A few thoughts in response:
-Isn’t the devotion to secrecy and institutional honor, at the expense of the rights of the individual, part of the “moral convictions” that allowed this whole problem to manifest in the first place? The irony is doubled when the author cites the moral authority (and no doubt the “moral certainty”) of Neuhaus.
-It isn’t Jon Stewart’s fault that the Bush White House used a non-journalist pseudonymous male prostitute as a ringer loaded with softball questions.
-Exactly how do Harry Potter and LOTR exemplify “loyalty to friends and courage against darkness” better than Matrix 2 or the Star Wars prequels? Aren’t they ALL about that? Where was a shred of pornification in Revenge Of The Sith?
-Erectile dysfunction ads are embarassing, but so is the ailment itself. What message are we sending to kids if we act like certain physical disabilities are never to be mentioned in public?

“As awful as the Catholic bishops have been on protecting kids, children would be far better off in a culture run by the moral convictions of the Catholic bishops than the one we have, run by the moral convictions of commercial interests.”
If those moral convictions of the Bishops were not sufficient to get them to put a halt to the abuse in their midst when they first became aware of it, why should we consider them as sufficient to deal with filth such as what you cite? That’s like saying we should trust the GOP when they say today that they are fiscally.
As my relatives in Missouri might say, I’ll believe it when I see it. Until then…maybe we should find a different standard to hold ourselves up against. That exemplified by the Catholic Bishops barely seems adequate…and we know how low that standard is.

Not really, hlvb.
Failing to live up to one’s moral convictions says nothing about the truth or goodness of the convictions themselves.
And it is not unusaul for someome to fail to live up to their own moral convictions. It is quite common actually.

“Failing to live up to one’s moral convictions says nothing about the truth or goodness of the convictions themselves.
And it is not unusaul for someome to fail to live up to their own moral convictions. It is quite common actually.”
Forgive me, but that sounds remarkably close to what the apologists for communism would suggest. It’s not the ideas, but the implementation that fails.
If the moral convictions of men who have been called by God into a vocation that, as part of its charge instructs them to “be ye perfect as I am perfect” cannot find sufficient motivation in those convictions to call out the rascals from their own midst, I really have to wonder what good those convictions serve.
Jesus confronted the Pharisees for exactly this kind of behavior many times in the New Testament. He got so fed up with them that he compared them to “whitewashed sepulchres” that looked good on the outside but were full of death.

Yes, exactly, He did. And that is why we should always strive to live up to our moral convictions. I am simply pointing out that we are weak and sinful so sometimes we don’t. Again, that doesn’t speak against the convictions themselves. Quite the contrary.

Re: If those moral convictions of the Bishops were not sufficient to get them to put a halt to the abuse in their midst when they first became aware of it, why should we consider them as sufficient to deal with filth such as what you cite?
I think Rod mis-stated himself. What he probably meant to refer to was not the personal moral _convictions_ of the Bishops (which were, often and in many though not all cases, appalling). I think he was referring to the moral _doctrines_ of the Catholic church about sexuality, love, family, and children. Which is quite a separate thing- Catholic doctrine, as opposed to the actual practice of Catholic priests and prelates, has never condoned pedophilia, or concealing crimes against children. If we all actually lived by Catholic teachings there would be no pedophilia.
Needless to say I don’t agree with all the Catholic teachings about sexual morality; I’m not a Roman Catholic, after all. I agree with some of them, and not with others. That said, I think they are certainly closer to the truth then the views about sex held by Joe Francis and Hugh Hefner.
Re: at the expense of the rights of the individual,
As Simone Weil noted in her 1943 essay “On Human Personality”, talking about social and political issues in terms of ‘rights’ is a bad idea in any context, but particularly inappropriate in the context of the sexual abuse of children. If we are trying to defend children by appealing to some notion of their rights, we’ve already lost the argument, because the sexual abuse of children is something that should be not simply illegal or immoral, but inconceivable and unnatural. We would all do much better to try and talk less about rights, and more about natural law- of course that would require that we actually sit down and try to reason about what sex is for, and what human nature and the human person are all about.
Speaking of which, Rod, you should invest some time in reading Simone Weil one of these days.

I really do wish Rod would get over this nonsense about the Catholic Church having a moral voice that society would listen to without the sex scandal. Western society as a whole has not given a hoot in hell what the Catholic Church thought about much of anything since Sir Isaac Newton. It has been a convenient punching bag for centuries but it has not been a serious contender in the marketplace of ideas and it would hard to find a moral pronouncement that it has made in that time that has found any traction in the US and Europe. The simple rule is that it does not matter who is speaking but rather whom is listening and in the case of the Catholic Church is was “those who matter don’t care and those who care don’t matter.”
The notion that people en masse would refrain from any given action because of pronouncements by the Catholic Church is beyond absurd. The truth is that while the scandal may be horrifying for those who take the Catholic Church seriously, for the bulk of the rest of the population it is a rather nasty confirmation of what they already knew deep down about Catholic Bishops (that they are sewer rats in funny clothes) and comic relief as the sewer rats in the funny clothes are suddenly caught with their pants down, literally as well as figuratively.

The idea that we must choose between the Catholic Church and the advertising culture is absurd. They are both faces of the same beast. They both seek to manipulate through fear, to get us to believe that somehow our lives are inadequate unless we buy into their vision of life. Neither one has your interests at heart in even an incidental way. If people would learn to think for themselves and develop their own moral compass, neither of these parasites could establish themselves in our society.

“We are all complicit.”
Speak for yourself, bloggerboy. I am most assuredly not in any way “complicit”. I find the commercialization of children’s sexuality abhorrent, and have written many published letters to the editor and to business leaders decrying it. I have no children myself, so that is the extent of my efforts.
The business leaders are the ones at fault here – you said as much yourself: “children would be far better off in a culture [other] than the one we have, run by the moral convictions of commercial interests.”
How you get dissing of “the Catholic Church” out of the phrase ‘paedophile pound’ escapes me, unless you’ve ‘edited’ the article. But “the moral convictions of the Catholic bishops” are pretty low, imo, considering how many of them hid/protected/shuffled child-molesters and did NOT report their crimes to the secular authorities.

Just the other day I saw a girl who couldn’t have been more than 11 wearing tight shorts that barely covered her butt and a skin tight tanktop, walking with her mother. Do these people even have a clue?

If the Church is irrelevant, why do its enemies rage against it so? Anyway, Rod writes:
“is it really the case that the institution that claims to be the sole legitimate temporal authority for Almighty God wants to be held to the same standards of conduct as the public schools?”
That’s not what were really doing; we know we’re supposed to have higher standards. What we’re doing is wishing the media would simply examine other institutions (after all, from a secular standpoint, they’re all institutions) with the same degree of rigor, and in this recent instance of anti-papal insanity, the media have largely jacked things up, big time, being fed documents by lawyers trying to sue to Vatican and using as sources dissident catholics like Weakland and Reese, examining issues involving dicasteries and canon law and such they can’t possibly understand.
It’s distressing when I see the media committing grave errors when covering religion, a field I know something about, for it cause me to lose confidence in them when they’re covering fields in which I’m not an expert, like economics or public policy.

“I mean, why stop at the church?”
I just re-read Rod’s excerpt from the article and then the entire article at the link and NO WHERE was the Cathoic Church (or ANY church) mentioned. How this is ‘about’ Catholicism (one of the categories under which this “story” is filed) – or any religion whatsoever – escapes me.

Agreed.
Rod’s headline “Sex-mad society scapegoats the Catholic Church” is misleading to the fullest. No where in the article has anyone ‘scapegoated’ the HRCC Inc. (TM). That all came from Rod’s (somewhat overheated) imagination and mis-applied outrage over the child-molestation within the HRCC Inc. (TM).
This is about the commercialization of child sexuality, plain and simple. Fault the business “leaders’ in this one. Rod should stop being an apologist for the Catholic Church.

I don’t think it was Hertzberg who was doing “a titanic degree of selective editing” here.
Again, no where in the article was any one “scapegoating” the Church. This was not an article about the Church.

