15 year old girl 'Kidnapped For Vatican Sex Parties,' claims RCC's leading exorcist.

[cleanhippie]

The Holy See was directly involved in the disappearance of 15-year-old Emanuela Orlandi in 1983, according to a contentious accusation by the Catholic Church's leading exorcist. The Rev. Gabriele Amorth claimed that the girl's kidnapping was a "crime of a sexual nature."

"Parties were organized, with a Vatican gendarme acting as the 'recruiter' of the girls," Amorth told La Stampa, according to a translation by The Telegraph. "The network involved diplomatic personnel from a foreign embassy to the Holy See. I believe Emanuela ended up a victim of this circle."

Amorth, who was appointed by Pope John Paul II and has carried out more than 70,000 exorcisms, is no stranger to controversial public statements; according to The Sun, the exorcist has called Harry Potter the "work of the devil," and has claimed "the devil was at work in the Vatican" when discussing the Catholic Church's sex scandals.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/22/emanuela-orlandi-vatican-sex-parties_n_1536531.html

For our Catholic friends here, how so you continue to justify your direct and indirect support for this terrible organization?

[potone]

1. I am not Catholic but I don't like this blanket condemnation of the Catholic Church.

The Church is the entire body of believers, not just the hierarchy. Many Catholics and many Catholic organizations do valuable and important work. One only has to look at the criticism of American nuns by the Vatican to see that they often do so in the face of opposition from their own hierarchy. We should recognize that work and at least give them our moral support. The Church will only change when pressured by their own members. Quitting the Church is of course one option; another one is for its members to rally around those who are trying to live up to Christ's teachings.

[trotsky]

6. Liberal Catholics have been "rally(ing) around those ... trying to live up to Christ's teachings"

for some time now. What has been the result? The current pope is even worse than his predecessor. The cardinals continue to shove their bloated faces into our political dialog. They sit back and laugh while the collection plate gets passed around and filled because individual Catholics think that they can simultaneously support the things they like about their church while "changing" the RCC from within.

So where's the change?

[ButterflyBlood]

8. Yep, if you want to live up to Christ's teachings find a different church that does better

Obviously none is perfect, but some do far better than others, and the Catholic Church isn't one of the better ones.

[ButterflyBlood]

7. I took the first option

I would see staying as like someone who insists on trying to reform the Republican Party but remains an active members and continues to donate to it and vote for Republican candidates while insist they don't agree with everything they stand for. Yeah but guess what they're still benefiting from you. The RCC isn't getting an ounce of support from me ever. I was gone in high school and will never be back. I even got baptized again since then.

[LeftishBrit]

44. I basically agree on this, but with a few reservations

I think there are several issues that get conflated, both from within and without the Catholic church:

(1) The Church as an institution

(2) Catholicism as a particular religious faith

(3) All Catholics as individuals and all Catholic groups.

And these can differ in many ways. E.g.

The church as an institution has sheltered paedophiles. Catholicism as a faith certainly does not approve paedophilia. Most individual Catholics do not condone paedophilia.

The church as an institution condemns birth control. It is ambiguous whether the faith as such condemns birth control; the issue does not seem to be present in the early teachings. Most Catholics as individuals accept and indeed practice birth control.

I think one has to be careful about equating all Catholics with the worst actions of the church, just as with equating Muslims with terrorism, or Protestants with Bible Belt fundie-ism, or Jews with the most extreme RW Israeli politicians, or atheists with Stalinism.

But there is the issue of when people associated with an organization should decide that 'enough is enough' and pressures from within are not working. I cannot tell Catholics what to do on this, as I'm not a Catholic. But I do think that the church is very badly run at the moment, as an institution; and that what happens in the end may depend on who replaces Benedict as Pope.

[backscatter712]

45. I think the more liberal Catholics need to nail some more theses on the church doors. n/t

[rug]

2. I'll believe it when The National Enquirer tells me it's true.

"'Parties were organized, with a Vatican gendarme acting as the "recruiter" of the girls,' Amorth told La Stampa, according to a translation by The Telegraph."

Good luck with your new campaign.

[cleanhippie]

3. Maybe this will help.

Cognitive dissonance is a discomfort caused by holding conflicting cognitions (e.g., ideas, beliefs, values, emotional reactions) simultaneously. In a state of dissonance, people may feel surprise, dread, guilt, anger, or embarrassment.[1] The theory of cognitive dissonance in social psychology proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance by altering existing cognitions, adding new ones to create a consistent belief system, or alternatively by reducing the importance of any one of the dissonant elements.[1] An example of this would be the conflict between wanting to smoke and knowing that smoking is unhealthy; a person may try to change their feelings about the odds that they will actually suffer the consequences, or they might add the consonant element that the smoking is worth short term benefits. A general view of cognitive dissonance is when one is biased towards a certain decision even though other factors favour an alternative.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance

To quote a famous public service announcement: "Now you know. And knowing us half the battle."

