March 28, 2010
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Should the Pope Resign?
Here is the link: Link
If the Pope allowed a priest to remain a priest after he molested multiple boys, should the Pope resign?
Here is the link: Link
If the Pope allowed a priest to remain a priest after he molested multiple boys, should the Pope resign?
Comments (80)
i think so, yes. the priest should have been defrocked and sent to prison. i dont care how old and weak he was or how catholic he was. people are ridiculous.
I have no opinion, honestly. Not Catholic. Not even Christian. So, this is of no consequence to me one way or the other. Though I have to say that sweeping all that molestation under the rug, as the Catholic church tends to do, is a bunch of bullshit.
Ugh all that shit disgusts me.
Yes definitely! I don’t like what he has done, when it was under his control. So how can one expect him to do the right thing now, when he didn’t stand by those children then?
Yes.
Fuck the pope!
*Sigh…* Whatever…
Yes.
You got me curious about papal resignations. Popes can’t be forced to resign; it has to be voluntary. The last time it happened was 600 years ago. And that’s your history lesson for today.
The Antichrist should resign? He’s just doing his job!
oh, but, isn’t the pope infallible?
That’s like allowing our President to declare war without permission from congress. We’d never let that kinda thing happen here in America now would we… oh… wait…
Yes, and take the candy for the boys out of the pope mobile
aren’t most priests, including the pope, of the homosexual persuasion?
No, this recent scandal was old dirt that’s been dug up before he was even pope. He should, however, make ratifications for the revelation.
Remember, if the Popemobile is rockin’, don’t come a-knockin’.
There shouldn’t be popes. Period. Besides, aren’t they supposed to take a vow of poverty?
Ahh well maybe if it happened when he was in office(if that is how you say it).
Yes he should! I am appalled at what I heard. I was raised Catholic and even though I was not molested by a priest, there was a priest who would constantly touch me when he talked to me. It was very uncomfortable but it wasn’t something I couldn’t get over. Later the church got rid of him for supposedly stealing money from our church.I feel for those who have been in that situation. It’s sick and it’s a shame you can’t even trust men who call themselves “men of God”.
The pope would retire. That what old folks do when they are forced to quit working.
You know, it might be because I’m being a tad biased here but Yes, I think he should. – Maybe not entirely because of the situations happening currently but I find him creepy looking! o.0
We’re a couple centuries out of date, people, if we have relatively rational and logical people listening to the directions of an old man halfway around the globe just because their upbringing tells them to do so.
..and said old man is defending pedophiles while claiming infallibility. And looks really evil looking while he’s at it.
nah
It’s an internal thing for the Catholics, but it’s an INFERNAL thing to me. He may be Pope Benedict now, but he failed as just plain Joe Ratzinger. Germans, like Americans, are required by law to report child abuse to the police.
He may skate, because of the Statute of Limitations, but the victims are scarred for life. Besides, he’s entitled to a pension, and he’s 86.If a pope is actually even NEEDED by a literate community of faith, get someone who’s halfway clean.
I would think so. The endless stream of child molestations by priests is sickening and I remain appalled at how all these cases that are just coming to light were swept under the rug for so long. How many more children would have been abused in this manner without anyone doing anything to defend them?
shakes head
Yes.
Unacceptable. The Vatican needs an overhaul.
The Catholic church as a whole should call it quits.
@Chinese_Sait0u - Bingo!
NO POPE! HUZZZZZAH!
I’m not Catholic but don’t think it’s right to let child molesters continue to be priests… As for the pope resigning, it’s the Catholic church’s call, not ours. I do think they need to do some serious cleaning house.
If he has any dignity left in him, yes he should resign.
is there such a thing as ‘resigning’ for a Pope?
just wondering.
I believe the College of Cardinals has the authority excommunicate him… I don’t recall if it’s ever been done…?
Think of it this way. Martin Luther was excommunicated for claiming Christs merit was the only merit given to a sinner in order to be justified. Was the sin of these men greater?
Molesting a child is, in my opinion, the worse “sin” you can commit. It’s the sin of sins. Hell, I’m not even religious, but that’s absolutely disgusting that they kept the bastard around. I just find it odd, you know, that this priest molested multiple boys, yet, there is still this whole bickering over gay rights. But hey, we can allow a priest to molest children and allow him to still be a priest, but we won’t allow same sex marriage. Anyone see the logic behind this? I mean, these are CHILDREN who more then likely trusted this man because he, more or less, works for the Big Man.
