mjpb and Seeker have pretty well covered it Col, but Coraliz I find it a little odd that I should not love to work with these people and share their joy and achievement as well as their pain and difficulty. Resolving difficulties, your own or those of others, is not selfish, nor is it something we should regret, deny or avoid.

It is and should be able to be enjoyed, because as I have said, those who give sincerely and those who receive are equally blessed. You surely don't suggest that if I hated to be there, I would be unselfish but enjoying the 'job' automatically indicates selfish intent? Curiouser and curioser...if I disliked being there, perhaps I shouldn't be there because I wouldn't be offering much positive input would I?

As for Col's generalisations on everything - I suggest that a lesson in rational thought might be followed by a tutorial in estimation. Your assumptions that one priest was convicted of paedophilia therefore all Catholics are guilty of the same shows how small minded you really are.

The natural conclusion would be that there are anti-lifers who are guilty of paedophilia therefore all anti-lifers are paedophiles.

Further, as anti-lifers support the barbaric killing of unborn babies by mutilation therefore all anti-lifers support mutilation and killing of any humans...do you get the point, Col?

Try to get some help with your Catholic issues. You need to get out more and meet some of us, broaden your mind and live a little or some anti-lifer might think your quality of life is diminished.

Nevermind Meg, you are making my example of altruism into much more then was intended by me so I will leave it there, suffice to say that I was originally giving an example of moral judgements frequently being motivated by selfishnesss. Selfishness is not always a negative thing and to elaborate entirely on these points to enable you full understanding of what I intended cannot be achieved in 350 words. I wish you well.

Seeker, I have no fantasies about Catholic Priests, the nearest to such would be just darkened and cloudy images from a horror movie of the perverted abusing the innocent.

Meg1 “As for Col's generalisations on everything” - oh more of your “trollisms”

There is nothing “generalised” in the specific statement

“Every person should have sovereignty over their own body”

That is what pro-choice is. The woman does not have her body on lease from the foetus or the church, therefore she need not feel obligated to put the considerations of either above her own

and that is not “selfishness”

it is “self-respect”.


Oh and your attempt to “make small” of paedophile priests

– the whole issue, like most things that end up in the public arenas and embarrass a power elite, is like an iceberg.


Most of the horror of priestly abuse is lost in time and in cover-ups. What we see publicly is but a tiny portion of the corrupt whole but what a portion it is and how offensive too. I think if the whole truth were revealed, the Church would never see even the most gullible of congregants ever again and that would, of course, include you, oh “most gullible”.

As for your suggestion “You need to get out more and meet some of us” – why would I wish to meet and mix with those who would rant on with their demented gibberish, condemn me for my views, excommunicate me or in years past burn me as a heretic?

Col the word limit is 350 and background is important. In your article the lawyers against priests naturally represented things in a certain way but the article admitted the find wasn’t a “smoking gun”.

“Which part of the systematic cover-up of the actions of paedophile priests do you want to deny?”

The part of the ‘cover-up’ that is the rumours about a malicious cover up.

Since about the 60s things changed in some parts of the Church including an openness to secular opinion that didn’t exist previously. Try to get counselling from a priest now and they will probably refer you to a psychologist. The secular advice in the 60s and 70s in cases of paedophile priests was to deal with the issue privately and quietly as any openness was considered dangerous for the children concerned. There was also a belief that instead of being sinners the paedophiles could be cured and disciplined and then sent elsewhere to carry out good work without reputation problems hampering their work after they had been cured. This misguided approach had disastrous consequences in an occupation of trust.

Dr Kinsey founder of the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction had studied child sexuality including data obtained from the diaries of a “Mr. X”, who claimed to have engaged in hundreds of acts of incest and child molestion described in explicit detail. This ‘respectable’ portrayal of children as sexual and ‘respectable’ reporting of adult child sex softened the attitude toward paedophiles and the (at the time) developing branch of psychology ‘behavioural therapy’ viewed behaviour as learnt thus helping overturn Freud’s view that paedophilia is unresponsive to treatment. Although the atmosphere was positive there was a failure to subject the ‘treatments’ to specific empirical evaluation.

Psychological opinion changed in the 1980s and openness was considered the correct approach. Unfortunately media sensationalism created an image that the earlier well intentioned privacy policy for the protection of children and treatment for the protection of future children was some type of conspiracy rather than the bumbling misguided but well intentioned approach that it was.

The Semantics Of Abortion. to abort means to put an end to something before it's process is complete. one might say 'end' or one might say 'murder'. Catholics tend to say 'murder', and this could be why this forum has gotten off topic and onto
'Catholics? Let's Give Em An Inquisition Of Their Own.
The Semantics Of Inquisition. well you could say 'inquiry' or MURDER'.
I like it both ways. Like Catholics do.

Sorry Col,

I meant fanaticising not fantasising (damn my gullible reliance on spell checkers) … but now that you have revealed one of your fantasies, I’ll just have to repeat my earlier comment: not healthy (;-).