• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!
  • Welcome to our archives. No new posts are allowed here.

Santorum blames sex abuse scandal on liberalism

debate_junkie

Worst Nightmare
Joined
Jul 4, 2005
Messages
919
Reaction score
19
Location
Pennsylvania
Gender
Female
Political Leaning
Moderate
Romney begs to differ with Santorum remark
By Anand Vaishnav, Globe Staff | July 15, 2005

Governor Mitt Romney said yesterday that US Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania was misinformed for linking Boston's ''liberalism" with the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church. But he stopped well short of demanding that his fellow Republican apologize.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/ma...mark/?rss_id=Boston+Globe+--+City/Region+News


LMAO leave it to one of my home state Senators to live up to their "Dumb and Dumber" titles. This is classic.
 
Well, let's go to chalkboard, shall we?

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/priestdb/db_by_diocese_1.html

According to this database which says it was updated 3/14/05 here are the allegations of sexual abuse by Archdiocese(In the whole US of A)...

199 - Los Angeles
167 - Boston
68 - Both Dioceses of New York(34) & Brooklyn(34)
60 - Manchester, NH
53 - Chicago

This is the top five, people...A couple more 30s & 40s here and there, but most under 20.

Manchester, NH is 52.84 miles from Boston. Should that be included in the debate? Up to you...For this case, I won't.

Notice the top two?

The two biggest places where Liberalism thrives...co-inky-dink?

http://worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/napopsm.htm

Here, we see that the population (non-metropolitan...Archdioceses don't work that way) of Los Angeles is 3,829,000 and Boston is 601,000.

Using that thing called math, we see that if Boston was the size of Los Angeles, we can FAIRLY conclude(It's a generalization! Don't get all specific on me) that Boston MAY have somewhere in the vicinity of 1064 alleged abuses. 3829000 divided by 601000 = 6.37...multiplied by 167

Even if I was off by HALF of the total amount...Boston still blows away the competition.

So IF you believe that Senator Santorum is wrong, the question still stands...

Why Boston? If not liberalism, then "what"?
 
cnredd said:
Well, let's go to chalkboard, shall we?

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/priestdb/db_by_diocese_1.html

According to this database which says it was updated 3/14/05 here are the allegations of sexual abuse by Archdiocese(In the whole US of A)...

199 - Los Angeles
167 - Boston
68 - Both Dioceses of New York(34) & Brooklyn(34)
60 - Manchester, NH
53 - Chicago

This is the top five, people...A couple more 30s & 40s here and there, but most under 20.

Manchester, NH is 52.84 miles from Boston. Should that be included in the debate? Up to you...For this case, I won't.

Notice the top two?

The two biggest places where Liberalism thrives...co-inky-dink?

http://worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/napopsm.htm

Here, we see that the population (non-metropolitan...Archdioceses don't work that way) of Los Angeles is 3,829,000 and Boston is 601,000.

Using that thing called math, we see that if Boston was the size of Los Angeles, we can FAIRLY conclude(It's a generalization! Don't get all specific on me) that Boston MAY have somewhere in the vicinity of 1064 alleged abuses. 3829000 divided by 601000 = 6.37...multiplied by 167

Even if I was off by HALF of the total amount...Boston still blows away the competition.

So IF you believe that Senator Santorum is wrong, the question still stands...

Why Boston? If not liberalism, then "what"?

Oh I'm just gonna take a stab in the dark and say Bishops and Archbishops unwilling to recognize the ramifications of this. In reality, MANY of these priests were just shipped off to other diocese, increasing the numbers of offenses occuring in parishes across this country.

I would guess the fact, also, that they chose to deal with it internally, ya know the standard confession, penance, a slap on the wrist and more alter boys to supervise would be the MAIN reason why this has and kept occuring under everyone's radar. They didn't call the police. When parents complained, in some cases they were bought to hush.

So go ahead and blame liberalism for the fault of a church to practice what it preached. Besides, Pope John Paul II would have had you believe that Harry Potter was so blatantly damaging to your children, and yet the very priests who he was supposed to be leading were. Imagine that?
 
debate_junkie said:
Oh I'm just gonna take a stab in the dark and say Bishops and Archbishops unwilling to recognize the ramifications of this. In reality, MANY of these priests were just shipped off to other diocese, increasing the numbers of offenses occuring in parishes across this country.

