{"id":1426,"date":"2012-03-13T11:01:20","date_gmt":"2012-03-13T09:01:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ofcourseimright.com\/?p=1426"},"modified":"2012-03-13T11:01:20","modified_gmt":"2012-03-13T09:01:20","slug":"catholic-church-still-doesnt-get-it-blame-the-victims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/?p=1426","title":{"rendered":"Catholic Church Still Doesn’t Get It: Blame the Victims"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is simply impossible to imagine how someone feels after they have been raped or abused, unless you’ve been there yourself.\u00a0 But we hear from many victims of the shame and isolation they have felt.\u00a0 In the case of abuses by the Catholic Church, one organization victims have turned to is the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests<\/a> (SNAP).\u00a0 SNAP offers support services to victims, providing guidance and pointers to both support groups and therapists.\u00a0 They have also has filed a lawsuit against the Catholic Church for human rights violations, and have assisted victims in their legal pursuits.<\/p>\n

One would think that the Church would have learned from their earlier attempts to excuse their behavior.\u00a0 Instead,\u00a0 The New York Times reports<\/a> that the Catholic Church is fighting SNAP, having subpoenaed all manner of records from this organization, as part of their legal defense.\u00a0 Attacking a victim’s support organization itself demonstrates the continued denial of their own misdeeds under which the Church labors.\u00a0 The attack has taken the form of a costly legal battle with an organization that has almost no resources.<\/p>\n

As if to prove the point, Mr. William Donahue of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights made the statement that, \u201cSNAP is a menace to the Catholic Church.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wrong.<\/p>\n

Again.<\/p>\n

Such statements as the one above are a menace to the Catholic Church.\u00a0 The sooner these people realize that their harboring and shuffling of sick priests was aiding and abetting of criminals, the sooner they make restitution to abused individuals, the sooner, they can demonstrate they have learned from their mistakes.<\/p>\n

The Catholic Church has been its own worst enemy, and apparently continues to be so.\u00a0 How can people put their faith in a group of such people who first and foremost are out for themselves and not for justice of their flock?\u00a0 SNAP should be a resource the Church uses to weed out bad priests.\u00a0 Victims should be counseled, and not harassed or embarrassed.<\/p>\n

To be sure, this is not about God.\u00a0 It’s about the failure of men.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is simply impossible to imagine how someone feels after they have been raped or abused, unless you’ve been there yourself.\u00a0 But we hear from many victims of the shame and isolation they have felt.\u00a0 In the case of abuses by the Catholic Church, one organization victims have turned to is the Survivors Network of … Continue reading “Catholic Church Still Doesn’t Get It: Blame the Victims”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":172,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,4],"tags":[434,435,436],"class_list":["post-1426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-humanity","category-politics","tag-catholic-church","tag-rape","tag-victims"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/172"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1426"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1426\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1429,"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1426\/revisions\/1429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}