Pope Not Crazy After All - In 70's Sex With Kids Was Mainstream

I am going to get more into this "controversy" later on as well as SNAP's ( Survivors' Network of those Abused by Priests,) increasing role as sadly becoming part of the problem.

I saw on a internet board a few days ago something entitled POPE SCANDAL. It referenced remarks that Pope Benedict made in his "State of the Church" address to the Curia as to sexual child abuse by clergy. I could not imagine what was controversial about it since I read the whole thing. Read it all here

However some people were offended

See

Pope’s child porn 'normal' claim sparks outrage among victims

Victims of clerical sex abuse have reacted furiously to Pope Benedict's claim yesterday that paedophilia wasn't considered an “absolute evil” as recently as the 1970s........

But outraged Dublin victim Andrew Madden last night insisted that child abuse was not considered normal in the company he kept.

Mr Madden accused the Pope of not knowing that child pornography was the viewing of images of children being sexually abused, and should be named as such.

He said: “That is not normal. I don't know what company the Pope has been keeping for the past 50 years.”

Pope Benedict also said sex tourism in the Third World was “threatening an entire generation”.

Angry abuse victims in America last night said that while some Church officials have blamed the liberalism of the 1960s for the Church's sex abuse scandals and cover-up catastrophes, Pope Benedict had come up with a new theory of blaming the 1970s.

“Catholics should be embarrassed to hear their Pope talk again and again about abuse while doing little or nothing to stop it and to mischaracterise this heinous crisis,” said Barbara Blaine, the head of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests,

“It is fundamentally disturbing to watch a brilliant man so conveniently misdiagnose a horrific scandal,” she added.

“The Pope insists on talking about a vague ‘broader context' he can't control, while ignoring the clear ‘broader context' he can influence — the long-standing and unhealthy culture of a rigid, secretive, all-male Church hierarchy fixated on self-preservation at all costs. This is the ‘context’ that matters.”

The latest controversy comes as the German magazine Der Spiegel continues to investigate the Pope's role in allowing a known paedophile priest to work with children in the early 1980s.

I am going to get more into what the Pope said and where I agree and perhaps disagree a tad. I also plan to do a rather painful piece on SNAP and talk about some things that need to be said.

However lets me stay on topic. The Pope, that has seen a lot of History , is not just making stuff up.

See David Quinn: Pope is right on views of paedophilia in 1970s