Australian nun canonized after being excommunicated

[SW VandeCarr]

The Roman Catholic Church has canonized Mary MacKillop after she was excommunicated by her bishop in 1871. Her crime was reporting a pedophile priest. The bishop revoked the excommunication on his deathbed five months later and restored her status as a nun. The article doesn't mention any action against the offending priest but I doubt anything was done.

I wonder about the "reasoning" that goes with this kind of abomination. One wonders how an organization that claims to be founded by an all powerful and loving God can deal with such blatant contradictions which of course continue to the present day.

Having said this, the RCC is, and has long been, involved in good works by dedicated individuals like MacKillop. What should happen to the RCC? Should people of reason abandon it and let it collapse, try to reform it, or give into the belief that the RCC really is the one true church? Does it have value as a human institution in civil society?

http://www.sfexaminer.com/world/105016634.html

EDIT: I incorrectly stated that MacKillop was raped by a priest. This was from a CNN report. The text has been edited.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The Roman Catholic Church has canonized Mary MacKillop after she was excommunicated by her bishop in 1871. Her crime was reporting a pedophile priest. The bishop revoked the excommunication on his deathbed five months later and restored her status as a nun. The article doesn't mention any action against the offending priest but I doubt anything was done.

I wonder about the "reasoning" that goes with this kind of abomination. One wonders how an organization that claims to be founded by an all powerful and loving God can deal with such blatant contradictions which of course continue to the present day.

Having said this, the RCC is, and has long been, involved in good works by dedicated individuals like MacKillop. What should happen to the RCC? Should people of reason abandon it and let it collapse, try to reform it, or give into the belief that the RCC really is the one true church? Does it have value as a human institution in civil society?

http://www.sfexaminer.com/world/105016634.html

EDIT: I incorrectly stated that MacKillop was raped by a priest. This was from a CNN report. The text has been edited.

You are asking if you should become a Catholic?? If you believe in Catholicism, then you also believe that all humans are fallible, including the Pope, so the notion that the church, meaning individuals within the church, have acted improperly, should be no great surprise. Obviously the church is acting to correct mistakes from the past.

Frankly, outsiders often have a very naive view of the church and religion. No one claims to be perfect, so no one should expect any Christian to be perfect. By definition, Christians strive to live by certain standards, but no one succeeds.

Traditionally, the church has handled problem priests internally. Perhaps not in all cases, but a problem priest could often expect to live a very difficult life. You don't mess with the Pope! I wouldn't underestimate the historical role of the church as a disciplinarian. Just because an offending priest suffered no public prosecution, the internal discipline could be just as bad as life in prison.

 

[SW VandeCarr]

You are asking if you should become a Catholic?? If you believe in Catholicism, then you also believe that all humans are fallible, including the Pope, so the notion that the church, meaning individuals within the church, have acted improperly, should be no great surprise. Obviously the church is acting to correct mistakes from the past.

Frankly, outsiders often have a very naive view of the church and religion. No one claims to be perfect, so no one should expect any Christian to be perfect. By definition, Christians strive to live by certain standards, but no one succeeds.

If we are only talking about the misdeeds of fallible individuals, I would agree with you. But were are not We are talking about an institutional problem that exists at the highest levels and has existed for a long time. By the way I'm being deferential by calling it a 'problem'. I was raised in the RCC and came to question how fallible humans could claim to know the "mind of God" and yet change the rules from time to time. Is the Pope infallible when proclaiming Church doctrine or not? If he is not infallible (and it must be a "he"), why is the RCC any different than a corporation with its corporate culture?

My question goes to the role the RCC in the modern world. It does do a lot of good, especially in third world countries. It has an important role in the inner cities of the US where IMO it provides a good alternative to failing public schools. (provided non Catholics who pay the tuition need not take religious classes). In fact, the RCC accepts biological evolution and a 4.6 billion year old earth. It has produced some of my favorite thinkers like Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.

