The church confesses a terrible evil

There recently appeared a post on r/t detailing an apology from the Catholic Church in Australia for forcibly taking children born out of wedlock, or of mix parentage (both were happening), and placing them for adoption in more “suitable” homes. While the single story is far from complete, let’s assume that the church was complicate in a program to remove newborns and other children from their mothers. In itself that would have been an evil diabolic progam. And something like that certainly happened, both to half cast aboriginals and others.

But that was not the highlighted news story. It was that the church apologized for whatever it had done. What do we make of this? I hold that the confession is critical to what is now happening in the churches, and is consistent with a basic theological commitment. Perhaps religion is the only perspective anywhere that looks at itself, realizes the terrible things it has done, asks forgiveness and seeks to make amends.
You rarely if ever find saying sorry for some past activities elsewhere. You don’t find it in politics, economics, or anything else. Admitting one’s wrong and asking for forgiveness is central to Christian faith. That is how we accept people no matter what they have done.

Where would you find an institution, or a person for that matter, saying, “We have done terrible things. We were wrong. We are sorry. We apologize and will do what we can to right the wrongs?”

Now here comes somebody on r/t who delights again to prove how evil religion is now, and always has been, and takes this confession of guilt and with it ridicules the church even for the apology.

In our personal, as well as out societal relationship, we are able to acknowledge who we are and receive the grace of forgiveness from others. In much of the world that is unthinkable. Humans, by nature, want to nail others, and if they are weak enough to say “sorry” we give no slack. Here is one of a myriad of values we find in the community of the church. The Catholic authorities who made this confession ought to be honored, even while they and we realize the terrible things that were done.

:shrug:

happen in what they probably expected was going to be a quid pro quo for a SCOTUS seat that would end Roe v. Wade, a task so important to them that they tolerated and even protected perverts in their midst because those damaged persons would be MORE likely to tow the line on the RC's political goals.

one parish. If it was happening there, it was probably happening elsewhere.

Do you know what the Order of the Golden Spur is? The last recipient was the Shah or Iran, before he was deposed.

:shrug:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AloG_pu1zmc&feature=related

He conjectures that there is another apology forthcoming, for the current scandal.

They still have the same official office of the Inquisition

And there are many people that apologize that do not have religion
The churches hold themselves up as having the only true way to salvation
and when they make a mistake they apologize many years later and we are
suppose to praise them??

Sure the worst of it happened a long time ago, but it was really inexcusable. Not only did they kill religious minorities, but also otherwise devout Catholics who disagreed the Church at all. This assured that they stayed in their intolerant,inflexible rut.
This is a big thing that they need to be sorry for and apologize publically about. I'm not sure that they are sorry though. Some modern Catholics try to justify it as necessary to preserving Christianity, as if it would have become extinct if people wouldn't have been murdered for not believing their version of a rigid faith. Even now, nuns who have devoted their lives to the church are excommunicated for believing that a fetus should be aborted if that is the only way to save a woman's life.
Yes they have apologized for some injustices they have done and that is good. The Inquisition is a big injustice though, and it seems that it is still part of the institution of the Church even if they aren't killing people now.

Here is just one of the latest


transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0003/12/sm.06.html - Cached - Similar

:eyes:

"Perhaps religion is the only perspective anywhere that looks at itself, realizes the terrible things it has done, asks forgiveness and seeks to make amends.
You rarely if ever find saying sorry for some past activities elsewhere."

Christians have NO monopoly on guilt, or humility, or regret.

They just have more to ask forgiveness for.

It was the right thing to do, confess and apologize for the terrible things done, but I'm not sure you want to add honorable to it. It is too sad that they were not able to recognize how evil a thing was being done at the time they were doing it. Surely the ones apologizing were not the ones committing the atrocities, so we can't hold them accountable. The ones that initiated it and carried it through may be dead and already answering for their erroneous thinking.

significance of one's own evil FIRST in order to respond as authentically as possible, in one's OWN actions, to that of others.

