Verisure
Senior Member
I know that you are not saying all Catholics are the "P" word but I can contribute some support to your story with three personal stories of my own:......
Well this was one of the biggest deceiving parts about this particular religion. The fact that Catholic priests, bishops and cardinals had to stay faithful to their church , with a promise of celibacy , made it extraordinarily difficult for them to be human , which unfortunately caused all kinds of problems.
These people had a lot of power and influence over others and took advantage of that. In fact , that is the very place pedophiles and homosexuals would flee to. The church protected them and kept them safe.
When I was really young, my family were really close friends to a family whose father volunteered at a church as a Sunday school teacher. It just happened to be that he had a thing for younger children. Coincidence? I think not. He knew he was not only trusted in his position , but safe.
So yes, priests, cardinals and bishops were regular people who , not only had the ability to become corrupt, but also had the power, the trust and the protection of the church.
Trying to create humans who have no sexual urges and giving them power over others , created all kinds of corruption. I completely agree with you there.
* When I was in my early 20's I met an ex-priest at the barbershop in Albuquerque. He told me he had left the Church of his own free will because the Catholic Church was not interested in helping the poor. I thought it was interesting and so I agreed to his invitation to his apartment for coffee later that day. When I arrived he was decked out in his full priestly garb and his language was the foulest I'd ever heard in my life. I wasn't sure what to do or say but when he tried to put his hands on me I stood up and left.
* During the ethnic cleansing of Bosnia, we had thousands of refugees arriving here in Sweden. At the time, I was employed in a support capacity of the office of immigration. My boss was an ex-Catholic priest from Chicago. He had been defrocked of his priesthood but I don't think he ever told me why. I figured it out eventually. He was hot to trot for teenage boys and young men (not children anyway) and he used his position to grant special treatment for sexual "favours".
* Some years after that I met an Englishman who was here for a couple of years until he absconded with his employer's payroll and left the country. He was raised in the Anglican Church but had converted to Catholocism for some really flimsy reason that lacked any logic. When I met him he invited me up to his flat one day and when I arrived he had ooops! "accidentally" left a pornographic magazine depicting nude boys on the table. An obvious hint that was meant to entice me.
No, I'm not saying that all Catholic priests or Catholic converts are pedo-bent but it is noteworthy that so many do gravitate in that direction.