The canonization of Mary MacKillop is a good thing as was her restoration to the church by a repentant bishop. But that was an act of a single person. Had he not done this, the institutional church would have allowed Mary MacKilliop to "burn in hell".

Perhaps I'm cynical, but I believe the current "reforms" by the RCC are motivated more by the crushing financial burden imposed by the judgments of civil courts, not to mention criminal liability that has the potential to involve Benedict XVI himself.

I don't let protestants off the hook. They claim to know the mind of God from a book, or from a preacher who tells them what the book says.

 

[Evo]

The canonization of Mary MacKillop is a good thing as was her restoration to the church by a repentant bishop. But that was an act of a single person. Had he not done this, the institutional church would have allowed Mary MacKilliop to "burn in hell".

You can't just canonize someone, they have to perform miracles, there's at least 3 important things that had to be documented while the person was alive.

As I thought, they are allowing unproven claims. Under this kind of thing anyone can become a saint. I'll bet a lot of saints are turning in their graves.

 

[Gokul43201]

You can't just canonize someone, they have to perform miracles, there's at least 3 important things that had to be documented while the person was alive.

From the article:

The Vatican agreed to a formal inquiry in 1959, a lengthy process that culminates in papal recognition of two miracles. In 1995, Pope John Paul II recognized the first: the recovery of a woman diagnosed with terminal cancer after she prayed to MacKillop. Last year, Pope Benedict XVI recognized the recovery of another woman from a similar condition as the second.​

 

[Evo]

From the article:

The Vatican agreed to a formal inquiry in 1959, a lengthy process that culminates in papal recognition of two miracles. In 1995, Pope John Paul II recognized the first: the recovery of a woman diagnosed with terminal cancer after she prayed to MacKillop. Last year, Pope Benedict XVI recognized the recovery of another woman from a similar condition as the second.​

That's what I said, they're stretching the rules far beyond what's been allowed, that wouldn't fly in the old days.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

If we are only talking about the misdeeds of fallible individuals, I would agree with you. But were are not We are talking about an institutional problem that exists at the highest levels and has existed for a long time. By the way I'm being deferential by calling it a 'problem'. I was raised in the RCC and came to question how fallible humans could claim to know the "mind of God" and yet change the rules from time to time. Is the Pope infallible when proclaiming Church doctrine or not? If he is not infallible (and it must be a "he"), why is the RCC any different than a corporation with its corporate culture?

My question goes to the role the RCC in the modern world. It does do a lot of good, especially in third world countries. It has an important role in the inner cities of the US where IMO it provides a good alternative to failing public schools. (provided non Catholics who pay the tuition need not take religious classes). In fact, the RCC accepts biological evolution and a 4.6 billion year old earth. It has produced some of my favorite thinkers like Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.

The canonization of Mary MacKillop is a good thing as was her restoration to the church by a repentant bishop. But that was an act of a single person. Had he not done this, the institutional church would have allowed Mary MacKilliop to "burn in hell".

Perhaps I'm cynical, but I believe the current "reforms" by the RCC are motivated more by the crushing financial burden imposed by the judgments of civil courts, not to mention criminal liability that has the potential to involve Benedict XVI himself.

I don't let protestants off the hook. They claim to know the mind of God from a book, or from a preacher who tells them what the book says.

I'm still not convinced that this is truly an institutional problem. The only evidence I've seen showed that priests have a signficantly lower chance of being a child molester than does the general population, and that includes all of the law suits from the last ten years. No doubt they need to clean house, but when you consider the size of the church, one would expect that politics and greed can lead to inexcusable behavior, just as we expect in the general population from time to tome. I've seen nothing suggesting that the church routinely and knowingly excuses priests who are child molesters, nor does that jive with my personal knowledge of the church.

I too was raised Catholic, btw. While I have no great affinity for the church, so far I tend to think the magnitude of this problem has been blown way out of proportion. More likely than a general conspiracy to tolerate something like this, the church tried to sweep this stuff under the carpet publically and handle things internally. But again, given the size of the organization and the level of autonomy enjoyed by someone like a Bishop, one would still expect occasional examples of outrageous behavior.

