Weaponizing moral theology against accountability.

Whatever the pious intent, that's the effect of hot-take arguments like this.

On the one hand, technically I can see the argument. 

On the other hand, to paraphrase the late Rick James: "Clericalism is a helluva drug." 

Using moral theology to prevent clerical accountability--especially given the probability that the compulsive sex maniac monsignor got it on with underage boys--is a particularly gross flex.

In Italy, the United States, and Ireland, at least seven priests and deacons in recent years have been arrested or faced charges after using hookup apps to meet or solicit minors for sex, solicit child pornography selfies from minors, or blackmail and extort minors who provided child pornography. 

Grindr and similar apps have come under fire in recent years among child protection advocates, who say that because the apps prioritize anonymity and confidentiality without doing enough to screen users for age, they have become a frequent point of contact between minors and adults interested in soliciting pornographic photographs or meeting for sexual encounters. In some cases, minors are marketed for prostitution through hookup apps, sometimes by adult pimps, studies have found.

The age of consent varies among states. In 13 states the age of consent is 18, but in many others, including Nevada and Maryland, it is 16. In the Church’s penal law, a minor is classified as anyone under the age of 18, and sexual contact below that age is treated as a reserved delict, or major crime, in canon law. 

The Grindr app says it does not permit minors to use the platform, and it requires users to input a date of birth while creating a profile. But, beyond a user-supplied date of birth, the app does not require users to prove they are over 18.

In fact, most companies that own dating and hookup apps “are not doing anything for age verification,” Dani Pinter, senior legal counsel at the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, told The Pillar.

While technology exists to verify the ages of app users easily, most hookup apps “don't ask for ID for any of the dating apps. I mean, you just check a box or enter a birth date, which you can fake. They don't check,” Pinter said.

Failure to ensure that children aren’t permitted to use hookup apps and other online sites used by adults leads to the exploitation, extortion, and trafficking of minors, she added.

Even on apps and social media platforms “where it’s pretty clear that commercial sex acts are happening,” Pinter said, “they don’t verify age.”

The National Center on Sexual Exploitation lobbies and litigates to hold tech companies to a higher standard. 

But Pinter said it’s an uphill battle, and that, in her view, tech companies place profit ahead of stopping the potential victimization of children. 

“The tech industry writ large, including apps and social media platforms, operate on volume and definitely put profits over people,” she said.

Because of loose federal regulations, “they’re not even worried about the consequences.”

Among those consequences, Pinter said, is the widespread grooming of minors by adults on social media, dating, and location-based hookup apps, extortion schemes, and commercial sex trafficking of minors through location based hookup apps. 

The use of location-based hookup apps by minors is a growing phenomenon.

In a 2018 Northwestern University study of 14 to 17 year old males who identify as gay or bisexual, more than half of participants said they used hookup apps for the purposes of meeting partners. Nearly 70% of adolescent participants who said they used such apps did so in order to “meet men in person for sex,” the study concluded. Fifty-one percent of the adolescent participants endorsed using Grindr, and overall, more than a quarter of the study’s adolescent participants said they had had sex with a partner met through an app.

Corrupt businesses do the same thing, protecting their own to protect the brand, and I'm sick of it. 

It is vile to the nth degree coming from what's billed as the Church of Christ.

And again, allegedly full-spectrum Catholics: demanding the coverup of more-than-possible-to-likely-sex-with-underage-boys in the name of detraction....

.....Did you just wake from a forty-year coma?

If so, let me help you get up to speed:

The Diocese of Norwich [Connecticut] said Thursday it is the 31st and most recent Catholic religious organization in the U.S. to seek bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11.

When a conservative Harvard professor and America's most public Jesuit choose the institution instead of accountability, giving a pass to exploitative tech companies in the process, you know where you should be: 

Way over on the other side.