Having honor means doing the right thing first rather than doing the wrong thing then apologizing for it. Is it honorable that a rapist apologizes for his rape? Is it honorable for a thief to apologize for his thievery?

The honorable thing to do would be to say "fuck it, I no longer wish to be a part of a criminal organization", and renounce their membership in the catholic church.


Only in religion is it considered honorable to do the wrong thing, apologize for it then expect to be rewarded for a half-hearted "aw gee shucks, sorry fellas".

that's the kind of vindictive spirit you are likely to find out there. It is just another kind of fundamentalism

How so? What dogmas or canon am I "fundamentalist" about?

Thee absolute commitment to an idea or a position that only looks act what will prove it and disregards everything else.

"The church is now and always has been evil."

And negative fundamentalism is probably the worst kind.

And no where did I say the church was evil. I called it criminal.

You should know this.

then you have your head stuck way too far up your religion's ass.

lic or otherwise.

Authenticity DOES matter; people's errors, intentional, mistaken, or otherwise do not change the truth and, therefore, no one is any less culpable for failing the test of authenticity and, thus, failing to make amends and that has been part of the teaching from the first (e.g. remember the Publican and the Pharisee?), whether churches failed in that teaching or not.

Jesus was right. Don't mistake the institution known as religion for him. The real church is the people, all of them.

some happy, kumbaya, hand-holding circle of love, pining for peace and tranquility.

You must have read a different history than the one I read.

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Calling a spade a spade doesn't make me a bigot. It makes me honest, and evidently that bothers you. If you lack security in your own beliefs, don't take it out on me - I'm just the messenger.

The catholic church, and its members, can apologize until they're blue in the face. It doesn't do any good, and no amount of prevaricating on the part of amateur apologists is going to change that.

guilt as a happy kumbaya moment.

What does that make you?

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To be prejudiced, I'd have to "pre-judge" a person or group based on a lack of information. I have plenty of information upon which I base my dislike and distrust of the catholic church.

Maybe I'm postjudiced?

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ing.

I've been down this road with apologists many times, and I know the road map almost as well as you.

Your lack of condemnation for well known sins by the church confirms that the inference was correct.

fascism that motivated our little Left Behind fantasies and cost/s a few million Islamic folk their lives, including what has to be several 10s of thousands of children.

If you hate victimization of children by religious fascists, lets' talk about how George Bush, the 20-year tender of religious sheeple, got elected in order to be a "war president" which fact, along with the encouragement of a bunch of End Timers, cost some 4K+ of our soldiers their lives, not to mention all of the crippled and maimed, physically & emotionally, Americans and, of course, all of the dead Iraqis who didn't need killing.

You hate the victimization of the innocent by churches so much, let's hear a little of this story too, or we going to hear plausible deniability instead.

Fucking priceless!

You seem to think that I condemn the church's bad deeds while overlooking the bad deeds of the Bush administration and its religiously tinted policies. I consider BOTH entities to have committed atrocities, and I condemn BOTH as criminal enterprises that have injured, maimed, molested and killed hundreds of thousands of innocents.

seeing an institution from the outside for the purpose of condemning it.

And living within it where sees both good and bad.

So only the church members themselves have the magic power to see both the good and the bad in the church? And no one else is allowed to criticize? Do you really, truly not understand why what you're saying is so backward and wrong?

Implied by your statement is a prohibition on non members criticizing the church. That, combined with the catholic church's horrendous record of policing itself, is a recipe for religious authoritarianism.

and the following note was on the desk.

"Please let us know about the shower. The only way to judge it is by standing in it."

Of course outsiders can made observations--but that is not the same as having some dynamic appreciation from the inside of what is really going on. And when someone with a predilection to condemn looks at any complex institution, you can pretty well assume that their reflection will mirror their prejudices.

-Only Federal employees can criticize the government.
-Only executioners can comment on the death penalty.
-Only law enforcement professionals can criticize the police.
-Only skinheads can criticize neo-nazi groups.
-Only married people can debate marriage equality.

