Archbishop Claims He Didn’t Know Sex With Children Was A Crime

[phands]

Unbelievable...true xtianity at it's odious worst....

St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson testified that he wasn’t sure if sex with children was a crime in the 1980s, according to documents released Monday. Yes, you read that sentence right.


Carlson, who was at that time chancellor of the Archdiocese of Minneapolis and St. Paul, was deposed as part of a lawsuit against the Twin Cities archdiocese and the Diocese of Winona, Minnesota. Back in the ’80s, it was Carlson’s job to investigate allegations of abuse by priests. But he admitted that he never went to the police, not even when a clergy member reportedly admitted to inappropriate behavior.


In 1994, Carlson left the Twin Cities. In 2009, he became the Archbishop of St. Louis.


The St. Paul law firm Jeff Anderson & Associates released a video in which Carlson is asked whether he’d known it was a crime for adults to have sex with children. In response, Carlson said, “I’m not sure whether I knew it was a crime or not. I understand today it’s a crime.” Well, that’s great!

https://wokesloth.com/archbishop-kids-crime/jessi/

 

[Lion IRC]

Maybe he was confused because abortion of children is legal. Forest/trees.
#double-standard

 

[Ford]

Maybe he was confused because abortion of children is legal. Forest/trees.
#double-standard

Well that's surprising. Usually when it comes to priests raping children you drag out the No True Scotsman fallacy.

 

[Lion IRC]

Well there's a surprise.
An atheist who cant believe that pedophiles masquerading as clergy are anything other than 100% True Christians.

Its like you think there's absolutely no difference between a fake Christian and an actual Christian.

 

[phands]

Maybe he was confused because abortion of children is legal. Forest/trees.
#double-standard

Well that's surprising. Usually when it comes to priests raping children you drag out the No True Scotsman fallacy.

Wow...yet again, LIRC makes a breathtakingly idiotic digression attempt. In zero way is the molestation of children comparable with abortion.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Maybe he was confused because abortion of children is legal. Forest/trees.
#double-standard

Well that's surprising. Usually when it comes to priests raping children you drag out the No True Scotsman fallacy.

Wow...yet again, LIRC makes a breathtakingly idiotic digression attempt. In zero way is the molestation of children comparable with abortion.

Well, the important thing is that child rape needs to be minimized because it's really hard to defend the Church's actions if the conversation is framed with the biased assumption that raping children is bad.

 

[whollygoats]

Well there's a surprise.
An atheist who cant believe that pedophiles masquerading as clergy are anything other than 100% True Christians.

Its like you think there's absolutely no difference between a fake Christian and an actual Christian.

Yeah...There are shiploads of 'false Christians' just like you, while 'actual Christians' are merely the figment of your fetid imagination. No 'actual Christians' even exist.

 

[Keith&Co.]

The St. Paul law firm Jeff Anderson & Associates released a video in which Carlson is asked whether he’d known it was a crime for adults to have sex with children. In response, Carlson said, “I’m not sure whether I knew it was a crime or not. I understand today it’s a crime.”

And they wouldn't let us get married in a Catholic Church until I went through Marriage School, so an authority figure with the same training and background as Carlson, so that HE could tell US what was morally acceptable.

I want my $25 back... I mean, _I_ knew that sex with children was illegal.

 

[Ford]

Well there's a surprise.
An atheist who cant believe that pedophiles masquerading as clergy are anything other than 100% True Christians.

Its like you think there's absolutely no difference between a fake Christian and an actual Christian.

I'm sure this will be an exercise in futility, but here goes...

Do you think that an "actual" or "True" Christian can also be a pedophile?

If the answer you give (as I suspect) is "no," then I take it you think there's never been an incident of a "True Christian" doing anything even remotely inappropriate with a child?

 

[ruby sparks]

Clearly this wasn't a real archbishop.

 

[Keith&Co.]

I'm sure this will be an exercise in futility, but here goes...

