Ratzinger blames pedophilia on liberal society and sex ed in schools

[laPapessaGiovanna]

After years of silence Ratzinger wrote the stupidest and most insulting thing he could ever come up with.

I am so furious that if I weren't venting here, I'd be throwing things.

This is how he starts off

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The matter begins with the state-prescribed and supported introduction of children and youths into the nature of sexuality. 

Got it people? Sex ed made priests into pedophilic criminals! But it gets better

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I also remember arriving in the city on Good Friday in the year 1970 and seeing all the billboards plastered up with a large poster of two completely naked people in a close embrace.

Among the freedoms that the Revolution of 1968 sought to fight for was this all-out sexual freedom, one which no longer conceded any norms.

The mental collapse was also linked to a propensity for violence. That is why sex films were no longer allowed on airplanes because violence would break out among the small community of passengers. And since the clothing of that time equally provoked aggression, school principals also made attempts at introducing school uniforms with a view to facilitating a climate of learning.

He saw NAKED PEOPLE! That's terrible! And seeing sexy things make you violent!

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In various seminaries homosexual cliques were established, which acted more or less openly and significantly changed the climate in the seminaries. In one seminary in southern Germany, candidates for the priesthood and candidates for the lay ministry of the pastoral specialist [Pastoralreferent] lived together. At the common meals, seminarians and pastoral specialists ate together, the married among the laymen sometimes accompanied by their wives and children, and on occasion by their girlfriends. The climate in this seminary could not provide support for preparation to the priestly vocation. The Holy See knew of such problems, without being informed precisely. As a first step, an Apostolic Visitation was arranged of seminaries in the United States.

As the criteria for the selection and appointment of bishops had also been changed after the Second Vatican Council, the relationship of bishops to their seminaries was very different, too. Above all, a criterion for the appointment of new bishops was now their "conciliarity," which of course could be understood to mean rather different things.

Indeed, in many parts of the Church, conciliar attitudes were understood to mean having a critical or negative attitude towards the hitherto existing tradition, which was now to be replaced by a new, radically open relationship with the world. One bishop, who had previously been seminary rector, had arranged for the seminarians to be shown pornographic films, allegedly with the intention of thus making them resistant to behavior contrary to the faith.

There were — not only in the United States of America — individual bishops who rejected the Catholic tradition as a whole and sought to bring about a kind of new, modern "Catholicity" in their dioceses. Perhaps it is worth mentioning that in not a few seminaries, students caught reading my books were considered unsuitable for the priesthood. My books were hidden away, like bad literature, and only read under the desk.

He basically blames everyone from "the homosexuals", "the secular society" and "conciliarity" but the Church itself and doesn't spend a word on self reflection on himself or the church's structural problems. It's all someone else's fault.

It comes to nobody's surprise that he is very conservative, but once upon a time I thought he was a clever man and a sound philosopher. This text though is so badly patched together, so superficially written, the reasoning is so stupid that either I was wrong or his brain has fried and his aides should have stopped him embarrassing himself like this.

ETA I forgot the link. Sorry.

Edited April 11, 2019 by laPapessaGiovanna

[nausicaa]

His points don't even make sense. If liberal society is to blame for this, why is there such a higher rate of child molestation among Catholic clergy than among secular men? Why aren't the Unitarian and Episcopal churches (with openly gay clergy and gay weddings) struggling with these issues?

I should have figured he'd find a way to blame women and gays. Oh Vatican, that train is never late, is it?

[47of74]

Ugh.  This confirms for me yet again I made the right decision to dive head first in to the Thames and swim over to the Episcopal Church.

I'd tell this back end of a horse that the guy who was tapped to perform my paternal grandparents wedding ceremony in 1947 had been abusing children since the 1930s.  And I won't forgive the church for allowing that fornicate stick to stay on and putting a stain on my grandparents wedding.

[Cartmann99]

7 hours ago, laPapessaGiovanna said:

After years of silence Ratzinger wrote the stupidest and most insulting thing he could ever come up with.

