Posted on 04/29/2002 5:00:20 AM PDT by american colleen
Edited on 04/13/2004 2:07:44 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
The cardinal's claim, filed in court by his attorneys, is boilerplate legal defense language. But a lawyer who is not involved in the case and has handled other cases involving allegations of clergy sex abuse said last night that the decision to use such a claim in so sensitive a case showed poor judgment.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
Your parish must be a haven in the storm. Those built on the Rock will endure. The heterodox will fall to dust.
God bless!
If Law were against what his attorney said, wouldn't he have fired the attorney?
Isn't it incredible that a Cardinal needs bodyguards in the United States of America? This is the depths to which Cardinal Law has fallen. He still doesn't seem to get it. I've stated before that I do not believe he is physically safe here, and that is part of the reason that he will be gone (as in "promoted") before long. (and don't let the door hit you on the @$$).
Excellent point. I'm sure he'll keep the attorney.
OH geez ... did Law really say that ..
If so .. He has to go
It's as if he is on a mission to destroy the Catholic Church. No one could be this ignorant, stupid or callous.
Well, you've outlined the only two possibilities that I can see. Cardinal Law is not stupid or ignorant (definitely callous, as witnessed by his actions/lack thereof regarding the abuser priests) but he is a highly educated man.
Yes, it is. Here's a recent article about it from the San Antonio Express News.
What follows are some of your points that I think have great merit and ought to be repeated:
Start with a total purge of the lavenders. That they are protesting outside churches is reason enough but virtually all events complained of result from the love that formerly dared not speak its name and now will not shut up. One of the really great things about Catholicism (the real thing not the AmChurch kind) is that due process can be dispensed with when necessary. Thus, hang 'em high!Second, shut down every seminary in America and lay off their entire staffs. Create four regional seminaries overseen by an archbishop with all necessary authority, no other responsibilities and total power to conduct ongoing purges.
Seminaries are no place for ANY sort of female authority and no place for the atheistic presumptions of psychology and psychiatry. Put men's men of orthodox persuasion and performance in charge of everything from administration to janitorial service. Anyone who must then be discharged for misbehavior should be held fully and publicly accountable with oceans of publicity.Speaking of which, it would also be a good time to abolish the National Bishops' organizations here and elsewhere since they are forever behaving as though morality were determined by a democratic vote of bishops posing for secular cameras. Let each bishop take responsibility for his own diocese and face punishment, including firing, for dereliction of duty.
Oxford, here's a parish for you! Our Lady of the Atonement. (I know San Antonio is far from you, but seeing this I immediately thought of you and your family. God bless!)
That said, the abused children usually have had 3 strikes against them. The first is parents who don't take an active role in their lives, as molestors do not go after kids of whom they know that the parents will find out. The second is that their prey often is socially isolated, as the popular kids will get the other kids to stand up for them. The third strike, the actual molestation, is the sickest of them all, but rarely happens without the other two. And kids with healthy relationships bounce back a lot, lot quicker from such abuse than those without.
To be clear, nothing justifies molestation. In some cases the abuse is such that it can be compared with the ritual sacrifice of children by the Aztecs. However for the parents to come, at the end of the day, when it's time to hand out blame to management, and say it's all and completely the church's fault, there's nothing they could have done to have changed any of this, does not, in the bulk of cases, ring true to me. That parents who let their kids sleep over at the rectory for months later on realize that there was other stuff in their sons' life that they were unaware of does't strike me as much of a surprise, but rather as disingenious.
Molestation happens when a lot of circumstances are not the way they should be. And when the time comes to award damages for destroyed lives, I do feel it's fair to ask who all was asleep at the wheel. No child is an island, after all.
On this forum, I've stopped just short of alleging fraudulent canonizations, and asked pointed questions about the Catholic Church's involvement in recent Croatian war crimes, so I am hardly a blind supporter of my church. But from the snippets here, especially if they had to claim the son should have spoken up if they were to question the kid's parents inertia, which may have lasted for years, I think a plausible case can be made that the poor kid's crown of thorns was woven by many.
The lawyers on this board will know more about the technicalities of the matter.
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