Runaway priests hiding in plain sight [First installment of DMN series

Dallas Morning News ^ | Friday, June 18, 2004 | Reese Dunklin

[Polycarp IV]

This is Dallas Morning News' first installment in the investigative series.

Ping. (As usual, if you would like to be added to or removed from my "conservative Catholics" ping list, please send me a FReepmail. Please note that this is occasionally a high volume ping list and some of my ping posts are long.)"

[Polycarp IV]

Begin by recognizing that it was posted by a conservative Catholic, and that no one on earth wants this to be cut out of the Church like the cancer it is, more than us conservative Catholics.

[edweena]

I do not believe that President Bush will gain any advantage by allying himself with Catholic bishops. I think he should distance himself from the Pope instead of trying to court his support.

[sharktrager]

The guy actually bought the excuse "It was an accident"?

Nobody is that dumb.

[Deo volente]

I fervently hope you're not intending to hijack this thread and use it to bash the Catholic Church and the Faith, as you are inclined to do, judging from your previous behavior on other threads.

[Polycarp IV]

DMN introduction to this investigative series:

Runaway priests hiding in plain sight

11:12 PM CDT on Friday, June 18, 2004

Catholic priests accused of sexually abusing children are hiding abroad and working in church ministries, The Dallas Morning News has found.

From Africa to Latin America to Europe to Asia, these priests have started new lives in unsuspecting communities, often with the help of church officials. They are leading parishes, teaching and continuing to work in settings that bring them into contact with children, despite church claims to the contrary.

The global movement has gone largely unnoticed -- even after an abuse scandal swept the U.S. Catholic Church in 2002, forcing bishops to adopt a "zero tolerance" policy and drawing international attention.

Starting this week and continuing in coming months, we report the results of a yearlong investigation that reaches all six occupied continents. Key findings include: Nearly half of the more than 200 cases we identified involve clergy who tried to elude law enforcement. About 30 remain free in one country while facing ongoing criminal inquiries, arrest warrants or convictions in another.

Most runaway priests remain in the church, the world's largest organization, so they should be easier to locate than other fugitives.

Instead, Catholic leaders have used international transfers to thwart justice, a practice that poses far greater challenges to law enforcement than the domestic moves exposed in the 2002 scandal.

Police and prosecutors, however, often fail to take basic steps to catch fugitive priests.

Church discipline, such as the U.S. bishops' new policy, doesn't keep all offenders out of ministry. Dozens of priests who are no longer eligible to work in this country have found sanctuary abroad.

[struwwelpeter]

I went to a Salesian school. Best education in the world.

[SuziQ]

My brother-in-law, who is a priest, and is familiar with a lot of this info told me last year that problems of sexual abuse in the religious orders would be the next bomb to drop. I wonder if we'll hear anything about the Jebbies. The media may not be too keen on bad publicity about their favorite religious order because they're mostly fellow liberals!

This is difficult, because I don't believe the Bishops can do anything about these priests because they're not part of the Diocesan structures.

[SuziQ]

I do not believe that President Bush will gain any advantage by allying himself with Catholic bishops. I think he should distance himself from the Pope instead of trying to court his support.

I disagree. The Pope is still considered to be very spiritually influential, even by many Protestants. The Catholic Church and Evangelical Protestants agree in many ways about faith and morality in this country, and are finding many ways to work together to elect politicians who share their views.

[Canticle_of_Deborah]

Downstairs, a group of teenage boys lounged on concrete steps, waiting for Father Klep. One young man said he met Father Klep this spring when the priest pulled up at a bus stop where he was standing and offered him a ride. At the end of the short drive, Father Klep gave him some cash and invited him to church.

Since then, the 19-year-old said, Father Klep has "come to where I hang out in the evenings" and offered him small jobs around the college.

Also waiting on the steps was a 14-year-old who said he has known Father Klep for about a year and a 13-year-old buddy he said the priest wanted to meet.

The 14-year-old said Father Klep has given him spending money and regularly helped him with schoolwork alone in the priest's bedroom.

"He says to me, 'Any day I want help, I come to Father Frank's home,'" said the boy, who had a thin adolescent mustache and a shy demeanor.

Father Klep has even paid his tuition to Chanel College, a Catholic school near the priest's home, he said.

"He said to me, 'You are my best friend.'"

WARNING: Fr. Klep is NOT REFORMED.

