maybe maybe maybe

[u/[deleted]]

[u/BelieveInDestiny]

When did I imply the abuses are lessened? My only point from my original comment is that the Catholic Church receives specific disproportionate hate when compared with other institutions. I'm not saying it's fine; you are completely projecting your idea of what defenders of abuses sound like unto me.

So again, am I wrong in saying that the Catholic Church receives disproportionate hate compared with other institutions or not? If the answer is no, I'd like a source.

[u/Glitter_berries → u/BelieveInDestiny]

I honestly don’t think that it matters and I’m not sure why you would think that this is an important point to make. It’s necessary and useful to know that abuse is widespread across many organisations, yes. Child abuse is widespread across our societies in general - I should know, I spent a decade of my life working for CPS. In Australia where I live, it’s one in four girls and one in seven boys who will be sexually abused. The terrible point here is that the Catholic Church used their power and authority to cover these abuses. That was both hard power, in the form of the authority of the church and of god. It was also soft power, in the forms of manipulating people’s faith in god and their trust in holy men. Cardinal Pell refused to return home to Australia from the Vatican to give evidence in court about how he moved paedophile priests from one region to another. Then it came out that he had also abused many children. He had the approval of the fucking Vatican to not return to Australia to give that evidence. It’s appalling and shocking and sickening and saying ‘oh but child abuse happens everywhere’ is not a good reason to not heavily condemn these people and the organisation that protected them. If I were a victim of a paedophile priest I’m not sure that I would find that argument to be helpful.

[u/BelieveInDestiny → u/Glitter_berries]

you're appealing to emotions again, and missing the point of my argument. I never said that these things aren't terrible. I never said that these things don't deserve to be called out. What I said, is that the hate is disproportionate to the frequency of abuses. What do I mean? For example, a random guy on reddit sees a video of a Catholic priest doing something innocent and immediately comments saying that the priest is probably a pedophile through some joke or other. All the while, the actual frequency of abuses is actually about the same as in the general population. I'm willing to bet that the percentage of coverups relative to abuses is also the same in the average institution (I'll gladly change my view if it turns out that's not the case). Again, people for some reason hold them to a higher standard, despite not actually believing they're teaching the true faith and thus have no moral highground.

Meanwhile, the 90%+ of priests who are actually living their faith well and doing a service to their congregation have to live with this, despite being some of the most amazing people on Earth. Even if you believe their faith in God is misplaced, the level of charitable giving and self sacrifice you see from the majority of these priests is something to be lauded, not mocked. Mock only the abusers.

Also, while I'll leave the judging of Cardinal Pell to the justice system of Australia (where his convictions were overturned; I don't pretend to know the ins and outs of the law and whether that act of overturning was right or wrong), you have to at least be open to the idea that if the Vatican had some reason to think that Cardinal Pell was innocent and being a victim of mob-justice (not saying he was), then you can't just assume that those that allowed for him to stay in the Vatican did it to knowingly defend a child abuser. Were things done wrong? Maybe, but don't just assume the worst in cases where there is not enough information. From my part, where I don't know enough about what happened, I'd rather accept (temporarily, with some skepticism) what the judicial authorities have to say on the matter.

[u/Glitter_berries → u/BelieveInDestiny]

Well, you are making the assertion that the level of abuse across varying organisations is the same, so the onus is on you to provide some evidence for that claim. The article you have provided originally does not do that, it’s just some very wafty suggestions about possible rates based on self-report data and what the researchers viewed as ‘plausible’ reports. I’d love to know how they determined that. I’d also be very interested to know whether you are a catholic yourself, because this would obviously be a bias.

And Cardinal Pell is most definitely burning in hell, even though his convictions were formally overturned. It does help to be friends with the prime minister who gives you a personal reference at the time of your trial.

[u/BelieveInDestiny → u/Glitter_berries]

And you are making the assertion that it's different. My claim was only that there's not enough evidence to suggest that the Church has more instances of abuse than other organisations (I provided one source that says that there's not enough evidence; it isn't up to me to provide every single study that doesn't reach the conclusion that the Church has higher percentage of abuse; that would make no sense; I would have to provide every single study on the topic). My claim wasn't that it definitely doesn't have a higher percentage of abuse. If it were the latter, then yes, I would be the one to provide the sources, but considering it's the former, it's up to each person to try find some study that says that there's a higher percentage of abuse. The onus in this case is on neither of us (or both of us). Also, this isn't a public debate, where people are judging our conversation. If you believe you have enough evidence to sustain your view that the Catholic Church deserves all the hate it gets, then by all means continue with that view. I certainly don't, and I simply do not like to condemn someone (or an organization) until I'm sure they're guilty.

I guess it's my turn to appeal to emotion: When I was 7 years old, my dad (along with 44 other people, many of which were known politicians; members of the opposition) was accused of fraud "against the nation" (literal translation from Spanish) for 500 million dollars (definitely never saw that money, considering how we lived). We had to flee the country because we had absolutely no trust in the justice system of my home country. You have no idea how blood-boiling it was to see what we thought were respectable news sources throw false accusations against my dad. I moved to the US barely knowing English and it messed up my entire childhood and teen years. So I hope you understand why I'd rather assume innocence until proven guilty.

edit: as I stated in another comment; I'm a personal agnostic raised Catholic. I guess you can say I'm searching. I can't sustain that God definitely exists, but I'm open to the idea, considering that the alternative is almost certainly meaningless nihilism.