Eeesh. Never fucking mind.
2 Likes
Then they should act like it and stop giving their money to child rapists and people who cover for child rapists.
That’s where their tithe is going. They should stop pretending it makes them in any way a good person.
I don’t understand how any catholic can tithe their 10% to the church that rapes and vovers for the rape of children, and think what they did is at all okay.
5 Likes
Most don’t. Tithing isn’t required in Catholicism. And where parishes “recommend” it the number is like 5%.
In my experience it’s not much a thing. Most who give money to the church toss a couple bucks into the plate. Or you hear about some one’s Grandma leaving a convent money when they die.
Actual Tithing would be a hard core, Opus Dei, Mel Gibson level Catholic thing to do.
My Aunt goes to Church three times a week. Hasn’t given them a dime in years.
Beyond that a hell of a lot of Catholics are straight up leaving the Church. Which I already mentioned above. There’s probably more lapsed Catholics out there than active ones in much of the world. And for decades before the abuse scandals broke, liberal Catholics (including Clergy) just went Episcopalian.
Turns out all those nuns in the Episcopalian Church I attended as a kid had resigned their vows over what would turn into the abuse scandal.
ETA: It’s also worth noting that the regularly occuring child abuse scandals aren’t the only shit show the Catholic Church finds it’s self in. What’s going on in Canada right now isn’t the first time recently that mass graves have been found at Catholic run institutions. There’s been a much quieter ongoing series of revelations about sexual and physical abuse of adult women in Catholic institutional settings, including Nuns in convents. And there’s a burbling disaster around the unacknowledged children fathered by priests.
9 Likes
A scandal broke in Ireland a few years ago, re: catholic unmarried mothers’ “homes” and the way the women and children were treated.
8 Likes
Former Catholic here and: Yep, that is what people do. Warning, this bit might make you angry. Don’t shoot the messenger, I left remember!
Go read some Old English literature, Chaucer for example, and you will find plenty of depictions of priests and monks as debauched horny rapists. Nothing new under the sun.
This is the real enraging part, with every new discovery, every new story, every new victim speaking out, people play this part of the shocked and utterly surprised bystander because that way their own guild is hidden. They are not responsible if they didn’t know! <Insert Godwin() here>
I grew up catholic but I also read old literature, I watched Father Ted… I knew how mothers would check what priest was taking the confessions before they sent their daughters in, I know how kids were warned not to be alone with some teachers, I know how some people would almost crap their pants when a nun entered their view, I had this teacher who had taught in almost every catholic primary school in the province and ended up teaching HAVO (comprehensive / high school) which he hated because the pupils there were too old for his taste. IF I KNEW THEY KNEW!!!
I mentioned Father Ted, a show made by Irish Catholics about their own culture. It is funny but also… see how they depict an abusing alcoholic arsehole rapist, a known thief and fraud, a couple with serious domestic violence problems… Never tell me Catholics never knew, the whole show is about not addressing the elephants in the … elephant enclosure.
Same with those graves discovered in Canada by the way. Be real, things like that happened in every colonised nation for centuries. We all know that.
But don’t underestimate the power of tradition, of culture, of social expectations. The Catholic Church is old, old, old, ingrained in the very fabric of culture, the inner wirings of people’s brains. It is not about a god anymore, it is a deeply planted, deep shared experience.
They go to church, throw some coins on the plates, sing the songs, mouth the words, watch the show, and … bugger off and do whatever because that was just ritual and has no real meaning or ethical teachings. Go watch the Godfather: Catholic as hell and would still murder for power and money. Send the nephew lawyer out of the room when certain things are discussed so on a technicality he he can lie through his teeth after taking an oath. Same thing, of course he knows, but doesn’t know know, you get?
Catholicism teaches that humans are evil at the core anyway, and that god forgives anyway, and that nothing happens without god’s approval anyway, so all suffering you cause was part of the Ineffable Plan anyway…
Or go read Small Gods by Terry Pratchett because that is totally about this, the church is a political and cultural power that has ingrained itself almost anywhere. I say almost because ironically there is not anything left of the real religion, the god, spirituality, ethics or morality, that is all dead and forgotten. All what is left is the shell and those that use it.
People always knew! Priests were always rapists, it was never talked about, and it is as traditional as mouthing the Agnus Dei while thinking about something else. Just ritual…
P.S. BUT kick the catholic church al you want but it is also not that unique. Extreme, but not unique. Any religion, especially the old ones has this problem in a way. Don’t take your eyes off them either, abuse is common by priests, monks, vicars, imams, rabbis, gurus… but also by youth leaders, teachers, coaches, etc… Child abuse is done not by the scary men in the bushes but by the people in authority in the children’s own life that the child was taught to believe and trust no matter what.
16 Likes
Well first there were the Magdaline Asylums/Laundries. Which operated into the 70’s. A scandal around that first broke in the 90’s when a mass grave was found at one of the sites. Came to ahead about 5 years back with revelations of government involvement with the facilities, and more details of abuse.
Which was promptly followed by discoveries of mass graves of babies and children at the “care homes” where women were sent to give birth, and kids were supposed to get adopted out.
Turns out the Church is real into killing people with neglect and hiding it.
8 Likes
I was raised by lapsed Catholics, and never went near a Catholic school. As a kid, I went to mass maybe 10 times in my childhood, mostly with non-lapsed aunts and uncles when we were visiting. My own parents never talked religion that I can recall.
Point is: I wasn’t much involved in the Catholic church. They were barely on my radar. And some of the first dirty jokes I learned as a kid involved priests and altar boys.
It stuns me how everybody on some level fucking knew.
4 Likes
I think that’s my ex father in law.
2 Likes
It looks like you are well out of it. 
1 Like
“Other”. Unitarians in general aren’t part of mainline Christianity.
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