[Deo volente]

"when someone speaks the truth about something, it does not mean their bashing"



Is this the truth? (from one of your more vicious posts on another thread)
"Jesus refered to his early followers and believers as the church, not some ridiculous institution comprised of corrupt men in various levels of authority and hierarchy, who adorn royal garb and ornate medallions, dabbling in and taking from various cult practices and calling it their own, and ruling the minds and lives of their fellow man.

protestants made the most sense by seperating themselves from such an institution with a horrible and atrocious track record on various issues.

the catholic church is one of the, if not the, worst affliction to ever come upon the human race."



I'd call this a putrid example of sheer anti-Catholic hatred. Pure bigotry.

So your credibility here on this thread is zilch. Nada.

[saradippity]

Polycarp,did you do the typing yourself and forget to put Maradiaga after Rodriguiz in the article? If you did then I will have to give up a new pet conspiracy theory I developed when I read the article.

Sandyeggo,your find about Maradriaga is very good. I have watched him for some time and had noted his opinion on the pedophile priests,which he gave in 2002 not 2000,he stated he had thought we in the U.S. were over reacting and our media was over persecuting the Church.

His name was brought to my attention when I attended a little road show in mid 2002 put on by one of our daffiest parishes. The road show starred John Allen from the National unCatholic Reporter and Robert Blair Kaiser,once the religious editor of Time magazine. The road show was timed perfectly to coincide with the mounting problems of Cardinal Law. It seemed like a team effort of VOTF,Call to Action,Future Church and all of the dissentering groups. The subject was "We Can Shape the Church of Tomorrow",or something of that nature. At the time I was convinced that they thought the story would have resulted in massive changes by then and they were surprised that 6 months into it Catholics weren't begging for an overthrow of the Pope,Rome and Law.

I can only say that at the time I was stricken with the distinct impression that information about abuse had been held back in order to get a huge amount of abuse cases to appear to be "discovered" as if all happened in the past few years and that no one knew about it.Since I had figured it out by 1985,i was surprised that they hadn't.

To make a long story shorter,John Allen mentioned Maradiaga as papbile and added that he had the "smile of an Aztec god",weird,I was taken aback,but it certainly imprinted Maradiago's name in my memory bank.

Since then I have seen him touted twice in the Reporter as papabile. I was sure after his statement about the press making much out of little,the Reporter would have dropped him like a hot potato. Since they seem so intent on trying to make the scandal a reason for pulling away from the Pope and the curia because of their callousness,and then their hand picked favorite says something more cavalier than the old men at the Vatican. But they just took no notice at all and walked on bye,tra-la-la,doncha know? So I figure that along with Daneels,who I also never heard mentioned as a condidate until they did,they must have quite a bit riding on a very small number of candidates that meet their approval.

Polycarp,do you see why I wonder if the omission of his last name was you or the DMN? If you mistyped it I know it was a mistake. If the Dallas paper omitted it,it is a widern spread media attempt to protect a favorite candidate for Pope. Oscar Rodriguez would fade into a nonentity,Oscar Andreas Rodriguiz Maradiago,an identified pedophile protector,could no longer be a leading candidate for Pope.

I hope you both can understand what I am trying to convey,I don't have time to edit and polish.

[B4Ranch]

>>where oh where to begin.....<< With a short oiece of rope!

[protest1]

"Catholic priests accused of sexually abusing children are hiding abroad and working in church ministries, The Dallas Morning News has found. From Africa to Latin America to Europe to Asia, these priests have started new lives in unsuspecting communities, often with the help of church officials. They are leading parishes, teaching and continuing to work in settings that bring them into contact with children, despite church claims to the contrary."

"For me it would be a tragedy to reduce the role of a pastor to that of a cop," said Salesian Cardinal Oscar Rodríguez of Honduras, a leading candidate to succeed Pope John Paul II. "I'd be prepared to go to jail rather than harm one of my priests."

Let the little children suffer protect the priests and this from a candidate to be the next Pope!
But the Roman Catholic Church must be protected at ALL costs from "catholic bashers".

This is disgusting beyond belief. It just goes on and on and on.

[NYer]

And so it begins .... er, correction ... continues. The Holy Spirit works in marvelous ways. By focusing the media attention on the Catholic Church, it is just a matter of time before these "weeds" are yanked from the priesthood and devoted young men are put in their place. Call me an optimist but I see a bright side to this torrid and scandalous news coverage.

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