Dude, I can't follow that. Is he saying:

1. The Church didn't used to think pedophilia was so bad; and

2. Child pornography is on the rise and society thinks it's okay.

?? Because dude, that makes no sense. Also, way to cast the blame for your child-abuse scandal on society as a whole.

Pope? STFFU!

Jesus is shaking his head at you RIGHT NOW.

Now I feel bad for all the good catholics of the world.

Now I feel bad for all the good catholics of the world.

It makes my wife weary.

Agreed, tommy. Agreed.

Every time I hear a story of Catholic fuckwaddery, I take a deep breath, think of JZ and her congregation and regain a little POV.

But...he seems to be saying that it's a shitty thing that it appears to be becoming "normal." He talks about child sex trafficking as a tragedy. I mean, I'm not a big pope fan, but it seems as though he clearly thinks these are shitty things.

I mean, the quote: "Asking how abuse exploded within the Church, the Pontiff called on senior clerics "to repair as much as possible the injustices that occurred" and to help victims heal through a better presentation of the Christian message."

Doesn't seem to be like he's saying this was ever a good thing. Not when he's calling it an injustice, and referring to the children as victims.

I'm going back to Suri's Burn Book. It's the only thing that makes sense in the world right now.

People at my job are trying to make my head explode enough.

I'd like to read the full statement, Allyson, and I will try, BUT I need to go to the post-office NOW, but:

"In the 1970s, paedophilia was theorised as something fully in conformity with man and even with children," the Pope said...It was maintained - even within the realm of Catholic theology - that there is no such thing as evil in itself or good in itself. There is only a 'better than' and a 'worse than'. Nothing is good or bad in itself."

And the statement ""We cannot remain silent about the context of these times in which these events have come to light,"...the phrase "the context of these times" seems a but weirdly stated, and open for debate.

Like I said, I would like to read the complete statement, but as is stated in the articles, which does appear to have a bias, it doesn't seem like maybe the Pope is stating things as well as he should WRT sanctioned and church hidden child molestation, which persists in certain circles to this day.

From the statement, I can't tell if he is truly worried more about the humiliation of the church, because such a heinous thing happened, or because it's just a huge PR mess.

HAVE to go to post office NOW! ARGH. Interesting discussions are interesting!

I think it's intended to be an apology, but to say that pedophilia was thought to be normal in the '70s. and the church was sucked into a cultural shift that said nothing is evil in itself or good in itself is at best disingenuous. Isn't the whole point of being the one true church to set standards of good and evil? Abuses and coverups in the Catholic church started way before that. And if relative morality was the problem, why did the rest of society continue to prosecute pedophiles?

eta: I did read the whole statement. He apologized, then made lame excuses.