Should religious leaders who help hide crimes by their clergy be prosecuted for it?
603471
Any person, male or female, who knowingly helps hide crime done by  religious clergy (regardless of gender here also and regardless of which religion it is) should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.  By law they are aiding and abetting a criminal.  It is morally and ethically wrong no matter the religious background involved.\n\nBy hiding wrongdoings, these people foster a culture in which ethics have no place.  They thereby encourage the behavior because they do not show their own how wrong the behavior is.  Hiding wrongdoings makes occurrences more frequent and more has to be hidden creating a vicious cycle.\n\nThe people who knowingly hide these acts are just as responsible as the ones committing them and deserve the same retributions for their acts.
80883
As a catholic i am ashamed of those priests and greatly troubled about how they have tarnished the worlds views of catholics.  Not to point fingers though just as many abuses happen all over the world in many different faiths.  The simple fact is that those priests should be (and many are) excomunicated or kicked out of the priest hood.  Another thing that in needed to be pointed out is how hard it is to actually get into the priest hood now as compared to when these pedophiles where geting in is increadably harder now.  They go through an intence screening prosesses and pschologicle testing.  Please do not compare all priests and the many catholics in the world (11% of the worlds population is catholic) to these men.
1093570
Religious freedom for some, religious persecution for others.
627995
Organized religion, as a rule, is as corrupt as anything else.  Since it is run by humans our natural instincts and flaws go into it.  For those that say corruption is not involved in organized religion they are not looking where they should.  Every church out there has had a problem with corruption and had to deal with its' effects.
614899
Of course not....but do I think the Church hides certain details?  I certainly do.
1019640
They can bring up scandal all they want - esentially saying, "Look, people in the church have sinned - it must be wrong"  So what?\n\nIt is a slippery slope and indeed cannot be from God.  For Pete's sake, their beliefs change daily!
944197
No one here has even attempted to address "appropriate penalty" which to me is a very vague and liberal phrase and can mean that any official of the Church can devise any penalty at any point in time as they so deem to be appropriate, which could be a slap on the knukles with a ruler as was once done, a slap on the face, as was once done, burning at the stake, which was once done.  Anything.  They would, however, have to obey the laws of a given land or be in violation of the conspiracy laws.
760829
Its not ok to lie , maybe that's what they are doing to get people to join their church
492646
Yes, the Roman Catholic church was guilty of this. What was worse, when fleeing Jews came to the Catholic Church for help in escaping, they agreed to help, but ONLY if they would convert to Christianity. This, to me, was the most heinous thing I had ever heard.\n\nMainstream Christians were actually hiding Jews. Read the book The Hiding Place. Corrie Ten Boom lost her entire family because she hid Jews in her home in Holland. Many Christians died doing this. You will find their trees planted in Yad Vashem in Israel.
266719
no....\nIt's actully a protection for the people inside.\nIf god sends his wrath on them, then just because they're inside a holy place, might get averted.
667720
mass murder of individuals that the church considered heretics and manifestations of religious intolerance. Just to name a few!!!!\n\nHave you ever noticed that when the Church apolgises for its past sins, it apologises for "the sins of the daughters and sons of the church", never actually the church itself?!
735554
I would suggest we treat them like any other perophile, perhaps a little worse. They should be tried, convicted and then imprisoned for life. A priest is especially more vulgar and disgusting than others as they are in a position of trust and that trust has been broken. And finally, ex-communication from the church.
907777
The small percentahg of offenders who don't affend again have been spiritually rehabilitated.\n\nanyway, there's a similiar type of law in KS
906301
What kind of "church cover-ups" are you talking about? Other than talking to people in each and every church in the community or country, good luck.
242429
There's a chain of command for confession. Regular Folk - Priest - Bishop - Archbishop - Cardinal - Pope - God.
486552
i'm pretty sure the catholic church would categorize them as sins, especially gluttonous activities like bulimia and binge eating, as they are greedy acts and therefore sins. \nother churches, not so sure, but Protestant churches tend to provide support groups and help for most kinds of ailments or disorders, so they can't have TOO much against them. good luck . JP
990540
How else do you think they can afford to pay for all of their court cost's and moving Priests to different locations. Secrecy doesn't come cheap.