I’m really looking forward to this 2012 business. Because honestly, human beings are down right stupid.
resign? hahahaha,,, is a murderer,, or a bank robber allowed to resign from his evil ways and walk away? should anything that becomes of them be an option left up to them? hahahahahaha
@saintvi - Nice history lesson. I appreciate it if nothing else. :0)
@saintvi - I was wondering about that. Thanks!
I have no clue, but I’ve never liked this Pope.
Well after feeding lies to millions of people and having child molesters on board surely doesn’t help his resume…
Lets just send Obama to go arrest him, that way we get rid of the pope and finally put to rest this anti-christ thig. Better to have a definite answer than speculation
!
To those who know to do right, and do it not, it is counted as sin.
The Roman Catholic church has a long-standing tradition of reigning over secular powers as well as religious powers. If a commoner breaks the law, then secular law enforcement takes over. However, a priest is above the secular law and is under jurisdiction of the Church. It has been like this for over 1500 years. If a priest breaks the secular law and molests a child, it is not between him and the government. The secular government has no say in the Church’s affairs regarding its priests and the laws they break. The Church will take care of the matter (or so they claim).
Yes, the current pope should step down. I know many believe in the infallibility of the pope, however this one enabled priests who were sinning to continue in their ways in an unrepentant state. He failed to see justice done on behalf of the youth who were molested, he failed to see the wicked punished, and by doing so has become a partaker in the sins of those he was responsible for. The pope is as fallible as any man.
Hell yes he should! Shit like this is the reason why I don’t go to church…i have better things to do than sit there forever while some pedophile talks endlessly about how I should live my life!
No question, I think. Yes, definitely.
Of course.
But isn’t the Pope supposed to be the infallible mouthpiece of God or something like that? So admitting to a mistake [or genuine evil] like that would discredit Catholicism in a big way or at the very least discourage many believers.
Or is he only holy after he is ordained?
I don’t know or understand enough about Catholicism.
As with anything it should be proven before hanging anyone out to dry. That being said if true then the price should be paid by anyone in any position.
SIGH! Idk.
As a Catholic, I am disgusted and ashamed.
The Church needs a massive fucking overhaul, before they lose the whole of generations X and Y, who won’t stand for this rubbish.
I dunno. The police chief lets cops stay on the force after KILLING people “justifiably”. I think the pope gets a pass on this one.
I would say yes
Yes. I can’t believe that the priest wasn’t condemned by the Pope! Well, actually, I can already guess his defence for the priest: his crimes didn’t break any of Aquinas’ Primary Precepts of Natural Law :/
Yes. It was a terrible decision that was made and it can’t be ignored.
Hard question to answer but I think every priest. bishop or whatever needs to be investigated and gotten rid of if they are guilty, including the Pope is he has ever molested a child. One thing that makes me angry is that they include rape under the term molestion-rape is rape. Anyone who inappropriately touches a child needs to be punished and not just a hand slapped.
Uhm, yeah. He’s supposed to be some kind of religious idol, right? So then why the fuck is he allowing sick shit like this to happen? Asshole.
Oh depravity, how do you always seems to surprise us all??
I don’t think the man being a priest should’ve mattered. If anyone else molests little boys, they get thrown in jail. Priests shouldn’t be any different. I don’t think the Pope should’ve let them off the hook in the first place, but if he does, he should definitely resign, in my opinion.
well the pope didnt do it himself.
No. The problem is systemic and not just with one person. So, if the Pope were to resign, this doesn’t mean that the abuses will suddenly end. This sort of abuse predated this Pope and, probably and sadly, will outlast him. At least the scandal will. People want the dilemma of sex abuse by priests to end. One pope resigning will not resolve this atrocity. Sex abuse appears to have been a long-standing problem during which several popes have been elected and succeeded by others. Still, the problem has persisted. Also, it seems that the problem has been more with people further down the hierarchy covering up sex abuse rather than with the upper echelons of the Roman Catholic Church doing so. If that’s the case, that’s where the serious housekeeping should start taking place. Nevertheless, this is a serious problem that won’t be cured by the resignation of the current Pope. It will take time and a fundamental shift by the Church in how it is going to handle such abuse.
Yes. Fucking Antichrist.
Dear Dan,
Get better readers.
God bless,
Greggory
I was raised Catholic and went to a private Catholic school…the church has greatly disappointed me and this situation with Pope Benedict XI is yet another indicator of the corruption that man brings to everything.
No. He was just standing behind his people like any good manager would do. Maybe you godless pigs don’t get it but there’s something called loyalty that the rest of us hold dear.
Scumbags of this nature shouldn’t walk free, much less wield that much power.
