Yuyutsu
Bad logic. Is being a shark the same as being a pedophile? If smallpox virus is killed do you protect it?

" Are you aware that victims of child-sexual-abuse are already prevented from receiving counselling and other therapies if they want to keep what happened to them secret and not reported to the state? "
Well yes medical treatment is optional not forced onto patients (Hippocratic oath) . Sex abuse is a crime , avoiding adult head-games is not . Force on the child was the issue in the first place.

Dearest Foxy,

Far be it for me, an atheist with - if anything - a Proddy background, to stick up for the Catholic Church, but it does seem to me that the major issues are how institutions can avoid the possibilities for child abuse as much as possible by establishing procedures, staffing, surveillance, etc. so that as few children as possible (ideally, none) can be harmed.

Certainly victims should be compensated, but if we really want an end to such abuse, surely we have to make sure that institutions of all sorts, religious, government, whatever, have proper procedures in place to ensure (as much as possible) that abuses don't recur ?

Love,

Joe

Dear Nick,

«Bad logic. Is being a shark the same as being a pedophile? If smallpox virus is killed do you protect it?»

It is quite possible and not otherworldly for some future (likely right-wing anti-environmentalist) government to be treating sharks similar to the way current government treat paedophiles and smallpox, or like the Nazis treated Jews and Gypsies.

If you are not a Greenie, then you may not be concerned, but I suggest that you should be because some other future government could be treating YOU like current government treats paedophiles or smallpox.

Anyway, my concern at this time was not about paedophiles, sharks or smallpox, but about people being forced to report them, possibly against all that is sacred to them.

And BTW, I would never be reporting anyone to the state-authorities, for anything, if it means that they would be jailed as a result: it would indeed be stupid on my behalf to do so, because if I acquire the karma of causing my fellow-being to be jailed, then eventually I would need to pay for it by being incarcerated myself. Damned to be imprisoned either way, I would say 'No' to this continued and cruel vicious cycle.

«Well yes medical treatment is optional not forced onto patients»

My complaint was actually about the opposite: there are those who do want a medical or other therapeutic treatment, but wouldn't go there because they know that the doctor/therapist/teacher would be legally obliged to report the case to the police, so they just choose to go without the treatment - victims are not relieved of their trauma and perpetrators are not relieved of their sexual-addictions. Wonderful result, you think?

"YOU like current government treats paedophiles or smallpox"
Our council chucks my plastic in a truck and dumps it in blow-fly central. I will refuse them having my refuse if they are going to treat me and yuyutsu that way. Join the smallpox liberation temple.

A kid can ask for treatment for pedophilitis . Who is going to demand names and addresses from her if she refuses ? There is no Medibank gap for torture and confession by the rack or screws on kids. The confession booth is sacred for clergy power over hell-destiny and protecting baddies. Strange that benefits of confession produce 20% abusive clergy who don't see kids' lives as sacred.

Dear Joe,

There are serious challenges facing the Catholic
Church in Australia. Without being apocalyptic
there is evidence of declining full-time personel
to celebrate the routine ballast of the Church:
its irreplaceable ritual life, the aging of priests,
the lack of new candidates, the resistance of drawing
back married, ordained men, the sheer-size of
Australian dioceses- and the controversy of child
sexual abuse. All these devastating facts amount to a
perfect storm on the pretty-close horizon. Yet
inducing hopelessness is not I imagine the aim of the
Vatican or the Pope in Rome, though I imagine that they
do realise that it is about ten minutes to midnight
and something must be done.

There is a window of opportunity in which the Church
can be re-invigorated as a vital backdrop to
contemporary Australian life. Other churches in other
regions throughout history, for example, North Africa,
have simply dwindled into irrelevance. It could
happen here as well. If the Church in this country is to
remain a precious jewel in everyday life, it needs to
make changes. And that as we know is easier said than
done.

However I look to the future with hope that things will
change that Catholicism in Australia will survive. But
to achieve that Catholics will require genuine local
leadership and the willingness to confront both the
difficulties and opportunities that the church faces.
We can only trust and hope that the Church will be able to
do precisely that.

Happy Christmas With Best Wishes
For All of You at this lovely season
And All The Very Best for the New Year 2018!