comment: >
  
  A variety of factors:
  
  Unquestioned moral authority and intense trust from a large community who have all been taught to obey church authorities
  Support from a massive extremely powerful institution that has covered up thousands of similar crimes
  Strictly forbidden to marry, have sex, or iirc even masturbate, making them view all sexual activities as similarly taboo for them
  Easy regular access to many children
  Easy ability to get alone time with children
  Priests are only held institutionally accountable to each other and to those with more authority in the church
  Victims of sexual abuse have commonly been blamed and shamed in many christian cultures for "tempting" the rapist/perpetrator, discouraging any victims from speaking out — especially when the perpetrator has far more institutional power and social status than the victim
  Children are least likely to know what a priest is doing to them or tell other people about it, especially if the trusted church authority tells them not to share
  The christian belief system teaches you that your body does not belong to you but to their god, and that there is nothing wrong with forcing children to do or attend activities the children dislike
  The church and its belief system adamantly oppose teaching children about what sex is and what sexual body parts are called, leaving children without the language to identify and tell others e.g. where Father Bill touched them — or why it was inappropriate
  
  That's why in France, for example, Catholic priests sexually assaulted over 216,000 kids, and French “children were more likely to be [sexually] abused within the Catholic Church than in public schools or summer camps – or any setting other than family.”
  P.S. Want to know the worst part? Child sex abuse is not limited to the Catholic church. The Mormon/LDS church and Southern Baptist Convention were recently exposed covering up pedophile pastors’ child sex abuse.
  Want to protect your kids from an unaccountable institution that covers up child sex abuse and silences conversations about it? Then keep your kids out of church.
  Edit to add this excellent way to protect kids that churches consistently fight against:
  
  “scientific literature over decades shows that comprehensive sex education starting around kindergarten actually prevents children from being sexually abused and groomed because it teaches children the correct words for their body parts and also teaches them concepts of privacy, personal space, bodily autonomy, the difference between appropriate and inappropriate touching, and the fact that sex is something that only adults do.
  children with this knowledge are not only better equipped to identify abuse and predatory behavior and communicate that its happening to a trusted adult, but also prevent it from happening in the first place by recognizing when something is happening that shouldn’t.”
context: Slideshows????? What?
  My man just opened up cp.ppt and added a few THOUSAND slides of kiddy porn????
  Clippy: it looks like youre a depraved predator. Do you want to profane the church as well? >
  
  Gotta be honest I'm hella confused about that. Was he using it to show other people? Sending it to others? Why a PowerPoint? >
  
  Wild guess, he wanted to be able to view a bunch of the photos by quickly clicking through them and his old depraved ass didn’t know another way to do it >
  
  My parents use Microsoft Word to store images. They'll find a picture they want to save online, right click, copy, then paste into a Word document. I've tried to teach them how to just save the image directly, but they refuse. >
  
  This made me physically cringe. I'm sorry. >
  
  - Honey, can you send Tim the pictures we took from the wedding? He asked if we have any ones that they would want to include in their gallery.
  - I'm on it.
  *sends you one of those slightly tilted pictures of the screen with the Word document open* >
  
  I was gonna say imagine asking for a picture and getting a .docx file lmao but this is worse >
  
  I work as internal (non customer facing) tech support in a fortune 100 company and routinely ask for screenshots of issues.
  I once got a photo of a monitor that was embedded in a word document. >
  
  How many more layers can we go? >
  
  
  the congregation offered to financially support him
  
  Important distinction to be made here:
  The congregation referred to in this case is not the “people in the pews”… it is the religious order (known by its proper name “Congregation of the Mission” or its colloquial name “the Vincentians” after its founder, St. Vincent de Paul).
  Such an arrangement would see him taken to the religious order’s provincial house where he would live under a sort of “house arrest” away from children and with no parish ministry.
  As to whether such an arrangement  should be granted, I’ll leave that to the judge—though I would be hesitant unless the superior can give an ironclad guarantee that Fr. Jim would wear an ankle monitor and never have any access to internet whatsoever. >
  
  Oh I see. That's different. 
  If I were the judge, I'd simply chuck him into prison. Because I trust these people about as far as I can throw them. >
  
  Fair and reasonable reaction. 
  My primary concern was to make clear that the offers of support were not coming from people in the pews. >
  
  
  Fair and reasonable reaction.  
  My primary concern was to make clear that the offers of support were not coming from people in the pews.
  
