If ANYONE is aware of child sexual abuse in my State and they do no report it they're criminally liable. I suppose an argument could be made if the knowledge was gained as part of the Church Confessional, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
Why on Earth shouldn't these people be held to answer for what is a crime in all 50 States of the Union?
You should pose your question to the appropriate District Attorneys.
If ANYONE is aware of child sexual abuse in my State and they do no report it they're criminally liable.
Great question. Don't be surprised if you get castigated as being an official anti-Catholic bigot just for asking it.
Law was in fact, called to testify before a grand jury which was convened by the Massachusetts Attorney General to determine whether he would be prosecuted. However, the investigation did not lead to charges against leaders of the archdiocese. The Mass. Attorney general himself said that state laws on conspiracy, obstruction of justice and being an accessory to a crime would make it difficult to prosecute someone for putting another person in a position to commit a crime. Also, Massachusetts has no law requiring the reporting of a crime. In addition, the statute of limitations on some offenses had run out.
Law was then yanked and sent to Rome.
>> I’m not a ‘Catholic basher’ by any means but I simply do not understand how the laws, which are in virtually every US State, requiring ANYONE who knows about child sexual abuse to report it to the relevant authorities under pain of criminal punishment are not being applied to these people. <<
Catholic basher? Maybe not. But there is a very simple answer to your question:
Nearly all of these instances (better than 97%) occurred prior to 1990. When they occurred, there was no such law on the books. As a Catholic, I have grave issues with how the bishops handled these cases, because they turned to psychologists, instead of ancient canon law and the sacraments to deal with these cases. Psychology, particularly at the time, was not friendly to religion, in general.
The priests should have been removed from any and all pastoral duties, according to the canon laws first established by the Nicene Council, and availed of the graces of the sacrament of penance. Instead, following the advice of the lay psychologists, they were sent for treatment, until they were certified, “recovered;” Rather than treat their crimes as sins, they were treated as symptoms of evil.
One thing this latest campaign by the NYTimes to link the pope and now one of the truly honest, solid, conservative Catholic bishops, to various crimes has shown me is that I cannot trust my fellow FReepers to read the news critically and honestly.
As a result, I know now, when the come to take me away on the basis of false accusations of child abuse or sexual harrassment, simply because I stood up in my classroom for traditional marriage, denounced the feminists, told the gays they are disordered
when they come to take me away based on false accusations like the ones leveled against Burke
I know that half of Freepers will be sitting there shouting, fry him, he had it coming, Scumbag.
The day is coming when Catholic bishops and those who defend them will go to prison for defending marriage, defending traditional sexuality, defending truth
and some of you Freepers will be cheering them on because you always already know that Catholics are sex abusers
because
the
Washington
Post
said
so.
Think about it.
Those are the laws in place now; I don't think they were at the time the vast bulk of the abuse took place (in the '60s and '70s). I think they may have been passed in the wake of the great day-care sex abuse scare.
These attacks having nothing to do with eliminating abuse or protecting the children. These attacks are part of a very refined battlefield prep operation.
In order for the final offensive against the Catholic faith to have credibility, they have to implant firmly in the minds of the public that Catholic bishops and the pope are enablers of child molesters.
Some Catholic bishops were. But notice that the current attacks are nearly all aimed at conservative, traditional bishops and the conservative, traditional pope. Where liberal bishops in fact did enable criminals (Weakland in Milwaukee), the NYTimes ignores Weakland and tries to make it stick to Benedict.
Burke, Castrillon-Hoyos etc. are traditionalists. They have to be discredited in order to discredit the recovery of tradition that Benedict launched in 1985 and continues to this day. It is succeeding. They’ve hated his guts ever since 1985 when he, almost single-handedly, turned the tide from post-Vatican II liberal craziness to implementing what the Council really intended.
After they have sucked all you gullible non-Catholic Freepers in, sowed doubt in your minds about Burke and Benedict etc. and after they have sucked 90 % of self-proclaimed Catholics in, making them distrust their own pope and those associated with him (Burke as head of the highest Roman court),
after they have sucked all you gullible folks in
they will turn on the rest of us. They will create Test Acts to force people to choose: is same-sex attraction disordered or totally normal? Must marriage be restricted to a man and a woman? Is sex outside marriage wrong? Is sex separated from procreation wrong?
Say yes to any of the above and you will be declared a hater, falsely accused of child abuse or some similar crime, and hauled away.
And the Evangelical defenders of traditional values on FR, where will you stand then? Will you stand with us or will you take the charges of child abuse leveled against your fellow Catholic Freepers at face value?
Think about it.
You are being set up. The battlefield is being prepared for the assault. They first have to gull you into believing that most Catholics, after all, are either abusers or enablers because of their stoooooppppidd beliefs about contraception and celibacy.
It’s becoming clearer by the day to me that we Catholics will have very few defenders outside the church, indeed, very few inside the Church, when the final push comes.
Because you’re assuming facts not in evidence. I don’t think they are accused of covering up child sex abuse. They were accused of re-assigning priests that had had allegations made against them.
ex post facto law legal definition
n
A law intended to apply to crimes or events that took place before its passage. The United States Constitution forbids the passage of ex post facto criminal laws, on the principle that it is wrong to punish an act which was not illegal when committed
I was exploring counseling at one point in my career.
One day there was the discussion of sexual abuse of children by fathers or step fathers.
The therapeutic climate of the day stated keep the fathers in the home, keep the family intact even if there was an ongoing risk to the child.
Legally it was discouraged from prosecuting.
Things do not take place in a vacuum.
I kicked that little exploration to the curb and found a field were common sense had a greater role.
The whole point of the article is that Burke is being slandered. He was "not kicked upstairs" because of anything having to do with sexual abuse. IMO, he should consider legal action against the newspaper.
So who are "these people" you're talking about? Law went before a grand jury and was not indicted. If you think someone else in the US is violating the law on an ongoing basis and getting away with it, present your evidence.
The American bishops issued a policy statement way back in 1992, part of which stated clearly that they were responsible to report incidents to the lawful authorities.
If you know of someone who is violating this policy, go for it.
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2010/04/06/20100406arizona-sex-crimes-bill.html
Things may soon be changing, so there is some hope.
Also, most institutions were accepting the opinions of the psychiatrists and counselors that child abusers could be rehabilitated. So the Bishops sent the priests off to the rehab centers, and unfortunately, many came back to continue the abuse.