Oh, and only atheists can criticize atheism. Sorry, but when someone with a predilection to condemn looks at any complex group, you can pretty well assume that their reflection will mirror their prejudices.

See how this works?

Let me put this into a personal scope so it's easier to understand. When you hurt someone physically or emotionally, it's often possible to apologize and move on. But when you do something egregious, when you step so far over "the line" that it's on the distant horizon behind you, you can't just apologize and move on. Example:

"I'm sorry I forgot to call and tell you I'd be home late from work." - Acceptable. Everyone in the relationship can move on.
"I'm sorry I fucked your sister." - Yeah, no one's moving on from that one.

The Church doesn't just get to apologize and move on from the topic. They don't get to whitewash this just because they've recognized that they did something wrong. They still haven't done anything to correct the systemic problems that led to such egregious behavior, in contrast to your claim that they "will do what we can to right the wrongs".

And your whitewashing gets even worse when you realize that people apologize publicly all the damn time. As one example, politicians have apologized for illicit affairs and other out-of-office behavior unbecoming of a stateman, and they've also apologized for things they've done on the statehouse floor. Hell, for a while there, it was almost a new fashion for politicians to apologize. So how can you possibly claim that "you rarely if ever find saying sorry for some past activities elsewhere"??

The Catholic authorities who made this confession haven't done nearly enough, not nearly enough to respond to this abhorrent situation, and if they deserve anything, it is our scorn for providing "too little, too late."

Ronnie "Death Squad" Reagan apologized for the Japanese-Internment program. (You know, because he was such a decent guy.)

Heck, just a couple of years ago, Obomb'em made reference to the '53 CIA coup in Iran. (And just think: In 60 years, another American president will apologize for some of the hideous shit Obomb'em is doing.)

Do you think Bush and Cheney will ever apologize for the 4000+ men killed in their bogus war? I seriously doubt they ever will.

Will an apology bring those 4000+ lives back?

(And FYI - it's 4000 men and women)

And I'm sure if you scoured the 8 year Bush/Cheney regime history, you'd find some apology concerning some heinous act committed by a Donkey/Elephant president in the past.

I stand corrected.

en?

Can't wait to see in this thread what absolution is offered the Religious Right for that, because, after all, it was all the RC's fault.

...or at least consented to civil liability. I don't mean the local parish, but the assets of the R.C. church as a whole.

It's one thing for a frontier branch to admit to localized wrongdoing. It is quite another to admit to things directed by the Vatican or endemic to the church as a whole. As others have noted, there is the institutional practice of protecting child rapists. Complicity in the Jewish holocaust and in fact centuries of active antisemitism, There's the inquisition, the opposition to birth control or any female reproductive rights, complicity in WW2 era European fascism (why wasn't Hitler or his henchmen excommunicated?), centuries of propping-up tyrants (why wasn't Bloody Mary Tudor excommunicated? Elizabeth was). Opposition to scientific inquiry that continues today. Thought and speech crimes. Plus the whole thing is based on the lie that suffering is a virtue and the vicarious suffering of an innocent man makes the rest of us less guilty rather than more so. This is off the top of my head. I'm sure a resort to Google will produce more than I have time to post.

Granted, ignorance and human limitations explain all this. Or at least it would if this wasn't the One True God's One True Universal Church. For that I would expect exemplary morality and ethics. But instead, we have an organization that has become so drunk with power and wealth that it would be idle to claim even the lowest rungs of ordinary morality. Indeed, it resides in depths of evil more suited to the fallen angel.

wish that the RC church would take a more aggressive stance. Apology is one thing. Reparations is better. But how are they to be sure that they weed out those who commit these crimes? The church NEVER condones such practices. Maybe a married priesthood. Maybe women priests. But they are very slow. For some of us, much too slow

I hope the victims can get a lot of punitive damages from these scumbags.

has invested personnel and tons of time and money ferreting out these evil practices, canning the malefactors and seeking to pay reparations to the victims. Nobody outside understands the depth of the problems as well as those inside who are trying to get at the roots and causes.

and the genocide of Cathar christians?
and the massacre of the Hugenots?
and the destruction of Constantinople?
and the Church's support for Hitler?
and the regular massacre of Jews organized by priests?
and the attempt to destroy Protestantism in the Thirty Years War?