[rug]

4. Thank you. May I return the favor?

http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp

[cleanhippie]

5. Nice red herring.

I guess if I were a journalist, you would have some kind of point. Here's one for you. http://www.law.cornell.edu/ethics/ny/code/NY_CODE.HTM

[rug]

9. I know that well, even though it's not apropos.

Returning to the subject at hand, now that you've freely stated your posts have no ethical bounds, how do you feel about posting from The Telegraph, which presumably does, whether it exceeds them or not?

[cleanhippie]

10. Does your hypocrisy know ANY bounds?

You lecturing me, or anyone, on ethics is just, well.....

[rug]

12. An observation is not a lecture.

[cleanhippie]

14. Good to know. Now I know you won't take my observation as one.

[struggle4progress]

11. Huffington Post got it from the Telegraph, who got it from La Stampa, who

in turn got it from the "world's leading exorcist"! He is a man with many opinions:

... Father Amorth was .. one of the voices that made public warnings to parents about J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter novels ... At a film festival in Umbria ... he is quoted as saying that yoga is satanic ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriele_Amorth

The Huffington Post is apparently recycling his opinion regarding Emanuela Orlandi

Padre Amorth: "Orlandi, fu un delitto a sfondo sessuale"
Emanuela Orlandi, la ragazza scomparsa nel 1983 a Roma
Il capo degli esorcisti: "Attirata in una trappola"

GIACOMO GALEAZZI
città del vaticano

«E' un delitto a sfondo sessuale», sostiene il capo mondiale degli esorcisti, padre Gabriele Amorth. L'anziano sacerdote, molto stimato da Benedetto XVI, rivela a La Stampa una pista interna per la scomparsa nel 1983 della cittadina vaticana davanti alla chiesa di Sant'Apollinare, da poco riferita riservatamente ai familiari della ragazza.

«Come dichiarato anche da monsignor Simeone Duca, archivista vaticano, venivano organizzati festini nei quali era coinvolto come "reclutatore di ragazze" anche un gendarme della Santa Sede. Ritengo che Emanuela sia finita vittima di quel giro - spiega padre Amorth - Non ho mai creduto alla pista internazionale, ho motivo di credere che si sia trattato di un caso di sfruttamento sessuale con conseguente omicidio poco dopo la scomparsa e occultamento del cadavere». E ancora: «Nel giro era coinvolto anche personale diplomatico di un'ambasciata straniera presso la Santa Sede» ...
http://www3.lastampa.it/cronache/sezioni/articolo/lstp/455110/

Father Amorth: Orlandi's disappearance "a sex crime"

JAMES EQUIPAGGIO
Vatican City

"It was a sex crime," says the world's leading exorcist, Father Gabriele Amorth. The elderly priest, highly respected by Benedict XVI, told La Stampa an inside view, of the 1983 disappearance in front of the church of St. Apollinaris in Vatican City, had recently been reported confidentially to the girl's family ...

"As also stated by the Vatican archivist, Bishop Simeon Duke, feasts were organized in which a policeman of the Holy See was involved as a recruiter of girls. I think Emanuela victim of that round is over (said Father Amorth). I never believed in the international track. I have reason to believe that this was a case of sexual exploitation, murder, and concealment of the corpse. " And further: "It also involved diplomatic personnel of a foreign embassy to the Holy See."

http://www3.lastampa.it/cronache/sezioni/articolo/lstp/455110/

[cleanhippie]

13. Does he not speak for the church then?

[struggle4progress]

15. Are you asking: does everything, that he ever says, qualify as an official church pronouncement?

I expect the answer to that question is: obviously not

Well, now that I have answered your question, perhaps you will answer mine: what, exactly, convinces you that his opinion must actually reflect the facts of the case? Is it because the story was in the Telegraph? Is it because the story calls him the world's leading exorcist?

[EvilAL]

16. Maybe she wasn't kidnapped for sex parties

but just that he says there were sex parties should be enough. Why would he make that shit up?
His opinion on this particular girl doesn't take away the statement about the sex parties. That's not an opinion.

[cbayer]

17. Porn Again Christians

The Vatican houses the world's largest collection of pornography!

http://www.snopes.com/risque/porn/vatican.asp

(In case you don't want to open the link, the story is entirely false)

[EvilAL]

18. so.

The vatican doesn't have the largest collection of porn on the planet. Did The same Father claim this as is claiming the sex parties? no? Then what is your point?

[cbayer]

19. Just that everything that gets posted on the internet is not necessarily true.

[EvilAL]

20. I know that, but

the post you made aout the porn collection wasn't claimed by a church official, it was denied by the church's librarian. The sex parties onthe other hand are being claimed by a church official so I'll tend to lean towards it being true, unless something comes out that shows he never really said that.

