I saw for my own eyes that for people who dislike the church there is nothing it can do to to be recognized as doing something positive. They will always down play any "good" that could have come from it.
But the problem is: look at the evolution of such scandals. In most Western European countries the church is firmly out of the public space, out of schools, and out of youth care.
Child abuse (whether physical, sexual, criminal or financial) has refused to leave with the same church. Especially when it comes to youth care. And now, of course, you have a much bigger problem. It's not the church trying to hide abuse. It's the state. And the state uses police violence ... to protect themselves and their own employees.
In case you don't know, financially abusing a child is demanding payment from the child or parents for threats. And an example of criminal abuse of a child would be a teacher forcing a child to deal drugs in school, or to prostitute themselves with an adult as a pimp.
The state has the same agency organize child care, a few aspects of schooling for toddlers, and youth protection. When I say "organize" I do mean organize: they don't do anything themselves, never see any kids, and all the actual work is done by subcontractors (with one exception called "Gemeenschapsinstellingen", which are famous for the abuse that happens there)
Not only did they fail to police those subcontractors. Several of those subcontractors killed kids. But this story is about a subcontractor that beat a toddler into a serious concussion THREE times (minimum, it is not known if they did it more). The child is damaged beyond any reasonable hope for a normal life, his brain regularly fails to control normal bodily functions. The beatings have, at minimum, resulted in 4 aneurisms. After 2 years he still has epilepsy attacks (that he didn't have before) and at least 1 year motor and cognitive retardation. Sometimes he suddenly falls down flails about and throws up.
Needless to say, child services reacted IMMEDIATELY, by sending youth protection after the parents, whom they immediately threatened them to stay silent or lose the child, and they did indeed remove the child (which didn't actually do much since doctors were positive the child couldn't survive even for hours without medical attention). After 2 years they choose to go public anyway. This is not the worst part.
The agency in charge refused to comply with requests from parliament about the child care center. They lied about those reports. How do we know? Eventually someone from in the agency (who was promptly fired) came forth with the actual document: THIS WAS THE 6TH TIME THEY HAD DONE THAT for that child care center alone. The agency had lied about this to the police, to the state, to other parents, and even internally, resulting in those parents getting sued for child abuse (and losing access to their child for a while)
Needless to say, all the state did in retaliation for this ... was replace the director. Since the director was replaced 3 children have died in state child care due to actions of their employees. (what would be called murdering a child, probably mentioning torture, if you or I did it)
The parents or the child have not received any compensation (and the damage done is absurdly large: this child, in all likelihood, will never live independently. So damage done here amounts to let's say 45 years of full-time care and medical attention, which will be millions of euros)
There have been similar scandals in .nl and .fr. The state now controls these youth organizations and is using state power, including violence by the police ... to enforce silence about state employees, direct or indirect, physically and sexually abusing children.
Needless to say, there is research indicating that abuse in schools, care facilities and youth services now constitutes the vast majority of child abuse. I guess that's what ha...
Catholic church has history of being the lead in genocide, as for example in Croatia, where priests participated in killings of Serbs, Roma, Jews and Croats. Church also ran the only concentration camp for kids (Stara Gradiška) with countless kids killed by beating and starvation.
Any source about Church role during WWII coming from the Church itself should be taken with a lot of doubts.
Just read about Stara Gradiska on Wikipedia. Horrific what happened there but I can’t see anything about the church running it. There’s one reference to a Franciscan Friar but I can’t find any more than that. Can’t find anything on Google either. Do you have any links for further reading on the subject?
On the website of the Holocaust Museum in New York you can find interviews of the people who were in that concentration camp as kids. It is not easy to watch.
The summary of the last one says: "the decapitation of her mother by a guard; her transfer to Jastebarsko children's camp with her brother; life in Jastebarsko, including the poor treatment of the children by the attending nuns;"
> A joint press release by the Pontifical Biblical Institute, the Jewish Community of Rome, and Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem, published on 7 September, offered details of the discovery.
Even if you want to be skeptical of the PBI, I'd think the Jewish Community of Rome and the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum would do their due diligence to confirm this info matches other information they have about the area at the time before joining a press release about it?
Can institutions be "bad" at all? Is black lives matter bad because some people used it's institution money for their own private gain? I think that social institutions rarely are 'bad'. People can perform atrocious actions. They are using institutions for their own private gains. Can LGBT be "bad", or actions of individuals are bad?
I know that certain actions of certain people, or history can shed shadow for institution, but I am not convinced about how "good" have Church done, and how much "bad". It would be not easily quantifiable. It should not be also dependent on contemporary perception.
I am not sure if using world war 2 history does the topic justice. We look on it through rose tainted glasses of today. We do not know how it was. For example if you did not participate in it you could be in danger yourself. Please take a look at Franz Jägerstätter biography. For not taking Hitlers oath he was sentenced to death.
