Sex Scandal Embroils Vatican Leadership

Sexual predatory practices in the church is news the way "the sun is hot" is news. . . Religions preach sexual repression - thus if one practices sexual repression and sexual self-loathing the end results can (and sometimes do) end in tragic results. More obvious evidence that religion is a disgusting man-made attempt at control in this world. . .whilst pretending for paradise in the next. In the mean time, who cares if a few young rectums get violated? The church sure didn't. . .

The chickens are coming home to roost for the Catholic Church that tried to modernize, become more politically correct, and did not weed out a certain class of people from the clergy that it had excluded in the past.

Ugly? You bet. Disgusting? Absolutely. Repellent? No question. Significant? No, not really. If anyone's been looking, it has pretty much been business as usual for the Vatican since this story surfaced. They are not likely to respond with the kind of speed you might expect of a corporation or a secular government. Historically, external criticism has been ignored in the Holy See. They appear to be taking their normal response to crisis and opponents, which can be roughly summed up as "outliving the sonsabitches." And as has been the case for almost two millenia, it appears to be working.

What do you expect from a barbaric religion that won't allow its priests to marry (so the church can inherit all their property when they croak).

Is anyone really suprised ? I have nothing against individual Catholics,but that institution called the Vatican has a well documented sordid past.

UPDATE: The Leadership doesn't look particullarly embroiled at the moment. It looks like business as usual for those guys, more or less. We'll know that they are taking things seriously once they commission the Spanish Inquisition. ORIGINAL: I think it is having a significant impact on the church and the relationship it has with some of its followers right now. But I also think the church has a far longer term view on these sorts of things than the rest of us. They have been through all sorts of serious scandals before. They've toppled kings, started wars, killed their members in the course of political infighting, civilized savages by whatever means they deemed effective, disciplined school children harshly and much much more. I suspect that they always hold that maintaining their fundamental long term position of divine infalibility is the more important than ceding a major point of law in one of the constituent countries in which they operate a franchise. 25 years of publ... Read more

Hasn't this been done before? Seriously, this is bad for the Catholic Church and bad for humanity in general. I feel bad for all the kids Molested over the years, and to all the people involved in the cover-up...I'd like to kick your ass in Hell.

It's getting a lot of press, but I think it's more because the press ran out of other high profile things to sensationalize. I don't think reports of sexual abuses in the church are new. Its links to high-ranking members of the church might be a little newer, though, but I think it'll just be a matter of them hunkering down and waiting for it to blow over when another hot news story overshadows it.

I don't see how the sex scandal in the Vatican is any new news. It's pretty sick in my opinion that the Catholic church has let countless transgressions (as Tiger may say) and sick things happen in the church for so long. Sinead O'Connor might not have a bad idea when she says put the papacy on criminal investigation.

Big surprise? I expect this since they denounce sex and marriage. Still wrong though!!

Stories like this are increasingly problematic for the institution of the Catholic church, but the aftermath will ultimately determine its significance. At present (and historically), Vatican leaders have chosen defensiveness and the protection of public relations over concern for victims of abuses it has enabled. I suspect that position will be unpopular among remaining adherents of Catholicism. Viewed from the perspective of an atheist with the knowledge of this faith that comes with having devoted Catholic grandparents and other close relatives, their choice seems strange to me. I've always been impressed by the somewhat progressive (or at least practical) embrace of change by the Catholic Church when it comes to things like evolution. To take a hard line to protect members of the organization who have undermined trust among its own followers and tainted its standing in the world only serves to breed suspicion that the whole is rotten to the core. Personally, I don't believe this... Read more

You know it's bad when membership in the Hitler Youth is starting to look like a bright spot on the Pope Benedict resume.