>>22965 My brother, sister and I have agreed not to mention our collection disinterest in religion to our mum. So she assumes we are simply non-praticing Christians.
>>22966 :P

Ohhh..How can you not believe in JC when he clearly posted below you?!! ;)

>>22964 I remember still the reaction of my mother when I told her I didn't believe in God or Jesus Christ. She was horrified! She couldn't believer her ears!

How did your family handle it?

>>22918 Father John Lenihan, seemed likable enough. Years later, I would learn he really liked the young girls!
Horrific! Clearly he was a very poor catholic priest! Everyone knows good catholic priests like young boys! :S
I too learned at a young age that religion was not for me.

This just in:

According to a new analysis of the General Social Survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life:

In 2012, only about 27 percent of American Catholics called themselves "strong Catholics;" that's down more than 15 points since the mid-1980s and among the lowest level since the GSS started asking the question 38 years ago.

you mean Italy joined the Nazis.

There's scuttlebutt the pope is also quitting because of cases like you mention and other secrets about the mob and money laundering thru the church. It's just a rumor but wouldn't surprise me. Your #6 is funny. Didn't get therapy until he banged an adult. Maybe he should have stuck to teenagers.
A number of years ago when I saw pictures of Catholic priests doing the 'seig heil' with nazi troops (inside the church) and other pictures of priests blessing nazi rifles to kill allied troops I began to wonder why Germany allied itself with Italy.

>>22913 I knew early that I wasn't into religion, but it was forced upon me nonetheless. Yes, private school offered smaller class sizes, but a better education? I wouldn't know. Many of the teachers were angry old nuns and our main priest, Father John Lenihan, seemed likable enough. Years later, I would learn he really liked the young girls!
(Item 4 below was my grade school - St. Boniface Catholic School. The school has since been shuttered, but the church remains.)

Rev. John Peter Lenihan (1946-), ordained 1969, of St. Norbert's parish, Anaheim, abused a series of women. In all the diocese paid $1.6 million for Lenihan’s wrongdoings. Lenihan wrote to the pope, asking to be released from the priesthood, admitting having affairs with teenagers. It was reported that Lenihan was “struggling to remain celibate after having been disciplined for sexual contact with a teenager and other women,” and was removed from St. Edward Church in Dana Point by Bishop Tod D. Brown because of the 2002 review.

1. Rev. John Lenihan was arrested and accused of having unlawful sex with a teenage girl, 13 March 2003. Lenihan was never convicted in court.

2. Rev. John Lenihan impregnated Kathy Freberg when she was 16, then paid for her to have an abortion. Lenihan admitted the abuse to church authorities years later, after the woman had gone to the police, who had recorded the call in which he confessed.

3. Diocese settled for $25,000 in Mary Grant’s suit for sexual assault beginning in 1978 in 1991 (Grant went on to become western regional director of SNAP). "Church officials and parishioners immediately rallied around Lenihan, and criticized me for reporting the abuse to the newspaper. I was mortified and crushed that church officials and Catholics with whom I had grown up could care less about protecting kids from child predators," Grant said.

4. Rev. John Lenihan raped a girl 1977-81, that was common knowledge among parishioners at St. Boniface, but nobody did anything. As part of a civil suit settlement, Lenihan admitted to two sexual encounters with her in 1978 when she was 15 and he was 32. Settled for $1.2 million for abuse of 2 teenage girls. Charges dropped due to Supreme Court ruling 2003.

5. Mary Staggs accused Lenihan of molesting her numerous times when she was between the ages of 13 and 17 and a member of his church youth group at St. Norbert Catholic Church in Orange. Church officials knew of the abuse and covered it up. Lenihan admitted to two sexual encounters with Staggs in the summer of 1978. At the time, he was a 32-year-old priest and she was 15. "I was in love with Mary," Lenihan testified, "and I sought more intimacy.” In an out-of-court settlement 15 January 1991, the Diocese of Orange agreed to pay Staggs an undisclosed sum of money and arrange for Lenihan to see a Los Angeles psychologist.

6. Lenihan testified that he underwent therapy in 1982 after having a sexual relationship with an adult woman.

My dad hated the catholic schools, only boys schooling was one thing but the wooden ruler was one of the other.

>>22909 You make it sound like a prison sentence. I thought kids that went to parochial schools got a better education than that from public schools.

I served 8 years in a catholic school. I don't know what I ever did to deserve that.

So the man was going to kidnap the kids and then take them to church? That's the way the headline reads. That would be weird.

I went to church when I was a kid. Where were the police then? I'm going to make a complaint!