BY Martin Dunlop | September 24 | 
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Pope’s message gives abuse victim hope
A victim of clerical abuse has called on the Church to honour Pope Benedict XVI’s message to help victims of abuse, following his four-day state visit to the UK last week.
Chris Daly who, along with his brother, endured four years of physical and emotional abuse by nuns at Nazareth House in Aberdeen during the 1970s, presented a petition to the Scottish Parliament yesterday calling on the Scottish Government to set up a forum to allow victims to tell of their experiences and to provide compensation.
“We are holding him to his word that he will help us materially, spiritually and psychologically,” Mr Daly said.
“We have had the apology from Pope Benedict, and it was a very fulsome apology while he was here on British soil.
“After that apology we are looking for actions for survivors. We are looking for all those things that Pope Benedict promised.”
During last Saturday’s Mass at Westminster Cathedral the Pope spoke of his ‘deep sorrow’ for the ‘unspeakable crimes’ of child abuse within the Church, in what was viewed as his strongest apology yet over the abuse issue.
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Here in the USA, this weekend,one network is featuring a marathon crime drama highlighting clergy sex abuse problems (USA network– Law & Order Special Victims),while another network is having a program suggesting the Pope Benedict XVI knew about the abuse and was negligent in his response. And now there is a lot of coverage about an evagelical pastor in Atlanta. All in one weekend. Sometimes I wonder whether the Church itself in being set up for constant abuse. (I am not at all minimising clergy sex abuse. It merits absolute revulsion.)
Of course Pope Benedict knew about the sexual abuse perpetrated by his clergy for decades – it would have been impossible for him not to know. And he should have taken full responsibility for it instead of initially doing his utmost to conceal it from the police of several countries. It is an appalling state of affairs, tantamount to claiming that Hitler was unaware of the treatment of the Jews.
I BELIEVE IN CELIBACY AS WRITTEN BY ST PAUL IN 1 COR 6-7 OFTEN A CHILD ABUSER IS IN A RELATIONSHIP WITH OTHERS. PRIESTS HAVE TOO MANY VOCATIONS TO LOOK AFTER THEIR OWN MAYBE LARGE FAMILY,
I believe that the protestant churches argue that if they can sustain their own families and their vocations, so can Roman Catholic Priests. The difference is that being Celibacy is delivering more concise enactment of the scriptures. Not what these modern day heritics are now enacting or proposing. We shall have to wait until May 2011 to see if the Church of Scotland are going to continue supporting the homosexual ministers and his partner in the manse in Queens Cross, Aberdeen, or the others.