Posted on 11/16/2006 9:54:57 AM PST by presidio9
The US Roman Catholic Church has asked a criminology school to delve into the darkest pages of its history by probing the causes of a priest sex abuse scandal.
At a meeting due to end Thursday in the eastern city of Baltimore, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops voted to disburse 335,000 dollars to fund the first three phases of a study by New York's John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
"It will be a groundbreaking study, never done before in the US, nor in the world," Bishop Gregory Aymond, who chairs the Committee for the Protection of Children and Young People, told AFP.
"We don't know what would come out of it, but we are going to tell the truth," said Aymond, of Austin, Texas.
In 2002, the John Jay College of Criminal Justice had made a list of complaints and pedophilia cases in the US Catholic Church since 1985, when one of the first scandals came to light with the case of a Louisiana priest.
The university will now look into the "social and historical context" of sex abuse to see if such cases are more frequent in the Church than in the rest of society, notably in schools and youth clubs, Aymond said.
The Church wants to "look at what is unique" in the priest sex abuse crisis, he said.
The first part of the study would be completed in 2008 and made public, although the names of suspected priests would be omitted.
In the second part, the university will evaluate the Church leadership's response to sex abuse cases.
"We want to see where we failed and made some mistakes, and learn from those who handled it well," Aymond said.
The study will also paint a psychological profile of pedophiliac priests by reviewing cases in treatment centers.
The review will aim to show "to what extent is a priest sexual abuser profile the same as the psychological profile of the non-priests who are sex offenders," Aymond said.
The university will also interview abuse victims and examine education at seminaries over the decades.
The majority of priests accused of sex abuse were trained in the 1960s and 1970s in seminaries where psychological tests and sexuality education have since been introduced.
A final phase of the study will make proposals on how to prevent sex abuse and help victims.
"Our goal is to ascertain the causes of the clergy sexual abuse crisis and if we need to change any method we have now," said Teresa Kettlekamp, the executive director of the bishops conference's Office of Child and Youth Protection, which was created in 2002, in the wake of the sex abuse scandal.
But the study would also be useful to schools and youth groups, Church officials said.
"The pathology of abusing children isn't unique; it's a societal problem," Kettlekamp said.
"We are hoping it will be a big, big help to the society in general," she said.
NIV Acts 22:19-20
19. "`Lord,' I replied, `these men know that I went from one synagogue to another to imprison and beat those who believe in you.
20. And when the blood of your martyr Stephen was shed, I stood there giving my approval and guarding the clothes of those who were killing him.'
NIV Acts 20:19-21
19. I served the Lord with great humility and with tears, although I was severely tested by the plots of the Jews.
20. You know that I have not hesitated to preach anything that would be helpful to you but have taught you publicly and from house to house.
gaiety?
Elsie,
Sorry for providing the wrong passage, that would have really confused you. Glad you found the right chapter and verse. I to always picture Paul/Saul as being older.
By the way I like your tag line.
Behind the scenes Cardinal Law pressured every Catholic politician, judge, and media person to go along with a cover-up. He put intense pressure on them and made a lot of enemies. He told them it was their responsibility as Catholics not to let the story come out. Some of these guys were old conservative Irish Catholics and they were shocked and more determined than ever to put an end to the abuse .
Cardinal Law's problem, which he admitted, was being too much of a pastor to those priests, and not being tough enough on them. He did finally start implementing policies to stop the possibility of future instances of abuse. Those were beginning to get into place when he left and Sean O'Malley took over.
I wasn't talking about the political machine in Boston. I'm not sure who they are and I really can't speak about them.
What I do know is that Cardinal Law called Catholic judges, politicians and media people and leaned on them VERY heavily to cover up any mention of the scandal and to try to derail any investigations.
He repeatedly told them, in person and in telephone calls, that because they were Catholic they had to help with the cover up.
Yes, most of them were Democrats but they were shocked that a religious person not only knew what was going on but was allowing it to continue.
Cardinal Law had tremendous political aspirations. He wanted to be the first Harvard pope. Won't happen now.
I know Cardinal Law personally; have known him for 35 years when he was Chancellor of the Diocese of Jackson MS. He, in fact, was instrumental in ridding the Diocese of a couple of abusers while he was there. I can't see him all of a sudden deciding that the Church should avoid scandal, when he'd already handled the cases in MS.
He admitted that he was too soft on the priests; he was approaching things from his role as Bishop, which he believed was supposed to be Pastoral. I guess he assumed that since they'd been returned from their counseling, they were ready to be returned to service. He assumed wrong, and accepted the blame for that.
I'm not going to defend all of his actions, he clearly made some HUGE mistakes, and took responsibility for them. I'm just saying that HE wasn't the cause for the problems in Boston, even though the Boston Globe blamed him for all of it. The Attorney General for the Commonwealth stated that nothing the Cardinal had done was legally actionable, though the man actually said publicly that he wished he could find something to put the Cardinal in jail for. Sounds like a vendetta to me. I truly believe that he, in collusion with the Boston Globe, was actively trying to diminish the reputation of the Church in advance of the push for homosexual marriage in the Commonwealth, so that supporters of the push could claim that because of the abuse scandal, the Church had no legitimacy in opposing it. In fact the Globe editorialized just that when the subject of homosexual marriage arose. The timing was NOT coincidental.
Because you know Cardinal Law personally I can understand that you feel it was a vendetta.
In fact, one of the editors of the Globe who I know personally and some others whose names you would recognize who I know personally were all pressured by the Cardinal to cover up the story. All of them were Catholic and all of them were horrified by what had been going on and what the Cardinal was pressuring them to do.
You do know, don't you, that the Attorney General, who issued the report estimating that one thousand young men had been abused, sent state troopers to Cardinal Law's mansion in Chestnut Hill to serve him with papers. As luck would have it the person answering the door claimed the Cardinal was not at home to be served the papers. The Cardinal flew first class to Rome less than 24 hours later.
As events unfolded it may have appeared to be a vendetta. In reality most people in Massachusetts were in denial about the widespread abuse, they couldn't believe that the very people they trusted with their children would do such a thing. Then when hounded by a Prince of the Church to take part in a cover-up they were disgusted.
The Cardinal doesn't come back to the U.S. to visit. Do you think it might have something to do with being arrested if he returns?
Cardinal Law was living in the US, in Maryland, in fact, for a couple of years after all this occurred. If they truly wanted to arrest him, they knew where he was. He had done nothing for which to be arrested, and they knew it. The media constantly beat that 'running away' drum, but it was bogus.
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