The one thing that would shatter my remaining regard for any good the catholic church has done is to associate the late John Paul II with paedophilia.
To me it seemed that he was unable to approach this problem.
Personally I have a great regard for the man, someone who epitomises the Christian ideal in many ways, but someone for whom hurting children was such a foreign notion that he could not even approach the concept, never mind deal with it effectively.
It is his utter lack of malignity [he forgave his would-be assassin], his inability to understand the extent of venial sin in others that may have blinded him to the practice of paedophilia in his Church, whilst the classification of the problem as a "moral lapse" or "disease" allowed a lenient attitude to be taken within that body.
In terms of the law, the glory days of the Holy Roman Empire are long gone, and even at its height, as has been noted, "it was neither particularly Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire".
Not all paedophiles appear to engage in the sexual act - as we might infer from meeja reports, many seem to be lonely, possible sexually dysfunctional wannabbees who cannot have sexual relations, who simply collect pictures.
So long as they stay under the radar, most of these kind of pedos will remain undetected.
For a more representative picture of the problem I respectfully suggest anybody interested should read the SAVI Report.
http://www.oneinfour.org/uploads/savi.pdf
Most importantly, my understanding of the problem is that it is not confined to or centred on the priesthood.
The meeja, in focussing on what sells papers - abuse by and within the priesthood- have tended to ignore the more widespread sexual abuse that is associated with other professions or classes of carers or people with authority or governance over children.
In this they have done both the Church and electorate a disservice no less disgraceful than their supposed coverage of that banking crisis.
Irish swimming had several instances at the top level of the sport.
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The Gardaí are affected; -
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/excrimeline-garda-guilty--on-sex-charge-364560.html
Finally, the hardest thing for most people to accept is paedophile abuse in families, whether from family members - siblings or parents - or close relatives - uncles/aunts - or "friends" of families.
I'm not saying all this to defend or excuse the Catholic Church in Ireland, its adherents or supporters who engaged in child sexual abuse.
But when one poster says "what culture of paedophilia?" you have to wonder with all these reports and meeja revelation how they cannot see the situation.
ONQ.