The monastic prison is a great idea. There are other ways to deal with evil people who are supposed to bring children to God, but instead ruin their lives because they decide to have an orgasm on them.
Posted on 02/24/2004 3:39:46 AM PST by Robert Drobot
VATICAN CITY (AP)--The Vatican issued a report Monday by non-Catholic sex abuse experts who criticized the policy adopted by U.S. bishops of removing abusive priests from the ministry, saying it was overly harsh and would not protect the young.
The report was released days before U.S. bishops issue their own national survey on sex abuse by clergy, which is expected to find more than 4,000 American priests have been accused of molesting minors since 1950--far more than previously estimated.
Still, the U.S. study may also show the number of cases has declined dramatically since the 1990s, and victims fear it could lead U.S. bishops to ease off on discipline. The president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said last week the American church remains committed to keeping offenders out of ministry.
Monday's report, published by the Vatican's Pontifical Academy for Life, may fuel victims' concerns because it compiles assessments by independent, non-Catholic psychiatrists and psychologists, who say the U.S. ``zero-tolerance'' policy is mistaken.
The 220-page report, ``Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church: Scientific and Legal Prospectives,'' is a compendium of scientific papers and discussions presented by the experts during a Vatican conference convened last April to give the church hierarchy advice on how to handle the crisis.
Neither the Vatican nor the experts drew final conclusions, but there were areas of agreement. As The Associated Press reported last week, one was in the widespread criticism by the experts of the 2002 U.S. zero-tolerance policy that says an offending priest can be permanently removed from ministry--and possibly from the priesthood--for a single act of abuse.
Many American dioceses say they are aggressively pursuing zero-tolerance policies after being stung by charges the church hierarchy was trying to protect abusive priests, often by shuffling them from parish to parish.
The experts said a zero-tolerance policy was mistaken and even dangerous. Most agreed that such a policy can actually increase the chances that offenders might strike again because it removes them from supervision and the only jobs they have known for decades.
Zero-tolerance ``does not function to prevent these crimes,'' Dr. Hans-Ludwig Kroeber, head of the Institute of Forensic Psychiatry in Berlin, told the conference. ``It is better to domesticate the dragon; if all you do is cut off its head, it will grow another.''
Another conference participant, Dr. William Marshall of Canada, a former president of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers, said such a policy sends the message the church doesn't care about the offender or believes he can't be rehabilitated _ ``neither of which are good messages for the church to communicate.''
He cautioned such a severe penalty may even discourage victims from coming forward.
The experts all agreed that offenders need treatment, as well as possible criminal penalties.
Monsignor Elio Sgreccia, vice president of the Academy for Life, told the conference he thought that after punishing and treating an offender, it was necessary ``not to abandon him or consider him useless to the church, but rather for the common good of society, return him to a meaningful role in the church.''
The report will be sent to bishops' conferences and Vatican offices and be used by the Vatican as a ``scientific base for information'' for developing guidelines, the Rev. Ciro Benedettini, the deputy Vatican spokesman, told reporters Monday.
Some victims fear such a report coming from Rome, coupled with the U.S. bishops' survey due out Friday, may fuel momentum toward easing the U.S. zero-tolerance policy.
David Clohessy, U.S. national director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said the bishops' history of sheltering molesters would make it impossible for Catholics to trust them with a weaker discipline plan.
``The Vatican report provides cover for every shrewd perpetrator and backsliding bishop,'' Clohessy said. ``It makes already very depressed victims feel even more hopeless.''
The U.S. policy is due to expire in June, and church leaders in the coming weeks will work out a plan to review it, Bishop Wilton Gregory, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said last week in a conference call with religion writers.
Gregory said he hadn't read the Academy for Life's report, but said it would be wrong to view it as a criticism of the American policy. Prelates in the United States remain committed to barring all offenders from church work, he said.
``I don't see the body of bishops lessening in that resolve because I think that was the pastorally prudent action that we all agreed to,'' Gregory said.
AP-NY-02-23-04 1547EST
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The Church received the report it paid for.
But why turn to those outside the Church?
Could it be that those on the inside would advised for retention of the zero-tolerance policy which some American bishops are not implementing in the first place?
Why should we in the Church care what you think? You are outside the Church. The philosophical position undergirding your statement is self-negating in that you are including yourself amongst those who ought be excluded as being worthy of being considered or consulted by the Church because they are outside of it.
Isn't it amusing how often schismatics take their daily dose of bitter Irony yet seldom notice as it is washed-down withn the honey or self-righteousness.
Have a nice day.
Pretty soon everyone is going to start ignoring you. You're causing me to regret that I took up for you the other day.
All you seem to do is run into every thread spewing hate and attempting to start a flame war with an unrelated argument. Do you stay up at night devising ways to spite those of us who choose to worship as traditionalists?
You become very personal and are constantly trying to smear those who aren't bothering with you. For your own sake you should stop doing this.
The monastic prison is a great idea. There are other ways to deal with evil people who are supposed to bring children to God, but instead ruin their lives because they decide to have an orgasm on them.
Maybe the instances of child molestation are less, but we all know the seminaries are full of homosexuals and vocations are way down. True, there are pockets of orthodoxy, but for the most part the priesthood has been hijacked by radical feminists, homosexuals and apostates.
You're going to be surprised in heaven to see a lot of people that, here on earth, you labeled as "outside the church."The subject of predatory clergy (of all denominations) is a concern for all Christians and even non-Christians -- not just those who happen to be Catholic.
To remove every offender from the priesthood and hang them out to dry is a travesty and does not serve justice,not for the priest,society or the Church. There is quite a difference between a priest basketball coach in the past,who swatted or slapped the bare or covered bottoms of the team and a priest who seduced a boy into a homogenital relationship.
The Church has a great oppurtunity to lead the way out of this morass,using justice first and only after determining justice,tempering in with mercy.If they (the bishops) fail,I believe we can kiss western civilization good-bye,this is a great oppurtunity for the Church in this country,pray they will not fail.
The only way the Church will lead the way out of the sexual abuse crisis is to regain the trust of Catholics and non-Catholics. And the Church will not do that if it opposes a "zero tolerance" policy.
The thought of allowing abusive priests to remain in the priesthood terrifies people, since the Church hierarchy simply can't be trusted to police these guys.
Bishops say they won't be allowed to function in a diocese, then we find out that Robert Sanchez, former archbishop of Santa Fe who was forced to resign after having a series of affairs with women, and who ADMITTED to sheltering abusers, is celebrating Mass in Alaska in a Catholic parish. (This, courtesy of the Dallas Morning News).
The fight is as much PR as it is a matter of faith, and tolerating even one abuse in the priesthood is a non-starter, PR-wise.
If they were "good" enough to ordain then they are "good" enough to take responsibility for - for better or worse.
It is sad because one can sense a true love for the Church in many of these same people.
They are scared to death to address the real cause of the problems. With the "0 tolerance" they tried to show how "tough" they could be when dealing with the problem, but, in reality, they showed weakness.
armed with nothing but the fuzzy faith,spirituality of Vatican II
Personally, I don't believe Vatican 2 has anything to do with the situation. I've read all the documents and found them to be of the greatest Christian profundity.
The people who claim to act in the "spirit" of Vat. 2 (the National Catholic Reporter mob-type characters) are a direct reaction to the "Latin traditionalist" followers of "pope Pius 13." Both are pagan and anti-Catholic.
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