Posted on 07/16/2007 4:26:26 PM PDT by Alex Murphy
(CBS 3) PHILADELPHIA Monday was a monumental day for than 500 victims of sexual abuse by a priest in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.
A formal agreement was reached for a settlement of $660 million dollars owed to victims in the nation’s largest Catholic Archdiocese.
A judge approved the settlement to split among 550 victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests after five years of negotiations.
“No matter how much money you give me, I can’t cash that check and take it somewhere where I’m ten years old again,” said L.A. victim, Steven Sanchez.
John Salveson, who is the victim of abuse, has become a Philadelphia advocate for changing the civil law in Pennsylvania. Salveson wants to make the Philadelphia Archdiocese accountable for their actions.
“The thing I feel good about in the settlement includes releasing documents on abusive priests and about how they were moved around. To get the truth we need that,” said Salveson.
In 2005, a Philadelphia grand jury found decades of alleged abuse at the hands of priests; however no church leaders were indicted.
“It would open up a two year window and during that window people from the past could file civil suits and they would not be thrown out with the statute of limitation,” said Salveson.
The Philadelphia Archdiocese currently opposes a change in the civil law.
The Archdiocese is now focusing their efforts on training people to spot the abuse and expanding its counseling assistance to abuse victims.
The Catholic Church has paid over 2 billion dollars to make amends following this most recent settlement.
For more information, you can call the Victim Assistance Coordinators at 888-800-8780 .
....The Catholic Church has paid over 2 billion dollars to make amends following this most recent settlement....
"But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea."
- The Gospel According to Mark 9:42
this is not a happy day, it is a sad day, one of terrible consequences.
It should be pointed out that if a plain reading of the Holy Bible had been followed, none of this would have come to pass.
If that’s supposed to be some sort of subtle shot at Catholicism in support of sola scriptura you should be ashamed of yourself. It should be pointed out that if a “plain reading of the Holy Bible” was followed universally no one would ever sin, but unfortunately things don’t always work out that way. So if you’re one of those people that Jesus mentioned who have never sinned, go right ahead and keep throwing stones. Otherwise, keep your ideological stones to yourself while Catholics are in the process of healing and growth.
You do realize that you basically said to be ashamed of the Scriptures?
Then leave it in the plate for all those who gave it.
Please take into consideration that NO CHRISTIAN, be they Catholic, Orthodox, or even Protestant is perfect or without sin. We believers are all in need of to repent and be converted to the Lord everyday. This includes whole church communites. What would be better is to pray for all involved.
Excellent posting and how true.
Consider post number 7 as a gentle correcting.
“Consider #7 a gentle correcting...”
difference being, no one corrected a veritable generation of Priests (a tiny subset of the total number of clergy to be sure) and now it has come to this, next is supoosedly going to be the Catholic Church in Italy.
To slough off what has happened, a failure of Hierarchy to deal with the situation, is to excuse the sitatuion.
Your polemics are interesting. You word your sentence to imply that a whole generation of priests needed correcting and then say it was just a tiny subset. That subset is definitely being corrected now (just ask those many priests who are in jail or worse) and dioceses are paying out their ears and letting themselves be raked by litigation (probably correct in doing so, but I’m no insider). The situation is not being excused and those clergy still living are being corrected as far as I can see.
In response to your earlier comment - in no way did I basically say one should be ashamed of scripture. I said you should be ashamed of yourself and you are not Scripture. Incidentally (I’m not sure if you’ve ever taken a logic course) you posited yourself as being incapable of error in interpreting scripture. Habemus papam!
Do not be surprised when the scandal spreads to Italy then.
The Bible is clear on what should have happened to the priests who engaged in this behavour, the Bible was not followed, and the results are obvious for all who would see them.
There is a Seminary in Austria (St Polten’s) that apparently trained or allowed some awful behavour, and yet no mention is made of it:
“The date on the door of the Roman Catholic seminary in this Austrian provincial capital is 1455, when it was founded by Franciscans, but that image of hoary old age has not protected St. Pölten from disclosures of sexual misbehavior that have set off a major scandal in this country.
It started early in the week when the Austrian weekly newsmagazine Profil published photographs of the rector and deputy rector of the seminary, the main school for future priests in this area just west of Vienna, in which they appeared to be kissing and fondling seminary students.
The publication of the photographs came some months after thousands of images, apparently downloaded from child pornography Web sites, appeared on seminary computers, prompting a police investigation.”
St Polten’s is a long standing Seminary, how this was allowed to happen is beyond me, perhaps you know the answer?
Seeing as I live several thousand miles from Austria, I’m not really sure what you’re getting at. I have heard of some scandolous activities involving an Austrian seminary before, so it’s not like you’re the first to break this shocking news...Do you want the LA Archdiocese to be condemning that seminary? The pope? me? I’m sure I could find some scandalous story involving some group that you would call Christian somehwere on the globe. By the way, since you seem fond of the ad hominem attack approach, I should point out, Padre, that I think Jesus said something about calling no man padre in the bible.
So you are not a baseball fan I take it?
What I would like to see is a purge of this behavour, no matter the cost, a very old seminary allowing such things to happen over such a long period of years is simply unbelievable to me.
i had thought that it would be to you as well, i had no hidden agenda behind positng that, more a heads up about some of the things that have been happening among the European Churches, and there is supposed to be an Italian version of all of this as well.
The world is much better off with a Strong and Righteous Catholic Church, I mourn what has happend to the Church, seriously, who else has access to such a large voice against some of the injustices in this world?
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