[Steelfish]

Nice picture but horrific account if true.

Yet the article states:
“My investigations quite clearly show that for decades up until around 1990, children and adolescents were brutally abused in the Ettal monastery,” Thomas Pfister said in a statement.”

As before these claims are 20-40 years old and one must ask why none of these pupils, individually or collectively, or any of their friends or their parents, not one, were ever told about any of this “brutal” abuse and why not one single civil authority was so notified of this? This has got to be the best kept conspiracy in the world.

[Ingtar]

Could it simply be that what is called abuse today was normal treatment 20-40 years ago?

[Dr. Eckleburg]

Part of the problem is that according to the Vatican's Crimen Sollicitationis the victim and his family are sworn to secrecy from the time of the abuse until 10 years after the victim reaches the age of 18 upon threat of excommunication.

That threat explains a lot of lag time.

[grey_whiskers]

Why should we trust any Euroweenie?

"The science is settled..." and all that.

Not to mention the McMartin preschool trial in the states and all that...this is merely a homosexual attack on the Catholic Church: lashing out now that their attempt to infiltrate has petered out.

I sometimes wonder what the New York Slimes would have done if the Catholic Church had done a little digging followed by a core dump of their own, of the infiltration of Communists and queers into the Church hierarchy.

Cheers!

[lastchance]

I don’t blame the victims for not telling. And it is possible that this monastary served as a residence and school for children who did not have family. Or if they did the family was most likely unable to care for them. Think of what conditions must have been like in post WWII Germany and you get an idea of how difficult it would have been to report the abuse and for authorities to investigate it. Even if they had been inclined to do so.

As to why the monks who were not part of the abuse did not report it, I can only shake my head in sorrow.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

Read paragraph 42 of CRIMEN SOLLICITATIONIS. It talks about what happens to the evidence in these cases (remember this document was written in 1962 but merely codified conduct already in place.)

42. a) if it is evident that the denunciation totally lacks a foundation he should order this to be declared in the Acts, and the documents of the accusation should be destroyed;

b) if the indications of the crime are vague and indetemihace or uncertain, he should order that the Acts be put into the archives, to be taken up again If something else happens in the future...

So who decides if the accusation lacks credibility or if the crime is vague? The bureaucracy of the Roman Catholic church; those who are responsible for the perpetrator.

And what does this bureaucracy do with the evidence? It either destroys it or files it away in the Vatican archives, most likely never again to see the light of day.

If a corporation were run like this every member of it would be in jail for a looong time.

[OKSooner]

" As before these claims are 20-40 years old and one must ask why none of these pupils, individually or collectively, or any of their friends or their parents, not one, were ever told about any of this “brutal” abuse and why not one single civil authority was so notified of this?

Maybe 'cause it happened in a society within a society where "the social tendencies" are to blame the victim of abuse and to project guilt on them?

Better to just be silent when it happens to you, and to look the other way when it happens to someone else.