Waiting for Godot to Leave

Most of us, I imagine, read our emails backwards.  That is to say that when a bunch of emails pile up in our inboxes, they are usually arranged from most recent to least recent.  This is like reading Chapter Ten of a novel, then reading Chapter Nine, and so forth. The Riverfront Times has an article on Archbishop Carlson and his history of handling claims of abuse .  One of the very helpful things the RFT does is to embed on their website the original documents related to the issues they are reporting.  And so you can bypass any possible lax reporting or media spin by going to the source.  This was particularly helpful in the Bishop Finn case .  I still have readers, for example, who are quite rightly concerned about how the media tarnishes the Catholic Church by reporting half-truths, but who don't realize that in this internet age, and especially in the Bishop Finn case, original source documents are available (i.e., the Graves Report and the Stipulat...

From the combox at my post Making Room for Evil  ... Anonymous said... [Quoting me] "pederasty is a sub-set of pedophilia" No, it's not. And I notice in your example of "comparing" child abuse, you couldn't actually bring yourself to present a true comparison between pederasty and pedophilia. Were you afraid they'd agree one was worse than the other? September 12, 2012 8:43 PM Kevin O'Brien said... ... of course pederasty is a subset of pedophilia. They are equally evil. What the hell is the matter with you? September 13, 2012 4:43 AM Anonymous said... Statutory rape isn't necessarily the same thing [as " legitimate rape "], even if it's bad. Put it this way: A guy in his 20s wants to have sex with a 16-year-old girl who is physically an adult in every possible way. A guy in his 20s wants to have sex with a 7-year-old boy. Those are both the same thing to you? Surely not. September 13, 2012 12:...

Content Warning: I get a bit graphic in my last paragraph in bold below.  Readers may wish to skip it, especially victims of abuse.  I'm trying to point out what this crime really consists of.  Sometimes the language needs to match the act so those who don't understand start to get a clue. *** Thanks to those of you who offered me support via email and Facebook and elsewhere, regarding my Rant of Pain .  What steams me the most is how otherwise good Catholics say things like this - what a Catholic writer and fellow blogger said below (from a combox, directed at me and my position on child abuse, which I go into in my post What Rape Is ) Just to clarify--again. (1)There is a distinction between pedophilia and pederasty. The distinction exists for a reason and shouldn't be disregarded in order to indulge one's emotional outrage. (2)There is also a distinction between forcible and statutory rape (ask a victim of forcible about that.) (3)And yes, ...