Trevor Noah: Catholic Church is a "molesting club with an opening prayer"

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

https://www.mediaite.com/uncategorized/trevor-noah-on-catholic-church-scandal-its-not-a-church-its-a-molesting-club-with-an-opening-prayer

HARSH

[dead0man]

not wrong

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Somehow as absolutely horrible as something is in reality, people are always able to find a way of making an absurd hyperbole around it.

There are ways of being appropriately harsh about this without denigrating and dismissing every other aspect of the Catholic church and the priests and lay people within it who are standing up against this and calling the hierarchy to account.

It's also not clear to me exactly how much worse the Catholic church was in this time frame when most of these events occurred than other institutions.  It may have been, but how do we know?  Others shouldn't be cocky without holding up their own groups to scrutiny.

[dead0man]

Somehow as absolutely horrible as something is in reality, people are always able to find a way of making an absurd hyperbole around it.

There are ways of being appropriately harsh about this without denigrating and dismissing every other aspect of the Catholic church and the priests and lay people within it who are standing up against this and calling the hierarchy to account.

It's also not clear to me exactly how much worse the Catholic church was in this time frame when most of these events occurred than other institutions.  It may have been, but how do we know?  Others shouldn't be cocky without holding up their own groups to scrutiny.

what other institution could even come close, is there some other group that the Catholic church is in competition with?  College sports organizations?  They've had 2 high profile cases in the last decade, horrible.  Lets say it's really bad and there are ten times more of these things going on that we don't know about and lets be generous to "the Church" and say every single case of abuse in the Church has been uncovered, the numbers still aren't close....at all.

I guess I also don't understand the attachment to the church...do you really think being a Catholic is the ONLY way to get to Jesus?  That's what we were taught in S.Baptist circles (that Catholics don't play well with other Christian organizations)...but we were taught a lot sh**t about Catholics and only some of it ended up being true, is this one true too?  Do you really think heaven is out of reach for you if you start going to Lutheren church to do your "Christianity"?

[Santander]

If he said this about just about any non-Christian church, it would be considered hate speech. The difference is, with the Catholic Church, there is no fatwa on his head.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

This latest Pennsylvania scandal is goddamn disgusting: among others it talks of a boy being sodomized with a crucifix while being tied in a "prayer position" in the confessional and girls having their mouths routinely washed out with holy water after oral sex, which sound like the imagery used in a really heavy handed anti-religious diatrabe. There's also the reports of vulnerable (i.e. previously groomed) kids being given special cross necklaces to indicate to other predator priests they were "easy", a known child molester being given a positive recommendation for Disneyworld after leaving the clergy, child porn rings where boys were made to take nude pictures upon a crucifix as a "reference for a new religious statue", a girl of 18 months (!!!) being raped, a priest grooming children by claiming the Virgin Mary had to kick Baby Jesus clean and cut the cord, a priest raping every single girl in a single family and an endless amount of manipulation, guilt-tripping, physical abuse and the weaponisation of religious doctrine and ritual. And the horrifying thing is none of these men can be charged because for some dumb reason child abuse is covered by the statute of limitations. I hope every diocese involved is forced into bankruptcy, and every single person named as being complict excommunicated ten times over.

Also it's pretty bizarre how the conservatives in the Church seem to be mainly agitated about the homosexual nature of much of the crimes, rather than um, the fact it was children being raped? I guess if it was mostly little girls being attacked that would be ok for these dinosaurs?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Somehow as absolutely horrible as something is in reality, people are always able to find a way of making an absurd hyperbole around it.

There are ways of being appropriately harsh about this without denigrating and dismissing every other aspect of the Catholic church and the priests and lay people within it who are standing up against this and calling the hierarchy to account.

It's also not clear to me exactly how much worse the Catholic church was in this time frame when most of these events occurred than other institutions.  It may have been, but how do we know?  Others shouldn't be cocky without holding up their own groups to scrutiny.

what other institution could even come close, is there some other group that the Catholic church is in competition with?  College sports organizations?  They've had 2 high profile cases in the last decade, horrible.  Lets say it's really bad and there are ten times more of these things going on that we don't know about and lets be generous to "the Church" and say every single case of abuse in the Church has been uncovered, the numbers still aren't close....at all.

I guess I also don't understand the attachment to the church...do you really think being a Catholic is the ONLY way to get to Jesus?  That's what we were taught in S.Baptist circles (that Catholics don't play well with other Christian organizations)...but we were taught a lot sh**t about Catholics and only some of it ended up being true, is this one true too?  Do you really think heaven is out of reach for you if you start going to Lutheren church to do your "Christianity"?