  Good. Because that would make this so much more disgusting. >
  
  Gonna take this moment to highly recommend the film Spotlight to any who haven’t seen it >
  
  THEY KNEW, AND THEY LET IT HAPPEN! >
  
  Fun fact, Michael Rezendes (who Mark Ruffalo portrays in Spotlight) also investigated the LDS Church and published his findings on their coverups of child abuse this past year. The dude is like a bloodhound sniffing out and exposing predators. >
  
  Did his good work lead to a dent in the organizations though? They still seem to be going strong. >
  
  It takes a long time to bring a giant pillar down but it takes small cracks to get started. I’m sure 1000 years from now we’ll look back on his work and see it as the beginning of the end for religion. 
  Look at the numbers, more and more people are growing up as non-believers. We’re far from “there” but it’s happening. >
  
  Nude pix on the church printer . . .  I can imagine the scene.
  Sister Mary Michael: Yo, does anyone recognize this tallywhacker?
  Former Alter Boy Brian: Yeah, that's Father Jim. I'd know that hairy mole anywhere. >
  
  That's Tommy Turner's tallywhacker >
  
  Maybe we can get the police to send a sketch artist? >
  
  "Have you seen this prick.." >
  
  *making another streak to the tally list wall
  *camera panning out to reveal a huge fucking wall covered in streaks >
  
  Man I gotta say though. If you have an image collection of porn you really like to flip through. A PowerPoint is a damn fine idea. Not only can you auto scroll but add sweet ass flipping transitions.
  That said. This man should burn for this >
  
  And yet where are all the "anti-groomers" protesting these churches? >
  
  It’s almost like it has never actually been about protecting children, and it’s always been about trying to demonize LGBT people >
  
  At this point I am positive the religious right to life thing is about having more targets. >
  
  Glad I'm not the only one thinking this is a big conspiracy. If there's no unwanted children then what's the point in joining the clergy? >
  
  After the Southern Baptist sexual abuse report came out last summer I've become convinced that organized religion is deliberately made to be a front to facilitate abuse of the vulnerable. >
  
  I really do think a lot of preachers are just charismatic guys who know they can con people. It's relatively easy work for a bullshitter. Watched my uncle do it for years.
  There are also many who truly believe the schtick and just compartmentalize the bad stuff. Both are to blame regardless. Nobody gets a pass. >
  
  I could see that with some of the smaller denominations for sure.
  When it comes to the bigger ones though, like the Catholics and the Southern Baptists, I totally think its largely just a big organized front. The fact that they're so reluctant to reform their ways and do the obvious right thing (immediately handing over their abusive clergymen to the authorities) just strengthens my belief. >
  
  Priest? Pedo? Are you sure? This is unprecedented >
  
  Correction! PedoPreist >
  
  New name not necessary. If anything there should be a name for the unique priests that arent pedos. >
  
  I'm inclined to think the majority of priests aren't child predators themselves.
  The problem isn't how many of them there are after all; it's that they aren't being turned in when they get caught. Just shuffled around.
  Way, way too many of them are pedo-enablers. All the way up... >
  
  Wish I was surprised >
  
  You make slideshows of images?  
  Edit: 
  Oh wait I see what you mean. Yeah the pedophile priest thing is so expected that only the slideshow bit stood out >
  
  Holy hell. Priest have normalized pedophilia. >
  
  Not just priests. Protestant Christians have a major problem with sexual abuse too, particularly against children.
  After Major Investigation, Southern Baptists Confront the Abuse Crisis They Knew Was Coming
  Don't let the Evangelical pedo defenders get away with claiming that Catholicism is the only issue here. It isn't. >
  
  
  none of them are immune to the depravity.
  
  Almost implied, really. >
  
  5 years for thousands of child porn images and videos? Seems pretty fucking light to me. This piece of shit should die in prison. >
  
  5 years and a ticket to heaven >
  
  Heaven? For him? >
  
  That's how this religion works. You sin, you say sorry, and you made it. Plus, before I became an atheist, my pastor said something like there's nothing you can do to lose your salvation once you accepted Christ. So yeah, he's good. Some of you might see him up there. He might be too busy chasing the little cherubs, tho. >
  
  Don't you also have to be truly repentant for your sins, including making a good faith effort to keep from repeating them? >
  
  I would love for someone to answer this because I really want to know, too. >
  
  yes I'm pretty sure that's it. God sees people's hearts He should know the diff between true repentance and fake one >
  
  Yes, assuming an all-powerful God existed, he’d be able to pretty easily know if you were truly sorry. >
  
  Could someone explain this to me: How come so many priests are predators? Is it that people inclined to be priests have a tendency to be so, or is it that predators choose to become priests to try and get away with this shit?