What IS good, and how do we determine it?

[FatAndFaithless]

Bringing in pedophilia to the discussion is entirely irrelevant though, as we're speaking about consenting adults.

That's fine. The poster could have specified this. All this poster did was tell me how horrible it was to ever say that someone shouldn't act on their sexual impulses. I brought up pedophilia as an example of a scenario where I'm sure everyone here would agree that it would be appropriate to say someone shouldn't act on sexual impulses.

Fair enough. It is kind of assumed around here though, since we have this kind of discussion all the time. Of course I (and I believe 'we' on the forum) have big problems with non-consensual sex, so it never enters into the discussion when talking about homosexuality, because nothing about gay sex has anything to do with pedophilia or other non-consensual sex anymore than straight sex has to do with pedophilia.

[abaris]

Catholicism does not condone molestation. Neither does it condone covering it up. The Catholics who molested children as well as those who covered it up were going against Church teaching.

There are bad people in every group. Catholics are no different.

Which ultimately brings us back to the issue of morality. They brushed abuse under the carpet for decades. There are some claimants that have been abused 50 years ago, but because they were orphans at that time, noone believed their claims or actively supressed their stories.

That's especially true for Ireland where the catholic church held enormous political power in the 50ies, 60ies and 70ies.

So they brushed it under the carpet to save face. That's not moral, that's simply political.

[Catholic_Lady]

And as for catholics priests, it would be more interesting how the percentage looks among people abusing a position of authority, since that's what they do. The general male population isn't that interesting, but teachers and the likes.

These are the statistics for my own country. It's not just about a few bad apples in this case.

Austria

In November 2010, an independent group in Austria[58] that operates a hotline to help people exit the Catholic Church released a report documenting physical, sexual, and emotional abuse perpetrated by Austrian priests, nuns, and other religious officials. The report is based on hotline calls from 91 women (28%) and 234 men (72%), who named 422 perpetrators of both sexes, 63% of whom were ordained priests.[59][non-primary source needed]


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_C...buse_cases

Albaris, I believe you have been misinformed:

http://www.themediareport.com/fast-facts/

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Cato, the Catholic religion does not "shelter" these people. The Catholic religion teaches that it is wrong to molest children, and to shelter people who do wrong like this.

Yes, there were people who were Catholic who did horrible things. There were also people who were Catholic who did another horrible thing by covering it up. There are bad people in every group, and Catholics are no different.

Catholicism does not condone any of this behavior. In fact, it vehemently teaches against it.

I agree that there's nothing in Catholicism's catechism that could reasonably be read to support going out and raping children.  I think the bigger point is that the organization from which you're drawing the basis of your morals has been shown over and over and over to be engaging in massively hypocritical immoral actions, shielding those who commit them, refusing to discuss the cases with authorities, and refusing to help the victims of said immoral actions.  Why would you draw your basis of morality from such an organization?  Why not take the base ideas of morality from the catechism and just leave that specific organization?  Unless you believe that it's the literal church itself that's more important than the ideas, I don't see why that would be hard.

I think this is an over exaggeration. Yes, there were bad people within the Church just like there are everywhere. Humans are flawed creatures and being Catholic does not make a human immune from making horrible decisions.

[Tonus]

Religious or not, we all somehow know that certain things are intrinsically, universally immoral.

Do we, really? Does our innate morality shape our culture, or is it the other way around?

If we innately understand that murder is not good, then why did god have to list it as one of his commandments?

[Catholic_Lady]

Cato, the Catholic religion does not "shelter" these people. The Catholic religion teaches that it is wrong to molest children, and to shelter people who do wrong like this.

What is "Catholicism" if not its leaders?  The church leaders were the ones covering everything up.  The Pope has a link directly to God, right?

How many Church leaders are there and how many of them were covering it up? Catholicism is a belief, it is not a group of leaders. 

[TheRealJoeFish]

What is "Catholicism" if not its leaders?  The church leaders were the ones covering everything up.  The Pope has a link directly to God, right?

How many Church leaders are there and how many of them were covering it up? Catholicism is a belief, it is not a group of leaders. 

I've posted this in another thread, but I think it's applicable here:

[Catholic_Lady]

An act can be objectively immoral, in and of itself. But the person's heart is something that cannot be judged. For example, a man breaks into your home and steals some percocet from your medicine cabinet. Is action moral? No.

Now imagine these 2 scenarios:

1. The man stole your percocet in order to sell them to high school kids.

2. The man stole your percocet because his child is in great pain while recovering from an injury and he cannot afford a refill of the medication.

The fact still remains, stealing is wrong. Period. But in scenario 1 the man probably has a lot more darkness in his heart than in scenario 2. While stealing is still wrong, I'm willing to bet his culpability is greatly lessened in the second scenario verses the first.

What does that have to do with two consenting adults entering into a relationship together?

Also, hearts don't feel emotions; hearts don't think.  Hearts pump blood.

Nothing. I thought I was just answering your question about how an action can be objectively immoral while a person's culpability just depends on circumstances. Sorry if I misunderstood what you were asking.

I said "hearts" to symbolize a person's mind, motivation, etc.

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Well they still don't have to live life like that. It's their decision, as it should be. It is not right to force it on anyone. If you read my earlier posts, you will see that I was not comparing the 2. Merely commenting on a statement someone made about not acting on impulses.

Um, yes you are, exactly by equating the impulse of pedophilia to the impulse of homosexuality. They are fundamentally different. Pedophilia is not a sexual orientation. Homosexuality is.

You ARE comparing the two. You're saying the impulses are the same in principle, which they're not.

