How long was the rape scandal going on?

[Nihilist Virus]

The rape scandals were exposed because the Catholic Church kept detailed records.  No investigation could be done beyond 50 years or so since everyone was dead.

But the rapes were actually a regularly occurring phenomenon with predictable frequency (assuming the movie Spotlight got that right) so isn't it unreasonable to believe that such a regularly occurring phenomenon spontaneously started 50 years ago?

For how long were these rapes occurring?  Centuries? Millennia? Man-boy sex is at least as old as the New Testament, so this is not out of the question.

What if it's always been how we found it to be?  If all popes started as priests, and if we go with the low figure that 5% of them are pedophile rapists, and if there have been 266 popes, then the probability that there has never been a pedophile rapist pope is:

0.95^266=0.0000011871=0.00011871%.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Ever since Matthew 19:14: 'But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me.'

Boru

[Chad32]

Man-boy sex was pretty big in ancient Greece at one time, and christianity grew up around that. Granted that may be part of why the bible is so against homosexuality, but the idea of men having relations with male children is far from new.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

Ever since Matthew 19:14:  'But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me.'

Boru

Jesus the pedophile?

[Rev. Rye]

What if it's always been how we found it to be?  If all popes started as priests, and if we go with the low figure that 5% of them are pedophile rapists, and if there have been 266 popes, then the probability that there has never been a pedophile rapist pope is:

0.95^266=0.0000011871=0.00011871%.

Well, there is a distinct possibility that Sixtus IV may have been a pedophile, according to contemporary historian Stefano Infessura, calling him a "lover of boys and sodomites", apparently creating so many cardinals because many of them were his ex-boyfriends. Of course, Infessura and Sixtus weren't necessarily on the best of terms, so these allegations aren't reliable.

Also, I'm not sure if your math is very accurate to the situation. That would really only apply if popes are selected at random. It would be more accurate to ask the incidence of pedophilia in cardinals, though perhaps even that wouldn't be too accurate. Maybe the pedophile priests are less ambitious than the cardinals who cover them up.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Ever since Matthew 19:14:  'But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me.'

Boru

Jesus the pedophile?

Why not? He had a bad relationship with his mum and with females generally, spent most of his time hanging around with sailors, and was fond of showing his ass.

Boru

[madog]

Funny really that churches always found it easy to get priests and ministers easily enough when their sexual activities were thought to be protected, but now they struggle .... Is it a matter of that now one of the biggest perks has been exposed that the job isn't so appealing anymore?

Nihilist Virus may have something ... all these arguments stating that the goodness of Jesus is why the church flourished over the last 2000 years ... may have been just because all the sexual deviants had a safe "calling"

[Gemini]

Funny really that churches always found it easy to get priests and ministers easily enough when their sexual activities were thought to be protected, but now they struggle .... Is it a matter of that now one of the biggest perks has been exposed that the job isn't so appealing anymore?

Nihilist Virus may have something ... all these arguments stating that the goodness of Jesus is why the church flourished over the 2000 years when in fact it might have grown because all the sexual deviants had a safe "calling"

Pretty much, yeah. Thank humanity for science. Much better to believe stuff that's true than to believe bullshit calculated to conceal and protect exploitative sexual deviants.

[dyresand]

The rape scandals were exposed because the Catholic Church kept detailed records.  No investigation could be done beyond 50 years or so since everyone was dead.

But the rapes were actually a regularly occurring phenomenon with predictable frequency (assuming the movie Spotlight got that right) so isn't it unreasonable to believe that such a regularly occurring phenomenon spontaneously started 50 years ago?

For how long were these rapes occurring?  Centuries? Millennia? Man-boy sex is at least as old as the New Testament, so this is not out of the question.

What if it's always been how we found it to be?  If all popes started as priests, and if we go with the low figure that 5% of them are pedophile rapists, and if there have been 266 popes, then the probability that there has never been a pedophile rapist pope is:

0.95^266=0.0000011871=0.00011871%.

How long has the vatican existed so from that starting date to now.. even christians here are doing the same damn thing.

[Pat Mustard]

Funny really that churches always found it easy to get priests and ministers easily enough when their sexual activities were thought to be protected, but now they struggle .... Is it a matter of that now one of the biggest perks has been exposed that the job isn't so appealing anymore?

Nihilist Virus may have something ... all these arguments stating that the goodness of Jesus is why the church flourished over the last 2000 years ... may have been just because all the sexual deviants had a safe "calling"

In Ireland the vocations were pretty much tied to the church's perceived or actual power within the state. Up until the early 1980's when over 80% of the country attended mass and where a priest's word could blacklist you throughout a whole community (especially in the country) the numbers entering the orders were high. You've got to think too of people like John Charles McQuaid who were able to dictate large slices of government policy in the 1940's and 50's. And remember priest and civil servant were often the only decent professions available to clever men who had no great patronage behind them (to be able to enter medical school for example, it was pretty much necessary that you needed a close relative as a doctor already). And if you were a woman, and wanted to work, well often times becoming a nun was the only option (until the 1970's women were sacked from the civil service by law if they married, and most private companies did the same thing).

Once Irish people started waking up to the nature of the church, numbers started dropping and news outlets found their balls to start reporting on the scandals, the number of vocations fell off a cliff. In the space of about twenty years from the 1970's to 1990's the numbers entering into clerical orders in Ireland fell from nearly thirty thousand to less than three thousand.