I would guess the fact, also, that they chose to deal with it internally, ya know the standard confession, penance, a slap on the wrist and more alter boys to supervise would be the MAIN reason why this has and kept occuring under everyone's radar. They didn't call the police. When parents complained, in some cases they were bought to hush.

So go ahead and blame liberalism for the fault of a church to practice what it preached. Besides, Pope John Paul II would have had you believe that Harry Potter was so blatantly damaging to your children, and yet the very priests who he was supposed to be leading were. Imagine that?


You still didn't answer this...Why Boston?...If its because of Archbishop Cardinal Law, then I will contend that its still liberalism...The cardinal was kind enough to annul Kennedy marriages and Teddy Fifth-O-Scotch has stated many times that Cardinal Law is a good friend of the family.

Remember a vast majority of these abuses were same-sex, so with that on mind....

Is homosexuality a liberal issue or a conservative issue? -Liberal
Would homosexual priests be considerd liberal or conservative? -Liberal
Where would you expect to find a lot of homosexual priests? -In a Liberal area
Name the most Liberal area in the country. - Northeast
And where is the "seat" of the northeast? - Boston
 
cnredd said:
You still didn't answer this...Why Boston?...If its because of Archbishop Cardinal Law, then I will contend that its still liberalism...The cardinal was kind enough to annul Kennedy marriages and Teddy Fifth-O-Scotch has stated many times that Cardinal Law is a good friend of the family.

Remember a vast majority of these abuses were same-sex, so with that on mind....

Is homosexuality a liberal issue or a conservative issue? -Liberal
Would homosexual priests be considerd liberal or conservative? -Liberal
Where would you expect to find a lot of homosexual priests? -In a Liberal area
Name the most Liberal area in the country. - Northeast
And where is the "seat" of the northeast? - Boston


Liberalism undid the Catholic Church? LMAO errrrmmm yeah you keep believing that. and the next time a kid opens fire in school... I'll blame the conservatives who are a majority of the cardholders in the NRA... can you understand the ludicrious nature of your argument?

The Catholic Church, in one of their many doctrines, labled homosexuality a "sin" in accordance to the Bible's teaching. The Catholic Church ALLOWED this to continue to go on

Did Ted Kennedy hold a gun to Law's head and say... you have to annul Kennedy marriages, and oh by the way, we liberals think your priests need to be having sex with altar boys? puhlease... an IDEA doesn't perpetrate a crime... people do.

Boston, my guess became the focus of this... because of John Geoghan, and the amount of times, and parishes, he'd been allowed to perpetrate his crimes. His last parish was in Boston... and the scandal centered there when Law KNEW this was going on, and continued to cover it up.

You Blame Liberalism... why not Los Angeles? Why not Philly? Why not Pittsburgh? Why not ANY city... because a majority if not ALL large cities in this nation are strictly Liberal. So a few figures thrown out means nothing... because 1 priest transferred between a few churches can have devastating effects on numbers.


'John Geoghan stands out as one of the worst serial molesters in the recent history of the Catholic Church in America. For three decades, Geoghan preyed on young boys in a half-dozen parishes in the Boston area while church leaders looked the other way. Despite his disturbing pattern of abusive behavior, Geoghan was transferred from parish to parish for years before the church finally defrocked him in 1998. '

http://www.boston.com/globe/spotlight/abuse/geoghan/

over 30 years... 6 parishes.... how many young boys could that be? Food for thought.

oh and one more thing? I thought conservatives were all about personal responsibility for one's self and one's actions? hmmm so are you saying that it's only one's fault if liberals cannot be blamed? sounds like a cop out to me.
 
Last edited:
debate_junkie said:
Boston, my guess became the focus of this... because of John Geoghan, and the amount of times, and parishes, he'd been allowed to perpetrate his crimes. His last parish was in Boston... and the scandal centered there when Law KNEW this was going on, and continued to cover it up.