...on DU using this sad period of Australian history as nothing but a reason to vent their own hatred towards the Church is just plain sickening.

Yes the RC Church forcibly removed children from mothers deemed unsuitable. So did the ANGLICAN CHURCH. So did the SALVATION ARMY. So did a whole bunch of purely secular organisations and it was the GOVERNMENT POLICY of the day.

And they ALL had the PUBLIC of the times to opine what defines unsuitable: Unmarried or dark skinned.

1. See #9 about your straw man.
2. Cite. I have no data, either before or after your post, regarding the actions of the Anglican Church or other organizations in this matter.

And so what? What the Pope and his cardinals did/do is no fucking different evilwise to what your elected officials and mine are doing in our names to todays "unsuitables" around the world and have been doing in our names for as long as there have been governments.

Like I said not defending. Just calling out a bunch of haters using this apology as an excuse to vent their bile to no good purpose.

2. Google anglican + stolen generation, then Salvation Army + stolen generation. Presbyterian and Methodist while you're there too. You might also want to look into the 10,000 odd children transported to Australia from England where the Roman Catholic Church most definitely did not set the policy. Then closer to home, you might look into organisations (mostly protestant where religiously affiliated) which specialised in keeping unwed mothers squestered from society until the child was born.

the U.S. military remove all children fathered by African-American or other nonwhite servicemen. (Australia was one of the staging areas for the battles in New Guinea and the South Pacific.)

Yes, mixed race children whose fathers were dark-skinned G.I.'s were forcibly taken from their mothers at the end of the war and shipped off to the U.S., although I have not heard what happened to them there. Probably warehousing in an "Orphan Asylum for Colored Children" or something equally depressing.

I AM NOT DEFENDING ANYONE.

Now let me mention that in the Korean War, the United States was the ONLY country amongst the UN forces which refused to acknowledge or provide support for the children of servicemen.

And your defense seems to be that others are just as bad. Yeah, just as bad as the RC church. Anyway, what of it? This is the Lord's one true universal church, according to them. Shouldn't we expect something better than being no worse than others?

YES! The others were and to this fucking day ARE just as bad as each other.

But it's the WHORE OF BABYLON that is repeatedly singled out for the physical and sexual abuse of children, despite the proven, documented fact that these acts were carried out (and covered up) by plenty of other religious (and non-religious) organisations.

It's the RC church which everyone just loves to hate, because by focusing all their hate there, they can avoid the splash of guilt from the sins of their own past.

Got it yet? YOUR pastors and YOUR church leaders were as much a part of this thing as the guy in the dress and funny hat. Chances are that YOUR (collective) parents or grandparents agreed whole heartedly with forcibly separating mother and child for the sin of fucking without a church issued permit.

Oh and I woudn't try the "no central authority" defence: That just means that the same sick decisions were made time and time again across thousands of parishes and in dozens of legislatures.

In politics, economics, and everywhere else. There is an entire apology industry with pr firms that specialize in public apologies and getting the most bang for the buck. Tiger Woods, BP and on and on. Just type apologizes into google news if you want and find the 21,100 news worthy apologies over the last 5 years alone.

Apologies are cheap, reparations are the real thing.

Apologizing on your own initiative BEFORE the expose is in the press is more honorable. Waiting until you are caught is much less so, but still worthwhile I guess.

Co-operating with, nay insisting upon, outside authorities investigating accusations of wrongdoing would be more honorable than blocking them at every turn. The RC Church has no honor here.

Setting up policies and enforcement to prevent recurrence from the top would be honorable. Moving the "few bad apples" around is not at all so.

