Sex abuse lawsuit names San Antonio archdiocese

Associated Press ^ | 4-8-10 | Michelle Roberts

[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.

[Campion]

This scandal is pervasive and goes to the heart of a priesthood made up of men who are considered to be an "alter Christus"

As was explained to me on another thread by one of your friends, when a Protestant minister does egregiously immoral stuff, you guys simply declare him to have been an "unbeliever" and move on.

Which is rather facile, since a Protestant church brought him up in the faith, a Protestant seminary educated him in the faith, and a Protestant congregation elevated him to the ministry.

BTW, you still don't have a clue what alter Christus means.

For starters, here's what it "entitles" someone to:

And this:

Of course, he's entitled to that as alter Christus. It's the prize he gets on earth to prepare him for the prize he'll get in heaven.

Of course, laypeople are also called to image our Blessed Lord:

[caww]

.....”in Rome outside of his “circle.” who have their own agendas”......

and therein likely lays much of the problems. But then history does reflect this as well. “Players” indeed, just as in politics and business.

My son developed a business plan several years ago...his plan was ahead of it’s time and many said as much...it would change the whole operations of a certain industry.

Once it was found out a huge large member of that industry bought his plan for a huge amount of money...only to scrap it as the agents were greatly affected once they began attempts to implement it.

At one point in a meeting he attended it was outright said to my son...”We didn’t know you were a player”. So the idea of the pope and those who are in the vatican, as well as influences outside, is not so much as a surprise that their are players.. as the catholic church certainly has business leanings and investments as well.

[LadyDoc]

threatened him with a pistol?

then there was that Minnesota case of a girl saying the priest threatened to kill her family if she didn’t come with him...

Uh, anyone think these accusations are getting more and more bizarre?

Next week: They had a satanic ritual and killed people...

Abuse is serious, but this scandal is going the way of the daycare hysteria a few years ago....

[LadyDoc]

“There are Bishops in Germany that are encouraging anyone with a complaint go to the civil authorities. Implying that they should not trust the church authorities.”

in true abuse cases,(i.e. if children were involved) this should have been done.

Alas, most of the cases are gay priests feeling up teenaged boys, and the boys don’t want to be exposed to the public as gay, or as making accusations against that nice popular priest...

[terycarl]

Praying that God will use the exposure of these crimes to lift the cloud of delusion that affects many Romanists and move them to find Churches that teach the gospel of grace freeing them from the judiazing gospel of Rome.

you are a protestant and you call Catholics delusional......that’s rich.......which of the approximately 20,000 “correct” denominations do you belong???

[Natural Law]

"More attacks on the Church - and from FReepers."

“Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness?” – 2 Corinthians 6:14

[Natural Law]

"Someone on another thread said something about this all being a planned attack - I think there is something to it."

There is nothing new under the sun. All you need to do to recognize this is to research the so-called immorality trial campaign conducted by the Nazi's against the Church in the 1930s. It was made even worse by the willing, and even gleeful participation of the anti-Catholic Protestants.

[Natural Law]

"BTW, you still don't have a clue what alter Christus means."

It is distressing how so many profess to be experts on the Catechism and Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church without having ever read or attempted to understand either. Unfortunately, for too many, a study of all things Catholic is limited to Google searches and excerpting any reference that reinforces a negative preconception.

[sockmonkey]

Pdf of lawsuit here:
http://www.ksat.com/download/2010/0409/23096365.pdf

I see John Doe I’s attorney’s specialty includes:

Catholic Church Child Sexual Abuse
Baptist Church Child Sexual Abuse
Greek Orthodox Church Child Sexual Abuse
Church Child Sexual Abuse

[Dr. Eckleburg]

We are not to become Christ.

We are to become like Christ.

May God help the RCC to know the difference.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

Praying that God will use the exposure of these crimes to lift the cloud of delusion that affects many Romanists and move them to find Churches that teach the gospel of grace freeing them from the judiazing gospel of Rome.

Amen.

[Desdemona]

The question is only, "Was it planned by fallen angelic beings only, or was there deliberate planning by human agencies as well?"

Probably more like by fallen angels through human agencies. Having worked in PR, I can testify that all manner of spinning is possible, which is why I am no longer in that field.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

More Bogus Charges Against Archbishop Gomez

But...but...all the charges against pedophile priests are bogus, according to Rome.

Six hundred and sixty million dollars paid out on one day in 2007 in one city to victims of "bogus charges."

[Dr. Eckleburg]

All the victims are lying. All the priests are sinless.

Got it.

[Desdemona]

I hate to be the one to break this to you, but the problem, at least in the dioceses US, has largely been dealt with. There's a handful of bishops within five years of retirement who are the holdouts, if anything is going on. And NO ONE world-wide has been more on the ball than the current pope. NO ONE. The more recent charges are against priests in various orders who don't answer to the bishops. It's going to take a couple generations to get traditionally minded people back to the top of the orders, but it's happening.

This is not an easy issue. "Jail time" doesn't necessarily mean in the Big House. I'm all for not laicizing such men but stripping them of their priestly faculties and placing them in a monastery on some remote island. That's just as imprisoning as any jail. The big problem is separating the truly guilty from innocent men accused of crimes they did not commit. There's been any number of those, too. Just because an accusation has been made, doesn't mean the incident actually happened. And the trials take years, just as civil and criminal trials do. Justice is a good thing, but the Church has to be sure it truly is just and not do the knee jerk thing whenever a headline appears.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

And criminal charges were not filed at the time ... why?

Probably because the victim knew he would be excommunicated if he went to the police with his complaints.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

We now know the reason for the time lag in filing complaints against errant priests. Not only are the victims not believed when they come forward (just read some of these skeptical comments) but we now understand that according to the Vatican rules and regulations and reiterated by Ratzinger in his job as Chief Inquisitor, a victim may not go public with his accusation against a priest until 10 years after he reaches the age of 18, under penalty of excommunication.

That means a seven-year-old victim must wait until he is 28 before he comes forward with his accusations against a pederast priest. Twenty-one years of keeping his mouth shut!

Wake up, Roman Catholics. There's something very wrong in Rome.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

Priests had sex with young boys. And the Church and pope did nothing. Despite knowing about it. This is so disgusting that no one in their right mind should try to defend it with graphs or anything else. If there were 800 reports then there were probably 5,000 events. Come on folks—fellow Catholics. There is no defending the Church. They did nothing but mumble nice words like “Let’s forgive”, “Let’s get therapy”, “Let’s not rush to judgement”, etc. Rather, the pope(JPII)and other bishops should have acted like men and said “These degenerates are out of here today. And BTW, call a cop”

Amen.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

And NO ONE world-wide has been more on the ball than the current pope. NO ONE.

That is just laughable. Ratzinger was in charge of the pederast priest investigations and he did his best to keep any light from reaching the truth.

He was sued but he pleaded diplomatic immunity and got off.

POPE OBSTRUCTED SEX ABUSE INQUIRY

[Desdemona]

we now understand that according to the Vatican rules and regulations and reiterated by Ratzinger in his job as Chief Inquisitor, a victim may not go public with his accusation against a priest until 10 years after he reaches the age of 18, under penalty of excommunication.

I want to know your source for this because the last two cases in my archdiocese, one of which WAS true pedophilia, were made public less than a week after the archbishop was contacted. Both men were fast-tracked to laicization and both are in prison. One case, the victim was actually a teenage girl, was last year. The source, please, because the actual cases defy your statement.