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Sexual Abuse by 300 Catholic Priests

A grand jury report released yesterday showed that "internal documents from six Catholic dioceses in Pennsylvania showed that more than 300 "predator priests" have been credibly accused of sexual abusing ore than 1000 child victims."

Devout Catholics who wish to defend their faith and their Church, have argued that the percentage of such priests within the Catholic Church is the same as the percentage of such people in society in general.  But there are a number of problems with such a defense that such Catholics seem to overlook.

First of all, "society in general" does not claim to be God's moral authority on Earth. Indeed, the most Conservative of Catholics often complain about how the increasing acceptance of homosexuality and same sex marriage - something those Catholics often think of as "immoral" -  is due to the spread of secular humanism and atheism.

Second, the fact that there are just as many child predators outside of the Church as there are inside of it may only prove that Catholicism is simply a placebo that does nothing to improve the moral character of those who define themselves as "Catholic" (other than convincing them that their "faith" makes them morally better than prior to their conversion, of course).

On the other hand, if Catholicism actually succeeds in reducing the number of such abuses by teaching people spiritual discipline through the love of God or the fear of hell, then the fact that the percentages of such predators within the Church are the same as without can only mean that the Church attracts an inordinate number of such predators.

And why would the Church possibly attract a higher percentage of such predators to its ranks than society at large?

Well, the fact that the Catholic Church has demonstrated a willingness to repeatedly protect such abusers, and by doing so only helping to facilitate the abuse, may be part of it. But there is an even greater reason than this.

Catholicism prides itself on hooking its parishioners on the emotional crack-pipe of Christ. The Catholic Church works to ensure that people are increasingly dependent upon God, in short, because that means they will necessarily become increasingly dependent upon "God's Holy Catholic Church;" and that means they will become increasingly dependent upon Catholic priests,to be more specific.

Such complete dependency on God and his Holy Church (i.e., upon Catholic priests) not only creates the perfect environment for predators to prey upon helpless children, it also helps to ensure that the parents of such children will want to protect their Holy Church at least as much as their own children, and perhaps even more.

The Catholic Church, in this respect, is a perfect biological predator, for it is a completely amoral institution that lures its prey into its clutches by promising its victims the purest grade of moral truth on the street. And once a person is hooked on that crack rock, some of them will even sell their own children for a hit.  

 

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