Saltpetre, you're right, I do get sad when I hear about clerics sexually molesting little children and young people.

It seems the worst evil to me, the fact that clerics who are supposed to be living lives without sin are in fact preying on the young.

I suppose when you read stories about people who were molested and destroyed by religious molesters, you just close your tiny mind and pretend it doesn't happen or, if it did, the person really didn't mean to do any harm.

I say 'bollocks' to such rubbish. People who hide their evil under clerical robes are the the most evil of all and should receive the harshest of penalties!

David G,

>People who hide their evil under clerical robes are the the most evil of all and should receive the harshest of penalties!<

I fully agree, it is abhorrent, and rightly to be condemned in the harshest and most virulent terms; but it is wrong to tar all with the same brush, for surely such predators are very greatly in the minority, and there are so very many who give long and totally unblemished service to their constituencies and beyond.

I don't know how such predators manage to get themselves into any position of authority, with access to young, innocent, vulnerable children, and this rightly needs to be fully investigated - both to bring such predators to justice and to preclude any further intrusion of the likes of these into any areas of church activity.

Much as I feel sorry for anyone suffering such forms of mental disturbance as would lead them to prey upon the young or the old, the weak, the vulnerable, be it in religious service, hospitals, nursing homes, orphanages, prisons, or so many other avenues providing a guise of authority - and would hope they could seek help to deal with their problem - the law must still be brought to bear with haste and precision. There should be no place for them in any position of authority.

That said, we cannot condemn the whole of the police service because of an occasional bent copper, nor the whole of the defence forces because of the presence of some sexual predators in their midst, or because of some moronic and misguided induction procedures. It is the ratbags who need to be weeded out and punished, to cleanse and restore the overall service to required standards of health, reliability and service to the community. Francis has such a role in the Catholic Church, would that all others were similarly so fully committed.

Two lions meet.

Asks one lion: how come you are so fat and healthy while I am so skinny and miserable?
Answered the other lion: well, there's this high-rise building in town, a government-department of a sort, I made a habit of going there every day and having two employees for lunch. Nobody ever noticed.

A year later they meet again.

Asks the first lion: how come you were so fat last year and now you are skin-and-bones, lame and scratched all over?
Answered the second: I made a terrible mistake - one day I ate the tea lady!

Similarly as soon as it were Catholic priests who've been involved in paedophilia, people started to feverishly care about child-abuse: thanks to eating the tea-lady, thousands of public-servants were saved; thanks to paedophiles being members of the clergy, thousands of children were saved. Had they instead been for example union officials, paedophilia would still be socially acceptable.