LF: Pope admits Roman Catholic Church culpable in child sex scandals

The discovery of pedophilia on the part of Catholic priests was vehemently denied by “the Church.” It was initially dismissed as the fruits of an anti-Catholic cabal.

Next it was a malicious campaign by the mass media to destroy the “Holy Mother Church.”

Smell anything fishy?

AP Photo

Then it was a backlash from the homosexual and abortion lobbies. At last, the true culprit was revealed. It was the Roman Catholic Church all along.

After numerous attempts to disavow culpability and deflect criticism for what has become known as the “Catholic child sex abuse scandals,” Pope Benedict XVI was forced to admit the obvious. The principal persecution of the Catholic Church "is born from the sins within the church," and not from without.

For years, allegations of child molestation on the part of the Roman Catholic clergy have been vehemently denied, and those who would dare raise the issue were soundly condemned. Once the issue could no longer be ignored, the Pope began to scold certain arms of the church and had even tendered resignations from some who had committed such acts. None have been actively punished nor defrocked, including those who have made admissions of sexually abusing children under the Church’s care.

Speaking to reporters while en route to Portugal for a four-day state visit, Pope Benedict stated: "The greatest persecution of the church doesn't come from enemies on the outside but is born from the sins within the church." For some, this admission is to little, too late. David Clohessy, director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, is quoted as saying “Many are tiring of hearing about his 'strong comments.' They want to see strong action."

The Roman Catholic church has a long history of abuse. Even a Catholic historian and Archbishop of New York, Cardinal John Farley, acknowledged that:

old legends of their dissolute lives may be partly true...that they didn't sternly insist upon sexual virtue and injustice was a general license of the papal court, but it is probable that moral improvement was at the vanguard of their thinking.

— CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA, Pecci ed. (1897).

Many of the popes prior to the first millennium, lived their lives in a state of moral abandonment and were a most barbarous gang of deceitful military power brokers. Cardinal Farley reinforces this thought with the following:

The popes were temporal rulers of the civil territory and they naturally had recourse to force the re-establishment or extend the States of the Church until the conclusion of peace was confirmed ... their attempts to purify particularly the Duchy of Rome caused them considerable distress and the need to resort to violence, but always on the side of mercy ... lives were lost in the service of truth but the legal basis for the Christian Church to hold and transmit properties for the benefit of revenues was given to them [the popes] by Emperor Constantine in 312.

—CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA, Pecci ed., (1897).

It is clear enough that early papal ‘authority figures,’ though now propagandized as being incorruptible, moral oracles, were in reality most corrupt and immoral. Consider the following quote from one “vicar” of Christ:

[W]e hold upon this earth the place of God Almighty.

—Pope Leo XIII

If one looks at the very definition of “vicar” one finds:

vic'ar; n. [Latin vicarius, from vicis]; a substitute in office.

—Webster's 1828 Dictionary

Therefore, the “vicar” of Christ must truly believe that he is a substitute Christ, despite whatever disgusting or abominable physical acts he may conduct while in this “state”; consider the following quote:

or the Roman pontiff (pope), by reason of his office as Vicar of Christ, and as pastor of the entire Church has full, supreme, and universal power over the whole Church, a power which he can always exercise unhindered.

—CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, (1994) P. 254 #882

We declare, say, define, and pronounce that it is absolutely necessary for the salvation of every human creature to be subject to the Roman pontiff (pope).

—Pope Boniface viii, Bull Unun Sanctum, 1302

Though they may pretend to be as Christ on Earth, the Word of God says something altogether different.

Isaiah 42:8:

I am the LORD: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another....

Given historical events, one could effectively argue that the Church of Rome’s version of Christianity has come under judgement by God and that Islam may be his vehicle of choice by which that judgment has been exercised. If one scrutinizes the true history of the Roman Catholic Church and in particular its pontiffs, one has a much better understanding as to why Islam is regularly gaining converts.

The Church of Rome has historically seen no wrong in massaging and even altering outright, the facts surrounding the lives of its leadership to portray them as the most moral of mankind. Recent history as well as the documented evidence of the past, indicate that the real story is quite different from the official line. And so shall it be until the end.