The whole idea of him being HOLY is kind of destroyed by his tolerance of such a despicable thing, don’t you think?
Yes, an African American Christian…
You have to wonder, why didn’t God do anything about it?
@kinjion -
Dear Greggory,
Go fuck yourself.
Sincerely,
Smokey
I hate to burst all of your self-righteous bubbles, but the Catholic Church is not, has never been, and never will be a democracy. There is no resignation for the Pope; he’s the Vicar of Christ on Earth, and you can’t just resign. The cardinals can’t just hold a vote to get him out of office; it doesn’t happen that way. Sorry for informing you of this…actually, no I’m not.
Anyway, if this is the same sex scandal I think it is, it originally occurred in the 1950s, but the parents didn’t file suit until the 1970s (that’s 20 years, folks…you’d think the suit would have been filed earlier, right?J). Pope John Paul II didn’t find out about it until 1998, and by that time, the priest who was originally involved in the scandal was dead. And FYI: Pope Benedict DID mention this abuse recently when he was in Ireland. He has apologized. He’s going to look into the matter. What more do you want from the Holy Father?
I’m so sick and tired of people squawking about stuff they either don’t or don’t want to understand about the Church…
I cannot speak for the Catholic Church, but I do believe lessons have been learned by mistakes, even horrible mistakes, made in the past. Years ago, people often ignored abuse allegations. Thankfully, things have changed for the better regarding that.
Regardless, I think he will resign soon enough. He ain’t no spring chicken.
I think yes!
It shows how corrupt and wrong the Catholic community is.
I mean people won’t let Prop 8 pass because they think Gays are bad and against God’s will, I think molesting littleboys and to still have a title of a faithful worker to Jesus is even worse off!
Oh god! I imagine what my friend might’ve gone through if they had pedo priests at their churches during confession week or just in general.
Just disgusting.
@PervyPenguin - Yeah, I thought the same thing. Right now, they are about the richest bastards in the world.
Better question:
If the Pope was a Nazi and contributed to the deaths of thousands of innocent people, should he ever have been appointed in the first place?
is the pope catholic? I’m catholic and I don’t think he can resign -has to die first
Yes.
I think so. I said yes he should go to jail.
No, he should not. He should be more forthcoming about his own mistakes and ask forgiveness for those mistakes from the Church as a whole. But he most certainly should not resign, for this or any other such reason. Let me explain:
In the first place, the pope is not some merely political office such as the President of the United States. The office of pope- or Bishop of Rome, or Successor of St. Peter, or Vicar of Christ- (insert your favorite title here) is a sacred trust that ought to be carried out as long as the office holder is able to do so. The pope is not chosen to be popular or look good on television or promote a particular agenda; the pope is chosen to lead the Church with the wisdom that he has acquired and with the grace imparted by the Holy Spirit. Now, one way that people often obtain wisdom is through their mistakes- and so to think that a pope ought to resign because of mistakes he has made is not to understand the nature of that office. And yet one major responsibility of the pope is to recognize his mistakes and deal with them- infallibility does not mean (and has never meant) that the pope is not a man and does sin or make mistakes in his judgment. It merely means that, when it comes down to a crucial question of doctrine that is to be formally defined through his office, the pope is able to be preserved from error as the spokesman of the infallibility that the whole Church possesses.
In the second place, to my knowledge, Pope Benedict XVI has not yet publicly admitted (or even directly addressed) his own failures with regard to this issue. I would like to hope that he recognizes his mistakes privately and has simply not admitted his mistakes publicly out of concern that people who do not understand the responsibilities of the pope (such as, it seems, most of you) will assume that any admission of failure should result in his resignation. I am more concerned that he may be unwilling to recognize his possible mistakes at all- but, in that instance, my concern is more for the problems that would pose to his own spiritual life (as well as the great loss in popular “moral authority” that may result and has already resulted) than it is for his actual authority as pope. And he will remain pope, with all the genuine authority that entails, whether you like him or not- or even acknowledge that he possesses it.
In the third place, there is no question that the activity of which those pedophile priests were guilty was both heinous and utterly reprehensible. The Catholic Church will look with shame upon this period of her history until the end of time. There is also, however, no question that the first person in the Vatican to recognize that this situation was far more serious than was commonly thought (at least among those in the Vatican) was Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. It took the American scandals to bring it to light- and it took Ratzinger a long time by our standards to figure out what a terrible problem it was- but the whole Vatican had a very misguided notion of this problem, based on psychological studies that had helped to set Church policy on such matters decades earlier as well as older (largely Italian cultural) predisposition to regard sexual matters such as this as both private and relatively inconsequential. The fact that, slowly, the CDF became the location where these issues were handled and from which new policies began to develop were due more to Ratzinger’s own insights and efforts than is commonly realized.