As for the fallibility of the Pope, please, we aren't going to debate Catholic doctrine here. For you, that is a personal issue. If you don't want to be a Catholic, don't be a Catholic. This is an internal church matter and not a public issue. Suffice it to say that many Catholics are having crisis of faith. But that happens from time to time.

 

[SW VandeCarr]

I'm still not convinced that this is truly an institutional problem.

Well I simply disagree. Overwhelming evidence exists of cover-ups and moving known pedophiles to other churches to continue victimizing children over the past 20-30 years.. Boston Cardinal Bernard Law was transferred to the Vatican after being linked to these transfers. He called the "wrath of God" down on the media. This has probably been going on for centuries. I'm not going to go into the all the sordid details that are in the public domain.

My point is that people in charge failed to deal with the sickness in the Church; sickness they knew about, but ignored, or actively moved to intimidate witnesses or otherwise cover it up . If you really believe in an all knowing God, how can you fail to do the right thing? My conclusion: they don't.

 

[Gokul43201]

The only evidence I've seen showed that priests have a signficantly lower chance of being a child molester than does the general population, and that includes all of the law suits from the last ten years.

Care to share?

 

[SW VandeCarr]

You can't just canonize someone, they have to perform miracles, there's at least 3 important things that had to be documented while the person was alive.

As I thought, they are allowing unproven claims. Under this kind of thing anyone can become a saint. I'll bet a lot of saints are turning in their graves.

Miracles,by definition, are supernatural. I don't believe in the supernatural. There is only the nature we understand and the nature we don't understand. If I fault organized religions for claiming to know the mind of God, I also fault science for the conceit that it can fully understand nature; at least at our current stage of evolution.

I don't know how the church assesses 'miracles'. As with Mary MacKillop, the push for sainthood usually comes from the bottom up. The Church investigates and decides the issue over a very long period of time. They don't ever want to canonize someone and later find some unpleasant fact in that person's life. I think when they find people who can meet that criterion, that's (almost) a miracle. Australia should be rightfully proud of this extraordinary individual.

 

[NobodySpecial]

You can't just canonize someone, they have to perform miracles,

Although the definition of 'miracle' can be stretched a bit - particularly if you are Thomas Aquinas !

 

[NeoDevin]

My question goes to the role the RCC in the modern world. It does do a lot of good, especially in third world countries.

Like when they discourage condom use in countries where HIV is a serious problem?

Or oppose abortion in cases where the mother is a child, was raped by her father in law, and is not physically capable of surviving carrying the child to term?

Or when they transfer serial paedophile priests to remote villages in northern Canada, so they can continue to rape in relative peace?

Or when they send death threats to a child for not eating a cracker.

It has an important role in the inner cities of the US where IMO it provides a good alternative to failing public schools.

Where the push abstinence only sex education, which has been conclusively demonstrated to be ineffective, and result in more teen pregnancy/std transmission than comprehensive sex education.

 

[NobodySpecial]

the push for sainthood usually comes from the bottom up.

I think there may have been a certain amount of spin-doctor in some of the recent canonizations.
In the current climate a nun who denounced pedo priests is a good media angle, under the last guy with the big hat anybody who fought communism was a good bet.

 

[NeoDevin]

As for the fallibility of the Pope, please, we aren't going to debate Catholic doctrine here.

You brought it up when you claimed that Catholics believe that the Pope is human, and therefore fallible. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_infallibility" disagrees with you. Do you have any evidence to back up your earlier claim?

Don't bring up a point of discussion and then use your (implied) mentor status to stifle any criticism of your point.

 

[Gokul43201]

I haven't seen a study that makes a direct comparison with the general population, but what I have read does not support the claim about prevalence made by Ivan.