You Blame Liberalism... why not Los Angeles? Why not Philly? Why not Pittsburgh? Why not ANY city... because a majority if not ALL large cities in this nation are strictly Liberal. So a few figures thrown out means nothing... because 1 priest transferred between a few churches can have devastating effects on numbers.

over 30 years... 6 parishes.... how many young boys could that be? Food for thought.

Ummmm...Read the database again...or in your instance...for the first time...the database lists the NUMBER OF PRIESTS, not the NUMBER OF TIMES for each priest...167 priests means >167 number of alleged abuses. One priest doing it 30 times is bad...30 priests doing it once is much worse.

oh and one more thing? I thought conservatives were all about personal responsibility for one's self and one's actions? hmmm so are you saying that it's only one's fault if liberals cannot be blamed? sounds like a cop out to me.

Then I guess your broad brush approach is wrong. Maybe you should rethink your stereotypes and generalizations.
 
cnredd said:
You still didn't answer this...Why Boston?...If its because of Archbishop Cardinal Law, then I will contend that its still liberalism...The cardinal was kind enough to annul Kennedy marriages and Teddy Fifth-O-Scotch has stated many times that Cardinal Law is a good friend of the family.

Remember a vast majority of these abuses were same-sex, so with that on mind....

Is homosexuality a liberal issue or a conservative issue? -Liberal
Would homosexual priests be considerd liberal or conservative? -Liberal
Where would you expect to find a lot of homosexual priests? -In a Liberal area
Name the most Liberal area in the country. - Northeast
And where is the "seat" of the northeast? - Boston

OK - homosexuality and paedophilia are two completely different things.

The fact that priests abused children and were allowed to continue doing so is just a matter of the hypocracy of the Catholic church. Why it should centre more one one geographical area is a question you should ask of the Vatican, because the Catholic church was managing the whole sorry business.
 
Naughty Nurse said:
OK - homosexuality and paedophilia are two completely different things.

The fact that priests abused children and were allowed to continue doing so is just a matter of the hypocracy of the Catholic church. Why it should centre more one one geographical area is a question you should ask of the Vatican, because the Catholic church was managing the whole sorry business.

I'm not saying liberalism IS the correct answer...I'm saying that liberalism is the most feasible answer I've come across so far. That's why I'm asking, "If not liberalism, then "what"?

I respectfully discount your answer.

"Somebody's touching little Billy...Quick!; send him to Boston!"...That just doesn't cut it for me.

The root of this problem goes back to the very place where vocations to the priesthood germinate. Too often men who support the teachings of the church, especially the teachings on sexual morality, are dismissed for being 'rigid and uncharitable homophobes' while those seminarians who reject the Church's teaching or 'come out' as gays to their superiors are wined and dined, given preferential treatment, and then ordained to the Catholic priesthood. . A protective network starts in many seminaries where gay seminarians are encouraged to 'act out' or 'explore their sexuality' in highly inappropriate ways."

http://www.massnews.com/2003_Editions/3_March/031403_mn_boston_globe_one-sided_review.shtml

It was a layman, John O’Sullivan, writing for a secular outlet, National Review Online, who observed about the Geoghan case that “there was apparently a shortage of millstones in Boston over the last three decades.” O’Sullivan continued:

Christ himself would have spoken far more harshly to John Geoghan and the other priests who destroyed the innocence of those in their care. Yet in speaking harshly he would have loved them more. For he might have turned them away from the sins that corrupted their souls and attacked the bodies of children in their charge. Geoghan himself can only hope to find in prison the stern but loving Christ whom he evaded all too easily in the Boston Archdiocese.


http://www.bishop-accountability.org/resources/resource-files/media/boston-pf.htm
 
cnredd said:
Well, let's go to chalkboard, shall we? <snip> Why Boston? If not liberalism, then "what"?
Post hoc ergo propter hoc and argumentum ad ignorantiam all in one post.
Congrats.
 
Simon W. Moon said:
Post hoc ergo propter hoc and argumentum ad ignorantiam all in one post.
Congrats.

Way to jump off topic...

Profundus Maximus eagerly holds forth on all subjects, but his thin knowledge will not support a sustained assault and therefore his attacks quickly peter out. Profundus Maximus often uses big words, obscure terms and...ahem...even Latin to bluff his way through battle..

