POPE GAVE HIS BLESSING (to transfer of pedophiles!)

NY Post ^ | 11 December 2002 | KATE SHEEHY

[Zviadist]

Boston's Bernard Cardinal Law was just following orders from his boss - Pope John Paul II - when he sent suspected pedophile priests back to work in parishes with kids, a damning church document reveals.

The pope, in a 1999 order defrocking a Boston priest with a history of molesting boys, acknowledged that the man "ought to live away from the place where his previous condition is known."

[RobbyS]

Don't preen yourself. The Baptist and other churches conceal their scandals because they are separate entities who cut deals with corrupt pastors and send them off to infect other flocks. With regard to gays, the mainline churches solve their problems by openly embracing homosexuality. The national Church of the Christian (Disciples of Christ) has just accepted same sex unions. The Presbyterians and even the Lutherans have gone the same route. The Episcopalian Church wears rose-colored garments every Sunday.

[Maximum Leader]

>You must have missed the part about NO charges being filed >and No prosecutor pressing a case, and victims agreeing/asking that the offense be kept quiet.

There doesn't have to be a prosecution for someone to be an accessory after the fact. In fact, if you think about it, the facts as you presented them .... No charges being filed, No prosecutor pressing the case, the victims agreeing/asking the offense be kept quiet (of course the victim of a child sex abuse doesn't have the legal standing to decline prosecution. The state is the plaintiff in criminal cases, it's quite common for the child victim to feel that the adult they "love" is being unfairly prosecuted) is circumstancial evidence that the Church officials' crime -- accessory after the fact-- actually occurred. If you can shut everyone up till after the statute of limitations has expired you've cheated the justice system. This is the reason that aiding and abetting a felony is itself a crime.

>Helping someone keep quiet a serious misdeed that COULD be >prosecuted but is NOT being prosecuted is no crime.

If you're an accessory after the fact, it doesn't matter if they principal felon is ever convicted, arrested or heard from again (Dr. Samuel Mudd was thrown in prison, perhaps unfairly, even though John Wilkes Boothe was never arrested). In this case, helping someone keep quiet a serious misdeed (that is a felony) that could be prosecuted and is not, is still a crime.

Massachussetts makes an exception for family members (it's the part of the statute that follows my ...), there is not an employer exception. The Church officials knew wayward priests sexually abused children, and they knew the priests had committed felonies (good luck arguing the Church officials didn't know that sodomzing a child is not a felony).

The Church officials didn't have a duty to report the abuse but it have a duty NOT to assist the priests escape justice... moving them out of town or paying off the victims is a criminal act. As a legal matter, whether the Pope himself knew is irrelevant, he's a foreign sovereign and is not answerable to a US court.

[Campion]

Please see my post #33. You are make statements that are wholly in error, and slanderous in nature.

[Campion]

The Church officials didn't have a duty to report the abuse but it have a duty NOT to assist the priests escape justice... moving them out of town or paying off the victims is a criminal act.

The individual in question was not being "moved out of town". He was in prison, having been duly convicted, and was being ordered not to return to the venues of his previous crimes.

[Notwithstanding]

Well, I would respect the request of a victim's parents who ask me not to notify the police.

You apparently would ignore their plea.

You also would apparently consider it your duty as bishop to keep tabs on a man who is no longer a priest or a representative of the Church.

[Salvation]

**Post Wire Services**

Valid Source?

[Maximum Leader]

That is an excellent point. I was unaware that the priest had already been convicted (from the post that Notwistanding has addressed to me, I thought that no charges had been filed).

You're correct, once the person has already been released from prison, then it is impossible to be aid and abett that particular felon from escaping justice on that crime.

You'd be astonished to know that I'm a practicing Catholic (was at mass last night). I don't blame the Pope for any of this, I think the American Church hierarchy has done its best to hide its skeletons from everyone... including the Vatican. What I'm concerned about is that the American Church's primary concern is helping the abusive priests and not the abusive children. I think the New Hampshire priest whose case you cite is unique, the Boston archdiocese seems to specialize in moving priests around before they get caught.

Thank you for correcting my error.

[sneakypete]

Since the man had chosen to become a priest, it's possible he actually saw the Church as something more than a cover for his sexual adventures.

Yeah,he also saw it as a great place to meet young boys.

[Dec31,1999]

Law fell finally because he was a careerist.

I suppose one should give credit where credit is due.

[Scupoli]

Question: Does Massachusetts have a 'mandated reporter' law? In California, certain professions such as teachers, physicians, nurses, counselors and anyone who comes into contact with children (and the dependent elderly) are required by law (under threat of fines or imprisonment) to file a report with the police, Child Protective Services or Adult Protective Services in cases of abuse. The victims can decide not to prosecute but this must be done to get the offender off the street or create a paper trail as he or she WILL abuse again. I have never been able to determine if priests fall under this law or not.

[Maximum Leader]

It's a difficult situation, but I think even if the parents don't want the police involved, you still have to involve them. The child is the victim, not the parents.

Believe me no is more saddened by this whole controversy (well obviously other than the victims) than me. I was an altar boy and as it happens there was an abusive priest at my Church.

