"When you have a church organisation that mandates celibacy, like the Catholic Church, it's necessary to institute laws within the organisation to counter the abuses that arise."

What an ignorant comment! What has celibacy got to do with pedophelia?
Pedophelia has nothing to do with sex. I suppose if all men were married they wouldn't rape either? The most sexual abuse happens in the home where married men abuse their own children. It is all about access to children.

phanto,

"What an ignorant comment! What has celibacy got to do with pedophelia?"

Says the guy who's been busy on another thread blaming parents for the fact that their children were abused in institutions such as schools and church organisations.

Further to that, phanto claims institutions such as schools and church organisations have "no duty of care" to the children in their care.

The Catholic Church - a church which mandates celibacy - has had particular problems with child abuse in its ranks - thus emerging with that canon law which seeks to address paedophilia in the organisation by keeping paedophiles in house - and not booting them out.

Just for the record the Catholic Church does not require all its priests to be unmarried celibates I've known a few married priests; and a few others who weren't married but had a wife and family.

Suseonline:

“while pretending to be moral crusaders”

What difference does it make whether he is a moral crusader or not? You sound like the town gossip. “Did you hear that George Pell failed as a moral crusader? Scandalous!”

The only thing that matters here is that he be questioned about his failure to report criminal behaviour and that is the point of this discussion. It is about making sure that justice is done and nothing else.

If you have a problem with his moral behaviour then you should take it up with him. Why would you have a problem with his moral behaviour unless it affects you? His moral behaviour might be of concern for members of the church but for anyone else it is just gossip of people who have nothing better to do.

If you think that the two things are inseparable then why bring it up as an issue?

“I think there is a world of difference between a mother protecting her small family unit (if indeed that happened), and a Bishop who is aware of multiple paedophiles at work abusing kids”

So what is that difference? One person has responsibility for one person out of one and she fails her responsibility. She is a 100 per cent failure. The bishop has responsibility for thousands of people and he fails in his responsibility for a few dozen? Which way does the difference go?

Hi Phanto,

I would respectfully disagree that there is much incidence at all of fathers sexually abusing their daughters. I think that's an urban myth.

People with power over other people, especially children, may sometimes - rarely in the statistical scheme of things - abuse their power. That goes for most if not all churches, state welfare organisations, institutions, homes.

But if a carer is celibate, cannot get married, then it would be logical for a higher incidence of abuse to occur - I don't think that would be surprising. It may still be a tiny proportion of all celibate carers. As Big Nana says, the vast majority of priests and teachers in Aboriginal missions have been thoroughly decent people, and dedicated to the point of exhaustion, at least in my limited experience.

It's easy enough to tar entire groups with the brush of assertions and, in this case, anti-Catholic bias. Certainly Canon Law protecting such behaviour since the papal instructions around 1920 have probably increased the likelihood of abuse, and obviously has to be urgently brought in line with laws protecting people in care, and making it compulsory for complaints to be referred to police, and for police to investigate them.

Joe

phanto,

"If you have a problem with his moral behaviour then you should take it up with him. Why would you have a problem with his moral behaviour unless it affects you? His moral behaviour might be of concern for members of the church but for anyone else it is just gossip of people who have nothing better to do."

Believe it or not, I once considered you worthy of interaction on this forum.

However, judging by your recent posts over different threads, I've come to the conclusion that you possess some pretty wacky opinions - most of which you pull out of a hat and attempt to fashion into a parachute when your engine fails mid-debate.