Ratzinger becomes Pope

White Smoke At The Vatican

"PLEASE ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCE MYSELF!"

(Ned: I searched for "Pope" and got "Pope Dan" not this.. USE BETTER KEYWORDS IN TITLE NEXT TIME!)

They elected the emperor palapatine pope.

Who wants to be the first to photoshop blue lightning coming out of his fingertips?

sheesh.

JURANDIR ARAUJ, NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF BRAZILIAN BISHOPS
It seems that he is too conservative. Hopefully the Holy Spirit can help him change. We expected a person like John Paul. Somebody who could give the Church alternatives ... open the Church to the world, look more at reality.

xpost!

-- suzy (theartskooldisk...), April 19th, 2005.

emperor pope-atine

xpost

http://www.newint.org/issue327/worldbeaters.htm

http://img244.echo.cx/img244/971/pope0rp.jpg

http://www.saasta.fi/saasta/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/paavi.jpg

This image was published in a Finnish web newspaper a few days ago. The headline reads "Pope in middle of pedophile scandal". I wonder if the paper had a hidden agenda there?

exposing paedophilia in the catholic church hierarchy isn't exactly a hidden agenda? or have i missed your point?

Er, look at the picture.

oh right. are they saying that he's up for a bit of underage bottom snooker himself?

Bingo!

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article7065824.ece

Excellent work by whoever picked this particular journalist to cover this particular story.

ok i thought the bottom snooker was quite unpleasant enough but now i got a pope, a kid and 'bingo!' in my head and it's much much worse.

As in, J Ratzinger's definition of 'too liberal' might be something I could live with.

Yep, that's why I said "Kung is no doubt right". But his putting the boot in might be more to do with bad blood than anything else.

Accepted, but not something I'm going to lose sleep over!

if youre a high-profile member of the catholic clergy and you dont have bad blood with ratzinger at this point i probably dont trust you

sure, just take whatever Kung says with a very large grain of salt

I'd also be worried about the notion/accepted wisdom that the church 'creates' paedophiles, Tierninián- There's not really any discussion as to why it would be attractive to those with those tendencies, which would really help to underline the practices that need to be addressed by those seeking reform.

Not so much that the church creates paedophiles but when being a priest was a respected job, in Ireland say, there were surely plenty of really sexually repressed or alienated people who joined the church. Or indeed people who weren't very smart and cut out for other jobs. Also prob tons of repressed homosexuals joined the clergy as a way to make the marriage question irrelevant at a time where it was completely taboo to be gay.

Not linking paedophilia to homosexuality, just that it seems likely the church was a pretty good refuge for all sorts of people who couldn't be accepted in that society's vision of a "normal" sexuality or life. I mean fairly sure my Mum has told me back in the day sometimes the underachiever or odd child in a family would be sent to become a priest.

Couple that with huge power, culture of denial, strong religious doctrine etc, enforced solitary existence, it's not that surprising that in certain societies a lot of abuse was committed by priests.

fairly sure my Mum has told me back in the day sometimes the underachiever or odd child in a family would be sent to become a priest

that's what i heard too

round the traps

fairly sure my Mum has told me back in the day sometimes the underachiever or odd child in a family would be sent to become a priest

Things you learn from Father Ted.

yeah or from having priest in your family

sort of usual practice for irish bourgie families back in the day afaik

Not linking paedophilia to homosexuality, just that it seems likely the church was a pretty good refuge for all sorts of people who couldn't be accepted in that society's vision of a "normal" sexuality or life.

No Ronan, I think both Tiernwhatever and I completely agree with you there, that's what we're saying.

I'm not sure about the 'odd' or 'underachieving'- the priesthood was often a job the second/third son would have been sent for, and you still needed brains to get in AFAIK. First son to man the farm, then they were fair game for priesthood, garda, county council or whatever you were having yourself after that. It was definitely a desirable position of status not so long ago, not a 'reject' position.

or just any families...there's a pretty famous irish children's book about this i forget the title of

I'm not misspelling tiernafadan's name incorrectly out of ignorance anymore, in cause i'm annoying him- it's googleproofing fyi)

ugh it's tiarnafadan sorry

if not odd or underachieving then maybe unruly? i know my uncle is a priest and my mum says basically he was v wild as a kid and hated school etc. in the end was prob a good career for him as he went to nigeria and i think he has had a really fulfilling life there.

I dunno- my own uncle studied for two years and took the exams, but pulled out of it last minute, went to London on the buildings, married, normal. He wouldn't ever have been a wild thing, but then he was also the eldest so go figure.

kindaprettysure im abt the last person gonna b bothered by bad spelling btw

dont think a vocation such as the priesthood is just another career choice for most. To me there would seem to be some tension in the ideas that back in the day when the church was respected, it would attract primarily societies oddballs, instead of good buggers (sorry).

Anyway whatever common sense folk psychology might suggest , it isnt born out in the figures of abuse in the church relative to other institutions, its difficult to grasp the scale of the church sometimes, but yeah the cover up, go nuts...

dont think a vocation such as the priesthood is just another career choice for most.

Not now, certainly, but in the generation we're talking about, here in Ireland, I think that maybe it was. I mean we were a deeply Catholic country anyway, and you wouldn't exactly have a life of fruitful ridin ahead of you regardless, and sure all the boys had 'housekeepers' anyway.

^^is this really a thing?

i mean the housekeepers thing

I'm gonna say yeah.

x post, a little projecting on my behalf perhaps, one time priest wannabe

well i'm not assuming that you're old enough to be of 'that' generation in fairness. if it helps, if you're my age and wanted to be a priest then i'm happy to call you a weirdo!

