Victims disappointed by Pope abuse letter

ab ^ | 1 hour 33 minutes ago

[JoeProBono]

Irish victims of clerical child sexual abuse are deeply disappointed by Pope Benedict's letter of apology as it fails to address the role of senior church leaders, a group representing victims said.

"My first response was deep disappointment in the letter," said Maeve Lewis, executive director of victims group One in Four.

"We feel the letter falls far short of addressing the concerns of the victims."

She said the Pope's letter focused too narrowly on lower-rank Irish priests without recognising the responsibility of the Vatican and senior Irish clerics for protecting offenders and dealing with victims.

"There is nothing in this letter to suggest that any new vision of leadership in the Catholic church exists," she said.

The letter also does not refer to the resignation of the head of the church in Ireland, Cardinal Sean Brady, which victims groups have demanded, she said.

Pope Benedict expressed his "shame and remorse" for episodes of child sex abuse, saying "serious mistakes" were made by Irish bishops in responding to allegations.

"You have suffered grievously and I am truly sorry," the Pope said in the letter signed on Friday.

He said priests and religious workers guilty of child abuse "must answer" for their crimes "before properly constituted tribunals".

"Openly acknowledge your guilt, submit yourselves to the demands of justice, but do not despair of God's mercy," he said, addressing himself to offenders.

The Pope announced a mission to Irish dioceses rocked by sex scandals to assist "the local church on her path to renewal" and said he was ready to meet again with victims of child abuse.

Predominantly Catholic Ireland has been shocked by three judicial reports in the past five years that revealed ill-treatment, abuse and cruelty by clerics and a cover-up of their activities by church authorities.

New abuse scandals have also come to light in the Pope's native Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

[Marysecretary]

Keep on sleeping and dreaming. I hope you wake up to the truth some day.

[Marysecretary]

AMEN, AMEN, AMEN!!!!!!

[3722535r]

It is very sad.....The Catholic Church is like a cult...The Pope and all the high ranking clergy remind me of the Pharisee’s Christ called hypocrites in the New Testament....Wearing gold and putting burdens on men but not lifting one of their own fingers.....Delighting in the uppermost seats to be admired of men rather than God.....There are pictures of The Pope where his eyes look downright evil to me.....

[Quix]

Far too true for far too many centuries.

Looks like now to be increasingly all cocked, aimed and ready to carry on similarly with the globalists.

[Quix]

Thx sobering.

[Natural Law]

Alex Murphy has kindly provided evidence proving that idiotic statistic is backwards. Actually, our own lying eyes line up with the real statistics found here..."

This is typical of your scholarly skills, or lack thereof. Whereas I have performed an exhaustive search on the subject and not denied the problem in the Catholic Church you have stopped researching the moment you found what looks to be a corroborative study and chosen to even deny denial.

People and human corruption are not different religion to religion and denomination to denomination. The Catholic Church's proactive stance and the blind denial of so many of the Protestant organizations largely explain the difference in the abuse rates. In other words, your denial makes you complicit in the abuse of your fellow church members. Rave on, sleep well and I will keep those poor Protestant lads in my prayers.

[Lorica]

Interesting quotes - thanks.

[Cardhu]

Are you so desperate to disparage the Church that you will resort to quoting the Guardian and repeating lies? The letter you are referring to was written in 1922 and was re-issued in English in 1962. Your summary of the contents is fallacious.

The letter referred to was EPISTULA DE DELICTIS GRAVIORIBUS signed by Cardinal Ratzinger Grand Inquisitor of the Holy office. 18th May 2001.

...Congregationis pro Doctrina Fidei, die 18 maii 2001.

+ JOSEPHUS Card. RATZINGER
Praefectus
+ Tharsicius BERTONE, S.D.B.
archiep. em. Vercellensis
a Secretis

The 1922/1962 letter you refer to is Crimen Sollicitationis or "Crime of Solicitation"

In 1922 Ratzinger was not born and in 1962 he was a young man in his thirties.

My summary is fallacious.

That was a summary of the letter by the Guardian and Observer, but let us see the original articles of the 1922/1962 letter published in English by the Vatican Press in 1962, that you refer to and tell me if it is fallacious.

Are you so desperate to disparage the Church that you will resort to quoting the Guardian and repeating lies?

