Belly,

Saying sorry cannot undo any evil.

Fundies still with a faith like to tell everybody about losing the burden of sin upon accepting Jesus. Confession is like doing this after every slip up. It can help people to walk on the straight and narrow if they feel that their mistakes are set aside cf. identifying with past behaviour. I'll try an analogy. Two people have avoided overeating for months. Then Easter comes around and they pig out on easter eggs. One says "I have blown my diet" and overeats from then on. The other person accepts overeating as past of Easter which ends with Easter and they continue being disciplined. All things being equal the first person will be less healthy because they didn't just put things behind them. They have both 'sinned' equally but psychologically viewing the problem as something in the past leads to desirable future behaviour.

Only God and the perpetrators know but my suspicion is that you are correct that the perpetrators aren't believers.

"Or that a God would forgive this."
Again from a Christian perspective only God judges people's souls but theoretically anything can be forgiven. If it gives cognitive comfort...if only some things were forgiven how could a line be drawn? You are operating on the basis of some sins being forgiveable and some not so following through presumably a line would need to be drawn. Imagine two people almost identically sinful and both repentent. One had been a tiny bit more sinful thus putting them over the line. Would that make sense to you?

Even if you did believe in God I don't understand why the characteristics of a God would be determined by you (you seem to imply that you wouldn't believe in a God unless they were exactly like you wanted). Surely only a God could logically design a God(assuming standard concepts of same being an omnipotent being who is presumably a lot cleverer than us and can understand things a lot better).

Dr Paul Collins tells us in his book,
"Believers: Does Australian Catholicism have
a future?" that:

"... the Catholic church is in a prison...It
constructed the prison for itself, locked
itself in and threw away the key.
That prison is the prison of not being able
to be wrong... Far too often the Catholic
church believed that it had such a level of
divine guidance that it did not need the right
to be wrong ... even when clear evidence emerges
that earlier decisions were conditioned by their
own time and that the arguments for them are not as
strong as they were once thought to be..."

This imprisonment in the past has been reinforced by
the doctrine of infallibility, which also conveys a
sense that the church can never be wrong.

It's this that the church needs to confront. Especially
today with its current problems.

That's why mjpb's post are helpful in pointing out
church history that not only reveals the depths to which
the Church has sunk and still survived but also it
shows the church's high points as well.

As Dr Collins tells us:

"Historically Catholicism has shown a great ability to
survive crises of all sorts, including its self-inflicted
problems and stupidity. The paradox is that while tearing
out its hair in frustration, many have stayed, simply
because they feel at home in a church that is such a
scarred institution..."

Ultimately I'm still optimisitc that it's not too late.
The church has to seize the opportunity that this latest
crisis of decision is giving them. It needs to admit
its mistakes and correct them - do the hard yards.
Otherwise it will come across as being peopled by
stern autocrats. Not the church of God - but the church
of ruthless and ambitious men.

mjpb, have you seen any material on how long priests (monk's, nun's etc) have typically been in the church before the earliest known offenses? That's not something I have seen but it could be relevant in understanding the issue better.

I assume that most would have a number of years of training and close supervision before they are in roles which provide easy unsupervised access to children. They would also have to deal with the possibility that they won't be assigned to a role which gives that access and that those in authority over them would not take their responsibilities seriously.

Choosing the priesthood (or similar) as a means to get access to children seems to be a slow and risky proposition.

I do think that the strength of identification with a specific sexual orientation varies amongst people. For some it appears to be very much situational, for others it's very strong. Some of that is genetic, some cultural. For some being in a situation where their nominal orientation is not available means a shift to something else. There will be others who take whatever they can get regardless of the availability of their nominal preference.

R0bert

Suzieonline and Jack from Bricton,

When I was kid it was pointed out me that one makes a "good" confession and performs genuine penance: Abusing children on Friday with prior intention of going to making Confession on Saturady would not stack-up. Although, it might make a good cover-up. As I say above, standard penance should be the pedaephile hands themselves into secular authorities to suport their act of contrition. If they, don't the Confession would not be a "good" confession.

It is not a Bishop's role to send a priest off to a psychiarist, a Court can make that assessment.

Robert I don't. However in the Murphy case the abuse was from 50s to 70s and he died from illness in 1998 without yet retiring so presumably it started early in his career in that case. That isn't a study just an isolated example. However even if a study found the same it could be confounded by presumably a higher sex drive when younger.

In those days the priests were implicity trusted. It was seen as impossible that a Catholic priest would do such a thing (as incredible as that might sound today). In some cases the victims own parents wouldn't believe them. The prospect of detection was slim and the protection afforded by that image great. Even if their bosses became aware organisations in those days typically hid problems like that so the ramifications were smaller than being out alone. In theory the Bishops should have distinguished themselves from the rest of society and taken a harder line but Vatican II was in the air and blending with the world was in fashion. In the Murphy case the victim even reported the issue to the police in the 70s and no action was taken. Admittedly the fact that paedophiles could march for equal rights and Kinsey's research on children's orgasmic responses were socially acceptable provided a further context. But presumably the fact he was a priest contributed. All those benefits would be worth waiting a few years for a paedophile.

Regarding the orientation causation thing some people exhibit a lot of flexibility with gender but does that extend to paedophilia?

Oliver,

You should have also included Belly in that as he has questioned the genuiness of the perpetrators. You have a point. Confession isn't like the Catholic jokes suggest. It doesn't sound like a genuine confession. Although I don't believe the priest hearing the confession is empowered to make that assessment.

That penance would make sense although without being in the role of priest or confessor in that situation it is hard to know what exactly occurs. On the flip side the priest hearing the confession told them to go to the police as penance they also would be gagged from saying "But I told him to go to the police as penance". Like you said good cover.

"It is not a Bishop's role to send a priest off to a psychiarist, a Court can make that assessment."

True. Of course these days psychiatrists don't claim to cure paedophiles anyway.