What happened was that in Ireland especially you either had to get married or be a priest. Social demands were strong. If you were a homosexual and hated women then the only choice to look respectable was to be a priest. They never went in priesthood to be raving sex maniacs but to avoid that situation. However you cannot suppress male hormones as we all know.

Moving forward, now that men can remain single or even frequent happy bars without tut tuts hopefully the sexual abuse toward children will reduce.

The mental abuse though. I had the Catholic religion forced down my throat by women wearing tents and my firey irish mother. At one stage I was too scared to go to the toilet in case God was watching me. How embarassing, I mean! Not to mention the burning in hell nightmares after I stole a cookie from the cookie jar. Can I sue?

MJPB,

I can't believe that you are trying to make excuses for their behaviour. Sex with a minor when you are in a position of trust is never OK. Ask Roman Polanski.

As priests are only a tiny fraction of the population, but 9% is far higher than in the general population.

As the majority of priests are genuinely decent people, they must be suffering the most from the general perception that Catholic priest = paedophile. The trust they have had for centuries is evaporating, the churches are emptying, and they have no one to blame but themselves.

They have a relatively small window in which to repair the damage, and business as usual is not going to cut it.

TheMissus,

"Moving forward"

Moving forward and being constructive makes sense to me. But the Catholic Church needs to be consultative, listen and in sense be responsive to community needs. Something which would be to hard for the Church, after two thousand years of telling people what to do and what not to do. Bishops, I suspect, see themselves a cut above the laity. Yet, it is the laity’s Church too, and, it is they, whom have responsibility to its leaders in their place. The laity should be acting to make their church an “open operating” system. This way, the rotten wood would be exposed and disposed of.

I am not a theist but I can say if did want to reform an organisation, I would encourage my peers to join me in a protest. The current case, the problem would be, that most of the laity would see their clerics as “god substitutes”, rather than their fellows. And the clerics with the most to hide would play to that ignorance.

All,

Is not the laity just a little too lax and ready to be led? OLO Theists: Why not be a little less like flock and more like shephards occasionally? Demand change. I don't see any rational God prohibiting theists going to another domination's service, in protest, for a Month of Sundays, to help stamp-up paedophilia.

Perhaps, the Catholic Church needs to be weaned away from hierarhcy towards mutualism (with the laity) and the matrix management of the institution. Also, pseudo-deification of the clergy and the vow of oberdience would be major obstacles

runner,

The Catholic Church must uphold community standards. Any autonomy is held on the basis of achieving these standards. The community has the right same right to tell the Catholic Church "what to do" as it has the Mafia or Hell's Angels. That said, if the Church behave it should be left alone.

The Church's inaction that draws bad press to itself. It is the cover-ups and code of silence that needs to be addressed. All-in-all, the Church might have a role for theists, outside of the oft reported deeds of some (not all) of its members.

As I stated, above the Church wants to re,ain a "closed system" with the clerics in control, herein too much is kept in-house. The State needs breach its walls, to expose secular crimes.

Dear Oly,

I agree with you. A great part of the problem
is the lack of creative leadership at a diocesan
and national level, as well as from the failure of
the papacy to acknowledge the ministerial crisis
facing local churches like Australia.

The shortage of priests, the denial of the Eucharist
and sacraments to millions of Catholics, the
ministerial role of women, refusing to confront the
internal issues facing Catholicism, all have been
ignored or stymied for decades. And, it appears
that change won't come from the top. The current
pope doesn't appear to be a "progressive pope."
That's why bishops are important. But, a big
problem is that many bishops feel that their sole
responsibility is upward to Rome, because it was
the Vatican that appointed them.

However, the time for action has well and truly
arrived. I don't think it's too late for changes
to occur - Catholicism has survived because it is
adaptable and able to change but as I wrote earlier,
Catholics will need genuine local leadership and a
willingness to confront both the difficulties
and the opportunities that the church faces.

Change can and must come.

Shadow Minister,

"I can't believe that you are trying to make excuses for their behaviour. Sex with a minor when you are in a position of trust is never OK. Ask Roman Polanski."

Don't you mean therapists or something? The victim of Polanski said it was a forced rape. Independent research found about 4% of priests to be within their definition of abuse of minors. The definition did not require the priest to initiate the behaviour nor require any physical contact and was thus broader than most people's expectation if they just see the figure. I'm not saying it is okay but it is miles away from anyone's concept of child abuse. However the stuff that started off the scandal was a few paedophile priests preying on kids and that is more than not okay. That is tragic.

But it is not okay to pretend that paedophilia is a Catholic problem or the Catholic Church is the same as it was in the 60s. A surprising amount of criminal activity showed up in a Church and a multitude of actions were taken to address it. The naivity is gone and the 60s lack of transparency in any organisation is long gone. However because the Church isn't pro-abortion etc. the history is taken out of context, misrepresented and everyone with a barrow to push uses it for rhetorical advantage. Enough is enough. That is what I am saying quite firmly. I'm not making excuses for the inexcusable.

"As priests are only a tiny fraction of the population, but 9% is far higher than in the general population."

Have you considered that the book might be sensationalising? An independent study with a definition of abuse so broad as to be almost meaningless could only scrape up a 4% figure.