When discussing the Catholic Church's scandals, deception, pedophilia, homosexuality, misogyny, Vatican rent-a-seminarian, "2 meters, 98 kilos, very active,"and according to Canon Law advocating child marriage, the only desperation that comes to mind is the first line of defense that they know nothing. Highly entertaining circus perhaps, shooting fish in a barrel, but desperate - sorry you can't make this stuff up, here is one professor of Canon Law who did not get the message until yesterday:

Saturday March 20th 2010

His views on shielding clerical sex abusers led to him being silenced by his bishop and branded a "grade A1 idiot" by a senior priest yesterday.

But when controversial Monsignor Maurice Dooley declared in 2002 that bishops did not have to tell the police about paedophile clerics, nobody in the Catholic Church said anything.

He is the same priest who in 2001 branded Celia Larkin as Bertie Ahern's "concubine" and said priests could ignore state law to marry 14-year-old girls, according to church laws.

His boss Archbishop Dermot Clifford silenced the cleric on Thursday but none of the hierarchy intervened when Dooley made even more outrageous comments eight years ago.

Speaking then about paedophile priests, the canon law expert said it was not up to the church to give files on child abuse to the gardai.

He said bishops were entitled to ignore criminal law and to conceal a paedophile cleric's actions from the authorities -- even if it meant going to prison.

Mgr Dooley said bishops were not required to report past cases of sexual abuse and might even shelter the priest. "As far as the church is concerned, its laws comes first," he said.

The priest provoked fury earlier this week after he said he would not tell gardai if a paedophile priest confessed to him.

Yesterday Fr Michael Canny, speaking on RTE radio's 'Today with Pat Kenny', said: "I do not know the monsignor, but he is a grade A1 idiot."

Fr Canny, a spokesman for the Derry diocese, which made a confidential payment to an abused teenage girl, added: "If (Mgr Dooley) has any experience of the horrendous consequences and the effect that (sexual abuse) has on people then he would not be coming from this standpoint."

Mgr Dooley's views were clearly no different in 2002 when he said: "A bishop swears allegiance to canon law. If there was a real conflict, he would simply have to maintain canon law, even if there was a chance of going to jail."

A bishop's relationship with a priest was similar to that of a parent and child, Fr Dooley said. "As a parent, you are entitled to protect your child or even to conceal him from punishment.

"A bishop's first obligation is to make sure that the abuse does not continue. Past offences and the danger of future offences are two different things.

"He does not have an obligation to see to it that his erring priest is punished in civil law. He is a kind of father figure towards his priest."

The priest retired last year, aged 75, from the north Tipperary parish of Loughmore-Castleliney. From Thurles, he was ordained in 1959.

He also served on a number of leading Vatican committees and as a representative to the Holy See from 1982 to 2005. He was professor of canon law at St Patrick's College, Thurles.

In 1999 he said that, since the church allowed girls to marry at 14 and boys at 16, priests could officiate at such marriages with " tranquil consciences", even if they were breaking state laws.

In 2001 he caused offence to former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and his then partner Celia Larkin by branding her a concubine.

Read more here

[count-your-change]

See # 95.

[Just mythoughts]

WOW reads like Nanny ‘red’ Pelosi working over Congress to force her way upon US.

[Cardhu]

LOL

[PackerBoy]

>child abuse in public schools are MUCH worse than for the Catholic Church.

Yup

“Catholic child abuse in proportion.”

" Catholic church: it’s no worse than other child abusers" OK?

I am not sure I am following your shorthand, but the point I was making is that child abuse by Catholic priests, while a huge problem, is much less so than the problem that our public schoold students face. Yet you never hear anoything about it. And when the Media speaks of abuse by priests, they always call for the head of the Pope. Why don't they call for the head of the local school superintendent? He or she is much closer to a much bigger problem than the Pope is to a priest's abuse of a child in Chicago or Belfast or wherever.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

Whereas I have performed an exhaustive search on the subject

BBWWAAAHHH!!!

That will be a first.

People and human corruption are not different religion to religion and denomination to denomination.

You sound positively Calvinistic. You are correct that all men are fallen. All men. Even "another Christ."

And that's Rome's problem. You elevate priests and saints to categories reserved for God alone. Then you turn a blind eye to their grievous sins.

Alex Murphy gave a good answer to your imprecise understanding...