Some examples:

1. A 1996 study in New South Wales, Australia:

Sexual abuse between ages 11 to 15
Three-quarters of the prisoners were abused by male offenders and one-quarter by women offenders. Half of the boys abused by women had sexual intercourse with their mothers. In the case of male abusers, religious figures were prominent (33% were housemasters in Christian Brothers schools and 17% were Roman Catholic priests). Neighbors and strangers were the next most common sources (17% each), followed by uncles and uncles' mates, foster fathers, and members of a pedophile ring that included police and lawyers (8% in each group). Strangers committed one-off offenses, which typically involved genital touching.

In the nonoffender group, a small minority of offenses was committed by women (12.5%). Two-thirds of these women were mothers and one-third were family friends. Of the nonoffenders abused by adult males, religious figures were again prominent (29% of boys were abused by Roman Catholic priests, 10% by Christian Brothers, 10% by church youth leaders, 10% by ministers of religion in other denominations). In addition, 10% were abused by boarding school housemasters and 10% by Scout masters. Other offenses were committed by GPs (during health checks), acquaintances, strangers, fathers and fathers' friends, schoolteachers, and members of pedophile
groups. At this age, boys were less likely to be abused by family members than by men encountered in the social setting.

2. An overview from ReligiousTolerance.org: http://www.religioustolerance.org/clergy_sex8.htm (<-- see link for references)

What percentage of Roman Catholic priests abuse young people?

Nobody really knows.

Nobody even knows how many adults in general sexually abuse youth and adults. A figure of 2% is often mentioned. However this is really just a guess.
...
Some estimates on the percent of abusers:

-- Philip Jenkins, is a professor of history and religious studies at Penn State University, and has written a book on the topic. He estimates that 2% of priests sexually abuse youth and children.

-- Richard Sipe is a psychotherapist and former priest, who has studied celibacy and sexuality in the priesthood for four decades. He has authored three books on the topic. By extrapolating from his 25 years of interviews of 1,500 priests and others, he estimates that 6% of priests abuse. Of these, 4% abuse teens, aged 13 to 17; 2% abuse pre-pubertal children.

-- Sylvia M. Demarest, a lawyer from Texas has been tracking accusations against priests since the the mid-1990s. By 1996, she had identified 1,100 priests who had been accused of molesting children. She predicts that when she updates the list, the total will exceed 1,500 names. This represents about 2.5% of the approximately 60,000 men who have been active priests in the U.S. since 1984. It is important to realize that these are accused priests; the allegations have not been evaluated in a trial. Also, there is no way to judge what proportion of abusive priests are on her list. It may include 40% or fewer; she may have found 90% or more.

-- Columnist Ann Coulter claimed, without citing references, that there are only 55 "exposed abusers" in a population of 45,000 priests. This is an abuse rate of 0.12%.

-- Various news services reported that 200 Roman Catholic priests in the Philippines have been investigated for "sexual misconduct and abuses" over the past two decades. That would represent almost 3% of the total population of about 7,000 priests. However, it appears that misconduct includes many offenses, from child abuse to rape to keeping adult mistresses.

-- A survey of child and youth sexual abuse within the church issued in 2004-FEB estimates that four percent of the 110,000 priests who served between 1950 and 2002 were abusive. More details.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I haven't seen a study that makes a direct comparison with the general population, but what I have read does not support the claim about prevalence made by Ivan.

It was posted once already. I try to dig it up.

Actually, what you cited sounds much like what we saw before, but the rate in the general public was estimated be about 5-7%.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

You brought it up when you claimed that Catholics believe that the Pope is human, and therefore fallible. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_infallibility" disagrees with you. Do you have any evidence to back up your earlier claim?

Don't bring up a point of discussion and then use your (implied) mentor status to stifle any criticism of your point.

Oh Lord, if you read what you linked, you will see that this applies to matter of church doctrine. One of the most fundamental tenets of Christianity is that Christ is the only person who has lived, or ever will live, who is free from sin. And before you start throwing around accusations, you had better be sure that you know what you're talking about, which you clearly don't. This is something you would learn on your first day of bible study.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

This may be post I had in mind. Not sure about the original report yet, but this combined with Gokul's post makes much the same point.

