Foxy, I did read the whole article in that website.
I also looked at the authors and the organisation called CMI who 'looked into' the situation. Here is their mission statement:

"The mission of the Culture and Media Institute (CMI) is to preserve and help restore America’s culture, character, traditional values, and morals against the assault of the liberal media elite, and to promote fair portrayal of social conservatives and religious believers in the media.
CMI, the cultural division of the Media Research Center, is dedicated to correcting misconceptions in the media about social conservatism and religious faith."

I am quite skeptical about that obviously biased site I'm afraid.
The above mission statement could also be included in a Ku Klux Clan or Scientology mission statement quite comfortably.

If Proxy is happy with it- then I rest my case!

The issue with what the pope is guilty of is the covering up and protecting some of the worst offenders. If any Western leader had been found guilty of the same, their political careers would be very short.

For example Kurt Waldheim, then president of Austria, was found to have links with the Nazi army after a forced conscription, and was banned from travel to the US.

Making this worse is Western leaders while needing to keep a clean image, do not pretend to be the pinnacle of morality.

What is happening is that the world's eyes are opening and "the pope has no clothes"

Dear Suze,

Biases can come from all directions can't they,
including newspapers and TV networks?

I read the mission statement of the website as
well - however, I still thought the facts that
were presented were worth mentioning - to give
another perspective to the issues involved.

Nothing is ever black and white. And until ALL
the facts are fully disclosed its very easy to
jump onto the bandwagon and make judgements.
Especially when the past record has been so
atrocious. As another poster stated once on
another thread, we need to look not only on
one side and the other, but around the edges as
well.

Anyway, that's only my point of view - and of course,
it's not set in concrete.

One has to ask why successive Popes have not been as opposed to paedophiles as they have been to (say) condoms or birth control.

Over the years I have heard many allegations of cruelty and sexual molestation of children against certain Orders of the (Roman) Catholic Church and these complaints lead me to wonder if such behaviour was/is systemic in some Orders.

Allegations are often heard concerning Christian Brothers for instance. Similarly one of the Orders of nuns comes up quite often mainly with allegations of cruelty but of sexual molestation as well. It is no surprise though that women who were affected as children are reluctant to come forward.

The Catholic Church is doing well with its spin and through efforts of its embarrassed flock to confine the discussion to 'unfortunate acts, long ago, of a random few priests'. Frankly I find it very hard to believe that.

IMHO, all that has reduced the number of complaints is that there are now large numbers of lay people involved in Catholic schools and so on. However the involvement of lay people was through necessity - a dearth of religious people to recruit as clergy and nuns - and if the Pope and priests had their way it would still be a closed system and the incidence of sexual molestation would escalate.

Should the Pope be allowed in Australia? My heart says no, but diplomacy means continuing to deal with despots and tyrants in the hope that one day either they might change or their people might rise up against them (yes, present-day children are not quite so brainwashed in Catholicism as in days past).

The Pope is a dope... but then so are the mugs who keep clinging to the Vatican belief system, and supporting dopes like the Pope.

Why do gay and lesbian people persist with their support for the Vatican, when they are clearly loathed and despised...unless they are clergy of course, in which case they are tolerated, supported, hidden from view and promoted.

Why do women who want to become Catholic priests persist with their support, when the Vatican clearly despises them and their ambitions?

Why do couples who refuse to follow the edict to not use contraception bother with continuing their sham membership of this outdated horrible empire?

By all means, let's ban this Sodom and Gomorrah supporting character, and all other religious nitwits that try to impose themselves on us all, but that might be seen to be 'censorship' and opposed by many.

Better than banning him, and his ilk, why not ask his blind followers to send him a very clear message, by abandoning all their churches, stopping their tithing, and withdrawing their support when they are clearly 'in breach' of what the Vatican stands for.

It is the blindness of the followers that allows all this to keep going.

Abandon ship, you blind people, and you will find there still exists an entire world of decent people ready to help.

These, invariably, do not seem to include Australian politicians, but there may be one or two lurking silently in the background, too scared to own up to a contrary view.

I doubt it myself, but there may be.

Perhaps others can name one or two and we can start to build an OLO list of 'honest Pollies'?

Shouldn't take too long.

Thanks Foxy. I am embarassed to admit that I knew that the Pope's office waived reliance on the statute of limitations in the Murphy case. I didn't think of that in my earlier posts when I was pointing out his real history cf. speculation and that is a very significant fact.

I think a quote from your website is a good summary:
"He has been most reactive and proactive of any international church official in history with regard to the scourge of clergy sexual abuse of minors. Instead of blaming him for inaction on these matters, he has truly been a strong and effective leader on these issues."

You'd almost think that the media are paedophiles who hate him for what he has done to make such huge inroads into the problem given the timing but I'm certain that they are displeased for other reasons.

I can't help thinking that many in here should just say "why let the facts get in the way of a good story"? Media speculation becomes fact even to the point of assumed criminal culpability.

You made reference to the presumption that most media comment is reliable but your website may be biased can cut both ways. Noone has questioned the motivation of Hitchens and Dawkins for airing the view that the Pope can be prosecuted either? Is it possible they might be being optimistic knowing that whether or not it is possible the media will go wild reporting that the lawyer they are paying says it might be possible?