Something is off.
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Way off! Belgian nuns molesting boys? C'mon. They are making it up! Story here. (The parent site takes forever to load BTW - at least for me.)
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And then...
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"In a stunning ten-page declaration recently submitted to the Los Angeles County Superior Court, veteran attorney Donald H. Steier stated that his investigations into claims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests have uncovered vast fraud and that his probes have revealed that many accusations are completely false." Read the rest here.
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What I know for sure.
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I know for a fact false memories can be implanted in vulnerable individuals... it happened to my little brother. At the same time, I know true memories can be all together repressed... it happened to my sister. Which is why I believe history will prove the clergy sex abuse scandal was grossly exaggerated and sensationalized, not unlike the Salem witch-trials in the late 1600's, and the Satanic-sex-abuse-day-care scandals of the 1980's.
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Just be skeptical about what you read or hear from media - especially blogs. If it is too good to be true - it is probably false. If it is too horrible to be true - it is probably sensationalized falsehood based on an element of truth.
+JMJ+
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, we have atrocities like those in the Rape of Nanking, which were so outrageous that nobody believed them for a crucial while.
And then again, I have a friend who denies the Holocaust for pretty much the same reasons.
I remember playing a paranoia game with my students and barely emerging with my sanity--much less theirs. Can we know anything anymore?
My book club has been reading some powerful memoirs and discussing how much of the truth we can expect from even the most honest writers. I said something about the difference between telling outright lies and "making stuff up about the truth" (which I still stand by) . . . but I never considered fake implanted memories.
Just some typical late-Christmastide thoughts from your most annoying commenter.
My father, when he was alive, was an expert in child abuse and neglect. One of the things he did find is how children can be easily led -- even to believe things and remember what they were told, years later, even with the brain making things up to fit the false beliefs. It's weird.
ReplyDeleteI know of real cases in the church, and false cases in the church. One poor priest was falsely accused, and my father was asked to help defend him. In deposition my father was able to get the child's mother to admit she made it all up -- to get money. That was something so rare. It is not, though, my father believed nothing happened at other churches -- he was disgusted what he had heard -- but he rather, knew how easy it is to go from real cases to witch hunts.
We, rightfully, want to protect our children. But that so easily allows evil a abuse good people :( Ever read about St Gerald Majella's false accusations? False accusations go all throughout time, just now, the media finds it makes them money so they sensationalize it. Seriously, I think the Church needs to say more and more prayers to St Gerald Majella in these dark days.
Enbrethiliel - I always love your comments - and especially here, bringing up the Holocaust and the Rape of Nanking or even the killing fields of Cambodia. These horrors are true and stand alone.
ReplyDeleteHenry thanks for adding that.
I don't believe in repressed memories even though I've had them. Night terrors are a bitch.
ReplyDeleteHey--I play guitar..
ReplyDeleteWill that order take another guitar-playing nun???
(keep in mind that I have a Marshall stack :) No stinking acoustics need apply :)
I'll send them my interpretation of Jimi Hendrick's Star Spangled Banner.. :)
Sara