What message are we sending to kids if we act like certain physical disabilities are never to be mentioned in public?
How about, “There are some physical disabilities that are no one’s business except for the sufferer and his/her medical practitioner(s)”?
I think that’s a *good* message to send to children, and everyone else.
I mean, it’s not like erectile dysfunction is an obvious physical deformity that children are going to notice and comment on when they see it.

is it really true that kids back then were worse off than kids today, in terms of the moral environment?
Um, yeah. Do you really think it was only the Catholic church raping kids in 50s? Not to mention all species of date-rape, and, insofar as you had kids working at high school age, you’ve got to assume sexual harassment. And I don’t even want to think about the incest. It’s just that, because abusers could count on the complicity of the victims, nobody talked about it. Which is sufficient for some if your purpose is to enforce norms in part by not showing people breaking the norm, perhaps. But that seems a pretty troubling perspective to me.

A couple of Your Names above are being extremely dense. Not a day goes by that we don’t hear more about the Catholic sex abuse scandal. As longtime readers know — hell, as people who have only been reading this blog for two weeks know — I don’t mind this at all, and I am grateful insofar as attention and public anger compels the Church officials to hold bishops accountable, which they have not yet done. My only point here is that the Catholic hierarchy is not the only institution that has been sexually dysfunctional when it comes to eroticizing children. I would like to see a more society-wide sense of outrage and reform over the way we sexualize kids. That’s not happening.
Granted, some of you readers may just be coming to this blog for the first time, and may have no idea how I’ve been criticized by some Catholic readers for criticizing the Church on this blog. But before you accuse me of being an “apologist for the Catholic Church,” you should at least read the text of this entry, in which I say I welcome the pressure being put by critics on the Catholic Church (and, for the record, if my own church has these bishop cover-up problems, I would welcome public scrutiny and criticism as well, if it were constructive and led to reform).

Well, I will agree with those who think the headline is very misleading.
As for this “is it really true that kids back then were worse off than kids today, in terms of the moral environment?”, I can only suggest that kids back then, we now know, were abused – physically, emotionally, and sexually – with impunity. Perhaps even with the tacit approval of higher-ups. Today we are much more aware of how that sort of systematic abuse ruins a child’s life and makes a healthy adult life unlikely.
So I would say that’s a “yes”.

the Catholic hierarchy is not the only institution that has been sexually dysfunctional when it comes to eroticizing children
Very true, but as between “sexy altar boy” uniforms and raped kids (or covering up the same), I know which I think is worse.

Rod, you miss a very important point in writing about child sexual abuse by church leaders. Let’s not forget the actual crime. When a spiritual leader sexually molests a child, it is a heinous crime specifically because the molester is a spiritual leader. This is not simply because the spiritual leader is then a hypocrite and we should oppose hypocrisy. It is heinous because 1) s/he molested a child, destroying that child’s innocence and their first opportunity to learn about sexuality in a healthy manner resulting in massive repercussions then and later in life and 2) BECAUSE s/he is the child’s spiritual authority, the child is thrown into confusion about God, about their place in the world, and about what is right and wrong. These are often children who have been brought up in closely protected homes with a great deal of moral teaching. They haven’t necessarily been exposed to much of the sexual content in society you write about. They are taught to respect and honor their church leaders. These are often the kids who are targeted by those same leaders—they are the “perfect” victims. This is why it is often not reported when the child is a child, and why the impact is so deep. This crime is special to church leaders, who purport to be God’s representatives. And they excuse it and themselves and cover it up. Of course, our society should not only examine the church for sexual abuse, but let’s openly recognize abuse at the hands of spiritual leaders for the horrendous abuse that it is, and let’s linger at the church’s doorstep a good long time.

Your larger point – that there is no utpopia – is, I think, correct. But trying to compare moral environments of 55 years ago with today is fraught with difficult judgments.
In the context of the abuse scandal, it seems pretty darn clear that the actions of 55 years ago were worse than those today – one has to question what sort of moral environment engendered that sort of deviant (and despicable) predatory behavior.
Selling padded bikinis to 7 year olds may be ugly – depraved, even – but suggesting that the moral climate in which such things are sold might be worse than one in which child rape occurred at the hands of men of God is a moral equivalence game that I did not think you would play.

Selling padded bikinis to 7 year olds may be ugly – depraved, even – but suggesting that the moral climate in which such things are sold might be worse than one in which child rape occurred at the hands of men of God is a moral equivalence game that I did not think you would play.
I disagree that I’m playing a moral equivalence game, Richard. But if there’s any doubt, let me state plainly that clerical sexual rape is in another moral universe — and a far worse one — than selling padded-bra bikinis to seven year olds. And I, for one, am very glad indeed that the fear and immoderate respect for authority that allowed predatory priests (and other authority figures) to sexually abuse children has departed to a significant degree. Nevertheless, as someone who is raising children in this culture, and who has to pay a lot more attention to the eroticization of the public square than I did before I had kids, I can tell you I’d be grateful for the reticence and modesty of 1950s culture. This “either-or” mentality — either we accept secret pederasty from priests, or we accept the pornification of the public square — is a fallacy.

The single-parent, father-less household — an institution created by and celebrated by secular progressives like Your Name and Hendrik Hertzberg — is an institution in which far, far, far more children have been raped (by their mothers’ “boyfriends” or “partners”) than have been raped in the Roman Catholic Church (by members of its clergy).
There’s even more hypocrisy involved in the secular progressive side of this dust-up in the culture war than there is on the Roman Catholic hierarchy’s side.
In any case, shouldn’t secular progressives be pleased that the Roman Catholic Church is for once doing just want secular progressives have always wanted it to do — i.e. becoming more not less like the culture at large?
Hasn’t capitulation of the Roman Catholic Church to the culture at large been a secular progressive dream since at least as far back as Otto von Bismark’s Kulturkampf against the Church in late 19th century Germany?
One would have though that secular progressive would be pleased.
Why then the sudden and selective moralism with regard to the sexualization of children in this case, but not in any other case?
Why then the sudden and selective moralism with regard to one institution in which children are sexual prey, but not with regard to any other institution — including ones where much, much, much more sexual predation of children goes on?
PS: I’m not a Roman Catholic, so spare me any cheap ad hominem ripostes.

Rod, you write:
“I do not need tutorials from readers about how awful it is for spiritual leaders to abuse children.”
You may not, but some of your readers may. When you write a blog like this, reminders about the experiences of victims need to be put out there.

The issue is not child abuse. The media and society don’t care about the sexualizing of children. They don’t care about reforming the Catholic Church or any church. This isn’t about that. It is about trashing, in the Pope’s case unjustly, the Church so that no one will listen to her at all. Especially about sexual issues like abortion or gay marriage. We need to understand that they don’t care what the truth of the matter is or how to best protect children. This is a way to confirm people’s prejudice and avoid having to confront the Church’s teachings in a logical way.

” If we all actually lived by Catholic teachings there would be no pedophilia.”
True enough. But if we all lived by Buddhist teachings, or Taoist teachings, or even Pastafarian teachings, there would be no pedophilia. Catholic moral teachings offer no more guidance on this than do any other religious philosophy.
And yes, before you point out the obvious, there are abusers who hold to the tenets of the other faiths as well. But, as we have already established, it is not the fault of the tenets of the faith but rather the aberrant actions of humans who fail to apply those teachings that is at fault.
Heck…by that standard atheism is every bit as good as Catholicism with regard to pedophilia.

No, sorry, but there is a huge difference between overt and covert activities in the “sexualization” of children. There’s an even bigger problem when the self-declared arbitrix of moral values and champion of human dignity violates innocence and covers it up while preaching at the rest of us. This is far different from a for-profit company whose goal is to sell products and create new fads.
Even children recognize that fads come and go and they certainly don’t look to the shopping malls for moral imperatives. It’s up to mum and dad to filter and impart what is acceptable; most schools have dress codes, if parental sensibilities are lacking. When companies cross the line, parents aren’t shy about holding their feet to the fire — the examples in this column are among many. The same companies that sold clothing that showed as much skin as possible a couple of years ago are now selling more modest fare now.
Remember the Calvin Klein ads that showed childlike waif models in sultry poses? They’re gone now because of complaints and the brand lost a lot of its shine. That’s what happens in the free market.
But what about the sexualization that you don’t know is going on, that’s hidden from view, and that comes from a source you’d least suspect? Now THAT is insidious. Who knew that you had to warn your children about such things when they went off to church and, incredibly enough, entered a confessional?! Well, now we do, and you have to wonder what effect this message — that the same organization that permitted abuse but preaches sexual purity and vigorously chastises mum and dad for using birth control or remarrying after divorce — will have on the younger generations?
This makes it difficult for all Christians to share the Gospel with skeptical young people and it presents a very poor case, indeed, for the necessity, moral relevance and goodness of an institutional Church. Secularism, humanism, and agnosticism are trending popular among the young right now. They will vigorously declare themselves to be agnostics and religious believers to be misguided fools but there isn’t a lot of certainty or happiness in their declarations. They’re operating from a position of disappointment, angst and false bravado.
The young are usually the most idealistic in society but we’ve failed Generation ME on a number of levels. Ethics hasn’t come close to keeping up with technological advances; schools don’t expect the best of them; and churches have lost credibility. This generation needs Jesus perhaps more than ever before; maybe this is the time to start shedding reliance on the Institutional Church? I honestly don’t know.

