Dear Pope Benedict XVI

Dear Pope Benedict XVI,

I read about your 2010 end-of-year speech on CBSnews today and feel a burning need to reply both for myself, and on behalf of the very many similarly thinking people.

I am proud to be a secularist and an atheist, and amongst other things I stand against:

 - child pornography;
 - drug abuse;
 - sexual tourism;
 - psychological destruction of children;
 - paedophilia; and
 - moral relativism.

I also stand against the Catholic Church's dealing with criminal child sexual abuse perpetrated by its priests, as you yourself described in your speech, by which you and your church have:

 - 'treated' rather than punished criminal abusers;
 - considered paedophilia to be a social norm;
 - refused to accept child sexual abuse as a crime, despite its widespread legal status as such;
 - illegally refused to report crimes to police;
 - denied that such crimes are an absolute evil;
 - promoted moral relativism;
 - blamed the crimes of priests on society, or the 1970s;

I call on you to change your approach to dealing with this criminal activity by:

 - recognising the sexual abuse of children as a serious criminal offence;
 - recognising that your church has been complicit in concealing and protecting criminals, many of whom have then gone on to commit further such crimes;
 - apologising unambiguously for such crimes committed by your church's priests, and the protection of those criminals by your church;
 - insisting that allegations of crime are reported to police authorities;
 - cooperating fully with the police in criminal investigations;
 - reforming your church's culture of secrecy which provides freedom for criminals to commit crime with impunity;
 - recognising that justice and help for victims of crime is more important than protecting criminals;
 - recognising that bishops and others who knowingly covered up criminal abuse were complicit in those crimes;
 - defrocking all priests guilty of criminal abuse, and all those who were or are complicit in protecting them;

I recognise that this last point may apply to your own time in church office before or during your tenure as Pope, and that defrocking a Pope may not be possible within your church.  If this is the case, then I urge you to bring your tenure as Pope to an end at your earliest opportunity, using whatever methods are available to you.  This will perhaps bring the opportunity for wholesale reform of your church, the prevention of further criminal activity and fuller justice for your church's victims.

I abhor your blaming the criminal activity committed by your church, and its priests, on wider society and in doing so trying to absolve yourself and your church from responsibility.  That is the refuge of the lowest scoundrel and deserving of harsh judgement by all moral and right thinking people, whether they be religious, agnostic or atheist.

In the name of all the little children who have so cruelly been abused while under the care of your church, and its priests, I urge you to pray for the strength to take the difficult but right decisions.

Yours sincerely,

Billysugger

Message to Amazon

Regarding: The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure

AMAZON, most of us believe in free speech. But there are also legal limits on this. In many jurisdictions, inciting criminal acts is conspiracy and both you and the author may be liable to criminal prosecution by continuing to publish this material. I urge you to remove it from sale while you seek competent legal advice in all jurisdictions in which you do business.

Amazon is a corporate entity. That is: a self-obsessed sociopath which works to maximise profit at the expense of its stake-holders. This is not a judgement about Amazon, but a statement of fact about what corporations are, as enshrined in company law. Appealing to its morals, or better nature, is futile - a corporation doesn't have them. We must present a sound business case for changing its mind.

Presumably Amazon currently judges that freedom to publish at will is more profitable that caving in to public outrage. When the point is reached where outraging its stakeholders will damage its business interests more than self-censorship, then logically it will change its policy.

Part of this involves explaining to stakeholders, which in this case includes most of the online planet, precisely what this book says. Another part is looking for legal threats to this continued publication which can convince Amazon that it is in its interests to reconsider.

REVIEW - The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure [Kindle Edition] by Phillip R Greaves

I saw a link to a protest group on Facebook against this book.  Having seen all kinds of intemperate rage against its very existence, and imagining that I'm some kind of fair minded bloke, I decided to download a copy and read it before judging it for myself.

The author is a paedophile (British spelling, I'm British).  Hold your horses and put down your stones: we abhor his view, but as intelligent and rational people we defend to the death his right to express it.  Don't we?  Well, let's see.

He begins by claiming no intention to promote or excuse sexual congress between adults and minors, then goes on precisely to do just that.  I will spare readers much of the detail, but some is necessary to make the point.

He asserts that paedophiles "care for and befriend their young lovers" and "always" put them first.  This denies basic human nature and requires us to believe that paedophiles never succumb to the enormous temptation to go further than their partners wish.  As other adults sometimes cross this line, in the heat of passion, why expect us to believe that paedophiles don't.

He asserts that paedophiles "never practice intercourse with juveniles under thirteen".  From the testimony of adults I know, and have known, this is plainly and verifiably false.

He claims that a paedophile "becomes child-like with respect to its juvenile partner" and "enters into an equality of personhood with its young friend".  But ignores the fact that the juvenile still sees a fully mature and powerful adult, not an equal child.

He then claims that "these realities place pedosexuals firmly among humanity's most considerate and solicitous lovers".

At this point, I could read no more.

Immature children have no equality with fully mature, powerful adults whom children are disposed to look to for authority, judgement, protection and nurture.  Such children are not lovers, but victims - victims of adults who abuse their position of authority and trust.  Most of us begin our sexual lives by fumbling and experimenting with those who are as inept and inexperienced as we are.  We make silly mistakes and so do our partners.  We say no, we say maybe, we push the boundaries, we pull back, we go forward.  With an equal partner, at an age when we can deal with the emotional storm which rages, we feel our way to sexual maturity.

With a powerful adult, with a mature sexual appetite, deceiving themselves perhaps that the child is equally empowered, we lose the ability to say "no", we are taken advantage of and become victimised.  As we doubt ourselves, our choices, our limits of self, fearful of raging conflicted feelings, and maybe fearful of future sexual encounters, our lives are poorer to the temporary satisfaction of the paedophile.

The author misses the point entirely.  He fails to comprehend the harm of under-age sex, particularly with adults.  He fails to appreciate why such activity is illegal in most advanced societies.  He therefore promotes his tastes as though they were harmless.  Not only is this book distasteful to those who understand the fragility of young minds, it is arguably illegal in a number of jurisdictions where it may be judged to incite, or conspire to promote, criminal behaviour.

I'm joining the group!  And I'm quite happy to justify precisely why I'm joining the group, on an informed basis.

If you'd like to view or join the group, you can find it at http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_172172592810006