The Pope is resigning

[WorkingMummy]

Of course people who have an urge to rape children do not have minds in apple pie order. Of course it's sick.

But to say it is not a crime???

Penal policy in this country is very clear that the urge to fiddle with kids (or the tendency to act on that urge) is not an urge/tendency which can be treated.

[Otta]

The urge can't be "cured", but a person can be trained to ignore it.

Don't get me wrong, if someone touches a kid they should be punished, but I do wish there was somewhere people could go to seek help. Instead we have "string 'em up" all over the press, so anyone who did have that kind of urge is likely to keep it very much to themselves, and in some cases it will eventually boil over until they act on it

[WorkingMummy]

I see your point (although do not understand - to any degree - the mother you describe) but it really was not his point.

He was talking about established paedophiles who should not be held criminally accountable because they had themselves been damaged. The BBC quotes him as talking about at least two priests whom he knows, who have abused children, but whom he believes to have been abused themselves as children:

"Now don't tell me that those people are criminally responsible like somebody who chooses to do something like that. I don't think you can really take the position and say that person deserves to be punished. He was himself damaged."

This is just more evil cover-up/grant them amnesty crap.

It's also a pretty incoherent concept of free will/choice/human agency which lets child rapists off if "they were abysed too", but condemns the human race to hell for original bloody sin.

Just can never get over the power this self-interested, make it up as it suits you institution continues to have.

[Otta]

On that we agree.

[uncleglen]

I know nothing about psychology but it occurred to me that when children are growing up everything is new to them so at their time of innocence they would think that all the horrendous things that happen (which most adults are appalled by) are normal- especially when they are perpetrated by people that they trust. The 'normality' of these happenings could be deeply ingrained into their minds so that when they grow up they then abuse children for example- or do the things that were done to them.

Therefore the abusers are damaged in that they grow up believing they are behaving normally when they are not in the eyes of society. When do children get taught about what is acceptable behaviour and what is not before they actually behave in an unacceptable manner and get caught?

[WorkingMummy]

I don't believe that the (at least) two catholic priests this cardinal is stating ought to be protected from the criminal law could possibly have been unaware that their behaviour was neither normal nor ok.

Recovering from that kind of experience as a child must be very challenging. Probably endlessly so. But a lot of people with a history of child abuse might find the theory that part of what they need to recover from (as well as their own pain) is a latent desire to hurt others in the same way they were hurt, a tad slanderous.

But just say (as might well be the case) there is statistically proven link. And just say that link can be proved to be causal, as opposed to an indirect link via another (actually causal) factor, such as genes. (As far as I know, no such evidence exists.) That wouldn't make it not a crime, which is what this catholic cardinal is saying. In the eyes of our own criminal justice system (which unlike the catholic church has a very well formulated policy towards punishing sexual offences against children) it is not even a "mitigating factor". The fact that you were abused as a child does not entitle you to a reduction in your sentence.

And forgetting secular penal authority, what moral code is this bloke applying when he says, if it happened to you first, you had no choice and are not to blame/ responsible? Is that moral code also going to excuse a man from a charge of GBH or murder if he proves he has a gene for aggression, that makes it harder for him to control his temper? Or excuse a fraudulent banker who pleads that his father was a Walter Mitty character who failed to give him a stable model of personal integrity? If you are going to get all relative on the (quite possibly illusory, but socially indispensable) concept of free will, that's where you'll end up.

And like I said, the hypocrisy of a bloody catholic cardinal taking this relativistic stance is breathtaking . What other crime would a catholic cardinal seek to suggest should not be punished because the perpetrator cannot be blamed for the way he is, and "therefore" (it doesn't even follow) for the things he does. This is someone who peaches that unbaptised humans burn in hell for the sin of Adam.

It's a perfect bloody example why religion and religious leaders should not be credited with any special moral authority/wisdom. This is just another religious leader spouting whatever crap suits.