Unfortunately whilst this one off case is nice to hear, the very "cross" in the Nazi symbol is called the "hakencruz" meaning hooked cross, it was a pastor that renamed it to a Hindu swastika to take off the limelight
According to the page you linked, the policy in question was specifically about children with no blood relatives to be returned to (which would have been a lot of them).
"The reality is that the history of relations between the Catholic Church and the German state, both before and during the Third Reich, was actually one of hostility, suspicion and fear."
That had surprised me, as I had previously been influenced by Rolf Hochhuth's "Der Stellvertreter". I actually felt somewhat indoctrinated.
16 comments
[ 24.4 ms ] story [ 1746 ms ] threadChild abuse (whether physical, sexual, criminal or financial) has refused to leave with the same church. Especially when it comes to youth care. And now, of course, you have a much bigger problem. It's not the church trying to hide abuse. It's the state. And the state uses police violence ... to protect themselves and their own employees.
In case you don't know, financially abusing a child is demanding payment from the child or parents for threats. And an example of criminal abuse of a child would be a teacher forcing a child to deal drugs in school, or to prostitute themselves with an adult as a pimp.
For example, in .be:
https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2023/04/11/arnaud-kinderopvang/
The state has the same agency organize child care, a few aspects of schooling for toddlers, and youth protection. When I say "organize" I do mean organize: they don't do anything themselves, never see any kids, and all the actual work is done by subcontractors (with one exception called "Gemeenschapsinstellingen", which are famous for the abuse that happens there)
Not only did they fail to police those subcontractors. Several of those subcontractors killed kids. But this story is about a subcontractor that beat a toddler into a serious concussion THREE times (minimum, it is not known if they did it more). The child is damaged beyond any reasonable hope for a normal life, his brain regularly fails to control normal bodily functions. The beatings have, at minimum, resulted in 4 aneurisms. After 2 years he still has epilepsy attacks (that he didn't have before) and at least 1 year motor and cognitive retardation. Sometimes he suddenly falls down flails about and throws up.
Needless to say, child services reacted IMMEDIATELY, by sending youth protection after the parents, whom they immediately threatened them to stay silent or lose the child, and they did indeed remove the child (which didn't actually do much since doctors were positive the child couldn't survive even for hours without medical attention). After 2 years they choose to go public anyway. This is not the worst part.
The agency in charge refused to comply with requests from parliament about the child care center. They lied about those reports. How do we know? Eventually someone from in the agency (who was promptly fired) came forth with the actual document: THIS WAS THE 6TH TIME THEY HAD DONE THAT for that child care center alone. The agency had lied about this to the police, to the state, to other parents, and even internally, resulting in those parents getting sued for child abuse (and losing access to their child for a while)
Needless to say, all the state did in retaliation for this ... was replace the director. Since the director was replaced 3 children have died in state child care due to actions of their employees. (what would be called murdering a child, probably mentioning torture, if you or I did it)
The parents or the child have not received any compensation (and the damage done is absurdly large: this child, in all likelihood, will never live independently. So damage done here amounts to let's say 45 years of full-time care and medical attention, which will be millions of euros)
There have been similar scandals in .nl and .fr. The state now controls these youth organizations and is using state power, including violence by the police ... to enforce silence about state employees, direct or indirect, physically and sexually abusing children.
Needless to say, there is research indicating that abuse in schools, care facilities and youth services now constitutes the vast majority of child abuse. I guess that's what ha...
Any source about Church role during WWII coming from the Church itself should be taken with a lot of doubts.
The summary of the last one says: "the decapitation of her mother by a guard; her transfer to Jastebarsko children's camp with her brother; life in Jastebarsko, including the poor treatment of the children by the attending nuns;"
https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn44661
https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn505922
https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn44862
https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn45368
Even if you want to be skeptical of the PBI, I'd think the Jewish Community of Rome and the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum would do their due diligence to confirm this info matches other information they have about the area at the time before joining a press release about it?
I know that certain actions of certain people, or history can shed shadow for institution, but I am not convinced about how "good" have Church done, and how much "bad". It would be not easily quantifiable. It should not be also dependent on contemporary perception.
I am not sure if using world war 2 history does the topic justice. We look on it through rose tainted glasses of today. We do not know how it was. For example if you did not participate in it you could be in danger yourself. Please take a look at Franz Jägerstätter biography. For not taking Hitlers oath he was sentenced to death.
You're going to get sooo beaten up here!!! Probably even banned!!!
You can't post things like this!!! You can't defend the church!!! Didn't you know that?!?! [sarcastic smile]
Incoming in 3, 2, 1...
That's "disa-point-ing"!!!
https://historyforatheists.com/2019/05/the-great-myths-7-hit...
"The reality is that the history of relations between the Catholic Church and the German state, both before and during the Third Reich, was actually one of hostility, suspicion and fear."
That had surprised me, as I had previously been influenced by Rolf Hochhuth's "Der Stellvertreter". I actually felt somewhat indoctrinated.