you know very well what the MAJORITY of Catholic bishops did with the evidence of abuse
The massive failure of many bishops is not something that I debate. But what I do debate is this notion that it was just the bishops. It was known, popular culture was peppered with references to abusive priests. The laity was participating in the "turn the other way" campaign. And all you have to do is look at the seminary screening processes for most American diocese, it is no coincidence that most of them were revised between 15-25 years ago.
And that’s ok—completely acceptable use of YOUR experience to bolster what YOU believe in, about the bishops, but I CANNOT use my own experience, to support my opinion, because it’s not “scientific.”
You presented your experience as support for a scientific position not just an opinion. If it is just a matter of your opinion, that's fine, and a valid approach .. but one that carries no more weight than any one else's opinion based on comparable level of experience.
The experience I depicted does not have to do with a scientific position. She contended the presence of an obfuscation that would have precluded my experience. I was shocked when the media blitz hit, but shocked that people were so shocked. Many dicoese followed the pattern of confronting the problem publically - why no media blitz when diocese were proactively admitting to a problem? probably in part because it wasn't the diocese who were the biggest failures in this regard doing it - popular media was peppered with references to abusive priests - it was one of the bigotted attacks that I most dreaded while growing up and in college - and in the debate about a vocations shortage, it was a frequently-made argument that the tightening of seminary admission guidelines in response to what was euphemistically referred to as the improprieties of priests was *one of* the contributing causes to the decline in vocations. Thus, I contend that it had less to do with obfuscation - not that it didn't have anything to do with it - and more to do with a general turning of a blind eye by people, both clergy and laity.
Re: Bait and Switch, Bait and Switch...
The massive failure of many bishops is not something that I debate. But what I do debate is this notion that it was just the bishops. It was known, popular culture was peppered with references to abusive priests. The laity was participating in the "turn the other way" campaign. And all you have to do is look at the seminary screening processes for most American diocese, it is no coincidence that most of them were revised between 15-25 years ago.
And that’s ok—completely acceptable use of YOUR experience to bolster what YOU believe in, about the bishops, but I CANNOT use my own experience, to support my opinion, because it’s not “scientific.”
You presented your experience as support for a scientific position not just an opinion. If it is just a matter of your opinion, that's fine, and a valid approach .. but one that carries no more weight than any one else's opinion based on comparable level of experience.
The experience I depicted does not have to do with a scientific position. She contended the presence of an obfuscation that would have precluded my experience. I was shocked when the media blitz hit, but shocked that people were so shocked. Many dicoese followed the pattern of confronting the problem publically - why no media blitz when diocese were proactively admitting to a problem? probably in part because it wasn't the diocese who were the biggest failures in this regard doing it - popular media was peppered with references to abusive priests - it was one of the bigotted attacks that I most dreaded while growing up and in college - and in the debate about a vocations shortage, it was a frequently-made argument that the tightening of seminary admission guidelines in response to what was euphemistically referred to as the improprieties of priests was *one of* the contributing causes to the decline in vocations. Thus, I contend that it had less to do with obfuscation - not that it didn't have anything to do with it - and more to do with a general turning of a blind eye by people, both clergy and laity.