I have a simple take on this. If a priest were discovered to be a paedophile, and the church said to him, you have two choices, either we hand you over to the police, or you immediately go into a closed oreder, with only older adult males for company, and you remain there till you die.

I would have been content with the second if not perfectly happy.

However, instead of that they moved one priest to another parish, without warning anyone, and they repeated this more than 20 times. They finally handed him over to the police when the story hit the headlines and it was too hot to hide.

The instant that the church put him into that second parish, they became complicit in everything he did after that, and the church is guilty of paedophilia and pandering for a paedophile.

The current pope while the previous pope's right hand man, wrote the papal bull that said anyone grassing a paedo priest would be excommunicated.

The implication of this, -since the Pope is god's best buddy down here, and infallible, is that god is happy to see children buggered by priests.

So, I guess it's just a perk of the job.

I don't think I'm going to get through to you, your prejudices are too deep set, but it doesn't matter.

I can again confirm that the police reflect all in society and that includes murderers. It's a rare crime, percentage wise, for all the population and correspondingly for the police too. Exactly the same goes for paedophilia, members of the public get caught with child images on their PCs and so do the police.

To be honest, it's illogical to expect police officers to be any different from ordinary citizens, because that's what they are. Either in or out of uniform.

Sorry mate, but you are wrong. Police are in a position of trust, and a criminal act by a police officer weighs heavier in the scales than if committed by mere peasants like us.

It has to be thus. Exploitation of a position of power to oppress the weak and powerless is a disgusting crime.

Can you not understand that I, and most other people agree with that? It's your obsession with the topic that grates.

And I'm disappointed with your comments about the Pope. You forgot to mention that he was in the Hitler Youth. Does it mean that you approve?

Well, if you agree, can you post more clearly? Y'know, something along the lines of 'I agree, but....' would be helpful.

Obsession is an English irregular verb... isn't it?

Hitler youth. Yeah, I am never sure whether he really was in there against his will (they all say that, don't they) or whether the transition from the Nazi party to the Catholic church was a smooth progression within the same sort of philosophy.

The parents are also complicit in this, why on earth did they allow their children to attend church in the first place? Sheer madness!

Sorry I can't reply at the moment, it's too big a topic. Nazism and the Vatican? Christ, that's more than a hornet's nest.

Gotta indoctrinate the kids, where else will you get recruits.

Once recruited, people usually cease to be able to apply critical reasoning, and are unwilling to accept that they were conned into joining.

Interesting article, contrasting Spanish bar culture with Americans.

http://www.mom-101.com/2011/08/so_a_...nto_a_bar.html

Not so bad in family pubs in the UK, where you will often have a beer garden/play areas for children. But city centre pubs and bars are often geared to extracting as much money as possible from the teenage crowd.

when I was 5 I went to a brand new Catholic school in the town, where for 5 years they had to take on non-catholic children to make it worthwhile opening.

I am not aware of having been indoctrinated, we were even segregated when it came to religious lessons. Or was that a devious ploy to get us interested ??

Probably wanted to keep the indoctrinated seperate from you least you took the piss/pointed out the flaws?

at 5 bil ?
had enough problems understanding the reasons why we had to split up, which wasnt made clear - although who would want to tell us why, we were just kids.

i was able to read the daily mirror from cover to cover back at 5, so was looking for something more mind blowing, but religion

You also want to keep the faithful feeling aloof and special. Standard taboo, witchdoctor tricks. You mustn't mix with the tribe over the hill, they are disgusting people, they eat pork.

Last thing the witchdoctor wants is for you to see that the grass over the hill is greener, and you don't actually need him.