Plan B Forum

The Vatican has refused to provide information requested by the United Nations on the alleged sexual abuse of children by priests, nuns or monks.

The Vatican said the cases were the responsibility of the judicial systems of countries where abuse took place.

The UK National Secular Society accused the Vatican of hiding behind legal technicalities.

On his appointment in March, Pope Francis said dealing with sex abuse was vital for the Church's credibility.

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child put a wide-ranging questionnaire to the Holy See - the city state's diplomatic entity - last July, asking for detailed information about the particulars of all sexual abuse cases notified to the Vatican since 1995.

The questions included whether priests, nuns and monks guilty of sexual crime were allowed to remain in contact with children, what legal action had been taken against them, whether the Church required clergy to report abuse to secular authorities and whether complainants were silenced.

In its response, the Holy See insisted that it was "separate and distinct" from the Roman Catholic Church, and that it was not its practice to disclose information about the religious discipline of clergy unless specifically requested to by the authorities in the country where they were serving.

It stressed that it had changed the criteria for choosing priests and revised Church law to ensure clergy were properly disciplined

Gob wrote:

The Vatican has refused to provide information requested by the United Nations on the alleged sexual abuse of children by priests, nuns or monks.

The Vatican said the cases were the responsibility of the judicial systems of countries where abuse took place.
.... "

keps stuum

This probably derives from the German word stumm meaning silent. The phrase keep schtum (variously spelled especially by Gob as 'keep stumm', 'keep shtoom', 'keep schtum' etc.) is British and fairly recent. It has the sound of a Yiddish phrase but it is more likely that it originated in the UK criminal community. The earliest citation of it is in Frank Norman's, book Bang to rights: an account of prison life, 1958:

"I think it's much better to keep shtoom."
"You can always shtoomup if any screws are earholeing."

dgs49 wrote:Thanks to the originator for providing yet another opportunity for the anti-Catholic bigots to vent.

"... the thin line between immorality, perversion, and illegality."

RayThom wrote:The Vatican and the holier-than-thou hierarchy are fully aware of the thin line between immorality, perversion, and illegality. They walk that line every day. Why should they help their enemy in an attempt to bring down their organization?

I don't understand why the RICO statutes aren't applied more stridently against this powerful group of thugs, goons, and gangsters. If Hell was more than the concept that it is I'd pray that they all burn in it... forever.

I think Benedict resigned because he was morally tainted; he has some nasty shit in his past and thus could not reform the church without 'coming clean' and he didn't have the stones to do that. As long as he had something to hide the people behind the financial scandals and sex scandals had a lever on him which they used to protect themselves

the holier-than-thou hierarchy