Its not often i completely agree with dead0man posts. This is one of those times.

[7,052,770]

Somehow as absolutely horrible as something is in reality, people are always able to find a way of making an absurd hyperbole around it.

There are ways of being appropriately harsh about this without denigrating and dismissing every other aspect of the Catholic church and the priests and lay people within it who are standing up against this and calling the hierarchy to account.

It's also not clear to me exactly how much worse the Catholic church was in this time frame when most of these events occurred than other institutions.  It may have been, but how do we know?  Others shouldn't be cocky without holding up their own groups to scrutiny.

what other institution could even come close, is there some other group that the Catholic church is in competition with?  College sports organizations?  They've had 2 high profile cases in the last decade, horrible.  Lets say it's really bad and there are ten times more of these things going on that we don't know about and lets be generous to "the Church" and say every single case of abuse in the Church has been uncovered, the numbers still aren't close....at all.

I guess I also don't understand the attachment to the church...do you really think being a Catholic is the ONLY way to get to Jesus?  That's what we were taught in S.Baptist circles (that Catholics don't play well with other Christian organizations)...but we were taught a lot sh**t about Catholics and only some of it ended up being true, is this one true too?  Do you really think heaven is out of reach for you if you start going to Lutheren church to do your "Christianity"?

Is this a serious question? I thought it was extremely well known that the Catholic Church extends salvation not only to Protestants, but also Jews, Muslims, Hindus,  etc., and even atheists.

It's one of the least strict denominations in this respect...

[7,052,770]

I've often heard that protestant ministers have higher sex abuse rates than Catholic priests, and both have much lower rates than the general population, but I dont know that that's the appropriate way to look at these things.

[bore]

I don't really care what Trevor Noah says about anything, though, given what the report says it's not really seemly to complain about. (Incidentally, this from the onion does what Noah is aiming for far better than him) What happened in Pennsylvania is appalling but not shocking, that it's not shocking is itself appalling.

The sex abuse scandals have, understandably, generated an enormous number and variety of responses. Save for Bill Donahue of the grandly titled Catholic League, no one has attempted any form of denial or minimisation. This is good, I guess, though as with so many complex tragedies, there is something rather unedifying about the glee with which certain conservatives have used it to attack gay priests, atheists use it to attack religion, liberals use it to attack the bishops. There is always an agenda. This is not of necessity a bad thing, an agenda is the only way to fix this, and in fact I agree with the liberals and honestly sympathise with the atheists, but it does lend an unedifying taste to the discourse.

Why, then? It is easier to rule out reasons than to come up with convincing ones. We know the crisis peaked in australia in the 50s, before the sexual revolution. We know that gay priests are not any more likely to molest than straight ones (though boys are far more likely to be the victims, probably because priests are far more likely to have access to them). We know that since 2002 there's been almost no molestation by catholic priests, so the unnaturalness of celibacy can hardly be blamed.

We know that wherever there are children there are paedophiles, we know that the vast majority of institutions will cover it up. We've seen this sort of stuff happen in schools and hospitals, scout patrols and sports teams, care homes and choirs. But it does seem worse in the church.

Shua says that this may just be down to the church being more scrutinised, and this is possible. If you wanted to imagine the type of institutional paedophilia story that would cause a media storm then it's hard to think of a better fit than the Catholic Church. It is instantly recognisable around the world, rather than just some local school or choir. It's social influence is profound. And, where it turns out that it has been covering up for abusers, it, given how often it pontificates on morals in general and sex in particular, is flagrantly hypocritical.

But it is also true, that if you wanted to design an institution which would perpetuate and cover up for child abuse on an industrial scale, than you would have struggled to create a better fit than the Catholic Church of 40 or 50 years ago. You have the culture of clericalism that means that priests are borderline worshiped in their communities. You have a system of education for priests that takes them in seminarians at a very young age and teaches them that they are special. You have a bishop who controls the entire life of everyone who works under him, who can, if he chooses silence anyone who raises any doubts. You have an institution that is loved by millions and feared by most of the rest. You have access not just to altar boys but to schools and hospitals and clubs.

There has been a lot of justifiable anger from all sides to Bill Donahue and his take on this latest chapter in the scandal. So it's perhaps ironic that, on a factual basis, he's basically right. The vast majority of priests have no accusation against them and there is no longer an institutional problem of abuse of children (whether that's because of new guidelines or because no one trusts priests with their children is hard to say). But this of course, misses the point quite spectacularly.

