First thought: Why does the government have to “ask”?
After reading the article:
From that report, he said it was concluded that some 440,000 adults may have suffered sex abuse in Spain by people linked to the church and that roughly half of those cases were committed by clergy.
Holy shit.
Compensation is necessary and imo fuck the church, but that study has been debunked over and over in Spain. That’s 1% of the population, there is no way that was true anyway.
This may be a novel idea, but why don’t they compensate the victims of centuries of abuse by dissolving the church entirely and give all the proceeds to charity? eh? Oh wait, I forgot that the imaginary daddy in the sky might disapprove of me.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
MADRID (AP) — Spain on Tuesday approved a plan aimed at making reparation and economic compensation for victims of sex abuse committed by people connected to the Catholic Church.
The Minister of the Presidency and Justice, Félix Bolaños, said the plan was based on recommendations in a report by Spain’s Ombudsman last year.
From that report, he said it was concluded that some 440,000 adults may have suffered sex abuse in Spain by people linked to the church and that roughly half of those cases were committed by clergy.
But in a statement Tuesday, Spain’s Bishops Conference rejected the plan, saying it discriminated against victims outside of church circles.
The project will include free legal assistance for all victims of sexual abuse and it will reinforce the prevention supervision in schools.
Only a handful of countries have had government-initiated or parliamentary inquiries into clergy sex abuse, although some independent groups have carried out their own investigations.
The original article contains 305 words, the summary contains 156 words. Saved 49%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Fucking good. Now do that in every other country in the world.
They should make the individuals pay, not the church. The church’s money comes from donations made by Catholics who attend the church. As someone who was baptized Catholic and attended Catholic Church, I was never abused by priests or nuns. Did the Catholic Churches ever ask the Baptist churches to pay them for damages when members of the KKK attacked Catholic families around the time of the civil rights movement? Probably not. It was individuals who committed those crimes. Should the Baptist churches have paid for damages each time a Catholic family found a cross burning on their lawn, around the 50’s and 60’s?
The Catholic Church is being punished for its covering up of the abuse and moving priests around to give then fresh new hunting grounds when allegations were made in their old parish. It’s a systemic issue being punished at a systemic level.
You don’t actually just get to pay a little fine if you fuck a child.
Oh and ‘Church asked to pay’ is only in the headline because a very similar case happened in Ireland and a rogue minister on his last day agreed to have the government pay the fine which is the alternative- everyone, Catholic or not, asked to pay the fine.
I don’t deny they covered it up, but I just think the guilty individuals should pay.
I assume they would do jail time and then pay for damages to the child and the family of the child. Then again, I don’t know much about repercussions of those types of crimes. I tend to date older men, and didn’t major in law.
Ireland operates differently than other countries.
The whole point is that instead of turning over priests who committed crimes to the police where those individuals would do jail time, per your request, the Catholic Church actively worked to prevent those crimes being told to police, actively worked to move priests to a new parish where they could CONTINUE committing crimes, and actively worked to discredit the victims. Those things are not the act of an individual.
Yes, the individuals should do jail time, but the organization that actively aided the crimes should pay reparations.
The church is a guilty institution, it provided abusers with authority and power over their victims, and actively covered up crimes and enabled abusers to continue committing crimes. While demanding money and devotion from it’s millions of followers, many of whom were the victims. Abusers should be punished for their crimes, but we’re talking historic abuse, most perpetrators are probably dead. The church should most definitely pay reparations.
Considering the curch helps cover it up, they too are responsible.
When I think of the Catholic Church, I consider the people that make the church what it is, not just the people at the top. A lot of Catholics spoke out about the abuse. One that stands out for sure was Sinead O’Connor. People forget she was Catholic. She was outraged and drew much attention to the issue. So did many other Catholics. I don’t consider the abusers of the church to be Catholic. Good Catholics shouldn’t have turned their backs on the church when that all unfolded; they are what makes the church a church and it needed good people to remain and be outspoken. I think church leaders tried to do damage control and it became a big cover up, which shouldn’t have happened.
Sinead O’Connor was excommunicated from the Catholic Church for trying to become a priest, so no, she wasn’t Catholic. She died a Muslim, and probably would have preferred we called her Shuhada.
In reality she stopped being Catholic long before she ripped up a picture of the Pope. For more than 25 years she was Catholic only in a definition that would also include me - having been baptised as one. You seem to think lay Catholics have influence on the Church. They do not. Only in the form of donations, which practicing Catholics have never withheld. So I’m perfectly fine with the Church using those donations. Where else is it going to get money? Selling priceless artifacts?
One that stands out for sure was Sinead O’Connor. People forget she was Catholic. She was outraged and drew much attention to the issue.
And how did both the Catholic Church and nearly every Catholic person (not just the people at the top) around the world react to that?