I agree with JS, even the people judging the church have no authority to do so. Obviously their only satisfaction is derived from judging others and seeing them ‘pay the price’ for their crimes. It’s all about revenge, not forgiveness. There is nothing more gross than child sexual abuse, and the church should be held accountable. The law will prevail, but why do we as a society and culture relish our ability to continually punish and exact our revenge on people and institutions that commit these crimes?

as someone who is raising children in this culture, and who has to pay a lot more attention to the eroticization of the public square than I did before I had kids, I can tell you I’d be grateful for the reticence and modesty of 1950s culture.
From the perspective of the good, attentive parent, I can see how this is right.
But imagine the perspective of the vulnerable or abused child, and there is no contest at all. 1950s culture was far more authoritarian and patriarchical, more tight-lipped about ANY sexual matters including sex education–meaning many of these kids literally had no idea what was happening to them and wouldn’t even have been able to describe it to themselves, much less law enforcement… which very well might not have cared in that day and age.

Well, Rod, you’ve got one group telling you you’re pillorying the One True Church out of misplaced anger,and another saying you just don’t take the issue seriously enough.
Must be doing something right.

Re: Well, now we do, and you have to wonder what effect this message — that the same organization that permitted abuse but preaches sexual purity and vigorously chastises mum and dad for using birth control or remarrying after divorce
For the record, remarrying after divorce is a prime risk factor for sexual abuse of children- as noted above, stepfathers or mother’s boyfriends are well known to have high rates of sexual and physical abuse.
Seems like the Catholic church was, at the very least, closer to being right on this issue then the modern culture of no-fault divorce. Though in point of fact, the commandment against remarriage after divorce comes from Christ, not from the church.
Re: culture was far more authoritarian and patriarchical, more tight-lipped about ANY sexual matters including sex education
Gee, seems to me a bit more authoritarian and tight-lipped culture, as opposed to the pornification of the public square, is something we could use a bit more of right now.
I’m reminded of Luther’s analogy that humanity is like a drunkard on a horse- if he falls off to the left on Monday, on Tuesday he will lean the other direction and end up falling off on the right side. Because we erred in one direction in the 1950s, does it follow that we haven’t gone too far in the other extreme today? I’d say we have gone a very long ways too far to the other extreme.
I have my disagreements with the Catholic church and its teachings about sexual morality, but Rod is right that Catholic doctrines would undoubtedly be better for children then the modern idea that all of us have the right to sexual fulfilment, and that sex is no more morally consequential (and rather more commercially valuable) than going bowling.
Re: Forgive me, but that sounds remarkably close to what the apologists for communism would suggest. It’s not the ideas, but the implementation that fails.
Well, isn’t there something to that? It would be hard to argue that Stalinism was the logical outcome of the ideas of Marx, as opposed to a perversion of them, or that the fact that the Russian revolution fell into the hands of power-hungry gangsters was the fault of Marx. I think we ought to evaluate the doctrines based on their own strengths or weaknesses, not based on the men who happen to espouse them. The scandals can at best serve as warnings about what not to do and how not to run a church, but they ought not to make people think they have a free licence to disobey Catholic teachings about, say, abortion (particularly as those particular teachings date consistently from the first century, and not from today’s crop of venal bishops).

Rod, I do apologize if I am being unfair. And I understand your point about the sexualization of our children. But I wonder to what degree they were seen as sexual objects in the 1950s but it just wasn’t talked about. Secret pornification, if you will. Something has to explain the dreadful abuse children suffered in silence!
Now, I completely agree that “This “either-or” mentality — either we accept secret pederasty from priests, or we accept the pornification of the public square — is a fallacy.”
For my own part, I remain convinced that most people really don’t care about this pornification of life. They don’t want to think about (or don’t know how) the logical outworkings of allowing a 7 year old to wear a padded bikini. Or watch may-as-well-be-explicit TV and movies. Or read stories about ‘love’ that have little do do with love and lots to do with lust and immature infatuation. There’s a nice and well-meaning woman at my church who thinks it’s perfectly fine to let her 15 year old son have ‘sleepovers’ at his girlfriend’s house! Even if they’re innocent, what do you think his expectations will be at age seventeen?

Rod, I AM sorry, that last post was mine.
I would like to send you a query on another subject: would you mind sending me your e-mail address?

Rod: Without a doubt yours is the most idiotic, willfully blind statement yet on the institutionalized cult of child-rape that the Church of Rome has devolved into.
A sexually permissive society did not bury evidence that a priest raped scores of deaf kids. Unless you meant the Society of Jesuits.
Honestly, Rod, you’re free to be a scold. But don’t let your prejudices conceal the real harm being done by those who are on the wrong side of the confessional window.

Presumably, sometime in the 2000 years of the Church, there was a point when the Church doctrines were in force and childhood was safe.
When was that exactly?

“The scandals can at best serve as warnings about what not to do and how not to run a church, but they ought not to make people think they have a free licence to disobey Catholic teachings about, say, abortion (particularly as those particular teachings date consistently from the first century, and not from today’s crop of venal bishops).”
Venality is not a modern phenomenon, as this statement from the 4th century proves:
St. Basil of Cesearea: “The cleric or monk who molests youths or boys or is caught kissing or committing some turpitude, let him be whipped in public, deprived of his crown [tonsure] and, after having his head shaved, let his face be covered with spittle; and [let him be] bound in iron chains, condemned to six months in prison, reduced to eating rye bread once a day in the evening three times per week. After these six months living in a separate cell under the custody of a wise elder with great spiritual experience, let him be subjected to prayers, vigils and manual work, always under the guard of two spiritual brothers, without being allowed to have any relationship . . . with young people.”
And this echoes teaching from Jesus as well, as this passage from Matthew 18 shows.
“And whoever receives one such child in My name receives Me; but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.”
Conclusion: Antiquity does not necessarily carry weight with regards to which teachings are observed by Christians in general or their churches.

Richard: For my own part, I remain convinced that most people really don’t care about this pornification of life. They don’t want to think about (or don’t know how) the logical outworkings of allowing a 7 year old to wear a padded bikini. Or watch may-as-well-be-explicit TV and movies. Or read stories about ‘love’ that have little do do with love and lots to do with lust and immature infatuation. There’s a nice and well-meaning woman at my church who thinks it’s perfectly fine to let her 15 year old son have ‘sleepovers’ at his girlfriend’s house! Even if they’re innocent, what do you think his expectations will be at age seventeen?
I think you’re right about that, and that’s kind of what I was getting at in this post. As you of all people know, I’ve been murder on the Church for its behavior in this matter. But I do find a certain inconsistency in people who are outraged over the sexual exploitation of children by Catholic clergy (and they are right to be outraged!), but who don’t grasp the broader social, cultural and commercial trends that put children at risk for sexual exploitation. That’s what I mean by the scapegoating of the Church. The Church is guilty, without question — but the lack of discernment with which this problem is being attacked suggests are certain degree of scapegoatism going on.
It’s a hard point to make, because it sounds like you’re taking the “everybody does it, so why are you so hard on the Church” line. I’m not, and to the extent that would-be defenders of the Church suggest that the Catholic Church (or any church) should be held to no higher standard than that you’d expect of the Boy Scouts or the public schools, they do the Church no favors.
Still, I’d like to see some of this righteous outrage being poured out on the Church directed at other social institutions that contribute (though obviously in a very different way) to the sexualization of kids.
Jamey: Rod: Without a doubt yours is the most idiotic, willfully blind statement yet on the institutionalized cult of child-rape that the Church of Rome has devolved into.
Yes, because if there’s any blind idiot willing to defend the Roman Catholic Church’s behavior on child rape, it’s Rod Dreher. Let’s just say, Jamey, that you don’t do your own credibility any favors by such a completely clueless statement. Nor do you do yourself any credit by saying there’s nothing more to the Catholic Church than institutionalized child rape. It’s just a berserk statement.