The fact is the people who were in charge during the bad old days are still either in charge themselves (like Wuerl), or in a comfortable retirement. Moreover, the new blood who are not culpable for the sins of their predecessors, regarding shuffling clergy, are just as unwilling to hold investigations, to apologise from the heart and not from a PR firm, and compensate victims. Like so many other areas of public life now, there are almost no profiles in courage.

The scandal is not the same as that of 2002. It's no longer about the ongoing abuse of children, it's about the hierarchy being completely unwilling to be properly penitent, both personally and institutionally.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

shua's response reminds me of Tony Campolo's infamous sermon intro:
"I want to start by saying three things. First, last night while you slept hundreds of children died from starvation and preventable diseases. Secondly,  many of you don't give a sh!t. And what's worse is that you probably are more bothered that I just said "sh!t" than that hundreds of kids died last night."

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Somehow as absolutely horrible as something is in reality, people are always able to find a way of making an absurd hyperbole around it.

There are ways of being appropriately harsh about this without denigrating and dismissing every other aspect of the Catholic church and the priests and lay people within it who are standing up against this and calling the hierarchy to account.

It's also not clear to me exactly how much worse the Catholic church was in this time frame when most of these events occurred than other institutions.  It may have been, but how do we know?  Others shouldn't be cocky without holding up their own groups to scrutiny.

what other institution could even come close, is there some other group that the Catholic church is in competition with?  College sports organizations?  They've had 2 high profile cases in the last decade, horrible.  Lets say it's really bad and there are ten times more of these things going on that we don't know about and lets be generous to "the Church" and say every single case of abuse in the Church has been uncovered, the numbers still aren't close....at all.

I guess I also don't understand the attachment to the church...do you really think being a Catholic is the ONLY way to get to Jesus?  That's what we were taught in S.Baptist circles (that Catholics don't play well with other Christian organizations)...but we were taught a lot sh**t about Catholics and only some of it ended up being true, is this one true too?  Do you really think heaven is out of reach for you if you start going to Lutheren church to do your "Christianity"?

One issue here is that the Catholic church is just really big.  I don't know exactly how many more priests there are than college sports coaches but I'm guessing it's a lot.  When there is an example of abuse in a public school, or in some non-denominational or independent Protestant church, it's not as readily considered indicative of these institutions in a broader sense. 

Bore is correct that here have been some unique institutional and cultural aspects to this.  But on this I disagree - the PA report is shocking. We knew some of this stuff already about the lack of accountability, but some of this is disturbing in a way that seems new. A truly sick culture was able to develop in some cases, though again we don't know how widespread when it comes to other dioceses. It is just shocking on a gut level that it happened at all.

Church isn't primarily about "getting into heaven" and a primary way much of evangelicalism ill serves Christians and society as a whole is by giving this impression.  I'm not Catholic, but I have pondered seriously converting, finding in Catholic tradition a spiritual richness that contrasts both with sclerotic fundamentalism and anemic Moral Therapeutic Deism. With the latest revelations, I am finding such a move much harder to imagine. But for those who already belong to the Catholic church and believe its teachings, can anyone be surprised at those who would stay and fight for the renewal of the church they love?

[dead0man]

One issue here is that the Catholic church is just really big.  I don't know exactly how many more priests there are than college sports coaches but I'm guessing it's a lot.

37k Priests in the US and this place says it represents 35k college coaches but I can't find anything better than that.  They ain't that far apart.

[dead0man]

the Onion is all over this

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[Green Line]

This has NOTHING to do with the Catholic Church, i’m sick and tired of all the BS.  Noah should be taken off the air for encouraging violence against Catholics.

[afleitch]

Yeah.

It is.

[libertpaulian]

Noah was wrong to do this.

He forgot to include evangelical Baptist and Pentecostal churches, which are notoriously equal for stuff like this.  In fact, in some ways, I'd say they're worse than Catholics are regarding this issue.

At least Catholics have a hierarchy to take care of stuff like this, even if it's a hierarchy in name only.  Bapticostals?  They tend to be congregational by nature, meaning Preacher Billy Bob is the "Pope" of his church and he controls how issues like this are handled.  And it's usually handled by coverup.

[7,052,770]

Noah was wrong to do this.

He forgot to include evangelical Baptist and Pentecostal churches, which are notoriously equal for stuff like this.  In fact, in some ways, I'd say they're worse than Catholics are regarding this issue.

At least Catholics have a hierarchy to take care of stuff like this, even if it's a hierarchy in name only.  Bapticostals?  They tend to be congregational by nature, meaning Preacher Billy Bob is the "Pope" of his church and he controls how issues like this are handled.  And it's usually handled by coverup.