Be wary of his shifting. He'll switch between accusing ALL of the perps of definitely being atheists, to crying that his critics won't accept the idea that ANY of the perps could possibly be atheists.

 

[abaddon]

Lion IRC seems to use labels with a load of connotations attached. Christian means godly, good person. Atheist means godless, wicked person. They can't be descriptive in the dictionary sense, the + or - assigned value must be there too.

The no true Scotsman fallacy confuses him because it means stripping the connotations off and taking a label just for what it means. Without the + or - connotations, there's no simple black-white way to orient to the concept. A moral atheist? That's a contradiction in terms. A wicked Christian? It's a contradiction in terms.

I think "believe" plays a big role too. If you're a believer in the teachings of Christianity (the basic definition of "Christian"), then you must obey the teachings of Christianity. Conversely, if you don't obey them then you don't believe them. It'd complicate the world too much to realize humans are fully capable of acting against their beliefs and that Belief doesn't necessarily transform or guide anyone.

 

[phands]

If the answer you give (as I suspect) is "no," then I take it you think there's never been an incident of a "True Christian" doing anything even remotely inappropriate with a child?

So... a fail from the start...the evil bible has gawd telling a good true xtian to kill his son, and that good xtian putting a knife to his throat. Unless that isn't considered "remotely inappropriate" by true xtians? Or sexual violations are somehow differently inappropriate to murder and violence?

Or what about

Isaiah 13:15-18 If God can find you, he will “thrust you through,” smash your children “to pieces” before your eyes, and rape your wife.
Jeremiah 11:22-23 God will kill the young men in war and starve their children to death.
Jeremiah 19:7-9 God will make parents eat their own children, and friends eat each other.
Lamentations 2:20-22 God gets angry and mercilessly torments and kills everyone, young and old. He even causes women to eat their children.

Seriously fucked up, xtianity is.

 

[WAB]

Well there's a surprise.
An atheist who cant believe that pedophiles masquerading as clergy are anything other than 100% True Christians.

Its like you think there's absolutely no difference between a fake Christian and an actual Christian.

Do you think that an "actual" or "True" Christian can also be a pedophile?

I think it's entirely possible that a true believer can be a horrible person and a criminal of any degree, pedophile included. History has shown that to be true over and over. Many horrible people use religion as a cloak. "The last refuge of a scoundrel" and all that.

But I don't think it's unreasonable at all to consider that it is not only possible but highly probable that many sexual predators who are not true believers are drawn to the clergy, especially the RCC.

Please read my first sentence! I am NOT making the argument that if a person is a sexual predator then ergo they are not a true believer. My point is that it's not much of a stretch to imagine that many sexual predators in any church are closet atheists.

To be truthful, I think the Catholic church is a magnet for rotten people (which is not to say that Catholics are rotten people in general), believers or non-believers, men or women. My mother was traumatized by sadistic nuns in Catholic school.

 

[Ford]

Well there's a surprise.
An atheist who cant believe that pedophiles masquerading as clergy are anything other than 100% True Christians.

Its like you think there's absolutely no difference between a fake Christian and an actual Christian.

Do you think that an "actual" or "True" Christian can also be a pedophile?

I think it's entirely possible that a true believer can be a horrible person and a criminal of any degree, pedophile included. History has shown that to be true over and over. Many horrible people use religion as a cloak. "The last refuge of a scoundrel" and all that.

I know it is possible. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.

But I don't think it's unreasonable at all to consider that it is not only possible but highly probable that many sexual predators who are not true believers are drawn to the clergy, especially the RCC.

Or that the church draws sexual predators with their history and policy of looking the other way or actively covering such activities. I also think it is possible but highly probable that there are clergy who are sexual predators and also true believers. Something which Lion seems to categorically deny.

Please read my first sentence! I am NOT making the argument that if a person is a sexual predator then ergo they are not a true believer. My point is that it's not much of a stretch to imagine that many sexual predators in any church are closet atheists.

