Whatever You Think I'm Thinking, You're Probably Right

[filkertom]

Catholic Church fighting CT law that would repeal statute of limitations on child sex crimes.

Comments

[lizziecrowe.livejournal.com]

I read about this earlier today. It's beyond fucked, and it's amazingly predictable.

[mouser.livejournal.com]

http://www.ctcatholic.org/Statute-of-limitation.php

Basically, "It's because after 30 years we should have gotten away with it and not be held accountable."

Think about this: There's worried that when you're almost 50 you might still sue.

[mimiheart.livejournal.com]

Child molestation is fine. But consenting adults of the same sex are going to hell.

[per_solo]

Um....Wow. I'm reading through that, and overloading.

[mouser.livejournal.com]

For the record - I *was* an alter boy and never heard of anything inappropriate. But I'm also not surprised.

[valkyrwench.livejournal.com]

I have ceased to be surprised by the Catholic Church's handling of this whole thing. I am firmly convinced that they are under the same management as PETA, however - one that is determined to bring the organization down from the inside by being as outrageous and stupid as possible.

[griffen.livejournal.com]

And yet the majority of Catholics will continue to insist that the Catholic Church knows best. Disgusting.

[bayushisan.livejournal.com]

I wish I could say that I was surprised but people just don't surprise me with things like this anymore.

[ann-totusek.livejournal.com]

And whatever I'm thinking isn't really printable.

[saganth.livejournal.com]

Maybe, but that avatar of yours is a prize-winner for sure!

[rmeidaking.livejournal.com]

I've long believed that the commandment which has been translated as "Thou shalt not commit adultery" (apparently meaning, "Thou shalt not have sex except with your spouse"), should instead be translated, "Thou shalt not have non-consensual sex." Yeah, I'm in the minority.

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

You know, even jaded old men and doddling old ladies who've been in the church all their lives are going to ask why the church would be trying to keep child rapists safe.

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

It does make you wonder just what the hell they were thinking.. I mean, didn't it occur to them that this was perhaps a bit evil!

[smoooom.livejournal.com]

Perhaps I'm stupid, they're fighting a bill that would give victims more rights? And this is because in the past more victims came forward and sued them when given the chance. Am I missing something here? Shouldn't they be, well, doing something for the victims?

I'm not Catholic, but, oh come on, can't I have some illusions?

[realinterrobang.livejournal.com]

Somewhere in my copious fortune file, I have a quotation from a Catholic official saying basically "We realised that raping children was morally wrong, but we had no idea it was illegal," so I guess they just don't get out much or something.

I don't know what Tom was thinking, but it probably wasn't thinking. Me, it was "Typical."

[dornbeast.livejournal.com]

I get the feeling that the Catholic Church desperately needs somebody who understands public relations. If they can't understand the breakdown between protecting immorality and claiming to be a beacon of morality, there's a definite hole in their organization which needs to be filled.

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

The same ones telling the government to keep out of Medicaire?

[alverant.livejournal.com]

And they're encouraging their flocks to petition against this bill. Doesn't this go against the tax-exempt status? It's not too much different than telling people who to vote for. What's next? "The governor is an anti-catholic bigot for removing the statue of limitations on child raping!"

But I have to be honest [armoring myself up here] I'm not too crazy about this bill either. The human mind is a funny thing. We know that when we remember something that we're basically re-writing the memory which makes it possible to honestly mis-remember. Then you have the problem with false memories. I would put a cavet in the law about requiring physical evidence; something more than a "kid said/he said" trial. A false accusation of child abuse only makes it harder for the real ones to get noticed.

[peachtales.livejournal.com]

Considering they don't understand how life works, I think that might be out of their reach completely.

[alverant.livejournal.com]

I like George Carlin's version, "Thou shall always be honest and faithful, especially to the provider of thy nookie."

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

The evils of the Catholic church are literally too heinous for me to discuss. If I try to think about it in detail, I get too angry to use logic.

HOWEVER, there is a damn good reason for having statutes of limitations. The more terrible the accusation, the more important it is to keep the limits in place, because no matter how outrageous the accusation, it must be PROVEN before punishment can be justly imposed. Without proof, we're just a torch-waving mob, not a civilization. People's memories of stuff that happened decades ago are simply not reliable enough to have any place in a court of law. Justice would be best served with a rule that said that old memories had to be considered as unreliable material, akin to hearsay evidence, rather than a simple time limit, but having the time limit is much better than not.

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

I think that "Thou shalt not have non-consensual sex" would be a much better commandment, but is there actually a case that that is what the original Hebrew meant?

[ravenclaw-eric.livejournal.com]

I'm of two minds about this. On the one hand, I hate to think of those creeps getting away with what they did---on the other hand, the statute of limitations is there for very good reasons. Also, in cases like this, the accused more-or-less has to prove his innocence...how can you do that for something that happened 30 years ago?

Speaking from a position of experience...

[nimitzbrood.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry but if you've been affected by this there should be no limitations on when you are able to come to terms with it and legally do something about it.

Consider this...

I was an altar boy. I _know_ that the priests were abusing kids. (I walked in on a session of abuse and my friends hustled me out of there and _all_ of them explained why I should keep silent about what I'd seen.) And I'm missing time from those days.

So here's the thing. I'm pretty sure that some of that missing time _is_ at least one session of abuse. But I don't have those memories yet - at 41 years of age. I may never have them.

But if and when I do get those memories back I would really like to hang my hat on helping to prevent those things from happening again.

So when the church or someone else says that they want to limit the time I have to do something about those abuses when I finally come to terms with them internally I really can't agree because there's no way for me to know _when_ that will happen.

And since that missing time has affected me in one way or another virtually all my life the burden is on the abuser or his accomplices to make amends.

[nagasvoice.livejournal.com]

I tend to agree that we've had more than enough church-based political activism out of this bunch. IF they keep it up, they ought to lose their tax-exempt status.

[ravenclaw-eric.livejournal.com]

I'd be in favor of yanking all churches' tax-exempt status, and their privileges vis-a-vis the law in general.

[holzman.livejournal.com]

Perhaps, but being an international criminal conspiracy to aid and abet child rapists by shuffling them from parish to parish, intimidate witnesses, and harbor fugitives from justice already goes against the tax-exempt status.

[holzman.livejournal.com]

There is no more terrible an accusation than murder. Murder has no statute of limitations.

[nimitzbrood.livejournal.com]

This.

[laurel-potter.livejournal.com]

I love your icon! May I steal?

[alverant.livejournal.com]

Murder tends to leave more physical evidence behind. Also the accusation of murder is, strangely, more "acceptable" than child abuse when one is proven innocent. When a convicted murderer is released from prison people don't put flyers around warning the neighborhood.

[holzman.livejournal.com]

Murder leaves more physical evidence behind, but that has nothing to do with tigertoy's support for the statute of limitations: the concern raised was people's memories. People's memories fade just as much regarding the circumstances surrounding a murder as a child molestation.

[stevemb.livejournal.com]

I note that the text of the Church's letter on the subject has one sentence about the legitimate reasons for the statute of limitations (loss of reliable evidence over time) and a page and a half about the potential threat to the Church's interests.

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

There should be a statute of limitations for murder too, for the same reasons.

alverant covered pretty well that child molestation is a more terrible accusation than murder, at least in terms of how today's society seems to react to it. A murderer, even convicted, may serve his sentence and return to society, but a sex offender will be hounded until he dies (if he's tough and canny enough to survive his jail sentence), and no one can even speak about how far outside of the principles of our legal system their treatment is.

[alverant.livejournal.com]

I have to disagree. Murder and abuse are evil enough crimes to warrant pursuing them no matter how much time has passed. The difference between the two is how much solid physical evidence remains to prove that not only the crime happened but who did it. And also the law must be consistently applied to be fair.

The problem with abuse is that the evidence fades away. Sure in a few times it's obvious, but after 10 years can you be sure that little Molly broke her arm from falling off a bike or did mean Uncle Stan break it for crying too loudly one night? Plus anyone can point their finger at someone else and shout, "That person abused me!" and be believed. The same can't be said for, "That person killed me!"

Soft tissue damage can be hard to prove. Ask any personal injury lawyer. But murder tends to leave longer lasting evidence. That's why there's no statue of limitations. It's an evil act where the evidence can outlast the witnesses.

[alverant.livejournal.com]

30 years? Sometimes it's hard to prove your innocence for something that happened 3 days ago. A boy and a priest are alone together for a few hours. No witnesses, no recording devices, no cameras, etc. How do you know what happened? If the boy was raped, can you be sure the priest did it instead of the father who was also alone with the boy for a few hours afterwards? If enough time passed, how do you know he was raped at all and not trying to get some money or attention or revenge for something else? I'm not naive enough to think every charge against priests is false, but I do have to wonder if all of them are true.

That's what is so great about our legal system. The State has to prove guilt. The defendant does not have to prove innocence. The problem is that in terms of child abuse being charged is enough.

[alverant.livejournal.com]

Oh and just to clarify, I'm talking about the abuse itself, not the cover-up. With cover-ups you have a paper trail and awareness that something is wrong.

[alverant.livejournal.com]

You're right on the cover up. But I was focusing on the abuse itself. The evidence of abuse may fade with time but the paper trail showing that whenever a certain pastor was transfered complaints about inappropriate touching were made does show the church should have known something was up and take the proper steps.

[purpleranger.livejournal.com]

Let's see . . . I think that you're thinking that this is a good idea, that this is a long overdue response to people who would make Inspector Javert look soft on crime.

[fredhuggins.livejournal.com]

Well, of COURSE. Gay marriage is too hard to explain to the children, you see. Think of the poor children.

[fredhuggins.livejournal.com]

It's the internet. Yes it is.

[fredhuggins.livejournal.com]

I can't possibly do any better at summarizing and explaining this issue than our good friend David Cross.

WARNING: this bit is VERY very offensive and certainly not for everyone, but when you're up against the Catholic Church's level of evil, sometimes you have to go for it.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

I did say "probably".

[avram]

I have several Roman Catholic friends, and every single one of them is appalled by the behavior of the church leadership. According to their descriptions of the sermons they've been getting, their priests are appalled as well.