“Still, I’d like to see some of this righteous outrage being poured out on the Church directed at other social institutions that contribute (though obviously in a very different way) to the sexualization of kids.”
I agree to a point. And yet it is easier for a person such as myself to affect change in an organization like Old Navy than in the Catholic Church. When Old Navy exploits children in its marketing it is not hidden under a bushel. It is done in the broad daylight of modern media. Thus I can see it, identify it, write letters to protest it, bring it to the attention of others, and organize a boycott of the company. If enough people do this, the company withdraws the ad/product.
Can you give me a corollary to this in the Catholic Church? In most Protestant churches that I am familiar with the congregation can vote to dismiss a delinquent minister. How do the laity in the Catholic Church exercise similar recourse?

BobSF,
Christianity at any point in its sometimes checkered history has been a d*mn bit better toward children than secular-progressive ideology has been to the 50 million children that secular-progress has killed in this country since 1973.
And that’s to say nothing of the several million adults that secular-progress has killed in more or less that same time, via manifold social pathologies, nearly all of which — from murder to suicide to alcohol and drug abuse to venereal disease — have exploded at unprecedented rates since secular-progressive ideology took hold among American elites and was imposed by them on the public at large.

Well, we can certainly see that Groby has it all figured out. Kill secularism and it’ll all be OK.
The alternative to secularism is theocracy. Why not be upfront about it. Which religion is going to rule?

Re: But I wonder to what degree they were seen as sexual objects in the 1950s but it just wasn’t talked about.
To be fair, I don’t know about the 1950s, but there was a hell of a lot of child prostitution in Victorian England, and for all I know in American cities too. There was also a fair degree of tolerance of pederasty in the early-modern Ottoman Empire and some other parts of the Middle East (including, apparently, Afghanistan). Christians, in their day, were known for fighting against such evils.
Re: Conclusion: Antiquity does not necessarily carry weight with regards to which teachings are observed by Christians in general or their churches.
I’m not sure what faith you may happen to be, but this is flatly wrong, at least as regards the sacramental churches (Roman Catholics, Orthodox, Anglicans, Armenians, and a few others). We do, generally, regard tradition as an authority complementary and coequal to scripture (not infallible, but to be given great weight), and traditions are stronger and more authoritative if they can be traced back to apostolic or patristic times. Again, I’m referring strictly to doctrine, not to the behaviour of priests and bishops (which was very often saintly, and was sometimes revolting).

But I do find a certain inconsistency in people who are outraged over the sexual exploitation of children by Catholic clergy (and they are right to be outraged!), but who don’t grasp the broader social, cultural and commercial trends that put children at risk for sexual exploitation.
This, I think, is precisely what people are objecting to. To the best of my knowledge, it’s not inconsistent. As the “broader social, cultural and commercial trends” get (by your lights) worse, kids are–I believe this is true–less likely to get raped by a priest. The two trends are running in opposite directions. I often see on the right this strange inability to admit that things have gotten better precisely as the “social, cultural and commercial trends” have continued. Perhaps things haven’t gotten better on child abuse. I don’t know. But I admit I’d be pretty surprised if they haven’t.

“I have my disagreements with the Catholic church and its teachings about sexual morality, but Rod is right that Catholic doctrines would undoubtedly be better for children then the modern idea that all of us have the right to sexual fulfilment, and that sex is no more morally consequential (and rather more commercially valuable) than going bowling.”
Ummm, no. Or maybe. There are parts of Catholic thinking that I admire, it copes with science and religion better than many faiths, but on sex it is so convoluted and makes little sense unless you are brought up in the faith. Yes, in the broad area that it shares with other faiths, like no fornication or adultery, we would be much better off if that was followed. But, when we start getting into the no contraception and sex only for procreation, but it’s still ok at age 60 because it’s the same act that you would be doing because it would have been procreative, it just gets weird. It is a peculiarly Catholic, not Biblical train of thought. I also think that most people not raised Catholic have little use for leaders who do not take part in that most fundamental part of society, the family, as represented for most people by the marriage of a man and woman and raising children.
If the Church just concentrated on getting the big stuff correct, no sex before marriage and no adultery we would be much better off rather than the micromanagement it engages in. A huge part of that no sex before marriage part should include efforts to stop the commercialization of sex.
Steve

I see that in the world according to Groby, murder and venereal disease were not big problems until 1973. The past’s graveyards full of syphillis would be astonished to learn they do not actually exist. Maybe this is why all those cases of child sexual abuse went unreported for so long–because some of the faithful simply cannot observe the world as it actually is.
As to the sexualization of modern children, remember that in the pretty recent past of the West it was normal for children to be considered marriageable at around about the onset of puberty–12, 13, 14. And in the East, forget it, all bets are off. So again, let’s not delude ourselves into thinking the perfectability of man actually exists as long as applied backwards.

“Again, I’m referring strictly to doctrine, not to the behaviour of priests and bishops (which was very often saintly, and was sometimes revolting).”
But, thanks to human nature, no more consistently good than any other set of behavioral doctrines. A sincerely practicing non-theistic Buddhist will likely behave as well as a sincerely practicing Catholic in most areas.
The idea that we can judge the sufficiency of a doctrine apart from the behavior of those adhering to it is faulty. If it is not faulty then we can say, with sincere conviction, that the tenets of Humanism as expressed in the Humanist Manifesto are as valid socially as the doctrines of the Catholic Church. Yet, as the signers of the first Humanist Manifesto admitted in drafting the second, they were far too optimistic regarding human nature and behavior. And if Catholics were honest in looking back at history they would have to say the same about their church’s doctrines as well.
Various doctrines of religion are only as good as those adhering to them. To the extent that they do not inspire adherence to their tenets, they fail. And that is the case for every atheistic communist dictator as well as every abusive Catholic priest.

Re: If the Church just concentrated on getting the big stuff correct, no sex before marriage and no adultery we would be much better off rather than the micromanagement it engages in.
I’m not even sure I would go that far. Adultery yes, but I don’t think that premarital sex is always wrong (or contraception, or homosexual sex). Like I said, I’m not RC, and I reserve the right to differ with them on specific issues. I’m more referring to the fact that we need to have less casual sex, and especially less commercial sex, in our society, and that we need to take the interests of children and the responsibilities of children seriously.
If I had my way we’d until encourage people not to have sex until they were legal adults and in a serious, committed, loving relationship, whether marriage or just a long term relationship. Same goes for gay and straight people both. People would be aware of, and have access to birth control, but natural family planning would also be encouraged and people would be educated about it. People would not get married till they really were ready to commit for life, and we would have much less divorce and remarriage. Unmarried couples that have a child would get married, or at least stay together until the kid is grown up. No one would feel social pressure to have sex when they weren’t ready for it, and virginity would not be something to be ashamed of (even if it isn’t required of everyone). And so on.
And yes, above all, no porn and other forms of the commercialisation of sex- I just find that kind of thing utterly repellent. Less on Christian grounds then simply on grounds of thinking about human nature and what sex is for.
Re: I also think that most people not raised Catholic have little use for leaders who do not take part in that most fundamental part of society, the family, as represented for most people by the marriage of a man and woman and raising children.
I wouldn’t say ‘little use’. One of the most important spiritual influences on my life was a (voluntarily) celibate Episcopal priest. I have a lot of admiration for celibate priests, monks, and nuns. Though I don’t think it should be mandatory.
Re: But, when we start getting into the no contraception and sex only for procreation
Actually, the ‘no contraception’ rule is pretty much the linchpin of the other Catholic teachings about sex. Once you allow contraception, it becomes much harder to argue against homosexual sex, or against premarital sex. This isn’t a problem for me (since I’m fairly liberal on sexual ethics) but it’s an inconsistency in conservative Protestant teaching, I think. Together with the acceptance of divorce.

Re: As to the sexualization of modern children, remember that in the pretty recent past of the West it was normal for children to be considered marriageable at around about the onset of puberty–12, 13, 14.
TTT,
Not true. Except for the aristocracy, the normal age of marriage was never ’12, 13, 14′, for the simple reason (among others) that female puberty didn’t happen until 16-17 until the modern era. (This was predominantly related to nutrition, as well as some other factors).
In Europe, specifically, ages of marriage were much higher then in the rest of the world. This was because married couples were more independent of their parents, and therefore the man was expected to have a decent living before he could marry (again, except for the upper classes). In mid-19th century England and Ireland (which I assume counts as ‘recent past of the West’) the typical age of marriage was around late 20s for women, and early 30s for men.
There’s even a term for it, the ‘European mode of reproduction’ I believe.
The idea that couples typically married at 12-14 in Europe is a widespread myth, probably based on the habits of the royal families, but a myth nonetheless.