I'm not sure that whataboutism is the appropriate response, even if it's technically correct. Better to just say that anyone part of the coverup is a deplorable who should rot in jail forever, apologize profusely, and compensate the victims. Set an example for the other religious groups to follow.

[dead0man]

Noah was wrong to do this.

He forgot to include evangelical Baptist and Pentecostal churches, which are notoriously equal for stuff like this.  In fact, in some ways, I'd say they're worse than Catholics are regarding this issue.

At least Catholics have a hierarchy to take care of stuff like this, even if it's a hierarchy in name only.  Bapticostals?  They tend to be congregational by nature, meaning Preacher Billy Bob is the "Pope" of his church and he controls how issues like this are handled.  And it's usually handled by coverup.

and they never ever get moved to a whole new set of victims like Priests do after they've been caught.  Over and over and over.   Having a bureaucracy that actually helped would make it better, but when that bureaucracy is much more concerned with the feelings of the priests than the feelings of toddlers it's much much worse.

and what is the evidence that Baptists and Pentecostals are worse about this?  Is it a feeling you have?  Or maybe a study you read from the Catholic League?

[7,052,770]

Noah was wrong to do this.

He forgot to include evangelical Baptist and Pentecostal churches, which are notoriously equal for stuff like this.  In fact, in some ways, I'd say they're worse than Catholics are regarding this issue.

At least Catholics have a hierarchy to take care of stuff like this, even if it's a hierarchy in name only.  Bapticostals?  They tend to be congregational by nature, meaning Preacher Billy Bob is the "Pope" of his church and he controls how issues like this are handled.  And it's usually handled by coverup.

and they never ever get moved to a whole new set of victims like Priests do after they've been caught.  Over and over and over.   Having a bureaucracy that actually helped would make it better, but when that bureaucracy is much more concerned with the feelings of the priests than the feelings of toddlers it's much much worse.

Point taken, but you're describing the situation from decades ago, not from 2018.

[dead0man]

The recent PA story didn't have any of that?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I mean, hipster Christianity is not hierarchical at all, and the only sex scandal I've heard of in an emergent church was a female pastor having consensual sexual relations with teenage boys who were above the age of consent.

(No I'm not saying it was OK, especially as she was married.)

[°Leprechaun]

I haven't seen much on this site about the David Silverman scandal.
The American Atheists removed him as President.
Maybe the Catholics and other organizations should follow that example.

I won't be surprised to see a spin about this.

[Slander and/or Libel]

I don't think this is necessarily endemic to being a Catholic in some platonic sense, but it's certainly the case that institutions with proximity to vulnerable populations will attract predators. The more powerful those institutions, the more leeway they're granted to act with impunity. That's what we see with college sports, or like with ICE agents raping women in their custody.

The difference here, and I think dead0man alluded to it above, is that the Catholic Church is global. Michigan State had means and motivation to cover up Larry Nasser's crimes and turn the other way, but they didn't have the means to reassign him to Ohio State. Priests also have a certain level of anonymity. They're not rockstars, so when they disappear nobody really notices, or follows where they go.

I don't think catholicism is intrinsically linked with child abuse, but the hierarchical superstructure of the Catholic Church makes this kind of abuse inevitable.

[afleitch]

But it is also true, that if you wanted to design an institution which would perpetuate and cover up for child abuse on an industrial scale, than you would have struggled to create a better fit than the Catholic Church of 40 or 50 years ago. You have the culture of clericalism that means that priests are borderline worshiped in their communities. You have a system of education for priests that takes them in seminarians at a very young age and teaches them that they are special. You have a bishop who controls the entire life of everyone who works under him, who can, if he chooses silence anyone who raises any doubts. You have an institution that is loved by millions and feared by most of the rest. You have access not just to altar boys but to schools and hospitals and clubs.

I think this is a key point. It was a perfect 'creation' for power systems to allow for abuse to fester. Same with institutions run by sisters. But these places don't exist any more in part due to changes in how children are treated in care, but also due to the state effectively taking over most of these types of institutions prior to reforming them or winding them down.

Also, as much as people like to assume priesthood was a 'calling', a half century ago in reality it wasn't. In many families it was an obligation (a priest in every family was pretty much the rule even in Scotland) or a place to essentially hide.

In terms of it 'not happening now', in Europe, America, Australia etc maybe; never assume. Certainly in the developing world the institutions, power structures, silence etc probably still exist in many case unchecked and unchallenged. That's no doubt where it may continue to happen.