Some updated news links:
Affidavit: Fearful 16-year-old bride made late-night call

SAN ANGELO, Texas (CNN) -- Frightened and perhaps pregnant for the second time in a year, the 16-year-old mother whispered into a borrowed cell phone, defying everything she'd been taught by making contact with the outside world.
She said she was being held against her will at the YFZ Ranch near Eldorado, Texas. She said she'd been beaten by the man, more than three times her age, who had taken her as his seventh wife. Now, her parents were talking about sending her younger sister, 15, to the ranch as well.
She said she wanted out.
The first call came through to a Department of Family and Protective Services hot line at 11:32 p.m. March 29. A second call came the following day.
This time, the caller said, crying, that she wanted to take it all back. She said she was "happy and fine" and didn't want to get in trouble.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/04/09/...nch/index.html

Lawyers: Polygamist Compound Search Like Searching of Vatican

SAN ANGELO, Texas — Lawyers for a polygamist sect that is the subject of a massive child-abuse investigation argued in court Wednesday that although its members' multiple marriages and cloistered ways may be unusual, they have a right to their faith and privacy.
Gerry Goldstein, a San Antonio lawyer representing the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, also told a judge that the search of the temple in the sect's West Texas compound is analagous to a law enforcement search of the Vatican or other holy places.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,349113,00.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24014376/

I'm still not buying "one of the biggest pedophile rings in history." Again, you've switched topics from what you asserted which wasn't about the 20th century scandal. Because it's possible for something to have happened doesn't mean that it did in fact happen historically.

Yep. Unless you're Jack Chick.

A former FLDS member is on CNN talking about how it took her 5 years to adjust after she left. They said the education level is so low that these people often know nothing about the outside world. There are teenagers who don't know what a crayon is.

The former FLDS member said there was also a great deal of racism. They were told that blacks were originally white and God made them black to punish them for sins. And if the FLDS members talk to or hang around blacks, the black will spread and the FLDS members will turn black. The former FLDS member said she was in a grocery line and there were blacks in the line. She said she began to panic because she thought she was going to leave the store as a black woman.

I have to admit that I laughed at that and felt sad at that. Brainwashing is real. It happens at various levels in many organizations (some legitimate, others not). But brainwashing is compounded by isolating members so they can't find the truth on their own.

Well, why don't you prove to me that the long list of books I have read were not written by communists? As quick as you are to dismiss my positions, you don't really need the list of actual books to do that do you?

Do you deny that Spain, under the regime of Ferdinand and Isabella who were wholly enamored of the Catholic Church, expelled Jews and tortured its own citizens to achieve a stronger empire in the name of religion? Are you a Holocaust denier too?

I am sorry, but I am not going to give you a bibliography of over a decade's study. If you want to get educated- go out and start reading for yourself. I am not vilifying every person who was ever a Catholic, but merely talking about the corruption that evolved when the Church became a major world power.

Is it so hard for you to imagine that? Have you ever heard of the Taliban? Does the existence of the Taliban prove the Muslim religion to be inherently corrupt? Of course not. It merely proves yet again that religion used as a political and economic influence can have horrific results.

I am giving you just one cited example- and it is a pretty damn big one. How would you feel if your kid got a blow job from a Priest and you found out later that your Cardinal had moved the guy to your congregation after he was accused of doing the same elsewhere? Or are you one of those guys who would tell your kid to just keep quiet and not make waves?

Give me a break. We are talking about the molestation of children- not some guy taking money from petty cash. You are not denying the facts I presented on this issue. Does that mean you accept and support Law's and the Pope's decision on this matter?

You need to get educated on legal matters as well it seems. You don't have to sit down and premeditate child abuse to be morally culpable. Merely knowing about it and failing to act while it is ongoing is enough- in a legal sense as well as a moral sense. If you don't understand that, then I really have no reason to waste time trying to convince you.

Disconnected singular incidents? Amazing...