I see that in the world according to TTT no-one — or at least no secular-progressive — has to reckon with actual facts, as opposed to statements never uttered by anyone at all save for strawmen of one’s own imagination.
Not that I blame TTT for not reckoning with actual facts, since few of them are very flattering to his or her secular-progressive ideology.

BobSF,
We have an atheocracy now.
They had even more complete atheocracies in Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany, and Maoist China.
So your point is what, pray-tell?
Please don’t tell me it’s to claim that we are living under a theologically “neutral” regime?
[Sound of muffled snorts of derision]

A sexually permissive society did not bury evidence that a priest raped scores of deaf kids. Unless you meant the Society of Jesuits.
Jamey: I realize you’re trying to be funny. But the Jesuits are the “Society of Jesus”, not “Society of Jesuits”. And, for the record, the Jesuits are one religious order whose members seem conspicuously absent or at least rare in accounts of abuse by priests and religious. So I will thank you not to slander the good Jesuits.

“And, for the record, the Jesuits are one religious order whose members seem conspicuously absent or at least rare in accounts of abuse by priests and religious.”
Well, until you actually check the facts.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15683354
blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2010/02/02/sexual-abuse-charges-at-jesuit-school-shocks-germany/
http://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/case/oregon-jesuit-abuse.html
http://www.reformation.org/jesuit_retreat.html
http://www.speroforum.com/site/article.asp?id=3324
http://www.speroforum.com/a/26609/Jesuit-coverup-of-sex-abuse-on-two-continents
So…care to re-evaluate your statement?

Rod: I can tell you I’d be grateful for the reticence and modesty of 1950s culture.
Not me. The past does not deserve idealization, whether it’s the 50s or earlier. Ever watch the movie The Apartment? OK, it’s 1960, but the cultural point still stands. (The same sexual harassment and abuse were no doubt going on five years earlier.) Ever read John Steinbeck’s 1947 The Wayward Bus? When men went on business trips, it wasn’t to sit in their hotel rooms and surf the web on their laptops. Sinclair Lewis’s Babbitt (published 1922) had a mistress. How about Dorothy Parker’s story “Big Blonde,” (written in the 1920s), which shows how an aging “good-time girl” falls apart. There was an interesting history channel ep awhile ago about the brothels of Hawaii, maintained in a separate district for US soldiers & sailors during WW II.
Sexual hypocrisy was rife in that era, as was rabid, rampant sexual discrimination in both jobs and personal life. Yes, kids didn’t see naughty TV – but they saw real obscenities like “colored” and “white” water fountains; learned (if they had their ears open at all) that African-Americans were taken by ambulance across town to segregated hospitals even if they were a block away from the “white” one.
The “nifty 50s” were a blip on the social register; the TV series Mad Men shows the slow dissection and eventual collapse of all the fifties-era hypocrisy.
And what, pray tell, is wrong with erectile dysfunction drug ads in particular? I for one don’t think *any* prescription drugs should be advertised on TV – but why reserve ire for these? ED is nothing to be ashamed of, and the ads as I’ve seen don’t show men out with popsies, but with their wives. Embarrassed that you have to explain it to kids? Well, that’s part of parenting – is frankly and sometimes openly talking about sex w/ your kids.

Groby, BobSF’s question about which religion would be established as the state religion if you do away with secularism is a reasonable one.
We also don’t have an atheocracy as atheism is not established either.

” I can tell you I’d be grateful for the reticence and modesty of 1950s culture.”
Ah yes…the culture in which our religious leaders (of all stripes, not just Catholic) were advising women in abusive relationships that it was their role as the submissive partner to not leave the brute but, instead, take the matter to God in prayer in hopes that he, in his infinite wisdom, will correct the husband’s behavior.
Yep…gotta get back to that.

Ah yes…the culture in which our religious leaders (of all stripes, not just Catholic) were advising women in abusive relationships that it was their role as the submissive partner to not leave the brute but, instead, take the matter to God in prayer in hopes that he, in his infinite wisdom, will correct the husband’s behavior.
Oh please. Cry me a river, Betty Friedan.
There has never been a utopia. But at least in the 50′s, families were mostly intact, and nearly all children grew up with a father and mother at home.
In that respect – and I would rank it a respect more important than any other – the 50′s were absolutely a better moral environment than today’s, where selfishness is aggrandized to the uttermost limits, interests of children be damned.

Ever read John Steinbeck’s 1947 The Wayward Bus? When men went on business trips, it wasn’t to sit in their hotel rooms and surf the web on their laptops. Sinclair Lewis’s Babbitt (published 1922) had a mistress.
Are we seriously – seriously – to believe that all or most men who went on business trips in the 40′s and 50′s engaged in affairs?
Using literature to illustrate a critique is one thing. But to use it as the entire basis for your argument?

Rod–I may be repeating others–I don’t want to read through every comment. That said, the problem with your post is that for you to argue that priestly sexual abuse of minors is significantly connected to the (I agree, immoral) sexual objectification of children: (i)is utterly unconvincing; and (ii) suggests that you are (at least in this instance) trying to avoid coming to grips with celibacy as the real source of the problem. I find the level of denial about this shocking. I have refrained from saying this in the past (indeed, have typed and deleted it), but I’ve had a few scotches, so why not. Until fairly modern times, the priesthood offered many men greater access to education, status and a modicum of material security than they otherwise would have. Celibacy (or at least the vow) was a fair price to pay. That is no longer true and those men are no longer entering the priesthood. The priesthood remains attractive as a respectable occupation for sexually conflicted/immature Catholic men. Minors are an easy outlet for those conflicted/immature men. Lay into me.

And what, pray tell, is wrong with erectile dysfunction drug ads in particular?
Other than bizarre metaphors like throwing footballs through tire swings, you mean?
Q: Daddy, what’s “erectile dysfunction”? (kudos to the child who can pronounce it, by the way).
A: It’s a construction disorder that causes some home builders to put bathtubs outdoors instead of putting them inside where they belong.

I am what I describe as an observant but not orthodox Catholic and I cannot describe how disheartening the past few weeks have been. Our parish priest ( a good man like all the priests I know) described this past week how the cover-up (his words)has tarnished priest’s reputation such that he no longer wears his Roman collar in the grocery store because he has been accosted in public. I also found out this week that two brothers from my Catholic grammar school were molested by my favorite priest from childhood. (I suspect that child molestation is a very complicated phenomenon, those who exploit some children sexually pay attention to all children in a way most adults do not. I am in no way justifying child rape but wondering if there is a thin line between charisma and the seduction, I think that was why Doubt was such a brilliant play.)
Rick Hertzberg may be a liberal triumphalist but he is nonetheless right, this travesty would have never have come to light if it had been left to the Church, whistle-blowers almost always have impure motives but the criteria with which they should be judged is whether or not they are right about the underlying phenomenon.

MH,
No, actually, BobSF’s question isn’t a reasonable one. Well, take that back, it might be a reasonable one in response to what a strawman said, but not in response to anything that I myself said.
As for atheocracy, your talk of “establishment” naively implies that formal political constitution is not only a relevant measure but the only relevant measure of what theology is regnant in a certain regime — a regime the extent of which is not, in any case, limited to formal politics.
[Sound of muffled snorts of derision]
And then, as if that weren’t enough, it also implies, with even more naivete, that the current formal political regime is actually based on the Constitution.
[Sound of muffled snorts of derision]

Steve Kellmeyer,
Are you seriously suggesting that Rod is soft on Muslims, or hasn’t paid enough attention to the sexualisation of children in our culture at large?
I’d suggest, in response, that you may not be very familiar with this blog.
He writes about Islam, and about sexualisation of children, ALL THE TIME.
[Note from Rod: Hector, this Steve Kellmeyer person is a troubled man, whose comments henceforth will be deleted as soon as I see them, as has been done here. Thanks for your comment, though. -- RD]

Hector and Rod, trolls are on thing, but trolls 180 degrees out of phase with reality are quite another. The mind reels.