Something else that may be worth noting. 3000 complaints with over 400,000 priests is less than 1%. Given that "7% to 16% of males [in the US] experienced unwanted sexual contact before the age of 18 years", the "priest problem" may be more shock value due to the betrayal of trust, than it is numerically significant. Note also that approximately half of all known pedophiles are married.

https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=2626470&postcount=6

It is difficult to estimate the true prevalence of pedophilia because few pedophiles voluntarily seek treatment and because most of the available data are based on individuals who have become involved with the legal system.8,9,43 It is unknown how many individuals have pedophilic fantasies and never act on them or who do act but are never caught.1,10 An estimated 1 in 20 cases of child sexual abuse is reported or identified.6,8,23,44 Two Canadian studies, which randomly sampled 750 women and 750 men between the ages of 18 and 27 years, found that 32% of the women and 15.6% of the men had experienced “unwanted sexual contact” before the age of 17 years.45,46 These numbers are similar to studies in the United States that report 17% to 31% of females and 7% to 16% of males experienced unwanted sexual contact before the age of 18 years.47-49 In the Canadian studies, of those reporting unwanted sexual encounters, 21% of the females and 44% of the males experienced repetitive assaults.45,46 Of note, most of the one-time offenses reported by females were committed by another adolescent of similar age.45 A strong correlation was found between the number of times either a girl or a boy was molested and the occurrence of eventual unwanted penetration (either vaginal or anal).45,46 One percent of the males, who were anonymously surveyed, reported having sexually assaulted a child themselves since they became an adult.46 However, this study does not provide a true prevalence because pedophiles may begin offending after the age of 27 years...

http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.com/content/82/4/457.full

 

[SW VandeCarr]

It was posted once already. I try to dig it up.

Actually, what you cited sounds much like what we saw before, but the rate in the general public was estimated be about 5-7%.

The percent of priests who abused children isn't the relevant statistic. It's the number of children abused. The priests that abused were allowed to victimize a large number of children.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Well I simply disagree. Overwhelming evidence exists of cover-ups and moving known pedophiles to other churches to continue victimizing children over the past 20-30 years.. Boston Cardinal Bernard Law was transferred to the Vatican after being linked to these transfers. He called the "wrath of God" down on the media. This has probably been going on for centuries. I'm not going to go into the all the sordid details that are in the public domain.

Perhaps, but I still only see a handful of cases and a very big church. To me this is no different that saying all US soldiers are evil child murderers because a few go nuts.

My point is that people in charge failed to deal with the sickness in the Church; sickness they knew about, but ignored, or actively moved to intimidate witnesses or otherwise cover it up . If you really believe in an all knowing God, how can you fail to do the right thing? My conclusion: they don't.

I think this is a very naive view of things. Who is "they"? Are you suggesting that every Bishop, Cardinal, and Pope, were in on some grand child molesting conspiracy? Sorry, that sounds like just another crackpot conspiracy theory to me.

 

[Evo]

Let's return to the topic of the Australian woman or the thread will be closed.

 

[NeoDevin]

To me this is no different that saying all US soldiers are evil child murderers because a few go nuts.

This would be a good comparison if the US military made a habit of covering up any cases where a child was murdered by a soldier, and transferring the soldier to a different unit so they could murder again.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The percent of priests who abused children isn't the relevant statistic. It's the number of children abused. The priests that abused were allowed to victimize a large number of children.

The same applies to any child molester. The first question is whether the Catholic church has a unique problem with priests acting as child molesters. I think the numbers linked already suggest this is not the case. And I will try to find the report showing a lower-than-average offense rate based on the cases pending.

Next is the question of a cover up by church officials. Is there a pattern here? Again, I only see a handful of examples for a very big church.

 

[Evo]

After rereading the OP's first few posts and what he wishes to discuss, this thread violates our guidelines on religious discussion.