by Velma aka Shammah

Created on: April 19, 2008

Why is it that when something ``strikes`` the United States it is only then that it becomes a "real life issue" and hits the press big time? Sex abuse has been rampant for centuries, not just in the "catholic church" but throughout history, throughout all types of organizations where one finds an adult in authority or a public figure with influence over young people - male and female alike.

So why is this article titled "facing clergy sex abuse in the Catholic Church," and why is it, as I've read through some of the articles already written, that we here in North America think we can lay claim to being the perpetrators of such atrocities (like anyone would want to claim credit for such a thing)? My heavens we north Americans are an arrogant lot aren't we?

The focus seems to go back to "only" 2002 when Boston hit the press with Cardinal Law's (now that's an oxymoron isn't it; he who breaks the law bears the name) atrocities? Since then, I dare say there isn't a month goes by without some news of some latest uncovering of some such sexual abuse scandal. But I ask again, why restrict it to the catholic church? What about scout leaders, cadets, hockey fans (yes I live in Toronto and surely though most of the readers here live in the States, you were made aware of what took place at our famous/infamous Maple Leaf Gardens).

And, good heavens, I am of Irish descent - as are a number of you Americans - and let me tell you we have our Irish Catholic nightmare stories going back hundreds and hundreds of years. It's there, it's always been there.

This article has chosen, though, to speak only of the catholic church, so I shall not digress.

Do we think this is something new, just this past decade or quarter or half or last century? Here are a few statistics available with a quick google, on the debaucheries committed by the catholic church (quite ancient it is, happening within and without the church walls):

- The 200 years between [the Popes] Nicolas I [858-867 AD] and Gregory VII [1073-1085 AD] is called by historians the MIDNIGHT OF THE DARK AGES... Sergius III (A.D. 904-911)

- Called in history The Rule of the Harlots (904-963)... [Pope] John XII (955-963), a grandson of Marozia, was 'guilty of almost every crime; violated virgins and widows, high and low; lived with his father's mistress; made the Papal Palace a brothel; was killed while in the act of adultery by the woman's enraged husband'"

- The Renaissance produced Popes of little different morals, such as "Nicolas V

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>