[cbayer]

22. I don't know. Who you going to believe.

An 85 year old priest who says that yoga is satanic and that he has performed 10's of thousands of exorcism or the girlfriend of a mobster (who says the kidnapping was done by the mafia)?

[EvilAL]

25. Like I said before,

maybe she wasn't kidnapped for the sex parties. Maybe the mafia killed her. Either way, if he is wrong about her being kidnapped for sex parties, it still doesn't mean they didn't have sex parties.

[cbayer]

26. Yeah, but if he fabricated (or fantasized) the part about her being kidnapped,

why would one lend him any credibility?

Anyway, I can't find a single other source that substantiates anything he has to say.

Do the guards and foreign diplomats hire prostitutes in Rome? Well, I guess if our own Secret Service can do it while traveling, it might happen there as well. That doesn't make it a "sex party" and it doesn't implicate Vatican officials, imo.

[EvilAL]

27. Yeah, I have a hard time to give him any

credibility, due to his history. I'll concede and say that had it been any other circumstance I probably wouldn't have believed a fucking thing he said. I won't rule it out, the sex parties, but I will put it on the shelf for the time being.

[cbayer]

34. EvilAL, it's been a pleasure to talk with you.

[EvilAL]

38. cheers..

[trotsky]

23. How many red herrings do they have? n/t

[muriel_volestrangler]

21. It has to be said: the man is nuttier than a Snickers bar

and being a nutter is part of his job description. I've pointed and laughed at the old fool every time he's been mentioned on DU before, so I think I'll do it again. I feel confident he did say all this; but he is an exorcist, and so has been making things up for decades, and for money. He's as believable as David Icke.

[trotsky]

24. Of course he is.

Doesn't make this any less fun, however.

[dimbear]

28. This story has a lot going for it. A cold case, a creepy priest that the students are warned to

avoid, a mobster buried in a church, and DNA tests being run to determine whether the creepy priest is a serial killer. (The Italian police are checking for DNA matches against more than just one missing girl.)

Now nobody is too worried about the priest having mob connections, hey, it's Italy. But burying various girls in the crypt would be extreme.

And it turns out there's an anonymous letter to the family which dates from the time of the disappearance which weakly supports Amorth.

Weird.

[cbayer]

40. I can't wait for the movie.

[skepticscott]

29. Have to say, though

I would find it hard to credit someone who has carried out more than 70,000 "exorcisms" as having a very solid connection to reality. That number is a bit hard to swallow, frankly, but if it's even close to true, this guy is delusional to the point of having virtually no credibility.

[EvilAL]

30. yeah, if he started when he was 15

he was doing around 3 exorcisms a day, every day, for 70 years.

[skepticscott]

39. Well, maybe some people

were possessed by multiple demons. That would save time. But the guy must have racked up enough frequent flier miles for a free trip to heaven by now.

[laconicsax]

36. The article has a correction posted on that.

Clarification: This story previously indicated that Amorth has carried out 70,000 exorcisms. We've amended that to say that he claims the number is in the tens of thousands. Several published reports over the last few years have indicated his claims are in that range, but HuffPost has not been able to verify any current estimate.

[Bad Thoughts]

43. His credibility is an issue

There might be truth to his accusations, but it seems that he has become accustomed to seeing conspiracies and the occult.

[humblebum]

31. Kinda like our atheist friends supporting any organized atheism after so

much violence, bloodshed, bigotry, and oppression in the past.

[Goblinmonger]

32. This isn't a general "how can a religious person support a religious organization" thing.

This is "how can Catholics support this specific Catholic church" kind of thing.

I'm sure you can see the difference even if you won't admit it.

[EvilAL]

33. hmmmm

A post about abduction and catholic sex parties somehow has to do with atheists. Well, kinda like atheists. If I have a sex party, I wouldn't try to hide it. I'd encourage it and brag about it. My sex party would only involve adults though, willing adults.

[laconicsax]

35. Hey cbayer.

Do you want to have that discussion now?

[skepticscott]

42. Hope you weren't holding your breath

The calls for "meaningful discussion" here are nothing more than empty, agenda-driven blather.

[backscatter712]

46. We've had this discussion with humblebum many times.

I tire of refuting the same fallacies over and over again.

[laconicsax]

37. This article doesn't look very credible.

It's based on reporting done in The Torygraph and includes bits from The Sun.

Not the most reliable sources by a long shot.

[muriel_volestrangler]

41. The original Italian source is in #11

I think the Telegraph and Sun have translated it honestly enough, and La Stampa is a serious newspaper, not a National Enquirer. The weak link in the credibility chain is the exorcist.