I'm no perfect human, and I don't even claim to act for a perfect deity, but the honorable thing to my evil amoral atheistic eyes in these cases would be any bishop receiving any credible accusation of abusing children (or any other evil act, but playing the odds here) against one of his priests to:

1) Immediately notify appropriate civil authorities
2) Do everything possible to help and nothing to hinder their investigation
3) With his second phone call immediately reassign the priest away from any contact with vulnerable parties
4) Begin an internal investigation to see if other similar misdeeds were plausible, and if so appeal for information from other potential victims, both for the internal and external investigations
5) Question other priests about similar activities and train them, using external experts if needed, on how to both avoid such situations and how to spot fellow priests who may not be successful doing so.
6) Reward and publicly praise those who come forward with information
7) If the accusations prove true, immediately defrock the priest and remain cooperative with all authorities in the case
8) Recompense the victim appropriately, not just financially but with access, information and a voice on their behalf
9) Be as open as possible with the press and congregation and community throughout, withholding only the details necessary to ensure an effective legal/judicial process

I would also expect complete support for the above throughout the hierarchy, with archbishops and the Pope if need be disciplining subordinates who do not do the same.

THEN they can claim to be decent and honorable, and even then not especially so. The above is paraphrased in the handbooks of many secular organizations, and followed.

Often it has worked that way, but sometimes it has not.

By the way, it has been the church itself that has most often ferreted out these abuses.
But the record is spotty.

or reading much of anything in the Catholic Press, For years it has been full of these stories.

And many of you all are pikers! If you want to hear vigorous, continual. impassioned criticism of these terrible things--that no one defends--,just pick up "The National Catholic Reporter," "Commonweel"etc.

If these things are to be addressed, it won't be from people who hate all religion and will use whatever they can find as ammunition to attack it, but people inside, who detest what has happened more than anyone else, and who know what is going on. The Catholics I know are as vigorous in their condemnation as any of us.

Can you cite an example or two of the church releasing info before the press or authorities, since there are so many?

I agree insiders need to address such things. Said so many times - but they need to address it TO outsiders too.

Beginning with Dawkins, the scientists, cosmologists, the Ayn Rand Institute and more.

I don't read them in order to find things to attack (except perhaps for Rand. That would be bigoted stupidity, but just because I am curious about how people think, especially when their system is different than mine. It is one of the ways I learn.

And I don't really know an atheist newsletter. Give me a could of suggestions.

If you read the Catholic press I suggested you would have tons of examples.

Sounds like we're in the same boat.

Can you not give me an example that I can verify?

Only religious people and institutions make apologies? That's just not true.

Here's a long list of apologies Japan has made for its conduct before and during the Second World War:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_war_apology_statements_issued_by_Japan

The United States has apologized for its treatment of Native Americans:
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2009/12/22/us-offers-an-official-apology-to-native-americans/

For slavery:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/18/AR2009061803877.html

For its failure to enact legislation on lynchings during the height of the practice:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/13/AR2005061301720.html

Virginia has apologized for slavery as well:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/25/AR2007022500470.html

Germany has apologized for the Holocaust:
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/english/200002/17/eng20000217W110.html

There have been plenty of institutional apologies throughout the years. More than that, the entire edifice of science is built around recognizing when one is wrong. I myself learned the importance of admitted when one is objectively wrong from reading a scientist. Carl Sagan talked frequently about his inaccurate predictions about the atmospheric makeup of Venus. He used this example to discuss the importance of admitted when one is wrong to learning and growth as a person. Now, he was discussing the merits of science at the time, but I was very young and I took away so much more than simple intellectual honesty. This illustrated to me a very important concept in my personal life.

"The fundamental premise of my original post was complete bullshit, but I didn't care about that at the time I wrote it, because I have an agenda that must be served. And I'm only fessing up now that I've been exposed."

Oh, the irony.

It's what Jesus would want.

The change should be from, "The Church confesses a terrible evil" to "The Church confesses another terrible evil," for there are many.

BTW: "Church" is typically capitalized when referring to the RCC.