Lemmie guess Beale The Eel; Pope Francis is “fake” due to actually preaching being Christlike, helping the poor and other stuff Jesus preached, amirite?
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Slightly off-topic but based on Roman Catholic problems. was reading up on the whole Nonce-Priest debacle and made some observations that both redeem and still condemn the Vatican in my eyes…
* Since this issue became public, the Church has taken measure to keep kids safe and (hopefully) not allow any more abuses to happen now and in the future.
* However; They cover up and drag their feet in regards to paying restitution to those hurt in the past and haven’t quite fessed up about the cover-ups.
* The Church is very vast with millions of Clergy and thousands of diocese all over the planet and is very disorganized and varied. There’s a lot of confusion. It’s not as monolithic as once thought.
* Most of the abuse cases concern stuff that happened between the 1930s - 1980s (and some in the 1990’s) many of the offending priests are now dead and the victims have been adults for years.
* Though there’s a lot of cases, it appears that the abusive clergy makes up 7% out of 100% of the Catholic Clergy and Religious.
* A lot of varying laws, statute of limitation variations, red tape and other factors make it hard to compensate everybody.
* The folks on top tend to be fuddy-duddies and the well-meaning ones are just overwhelmed with it all and confused.
* The Church has had both priest shortages and funding issues for years (that’s not to say the higher ups aren’t awash in greed, wealth avarice and corruption). Many Churches have been closing down or merging. If the Church compensated millions to everyone hurt, they’d probably cease to exist.
* The best they could do is compensate the most recent cases and make the reforms and institute safety precautions necessary to prevent abuse from happening again.
* However; There’s still issues with working with law enforcement and doing the right thing with the recent cases, and THAT is what the Church should be criticized for.
… So in a nutshell; It isn’t 100% black and white, the church has made some reforms and do better but resolving all the cases would be logistically impossible or at least very difficult and costly. It’s best to apologize, focus on the most recent cases and work hard to never screw up again.
My heart goes out to all who were abused and I’m sorry they can’t all get closure and I wish those folks peace.
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Francis isn’t perfect but I like him and I like that he’s tried to make his clergy more humble and Christlike and eschewed to more over-the-top trappings. I like that he’s all about Social Justice and helping the disadvantaged.
