Offering Some Caution

Hibbing Daily Tribune
May 15, 2015

http://www.hibbingmn.com/opinion/letters/offering-some-caution/article_8a1d94ee-fa9e-11e4-9021-d31ed7ba7604.html

Editor’s Note: This is in response to Dr. Chad Scott’s column “Helping the children of the Hibbing Catholic community” published on this page on May 10.

First, I agree with nearly everything Dr. Chad Scott said, and I won’t question his expertise.

However, in his second paragraph, he recommends that parents tell children that the vast majority of clergy and churches are safe places. Clearly, they are not, and given the global scope of the criminal sexual deviancy of priests, parents need to instill a fear of these people.

I cannot envision a scenario where it is necessary for any clergy to be alone with any child at any time. If they seek time alone with a child, we should deny such opportunity and report it to authorities.

The website “bishopaccountability.org” will demonstrate that nearly every Catholic diocese in the United States has had credible allegations of criminal sexual misconduct by priests or nuns.

After the Catholic church’s own involvement in this travesty became common knowledge, the Vatican attempted to blame the problem on homosexuality among priests. That was a flat out lie because they knew the problem was pedophilia and ephebophilia among priests.

When that lie didn’t take, they shifted to rationalizing it by claiming the ratio of pedophile priests is the same as that of public school teachers. That’s another lie, and here is why: There is no conclusive study that has examined such a ratio. The think tanks that would ordinarily conduct such an investigation are leery of looking into it in fear of what they will find, and that is the Catholic church being a concentration of these criminal rapists. But they’re not special in regard to that because simple internet searches result in other clergy in other faiths also being regularly credibly accused of the same ugly behaviors.

Some will point to the “study” done by the John Jay College. The important part of that study is that it was commissioned by the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops. These men are completely out of touch with reality, and will protect their church and their illusion of power over everything and everyone.

Religiosity in the form of Christianity is declining ever faster in our nation, and part of the reason is this very issue of Catholics trying to bend laws to conform with their inherent bigotry against the gay community. The organization of the church not only vilifies gays, but then tried to shift their own intrinsic ugliness onto that group of innocent people.

My advice is to keep children far away from clergy and the Catholic churches. They surely don’t deserve respect nor money.

I’m not seeing a response from the church in this matter. In all likelihood, based on their behavior in legal matters elsewhere, they’re circling the wagons trying to formulate more lies to cover this up.

Mark Pommier

Hibbing