Posted on 04/08/2010 11:36:45 PM PDT by Dr. Eckleburg
A West Texas teen filed a lawsuit Thursday against the Archdiocese of San Antonio and Archbishop Jose Gomez alleging repeated sexual assaults by a parish priest, who he says the church's leadership should have known was abusive.
The allegations came just days after Gomez was named to a high-profile post leading the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, where he is scheduled to be formally introduced to parishioners in May.
The lawsuit accuses the Rev. John M. Fiala of repeatedly sexually assaulting the teen, including twice forcing him to have sex at gunpoint when Fiala was the pastor at Sacred Heart of Mary Parish in the remote community of Rocksprings. The lawsuit alleges the incidents occurred in 2007 and 2008, during Gomez's tenure overseeing a swath of south and west Texas.
(Excerpt) Read more at chron.com ...
I don’t know. If US states keep passing that perps can be prosecuted without statutory limits it may just increase.
Your poison is apparently limitless.
1) Kiesle did not have access to children after his conviction. That was a condition of his 1978 parole.
2)Ratzinger’s office did not have authority over defrocking in 1985 when the letter (one in a series on the matter) was written. His office did not gain that authority until 2001.
3) All that is clear from the one letter is that Ratzinger – in the letter – urged anything but ‘careful consideration, which necessitates a longer period of time.’
What a pathetic retort. In fact all of the words found in the Catechism are also found in the dictionary and many of them can also be found in Mein Kampf and the Communist Manifesto. If fact, anyone with a modicum of English skills could compile a Satanic Bible using only words found in the Catechism.
While you may get high fives and amen's from your church group for this level of effort, by any reasonable standard of truth or objectivity it is woefully lacking. CARM is hardly a legitimate voice of the Vatican nor an unbiased voice of Christianity. Once again, just because you can find it on the "internets" doesn't make it true. In fact it is a sin to repeat falsehoods especially when the truth is readily available. It all begs the question at your aversion from actually checking with the Catholic Church on what it actually believes. It all demonstrates that you are not at all interested in the truth.
It should be enough for you to know I do not pray to statues of Mary and assorted dead people who may or may not now reside in heaven because I believe the word of God when Paul reminds us that “there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man, Christ Jesus.”
I hope to provide some further response to yourself, but I’m afraid that next Sunday is likely the earliest time it will happen—such activity can be fitting for the Sabbath, but the weeds and thistles of the world will chew up the other six days. Such is the lot of the poor banished children of Eve.
May your week be grace filled.
Pity, when a few minutes of legitimate research would give the whole picture:
• Was Cardinal Ratzinger responding to the complaints of priestly pedophilia? No. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which the future Pontiff headed, did not have jurisdiction for pedophile priests until 2001. The cardinal was weighing a request for laicization of Kiesle.
• Had Oakland's Bishop John Cummins sought to laicize Kiesle as punishment for his misconduct? No. Kiesle himself asked to be released from the priesthood. The bishop supported the wayward priest's application.
• Was the request for laicization denied? No. Eventually, in 1987, the Vatican approved Kiesle's dismissal from the priesthood.
• Did Kiesle abuse children again before he was laicized? To the best of our knowledge, No. The next complaints against him arose in 2002: 15 years after he was dismissed from the priesthood and while he was a registered sex-offender under the supervision of the State of California.
• Did Cardinal Ratzinger's reluctance to make a quick decision mean that Kiesle remained in active ministry? No. Bishop Cummins had the authority to suspend the predator-priest, and in fact he had placed him on an extended leave of absence long before the application for laicization was entered. During the LOA Kiesle had no contact with children.
• Would quicker laicization have protected children in California? No. Cardinal Ratzinger did not have the power to put Kiesle behind bars. If Kiesle had been defrocked in 1985 instead of 1987, he would have remained at large, thanks to a light sentence from the California courts. As things stood, he remained at large. He was not engaged in parish ministry and had no special access to children.
• Did the Vatican cover up evidence of Kiesle's predatory behavior? No. The civil courts of California destroyed that evidence after the priest completed a sentence of probation-- before the case ever reached Rome.
All of them living, breathing fellow Christians.
The dead do not hear your prayers. Only God hears and answers prayers.
We are to pray for our fellow men and women to the Triune God alone.
All else is idolatry, something in which Rome is well versed.
These examples are only a tip of the iceberg that Rome is nearing. there have been decades if not centuries of this abuse and cover-up.
Those excerpts are straight from the RCC catechism. If you don't like them, tell your church to change its catechism.
Your catechism from vatican.va...
