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    #26
    Last week AW Richard Sipe died. He was a former priest who became a psychoanalyst working with priests. That led him to do a study in which he found that half of all priests are at any time sexually active, and that 6% of all priests were abusers. In 1986 he presented his findings to the US bishops. He naively thought they'd be grateful to receive important information that might enable them to act. Those spineless, vindictive, secretive ideologues were anything but grateful. In some diocese he was blackballed.

    So when after the scandal broke big in 2002, none of them had any right to be shocked, shocked that there was abuse going on.

    Sipe didn't link clerical celibacy to the incidence of sexual abuse -- for one thing, most priests were not celibate anyway, and for another, statistically Catholic priests are not an outlier in sexual abuse of minors. But in a Church where half of all priests were sexually active, he argued, celibacy contributed to the systemic cover up of all sexual activity, including those that were criminal.

    It was Sipe's study which tipped off the Spotlight team at the Boston Globe about the extent of the cover-ups. In the story of fighting the sexual abuse of minors in the US Catholic Church, and their cover-up, he is a giant.

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      #27
      There's a film in there somewhere.

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        #28
        Any system in which more than half of the members are violating fundamental rules* is going to be plagued by cover-ups, because those members who may want to expose abusers are subject to being exposed themselves.

        G-Man, are you aware of anyone having done a similar study on priests in other countries? My anecdotal sense is that this plague is worse in countries with a particularly clientelist Church, but it would be good to have something more than anecdotes.

        *I assume that some celibate priests are violating other vows

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          #29
          Six percent seems like an awful lot, as does 50%. That said, There was a kid in the year below me in school, and it was understood that his real father was a priest.

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            #30
            Neither of those estimates shocks me for the US.

            One of my best friends in California was the son of a priest and spent much of his early life in a rectory where his mother was a “housekeeper”

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              #31
              I have a hard time thinking that's not an outlier and that 6% of the population as a whole are also abusing children. Then again, it is remarkably and shockingly common.

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                #32
                hah, there's a reason why Mrs Doyle, and all the other housekeepers in father ted are portrayed as widows, a little past the prime of life.

                There's an Irish Journalist called Harry browne, whose dad was a NY priest who was rather active in progressive causes back in the day, a Henry Browne. But closer to home, that vile misogynistic bigot, and massive hypocrite Michael cleary, used to excoriate women on his phone in show about morality etc, while he had a couple of kids with his 'housekeeper.' Indeed the two priests who welcomed John paul II to Galway for that huge miserable youth mass in 1979 were Michael Cleary, and eamon Casey. Or as the Christy Moore song puts it, "Two jockey boys, they'd ride for Ireland, while preaching us morality."

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                  #33
                  Originally posted by Hot Pepsi View Post
                  I have a hard time thinking that's not an outlier and that 6% of the population as a whole are also abusing children. Then again, it is remarkably and shockingly common.
                  In the US approximately 20 percent of girls and 8 percent of boys will be sexually abused before their 18th birthday (Pereda et al, 2009). It seems to be remarkably common.

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                    #34
                    This is quite the story

                    In the years before he was ousted for alleged sexual harassment and financial abuses, the leader of the Catholic Church in West Virginia gave cash gifts totaling $350,000 to fellow clergymen, including young priests he is accused of mistreating and more than a dozen cardinals in the United States and at the Vatican, according to church records obtained by The Washington Post.

                    Bishop Michael J. Bransfield wrote the checks from his personal account over more than a decade, and the West Virginia diocese reimbursed him by boosting his compensation to cover the value of the gifts, the records show. As a tax-exempt nonprofit, the diocese must use its money only for charitable purposes.

                    The gifts — one as large as $15,000 — were detailed in a draft of a confidential report to the Vatican about the alleged misconduct that led to Bransfield’s resignation in September. The names of 11 powerful clerics who received checks were edited out of the final report at the request of the archbishop overseeing the investigation, William Lori of Baltimore.
                    Turns out that the Diocese of West Virginia has an endowment of almost a quarter of a billion dollars thanks to a lucky bequest of Texas oil rights a century ago.

                    West Virginia has fewer than 75,000 Catholics.

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                      #35
                      There's something so powerful about childhood brainwashing. These accounts of abuse by Catholic priests and higher-ranking clerics still do my head in completely because of the cognitive dissonance with the special moral authority the Catholic Church had over me throughout my childhood thanks to my schools and my parents (who of course chose to send me to Catholic schools).

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                        #36
                        I'd have liked the communion money but otherwise I'm very happy to be a Protestant atheist.

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                          #37
                          communion money? Is that a thing? It wasn't in Leeds. Maybe I had a distinctly tight-fisted Yorkshire version of Catholicism.

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                            #38
                            It was a thing with us but only in small fractions of what our peers got for bar/bat mitzvahs.

                            When comparisons were made (and they were) it was common for the total of one's communion money not to match the bar/bat mitzvah gift from a single relative. It is true that our first communion came at a younger age, but I didn't know anyone who got gifts for their confirmation (at 12-13 in NYC at that time).

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                              #39
                              One of Herself's nieces made 700 quid the other week. Another niece was most put out making "only" a few hundred that same weekend. communion is a massive deal in Ireland.

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                                #40
                                Yowza. I don't think inflation has been that severe.

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                                  #41
                                  The boom is getting boomier, baby.

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                                    #42
                                    How many nieces and nephews does the lady in question have?

                                    If she can get the sample up a bit, she can start selling the data to hedge funds.

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                                      #43
                                      8. With three still to experience the magic of free money for catechism.

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                                        #44
                                        I like the sound of this hedge fund data mining.

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                                          #45
                                          I know some guys who charter copters to take photos of parking lots to gauge retail traffic.

                                          This strikes me as a better measure that the competition doesn't have,

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                                            #46
                                            I think that was on Billions.

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                                              #47
                                              Like much of that show, it was taken from real life.

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                                                #48
                                                A friend of mine's niece bought a trampoline with her money and still had about €200 left, I've no idea what the going rate for a trampoline is. I made my Communion in 70s Ireland with a small family who either emigrated or found reasons to fall out with each other so I made the square root of fuck all.

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                                                  #49
                                                  I don't remember being showered in cash for my Communion (1970s, England). What a bleeding swizz.

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                                                    #50
                                                    Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
                                                    I know some guys who charter copters to take photos of parking lots to gauge retail traffic.

                                                    This strikes me as a better measure that the competition doesn't have,
                                                    you're behind the times daddy-o. They all have a subscription to planet labs and their dove satellites now. Steve Jurvetson may have have been driven out of all of his companies because of his deeply questionable behaviour towards women, but he can still pick a tech stock.

                                                    I got £100 for my communion and £200 for my confirmation, all of which I stuck in a building society account, and with other accumulated gifts I bought a gibson type A mandolin for £600 when I was 14. I think it may be the most valuable thing I own. It's a beautiful instrument.
                                                    Last edited by The Awesome Berbaslug!!!; 06-06-2019, 11:05.

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