It's Sunday

The Roman Catholic church in the Netherlands was shamed on Friday when a comprehensive investigation of sexual abuse of children by clergy over 40 years found one in five vulnerable children had been molested.

An 1,100-page report from a commission led by a former education minister and Christian Democrat leader said it could identify 800 Catholic clergy and other church employees guilty of sexually abusing children in the 40 years from 1945 and that more than 100 perpetrators were still alive.

  UK Guardian

And I’m sure they will be behind bars in short order, and the Catholic Church will pay the victims millions in damages and provide lifetime counseling for what remains of their damaged lives.

With the Catholic church embroiled in child abuse scandals from Ireland to Austria and lay Catholics mobilising against the Vatican for root-and-branch reform of canon law to end celibacy in the priesthood and facilitate female ordination, the Dutch report was the latest damning verdict of serial abuse accompanied by persistent cover-ups.

It’s not that I don’t believe that celibacy laws and denial of female ordination are archaic and oppressive functions, but truly, I hope we are not supposed to believe that those are the causes of child sexual predation in the Catholic Church, and if changed will end the issue. It seems much more reasonable to believe that, at least in relatively modern times, the Catholic Church is a pedophiliac sexual predator organization fronted by and masquerading as a religious organization.

Klokk, an abuse victims' organisation in the Netherlands, said the disclosures by the Deetman inquiry went much further than it had expected and cast doubt on the Dutch church's alleged efforts to come clean. [...]Dutch cardinal, Ads Simonis, last year insisted that the church hierarchy was not involved in any cover-up.

Evidence on my side of the argument.

The Dutch church recently launched a compensation fund for victims and last week the church in Belgium did the same following a parallel scandal that reached to the very apex of the Catholic hierarchy.

More evidence. And of course, that’s not all, by a long shot. And just recently, Ireland was embroiled in the scandal. I’m guessing there isn’t a place on the globe where the church (and the power it weilds) exists without child sex abuse.



Speaking of child molestation…

Penn State assistant football coach Mike McQueary has said he believes he saw former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky sexually molesting a boy – but didn't call police because he was sure "the act was over".

  UK Guardian

So that’s okay? He finished.

He said he peeked into the shower several times and that the last time he looked in, Sandusky and the boy had separated. He said he didn't say anything, but "I know they saw me. They looked directly in my eye, both of them."

Oh. And you were watching until they finished?

Paterno told a grand jury earlier this year that he was told Sandusky had done something inappropriate with a child but that he didn't press for details because McQueary was very upset.

So that’s okay? The witness was upset? Oh. Very upset.

[McQueary] said Paterno told him he'd "done the right thing" by coming to him.

Indeed. Rather than going to the police. All three of these SOBs should be behind bars.

Nine or 10 days later, McQueary said he met with school administrators Tim Curley and Gary Schultz and told them he'd seen Sandusky and a boy, both naked, in the shower after hearing skin-on-skin slapping sounds.

[...]

[He] referenced Shultz's position as a vice-president at the university who had overseen the campus police.

Add two more for the cage.

McQueary. The universe is not without a sense of humor.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.