Does the Catholic Church foster a Culture of Pedophilia?

When 'incident' after 'incident' such as this one* occur, a pattern emerges. And where there exists an ideology that sanctions or tolerates the physical, mental and sexual abuse of children and adolescents, there will be an institution that will furiously use all and every mean to defend itself, to cast blame elsewhere and to evade accountability.

These events are not haphazard. The Catholic Church has a long history of actively or passively encouraging violence against specific and strategic targets, often women and children.

Imagine an exchange whispered in a confessional setting, multiplied thousands and thousand of times across centuries and countries, between a priest and an adult male. The man confesses his sin of lusting after a girl to whom he has access: a family member, a neighbour's child, a student. He is chastized by his priest and told to renounce such thoughts; to act upon them would be a greater sin.

Then the man learns the priest who confessed him has been sexually abusing altar boys. The putative representative of Christ on earth, anointed by the bishop, is thus allowed to behave in this manner with impunity? That certainly sends a message to Catholic men.

Here's more about the malevolent Catholic Church tradition of implicitely or explicitely encouraging harm towards women and children, still enforced by Pope Maledict and his gynophobic ruling clergy.

This may be the next outrage that will confront the sanctimonious blather publicly bloviated by powerful old men in their luxurious trappings.

The crisis of religious abuse in Africa and India was brought to Rome's attention in 1998 when a four-page paper titled "The Problem of the Sexual Abuse of African Religious in Africa and Rome" was presented by Sister Marie McDonald, mother superior of the Missionaries of Our Lady of Africa. A March 2001 National Catholic Reporter article detailed McDonald's claims, which included accounts of sexual abuse by priests and bishops. [...]

All of these public allegations fell on deaf ears. Neither Rome nor the world cared to demand justice for the nuns also sexually victimized by Catholic clergy. Like news stories of wives in burqas being stoned to death in Islamic strongholds, tales of nuns raped by priests and bishops did not even merit a sound bite on the evening news and were soon forgotten.

Once more, there appears to be MASSIVE dissonance between the official Catholic Church propaganda and the actual actions of its clergy members.

*The current news coverage around the story was originally blogged by JJ at unrepentant old hippie here.