That being said, let me answer several earlier comments with some additional comments of my own:
1. Whatever you may like to believe, Catholicism has always been very clear about one thing: People sin and no one is perfect (except, of course, for our Lord and, to a lesser extent, His mother). Although the Catholic Church has traditionally honored and promoted the holiness of her great saints, she has always recognized that sinfulness is a part of the human condition and that the members of the Church are not exempt from this. The goal is holiness- but sinfulness is the norm for most all of us. The Church is intended to be the hospital for sinners not a sect for saints and, although human beings were created good and in the image and likeness of God, we have fallen to a state in which that image is often hard to recognize and acknowledge.
2. Traditionally, as a result of this view of the human person, the Church thinks in terms of sin, not of crime- and in terms of forgiveness, not of punishment. That may strike you as absurd- the Gospel often seems absurd- but that is how the Church thinks, historically. This is the reason why, in the Late Middle Ages, people with sufficient political power would often attempt to have their trials moved to religious courts (aka “Inquisition courts”) rather than royal courts- because the Inquisition was substantially less likely to torture and execute than the king was (popular myths to the contrary). The result is that it is, sadly, not particularly surprising that Bishops routinely did not report cases of abuse- because they don’t think of their responsibilities in terms of reporting to civil authorities but in terms of helping sinners to overcome their sins. We all wish that it had been different- but to not recognize that the very way of seeing that make one a good priest might also make one a poor administrator in a context such of as this is simply not to think about the situation very carefully.
3. For much of the twentieth century, psychological profiles/theories regarding pedophilia did not see it as we do today. It was commonly thought (based on the now outdated research of psychological experts) that the activity of a pedophile had to do with a single relationship and that to severe such a relationship was to severe the likelihood of relapse. We no longer think that today- but to accuse people of moral failure based on bad science (which, to at least some degree, is what is going on here) is once again to not look at the situation carefully. There has also, historically, not been the kind of concern with (or even consciousness of) long term psychological trauma, which we now take for granted in such cases, as there is today. Finally, as hard as it is to imagine, the kind of horror which we almost universally have of pedophilia was far less even two generations ago in America, when it was more often seen as a distasteful practice than as a severe moral failing. I know- this is particularly shocking to all of us now- but our views as a society have substantially changed and it shows historical and psychological ignorance not to recognize that Ratzinger and other cardinals of his age would have the same kind of backwardness on this issue that my 91 year old grandfather still has on race relations (which is a constant embarrassment to my family in public but is beyond possible correction). I’m not trying to excuse Ratzinger’s poor judgment- merely to contextualize it and so render it comprehensible.
4. Is it more illogical to have some confidence in the ultimate wisdom of an institution that can trace its history back two thousand years – or to believe a news organization that has a very real stake in certain political agendas when it claims to be “fair and balanced?”
5. Whatever you may think about the Catholic Church, I am convinced that the level of secret and unreported molestations that go on behind closed doors in our country every day dwarfs anything that the Catholic Church has done or will ever do. I’ve just known too many people- male and female- who were molested by close friends or family members that they trusted- and I suspect that most all of us know a lot more people who have been molested but whom we will never know about because they will never tell us or anyone else. This kind of crime isn’t a Catholic problem, uniquely- I think it is based more on the way that we as a culture worship youth. Yes, many priests were guilty of these things and many bishops were guilty of covering them up. And hopefully the Catholic Church will learn from these revelations so that future horrible situations are corrected as quickly as possible. But the problem isn’t going to go away because sin won’t. All we can hope for is that future cases will be handled with greater wisdom.
6. If you’ve read this far, I thank you for reading my post and being willing to think about my point of view. If you have not read this far, then I think you have shown your interest in actually understanding (and helping to constructively solve this problem) rather than simply judging the situation from afar without thinking it through carefully, to be relatively small.
Matthew G. Minix
melchizedek137@yahoo.com
I’m not sure the Pope is the real problem, the system of having some people be considered “holier” than others seems like it would naturally lead to these kinds of problems.
Onlly if it was this Pope who allowed the molestations to continue. If he is the one who allowed it to continue, then he, the preist who did the molesting, and any other pervert within the Catholic religion that had knowledge, but didn’t try to stop it — should all be taken out, lined up, and stoned to death like they did in the Bible days.
What does POPE stand for?
Protection of Paedophiles Executive.