I don't see what all the hang-up about this is. I am not condemning all Catholics- but rather some very serious issues in the governmental structure of the church.

Find me a significant body of work exposing a systemic sexual abuse of children by Baptists, Jews, Episcopalians, Muslims, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Buddhists, Zoroastrians (gotta throw that one in for a buddy of mine) or ANY other major religion in world history and then we can talk.

I'm not sure why you're focusing in on the Catholic church. There are plenty of other examples of murder and cruelty in (non-Catholic) Christianity. The Puritans had their witch trials, and the English had their burning-at-the-stake alternately in the name of Catholicism and Protestantism. The Church of England (now in the same body as Anglicans and Episcopalians) was essentially created by Henry VIII so he could divorce his wife and marry Anne Boleyn, who he beheaded later anyway with encouragement of the Church. Lots of executions and bad stuff in the name of religion, and not even close to always being Catholic.

EE-BO no one's asking for an education on a decade's worth of study, simply a few books or sources that support what you're saying since it is apparently something that many people here are unfamiliar with.

Careful your bigotry is showing... or rampant anti-Catholicism if you really want to be picky.

Perhaps before tossing out the old "educate yourself" bit (particular about Mediæval stuff - me being a Mediæval scholar and all) you might want to do so yourself... and so to help you in your education I'd suggest you should look into "Residential Schools" if you want to look into systemic child abuse.

I would say that was more w/ encouragement of certain key players/advisors, not the Church as a whole.

Coooool.

The "educate yourself" is a common response when we either can't think of the most relevant source off the top of our heads or if we think we would find and post the info for nothing. Meaning, people who disagree will do so regardless and even ignore the info (most folks won't read the source you post, anyway) to find some other loophole that isn't grounded in a debate over citable information ("it's your job to prove it by posting a source...but I'm going to refute your support for your point but am not posting a source of my own.")

But you posted a suggestion for further reading. :)

Just a general observation that has nothing to do with what you all are discussing. I know nothing about that topic. :)

Well I, for one, am familiar with recent child molestation charges, but EE-BO made a claim about history 200+ years ago that he only seems to support with information from relatively recently or largely unnamed Spanish fiction from 500 years ago (and some of what he did list in this category didn't have anything to do with child molestation).

And I'm with RA Cooper on this one that the more EE-BO tries to justify what he's claimed, he just comes off as anti-Catholic.

I don't think anyone is minimizing the recently child abuse cases, which seems to be what EE-BO is pretending. It just doesn't actually prove what he claimed about history.

I don't think anyone is trying to justify the Church's terrible reaction to the issue of sexual abuse by priests. But calling it history's greatest child molestation RING (not to mention the 200+ years ago part, which you never seem to have gotten back to) goes a bit far.

I don't think I've seen a single claim that the movement of priest from parish to parish was made to actually facilitate abuse, which is what would have to have been present to have a child abuse ring, don't you think?

(I certainly agree with you that in some cases the movement of priest had the effect of supplying a whole new set of victims, but I don't think the people making the moves in most cases had any such intent or knowledge.)

And, as unfortunate as it may be, I think you're wrong about the legal responsibility to report abuse. There are certain occupations that are mandatory reporters of abuse, but I don't know if the average person, as unfortunate as it might seem, is actually legally required. This may be something that we should try to change so that cases are less likely to be hidden without investigation.

When one side is making a claim about history, what source would one provide to demonstrate that something didn't happen?

For example, if I claim that there was really a French colony in southern Georgia in 1808, what source could someone cite to buttress claims that no such colony existed? Would you just post sources of traditional Georgia history and claim that the lack of a mention proves the negative?

True, he had advisors in the church, but Henry was in fact the head of the Church of England (so appointed by himself).

Stuff happens.

My post wasn't really a point for discussion. :) It was providing one explanation for why "educate yourself" is a common response on (and off) the internet. :)