The poster I was refrring to made a general statement about sexual impulse. He has since specified that his statement only applied to consenting adults, and was not meant to be taken as a general statement.

[abaris]

Albaris, I believe you have been misinformed:

http://www.themediareport.com/fast-facts/

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Right, you bring up an apologist website to prove a point? Really?
The pope himself is speaking of 2 percent, which would mean about 8.800 priests being active pedophiles. Among them high ranking clergymen. Just yesterday we discussed the story of one being brought to trial in the Vatican for abuses he commited in the Dominican Republic when he was ambassador of the holy see there. Not to mention the massive amounts of child pornography on his computer. So a person like that could rise through the ranks and it's highly unlikely for him to have started his pedophile career just recently.
The main problem lies in the massive coverup that has been going on for decades.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/some...story.html

[Cato]

Catholicism does not condone any of this behavior. In fact, it vehemently teaches against it.

By their fruits you shall know them.

I am well aware that Catholicism doesn't explicitly condone the behavior (already pointed out by FatAndFaithless), but the decades of abuse and subsequent shell game played with the perpetrators can only be evidence of tacit approval. It is clear that the RCC put the reputation of the church ahead of the safety and well being of the children in its care saying nothing of justice for those abused. The tu quoque defense that others do it too is rubbish; others are prosecuted and punished if found guilty. Offending priests in some cases have been given unsuspecting fresh flocks to infiltrate rather than turned over to civil authorities to allow due process to take its course.

The entire affair is morally repugnant. The dismissive hand waiving rationalizations that some provide in an attempt to maintain the moral authority of what can only be described as a criminal organization is repulsive. What should have happened is that all practicing Catholics should have immediately demanded a full disclosure and subsequent adherence to the idea that those charged with sufficient evidence would stand trial for their alleged misconduct in the jurisdictions where the crimes were said to have taken place. The fact that this still isn't happening combined with many of the devout making excuses for how the RCC has managed this is telling.

It only took the RCC 350 years to exonerate Galileo, perhaps one should hold out hope.

[Catholic_Lady]

That's fine. The poster could have specified this. All this poster did was tell me how horrible it was to ever say that someone shouldn't act on their sexual impulses. I brought up pedophilia as an example of a scenario where I'm sure everyone here would agree that it would be appropriate to say someone shouldn't act on sexual impulses.

Fair enough.  It is kind of assumed around here though, since we have this kind of discussion all the time.  Of course I (and I believe 'we' on the forum) have big problems with non-consensual sex, so it never enters into the discussion when talking about homosexuality, because nothing about gay sex has anything to do with pedophilia or other non-consensual sex anymore than straight sex has to do with pedophilia.

I agree.

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Catholicism does not condone molestation. Neither does it condone covering it up. The Catholics who molested children as well as those who covered it up were going against Church teaching.

There are bad people in every group. Catholics are no different.

Which ultimately brings us back to the issue of morality. They brushed abuse under the carpet for decades. There are some claimants that have been abused 50 years ago, but because they were orphans at that time, noone believed their claims or actively supressed their stories.

That's especially true for Ireland where the catholic church held enormous political power in the 50ies, 60ies and 70ies.

So they brushed it under the carpet to save face. That's not moral, that's simply political.

I agree. Those people acted immorally.

---

Albaris, I believe you have been misinformed:

http://www.themediareport.com/fast-facts/

---

Right, you bring up an apologist website to prove a point? Really?
The pope himself is speaking of 2 percent, which would mean about 8.800 priests being active pedophiles. Among them high ranking clergymen. Just yesterday we discussed the story of one being brought to trial in the Vatican for abuses he commited in the Dominican Republic when he was ambassador of the holy see there. Not to mention the massive amounts of child pornography on his computer. So a person like that could rise through the ranks and it's highly unlikely for him to have started his pedophile career just recently.
The main problem lies in the massive coverup that has been going on for decades.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/some...story.html

2% is 2% too many, I agree. But my point is that it is not an issue that is specific to Catholic priests. There are men from all career fields who are predators, and priests are actually closer to the bottom. Teachers are at the top, but I would never use this information to attack teachers or education in general.

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Catholicism does not condone any of this behavior. In fact, it vehemently teaches against it.

By their fruits you shall know them.

I am well aware that Catholicism doesn't explicitly condone the behavior (already pointed out by FatAndFaithless), but the decades of abuse and subsequent shell game played with the perpetrators can only be evidence of tacit approval. It is clear that the RCC put the reputation of the church ahead of the safety and well being of the children in its care saying nothing of justice for those abused. The tu quoque defense that others do it too is rubbish; others are prosecuted and punished if found guilty. Offending priests in some cases have been given unsuspecting fresh flocks to infiltrate rather than turned over to civil authorities to allow due process to take its course.

The entire affair is morally repugnant. The dismissive hand waiving rationalizations that some provide in an attempt to maintain the moral authority of what can only be described as a criminal organization is repulsive. What should have happened is that all practicing Catholics should have immediately demanded a full disclosure and subsequent adherence to the idea that those charged with sufficient evidence would stand trial for their alleged misconduct in the jurisdictions where the crimes were said to have taken place. The fact that this still isn't happening combined with many of the devout making excuses for how the RCC has managed this is telling.  

It only took the RCC 350 years to exonerate Galileo, perhaps one should hold out hope.  

Very true. There are bad seeds in every group, and we certainly aren't exempt from that. No excuses.

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Thank you all again for the discussion. I think it's time I take a much needed break and actually get some stuff done today.

Hope you all have a great day, and I'll see you back here maybe tomorrow!!