“There has never been a utopia. But at least in the 50′s, families were mostly intact, and nearly all children grew up with a father and mother at home.”
Yes…that wonderful era of the ’50s that gave us so much. Since you are obviously such a wonderful expert on the sociology of that era, and how wonderful its morals were. Answer me this…why did such a wonderful, moral era produce the baby boomers?
Seems to me that if the idyllic ’50s that you fantasize about were even half as moral and sound as you think they were, we would not be suffering from the waywardness of the children raised up in that generation.
Or could it be that something in that era was actually not so grand, not so wonderful, and not so stable as people would like to think?

This is why I’m bothered by defensive claims that “the public schools are no better,” and suchlike; even if that were true, is it really the case that the institution that claims to be the sole legitimate temporal authority for Almighty God wants to be held to the same standards of conduct as the public schools?
No it doesn’t, and they shouldn’t be defensive because that comes across as lacking sympathy for the victims. But in their defense, if Protestants aren’t to blame for Fred Phelps and Scott Roeder, the Catholic Church isn’t to blame if many of its priests don’t follow Christ either.

” But in their defense, if Protestants aren’t to blame for Fred Phelps and Scott Roeder, the Catholic Church isn’t to blame if many of its priests don’t follow Christ either.”
And non-theists are not to blame for the actions of Mao, Stalin, etc.

But Hitler, Stalin, and Mao are consistent with — or at least not contradictory of — atheism.
They believed what atheists believe — that existence has no moral essence other than that ascribed to it by human will.
They may have willed things different from what hlvanburen may will, but they do so on just the same basis as he does.
And on hlvanburen’s own logic, the Godless, amoral universe is equally as indifferent to Hitler’s, Stalin’s, or Mao’s will as it is indifferent to his own.
It really doesn’t matter — save to hlvanburen and whoever shares his emotive will — whether 100 million people are killed by atheist regimes in a hundred years.
Those deaths have no essential, fundamental significance within his atheist worldview.
Conversely, Fred Phelps, Scott Roeder, and sexually abusive RC priests are inconsistent with and contradictory of Christianity.
There’s no moral equivalence to be drawn — either quantitatively or qualitatively — between atheist crimes against God and against humanity and crimes committed in the name of but not on the basis of Christianity.

“But Hitler, Stalin, and Mao are consistent with — or at least not contradictory of — atheism.
They believed what atheists believe — that existence has no moral essence other than that ascribed to it by human will.” A question for you, Groby. Do you believe that I fully understand all of the philosophical underpinnings of the your Christian faith?

No, hlvanburen, I don’t believe that you fully understand all — of even very many — of the philosophical underpinnings of Christianity in general or of my particular Christian faith.
I do however believe that you don’t have any means of opposing Hitler, Stalin, or Mao save for expressions of emotive will of no essential, fundamental moral difference — so far as atheism is concerned — from the expressions of emotive will that were the basis for their crimes.
In the meaningless, Godless universe of atheist belief neither 100 million human lives nor their loss means jack-squat one way or another in any essential, fundamental moral way.
If we get along, it’s just something that a bunch of pretentious yet accidental monkeys chose to do.
And if we choose to commit holocausts against a certain subset of our fellow monkeys, then that’s just something else that a bunch of pretentious yet accidental monkeys chose to do.
It makes no real difference in the bigger scheme of atheist things.

Shorter me: The problem of evil is much, much, much, much, much more of a problem for atheists than it is for theists — though it’s clearly a problem for both.

“No, hlvanburen, I don’t believe that you fully understand all — of even very many — of the philosophical underpinnings of Christianity in general or of my particular Christian faith.”
Fair enough, and you are likely correct. In spite of my study and practice of the faith for a number of years, I fully agree that I do not understand all aspects of it, nor have I had the opportunity to understand any of your particular application of it.
But I trust you will also understand why I likewise believe that you do not understand all aspects of non-theistic religious belief, nor my particular application of it in my life.
“I do however believe that you don’t have any means of opposing Hitler, Stalin, or Mao save for expressions of emotive will of no essential, fundamental moral difference — so far as atheism is concerned — from the expressions of emotive will that were the basis for their crimes.”
Allow me to offer a couple of texts, apart from emotive will, that no doubt you will dismiss out of hand since they do not represent your particular religious beliefs. However, I and many other non-theists, find them worthy of respect and consideration as we live our lives.
Tao te Ching, Chapter 30
Whoever relies on the Tao in governing men
doesn’t try to force issues
or defeat enemies by force of arms.
For every force there is a counterforce.
Violence, even well intentioned,
always rebounds upon oneself.
The Master does his job
and then stops.
He understands that the universe
is forever out of control,
and that trying to dominate events
goes against the current of the Tao.
Because he believes in himself,
he doesn’t try to convince others.
Because he is content with himself,
he doesn’t need others’ approval.
Because he accepts himself,
the whole world accepts him.
From the Dhammapada, verses 221-234
Put anger away, abandon pride, overcome every attachment, cling not to Mind and Body and thus be free from sorrow.
One, who controls his anger when aroused, is like a clever driver who controls a fast going carriage; the others are like those who merely hold the reins.
Conquer the angry man by love; conquer the ill-natured man by goodness; conquer the miser with generosity; conquer the liar with truth.
One should speak the truth, and not yield to anger; when asked one should give though there be litter; by these three things one may go to the presence of the devas, the gods.
Those sages who are harmless, and are ever restrained in body, go to the deathless state (Nibbana), whither gone they never grieve.
The defilements of those who are ever vigilant, who discipline themselves day and night, who are wholly intent on Nibbana, are destroyed.
This is a thing of old, Atula, not only of today; they blame him who remains silent, they blame him who talks much, they blame him who speaks in moderation; none in the world is left unblamed.
There never was, there never will be, nor is there now to be found anyone who is wholly blamed or wholly praised.
Examining day by day, the wise praise him who is of flawless life, intelligent, endowed with knowledge and virtue.
Who deigns to blame him who is like a piece of refined gold? Even the gods praise him; by Brahma too he is praised.
One should guard against misdeeds (caused by) the body, and one should be restrained in body. Giving up evil conduct in body, one should be of good bodily conduct.
One should guard against misdeeds (caused by) speech, and one should be restrained in speech. Giving up the evil conduct in speech, one should be one good conduct in speech.
One should guard against misdeeds (caused by) the mind, and one should be restrained in mind. Giving up evil conduct in mind, one should be of good conduct in mind.
The wise are restrained in deed; in speech, too, they are restrained. The wise, restrained in mind, are indeed those who are perfectly restrained.
Now, let us turn slightly in this discussion to a different facet. What is there, apart from the threat of eternal punishment outlined in the Bible, that prevents you from violating the tenets of the faith to which you hold? If the threat of eternal punishment were removed, or proven not to exist, or if even it were demonstrated that the Bible were a fraud, would you suddenly decide that your goal in life was now moral turpitude? Or would you instead continue right along as you had before, maintaining yourself in accordance with the teachings you were given by your now false religion?

I and many other non-theists, find them worthy of respect and consideration as we live our lives.
hibanvuren, I honor and respect your thinking here, but the question remains: you may think these texts worth learning from, but what obligates anyone else to do the same? We Christians have an even stronger motive than avoiding eternal punishment: eternal love.