Flame Warriors
 
cnredd said:
Way to jump off topic...

Profundus Maximus eagerly holds forth on all subjects, but his thin knowledge will not support a sustained assault and therefore his attacks quickly peter out. Profundus Maximus often uses big words, obscure terms and...ahem...even Latin to bluff his way through battle..

Flame Warriors
And argumentum ad hominem for the cherry on top. Don't stop now. There're plenty more logical fallacies you haven't tried to use in this thread.
 
cnredd said:
Way to jump off topic...

Profundus Maximus eagerly holds forth on all subjects, but his thin knowledge will not support a sustained assault and therefore his attacks quickly peter out. Profundus Maximus often uses big words, obscure terms and...ahem...even Latin to bluff his way through battle..

Flame Warriors
Welcome to a debate, when you use a bunch of logical fallacies all at once, expect people to call you on them. Here's a good website so you can take some time, learn the terms, and come back with a stronger ability to debate and to catch yourself from proffering these fallacies again.
 
shuamort said:
Welcome to a debate, when you use a bunch of logical fallacies all at once, expect people to call you on them. Here's a good website so you can take some time, learn the terms, and come back with a stronger ability to debate and to catch yourself from proffering these fallacies again.

I don't mind being accused of ANY fallicies, but why point them out WITHOUT answering the actual question? Since when did the debate police have a need to show up and disprupt a thread to point out semantics?

Disagreeing with my "mode" of answering a question STILL LEAVES THE QUESTION...Which I've seen no attempt to answer on your part.

Boston has a very disproportionate rate of child abusers within its priesthood compared to the rest of the country...Why?

Whether or not that question is ad hominum or ipso facto or E. Pluribus Unum or whatever else you want to call it is irrelevant....How about a thoughful answer?
 
cnredd said:
I don't mind being accused of ANY fallicies, but why point them out WITHOUT answering the actual question? Since when did the debate police have a need to show up and disprupt a thread to point out semantics?

Disagreeing with my "mode" of answering a question STILL LEAVES THE QUESTION...Which I've seen no attempt to answer on your part.

Boston has a very disproportionate rate of child abusers within its priesthood compared to the rest of the country...Why?

Whether or not that question is ad hominum or ipso facto or E. Pluribus Unum or whatever else you want to call it is irrelevant....How about a thoughful answer?

Have you looked into the number of priests in the Boston area as compared to the other areas?
 
cnredd said:
I don't mind being accused of ANY fallicies, but why point them out WITHOUT answering the actual question?
Disagreeing with my "mode" of answering a question STILL LEAVES THE QUESTION...Which I've seen no attempt to answer on your part.
Boston has a very disproportionate rate of child abusers within its priesthood compared to the rest of the country...Why?
Whether or not that question is ad hominum or ipso facto or E. Pluribus Unum or whatever else you want to call it is irrelevant....How about a thoughful answer?
The idea that a lack of an answer lends any credence to the pedophilia/liberalism theory you've advanced is an example of a logical fallacy- argumentum ad ignorantiam (argument from ignorance). Hence, noting the fallacy is crucial to the debate.

The idea that the stats you offered equate to evidence is a logical fallacy- post hoc ergo propter hoc (after this therefore because of this). What you offerred doesn't constitute evidence of any sort of causation between liberalism and pedophilia. Correlation does not equal causation. Hence, noting the fallacy is crucial to the debate.

cnredd said:
Since when did the debate police have a need to show up and disprupt a thread to point out semantics?
So as you can see these points are not mere semantics as you aver.
They constitute concise yet substantial refutations of the line of reasoning underpinning your points.
 
Last edited:
Pacridge said:
Have you looked into the number of priests in the Boston area as compared to the other areas?

Excellent point!...I'll look into it.

See Simon & shuamort? Was that so hard?
 
cnredd said:
Excellent point!...I'll look into it.