ALEX MURPHY: I would have expected a religious order to recognize that raping a child is fundamentally a sinful behavior, before they would believe it to be aberrational behavior. It should be a warning sign to everyone that if a religious order looks to "the Psychs" for expert advice on dealing with known sinful behavior, instead of looking in their Bibles for solutions, they prove themselves to be scripturally deficient if not illiterate. "Religious" order, indeed!

We should not expect "psychological treatment" will end sinful behavior. That's what many bishops have believed, however, and look at what fruit it has yielded - $3,000,000,000 awarded in damages and settlements by Catholic dioceses within the United States alone.

The only thing that ends sinful behavior is repentance. Check your Bible if you don't believe me.

Amen. "Go and sin no more."

But this is what is so lacking in Rome -- even in Ratzinger's "letter of apology" he accepts NONE of the blame himself. He apologizes for the bishops, each of whom was acting according to Ratzinger's specific instructions.

So the problem, while wide-spread in our society, is NOT the same in Protestant churches because in Protestant churches the police are called in and ministers are defrocked, whereas in the church in Rome the sins of priests are hidden and denied and the police are seldom alerted to the crime. Instead pederast priests are shuffled under cover of night from one unsuspecting parish to the next where the sick crimes continue.

The Catholic Church's proactive stance and the blind denial of so many of the Protestant organizations largely explain the difference in the abuse rates.

If the Roman Catholic church had a "proactive stance" against these sins, the problem wouldn't be reaching the Vatican today. But the only "stance" of the Roman Catholic church is to continue to provide cover for the pederasts. If this were just a wolf among sheep it would be bad enough. Sadly, it appears this scandal involves wolves among other wolves.

In other words, your denial makes you complicit in the abuse of your fellow church members.

lol. What does that make you?

[JoeProBono]

Shorthand?

Hell, that’s my longhand!

[Natural Law]

"So the problem, while wide-spread in our society, is NOT the same in Protestant churches because in Protestant churches the police are called in and ministers are defrocked...."

To quote you; "BBWWAAAHHH!!!"

[Lorica]

Section 13: The oath of secrecy must be imposed on the accusers and/or denouncers, as well as the accused, who if s/he breaks it will be automatically expelled by that very act.

What is your source for the above statement?

The secrecy was required of the members of the tribunal, NOT the victims.

Purpose of the secrecy

"The document dealt exclusively with the procedure to be followed in connection with a denunciation to the ecclesiastical authority of a priest guilty of solicitation in Confession or of similar acts. It imposed secrecy about the conduct of the ecclesiastical trial, not allowing, for instance, statements made during the trial by witnesses or by the accused to be published. But it did not in any way impose silence on those who were victims of the priest's conduct or who had learned of it in ways unconnected with the ecclesiastical trial.

"These matters are confidential only to the procedures within the Church, but do not preclude in any way for these matters to be brought to civil authorities for proper legal adjudication. The Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People of June, 2002, approved by the Vatican, requires that credible allegations of sexual abuse of children be reported to legal authorities."[6]

Some interpret the secrecy about the procedure as a cover-up of scandalous conduct. This view was presented in a BBC documentary film Sex Crimes and the Vatican.[7] of 1 October 2006.

Others see it as aimed rather at the protection of all involved, the accused, the victim/denouncer and the witnesses, before the verdict was passed: "It allows witnesses to speak freely, accused priests to protect their good name until guilt is established, and victims to come forward who don’t want publicity. Such secrecy is also not unique to sex abuse. It applies, for example, to the appointment of bishops."[8]

[Quix]

Well put.

Thx.

[Cardhu]

What is your source for the above statement?

Are you serious?

"Some interpret the secrecy about the procedure as a cover-up of scandalous conduct." The proof of the pudding is in the actions of the Church, which has demanded in every case that the victim remain silent in exchange for compensation.

Canon Law like Sharia law believe they are above any secular laws. "A bishop swears allegiance to canon law. If there was a real conflict, he would simply have to maintain canon law, even if there was a chance of going to jail."

[Cardhu]

What is your source for the above statement?

Are you serious?

"Some interpret the secrecy about the procedure as a cover-up of scandalous conduct." The proof of the pudding is in the actions of the Church, which has demanded in every case that the victim remain silent in exchange for compensation.

Canon Law like Sharia law believe they are above any secular laws. "A bishop swears allegiance to canon law. If there was a real conflict, he would simply have to maintain canon law, even if there was a chance of going to jail."

[Lorica]

Are you serious?

Of course I'm serious. What, or who, is the source of that statement?