to hlvanburen,
Dhammapada (Chapter XXII)
Niraya-vaggo (Hell)
“06. He who says what is not, goes to hell; he also who, having done a
thing, says I have not done it. After death both are equal, they are
men with evil deeds in the next world.
307. Many men whose shoulders are covered with the yellow gown are
ill-conditioned and unrestrained; such evil-doers by their evil deeds
go to hell.
308. Better it would be to swallow a heated iron ball, like flaring
fire, than that a bad unrestrained fellow should live on the charity
of the land.
309. Four things does a wreckless man gain who covets his neighbour’s
wife,–a bad reputation, an uncomfortable bed, thirdly, punishment,
and lastly, hell.
310. There is bad reputation, and the evil way (to hell), there is the
short pleasure of the frightened in the arms of the frightened, and
the king imposes heavy punishment; therefore let no man think of his
neighbour’s wife.
311. As a grass-blade, if badly grasped, cuts the arm, badly-practised
asceticism leads to hell.
312. An act carelessly performed, a broken vow, and hesitating
obedience to discipline, all this brings no great reward.
313. If anything is to be done, let a man do it, let him attack it
vigorously! A careless pilgrim only scatters the dust of his passions
more widely.
314. An evil deed is better left undone, for a man repents of it
afterwards; a good deed is better done, for having done it, one does
not repent.
315. Like a well-guarded frontier fort, with defences within and
without, so let a man guard himself. Not a moment should escape, for
they who allow the right moment to pass, suffer pain when they are in
hell.
316. They who are ashamed of what they ought not to be ashamed of, and
are not ashamed of what they ought to be ashamed of, such men,
embracing false doctrines enter the evil path.
317. They who fear when they ought not to fear, and fear not when they
ought to fear, such men, embracing false doctrines, enter the evil
path.
318. They who forbid when there is nothing to be forbidden, and forbid
not when there is something to be forbidden, such men, embracing false
doctrines, enter the evil path.
319. They who know what is forbidden as forbidden, and what is not
forbidden as not forbidden, such men, embracing the true doctrine,
enter the good path.”
Having lived a number of years in the “mysterious Orient”, it really makes me laugh how some people in the West try to impute their own liberal, permissive, New Age beliefs to the traditional religions of Asia. Yes, there is hell (actually numerous hells) in both Buddhist and Taoist religions (Hindus also have it). As a matter of fact, if you visit a Buddhist or Taoist temple anywhere in Asia, you are very likely to see on one of its walls a painted representation of hell, with images that would put to shame even Dante. I have many friends who are pious Buddhists, and trust me, they do not look nor think a bit like western liberal, academic “armchair Buddhists”. Yes, they seem rather prudish, and no, they don’t think that homosexuality and abortion on demand are the panacea leading to universal social happiness. If you don’t trust my word on this, you could always ask any genuine (not the New Age fakes that swarm the West) Buddhist or Taoist master in Sri Lanka, Thailand, China etc what does he think on all the issues of sexual behavior, which we in the West find morally inconsequential. Don’t be shocked if he becomes rather impatient and brimming with “judgmentalism” in the course of your conversation. I know, you can always say that Buddhists or Taoists in Sri Lanka, Nepal, Thailand, Taiwan etc aren’t “real” Buddhists or Taoists, unlike the coooool western academics and New Agers(and I have heard that before), but you know what, that sort of argument when used too often starts to smack of racism.

“know, you can always say that Buddhists or Taoists in Sri Lanka, Nepal, Thailand, Taiwan etc aren’t “real” Buddhists or Taoists, unlike the coooool western academics and New Agers(and I have heard that before), but you know what, that sort of argument when used too often starts to smack of racism.”
Well, I guess that settles it. The only real practitioners of any faith are those who follow it as it was taught by the founder and his disciples. Mahayana, Varayana and Theravada mean nothing, and Chan and Zen were mere heresies.
And what do those Taoist philosophers who allowed their teachings to become perverted with the foreign influence of Bodhidharma have over the Celestial Masters and their spiritual Taoist followers?
Boy, I am sure glad that we have the privilege of your presence to tell us what the true dharma is, lest we fall prey to the false dharma.
Tell me, oh great master, from whom did you receive the bowl and robe?

What Ken said.

Ken: “hibanvuren, I honor and respect your thinking here, but the question remains: you may think these texts worth learning from, but what obligates anyone else to do the same? We Christians have an even stronger motive than avoiding eternal punishment: eternal love.”
Ken, you faced the same choice that everyone else has made in life. You have chosen a set of ideals and principles upon which to base your life. In your case they are those outlined in the Bible and by the teachings of your church. For others they may find these outlined in other sacred texts, or in the lives others have lived that stand as examples for us.
You have made a choice that you believe to be the best possible choice for you. I have made a choice that I believe to be the best possible choice for me.
What can I do to convince you that my choice is the correct one for you?

Groby: “The problem of evil is much, much, much, much, much more of a problem for atheists than it is for theists — though it’s clearly a problem for both.”
Actually, for non-theists the problem of evil is relatively simple. It is an outworking of human nature, expressed through human choice.
For the theist, however, the existence of evil is perhaps one of the most difficult questions to ponder. Evil exists with the ongoing permission of deity, if we accept that the deity in question is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. However, if evil persists in spite of the will of deity, then we face the issue of a limited deity that lacks the power to enforce its will.
Thus we get into logical conundrums such as a “higher purpose” ascribed to the deity, or a lack of understanding of deity on our part. Of course if we are incapable of understanding deity, or if deity has a higher purpose in actions that we cannot understand, it becomes rather foolish to ascribe error to another person’s understanding of God if it conflicts with yours.
So, in all honesty, while evil is indeed a problem for an non-theist as it forces him/her to address the dark side of human nature, it is a much greater hurdle for a theist as it forces him/her to address the dark side of deity.

Hlvanburen,
“The only real practitioners of any faith are those who follow it as it was taught by the founder and his disciples.”
Well, there’s nothing contentious about that. Each religious group, even those which have emerged at a later date, asserts its own legitimacy by claiming (!) that they actually “do follow in continuity the doctrine as it was taught by the founder and his disciples” or at least return to the “original doctrine” that got somehow forgotten or corrupted in the latter days. The Mahayana Buddhist followers thus truly believe that the great Mahayana sutras were spoken by the Buddha himself and transmitted to his immediate followers, but were hidden away (in the kingdom of the Nagas) and then reemerged 500 years later to reinvigorate the falling Dharma.
“Mahayana, Vajrayana and Theravada mean nothing, and Chan and Zen were mere heresies.”
To be honest, I don’t get this. Theravada Buddhism of Sri Lanka and SE Asia is in fact considered to be the continuous form of the doctrines taught by the historical Buddha; Vajrayana is just a subset of Mahayana; Chan and Zen are the same thing (pronounced in Chinese and Japanese), and also one of the Mahayana lineages. And yes, Theravadins do usually consider Mahayana denominations as heresies.
I don’t know of what importance are the later forms of Buddhism for the point you have tried to make, since if anything Mahayana Buddhists of East Asia (Tibetan Vajrayana included) have far more developed hellology and demonology, with graphic representation of hell sufferings constituting a separate genre of East Asian art (e.g. the hell scrolls of China and Japan).
“And what do those Taoist philosophers who allowed their teachings to become perverted with the foreign influence of Bodhidharma have over the Celestial Masters and their spiritual Taoist followers.”
Actually, it was the other way around: the subsequent school of Bodhidarma (V Century AD) underwent Taoist influence as part of its Chinese acculturation. The Taoist order of the Celestial Masters was actually formed three centuries before the arrival of Bodhidarma(circa 142 AD). Although, the Taoist religion later had some Buddhist influence visible in its organizational aspect (especially the monastic tradition).
The irony here is that hell in a non-theistic religion like Buddhism has even a greater (!) role in motivating moral behavior than in a theistic religion like Christianity. Why is that? Let us examine one example from the Gospel:
“Now, one of the criminals hanging there reviled Jesus, saying, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us.” The other, however, rebuking him, said in reply, “Have you no fear of God, for you are subject to the same condemnation? And indeed, we have been condemned justly, for the sentence we received corresponds to our crimes, but this man has done nothing criminal.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” He replied to him, “Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” (Luke, 23: 39-43)
From a Buddhist perspective, the salvation of the “good thief” would be impossible. Obviously, he had created a bad karma in excess, and deserves to go to hell. A bad karma can only be annulled by painstakingly accumulating sufficient amount of good deeds and there is no shortcut to this. Since he died just moments after his repentance, from a Buddhist viewpoint there is no way the good thief could have avoided hell. The law of moral retribution (i.e. karma) to a Buddhist is as immutable as laws of physics are in the natural world! However, in a theistic religion, there is actually Someone who can forgive sins and accept repentance regardless of previous deeds (thus abolishing “bad karma” by fiat). For Buddhists, there is no such thing as forgiveness of evil deeds or deathbed repentance; the law of karma is absolutely merciless. A poignant example would be Devadatta (the Buddhist Judas), who after creating schism in the Buddhist community, injuring the Buddha and killing an arhat (something like a Buddhist saint), repented and asked for forgiveness, but to no avail, since his karma was so bad that according to Buddhist tradition “the earth immediately opened and was swallowed by hell while still alive”. Traditional Buddhists societies have lived with stories like this for millennia, and if anything, among pious Buddhists the feeling of hell is far more acute than among Christians. On the other hand, there are some Mahayana denominations (Pure Land sect) that have developed a different soteriology (in the lines of “sola fide”), and which actually teach that bad karma can be annulled by having faith in Amithaba Buddha and invoking his name, for which he would reward the faithful with the paradisial “Pure Land” after their death, no matter what evil deeds they have committed before. However, this Buddhist school is generally ignored in the West, most probably due to its “un-coolness” (i.e. “Christianity-likeness”), though numerically it is the dominant form of Buddhism in East Asia (Zen is small potato compared to sola fide” Pure Land).
“Boy, I am sure glad that we have the privilege of your presence to tell us what the true dharma is, lest we fall prey to the false dharma.”
No need for cynicism here. The point I wanted to make is that it seems somewhat intellectually dishonest to try to pass your own personal beliefs under the guise of an ancient spiritual tradition. In regard of the issue you have raised, all (!) traditional forms of Buddhism acknowledge the existence of hell with immense corpus of scriptural support, and this belief has had historically and still has a significant influence on the moral attitudes within the Buddhist communities across Asia. It as simple as that… And by the way, “preaching false dharma” (and thus creating schism in the Sangha-the Buddhist monastic community) is considered by Buddhists a “grave offence” (anantarika-karma), punishable in the “hell of unceasing suffering” (Avici).

