defense for these acts. This is the Church which claims to be the only true church and casts dispersion on all other denominations and faith practices. Maybe they should be listening to the words of Christ in this matter.

MT 18:5 &quot;And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me.
6 But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.
 
I don't think that anyone is arguing that the church is made up of humans who make mistakes. I do think that what they are upset about is the church not standig up and saying OK we should have caught it and done something. Their history supports the fact that they do not take blame for things like this.

[edit] &quot;That&quot; has a T on the end dufus [/edit].....😉
 
Chef,

You state that &quot;the church did not stand up&quot;. My humble point is that the church cannot stand. It was the idiot people in the adminstration. Don't condemn the church.

Also, you state &quot;history supports the fact&quot;......
This is not fair. Saying that &quot;history supports the fact&quot; does not make it a fact. When condemning the religion of millions of people you have to do better than that.

No offense intended in the above.

 
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