Dude, seriously, the age of consent in Vatican City is not comparable to any of those things.
Paedophilia within the Catholic Church is 100% unrelated to the age of consent in Vatican City.
The broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying. These people know only too well how to use falsehood for the basest purposes... Adolf Hitler
Awards:
Obviously, but that's not what's being discussed here. The topic title's to provoke a reaction, obviously, I'm surprised it even needed pointing out.Originally Posted by Brewtality
It's not direct comparisons, it's about symbolic actions, and if you think it doesn't matter that it's legal to fuck 12 year olds, and if you think that means absolutely nothing, there's something very wrong with you.
are you sure about that? there are something like just over a billion practising Catholics today (well, according to 'the catholic almanac' at least, but there are a lot of them anyway) and it's not exactly a religion renowned for free thought.
to be honest, i do kind of agree with most of what you said, but also i think that the papacy is a massive moral influence - possibly beyond anything ever seen on our planet before - and could do a lot of good by promoting a proactive approach to ethical issues like this.
like people have been saying, a lot of countries do not have legal age of consent, I wonder how many of these countries are devoutly catholic (South American area for a start) and might consider changing their legal stance because of the zeitgeist that would be caused by the vatican making an issue of this and possibly stop some people getting away with horrible crimes.
But the point is that I think you're greatly overstating the importance of raising the age of consent in Vatican City as a symbolic action. Do I agree with sex with 12 year-olds? No. Are any 12-year olds at risk from the Vatican City's age of consent? No. Because none live there. If a non-resident was the victim of abuse within the Vatican then the case would be dealt with by Italian courts under Italian law (if I remember correctly from my Vatican guide).
I understand where you're coming from but I really don't think that we need the Catholic Church to clarify their stance on sex do we?
The truth is that realistically less than 1% of those practising Catholics will even be aware of the age of consent in Vatican City. If they raised the age then I think the response would be a huge shrug. Let's not forget that there are only about 800 people who the law applies to anyway and none of them are children.
I just don't care either way but there's no need for some sort of moral outrage about it or to start comparing a change in the law to apologising for slavery. The Catholic Church has made many apologies over paedophilia so how much more good would raising the age of consent really do?
Last edited by Brewtality; 02-01-2010 at 12:44 PM.
The broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying. These people know only too well how to use falsehood for the basest purposes... Adolf Hitler
Awards: Okay, well that's that then. You've made up your mind, according to you it's perfectly acceptable for the age of consent to be 12. It's clear where you stand, and the fact that you're ignoring Atom's excellent points shows that once again, you're not actually interested in discussing anything, you're just keen on stomping your opinion on people and making them think like you do.
Like, dude, you used to actually be able to have a conversation, I dunno what's happened to you.
They see fit to abolish capital punishment (despite never having used it) in 1969, yet they don't see fit to change the age of consent. And that's fine, because you say so.
They're going to fuck kids whether their age of consent is 12 or 35.
Having their age of consent at 12 years old isnt exaclty great PR is it?
So let them fuck themselves over.
Last edited by Payaso; 02-01-2010 at 02:07 PM.
What on Earth are you on about? Yeah, I've made up my mind that I'm not arsed about the age of consent being 12 in Vatican City because as I and others have already pointed out, there are no children who are citizens of Vatican City. So the law is practically redundant to everyone who doesn't want to use it to hysterically point out that apparently the Catholic Church is fully tolerant of sex with 12 year-olds.
Now, this is different to what you're saying but that's no reason to try and get personal and say that I'm somehow 'stomping my opinion' on people. I also didn't ignore anything Atom said and instead quoted him and then replied below in the standard fashion. The Catholic Church has very well known views when it comes to sex so what exactly is the problem? If the age of consent (which incidentally would refer to marriage and not sex) in Vatican City meant anything then I'd be with you and I'd be appalled and angry, but it doesn't so I'm not. Like Payaso said, paedophiles will be paedophiles regardless of any laws and if the age of consent in Vatican City creates negative PR for the church then fuckin A'.
Last edited by Brewtality; 02-01-2010 at 02:23 PM.
The broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying. These people know only too well how to use falsehood for the basest purposes... Adolf Hitler
Awards: Nothing 'negates my argument' because I'm saying I don't care either way. As in..... I don't care if Vatican City has an age of consent of 12 or 100 and I don't really think it matters. As for the abolishing the death penalty, well good for them.
I'm not standing up defending the Catholic Church, I'm just not overtaken by a sense of outrage at the fact that they've not bothered changing the laws regarding the age of consent in Vatican City for the reasons I've given.
Should the age of consent be higher than 12 in a Western European state? Of course. Is it that much of an issue of said state has less than 1000 religiously devout adults with no children? Not really.
The broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying. These people know only too well how to use falsehood for the basest purposes... Adolf Hitler
Zerosum
I think the point is that apathetic attitudes change nothing. And if we change nothing because it's "not a big deal" than nothing ever improves. It can only do good if the Catholic church raises the legal age, so why not?
"The deepest definition of youth is life as yet untouched by tragedy."
-Alfred North Whitehead
"Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world."
-Arthur Schopenhauer
Well, the reason it hasn't been changed is because it won't make any difference one way r the other. I'm not arguing for general apathy, but the age of consent in Vatican City is a drop in the ocean compared to the established Catholic doctrine on sex and therefore is pretty insignificant. A point which is reinforced by the fact that nobody here knew anything about it until someone posted it here yet everybody could tell me that Catholics ain't too hot on sex. Again, it's not that Vatican City shouldn't have a higher age of consent, just that it doesn't matter if it does or doesn't.
The broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying. These people know only too well how to use falsehood for the basest purposes... Adolf Hitler
Awards: Yeah I know, but the Catholic church is a vastly hypocritical and inconsistent organisation isn't it? I don't know why they decided to change one and not the other, but I'm not coming out in support of the Catholic Church, i'm just not arsed about the age of consent.
The broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying. These people know only too well how to use falsehood for the basest purposes... Adolf Hitler
Awards: 
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