Atheism offers no grounds besides emotive ones for judging which aspects of human nature are “light” or “dark” — to use your terms — or, in other words, “good” or “evil.”
Who’s to say whose expressions of human nature are the “lighter” or the “darker” ones –
hlvanburen’s or Joseph Stalin?
hlvanburen’s or Adolph Hitler’s?
hlvanburen’s or Mao Zedong’s?
By your atheist lights, who’s to say is you on the one hand and Stalin, Hitler, and Mao respectively on the other hand.
Your word against their’s — or rather your emotive will versus theirs.
Seeing as how Stalin and Hitler and Mao had stronger wills than yours and seeing as how they had state-apparatuses and armies to serve their wills, I would place my bet on Stalin’s and Hitler’s and Mao’s emotive wills winning out about yours.
In other words, I’d place my bet on might winning out over the really, really pathetically feeble notion of “right” that you might scrounge up out of the fragments of a Christian morality you fail to recognize as the ultimate source of your own.
Which would be a shame, in terms of Christian morality — but no skin off the Godless and morally indifferent universe’s teeth in terms of your atheist cosmology.
The problem of evil for an atheist like you is the problem of how to retain the concept of evil — and the concept of good — while denying the theistic context which is the only context in which such concepts really make any sense as judgements of essential, fundamental right and wrong, as opposed to judgements of mere emotive response — either pleasant or unpleasant — to certain stimuli.
I don’t doubt, for example, that being sent to one of Hitler’s gas chambers was unpleasant for six million Jews.
But what makes it “evil,” from your point of view — save, that is, for a sentimental and unacknowledged nostalgia you retain for the very Judeo-Christian morality whose theistic basis you claim to reject?
God’s love for the six million Jews and his hatred for Hitler’s gas chambers doesn’t make it evil, since there isn’t any God — by your lights — to love or to hate anyone or anything.
And the universe can’t love the six million Jews or hate Hitler’s gas chambers, because as soon as you start positing a “universe” that can love or hate, you start reacknowledging the God whom you just declared dead.
So all you’re left with is how the gas chambers and the six million dead Jews make you *feel.*
And Hitler feels differently from you.
And he doesn’t give a rat’s-*ss how you feel, nor the six million Jews.
Neither does the universe.
And neither does the God who — according to you, having “killed” him — “isn’t there.”
So proof-text your liberal nihilism with all the mis-digested “Eastern wisdom” you want.
You still ain’t nothin’ by a free-rider mooching off theism and Judeo-Christianity.

You have made a choice that you believe to be the best possible choice for you. I have made a choice that I believe to be the best possible choice for me.
What can I do to convince you that my choice is the correct one for you?
If I was to choose what was “best” for me, I’d choose atheism. That would allow me to live as a hedonist, to take my own life whenever the pain of life out-weighed its pleasures, and to feel no guilt about anything I did in the meantime. If there is no God, please tell me why that would be an immoral choice. Who would I have to answer to?

while evil is indeed a problem for an non-theist as it forces him/her to address the dark side of human nature, it is a much greater hurdle for a theist as it forces him/her to address the dark side of deity.
It’s a hurdle for us, alright. I clear it mostly through intuition, through my sense of gratitude for all that’s good. Why should I feel grateful if there is no one to feel grateful to, if there is not one who has given me all the things I hold dear?
But why should moral evil be a problem for atheists? Why should you acknowledge the category at all? Just act “naturally,” do whatever you like. Which of your fellow humans has the right to tell you not to?

What I don’t understand is that the commenter abandoned his Roman Catholic faith because of this crisis. Abuse and sin by a few leaders is and has been part of the Church since the begining, Judas for example. The Lord allows evil to test us and to bring improvement and greater fruit.

“We need to understand that they don’t care what the truth of the matter is or how to best protect children.”
This was way, way back, and posted by someone who purports to be a priest I guess. It seems to me that there is a great deal of anger being shown, and judgement of peoples motives which the good father cannot possibly know. I am surprised that no one has taken him to task on it.
A couple of observations if I may. My wife is divorced. She was married to a man whose father sexually abused every one of the children, six a believe. You can guess what happened next. None of the children ever complained to “the authorities”, nor have any of the next generation. One of the adult children committed suicide. The whole family is a mess, and only God knows how many generations this has been going on, so lets have no “the good old days”.
And just for a minute, lets examine those abuse allegations being dealt with in the recent past. I think it is pretty well established that the RCC’s lawyers ask every female victim, something to the effect..”Did you enjoy it” followed by “what were you wearing” and yet they do not ask male victims those questions. Tell me why that happens please?

I am heartsick over the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church, but I still love this Church with my whole heart and soul and I seek and pray in great earnest for the Church to redeem itself and be restored to a position of moral dignity that the world actually needs more than the Church. There are encouraging signs. A March 23, 2010 AP article accounts data showing dramatic improvement in the U.S. Church, based on new policies since the scandal here. Painfully, there is evidence the U.S. Church has learned. It is only fair to note the Church has reached out to victims in unprecedented ways, tried to bring therapy and healing, and has strived to right itself. Many, many prayers are going up. I believe the Church must be not only effective in meeting this problem, but exemplary; it must set an example. It has begun this job in America, and now must get started in Europe. Sexual sin pervades our culture through and through. It is a great tragedy that the Church got caught up in it, a clear sign of evil permeating our age. Those of us who still love the Church know in our hearts, minds and souls that sexually exploiting children is not what this Church is all about. In recent years our clergy have undergone penetrating review, with records thoroughly scrutinized over a 50 year period. The best data I’ve seen indicate about 4% ever accused, with substantive findings against 3/4 of them, or about 3% overall. These figures are far too high for men of God. It should be 0. It does show though that the vast majority of priests have remained faithful to their vows, have rendered honorable service to their flock and would never consider victimizing children or anyone else. I point this out because there is a strong tendency to paint our fine clergy, and our church, with too broad a brush and thereby not see the larger picture. Based on my earlier studies in psychology and sociology I am struck by how the initial response by the Church to this great sin was denial and cover-up. This is exactly what happens in families where incest rears its ugly head. And this is exactly what has occurred in the Catholic Church. Everyone involved is part of the same family — the priests, the victims, the families, the parish, the church community, the larger church. Some have left the family as a result, and I’m sorry, Rod, to hear this is largely the case with you. As far as transferring priests to other parishes as an attempted remedy, while today we can readily recognize the folly of this, until 20 years ago or so, it was widely believed pedophilia and sexual deviance could be effectively treated, and in many cases treatment and transfer was professionally recommended. Through contemporary lenses we now view this as terrible judgment and unforgiveable administrative malpractice. There is no question the Church must be held to account for its sins its failures and abuses, and it will. The European Church will soon come clean, as did the American Church before her. It will right itself and do the best it can to make amends, before the entire world. The worst outcome from a societal standpoint though, would be to approach child sex abuse as a problem invented by the Catholic Church and somehow confined to Catholic clerical culture. Signs of perverse oversexualization of children as identified in this article, and so much other evidence of moral decay in the sexual sphere, involving children and adults, is found everywhere in our society. It is a dealy cancer growing on our society. Just review sometime the register of sex offenders living in your own neighborhood to get a sense of this. Then, further check to see if any of them are Catholic priests.