See Simon & shuamort? Was that so hard?

http://lukascb.tripod.com/Frames/Down_f.htm

Above is the link to show the churches of Boston downtown, as well as suburban areas of the city. In my search.. downtown was never just given, as I'm guessing all of these churches are included within Boston's diocese, so for sake of argument, perhaps the diocese itself bear's a brunt of the blame for Boston's being the center of the firestorm?
 
debate_junkie said:
http://lukascb.tripod.com/Frames/Down_f.htm

Above is the link to show the churches of Boston downtown, as well as suburban areas of the city. In my search.. downtown was never just given, as I'm guessing all of these churches are included within Boston's diocese, so for sake of argument, perhaps the diocese itself bear's a brunt of the blame for Boston's being the center of the firestorm?

That, I think, is a definite...They sure-as-heck weren't PR geniuses..

But wouldn't that also imply that all of the other Dioceses had the same problem to the extent of Boston's, but the Boston Diocese just handled it wrong? Places like Chicago & Philly really had a lot more abuses, but they're better at keeping it hushed?

I like Pacridge's idea of finding out the number of priests in each Diocese, and it would be nice to have a priest-to-parishoner ratio, but so far, the Diocese of Brooklyn is the only place I've found with those statistics.

I've been looking through news reports that might have these stats as a side-note, but I guess you can imagine how tedious that is.

I did find that even though Boston is 19th in population, it is fourth in terms of Diocese size due to it being the most Catholic large city in the country. Los Angeles is first, which I found very surprising.
 
debate_junkie said:
http://lukascb.tripod.com/Frames/Down_f.htm

Above is the link to show the churches of Boston downtown, as well as suburban areas of the city. In my search.. downtown was never just given, as I'm guessing all of these churches are included within Boston's diocese, so for sake of argument, perhaps the diocese itself bear's a brunt of the blame for Boston's being the center of the firestorm?

It almost sounds like you're saying we should blame (hold accountable) the pedophiles for their actions rather than the environment or external influences. If that's what you're saying...I like it.
 
Pacridge said:
It almost sounds like you're saying we should blame (hold accountable) the pedophiles for their actions rather than the environment or external influences. If that's what you're saying...I like it.


That's exactly what I'm sayng. The pedophiles ARE to blame.. though in the case of the Catholic Church, their unwillingness to deal wth the issue as it should have also bears some blame, for they "enabled" said pedophiles to continue to perpetrate.
 
Well, the Catholic Church should ban homosexuals from the priesthood. That would help the problem.
 
It's ironic to me that a conservative institution (the Catholic Church) is the culprit, yet the city is blamed. I guess this means that we should be blaming Oklahoma for McVeigh, and Alabama for abortion murders, Texas for Koresh and so forth...

I dunno. Even if we fight this out on Santorum's terms, it still seems like his side loses to me.
 
cnredd said:
Well, let's go to chalkboard, shall we?

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/priestdb/db_by_diocese_1.html

According to this database which says it was updated 3/14/05 here are the allegations of sexual abuse by Archdiocese(In the whole US of A)...

199 - Los Angeles
167 - Boston
68 - Both Dioceses of New York(34) & Brooklyn(34)
60 - Manchester, NH
53 - Chicago

This is the top five, people...A couple more 30s & 40s here and there, but most under 20.

Manchester, NH is 52.84 miles from Boston. Should that be included in the debate? Up to you...For this case, I won't.

Notice the top two?

The two biggest places where Liberalism thrives...co-inky-dink?

http://worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/napopsm.htm

Here, we see that the population (non-metropolitan...Archdioceses don't work that way) of Los Angeles is 3,829,000 and Boston is 601,000.

Using that thing called math, we see that if Boston was the size of Los Angeles, we can FAIRLY conclude(It's a generalization! Don't get all specific on me) that Boston MAY have somewhere in the vicinity of 1064 alleged abuses. 3829000 divided by 601000 = 6.37...multiplied by 167

Even if I was off by HALF of the total amount...Boston still blows away the competition.

So IF you believe that Senator Santorum is wrong, the question still stands...

Why Boston? If not liberalism, then "what"?


That has got to be one the dumbest things I have ever read. Maybe Boston was the highest number per capita because Boston is one of the most Catholic cities in America.

By the way, Massachusetts also has the lowest divorce rate in America.
 
Back
Top Bottom