What's with the idea that there's only two possible options when it comes to belief? This isn't an "either you're a true believer or you're an atheist" dichotomy. I'm sure there's everything in the clergy from devout to cafeteria to agnostic to atheist and every flavor in between.

To be truthful, I think the Catholic church is a magnet for rotten people (which is not to say that Catholics are rotten people in general), believers or non-believers, men or women. My mother was traumatized by sadistic nuns in Catholic school.

In other words, it is not the individuals, but the institution. I'd say that's fair. But again, it's a range. My grandmother quit the church in frustration. Her sister became a sister...a very strict nun. Our family runs the gamut from people who are still Catholic, to Lutherans (grandma's adopted faith, though she never went to church) to agnostics, atheists, and even a handful of Muslims.

No pedophiles, as far as I know...

 

[abaddon]

"True believer". What does that even mean?

Consider two "true believers":

One is a humane nun who nourishes curiosity and self-respect among the children she teaches. She believes they're like angels and treats them according to her belief.

The other is a sadistic nun who beats kids and fills their heads up with horrific visions of hell. It's the torture she endured in her own indoctrination into a moral system focused on out-of-this-world ascetic virtues. So the kid's ability to love themselves matters less than their virtue. This is her belief and she is "true" to that belief.

So, what's a "true believer" if not just someone who believes what they believe? How descriptive is that? Not very... so why do people use the phrase? Why is belief valorized as inherently something good and therefore remaining "true" to it inherently something good?

Why not just say "believer"?

It's not a rhetorical question. If I'm wrong, I welcome another POV about it.

 

[WAB]

"True believer". What does that even mean?

Consider two "true believers":

One is a humane nun who nourishes curiosity and self-respect among the children she teaches. She believes they're like angels and treats them according to her belief.

The other is a sadistic nun who beats kids and fills their heads up with horrific visions of hell. It's the torture she endured in her own indoctrination into a moral system focused on out-of-this-world ascetic virtues. So the kid's ability to love themselves matters less than their virtue. This is her belief and she is "true" to that belief.

So, what's a "true believer" if not just someone who believes what they believe? How descriptive is that? Not very... so why do people use the phrase? Why is belief valorized as inherently something good and therefore remaining "true" to it inherently something good?

Why not just say "believer"?

It's not a rhetorical question. If I'm wrong, I welcome another POV about it.

Alright, conceded. I shouldn't have said 'true believer'. And Ford is right that there's a wide spectrum encompassing belief and non-belief.

But is my primary point incorrect? That it's not unreasonable to think that a sexual predator in the clergy might actually be an atheist?

There are lots of charlatans, posers, and liars in the world. Many of them are in the clergy.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

OK, but why would it be more reasonable to assume that a sexual predator in the clergy is an atheist and he's pretending to be a believer in order to have access to victims than it would be to assume that a devoted social worker in the clergy is an atheist and he's pretending to be a believer in order to have access to the resources the Church provides for him to help out people in need?

Every believer compartmentalizes aspects of his belief in order to justify actions he takes which contradict what his faith says he should do instead. That's why prisons are filled with religious people who have murdered, raped and stolen. That's not a reason to assume that statistics about the religiosity of prison populations are massively skewed due to lying atheists. I see no reason to assume that the criminal population of the clergy would be skewed in this way either.

 

[steve_bank]

It is the 100o year old RCC paradigm that they are the sole arbiters on Earth in the name a god. Pope being at the top.

It is up to god to say what is right and wrong, and he, she, or it speaks through the pope.

Yet again a bunch of celibate old men who may never had any kind of sexual relationship gay or straight presume to dictate sexual morality.

The RCC shows itself to be a corrupt morally bankrupt organization.

Now that you mention it, how many priests actually remain true believers over a lifetime.

 

[funinspace]

Well there's a surprise.
An atheist who cant believe that pedophiles masquerading as clergy are anything other than 100% True Christians.

Its like you think there's absolutely no difference between a fake Christian and an actual Christian.

So was King David a real (religiously) Jew or was he just masquerading as one?

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk