by Simon 19 Replies latest watchtower child-abuse
They are so arrogant. Like the GB that refused to respond to a subpoena. They will understand the power of the civil law.
I believe they will impale themselves on the two witness rule. They have always used scriptures out of context which anybody with a brain can see. Same with the blood issue. They will box themselves into a corner holding on to these rules.
It's exciting to watch!
I can remember my mom talking horribly about her Catholic family staying in a religion that would cover up such crimes!
Now the shoe is on the other foot, she's gone silent.
Like other fundamentalist groups, the JW organization rounded on the Roman Catholic Church, demonizing it over everything. Child sex abuse scandals were simply the juciest of the juciest, packing an emotional gravity that few would want to argue with.
There really was no thought, no self-reflection, no capacity for sensible caution in the organiization's hypocritical moral outrage, knowing its very own policies and procedures were not too dissimilar to the Catholic Church's. Move along, people, nothing to see...
I think of the Scripture, 'To those who are given more, more is expected'. JW organization has made huge claims about its being a unique spiritually clean paradise even this side of Armageddon and it has spared no opportunity to recite the evils of the Catholic Church. Child sexual abuse has been perhaps the most captivating area of gleeful condemnation.
The most immediate change we will see - if it is not apparent even now - is there will likely be a reduction in JW organization's literature parading the evil of child sexual abuse in the churches, Roman Catholics in particular.
Public shaming can be morally corrective on so many levels.
For example :g93. 4/8 p31
Not surprisingly, then, many abuse survivors are suing the church. NCR quotes one attorney who specializes in such cases as saying that there are pedophile-priest cases in each of the church’s 188 dioceses in the United States. He says that out-of-court settlements have run as high as $300,000 per case. U.S.News & World Report says that such suits have already cost the church $400,000,000, a figure that could surge to $1 billion by the year 2000. And the Canadian Press reported recently that some 2,000 survivors of childhood sexual abuse in 22 church-run orphanages and mental institutions in Quebec are suing six religious orders for $1.4 billion in damages.
Interestingly, though, the aforementioned U.S. attorney, who represents 150 victims of pedophile priests in 23 states, says that he has never yet had a client who was eager to go to court. Each one first tried to seek justice “within the pastoral context of the church.” NCR concludes: “Survivors go to the courts, it appears, not as a first resort, but as a last resort.”
g3/11 p 29
The “credibility gap” caused by the Catholic Church’s “mismanagement of the clergy sex abuse crisis” has resulted in its “largest institutional crisis in centuries, possibly in church history.”—NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER, U.S.A.
“Most people no longer trust [the Catholic] Church,” says a headline in The Irish Times. The report places the Catholic Church in the same category as other institutions in which a majority of the Irish have lost confidence—the government and the banks. In a country where loyalty to the church has been legendary, over half those interviewed in a recent poll said either that they did not trust the church “at all” (32 percent) or that they did “not really” trust the church (21 percent). Scandals that have recently rocked the church are blamed for the fact that public trust in it has “plummeted
g90 12/8 p31
A conference of U.S. Catholic bishops received a report on the “catastrophe” of priest pedophile litigation. The 100-page report, states the Journal, “detailed a strategy for limiting the Church’s liability from civil lawsuits to $1 billion [$1,000 million] based on the 30 suits then pending.” The lawsuits are being brought by the Catholic parents of the children involved. And psychiatrists who treat the young victims of these crimes report long-term, often permanent, damage.
God’s Word speaks of such “disgraceful sexual appetites” by which males are “inflamed in their lust toward one another, males with males, working what is obscene,” and adds that the “righteous decree of God” is that “those practicing such things are deserving of death.”—
It's almost like a psychological thing. Like gay republicans and preachers telling everybody how bad and immoral being gay is. Meanwhile, they're having gay relationships themselves.
Absolutely right Simon. They chose the time to attack their arch enemy and drive their own problems further in the closet. But like many of these people, at one point, they get discovered and not only is their true nature discovered, they are also shown to be hypocrites and totally discredited.
sir82 - "It was either mind-numbingly stupid arrogance, or maybe a stunningly naive belief in their own hype, that somehow 'Jehovah' would protect them. Maybe they thought 'Armageddon' would come within a few months and thus rescue them."
All of the above and more.
The funny thing is that the org doesn't seem to be criticizing the catholic church these days when it comes to child abuse.
I wonder why?
BluesBrother, those are great excerpts. Thanks for sharing.
Oh, the irony!
Karma's a bitch