I am so furious that if I weren't venting here, I'd be throwing things.

This is how he starts off

Got it people? Sex ed made priests into pedophilic criminals! But it gets better

He saw NAKED PEOPLE! That's terrible! And seeing sexy things make you violent!

He basically blames everyone from "the homosexuals", "the secular society" and "conciliarity" but the Church itself and doesn't spend a word on self reflection on himself or the church's structural problems. It's all someone else's fault.

It comes to nobody's surprise that he is very conservative, but once upon a time I thought he was a clever man and a sound philosopher. This text though is so badly patched together, so superficially written, the reasoning is so stupid that either I was wrong or his brain has fried and his aides should have stopped him embarrassing himself like this.

ETA I forgot the link. Sorry.

I don't know why he bothered writing an entire essay. He should have just gone outside and screamed for those damn kids to get off his lawn.

[47of74]

Of course a quick perusal of the googles shows that the more Catholic than Jesus wing of the church is all supportive of what Benny said. 

And a number of theologians are concerned about the effect this will have on the church;

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A number of noted theologians and church historians are expressing serious concern that Benedict's choice to engage in such public action undermines Francis and plays into narratives splitting Catholics between two popes, one officially in power, and the other wielding influence as he writes from a small monastery in the Vatican Gardens.

"Benedict told us he was going to live a life of quiet contemplation," said Christopher Bellitto, a historian who has written extensively on centuries of popes. "He has not. A former pope should not be publishing or giving interviews."

Richard Gaillardetz, a theologian who focuses on the church's structures of authority, called the precedent being set by Benedict's latest letter "troubling."

Even the Vatican appears to be struggling to understand what to do with a former pope who wants to engage in public debate. As Benedict's latest letter appeared on several right-wing Catholic websites overnight April 10, the Holy See Press Office seemed unprepared, unable even to respond to questions about whether the text was authentic.

Francis needs to have a sit down with Benny and tell him to drink a big ol' glass of shut the fornicate up and to actually try living that "life of quiet contemplation" that he said he would when he first resigned.

[laPapessaGiovanna]

I thought this topic would have had a bigger impact on the mainstream secular press. But I saw just some sparse articles. It seems like either people are considering it as the product of dementia and therefore compassionately ignoring it (as they should have done 4yrs ago with someone else) or they are busy recovering their jaws from the floor.

I didn't read Catholic press cos if I read articles supporting that bullshit I may burst a vein.

Personally I have come to think that either during the recent bishops summit there was a lot of gossiping about Ratzinger's misdeeds and we are going to find out soon that the pope emeritus knew a lot more about clergy abuses and did a lot less to stop them than the Vatican PR ever told us. Or after Viganò letter this is another attempt made by ultraconservatives to undermine the small baby steps Francis was trying to make the Church do.

Interesting article from the Guardian.

Spoiler

...

The analysis by Benedict, who abdicated as pontiff in 2013, was immediately criticised as “catastrophically irresponsible” and in conflict with efforts by his successor, Pope Francis, to lead the church out of its crisis.

...

Church historian Christopher Bellitto questioned if Benedict, who turns 92 next week, was being manipulated by others. He said the essay omitted the critical conclusions that arose from the pope’s February sexual abuse summit in Rome, including that “abusers were priests along the ideological spectrum, that the abuse predated the 1960s, that it is a global and not simply western problem, that homosexuality is not the issue in pedophilia”.

“It is catastrophically irresponsible, because it creates a counter-narrative to how Francis is trying to move ahead based on the 2019 summit,” he told Associated Press in an email. “The essay essentially ignores what we learned there.”

 

[Someone Out There]

But the evidence actually appears to suggest the opposite... That decent sex education (that is age appropriate) does more in preventing abuse and teen pregnancies... (i.e. the kids actually know what is happening and so are likely to call it out).

An example of what can occur when you have no/poor sex education can be found in Guatamala... https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/teenage-pregnancies-guatemala-girls-basic-sex-education-contraception-violence-healthcare-a7715406.html