[coldtea]

>One thing that bothers me is that churches still get special status. When you look at the Catholic Church it’s pretty much guaranteed that any other organization would have been shut down a long time ago if it had shown the same behavior in light of child abuse.

Well, all kinds of big companies exploit child labor in sweatshops, which also kinds as abuse in my book, and nobody closes them down.

[maxxxxx]

Are you saying that if you ran a secular child care facility and found out that employees abused children, you then transferred these employees to other facilities or internationally, you would not be in jail and your child care facility would not be closed ?

[coldtea]

A church is not a child care facility. It has priests and other people that get in touch with tons of people, including but not exclusive to children.

What they do or not do is not up to the church, is up to them. The catholic church didn't tell them to abuse someone. Did a local catholic church help people wanted by the law or convicts escape the law (and also extradition)?

Now, if the church took someone accused as a child abuser (that somehow the law neglected to convict) and moved them in another country in a church position they still work with children, then sure, we can condemn the church authorities.

In the eyes of the church, even flawed people that did abuse can be accepted and transferred to positions where they cannot do such harm (e.g. in a monastery). The church was created to welcome flawed people and to help them, not to ostracize and condemn them. It's role is not even to hand them to the law, if the law doesn't ask for them (which is also why something confessed during catholic confession, even a murder, is not supposed to be revealed).

(I'm not Catholic btw, just reasoning based on their principles).

[maxxxxx]

“Now, if the church took someone accused as a child abuser (that somehow the law neglected to convict) and moved them in another country in a church position they still work with children, then sure, we can condemn the church authorities.”

This is exactly what happened many times.