967 By her complete adherence to the Father's will, to his Son's redemptive work, and to every prompting of the Holy Spirit, the Virgin Mary is the Church's model of faith and charity. Thus she is a "preeminent and . . . wholly unique member of the Church"; indeed, she is the "exemplary realization" (typus)508 of the Church.
This directly contradicts the words of Jesus Christ when He tells his disciples that his mother and brothers are all those who believe in Him. Mary is no greater Christian than anyone else. In fact, throughout the New Testament, Christ refers to His mother not as "mother" but as "woman." Thus Mary is not the "exemplary realization of the church;" she is simply another member of the church.
968 Her role in relation to the Church and to all humanity goes still further. "In a wholly singular way she cooperated by her obedience, faith, hope, and burning charity in the Savior's work of restoring supernatural life to souls. For this reason she is a mother to us in the order of grace."509
This, of course, is sheer blasphemy. Mary had nothing to do with Christ's restoration of life to fallen men and women. Repent.
969 "This motherhood of Mary in the order of grace continues uninterruptedly from the consent which she loyally gave at the Annunciation and which she sustained without wavering beneath the cross, until the eternal fulfillment of all the elect. Taken up to heaven she did not lay aside this saving office but by her manifold intercession continues to bring us the gifts of eternal salvation .... Therefore the Blessed Virgin is invoked in the Church under the titles of Advocate, Helper, Benefactress, and Mediatrix."510
Pure and simple idolatry. Mary does not possess a "saving office" and she does not "bring us the gifts of eternal salvation."
And Mary is most definitely not an "advocate, helper, benefactress nor mediatrix" -- all blasphemous titles that serve to condemn all who use them to reference anyone but Jesus Christ our only Savior.
These egregious errors bare the marks of a cult. Flee from it before it's too late.
Do you doubt what I wrote in that post? Are reporters supplying erroneous facts? Is everyone wrong but Rome?
Apparently Roman Catholic apologists feel free to make things up which put the church in a better light, regardless of the truth.
Perhaps you haven't read this thread...
At the very least, you may not have read the entire story which this thread links to...
...The case then languished for four years at the Vatican before Ratzinger finally wrote to Oakland Bishop John Cummins. It was two more years before Kiesle was removed; during that time he continued to do volunteer work with children through the church.
Your defense of the indefensible fails yet again.
See post 270 to correct your misconception.
Learn some. It’s never too late.
Your assertions are pathological at best. Your choice of source material is desperate. Your lack of objectivity is pathetic. Your hatred of Christ's Church is satanic.
The article you cited also states:
"The Vatican has called the accusations "absolutely groundless" and said the facts were being misrepresented."
Your unconstrained acceptance of one source and rejection of another is clinically diagnosed as prejudicial disbelief. Seek help.
Apparentlyh the anti-catholics feel free to confabulate and lie so long as it benefits their prejudices. Your whole story falls apart when the sunlight of logic and reason displace the darkness of your hatred. Simply ask yourself why you believe this case was in front of Ratzinger in the first place. It does not make sense. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was given jurisdiction over cases of the "graviora delicta" of sexual abuse only in 2001. Before that time, it is a bit unclear who had immediate jurisdiction in Rome, but it certainly was not Ratzinger.
Cummins, the local bishop, had the authority to remove a priest from the clerical state. Recourse to Rome is necessary only to dispense a priest from his vow of celibacy, so that he can subsequently be married in the Church.
What really is ridiculous, is the anti-Catholic bigot who thinks s/he knows more about the hierarchy, authority, and inner workings of the Vatican/American bishops than the Catholics on FR.
In order to be such an expert in Canon Law, years of specific and specialized study are required. Yet, by a *miraculous* mix of NY Times journalism and a *sprinkle* of Pauline scriptures, such bigots claim to know more than the (gasp) experts!
Not to mention the “assumed” expertise in Mariology, modern Church history, and modern historical psychiatric medicine.
Honestly, is anyone here fooled by such a self-appointed expert and judge? Particularly when so many self-contradictory errors are made in simple posts?
My, my....
Yes that is ridiculous, but the disregard for the victims of other denominations is pathetic. No one excuses or rationalizes the abuses by Kiesle, but since 1970 there have been at least 10,000 cases of abuse of minors by Protestant clergy, as reported by their insurance companies (260+ cases per year), and not a peep of condemnation from Dr. Eckleburg. Its pathological and pathetic.
Yes. Exactly what was meant by lack of self-reflection.
Discuss the issues all you want, but do not make it personal.
For some reason Judith interjected herself into this and flagged you. I probably should have been quicker and hit abuse on Natural Law's post.
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