My brother was at a Jesuit school in the early eighties (in Australia), and he always said he thought about half the priests were gay. Which makes sense in a way: if you were a pious Catholic growing up in the fifties and you discovered you were gay, what were you going to do? For similar reasons, I imagine the number of paedophiles in the priesthood is higher than in the general population. A lot of people attracted to a supposed life of sexual abstinence are going to be people who are screwed up about their sexuality, one way or another.

Also prob tons of repressed homosexuals joined the clergy as a way to make the marriage question irrelevant at a time where it was completely taboo to be gay.

Not linking paedophilia to homosexuality, just that it seems likely the church was a pretty good refuge for all sorts of people who couldn't be accepted in that society's vision of a "normal" sexuality or life.

This is more what I meant up there, plax.

Would urge against making too hasty of a judgment of what 'normal' sexuality was in Ireland pre-19?60?'s though.

Would urge against making too hasty of a judgment of what 'normal' sexuality was in Ireland pre-19?60?'s is though.

― Jesse James Woods (darraghmac), Friday, April 16, 2010 1:54 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

lol ok guilty, even if you are a bit of a nazi abt stuff

i might seem a bit hysterical on this thing but it has been bothering me the way there has been a sly linking of gay- and pedo- in all the talk surrounding this. Kinda feel like it has fairly benevolent roots in the "non-mainstream sexuality refuge" theory that this thread is really into, but i dont really know how fair it is to keep making those links because they become p poisonous p fast.

it has been bothering me the way there has been a sly linking of gay- and pedo- in all the talk surrounding this.

i think we're all heartily rejecting the 'gay' link to this, in fairness, and i do think it's valid to question whether a life of celibacy is an attraction to a person who feels like their sexual urges ought to be repressed because of prevailing social norms or w/e.

imo the extraordinary prevalence of child abuse that seems to have occurred (may still be occurring?) in a systemic way makes it inevitable that people will speculate on why that may be.

well, who knows...but prob easier to say what society's rules about "normal" were.

speaking of gay priests my friend tells this story where he was in london at a gay bar with his brother and his partner, about 10 years ago i guess, and he met this one v macho "cool" priest who used to teach at the local school where i grew up. he was kind of an asshole and a bit of a bully, one of the lads type scenario. fr dave was also a big rugby fan and would go to the uk for matches regularly. my friend, who hated him as a teacher, was all "AH HELLO FATHER, HOW ARE YOU"...

x-post to plaxico, i felt awkward making my post above, i hope it doesn't read badly. but i do think the idea of priesthood as an "ask no questions about my sexuality" refuge might have something in it. i guess worth saying someone not wanting to have their sexuality up for discussion obv doesn't mean they're a paedophile...and also prob plenty of repressed people thrived in the priesthood, there are good priests around.

yeah not itt, i mean in gen.

x-post to darragh, does anyone think there were people who knew they were paedophiles joining the priesthood in a calculated way? not saying if there wasn't that'd indict the church, just is interesting to wonder if or when that might have started happening..

dont think u could really accuse anyone here of being sly bigoted propogadists

ah you can't be worrying about 'in gen' those fuckers would kill ya worrying so they would

Ronan, I think plax has been saying that for a while now? Personally even I'm not that cynical about the Church, but maybe that's naive of me, too.

x post damn, ouch! I was on a family duty vs individual choice vibe nevermind, thinking about being a priest is weirdoish granted

x-post to darragh, does anyone think there were people who knew they were paedophiles joining the priesthood in a calculated way? not saying if there wasn't that'd indict the church, just is interesting to wonder if or when that might have started happening..

― I see what this is (Local Garda), Friday, April 16, 2010 2:05 PM (23 seconds ago)

actually this is the exactly the kind of question that i think investigations should be addressing, like at least the ryan report turned up a massive batch of abusers who successfully for a while at least, manipulated the system, or managed to work within it. kinda want to know what the warning signals are and how, aside from just more rigorous policing which is imp, but how you can make the environment hostile to this shit in a way it obv wasnt.

i mean...is there a case for saying people's sense of sexual education or ability to self assess their sexual preferences or urges wasn't even developed enough for someone to understand being a paedophile, at certain times in ireland? not saying people were stupid or exonerating anyone, just...if you weren't normal sexually what abnormal things existed as stuff people talked about that you might think you were?

i mean even after these guys abused could there have been huge denial based on this kind of repression?

xxp to LG- It's impossible to speculate on it, really. I don't claim to have any kind of idea how or when the tendency to child abuse manifests itself, thankfully, so i don't know how it would compare to, say, my own experiences of attraction to girls during puberty.

If I'd have felt that those urges/tendencies were 'wrong' to the extent that I'd imagine a paedophile would, who knows?

I can't imagine it was 'calculated' so much as an 'out' option tbh

in my business speak, i'd imagine the growth of the phenomenon was organic, not planned

http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/religion/Pope-Heads-to-Malta-Where-More-Sex-Abuse-Victims-Await--91065674.html

nice headline...

Belgium's longest serving bishop has just quit after admitting he abused a boy decades ago. Suddenly felt guilty now it's in fashion or something. Anyway. His first name, you ask? Roger.

http://i601.photobucket.com/albums/tt96/MARITER_7/0-B16-PPIOMONTAGE.jpg

big bang started by god, pope decides.

http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs11/i/2006/171/5/7/Emperor_Ratzinger_by_Danvin.jpg

http://i.imagehost.org/0503/ratzinger-palpatine.jpg

eerie!