VERSION|0.5.1|NAME|HarryR|DATE|1364661487|CONTENT|Other than reference to the events of the biblical story as if it were fact this was mostly a pretty hum-drum stating of the obvious. We have bodies. They are important to us. 

There was a misuse of the word &#039;controversial&#039; when she meant that a few ( way too few) people made a lot of noise ( about trivia) while everyone else was indifferent.

It was her passing comment referring to the abuse of children that makes me gag. 

CatherineP&#039;s trademark on TFTD has become her refusal to condemn or even criticise abusive priests guilty of the most bizarrely exploitative and torturous behaviour against children with whom they have been entrusted. 

She calls for sympathy and understanding of the abusers and assumes them to be tormented by self-loathing - for which there is absolutely no evidence, though they are presumably not happy that they&#039;ve been exposed and the game is up. However, they can continue to rely upon the very significant resources and social networks of the RCC and its legal, financial and moral support.

Also her refusal to condemn or criticise the RCC for its tolerance of and collusion with those priests by bullying victims and parents where possible and bribing if necessary, and instead of reporting the crimes of such priests to the Police, repeatedly relocating offenders thus giving them an escape route when reported in one parish and then re-empowering them with access to fresh prey in another. 

The internal church body responsible for this policy, headed by pre-papal Ratzinger, greatly admired by Pepinster, maintained a slush fund budgeted at $5million a year to shut the mouths of those who might otherwise take legal action or go public. 

Such an annual sum demonstrates their awareness of the problem and its scale. Their only concern was not to act to stop it ( the only [i]ethical[/i] action) but to keep it out of the public sphere to protect the corporate interests of the RCC.

You can&#039;t consider these facts without concluding that the abuse of children by priests [i]in principle[/i] is not high on the RCC&#039;s list of concerns. 

Only a slightly more cynical view is req&#039;d to assume that the RCC and its priests regard such sexual access as a perk of the job, for those of them who are into that sort of thing. &quot;The sheep&quot;, they seem to assume, &quot;belong to us&quot;. Such sense of entitlement was perhaps common amongst appointed political commissars of the soviet countries, or since forever amongst the economically powerful with access to the invisible and vulnerable.

After the exposures of the last decade for Catherine to make reference to child abuse in the general sense only, without expressly including the involvement of priests is crass dishonesty.|IP-ADDRESS|80.237.234.150|MODERATIONFLAG|