Thank God he didn't try to touch me (I would really miss my dad--- he would have shot the pervert dead and would have spent a few years in the state pen), but I found out years later that this priest molested a classmate of mine. This was almost 20 years ago, he was arrested a couple of years ago for molesting an altar boy and only then did his other victims come forward. Did my bishop have any suspicions and let this priest continue on? I don't know and frankly the fact that I have to wonder is depressing.

The devil couldn't contrive a better way to divorce people from the Church than by letting evil men wear priestly robes.

[Maximum Leader]

Up until very recently no. The Mass. legislature is adding religious officials to its list of mandated reporters.

I suspect that every other state will do the same.

[tiki]

I think you need to do some research on what the pope really said.

For whatever reason, God is allowing His Church to be tested but it will come through fine because God promised and God doesn't lie.

[Arthur McGowan]

Wow! What a scandal! The Pope sent "defrocked" priests to work in parishes!?!?!?!?!

[Notwithstanding]

1. Your queston brings up a point that is missed in all of this: the pope and the bishop were performing a religious act (isuing a religious decree), and therefore he law of the US cannot in any way control how the Church conducts such an act. That is 1st Amendment 101.

2. Any mandatory reporting law that singles out clergy of any kind will be founf to be unconstitutional as the govt cannot tell a clergyman how to do his job or what his job entails (this is known as excessive entanglement). Priest could come in under some general reproting requirment (such as "all adults", but beyond something very very broad and general, you end up with the govt tellig a celrgyman what his job entails and how to do it.

[Dec31,1999]

The statute of limitations laws apply to many of these cases, which is why they cannot be prosecuted, and which it's important to pursue the more recent cases in order to sink the perps according to law.

[Dec31,1999]

For whatever reason, God is allowing His Church to be tested but it will come through fine because God promised and God doesn't lie.

You're probably right. I would imagine that God would not want his representatives buggering innocent young boys.

[Gophack]

It's shoddy journalism of the worst sort.

Catholics, especially practicing Catholics, understand that not only to we fight bias and misunderstanding among fellow Christians (and even fellow Catholics on occasion!) but ESPECIALLY in the press and liberal elite. The Catholic Church has been one of the few, and most certainly the largest, organizations (for lack of a better word) to steadfastly maintain solid moral teachings.

The teaching of the Catholic Church says that homosexuals are disordered; that if someone believes they are homosexual, chastity is their only option. The Church is solidly pro-life -- not some wishy-washy some babies are OK to kill philosophy, but solidly pro-life. While not all Catholics uphold this teaching, it has been a solid and steady teaching and belief for 2,000 years.

There are many other things the Catholic Church has stood firm on, and the liberal elite, particularly the media, hate us for it. The scandals in Boston and other places give them the "facts" they need in their attempt to tear down the largest defender of Biblical moral values and moral truths.

Some priests have sinned, and they are paying the price now. If the price isn't high enough in this life, it most certainly will be just in the next life. But one thing IS certain: the gates of Hell will not prevail against the Church established by Christ. In these dark times, we need more than ever the protection of the Holy Spirit, and I believe He is with us.

[Notwithstanding]

The NY Post's nasty slanderous article carefully omits facts that make it obvious that the pope was not involved in any cover up:

"Boston's Bernard Cardinal Law was just following orders from his boss - Pope John Paul II - when he sent suspected pedophile priests back to work in parishes with kids, a damning church document reveals.

The pope, in a 1999 order defrocking a Boston priest with a history of molesting boys, acknowledged that the man "ought to live away from the place where his previous condition is known."

But the leader of the Catholic Church also gave pedophile priest Robert Burns' superior one way to get around the order.

"The local [superior] . . . is able to dispense from this clause of the decree if it is foreseen that the presence of the suppliant will cause no scandal," the pope wrote.

Burns eventually pleaded guilty to criminal charges of sexually assaulting two boys in New Hampshire, and was sentenced to two consecutive four- to eight-year terms in jail.

It is inexusable that the "reporter" forgot to do the smallest bit of research before writing his inflammatory screed - research taht would show the priest in question had already plead guilty to the sex abuse charges in 1996 - three years prior to the pope's decision:

Copyright 1998 Globe Newspaper Company The Boston Globe

September 12, 1998, Saturday, City Edition

SECTION: METRO/REGION; Pg. B2

LENGTH: 451 words

HEADLINE: Former priest facing abuse lawsuit serving time for molesting boy

BYLINE: By John Ellement, Globe Staff

BODY:

A former priest who has been sued by a Charlestown man for allegedly molesting him during a five-year period while training him as an altar boy is serving time in a Vermont prison for molesting a young boy in his apartment.

Robert M. Burns, who is no longer a priest, pleaded guilty in March 1996 to two counts of molesting a boy he lured into his Salem, N.H., apartment. Authorities said he promised to show him computer images of women in swimsuits. On Tuesday, Brian Lacey, 21, of Charlestown, and his mother, Annemarie Vesey, sued Burns, the Archdiocese of Boston and church officials in Ohio alleging that the church knew Burns had been an active pedophile for decades, yet still allowed him to work with children in two Boston parishes during the 1980s.

[Notwithstanding]

see # 59 to see just how very shoddy this was