No wonder he quit

[Gob]

Close to 400 priests were defrocked in only two years by the former Pope Benedict XVI over claims of child abuse, the Vatican has confirmed.

The statistics for 2011 and 2012 show a dramatic increase compared to previous years, according to a document obtained by the Associated Press (AP).

The file was part of Vatican data collected for a UN hearing on Thursday.

It was the first time the Holy See was publicly confronted over the sexual abuse of children by clergy.

Church officials at the hearing in Geneva faced a barrage of hard questions covering why they were withholding data and what they were doing to prevent future abuse.

Victims' advocates complained there was still too little transparency.

Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi initially said the AP report had been based on a mistaken reading of data.

But he later retracted his statement, confirming to the BBC that the story was correct.

The latest statistics reveal the number of priests defrocked in 2011 and 2012 was more than double the 171 priests removed in 2008 and 2009, when the Vatican first provided figures.

The Vatican also sent another 400 cases to either be tried by a Church tribunal or to be dealt with administratively, AP reports.

Benedict, who was elected in 2005, took the helm as the scandal of child sex abuse by priests was breaking.

The flood of allegations, lawsuits and official reports into clerical abuse reached a peak in 2009 and 2010, which observers say may explain the spike shown in the document.

The Holy See is a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, a legally binding instrument which commits it to protecting and nurturing the most vulnerable in society.

It ratified the convention in 1990 but after an implementation report in 1994 it did not submit any progress reports until 2012, following revelations of child sex abuse in Europe and beyond.

Last month, the Vatican refused a request from the UN's Committee on the Rights of the Child for data on abuse, on the grounds that it only released such information if requested to do so by another country as part of legal proceedings.

In a homily on Thursday, Benedict's successor, Pope Francis, called abuse scandals "the shame of the Church".

He announced in December that a Vatican committee would be set up to fight sexual abuse of children in the Church.

[rubato]

Benedict quit because he was tainted. he could not lead a cleansing of the church because he was guilty himself and his guilt made him too weak to be effective. He was vulnerable to blackmail. We will see how his successor does.


yrs,
rubato

[Jarlaxle]

Are you drunk again?

[rubato]

It is an explanation which fits the facts.


http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/f ... cal-papacy

The pope was personally affected by one of these scandals. It emerged that, while he was archbishop of Munich, a known molester was quietly reassigned, allowing him in time to return to pastoral duties and make contact with young people.

Before he was elected to be pope, Ratzinger undoubtedly tightened the procedures for dealing with clerics sexually attracted to young people. But critics have argued that a letter he issued in 2001 to dioceses around the world did not make sufficiently clear the responsibility of bishops to inform the civil authorities. Their frequent reluctance to do so was a key reason why evidence of sexual abuse did not surface earlier.

Insufficient vigour in the pursuit of his aims was a charge also levelled at Benedict after he became pope. He showed no interest, for example, in introducing specific reforms to filter out potential abusers before they were appointed to pastoral care. As he made clear in his 2010 letter to Irish Catholics, he believed that the sins of the clergy were an expression of insufficient sanctity rather than a product of defective procedures.

And then there's this:

That decision stemmed from the pope's keenness to heal the breach with the ultra-traditionalists of the Society of Saint Pius X. In 2009, another raging controversy erupted when he lifted the excommunication of four of the society's bishops. One was a Holocaust-denying Briton, Richard Williamson. The Vatican said Pope Benedict had been unaware of Williamson's views when he acted. But its disclaimer only raised the question of why that should have been so, particularly given the vulnerability in this area of a pope who, as a boy, had belonged to the Hitler Youth.

yrs,
rubato

[Lord Jim]

A bunch of innuendo, speculation and opinion. Absolutely nothing substantively tying Benedict to any effort to coverup or protect any child molester. Nothing at all.

Re the first quote, I would imagine priests are re-asssigned all the time without it coming to the attention of the Arch Bishop, (indeed, if his immediate superiors were trying to protect him, they certainly wouldn't bring it to the attention of the Arch Bishop)

The second quote is nothing but reporting on the opinions of unnamed sources about "insufficient vigor" (whatever the hell that means) in pursuing child molesters in the priesthood. Totally meaningless...

The third quote actually criticizes Benedict for excommunicating a Holocaust denying Bishop (I didn't know about that; I applaud him for it) and trots out the tired old meaningless "Hitler Youth" BS...

This must be an attempt by the writer to prey on ignorant people who don't know that belonging to the "Hitler Youth" implied absolutely no support for Nazism; it was something the overwhelming majority of Germans got their kids into because failure to do so would bring the attention of the Gestapo. (Rube has no excuse for being that ignorant since this has already been explained several times here, so his anti-Catholic bigotry must have led him to help the author dissemble by re-posting it here. )

It is an explanation which fits the facts.

Once again rube, you're having a little trouble with the definition of the word, "fact"...

[rubato]

That decision stemmed from the pope's keenness to heal the breach with the ultra-traditionalists of the Society of Saint Pius X. In 2009, another raging controversy erupted when he lifted the excommunication of four of the society's bishops. One was a Holocaust-denying Briton, Richard Williamson. The Vatican said Pope Benedict had been unaware of Williamson's views when he acted. But its disclaimer only raised the question of why that should have been so, particularly given the vulnerability in this area of a pope who, as a boy, had belonged to the Hitler Youth.

Try reading more carefully. Or less drunk?

yrs,
rubato

[Lord Jim]

LOL

You really are quite an ignoramus...

Why you choose to constantly draw attention to your own personal ignorance, is a puzzle and a mystery to me...

One would think that a person in your position would try to low ball their ignorance, and attempt to make it a little less obvious...

But apparently not...

[Joe Guy]

Try reading more carefully. Or less drunk?

yrs,
rubato

Same old tune.

Different thread....

[oldr_n_wsr]

The Vatican said Pope Benedict had been unaware of Williamson's views when he acted.

Just to highlight it.

And I no longer drink (at least for today).